Sanskrit is the most ancient language and perfect among the great languages in the world.It is the greatest treasure given to the world by ancient India.Sanskrit is universally recognized as the language containing the earliest literature in the world. It has been established as one of the ancient branches of the Indo-European family of languages, an elder sister of the ancient classical languages of Europe like Greek and Latin; modern North Indian languages are derived from it, and even the South Indian languages are saturated with Sanskrit words. For expanding the vocabulary to cope with the development of civilization, all languages of India and some of the neighboring languages like Singhalese, Burmese and Malaysian depend heavily on Sanskrit loan words. The discovery of Sanskrit as a sister language of the West made it an essential tool to understand the origin and early stages of the European languages, and European scholars began to study Sanskrit as their own language.It is being said that there is more awareness and a growing interest in the West for Sanskrit studies than in India. This is because Sanskrit is recognized as the earliest member of the Indo-European family by the world.
Greatness of Sanskrit:
Sanskrit literature is an ocean that contains many pearls of wisdom. It is the source for Vedas, Sastrams, Kavyams and is the language of gods.
Greatness in its formation and uniqueness of the grammar:
The sound of each of the 36 consonants and the 16 vowels of Sanskrit are fixed and precise since the very beginning. They were never changed, altered, improved or modified. All the words of the Sanskrit language always had the same pronunciation as they have today. There was no ‘sound shift,’ no change in the vowel system, and no addition was ever made in the grammar of the Sanskrit in relation to the formation of the words. The reason is its absolute perfection by its own nature and formation.
The morphology of word formation is unique and of its own kind where a word is formed from a tiny seed root (called dhatu) in a precise grammatical order which has been the same since the very beginning. Any number of desired words could be created through its root words and the prefix and suffix system as detailed in the Ashtadhyayi of Panini. Furthermore, 90 forms of each verb and 21 forms of each noun or pronoun could be formed that could be used in any situation.
There has never been any kind, class or nature of change in the science of Sanskrit grammar as seen in other languages of the world as they passed through one stage to another.
The perfect form of the Vedic Sanskrit language had already existed thousands of years earlier even before the infancy of the earliest prime languages of the world like Greek, Hebrew and Latin etc.
When any language is spoken by unqualified people the pronunciation of the word changes to some extent; and when these words travel by word of mouth to another region of the land, with the gap of some generations, it permanently changes its form and shape to some extent. Just like the Sanskrit word matri, with a long ‘a’ and soft ‘t,’ became mater in Greek and mother in English. The last two words are called the ‘apbhransh’ of the original Sanskrit word ‘matri.’ Such apbhranshas of Sanskrit words are found in all the languages of the world and this situation itself proves that Sanskrit was the mother language of the world.
It is quite evident from the above statements that Sanskrit is the source of all the languages of the world and not a derivation of any language. As such, Sanskrit is the Divine mother language of the world.
“Samskrit language, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect, the most prominent and wonderfully sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind.”
:: –Sri Aurobindo
“If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her greatest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that 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 will the basic genius of India continue.”
— — Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (Quoted from ‘The Discovery of India’)
Importance:
Sanskrit can unite the country:
People of every region in the country can easily relate with Sanskrit and that is the best tool to unite the country. There are many great works in Sanskrit.Our very Indianess is linked with that language. As the future generations have to study them, learning Sanskrit is necessary.The Nobel Laureate physicist, Dr. C.V. Raman, believed that Sanskrit was the only language that could be the national language of India. He said, “Sanskrit flows through our blood. It is only Sanskrit that can establish the unity of the country.” It is true that a national language is a very important element in the growth and self-actualisation of a people and a nation. It helps to develop and also to give expression to their heart, mind and soul. Says Sri Aurobindo, “It is of the utmost value to a nation, a human group-soul, to preserve its language and to make of it a strong and living cultural instrument. A nation, race or people which loses its language, cannot live its whole life or its real life.”A vast and diverse country like India needs a national language that can unify and harmonise. We have seen that Sanskrit was this great unifying force for centuries. Even when India was not a single political unit, Sanskrit made the Indian people one in spirit, heart and culture.
Benefits:
The first point which gives Sanskrit an edge over many other languages is its script. Usually Sanskrit is written in Devanagari. Which is easy to write and pronounce perfectly once learned.
A recent research by the scientists of National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) have discovered that reading Devanagari involves more areas of human brain than Roman Scripts (please note, English uses a roman script). That means learning Sanskrit is a good exercise for human brain.According to them, In Devanagari, consonants are written in a linear left-to-right order and vowel signs are positioned above, below or on either side of the consonants. As a result, the vowel precedes the consonant in writing certain words but follows it in speech making it a unique script. “Our results suggest bilateral activation-participation from both left and right hemispheres of the brain-for reading phrases in Devanagari”.
If someone does not know Sanskrit, he is obviously missing something. He cannot get the clear perspective of Vedas, Geeta, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Arthashashtra and many other books, which are till regarded as the finest piece by a large portion of our society.Even though translated versions are available they always create a wall behind the reader and the original book.
Even to be a master of subjects like Ayurvedic Medicine, Yoga, Indian philosophy, Vedic Mathematics or Astrology, one need to know Sanskrit to some extent.
Knowledge of Sanskrit helps one in learning other languages :
It is now seen that knowledge in Sanskrit accelerates the learning of English. This news may astonish someone on the first glance. But, we need to keep in mind that it has a perfect grammar and nicely-built structure. Once KWH Schlegel, an eminent German critic, said -”Justly it is called Sanskrit, i.e. perfected, finished…..The Sanskrit combines these various qualities, possessed separately by other tongues: Grecian copiousness, deep-toned Roman force, the divine afflatus characterizing the Hebrew tongue.”
Probably, that’s why if someone learn Sanskrit properly, he can learn English quickly. Ficino School in Mt Eden area of Auckland (a school in New Zealand) has experimented with it and found that Sanskrit provides a roadmap for understanding English. Besides giving a clear view of the structure of language, it also heightens “their awareness of the process of speech, creating a greater understanding of and ability to, enunciate words clearly.”
Not only English but it is easy to learn any Indian language once we learn sanskrit because almost the grammar, pronunciation and script are similar to sanskrit.
Sanskrit as Computer Language:
In near future NASA is going to use Sanskrit as a computer Language. NASA scientist Rick Briggs discussed why Sanskrit is one of the best language for use in computer long ago (in 1985) in his paper Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence. According to him, Sanskrit is the natural language in which a message can be sent by the computer in the least number of words. Three excerpts from that paper, I find particularly worth-mentioning.
We can conclude that Sanskrit is great property given to us by our ancestors. It is considered that Sanskrit is difficult to learn but Sanskrit is deeply connected to our mother tongue which makes us easier to learn it.Nowadays number people who speak sanskrit is declining.It is challenge for us whether we can revive Sanskrit and make it spoken language once again.Israel is a great example they led a movement to revive their cultural Hebrew language,which was also considered once a dead language,today they made it a official language which made them develop from their roots.
“The only solution to be reached was the findings of a great sacred language of which all others would be considered as manifestations and that was found in Sanskrit.” –Swami Vivekananda.
The Sanskrit Universities are specialized universities that aim to promote and spread sanskrit education, shastraic education and related research.
The following is a list of at least 18 Sanskrit universities in India (3 central, 1 deemed and 14 state universities) which are only focused on Sanskrit revival and Sanskrit studies along with related disciplines like Ayurveda.
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