Sanskrit in India (fwd)

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Vajpayee calls for a Sanskrit revival

Ajit Sahi, New Delhi

April 05, 2001 17:10 Hrs (IST)

 

HAVING done a deft balancing act in managing India's longest-running

ruling coalition, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee suggested a similar

balancing act between the English language and ancient Sanskrit, in which

many Indian languages are rooted.

 

"We are not opposed to the English language," Vajpayee told 900-odd

delegates while opening the five-day World Sanskrit Conference here

Thursday. "But it must not take the place of our own languages," he

hastened to add to thunderous applause from an audience of Sanskrit

educationists from India and western Indophiles and Sanskrit lovers.

 

The prime minister's logic: Our ease with the English language has brought

us advancement in information technology and given us a head start over

others such as the Chinese, as also integrated us globally.

 

Only if India popularized Sanskrit side by side would supreme wisdom and

knowledge be its, he added. In fact, Vajpayee said, Sanskrit was an apt

language to be used on computers. Of the benefits of acquainting India

with Sanskrit there would be many, Vajpayee said. Quoting but one

instance, the prime minister recalled how an ancient text came to the

rescue of Indian delegates at an international meet on patents where India

was asked to prove its claim of traditional curative use of turmeric.

 

But while other speakers and delegates - most of them speaking in Sanskrit

-spoke glowingly of Sanskrit's "pristine" glory, that complex lingua franca

of ancient India in which most religious texts such as the Bhagavad Gita

were written, Vajpayee, speaking in Hindi, labored to point out its

elitist trap and suggested its increased speaking if it is to be taken to

the masses.

 

"Sanskrit is not the language of the upper classes. It is a world language

whose grammar is far richer than even those of Greek and Latin," the prime

minister added, referring to the two other ancient languages to which much

of Europe traces the origin of its modern languages, philosophies and

other knowledge.

 

But how can Sanskrit, a language that is no more in usage and is limited to

a few teachers and learners, be popularized? "Why not give up teaching

Sanskrit grammar first?" the prime minister asked the delegates. "Wouldn't

it be better if we simply began chatting in it?" he added. Citing his own

case to bolster his view, Vajpayee regrettably noted that though he

graduated in it with good marks he could understand Sanskrit but not speak

in it. More recently, he recalled, even the capital's students came to him

to protest a new directive forcing them to compulsorily study Sanskrit.

 

But though the delegates appeared wary of the prime minister's populist

idea, they were one with his promise of greater government initiative for

Sanskrit. "There are literally hundreds of original manuscripts that are

still to be published. This is a job for the government," Vajpayee added.

For most delegates, of course, the event itself was the big news before

they broke up for separate sessions to discuss music, arts, yoga, history,

philosophy and even good governance - all in the context of Sanskrit and

its ancient texts.

 

"This meet is a great opportunity for people like me to get a better

understanding of Hindi and even Sanskrit," said Gabriela Niki Ilieva, 39,

a Bulgarian who is a professor of Hindi with New York University, speaking

in chaste Hindi. Added Natasa Pejovic, 23, a student of Indian

civilization at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, "It's a good basis to

approach any study of the Indian civilization," pointing out the other

delegates.

 

But Sudyumn Acharya, a mathematics teacher from Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, who

is due to read a research paper like Ilieva and Pejovic, is concerned how

"truth" about Sanskrit and India's past is being "mauled".

 

"Indian school kids are now being taught Indians knew only a few numbers

till 3 B.C.," Acharya claimed. "But the truth is that ancient India had

already worked out figures of the order of 10 to the power of 12 ... by

the Buddhist era, this knowledge had increased to 10 to the power 52," he

added.

 

India Abroad News Service

 

Michael Tandy

Staff Associate, Language Learning Center

Dept. of Asian Languages and Literature

University of Washington