Subject: [world-vedic] Fwd: What is Sanskrit's Status Today?
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 23:40:48 +0000
From: "Vrn Davan" <vaidika1008@hotmail.com
Reply-To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com
To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com

From: "Ashwini Kumar" <ashwini_kumarr@hotmail.com
Subject: What is Sanskrit's Status Today?
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 23:38:08 -0400

What is Sanskrit's Status Today?

Source: Hindu Press International

MUMBAI, INDIA, August 5, 2002: A recent BBC report by their 
correspondent, Sanjeev Srivastava, begins, "One of the oldest 
languages in the world, Sanskrit, is in danger of becoming extinct in 
India, the country of its origin. Although most Indian languages still 
use the basic grammar of Sanskrit, no more than a few thousand people 
in a country of more than one billion can claim to read, write and 
speak it fluently." The article goes on to say that Mumbai's Bharatiya 
Vidya Bhavan has few students for its Sanskrit courses, and that those 
students face poor job prospects upon graduation. The BBC article 
states that Sanskrit "lacks relevance," although it fails to mention 
that the Hindu scriptures are in Sanskrit or that Hindu temple worship 
is conducted in the language. The article states, "There is a school 
of thought which believes that teaching and learning Sanskrit is a 
complete waste of time and resources, especially as most Sanskrit 
colleges are publicly funded." HPI recalls the origin of this school 
of thought: the 1835 document entitled "Macaulay's Minute on Indian 
Education," in which Lord Macaulay argued successfully to curtail 
British government funding of Sanskrit colleges because "What we spend 
on the ... Sanskrit colleges is ... a dead loss to the cause of 
truth." Macaulay added that it would be wrong for the government to 
"encourage the study of a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic 
value, only because that literature inculcates the most serious errors 
on the most important subjects."

But modern scholars worldwide find great value in Sanskirt. <a 
href="http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~gbuhnema/study.html"Click here</a to 
view a list of 53 major colleges and universities in the world which 
have departments of Sanskrit or offer courses in it. They include the 
great universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Leiden, Oslo, 
Kyoto (which has a large department), and more. Germany has more 
universities teaching Sanskrit, 14, than India itself, ten, at least 
according to this list. The BBC article shows the continued impact of 
Macaulay's plan set forth 167 years ago to, "form a class who may be 
interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern [in India]; a 
class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in 
opinions, in morals and in intellect." And toward this end, Macaulay 
argued that ridding India of its great institutions of Sanskrit 
learning would be a significant step. As a result of his Minute, the 
British rulers closed all Sanskrit colleges in India except at 
Banaras. Hindus should not let the same thinking prevail today, 
rather, India should lead the world in the study of Sanskrit.

Subject: [world-vedic] What is Sanskrit's Status Today?
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 13:36:03 -0000
From: "shrinivast_k11612" <tilak@canada.com
Reply-To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com
To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com

In a recent BBC report by its correspondent Sanjeev Srivastava 
observed, "One of the oldest languages in the world, Sanskrit, is in 
danger of becoming extinct in India, the country of its origin.

It is inappropriate to apply a biological metaphor of life and death 
to languages. No language per se ever dies. It is people who employ 
this or that language, as a means of communication or expression, live 
and die.

It is true that only a few can speak, read or write Sanskrit today. 
But in its days of glory Sanskrit rivaled English as a lingua franca. 
In the nineteenth century India, learning English was compared to the 
drinking of the milk of the tigress. It is possible to bring Sanskrit 
back to that empowering status today.

Sanskrit Bharati, Bangalore, a voluntary organization dedicated to the 
promotion of Sanskrit as a spoken and written language, provides 
volunteer instructors who conduct week end or ten day intensive 
courses on spoken sanskrit (check their web site on the internet for 
details). Here in Montreal we are organizing one such course on the 
week end of Sept 13, 2002.

S. Tilak