WHY ABHOR SANSKRIT

Sanskrit is one of the languages of the country and the same was used extensively for daily communication and in various literature till about the common era.  There were many highly qualified people in different disciplines of astronomy, astrology, biology, chemistry, medicine, philosophy and religious matters of all the three major religions.  Neither Chrisitianity nor Islam was there in the country when Sanskrit as a language was uniting the country from north to south and east to west. Many dynastic kings who ruled the country from the north west area of present day Afghanistan to far east Ahom dynasty or the Guptas and Mauryas on the Gangetic plains to the Pandyas and Cheras in the south contributed to the development of the language and its literature.  Some of the kings themselves wrote poetry and literature in the language which are popular even today among Sanskrit scholars.

The practice of imparting knowledge on a particular subject was through word of mouth.  The teacher taught the students in a gurukul, where he taught them what he had learned and sent the students away to another gurukul to learn from the other learned scholar in a different subject. However, some of the literature and other subjects were written on palm leaves with sharp needles.  These were all stored in various places in temples, places of learning etc.  One of the biggest store houses of such palm leaf manuscripts was the library of famed Nalanda University.  

The invaders from the central Asian plateau who were enamored by the wealth and richness of the country looted the wealth and started to enslave the public.  Many learned people who resisted the attempts of the invaders were put to death. As the practice of imparting the knowledge was through word of mouth, with the death of many learned people the knowledge also perished with them.  Added to this the general of the slave dynasty ruler of Delhi, Bakhthiyar Khilji put to flame the entire library of the Nalanda university thereby the priceless manuscripts were lost to the mankind forever.  A few of the manuscripts that survived in a few personal repository were taken out of the country by people like Max Mueller. Today, Germany has university libraries with full sections with largest collection of Sanskrit literature in manuscripts. Despite all these, a few villages like Mathur in Karnataka have survived to date using the language even for daily communication be it in commerce or education.

Be that as it may, the one knowledge that has survived the onslaught of the invaders and the desecration, is that of the Vedas which is still being imparted through word of mouth all over the country. Except for a minimal amount of literature like the works of Kalidas,Harsha, Panini etc., the works of all other authors have been lost totally.  The only subject that is continued to be taught by the gurukul method of word of mouth is the study of Vedas.  Therefore, the anti Sanskrit lobby in the southern part of the country, especially in Tamilnadu, associate the language Sanskrit with the study of Vedas and vociferously object to teaching it in schools and colleges. The people who object to the study of the language does not know and never try to learn that the language has contributed literature in many areas including astronomy, medicine, theater etc. It is like some one who is unaware of the language Tamil and of the contribution of the people with deep knowledge in Tamil, saying that Tamil has contributed to films and its songs only. 

It is a pity that there had been no attempt to find out if any manuscripts in Sanskrit on various subjects are still there in the personal custody of people in the country.  Nor there had been any attempt to get at least copies of the manuscripts from the libraries in Germany.  There is no central repository to maintain the manuscripts except in some far off places like the Saraswati Mahal library in Thanjavur where the manuscripts are maintained. But the same does not help in as much as there is no study of these manuscripts permitted to decode the contents to spread the knowledge.  The government in the state and the center do not have any long term plan to develop the language and do research on the manuscripts in such repositories. These will go a long way to disprove the thought that the language Sanskrit is associated only with the study of Vedas. The Education ministry and the Ayush ministry in the central government can take a leadership role in getting these done to develop the study of the language and bring to light the contribution made by many in that language in the past.

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