Being one if not, undoubtedly the oldest language in India, Sanskrit was the earliest available literature on earth where no other language has any book or text which is older than Vedas available to us. This was the subject of a discussion hosted by the Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture (IGCIC) where Professor Jatindra Mohan Mishra discussed the language’s rich history in an interactive session with attendees, mostly IGCICI students, new to the language were given a peek by introducing themselves in the language. Don’t they say, the best way to understand a language is to converse with each other?
Director at IGCIC Shri Balwant Thakur during his speech welcoming the Professor in those terms: “As one of the best professors in India Pr Jatindra Mishra’s credentials speak for himself where we are fortunate to have such scholars dedicated to the promotion of Sanskrit.”
The Director announced that IGCIC is also mulling the possibility of teaching Sanskrit very soon at the centre where the structuring of classes such as Sanskrit and Hindi are being structured to be dispensed soon.
Yoga Guru Sowmya Ji in her speech in Sanskrit whose efforts and initiatives was lauded by the IGCIC director remarked: “Sanskrit has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgement being one of the most magnificent, the most perfect and wonderfully sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind at once, majestic, sweet, flexible, strong while at the same being clearly formed, full, vibrant and subtle.”
She emphasised the fact: “In today’s so-called modern, fast-paced and materialistic world, people are often disinclined towards the classical Indo-European language Sanskrit where the disrespect towards this beautiful and diverse language is widely evident when many absurdly term it as a dead language myopically believing Sanskrit to be a language used only in temples and holy ceremonies and consider it to be the language of sadhus. As a part of the upliftment of the language, we at IGCIC have started teaching basics of Sanskrit to the Yoga students.”
At the outset, Professor Jatindra Mohan Mishra took the students along and engaged everyone by encouraging them in speaking to each other in Sanskrit. For the uninitiated to one of the richest Indian languages, “Bhavatah Nama Kim? Translated into What’s Your name setting the tone for a lively workshop with an enthusiastic audience. Professor Mishra explained that Sankrit is undoubtedly one of the earliest available on earth coupled with the fact that no language has any book or text older than Vedas available where it has few layers such as Rig Vedic Sanskrit as the earliest available.
On a question of the audience on the availability of google translate for Sanskrit, he told: “Google is mostly a use-oriented and value-needs platform to the intention of mass of people resorting it as a tool for several other languages.”
“There are some parts of Sanskrit available with few machines and at the same time, such software needs human resources and there is not much of a need to translate the language on Google,” he added.
The history of Sanskrit as a language carries several layers with many Indian scholars believing that it existed between 7000 BC to 10,000 BC while modern, Western and European believe that Ayurvedic age range between 1,500 to 2,000 BC. “One thing is that it is unanimously agreed that Sanskrit remains the oldest available literature and in a context where no language can live beyond 800 years while Sanskrit is older than 5,000 to 10,000 where it has remained in the same format or nature since the last 2,500 years.”
An inference is drawn to the fact that even Shakespearean English is hard to understand today, thus reaffirming the belief that every 40 km languages tend to change and difficult to understand. An interesting aspect, says Professor Mishra that in India language changes as one travels from one state to another. “The vastness of India as a country where languages is like a river, from Ganga flowing from Himalaya, the Gangotri to Hrishikesh, Haridwar, Benaras towards the States of Bihar, Bengal to Bangladesh.
As we speak about languages, Professor Mishra explains that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages where Indian languages bear similarities with European languages. “There are 12 families of languages in the world and out of which the biggest family is the Indo-European family of languages, covering the Indian subcontinent, Europe, and the middle under the Arabian nations where the latter differs from the Chinese, Thai, Japanese, African aborigines or Australian families, for that matter.”
The similarities between languages are interesting and rich insights offered by the learned scholar with Matr for mother while in Greek it can be spelled as matter, Pitr for father, Bhratr for brother, Svasr standing for sister, and Dwhitr for daughter.
