Author:
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: April 7, 2001
A proposal to turn Sanskrit into
a "spoken" language is bound to sound a little startling, even if it comes
from as high an authority as the prime minister himself. But in a world
which is rapidly turning into a wasteland for traditional humanities studies,
the promise of reviving interest in a classical language is definitely
invigorating. It would be inappropriate, therefore, to dismiss the World
Sanskrit Conference being held in New Delhi as a gathering of fuddy-duddies.
The most important thing to come out of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's speech
at the conference is the resolution of the government to promote the study
of Sanskrit. Shorn of its associations with caste, class and religion,
the study of Sanskrit remains one of the basic classical disciplines in
India. The importance of learning a classical language in school is acknowledged
the world over, although the tendency to dispense with "dead" languages
has recently also become global. But public schools in England, such as
Eton, and schools in Europe, the United States and in some of the former
British colonies which follow the traditional grammar school model, have
compulsory Latin and quite a lot of Greek, and sometimes other classical
languages depending on regional or cultural relevance. The exit of Sanskrit
from the Indian school curriculum in the Eighties was nothing to celebrate.
Its return would be a good thing.
The learning of a classical language,
however, imposes certain conditions. It cannot be learnt without the grammar.
That is why it is particularly important to introduce Sanskrit in the school
curriculum. In his eagerness to make the teaching of Sanskrit "attractive",
Mr Vajpayee has played down the usefulness of grammar. What he has suggested
is a kind of "non-formal" learning, so that the language becomes "popular"
and can be "spoken". This is in tune with the general devaluing of grammar
in the teaching of all languages, classical or modern. The tendency seems
to be generated by a misplaced zeal to make the teaching of languages "easier".
The reckless disregard of the importance of correct and creative language
use is an idiosyncrasy of modern teaching. No learning is ever easy, not
even the first breath a baby takes upon being born. There is no reason
why acquiring an intellectual discipline should be easy. After all, no
one expects a child to learn physics without first learning its basic laws.
Learning the grammar of a classical
language has special advantages. In the first place, it introduces the
student to a mode of rigorous intellectual discipline. Sanskrit would equip
him for easy entry into other languages of the Indo-Aryan group and make
far more accessible the acquisition, even at a working level, of most other
Indian languages. Thus it would open out both the outside world and that
within the country. It is one of the happier paradoxes that the revival
of a discipline that could become a weapon in the hands of chauvinists
can actually bring closer a world of knowledge beyond national boundaries.
Perhaps it is part of the same paradox that a knowledge of Sanskrit would
also make available ancient texts, of history, philosophy, aesthetics,
ethics, politics, medicine and literature, thus enriching the understanding
of the many-hued civilization and culture of contemporary India. The attractions
of Sanskrit are not dependent on dispensing with the grammar. A little
basic grammar would allow youngsters to start reading simple texts, and
both grammar and text can be studied side by side. In fact, this combination
is the best way to make children start writing in a classical language,
the only way to infuse "life" into neglected Sanskrit.
Mr Vajpayee has done his cause an
injustice by emphasizing the aim to make Sanskrit a spoken language. That
is quite irrelevant. The learning of a classical language, Sanskrit, Latin,
Greek, old Persian, Arabic, or classical Hebrew, is tremendously valuable
both for the learning process itself and as a grounding for any advanced
intellectual discipline. Whether such a language will become a "living"
language or not is for the future to decide.
