IMPORTANCE OF SANSKRIT

Fs. Sanskrit importance
1. Congratulating the host and audience for this unique function - honouring a Sanskrit scholar on the occasion of a marriage ceremony. I respect Sh. Ramchandran ji for his novel thought process in every field of life. I have written his nickname Railway in may diary just for remembering. Not that he met me first time in a Railway train, or he has worked in Railway Department. He has a very, very high notions about railways, he equates Railways with Mahakal, working day and night, no rest on Sunday, not waiting for anybody, rich or poor and high and low. One day he exhorted me this idea about idea and whenever I visit s Railway station, all of sudden I a reminded of the greatness of railways and also Sh. ramchandran ji. so when I called me for this function, I could not just synchronised marriage of his daughter and honouring of a Sanskrit scholar, what is common between the two. But I was reminded of his railways and his superb thinking and believed whatever Ramchandrean ji is doing, there might be some logic behind it. And of course there is,
2. These days again Sanskrit has become a talking points, thanks to Smriti Irani and Dina Nath batra for making Sanskrit a third language in stead of German in the Kendriya Vidyalya of whole of India amidst all this hue and cry. Second thing of controversy is demand Declaring a Sanskrit scripture Shrimadbhagwatgeeta a national scripture. So Sanskrit is a talk of town, no talk of the country nowadays, rightly or wrongly.
3. Swadeshi word itself finds it's origin from Sanskrit, so both are interlinked. For Swadeshi going to indigenous roots is essential and it is Sanskrit that it exists in it's Textual form and contains all the indigenous knowledge.
4. On any hospital OPD is essential and similarly with these three words
Importance of Sanskrit Language may be explained. First O stands or Old - it's oldest language not only of India, or Asia but whole of the world. But in spite of being old,it is also still lively, not dead, as the case with several old languages of the world. P stands for Permeative, In all languages, whether of east west, north to south, are permeated with the Sanskrit heritage. ( it's is said that Tamil literature somewhat maintained a separate literary tradition but would like our scholar Sh. To talk on this point definitely. people differ about the percentage but everybody is of the view that more than 50 words of all the languages of the country are full of Sanskrit roots. It may be the case with other languages of the Asia as well as of the world.
DESIRED. The third word D stands for desired, it is still required and desired everywhere. It's not a dead language but it has qualities to revive several aspects of our national life. For understanding Ayurveda, for understanding Vedic arithmetics, for use in computers, for understanding economics of Chankya's arthshastra, it's then only setu, bridge over whole of India, linguistic differences and differences of sects, class and caste and more precisely the difference of south and north.
FOUR STORIES TO BE TOLD REGARDIMG THE IMPORTANCE OF SANSKRIT:
1. Agnee mile purohitam, His Masters Voice company, Thomas Alva Edison, Max Muller, Atharva Vedas, first hymn, Vedas richa, ( first time stored in metallic voice, controversy, as max muller died in 1900, but rerecording done in 1920..
B. Openhymer and Gita, c. Worldsworth ode to immortality, D. Organic khad.. SHIT,
5. History of Sanskrit in the recent past.
When English people came to india and noticed it's beauty they were simply charmed and bewildered. But later on when they made up their mind firmly to establish a long term colony in India they saw Sanskrit as their biggest enemy, and tried to thwart it by every means possible.

The `discovery of Sanskrit' by the West is usually associated with the
memorable utterance of Sir William Jones in his third annual address before the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, on February 2, 1786. He spoke so meticulously about Sanskrit that I am tempted to quote verbatim from his address only one sentence, though this one sentences comprises of not less than 125 words..
``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 philosopher could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source which, perhaps, no longer exists ; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forceful, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a different idiom, have the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family.''

This statement of Sir William Jones is considered as the starting point of
comparative Linguistics of the Indo-European languages. He was not any ordinary man, He came to India as the Judge of the Supreme Court of India in 1783; he founded the Asiatic Society on February 2, 1782. He translated Kalidasa's Shakuntala into English in 1789 on reading which the great German poet philosopher Goethe went into raptures.
Sir William Jones also made a conjecture that Sandracottos of the ancient Greek writers was Chandragupta Maurya of the Puranas; this has been accepted by almost all scholars, and this has proved to be a pivotal one for ancient Indian history and chronology.

Second turn came with Lord Macaulay.
.
With the entry of T. B. Macaulay, who was the 'Secretary to the Board of Control' and looking into the affairs of India, things changed very fast. Macaulay advocated that for taking complete control of the country teaching of Sanskrit has to be stopped and only English should be promoted.

He argued that support for the publication of books in Sanskrit (and Arabic) should be withdrawn, support for traditional education should be reduced to funding for (the Madrassa at Delhi) and the Hindu College at Benares, but students should no longer be paid to study at these establishments. The money released by these steps should instead go to fund education in Western subjects, with English as the language of instruction. One more quotation is essential to be quoted verbatim. He said,

...that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing; that English is better worth knowing than Sanskrit or Arabic; that the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanskrit or Arabic; that neither as the languages of law, nor as the languages of religion, have the Sanskrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to our engagement; that it is possible to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to be directed.
This policy resulted in the Education Act of 1835. Thereafter, all Sanskrit schools and institutions lost to the British policies and bureaucracy and Sanskrit suffered irreparable damage.

Third turn came after it.
A battery of British scholars started learning Sanskrit and based on whatever they could learn of Sanskrit in a year or two, they started translating the ancient scriptures and documents in English. While in India they started a propaganda claiming that Sanskrit was a dying language; but ironically Sanskrit was being introduced in almost all universities in Europe. The tardy and incorrect translations based on desultory learning of the British scholars became an introduction of Hinduism and Sanskrit to the rest of the English-speaking world. Selected works with twisted translations which presented Hinduism and India in bad light were promoted with full vigour to highlight how bad the system of India was. The language of instruction of Sanskrit for higher education in India was changed to English and almost all top positions of Sanskrit professors were occupied by Europeans. The neo-scholars of English language of Indian origin, who could not be educated in Sanskrit, also started relying on the English translations by the European authors, which also got referred in all subsequent works. Unfortunately, if one picks up any Indian textbook on History, the same propaganda continues. Among the list of books referred to prepare any History textbooks; one can find that 80 per cent of them are by foreign authors and rest are using their work as leading references. Nearly 200 years of this kind of propaganda not only polluted our culture but also almost destroyed the learning of Sanskrit.

Professor Max Muller's ( some eminent Hindu saints used to call him Moksha Mulla मोक्षमूल Mokshamula) contribution to the popularization of Sanskrit has been the most important and also controversial in the nineteenth century. He made a critical edition of the entire Rigveda with Sayana’s Bhashya in about 25 years (1852-75). He also conceived a project of translating into English, with the collaboration
of many scholars, the 'Sacred Books of the East' . he was a German and not pro-Catholic. After the critical edition of the Rigveda and the series of then Sacred Books of the East of which 31 were devoted to the Indian texts alone, he retired in 1875 as Professor of Comparative Philosophy, for completing the preparation of the Sacred Books of the East. He died in 1900.

Max Muller did not visit India. He said he did not want to go to Benaras,
for he was sure to be disillusioned if he saw the city as it was then. ( perhaps Shri Modi has read about this and chosen Benaras for transformation. Vivekananda visited him in England. Max Muller appreciated the work done by Tilak. Tilak was released from prison because of the intervention of Max Muller who wrote a petition to Queen Victoria.
After independence.

Sanskrit Post-Independence

During the framing of India's Constitution, there were long debates on official language of the Country and the role of Sanskrit. The 'Constituent Assembly' and the sub-committee formed on 'Languages' highlighted the need to undo what the Britishers had done and emphasised on the need to make Hindi as the language of the State so that the common man can be empowered and made a part of the Government. Article 343 of the Constitution specifically provided that English as a State language would be phased out in 15 years period and Hindi would be the State language. Sanskrit was also considered to be made the official language, but it was felt that the country should wait for some more time before initiating such an effort. In the same spirit, Article 351 specifically mentioned that for enriching Hindi language, Sanskrit would be used. The Constitution of India directs under Article 351 that wherever necessary or desirable, for development of Hindi vocabulary, it shall be expanded primarily based on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.

The then political leadership was fully aware about the importance of Sanskrit and a handful of our leaders did highlight their concerns then and now. While underscoring the importance of Sanskrit, first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru said;

If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly - 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 the basic genius of India will continue.

However, the efforts and dreams of the Constitution framers could not be fully realised even after over 60 years of Independence. The resistance did not come from the people but from the English-speaking bureaucracy and the foreign-trained English speaking politicians of the country, who continued to look down upon Hindi and Sanskrit as lesser languages, and as the languages of uneducated people.

Present state of affairs

Various commissions and committees have highlighted the importance of Sanskrit and the need to restore it to its old glory. All our texts, documents and scriptures are in Sanskrit; losing the language would be losing our roots. Besides, Sanskrit is the most structured and scientific language spoken anywhere in the world. In its syntax, grammar and structure, no other language can match it. 'Sanskrit Commission' which was set up by the Government of India, in its 1957 report specifically pointed out that Sanskrit is one of the greatest languages of the world and it is the classical language par excellence not only of India but of a good part of Asia as well. The report states the Indian people look upon Sanskrit as the binding force for the different people of this great country and described this as the greatest discovery made by the Commission as it travelled from Kerala to Kashmir and from Kamarupa to Saurastra. The commission, while so travelling, found that though the people of this country differed in a number of ways, they all were proud to regard themselves as participants in common heritage and that heritage emphatically is the heritage of Sanskrit.

India's official education policy specifically mentions that facilities for the intensive study of Sanskrit has to be encouraged. Still, the apathy, neglect and propaganda against Sanskrit has been so much that the Supreme Court of India had to intervene in 1994 to declare that Sanskrit has to be a part of education. However, the various States of India are still disadvantaging, discouraging and discriminating education in Sanskrit at School, College and University level. Sanskrit learning has been stopped in many schools in want of teachers and funds. In Colleges and Universities, courses are being closed down and students are being discouraged; indirect discouragement and strategic discouragement is caused by limiting financial resources. Though Sanskrit is a subject for appearing in Civil Services, the State and Universities are providing no facilities to students for preparing for civil services in Sanskrit, whereas other subjects are being patronised.

As a result of this systematic propaganda against this great heritage, offensives of the British rulers, and poor support for Sanskrit post-independence, the language has now been reduced to a poor minority. According to the 2001 census of India, there remain only 14,135 speakers of Sanskrit in Hindustan. According to the Indian Census policy, if the total number of speakers of any language is reduced to less than 10,000, it wouldn't even be reported as a separate language.
If we want to preserve our heritage, the indifference towards Sanskrit has to stop. The importance of the study of Sanskrit goes far beyond the aesthetic
What should be done?
Sanskrit is the key to most of the branches of the
study of Indian civilization and the contribution of this civilization to
the development of human thought and culture are considerable. The study
of Indian classics is the foundation for the study of one of the major and
ancient civilizations of the world.
B. All be taught some initial sentences in Sanskrit, or the usual words of common use.
C. Government support be given to it in whatever form possible.
D. Remembering or memorising some shalokas of bhagwat Gita or some Sanskrit scriptures daily, good that Sangh prarthana is in sanskrit,all the cautions are in Sanskrit,
E. Promotion of spoken, simple Sanskrit as adopted by Sanskrit bharati. Revival, 2.9 million means 29 Lakh students participated in their courses or classes. Trying to remove five types of conflicts in india as well as the world. Class Caste, sect, linguistic, north vs south, and listening and speaking should precede reading and writing, Helping this organisation.

F. One activist Hemant Goswami from Chandigarh also filed a writ petition in Punjab and Haryana high court that Sanskrit be accorded the status of language Minority status, as it is accorded to some communities.
G. Last but not the least, the Sanskrit-German controversy had given rise to a new set of advocates who are software experts of computer science. Paninian or Classical Sanskrit (as contrasted with Vedic Sanskrit) is the most refined and precise human language ever invented. It has an astonishing property known as a "context-free grammar", and so many new experts claim, it is the only human language that has ever had this. Context-free means that the language is utterly unambiguous, and every sentence in it can be derived precisely from a set of rules. In Paninian Sanskrit, as embodied in the Ashtadhyayi, there are 3959 rules.
From several points of view, thus, Sanskrit is not only the one candidate that deserves to be the national language - much as Israelis resurrected the once-moribund Hebrew - but it is by many measures the most perfect language ever invented: truly samskrt or civilized. There should be no reason to fuss even if it is imposed; much less when it is merely being put back into the syllabus where it used