On the internet, anything can go viral, and anytime. On one such group, yesterday was posted a much touted video. It discussed the importance of speaking and spreading Sanskrit. Presenting it was Anil Kumble, extremely well-known for his genuineness, integrity and sincerity. Remember his bowling record, and, that, too with a bandage literally from head to chin to cheeks?
Obviously such a video catches eyeballs. Accompanying him was his wife. The thumbnail described the video as a token of the importance of the Sanskrit day and the Sanskrit week. The entire presentation was such that anybody would think of today as the Sanskrit day.
Actually, the Sanskrit day falls on Shrawan Pournima. Beyond such confusion date wise, the video, otherwise, was a great promotion of speaking in Sanskrit.
The theme reminds me of a wonderful video made by the 'Prachyam' group. It discusses in thorough detail how Sanskrit is very much alive, a very important point because it is fashionable to describe and dismiss Sanskrit as a dead, though classical, language.
This 'Prachyan' video provides wonderful details. There are eighteen universities teaching Sanskrit, it seems, while at least twenty thousand citizens quote it as their first language! Apparently more than three million people use it as their second and/or third language.
Prof. Tripathy, a well-known Sanskrit scholar, discusses further how hundreds of UGC accredited journals publish articles in Sanskrit, while he himself has prepared a bibliography of works in Sanskrit. It runs in to literally thousands of pages.
In brief, Sanskrit is alive. It is used as a mode of daily lived life. Long continue to live Sanskrit! In this context, and especially given the raging debate about Macaulay's 'Minute', let me inform you that Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted Sanskrit to be the "rajya bhasha." In one of his much quoted statements, he clearly and categorically states that English should be used for about fifteen to twenty years till the bureaucracy is trained in, and gets used to, Sanskrit. Thereafter , Sanskrit, he maintains, would be the language of official communication in India.
That dream may not have been realised. Yet no need for a dirge for the "devbhasha". It is very much alive, and in use. The Kumble video, may be, would prick people's curiosity, and thus would they arrive at the welcome reality of Sanskrit today! Every day, in brief, can be, and should be, a Sanskrit day!
Pratima@Truth is forever stranger, and stronger, too, than fiction or propaganda!
Quote of the day: "Sa vidya ya wimuktye." A tribute to the transformative power of knowledge, it can be translated as "That is knowledge which liberates!"
Word of the day: etymology. Etymology refers to a systematic study of the origin of words. It includes a historical overview of how words changed their shapes and meanings. An example can be the word "villein" which became 'villain'. Not only did the word change its spelling. Its meaning shifted in the diametrically opposite direction. Originally, it meant a farmhand! What an innocent and innocuous interpretation as opposed to its signification today!
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