(Source: Christie's catalogue - Internet)
My father, Prof. S. S. Raghavachar of Mysore University, was a renowned and prolific scholar in Hindu as well as western philosophy. He hailed from a traditional Sri Vaishnava family, the fourth Sthanika in Melkote. He lost his father at the age of three and had to go to Mysore for education and to make ends meet.
His many works published by Ramakrishna Mission and Mysore University have seen multiple reprints and bear testimony to his scholarship. He seemed to me to have been born with a deep knowledge of Sanskrit and Hindu scriptures.
I was raised in front of a temple and am a natural "Hindu temple-goer". My love for shlokas and Carnatic music did not automatically translate to learning Sanskrit. One reason was I wasn't close to my father. I inherited a love for Kannada from my mother and even wrote poetry when I was ten.
When I had to choose a second language in eighth standard, my father insisted I take Sanskrit. I wanted to take Kannada. But he prevailed. That is the ONLY educational intervention he ever made in my life.
I had the best of Sanskrit teachers. Sri. Anantacharya at BHS. Sri. Iyengar, Sri. Somayaji and Sri. Ramaswamy in Mysore. I scored high marks in Sanskrit. But I had a great aversion to Hindi.
My educational and career paths took me to IIT, IIM, and later a busy international corporate career. My association with Sanskrit was merely through Carnatic music, shlokas and love for Kannada which abounds in Sanskrit words. I also prided myself that I had an instinct for understanding Sanskrit expressions. So as I read Bhagavadgita and other scriptures and literature I managed to work out the meaning easily.
After ending my corporate career, in 2015, I attended the Bhagavadgita Marathon in Sidhbari Chinmaya ashram. We studied each shloka of the Gita thoroughly over several weeks under Swami Swaroopananda.
In 2016 January, Sri. Rajiv Malhotra released his book, "The Battle for Sanskrit", in Aksharam - Samskrita Bharati, Bangalore. I was amazed at the work at Aksharam and enrolled for the Sambhashana Shibira. Since then there is no looking back. I have passed the four Samskrita Bharati exams. I have a great online teacher too in Dr. Sowmya Krishnapur of Vyoma labs. I must say that Samskrita Bharati is an unbelievable organisation entirely run by volunteers and spreading Samskáštam, as I shall spell Sanskrit henceforth in this article, globally. đđđđđđ
I find many videos in YouTube on Why Sanskrit and The Power of Sanskrit. I thought I will share my own thoughts here.
Before language comes life and life-style. A cultured society develops what is called Samskriti. Samskriti is a cultured way of life. Those who practise it have climbed a long learning curve over centuries and many births as a collective evolution. For a Shakespeare to appear in England or a Kalidasa in India, a cultural environment is required. Culture is the crucible for all great literature. This evolution is called Samskara.
Samskara and Samskriti use a medium of communication called language. We can intuit that greater the Samskriti, greater will be the language.
We can debate what is great. Is it military power? Is it fine arts and food? Is it science and technology? Is it conquest? All these fall in the first three purusharthas - Artha, Kama, Dharma. Moksha is an aspiration that comes from the fulfilment of these three. All these require a great communication medium. I would say that the language of a culture is great if the development of that culture leads to achievement of the four purusharthas. A better language leads to a better culture.
What is a great language? It has a robust structure, a beautiful sound, a magnificent power of expression, an all-encompassing and all-absorbing power to grow with society.
Samskáštam has a perfect phonetic vocabulary. It sounds majestic and yet sonorous. It has a grammatical structure which is the envy of the world. It has a constantly "organically evolving" vocabulary of words that far exceed that of the English language.
The saving grace is that all Indian languages, including Tamil which some believe originated before Samskáštam, are the children of Samskáštam. They share the alphabet, vocabulary and colour and sound of Samskáštam in varying degrees. So when someone says the best Sanskrit scholars of today are non-Indians from USA, Europe and Japan and so on, I have difficulty in accepting it. Without Samskriti you can't get Samskáštam. And vice versa.
My understanding is Samskáštam is the language of Bharatiya Samskriti. Without it, we cannot study and practise our culture.
Consider this. The Rigveda is the oldest scripture known to mankind. It is chanted by scholars even today exactly as it was chanted 5000 years ago. That is because of the science of Samskáštam.
The oldest literature of the world is Valmiki Ramayana, composed several centuries before the Christian Era. Its beauty, melody and narrative impact are irresistible. That is because of the art of Samskáštam.
Mahabharata is the greatest epic of the world. Its universality is because of the expressive dimensions of our Samskáštam and Samskriti.
Panini created the structure of grammar in Samskáštam. Anyone who starts reading the sutras marvels at the rigour of Samskáštam grammar. If Netwon's calculus led to the evolution of science and technology, Samskáštam led to the development of medical, astronomical, mathematical, and architectural sciences. Our Indian branches of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, temple architecture, dance, music and sculpture, all are because of the power of Samskáštam. I would even add the Indian cuisine and textile industry have their roots in Samskáštam. This is an area for research.
Samskáštam is the body in which dwells the mind of Indian Samskriti, and the soul of our Samskara. Nothing more. Nothing less. Welcome to the land of Yoga, Moksha, and Samskáštam.
If you have sensed my passion for Samskáštam, my purpose is served here. I will be a life-long student of Samskáštam, by God's grace.
