Sanskrut : The unexplored language

Sanskrut is cool because of the self-awareness of the interaction of language with cognitive experience. – Dr. James Hartzell

Sanskrut as a language is well organised. The word ‘Sanskrut’ means refined and ordered. Sanskrut has been the language of India for approximately 6,000 years. In India, Sanskrut was the language of communication for a long time, from the Rugveda period to the Buddhist era.

Sanskrut is the most systematic language in the world. Many scholars have commented on the remarkable structure of the Sanskrut language and how well it compares with the other classical languages of the world. Of the language, Friedrich Max Muller writes, “Sanskrut is to the science of language what mathematics is to astronomy”.

Some amazing facts about Sanskrut include :

• It is the oldest language in the world
• Sanskrut is known as the mother of all languages
• Sanskrut travelled to South-East Asian countries including Vietnam and Cambodia.
• Sanskrut holds immense importance in studies of the Indo-European culture and philosophy.

The three grammarians who shaped the course of the Sanskrut language are – Panini, Katyayana and Patanjali. Sanskrut has not seen much change over the ages.

As Surendranath Dasgupta and Sushil Kumar De say in ‘A history of Sanskrut literature’ – “Sanskrut was indeed the language not only of kavya or literature but of all the Indian sciences and exciting the Pali of the Hinayana Buddhists and the Prakrut of the Jains, it was the only language in which the whole of India expressed all her best thoughts for the last 2 or 3 thousand years, it has united the culture of India and it has given it synchronous form in spite of general differences of popular speech, racial and geographical, economical and other differences”.

Sanskrut has both an oral and a written tradition. In the courts of the Indian Kings lived the Sutas who were wandering storytellers. They kept alive the oral Sanskrut tradition as did the priests who memorised and chanted the Vedas.

Sanskrut is not a spoken language, but not dead. Sanskrut is found in all the major languages spoken in India. Despite being a very classical language, Sanskrut remains relevant today and there is in wake of the internet revolution a renaissance in the language. To understand the revival of the language today, one must first understand the importance of the language to the Indian culture, civilization and thought. Writes Alain Danielou in ‘Virtue, Success, Pleasure and Liberation’ – “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. Sanskrut 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 Sanskrut, and important texts existing in other languages were translated and adapted into Sanskrut. For this reason, very few ancient literary, religious, or philosophical documents exists in India in other languages. The sheer volume of Sanskrut literature is immense, and it remains largely unexplored”.

Sanskrut embodies the vast knowledge of ancient India.