What is Sanskrit's status today?

[Guest guest]

What is Sanskrit's Status Today?

Source: Hindu Press International

 

MUMBAI, INDIA, August 5, 2002: A recent BBC report by

their correspondent, Sanjeev Srivastava, begins, "One

of the oldest languages in the world, Sanskrit, is in

danger of becoming extinct in India, the country of

its

origin. Although most Indian languages still use the

basic grammar of Sanskrit, no more than a few thousand

people in a country of more than one billion can claim

to read, write and speak it fluently." The article

goes on to say that Mumbai's Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

has few students for its Sanskrit courses, and that

those students face poor job prospects upon

graduation. The BBC article states that Sanskrit

"lacks relevance," although it fails to mention that

the Hindu scriptures are in Sanskrit or that Hindu

temple worship is conducted in the language. The

article states, "There is a school of thought which

believes that teaching and learning Sanskrit is a

complete waste of time and resources, especially as

most Sanskrit colleges are publicly funded." HPI

recalls the origin of this school of thought: the 1835

document entitled "Macaulay's Minute on Indian

Education," in which Lord Macaulay argued successfully

to curtail British government funding of

Sanskrit colleges because "What we spend on the ...

Sanskirt colleges is ...a dead loss to the cause of

truth." Macaulay added that it would be wrong

for the government to "encourage the study of a

literature admitted to be of small intrinsic value,

only because that literature inculcates the most

serious errors on the most important subjects." But

modern scholars worldwide find great value in

Sanskirt.

<http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~gbuhnema/study.html> to view

a list of 53 major colleges and universities in the

world which have departments of Sanskrit or offer

courses in it. They include the great universities

such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Leiden, Oslo,

Kyoto (which has a large department), and more.

Germany has more universities teaching Sanskrit, 14,

than India itself, ten, at least according to this

list. The BBC article shows the continued impact of

Macaulay's plan set forth 167 years ago to, "form a

class who may be interpreters between us and the

millions whom we govern [in India]; a class of

persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in

taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect." And

toward this end, Macaulay argued that ridding India of

its great institutions of Sanskrit learning would be a

significant step. As a result of his Minute, the

British rulers closed all Sanskrit colleges in India

except at Banaras. Hindus should not let the same

thinking pervail today, rather, India should lead the

world in the study of Sanskrit.

 

 

 

 

 

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