Sanskrit – The Deva Bhasha
Dr. P. E. Sarangadhara Kartha / 7 yrs ago /
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Sanskrit – The Deva Bhasha
The Language Spoken By Gods, But Ignored by Us
Researchers at NASA have been looking at Sanskrit as a possible computer language because of its perfect morphology that leaves very little room for error. Pānini’s Ashtadhyayi shows significant similarities to the Backus-Naur Form grammar that is used to describe modern programming languages today.” §
Recent Past-The Nadir
In 1948, when Israel became a nation, they chose Hebrew, as their official language. With that one golden stroke, Hebrew, a language that was dead as a Dodo but for the Rabbis, had received an ambrosial injection. Before that, in 1947, Indians ignored a similar claim of Sanskrit, their cultural unifier for eons and chose Hindi as the national language.
Unlike Hebrew, Sanskrit was not dead. Sanskrit was in a prolonged coma for nearly a millennium under the various alien rulers from Delhi Sultanate to the British crown. These invaders had one trait in common, that is, they were inherently abhorrent towards anything that emanates from the Bharathiya Samskriti (Indian Culture) led by Sanskrit. While the pre-British trespassers used physical means to weaken the Indian cultural icons, the English opted for the highly effective and at the same time long-lasting highbrow route. Indian intellectuals are yet to be recovered from that cerebral washout!
The protagonists who initiated the redrafting of Indian cultural history in nineteenth century were Macaulay , a British colonial official and Max Müller, a German philologist-orientalist.
8
Sanskrit – The Deva Bhasha
The Language Spoken By Gods, But Ignored by Us
Researchers at NASA have been looking at Sanskrit as a possible computer language because of its perfect morphology that leaves very little room for error. Pānini’s Ashtadhyayi shows significant similarities to the Backus-Naur Form grammar that is used to describe modern programming languages today.” §
Recent Past-The Nadir
In 1948, when Israel became a nation, they chose Hebrew, as their official language. With that one golden stroke, Hebrew, a language that was dead as a Dodo but for the Rabbis, had received an ambrosial injection. Before that, in 1947, Indians ignored a similar claim of Sanskrit, their cultural unifier for eons and chose Hindi as the national language.
Unlike Hebrew, Sanskrit was not dead. Sanskrit was in a prolonged coma for nearly a millennium under the various alien rulers from Delhi Sultanate to the British crown. These invaders had one trait in common, that is, they were inherently abhorrent towards anything that emanates from the Bharathiya Samskriti (Indian Culture) led by Sanskrit. While the pre-British trespassers used physical means to weaken the Indian cultural icons, the English opted for the highly effective and at the same time long-lasting highbrow route. Indian intellectuals are yet to be recovered from that cerebral washout!
The protagonists who initiated the redrafting of Indian cultural history in nineteenth century were Macaulay , a British colonial official and Max Müller, a German philologist-orientalist.
Macaulay was the man behind the blueprint of the Colonial India’s schooling system that served the empire by producing clerks for hundred years. The age-old indigenous village schooling system that ensured high level working literacy across the rural India and the status of Sanskrit as the pan Indian communication link were purged by Macaulay’s assault. As English became the lingua franca of the elite and the influential, Sanskrit was ejected out of the main stream. Even after sixty years of independence, the handiwork of Macaulay is still the hallmark of our general education and the governmental apathy towards Sanskrit is flourishing unabated. . Many educated have to depend on the imperfect English translations to understand the multidisciplinary knowledge contained in the Sanskrit scriptures and literature!¨
Max Muller’s net was much wider. He targeted the very root of the Indian cultural edifice – the Holy Vedas, the sanctum sanctorum of Sanskrit. He painted a racial halo around Vedic era and invented the Aryan Invasion Theory to degrade and divide the Indian society. This theory introduced the fictional Aryan race (Vedas never mentioned them as a race but as a class of people who accept and revere the Vedas and Sages. As such, the Dravidians also belong to Aryan Class) to the unsuspecting intelligentsia. The theory propagates the myth that the Aryans originally the inhabitants of Central Asia. One group moved towards Indian planes and established the Vedic Civilization over that of the Dravidians the original inhabitants, and forced them to retreat to the Southern Peninsula. . Max Muller also tinkered with the antiquity of the Vedas and attributed it to be of as recent as 1600 BCE. The scientific evidences disprove these implanted conjectures.
Max Muller spent nearly 25 of his 77 years of life to translate Vedas and Upanishads. Unfortunately, the translations were mottled vis-à-vis elucidation due to intention and ignorance. Max Muller had confessed about these intentional inaccuracies and his arbitrary fixing the date of Vedas towards the twilight of his life. It is pity that the so called Indian scholars were/are no longer listening to him and preferred to go along with the rash theories of his younger days. ©
That proves that Macaulay’s victory parade is in full flow even now.
Max Muller’s net was much wider. He targeted the very root of the Indian cultural edifice – the Holy Vedas, the sanctum sanctorum of Sanskrit. He painted a racial halo around Vedic era and invented the Aryan Invasion Theory to degrade and divide the Indian society. This theory introduced the fictional Aryan race (Vedas never mentioned them as a race but as a class of people who accept and revere the Vedas and Sages. As such, the Dravidians also belong to Aryan Class) to the unsuspecting intelligentsia. The theory propagates the myth that the Aryans originally the inhabitants of Central Asia. One group moved towards Indian planes and established the Vedic Civilization over that of the Dravidians the original inhabitants, and forced them to retreat to the Southern Peninsula. . Max Muller also tinkered with the antiquity of the Vedas and attributed it to be of as recent as 1600 BCE. The scientific evidences disprove these implanted conjectures.
Max Muller spent nearly 25 of his 77 years of life to translate Vedas and Upanishads. Unfortunately, the translations were mottled vis-à-vis elucidation due to intention and ignorance. Max Muller had confessed about these intentional inaccuracies and his arbitrary fixing the date of Vedas towards the twilight of his life. It is pity that the so called Indian scholars were/are no longer listening to him and preferred to go along with the rash theories of his younger days. ©
That proves that Macaulay’s victory parade is in full flow even now.
However, in spite of all the negative forces viz., governmental apathy, subjective secularism, its prejudicial implementation, opportunistic political parties and vote bank based policies, the Sanskrit is bouncing back to old glory. For this, one must thank the internet and private initiatives.
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