Sanskrit Dictionary

July 29, 2003

After 55 years of toil, Sanskrit dictionary not even close

By Tim Sullivan

The Associated Press

PUNE, India — For three generations, they have compiled and argued, agonized and transcribed — toiling in monastic tedium to turn an intricate, 44-letter language into six volumes, so far, of word after long-forgotten word.

They have delved into the grammatical roots of "antahpravesakama" and debated the pun hidden in "anangada." They've done a brain-numbingly complete dissection of "anekakrta."

Now, 55 years after a group of scholars began composing the authoritative dictionary of Sanskrit, the long-dead language of India's ancient glory, they are almost done — with the first letter.

"Sanskrit," sighed Vinayaka Bhatta, chief editor of Deccan College's dictionary project, "is not easy to translate."

No kidding.

The project has consumed the skills of more than two dozen scholars (so far), cataloged 9 million citations of Sanskrit terms and given the most thorough of definitions to thousands of words.

"The project is huge," said Bhatta, who has spent 22 years, well over a third of his life, working on the dictionary. After a pause, he continued: "It is really huuuuge."

All this in a language glutted with puns, metaphors and multiple meanings that hasn't been spoken — except in religious rituals and by a handful of academics — for centuries.

"Some people say Sanskrit has no value," said Vinaya Kshirsagar, a grammarian and 18-year dictionary veteran. "But you have to take care of your culture and your civilization."

Like Latin in the medieval West, Sanskrit in ancient India was the language of the elite, largely limited to scholars, royalty and priests. The works they wrote, on everything from astronomy to the lives of Hindu deities, helped mold centuries of intellectual life and remained in wide use until about 1100 A.D.

"In those days, it was everything," said Bhatta.

Today, India's 1.02 billion people have 18 official languages, including English. Hindi is the most widely spoken, but the dictionary is a Sanskrit-English production, attesting to the abiding power of English as a lingua franca of the Indian elite.

The 16 scholars mostly work at chipped wooden tables in a large room lined with dusty metal bookshelves. Technology often amounts to a pencil stub and a paperweight.

"We're hoping for computers in one or two years," Kshirsagar said, not sounding very hopeful.

Officials say political pressure is growing to finish the project. With funding far below what it was in earlier days, only half as many people work on it as in the early 1980s.

"We have to go at the speed of the world if we still want to exist," said Kshirsagar, who reckons it takes about 15 days to prepare a word for dictionary entry.

The project was launched in 1948, a year after India's independence from Britain, to highlight its history and prove it was more than a poverty-ravaged colossus.

While Sanskrit died out as a spoken tongue centuries ago, it's still an official Indian language.

For most Indians, that means nothing. Sanskrit is as far from daily speech in India as Middle English is from Middle America.

Sanskrit is so agonizingly complex that after 40 years of studies, even the scholars can seldom just open a book and understand it. For every word there are many definitions, and for every definition there often are many allegorical meanings.

There's "anekakrta," which is basically translated as "composed or obtained by many," but which Bhatta gleefully points out has 15 other definitions. "Sanskrit," he said, "has so many shades."

2003 The Seattle Times Company