Intro: It is the most scientifical language and represents India in a true sense. It is high time we recognise the worth of this language.
“Why don’t you try to become a Sanskrit scholar? Why don’t you spend millions to teach every caste and creed Sanskrit? This is the problem. The moment you start doing this, you will become equal to Brahmins. This is the secret behind the strength of Bharath. ” (Selections from the complete works of Swami Vivekananda Page 228, The future of India)
HOW CAN WE CHANGE ? 1. Study Sanskrit if you don’t know. |
Why we have turned deaf ears to the words of Swami Vivekananda, who had touched the soul of Bharath? How much value do we give to the opinions of patriots like Mahatma Gandhi, Arvind Ghosh, Ambedkar ? We also have to think about our past in the progression of national education in order to enrich and upgrade Sanskrit, which has dedicated much for awakening national spirit and unification of the country. How far does independent India identified with her natural self? Has the practice of drawing words from other languages in place of Sanskrit benefitted us?
Aricle 351 says “It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other Indian languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.”
Hasn’t the casting away of nationalisation started by the Language Institute and National Information Board, resulted in the rejection of original inventions of Bharath? Hindi, with its roots in Sanskrit is losing its true spirit and is moving towards its virtual death. It’s only that same are still debating on nationalism on the occasion of all these happenings. It is of no use, as this is equal to nurturing a tree instead of its seed. In every field, integrals of our glorious culture has been forgotten in the name of modernisation. Certain universities have discarded teaching of Sanskrit as the complementary subject for graduating in Indian languages, arts and music. Today situation is that Sanskrit is disowned (sided) even in the
Ayur Veda.
It is high time we recognise the worth of this language. It is a fact that Sanskrit unites our nation. The grandeur and simplicity of the language is acknowledged equally by oriental and occidental thinkers. In this connection great Indian thinker Arvind Ghosh had said “Sanskrit language has been universally recognised by those competent to form a judgment. It is one of the most magnificent, most perfect and sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind, at once majestic, sweet, flexible, strong, vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium” (The Renaissance in India and other essays on Indian culture, p. 314)
Max Muller had said that Sanskrit is the most superior language. The number of people studying the language is increasing day-by-day all over the world. Everybody speaks about their love for Sanskrit. It is matter of great pride that Sanskrit is today recognised as a subject in European schools. A number of students are studying the language through SAFL. SAFL is a three-year online distance education programme for high school students who wish to learn Samskritam.
Institutions like St. James Independent School in England, St. James School in South Africa, John Scott’s school in Ireland, Phisinos School in New Zealand, Sanskrit is taught right from grade one. In India, learning Sanskrit from grade one has been started this year, however, in the states of Kerala and Manipur it is still an optional subject.
About 3,500 students are studying Sanskrit at the Institute of Hindu Dharmanagari in Indonesia. Sanskrit education is prospering in countries like China, Germany, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia. It should not surprise us if we hear the President of Greece learning Sanskrit and welcoming our President in Sanskrit. It is a language which embodies the treasure of wisdom. It is the most scientifical language and represents India in a true sense. It is because of this reason that Sanskrit is today spreading all over the world without any special boost and assistance from government and other NGOs. Our late President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed once said “Sanskrit is not a language meant exclusively for a particular caste or creed but is the language of every person of India.” Since 1969 Sanskrit day is celebrated. Attempts to impede Sanskrit day celebration in Tamil Nadu have really hurt the doctrines of our ancestors as well as the glory of our nation.
It is a matter of great pleasure that World Sanskrit Conference is conducted in various nations in duration of every three years. Sanskrit is being adopted as computer language. All the more 16 Sanskrit Universities including one in Germany, over 75 per cent of manuscripts are in Sanskrit. All these facts just speak very much about the splendor of this language. But it is shocking that unfortunately we have become blind by the veil of Western frenzy. The education system started by the British and maintained by us is a significant reason for this degradation.
One of the Western scientists Dr Fred Travis discovered that utterance of Sanskrit words has the same effect on internal transformation as that of meditation which was published in Internatio-nal Journal of Neuroscience.
Swami Vivekananda truly said that one day Sanskrit may became the reason for the unification of the world. [(Vivekananda Sahitya Sarvaswam, part-3, pp. 486, 487)]. With the help of Sanskrit we can arise the spirit of India, propagate a culture which proclaimed the idea of world as one family Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
Let us strive hard to increase the accessibility of Sanskrit. We can raise our self-confidence and can achieve foremost position for Bharat in the future information-centered world, by traversing through the path opened to us by the renowned scientist and our former president Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and other patriots. Apart this, we can work in harmony to unite Bharat, inspite of our language, religion, caste and creed being different without losing our knowledge treasure like Veda and Upanishads.
-Vachaspati P Nandkumar (The writer is national general secretary of Samskrit Bharati)
