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s a n s k r i t

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Sanskrit (meaning "cultured or refined"), the classical language of Hinduism, is the oldest and the most systematic language in the world. The vastness and the versatility, and power of expression can be appreciated by the fact that this language has 65 words to describe various forms of earth, 67 words for water, and over 250 words to describe rainfall. 

The Sanskrit grammarians wished to construct a perfect language, which would belong to no one and thus belong to all, which would not develop but remain an ideal instrument of communication and culture for all peoples and all time. 

SANSKRIT - The Language of Ancient India.       

Sanskrit (meaning "cultured or refined"), the classical language of Hinduism, is the oldest and the most systematic language in the world. The vastness and the versatility, and power of expression can be appreciated by the fact that this language has 65 words to describe various forms of earth, 67 words for water, and over 250 words to describe rainfall. 

Sanskrit was a complete success and became the language of all cultured people in India and in countries under Indian influence. All scientific, philosophical, historical works were henceforth written in Sanskrit, and important texts existing in other languages were translated and adapted into Sanskrit. For this reason, very few ancient literary, religious, or philosophical documents exits in India in other languages. The sheer volume of Sanskrit literature is immense, and it remains largely unexplored. 

(source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation - By Alain Danielou p.17).(For more about Indian influence in Southeast Asia, please refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi)

Sir William Jones (1746-1794) came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta. He pioneered Sanskrit studies. His admiration for Indian thought and culture was almost limitless. He observed as long ago as 1784:  
 
" The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either: yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists..." 

(source: Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru  p 165).

Hindu literature is so vast, that he said: "human life would not be sufficient to make oneself acquainted with any considerable part of Hindu literature."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p.205).

Alain Danielou (1907-1994) son of French aristocracy, author of numerous books on philosophy, religion, history and arts of India and perhaps the first European to boldly proclaim his Hinduness. He settled in India for fifteen years in the study of Sanskrit. He had a wide effect upon Europe's understanding of Hinduism. 

He has observed:

"The creation of Sanskrit, the “refined” language, was a prodigious work on a grand scale. Grammarians and semanticists of genius undertook to create a perfect language, artificial and permanent, belonging to no one, that was to become the language of the entire culture. Sanskrit is built on a basis of Vedic and the Prakrits, but has a much more complex grammar, established according to a rigorous logic. It has an immense vocabulary and a very adaptable grammar, so that words can be grouped together to express any nuance of an idea, and verb forms can be found to cover any possibility of tense, such as future intentional in the past, present continuing into the future, and so on. Furthermore, Sanskrit possesses a wealth of abstract nouns, technical and philosophical terms unknown in any other language. Modern Indian scholars of Sanskrit culture have often remarked that many of the new concepts of nuclear physics or modern psychology are easy for them to grasp, since they correspond exactly to familiar notions of Sanskrit terminology."

(source: A Brief History of India - By Alain Danielou  p. 57-58).

Refer to French version of this chapter - Le Sanscrit - By Dharma Today.

Will Durant (1885-1981) American eminent historian, would like the West to learn from India, tolerance and gentleness and love for all living things:

He has noted in his book, The Case for India:

"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy.

(source: The Case for India - By Will Durant).

The renowned British Sanskrit scholar Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854-1930) ummarized :

"Since the Renaissance there has been no event of such worldwide significance in the history of culture as the discovery of Sanskrit literature in the latter part of the eighteenth century."

(source: In Search of The Cradle of Civilization: : New Light on Ancient India - By Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak & David Frawley p. 257).

In the opinion of Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) "Sanskrit is to the science of language what mathematics is to astronomy."

Schlegel in his book, History of Literature, says, "It has also the Divine afflatus of the Hebrew tongue."

(source: The Soul of India - By Satyavrata R. Patel p. 76-77).

Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1819-1899) was an Orientalist, professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1860. He made a lengthy and learned introduction to his monumental work: Sanskrit-English Dictionary. 

In his book Hinduism, on page 13, he says:

"India though it has more than five hundred spoken dialects, has only one sacred language and only one sacred literature, accepted and revered by all adherence of Hinduism alike, however diverse in race, dialect, rank and creed. That language is Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature, the only repository of the Veda or knowledge in its widest sense, the only vehicle of Hindu mythology, philosophy, law, the mirror in which all the creeds, opinions, and customs and usages of the Hindus are faithfully reflected and the only quarry whence the requisite materials may be obtained for improving the vernaculars or for expressing important religious and scientific ideas."

Dr. T. W. Rhys Davids, famous Pali scholar has said: "The introduction of the use of Sanskrit as the lingu-franca is a turning point in the mental history of the Indian people. The causes that preceded it, the changes in the intellectual standpoint that went with it, the results that followed on both, are each of them of vital importance."

(source: Cultural Heritage of Ancient India - By Sachindra Kumar Maity p.48).

According to Forbes magazine, (July, 1987),  "Sanskrit is the most convenient language for computer software programming." 

(Source: The Hindu Mind -Fundamentals of Hindu Religion and Philosophy for all Ages -  By Bansi Pandit pg - 307).

NASA and others have been looking at Sanskrit as a possible computer language since its syntax is perfect and leaves little room for error. 

(source: American Sanskrit Institute http://www.americansanskrit.com).

Refer to French version of this chapter - Le Sanscrit - By Dharma Today.

Rick Briggs a NASA researcher, has written:

"In ancient India the intention to discover truth was so consuming, that in the process, they discovered perhaps the most perfect tool for fulfilling such a search that the world has ever known -- the Sanskrit language. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old.

The discovery is of monumental significance. It is mind-boggling to consider that we have available to us a language which has been spoken for 4-7000 years that appears to be in every respect a perfect language designed for enlightened communication. But the most stunning aspect of the discovery is this: NASA the most advanced research center in the world for cutting edge technology has discovered that Sanskrit, the world's oldest spiritual language is the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet. Considering Sanskrit's status as a spiritual language, a further implication of this discovery is that the age old dichotomy between religion and science is an entirely unjustified one.

It is also relevant to note that in the last decade physicists have begun to comment on the striking similarities between their own discoveries and the discoveries made thousands of years ago in India which went on to form the basis of most Eastern religions.

Why has Sanskrit endured? Fundamentally it generates clarity and inspiration. And that clarity and inspiration is directly responsible for a brilliance of creative expression such as the world has rarely seen. 

Another hope for the return of Sanskrit lies in computers. Sanskrit and computers are a perfect fit. The precision play of Sanskrit with computer tools will awaken the capacity in human beings to utilize their innate higher mental faculty with a momentum that would inevitably transform the world. In fact the mere learning of Sanskrit by large numbers of people in itself represents a quantum leap in consciousness, not to mention the rich endowment it will provide in the arena of future communication."

(source: Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence - By Rick Briggs Artificial Intelligence Magazine 6(1) 32-39 1985).

W. C. Taylor wrote in The Journal of Royal Asiatic Society: "It was an astounding discovery that Hindustan possessed, in spite of the changes of realms and variety; a language, the parent of all those dialects that Europe has fondly called classical - the source alike of Greek flexibility and Roman strength. A philosophy, compared with which, in point of age, the lessons of Pythagoras are but of yesterday, and in point of daring speculation Plato's boldest efforts were tame and commonplace. A poetry more purely intellectual than any of those of which we had before any conception; and systems of science whose antiquity baffled all power of astronomical calculation. This literature, with all its colossal proportions, which can scarcely be described without the semblance of bombast and exaggeration claimed of course a place for itself - it stood alone, and it was able to stand alone. 

"To acquire the mastery of this language is almost a labor of a life; its literature seems exhaustless. The utmost stretch of imagination can scarcely comprehend its boundless mythology. Its philosophy has touched upon every metaphysical difficulty; its legislation is as varied as the castes for which it was designed.'

Count Magnus Fredrik Ferdinand Bjornstjerna (1779-1847) says: 

"The literature of India makes us acquainted with a great nation of past ages, which grasped every branch of knowledge, and which will always occupy a distinguished place in the history of the civilization of mankind."

Rev. William Ward wrote: 

"No reasonable person will deny to the Hindus of former times the praise of very extensive learning. The variety of subjects upon which they wrote prove that almost every science was cultivated among them. The manner also in which they treated these subjects proves that the Hindus learned men yielded the palm of learning to scarcely any other of the ancients. The more their philosophical works and lawbooks are studied, the more will the enquirer be convinced of the depth of wisdom possessed by the authors.

Mrs. Charlotte Manning says: "The Hindus had the widest range of mind of which man was capable."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p.201 - 203).

Jean Le Mee born in France in 1931 and studied Sanskrit at Columbia University, has observed:

"Sanskrit is the artificial language par excellence, patiently refined sound by sound...embracing all the levels of being physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. It is ideally suited to describe and govern the nature of phenomena from the spiritual level to the physical. This range of applicability in the realm of nature paradoxically makes this most artificial language the most natural language, the language of nature."

(source: Hymns from the Rig Veda - By Jean LeMee ISBN: 0394493540 1975. p. xii).

Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) in Science of Languages p. 203, calls Sanskrit the "language of languages", and remarks that "it has been truly said that Sanskrit is to the Science of language what Mathematics is to Astronomy."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p.205).

S N Dasgupta and S. K. De have written:

"The majesty and grandeur of the Sanskrit language, the sonorousness of the word music, the rise and fall of the rhythm rolling in waves, the elasticity of meaning and the conventional atmosphere that appears in it have always made it charming to those for whom it was written. ...The wealth of imagery, the vividness of description of natural scenes, the underlying suggestiveness of higher ideals and the introduction of imposing personalities often lead great charm to Sanskrit poetry."

(source: History of Sanskrit Literature - By Dasgupta, S. N. and S. K. De).

"There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence."

This paragraph demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old. The discovery is of monumental significance. It is mind-boggling to consider that we have available to us a language which has been spoken for 4000-7000 years that appears to be in every respect a perfect language designed for enlightened communication. But the most stunning aspect of the discovery is this: NASA the most advanced research center in the world for cutting edge technology has discovered that Sanskrit, the world's oldest spiritual language is the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet."
  
The discussion until now has been about Sanskrit, the language of mathematical precision, the world's only unambiguous spoken language. But the linguistic perfection of Sanskrit offers only a partial explanation for its sustained presence in the world for at least 3000 years. High precision in and of itself is of limited scope. Generally it excites the brain but not the heart.

Sanskrit is indeed a perfect language in the same sense as mathematics, but Sanskrit is also a perfect language in the sense that, like music, it has the power to uplift the heart. Why has Sanskrit endured? Fundamentally it generates clarity and inspiration. And that clarity and inspiration is directly responsible for a brilliance of creative expression such as the world has rarely seen.

"The richness of Sanskrit language is almost beyond belief. Many centuries ago that language contained words to describe states of the conscious and the subconscious and the unconscious mind and a variety of other concepts which have been evolved by modern psychoanalysis and psyche-therapy. Further, it has many a word, of which there is no exact synonym even in the richest modern languages. That is why some modern writers have been driven occasionally to use Sanskrit words when writing in English. 

Consider, for example, the following passage in Dr. Raynor C. Johnson's The Imprisoned Splendour.  

"To facilitate discussion I propose to call this higher level buddhi (coming from a Sanskrit word meaning 'wisdom'). Buddhi apprehends Truth directly - fragments of truth only, of course...It offers no reason for its perceptions, but it makes no mistakes, and this wisdom is passed through the level of Mind, to be there clothed in intelligible form."

And the following words by J. Robert Oppenheimer in Einstein: A Centenary Volume:

"Einstein is also, and I think rightly, known as a man of very great goodwill and humanity. Indeed if I had to think of a single word for his attitude towards human problems, I would pick the Sanskrit word Ahimsa, not to hurt, harmlessness. "

(source: India's Priceless Heritage - By Nani Palkhivala published by Bharati Vidya Bhavan 1980 p. 24-25).

Georges Ifrah (  ? )  French historian of Mathematics and author of the book, The Universal History of Numbers has written:

"Sanskrit means “complete”, “perfect” and “definitive”. In fact, this language is extremely elaborate, almost artificial, and is capable of describing multiple levels of meditation, states of consciousness and psychic, spiritual and even intellectual processes. As for vocabulary, its richness is considerable and highly diversified. Sanskrit has for centuries lent itself admirably to the diverse rules of prosody and versification. Thus we can see why poetry has played such a preponderant role in all of Indian culture and Sanskrit literature. "

(source: The Universal History of Numbers - By Georges Ifrah  p. 431).

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Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), was one of the foremost interpreters of myth in our time. Campbell was a prolific writer, dedicated editor, beloved teacher, inspiring lecturer, and an avid scholar of spiritual and cultural development. He referred to Sanskrit as:

"The great spiritual language of the world."

No one has expressed this more eloquently than Sri Aurobindo, the great Indian sage and 20th century poet philosopher:

 "The Ancient and classical creations of the Sanskrit tongue both in quality and in body and abundance of excellence, in their potent originality and force and beauty, in their substance and art and structure, in grandeur and justice and charm of speech and in the height and width of the reach of their spirit stand very evidently in the front rank among the world's great literatures.

The language itself, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect and wonderfully sufficient literary instruments developed by the human mind, at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed and full and vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of the character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium.'

Professor A. L. Basham, taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. 

He has noted in his book The Wonder That Was India:

" Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini's grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world."

(source: The Wonder That Was India - By A. L. Basham p. 390).

Alain Danielou (1907-1994) founded the Institute for Comparative Music Studies in Berlin and Venice, author of several books on the religion, history, and art of India.  He said:

"Sanskrit is constructed like geometry and follows a rigorous logic. It is theoretically possible to explain the meaning of the words according to the combined sense of the relative letters, syllables and roots. Sanskrit has no meanings by connotations and consequently does not age. Panini's language is in no way different from that of Hindu scholars conferring in Sanskrit today." 

(source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation - By Alain Danielou p. 17).

Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842) in his Historical Researches Vol II p. 201, says: "The literature of the Sanskrit language incontestably belongs to a highly cultivated people, whom we may with great reason consider to have been the most informed of all the Epics. It is, at the same time, a scientific and a poetic literature." He also says: "Hindu literature is one of the richest in prose and poetry."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda  p.203).

Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad (1891-1953) English philosopher and author of The Story of Indian Civilization has said:

"Sanskrit, a language which belongs to the Indo-European group and has been the chief literary vehicle of Indian thought, is an instrument admirably adapted to give expression to every subtlety of human thought, every nuance of human feeling...

The writings of Indian poets and dramatists, historians and biographers, contain evidence not only of richness of imagination and variety of feeling, but of a remarkable talent for expressing precisely those adventures of the spirit, which chiefly give to human life its meaning and significance.

(source: Indian Culture and the Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K. S. Ramaswami Sastri  Annamalai University. 1956 p.179-180).

Judith H. Morrison has observed:

"Sanskrit is a beautiful, powerful, resonating language, with a structure and richness not found within most modern languages. The logic and beauty within Sanskrit reflect the two levels needed to appreciate Ayurveda fully..."

(source: The Book of Ayurveda: A Holistic Approach to Health and Longevity - by Judith H. Morrison p. 17).

Refer to French version of this chapter - Le Sanscrit - By Dharma Today.

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Grammar

The Sanskrit term for grammar is vyakarana, which etymologically means "differentiated analysis."

Panini's Sanskrit grammar, produced in about 1300 B. C. E. is the shortest and the fullest grammar in the  world. Panini composed a Sanskrit grammar called the Ashtadhyayi. In 4,000 short verses, it revealed the inner mechanics of Sanskrit - how the language worked and how new words evolved. 

Sir Monier-Williams (1819-1899) Orientalist, professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1860. He made a lengthy and learned introduction to his monumental work: Sanskrit-English Dictionary. He wrote:

"The Panini grammar reflects the wondrous capacity of the human brain, which till today no other country has been able to produce except India."

Panchavati 

Watch video - Brahmins in India have become a minority

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“By Sanskrit is meant the learned language of India - the language of its cultured inhabitants, the language of its religion, its literature and science - not by any means a dead language, but one still spoken and written by educated men by all parts of the country, from Kashmir to Cape Comorin, from Bombay to Calcutta and Madras. 

For example, the great linguist Panini gave the concept for meta-language-and constructed one-thousands of years before computer scientists began exploring the same idea. No one has been able to match him to this day.

The Sanskrit language is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either. An example of the resemblance: the word for ten is dasha in Sanskrit, deka in Greek, and decem in Latin. Thousands of Sanskrit words such as pitah, brahta, raja have cognates in nearly all European languages. Based on the undeniable resemblance of these languages, philologists termed them Indo-European language.

"The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety." 

His Sastras are a perfect miracle of condensation."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 229). 

(For more refer to Electronic Panini - http://sanskrit.gde.to/all_pdf/aShTAdhyAyI.pdf
and Sanskrit Learning Tools -  http://sanskrit.gde.to/learning_tools/learning_tools.html and A Software on Sanskrit Grammar based on Panini's Sutras - http://www.taralabalu.org/panini/greetings.htm).

Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) author of History of Indian Literature, wrote: 

"Panini's grammar is distinguished above all similar works of other countries partly by its thoroughly exhaustive investigation of the roots of the language, and the formation of words; partly by its sharp precision of expression, which indicates with an enigmatical succinctness whether forms come under the same or different rules. This is rendered possible by the employment of an algebraic terminology of arbitrary contrivance, the several parts of which stand to each other in the closest harmony, and which, by the very fact of its sufficing for all the phenomena which the language presents, bespeaks at once the marvelous ingenuity of its inventor, and his profound penetration of the entire material of the language."

(source: Civilization Through the Ages - By P. N. Bose p. 136).

Arthur A. Macdonell (1854-1930) author of History of Sanskrit Literature has remarked:

"The Sanskrit grammarians of India were the first to analyze word forms, to recognize the difference between root and suffix, to determine the functions of suffixes and on the whole to elaborate a grammatical system so accurate and complete as to be unparalleled in any other country."

(source: Main Currents in Indian Culture - By S. Natarajan p. 100 and India's Past - By A A Macdonell p. 123).

Horace Hyman Wilson (1786-1860) says: "The Hindus had a copious and a cultivated language." 

"The Sanskrit," says Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842) writes in Historical Researches vol. II p. 109-110,  "we can safely assert to be one of the richest and most refined of any. It has, moreover, reached a high degree of cultivation, and the richness of its philosophy is no way inferior to its poetic beauties, as it presents us with an abundance of technical terms to express the most abstract ideas."

The distinguished German critic, Schlegal, in History of Literature p. 117, says: 

"Justly it is called Sanskrit, ie. perfected, finished. In its structure and grammar, it closely resembles the Greek, but is infinitely more regular and therefore more simple, though not less rich. It combines fullness, indicative of Greek development, the brevity and nice accuracy of Latin; whilst having a near affinity to the Persian and German roots, it is distinguished by expression as enthusiastic and forcible as theirs."

He again says: "The Sanskrit combines these various qualities, possessed separately by other tongues: Grecian copiousness, deep-toned Roman force, the divine afflatus characterizing the Hebrew tongue." He also says: Judged by an organic standard of the principal elements of language, the Sanskrit excels in grammatical structure, and is, indeed, the most perfectly developed of all idioms, not excepting Greek and Latin."

The importance of this "language of languages" is clearly recognized when we consider, with Sir William Wilson Hunter, the fact that  "the modern philology dates from the study of Sanskrit by the Europeans."

"I am not a little surprised to find that out of ten words in Du Perron's Zind Dictionary six or seven were pure Sanskrit." wrote Sir William Jones. 

Mons. Dubois says that Sanskrit is the original source of all the European languages of the present day.

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p.205 - 207).

William Ward (1769-1823) notes:  “These grammars are very numerous, and reflect the highest credit on the ingenuity of their authors. Indeed, in philology the Hindoos have perhaps excelled both the ancients and the moderns."

(source: A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos - By William Ward volume II  p 469  London 1822).

Antoine Leonard de Chézy (1718- 1798) was a determined French scholar, an engineer who finally became director of the École des Ponts et Chaussées. 

He became a passionate admirer of Sir William Jones' translation of the Sakuntala. He was seized by the desire to read the masterpiece in its original. With the help of Pons' grammar of the Amarakosa, and later of Wilkins' translation of the Hitopadesa, he began learning Sanskrit. By Sheer perseverance and remarkable ingenuity he was finally able to realize the dream - to read, and even publish, the text of the Sakuntala, He, like many contemporary French thinkers, realized that Euorpe should be acquainted with the achievements of Asian nations.

Among his works were: La Reconnaissance de Sacountala (1830), from the Sanskrit. 

(source: India and World Civilization - By D. P. Singhal  Pan Macmillan Limited. 1993. Part II p. 213).

Shakuntala.

Kalidasa's Shakuntala is a far-famed drama, which is incomparable for its beauty, charm, tenderness and fidelity to nature, and which, in fact, stands at the head of the dramatic literature of the world. 

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"Probably in no other single sphere have Western scholars been so indebted to traditional India as in that of grammar. "

Sir William Wilson Hunter (1840-1900) has observed:

"The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry. So elaborate is the structure, that doubts have arisen whether its complex rules of formation and phonetic change, its polysyllabic derivatives, its ten conjugations with their multiform aorists and long array of tenses, could ever have been the spoken language of a people."

(source: The Indian Empire - By Sir William Wilson Hunter p. 142).

Sir John Woodroffe aka Arthur Avalon (1865-1936) the well known scholar, Advocate-General of Bengal and sometime Legal Member of the Government of India. He served with competence for eighteen years and in 1915 officiated as Chief Justice. 

He wondered why Sanskrit was not taught in British India:

“As regard the first point I am told that in an Indian University even Sanskrit is taught in English which means that only those who know the latter tongue can learn the classic language of event their own country. To me this seems an absurdity…In the same institution a European Sanskrit grammar is prescribed, the production of which was paid for at a larger price than would be offered to any Indian. Who offered it? Not the English. The Indian cannot I suppose write a grammar. Yet India has Panini, Patanjali, Patanjali’s Mahabhasya, Supadma, Kalapa, the Vakyapadiya, Bhopadeva, Sangkshiptasara, Siddantakaumudi, Laghukaumudi, amongst the ancient, while the Vyakarana Kaumudi, Upakramanika of Ishvara Chandra Vidyasagara, and the Ashubodha of Taranatha Vachaspati head the moderns. How is it that all these have been displaced? A distinguished European Sanskritist once aksed me where I had learned Sanskrit, but that I had been and was still learning Sanskrit in this country. “Oh what a pity,” he said, “Why” I asked? “They cannot teach Sanskrit in this country: they have no system.” He replied. I laughed. “They cannot teach Sanskrit in this country.” – the country of Panini the founder of the science of language, the greatest grammarian the world had known, and of innumerable pandits, men of real learning, few though men of the highest attainment now be. How has Sanskrit learning come down to us today if no one has been able to teach it?

(source: Bharata Shakti – Collection of Addresses on Indian Culture - By Sir John Woodroffe - Ganesh & co. Madras1921 p. xix xx).  For more on Sir John Woodroffe refer to Quotes 251-270).

Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) is laudatory in his appraisal of the achievement of Panini. He wrote: 

"We pass at once into the magnificent edifice which bears the name of Panini as its architect and which justly commands the wonder and admiration of everyone who enters, and which, by the very fact of its sufficing for all the phenomenon which language presents, bespeaks at once the marvelous ingenuity of its inventor and his profound penetration of the entire material of the language."

(source: Yoga: A Vision of its Future - By Gopi Krishna p. 123).

Mrs. Charlotte Manning says: "The celebrated Panini bequeathed to posterity one of the oldest and most renowned books ever written in any language."

"The scientific completeness of Sanskrit grammar appeared to Sir William Jones so unaccountable that he wrote it with amazement and admiration."

Mrs. Manning further wrote: "Sanskrit grammar is evidently far superior to the kind of grammar which for the most part has contented grammarians in Europe." "Vyakrana," says the same authoress, "was not merely grammar in the lower acceptance of being an explanationo f declension, conjugation and other grammatical forms, but was from its commencement a scientific grammar or grammatical science in the highest sense which can be attributed to this term."

Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone observed: "His work (Panini's) and those of his successors have established a system of grammar, the most complete that ever was employed in arranging elements of human speech."

Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) wrote: "Their (Hindus) achievements in grammatical analysis are still unsurpassed in the grammatical literature of any nation."

"Panini, Katyayana, and Patanjali, are the canonical triad of grammarians of India," and, to quote Mrs. Manning once more, "such (grammatical) works are originated as are unrivalled in the literary history of other nations."

William Ward (1769-1823) author of A view of the history, literature, and mythology of the Hindoos, says: "Their grammars are very numerous and reflect the highest credit on the ingenuity of their authors."

As regards lexicons, Ward says: "Their dictionaries also do the highest credit to the Hindu learned men, and prove how highly the Sanskrit was cultivated in former periods."

Alexander Thomson, the late Principal of the Agra College, and one of the best philologist in India, used to say that the consonantal division of the alphabet of the Sanskrit language was a more wonderful feat of human genius than any the world has yet seen."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 225-230).

Walter Eugene Clark writes in The Legacy of India, p. 339-340: 

"Panini's grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analyzing language that revolutionized our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology. The most striking feature of Sanskrit grammar is its objective resolution of speech and language into their component elements, and definition of the functions of these elements. Long before Panini (who names over sixty predecessors) the sounds represented by the letters of the alphabet had been arranged in an overly systematic form, vowels and diphthongs separated from mutes, semi-vowels, and sibilants, and the sounds in each group arranged according to places in the mouth where produced (gutturals, palatals, cerebrals, dentals, and labials). Words were analyzed into roots of which complex words grew by the addition of prefixes and suffixes. General rules were worked out, defining the conditions according to which consonants and vowels influence each other, undergo change, or drop out. The study of language in India was much more objective and scientific than in Greece or Rome. The interest was in empirical investigation of language, rather than philosophical and syntactical. Indian study of language was as objective as the dissection of a body by an anatomist."

(source: Our Heritage and Its Significance - By Shripad Rama Sharma p. 152-153).

Leonard Bloomfield  (1887-1949) American linguist and author of Language, published in 1933) characterization of Panini's Astadhyayi  ("The Eight Books") 

He has remarked:

"as one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence is by no means an exaggeration; no one who has had even a small acquaintance with that most remarkable book could fail to agree. In some four thousand sutras or aphorisms - some of them no more than a single syllable in length - Panini sums up the grammar not only of his own spoken language, but of that of the Vedic period as well. The work is the more remarkable when we consider that the author did not write it down but rather worked it all out of his head, as it were. Panini's disciples committed the work to memory and in turn passed it on in the same manner to their disciples; and though the Astadhayayi has long since been committed to writing, rote memorization of the work, with several of the more important commentaries, is still the approved method of studying grammar in India today, as indeed is true of most learning of the traditional culture."

While in the classical world scholars were dealing with language in a somewhat metaphysical way, the Indians were telling us what their language actually was, how it worked, and how it was put together. The methods and techniques for describing the structure of Sanskrit which we find in Panini have not been substantially bettered to this day in modern linguistic theory and practice. We today employ many devices in describing languages that were already known to Panini's first two commentators. The concept of "zero" which in mathematics is attributed to India, finds its place also in linguistics. 

"It was in India, however, that there rose a body of knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about language. The Hindu grammar taught Europeans to analyze speech forms; when one compared the constituent parts, the resemblances, which hitherto had been vaguely recognized, could be set forth with certainty and precision."

(source: Traditional India - edited by O. L. Chavarria-Aguilar refer to chapter on Grammar - By Leonard Bloomfield Hall - Place of Publication: Englewood Cliffs, NJ Date of Publication: 1964 p. 109-113).

Cybernetics:

It has even been suggested (by Rick Briggs NASA researcher - refer to Quotes221_250) that the 'structures' constructed by Paanini (followed by shaabdabodhas written later) could be useful in the development of efficient, high-level computing languages [we may presume here that these would eventually be based the systematics of deriving words from "roots" (dhaatus), avoiding the use of alphanumeric operator symbols, so characteristic of 'computer languages']. As of now, I understand that computer-based tests of the internal consistency of the "Ashtaadhyaayee" are being developed by Dr. P. Ramanujan at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing. Software based on Paaninean rules for the retrieval of word forms has been developed at the Siddhaganga Mutt, Karnataka Research of an advanced nature is also being carried out at the Academy of Sanskrit Research, Melukote, also in Karnataka. While these could be regarded as very active areas of fruitful investigation, the practicality of some suggestions on the possibility of using the structure of Sanskrt for machine translation (See, for example, a method of numerical representation of inflections put forward by the present writer in an article contributed to "Samskrti-94" (the 1994 issue of the organ of the Samskrta Sangha of the Indian Institute of Science), remains to be tested. Paanini's ideas may also contain the germ of an understanding, based on linguistics, that could lead to the unraveling of the connections between brain activity and how the apparatus of human speech works. The pertinence here is in trying to answer, for example, the question, "Why is it easier to say jagat + naatha as jagannaatha or abd-ul + rahman as abd-ur-rahman (both of which exactly follow the relevant Paninean rule, the second, from a Semitic language, showing the universal applicability of Paninean phonetics)? Such investigations can be expected to yield results only in the far future, however, after much greater progress has been achieved in understanding how the speech centres of the brain function.

(source: Whence and Whither of Indian Science - Can we integrate with our past and carry on from there? – Contributed by S. N. Balasubrahmanyam - (Retd) Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore).  

(For more refer to Electronic Panini - http://sanskrit.gde.to/all_pdf/aShTAdhyAyI.pdf
and Sanskrit Learning Tools -  http://sanskrit.gde.to/learning_tools/learning_tools.html and A Software on Sanskrit Grammar based on Panini's Sutras - http://www.taralabalu.org/panini/greetings.htm).

Refer to French version of this chapter - Le Sanscrit - By Dharma Today.

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Frederich von Schlegel, (1772-1829),  German philosopher, critic, and writer, the most prominent founder of German Romanticism. Educated in law, he turned to writing. His brother, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, was a scholar and poet. With his brother, August Wilhelm, he published the Athenaeum, the principal organ of the romantic school. Schlegel study of Sanskrit and of Indian civilization, On the Language and Wisdom of India (1808), was outstanding. He said that: 

"There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit," adding that " India is not only at the origin of everything she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison."  

(source: Arise O Arjuna - By Francois Gautier ISBN 81-241-0518-9 Har-Anand Publications 2000 p. 25).

According to Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) even a modern language like English does not have sufficient means to express :

"high state of mental excitement" as done by Sanskrit. This shows the cultural development of the ancient Indians."

 Max Muller continues his thoughts on the importance and primordiality of Vedic literature: 

"Sanskrit no doubt has an immense advantage over all other ancient languages of the East. It is so attractive and has been so widely admired, that it almost seems at times to excite a certain amount of feminine jealously. We are ourselves Indo-Europeans. In a certain sense we are still speaking and thinking Sanskrit; or more correctly Sanskrit is like a dear aunt to us and she takes the place of a mother who is no more."

(source: Chips From A German Workshop - By Max Muller  Volume I p 163).

Franz Bopp (1791-1867), German philologist, born in Mainz.  He became professor of philology and Oriental literature at the University of Berlin. He became known as the founder of the science of comparative philology.  Among his works is A Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Slavonic Languages (1816). 36 years later, in 1852, Worterbuch (dictionary) appeared in Sanskrit. 

"We Europeans, 2,500 years later, and in a scientific age, still employ an alphabet which is not only inadequate to represent all the sounds of our language, but even preserve the random order which vowels and consonants are jumbled up as they were in the Greek adaptation of the primitive Semitic arrangement of 3,000 years ago."

It is a Western deception of the Christian world to deny the Ancient Sanskrit language its due compliments.

Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963) first President of India, said, “Sanskrit provided perhaps the most important focal point from which emanated cultural and political unity.” 

K. M. Munshi (1887-1971) aptly pointed out that “without Sanskrit Bharat would be nothing but a bundle of linguistic groups.”

“ The Sanskrit language is a marvel of marvels, an epitome of the people’s genius, a picture of people’s character, absolutely unique as a reflection of the perfect uniquity of the people of this land, of its social structure and of its Dharma.  The vastness of the language, the copiousness of its lexicons, its fluidity or the capacity to embrace the existent and the non- existent equally marks out the Sanskrit language as the language of languages, the language of the Gods (Deva Bhasa), the language of mere mortals, with their restricted notions, limited wants and closed outlook.”

Sardar K. M. Panikkar (1896-1963) pointed out:

“It is one common inheritance of Bharat. The unity of Bharat will collapse if it breaks away from Sanskrit and the Sanskritic traditions.” 

(source: Reviving Sanskrit Teaching - By Mohan Gupta http://www.newsindia-times.com/20010622/viewpoint01.htm).

Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his Discovery of India:

 “If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her greatest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Sanskrit language and literature and all that it contains. This is a magnificent inheritance, and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue.” ...India built up a magnificent language, Sanskrit, and through this language, and its art and architecture, it sent its vibrant message to far away countries.

(source: Know your values - K R Malkani  http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/291101/detide01.asp).

B S V Prasad has written: "Sanskrit literature is a perfect form of a perfect pleasure. It becomes a lifelong obsession for most connoisseurs; I know of no other body of literature that is so wholesome, so cultivating and uplifting, and so timeless in its appeal to readers. Sanskrit literature easily spans a period of some 5000 years; even though the language was no longer being spoken in the streets as far back as 1000 BC, literature continues to be created in Sanskrit to this day."

(source: Kalidasa and Ancient India - B S V Prasad - sulekha.com).

The sheer volume of Sanskrit literature is immense, and it remains largely unexplored.  History, philosophy, music, astronomy, geography, medicine and other disciplines.  It is an immense reservoir that needs to be tapped so that we understand our own history over the past five millennia.

Sanskrit is a very scientific language. Linguists hold that it shows no trace of a growing language. Its entire grammatical mechanism is perfected, every tense, mood, every number and person of the verb is fixed and all terminations of the casts are firmly established. The antiquity and affinity in forms of grammar and roots of verbs induces the linguists to believe that the Persian, Greek, Teutonic, Slavonic and Celtic races are probably descendents of a common ancestor. Professor Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) of Chicago University holds that Sanskrit language specially the scientific basis of its grammar is "one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence." William Humboldt of Germany is of opinion that language cannot be created artificially, it is the manifestation of power and divinity in man.

The first drama and musical notes are also supposed to have originated from the Vedas. The beautiful literature of the Hindus took thousands of years to develop. It raised the status of Indian civilization and culture. Without knowing this one cannot know the inner soul and glory of India. Speaking only of the vast Vedic literature, the wonderful manifestation of human genius developed through hearing alone.

Moriz Winternitz (1863-1937) wrote, "As the Veda, because of its antiquity, stands at the head of Indian literature no one who has not gained an insight into the Vedic literature can understand the spiritual life and culture of the Indians." 

(source: Ancient Indian Culture at a Glance - By Swami Tattwananda  p. 93-94).

Refer to French version of this chapter - Le Sanscrit - By Dharma Today.

Sanskrit - Mother of European Languages.

Prof. Dean Brown was a Prof. of Physics, U. of Hawaii , Manoa, an eminent Theoretical Physicist cosmologist, philosopher, and Sanskrit scholar who has recently translated the Upanishads. He is the author of the book - The Upanishads: Seven Upanishads and the Aphorisms of Patanjali of Ancient India .  

He points out that most European languages can be traced back to a root language that is also related to Sanskrit - the sacred language of the ancient Vedic religions of India . Many English words actually have Sanskrit origins. Similarly, many Vedic religious concepts can also be found in Western culture.

Watch Sanskrit Tradition - An Interview with Prof. Dean Brown - Thinking Allowed TV.

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The Indian Theatre

The Indian Theatre -  had its earliest beginnings in the Rig Veda which have a certain dramatic character. There are references to Nataka or the drama in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It began to take shape in the song and music and dances of the Krishna legends. Panini, the great grammarian of the 6th century B.C.E. mentions some dramatic forms. A  Natya Shastra - is a treatise on the Art of Theatre.

The dramatic writings of the Hindus are equally remarkable. External nature, as might be expected in a country which is “the epitome of the world,” is the special forte of the Hindu poets, and, in no country, ancient or modern, has Nature (in contradistinction to man) been treated so poetically or so extensively introduced in poetry. 

Creation in perfect harmony with nature is a feature of the Hindu drama. The characters are all creations, perfect in themselves and in their fidelity to nature.  

With regard to the extent to which the dramatic literature has been cultivated in India, Sir William Jones says that the Hindu theatre would fill as many volumes as that of any nation of modern Europe. The Mohammedan conquest of India resulted in the effectual repression of Hindu dramatic writings. Instead of receiving further development, the Hindu drama rapidly declined, and a considerable part of this fascinating literature was forever lost. 

Horace Hyman Wilson (1786-1860) says: “It may also be observed that the dramatic pieces which have come down to us are those of the highest order, defended by their intrinsic purity from the corrosion of time.” Rupaka is the Hindu term for “Play,” and “Dasa Rupaka” or description of the ten kinds of theatrical compositions, is one of the best treatises on dramatic literature and shows the extent to which dramatic literature was cultivated by the Hindus.   

Kalidasa - Ancient India's immortal Poet

The best known dramatists of the Hindus are Kalidasa and Bhavbhuti. Kalidasa, “one of the greatest dramatists the world has ever produced,” flourished in the reign of Vikramaditya in the first century B.C. while Bhavbhuti lived many centuries later. The masterpieces of Kalidasa is the play of Shakuntala. The plot of this “astonishing literary performance,” as a great German critic calls it, is taken from the Mahabharata. 

Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeran (1760-1842) speaks in rapturous terms of this “far-famed drama,” which is incomparable for its beauty, charm, tenderness and fidelity to nature, and which, in fact, stands at the head of the dramatic literature of the world. He says: “And we must, in truth, allow Kalidasa to be one of those poets who have done honor not merely to their nation but to all civilized mankind.” 

Alexander Von Humboldt also notes the masterly mode in which Kalidasa describes “the influence of nature upon the minds of lovers, his tenderness in the expression of feelings, and above all the richness of his creative fancy” Her (Shakuntala’s) love and sorrow,” says Sir William Wilson Hunter (1840-1900) “have furnished a theme for the great, European poet of our age.”

Europe first learned of the old Indian drama from Sir William Jones's translation of Kalidasa's - 'Shakuntala,' published in 1789. Something in the nature of commotion was created among European intellectuals by this discovery and several editions of the book followed. Translation also appeared in German, French, Danish, and Italian. Goethe was powerfully impressed and he paid a magnificent tribute to 'Shakuntala'. The idea of giving a prologue to Faust is said to have originated from Kalidasa's prologue, which was in accordance with the usual tradition of the Sanskrit drama. Kalidasa is acknowledged to be the greatest poet and dramatist of Sanskrit literature.

Shakuntala watercolor - By Kshitin Majumdar 

(source: Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922 - By Partha Mitter fig. XXIX). 

Refer to French version of this chapter - Le Sanscrit - By Dharma Today.

***

Professor Sylvain Levi, French scholar (1863-1935) Orientalist who wrote on Eastern religion, literature, and history. Levi was appointed a lecturer at the school of higher studies in Paris (1886), he taught Sanskrit at the Sorbonne (1889-94) and wrote his doctoral dissertation, Le Théâtre indien ("The Indian Theatre"). In L'Inde et le monde ("India and the World"), he discussed India's role among nations. The Nataka, the Indian drama, says Levi, still remains the happiest invention of the Indian genius. He said: 

' Le nom de Kalidasa domine la poesie indienne et la resume brillamment. Le drama, l'epopee savante.'

(source: The Discovery of India - by Jawaharlal Nehru  p 159).

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) German philosopher, poet and critic, clergyman, born in East Prussia. 

When George Forster sent him his German translation of the English version of the Sakuntala in 1791, Herder responded: 

"I cannot easily find a product of human mind more pleasant than this...a real blossom of the Orient, and the first, most beautiful of its kind! ....Something like that, of course appears once every two thousand years."

He published a detailed study and analysis of Sakuntala, claiming that this work disproved the popular belief that drama was the exclusive invention of the ancient Greeks.

(source: India and World Civilization  - By D. P. Singhal  Part II p.229 -  231).

One of Kalidasa's long poems is the Meghduta, or the Cloud Messenger.  A lover, made captive and separated from his beloved, asks a cloud, during the rainy season, to carry his message of desperate longing to her. To this poem and to Kalidasa, the American scholar, Ryder, has paid a splendid tribute. He refers to the two parts of the poem and says:
  
" The former half is a description of external nature, yet interwoven with human feelings; the latter half is a picture of human heart, yet the picture is framed in natural beauty. So exquisitely is the thing done that none can say which half is superior. Of those who read this perfect poem in the original text, some are moved by the one, some by the other." 

(source: The Discovery of India - by Jawaharlal Nehru  p 159).

One of the lyrics, Meghaduta (The Cloud Messenger), influenced the German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller's drama Maria Stuart (1800), and Shakuntala provided the idea for the prologue to the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust (first part, 1808; second, 1832).

"Kalidasa understood in the fifth century what Europe did not learn until the 19th century, and even now comprehends only imperfectly, that the world was not made for man, that man reaches his full stature only as he realizes the dignity and worth of life that is not human. That Kalidasa seized this truth is a magnificent tribute to his intellectual power, a quality quite as necessary to great poetry as perfection of form. Poetical fluency is not rare; intellectual grasp is not very uncommon; but the combination of the two has not been found perhaps more than a dozen times since the world began. Because he possessed this harmonious combination, Kalidasa ranks not with Horace or Shelley, but with Sophocles, Virgil and Milton."

(source: The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru   p 159-160).

Menaka and baby. Rishi Vishvamitra disowns the baby. The mother Menaka
abandons the baby too. The baby girl is taken care of by Sage Kanva and
grows to be Shakuntala.