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Sanskrit i pays

We explore the West’s enchantment with our Dev-Bhasha and finds that the mindset of Sanskrit takers here is to primarily find jobs.

The world is amazed to know that ancient Sanskrit texts describe the concepts of zero, the earth revolving around the sun, gravity, geometry, trigonometry, infinity, the decimal system and time. One of the oldest living languages, Sanskrit is the most scientific and unambiguous, according to a study by a NASA scientist Rick Briggs in 1985!

Despite our apathy, it’s interesting to note that foreign universities have a penchant for unravelling our ancient sciences, philosophy and arts scripted in Sanskrit. Now, the Oriental Institute of Baroda is planning to extend their Department of Philosophy and Sanskrit to the UK, encouraged by the huge response from scholars’ research on topics like Vedic architecture, mathematics, philosophy, natyashastra and astrology among others. ML Wadekar, director of the institute notes,"The latest interest in Sanskrit is from Japanese scholars.”

Prof Om Prakash Pandey, having taught Vedic studies at Sorbonne University in Paris, Torino in Italy and Utrecht in Netherlands, marks the “seriousness with which scholars pursue Sanskrit there,” and linguistics professor Dr Nishi Pandey corroborates, “Translations are not enough any more!”

Ayurveda, Yoga, Vaastu, jyotish and Kamasutra are simply the tip of the iceberg. European countries and the US have a huge database of scholarly research in Sanskrit. Rightly so, Dr Chandrakant Dwivedi from the UP Sanskrit Sansthan, observes, “Universities in Germany and France have a huge collection of Indian manuscripts, and some of our research scholars source the original texts from across the seas!” As was the case with Dr Om Prakash Pandey, who found Sadukti-Karnamrut, an 1100-year-old anthology on his sojourn in Paris.

Talking of overseas campuses, noted novelist and Berkeley university lecturer, Vikram Chandra is considering relearning Sanskrit. Recently, the MIT had their graduation ceremony in tune with Sanskrit prayers. Their Vedanta Society holds a weekly satsang of Sanskrit prayers on the campus.

In sync with India’s emerging status as IT power, software is available for multilingual use, and websites offer online Sanskrit dictionaries, translation services, text and quotes. Machine-aided translation tools have been developed at IIT-Kanpur and Chennai, among others. In fact, IIT-Chennai has a functional website with free online Sanskrit classes.

In the light of this, Dr Surendra Jha, heading Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan’s Lucknow campus is quite pleased that all of his 300 students are computer savvy. Dr Vijay Karan differentiates between “the traditional and modern Sanskrit scholars,” and finds his students “bracing for jobs.”

Career options for boys and girls include “teaching in public schools and colleges, appearing for competitive exams for banks and civil services, or working as a priest in the army besides going overseas as a Purohit or pursuing Karmakand and Jyotish in one’s hometown,” avers Jha.

Says Gazala Ansari who teaches Abhigyan Shakunatalam to undergrads, voices,"Research in Sanskrit will assist us in claiming treasures from our ancient civilisation.”

But opportunities for scholars for research abroad are rare. Jawaharlal Nehru scholarship and other such scholarships don’t reach the Lucknow students ‘coz,"the takers in Delhi itself are in large numbers,” reasons Chandrakant Dwivedi. So India’s Sanskrit scholars look at jobs instead of opting for higher studies in foreign universities which are zealously discovering and rediscovering Sanskrit as the language of profound wisdom and opportunity.

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

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