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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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