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Sanskrit ought to be the national language
of India
Both Sri Aurobindo and Mother have suggested that
Sanskrit should be the national language of India, while the Mother also
foresaw that in Auroville Sanskrit would be one of the four main
languages to be taught in the schools. Hence, Sanskrit classes and
programmes are regularly taking place. There are courses on Vedas,
Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, as well as classes in grammar and spoken
Sanskrit. There are also chanting classes. The main challenge is to
create a linguistic environment, where people could learn and use the
language.
Presently there are several teachers of Sanskrit in Auroville who run
these courses: Sampat (Indian), Vigyan (Indo-Canadian), Joy (Indian),
Jyoti (Indian) and Vladimir (Ukrainian). It is the latter who shares
here his love for and understanding of the language.
A tongue of all peoples
The tongue of the Vedic Rishis, spoken by Aryan people, was the origin
for many modern languages of India. It was a tongue of all peoples and
not only of higher castes.
From very ancient times, and especially in the
medieval period of India's history, Sanskrit was prakritised
(assimilated by common people) many times, bringing to birth all the
major Indian languages as 'Prakrits', though Sanskrit itself remained
apart. Already from the times of Panini, 6th century B.C., the language
was known to have many dialects, which Panini tried to reconcile into
one common form. To do this, he fixed its usage in terms of grammar,
while still allowing various dialectical options. Panini was dealing
with Sanskrit as Bhasha, a spoken language, distinguishing it from the
poetic Vedic speech, called Chandas. Usually Sanskrit was referred to as
Arsha-Bhasha, the language of the Rishis, and later as Deva-Bhasha, the
language of the Gods.
Special inner concentration
The word samskrita comes into use later (from the times of Shikshas and
Natyashastra), meaning 'put together', 'perfected', 'polished',
'accomplished', 'highly elaborated'. This was the language of a special
inner concentration, developed and consciously perfected during
thousands of years, instead of being developed by a natural selection
process, as has normally been the case with other languages.
By preserving its own pure existence over several
millennia, Sanskrit gave birth to the Indo-Arian family of languages,
and influenced them from its own, so to say, detached state of
existence. The world does not know any such similar phenomenon in the
history of languages! This is to be seen as a miraculous event in the
history of human civilisation.
Powerful instrument of expression
The preservation of the original system of etymons, simple root-sounds,
and a clear, highly elaborated derivative system, grammar, made Sanskrit
a powerful and steady instrument for the expression of the widest and
deepest possible ranges of man's consciousness and existence.
With the discovery of Sanskrit in the West, a new
era in the history of mankind began. Branches of science like
comparative philology, mythology, psychology, the history of religions,
etc, came into existence, with their target being discovery of the
common ground of the world's civilisations. This new perception has
become a unifying force of knowledge towards the future realisation of
human unity.
Parent language
Seen from this viewpoint, Sanskrit can already be considered as the
national language of India, being the parent of the country's main
modern languages, standing behind them, so to speak, inspiring and
watching their mergence, their growth and development, while influencing
them all the time. The only thing to be done now is to bring Sanskrit
itself to the forefront, and to make it more active and living again, so
that it becomes the language of common use for all people throughout
India.
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