Since I come up against such misconceptions on Sanskrit every so often I'll keep updating the post with more such information.
Also
since the areas are so vast and all-encompassing I'll update links
multiple other posts on culture, economy, spiritualism, religion,
science, history, colonization which all go into the making of our
nation.
FAQ
Q) If Sanskrit is so great Why are we talking/typing in English?!! Haha
a) Precisely!! If we knew Sanskrit properly we'd be talking in it and maybe making the case for English to be ALSO learnt for international dealings.
b) Having a conversation in English (with English keyboards) **IS** pragmatic.
The fact that Indians NEED to talk to each other online/offline in a foreign language is rather sad don't you think
Q) Having conversation in English doesn't make anybody less Indian.
In fact it DOES make people LESS Indian.
+ Try talking for 5 minutes without using a single English word.
+ Try describing your work in your mother tongue to your grandma.
Notice How much literal translation goes on.
+ See the effect of the language in today's children. Even if they talk mother tongue in the home they talk to one another in English in school (in fact everywhere except at home).
In fact they many times reply in English so much so that even determined parents start using more and more English.
+ I'm observing my child actually go through the phonetic combinations that we know as Aksharas.
The Rishis actually observed the progression and designed the language from the ground-up.
Q) We all are free to speak Sanskrit its a offical language. Lets just not impose it on others.
Sanskrit existed before foreign rulers came.
Hence the **reason** for origin of Indian languages from the mother language was never a "homogenizing" effort but a natural progression.
Regional languages were never "stamped out" by a "central brahminical hegemony".
Note the deliberate use of leftist-liberal-rhetoric to mock the same.
Compare that with the IMPOSITION of Urdu(Arabic)/English by Foreign Rulers.
So why is real Foreign imposition acceptable versus Imagined Sanskrit "imposition".
This equation of Sanskriti with Fundamentalism is done by media discussed in next question.
Q) Language is a means of communicational utility. English serves the purpose. Just Use it and stop wasting time on "Language Wars"
a) Sanskrit is a mantra-based language by DESIGN : http://tattva-gyan.blogspot.com/2013/08/mantra-power-of-sound.html
Though I'm no expert in Sanskrit the very depth of thought and the balancing nature of the language and Worldview of our Sanskriti makes us the way we are.
Changing the language to English will definitely be like adding Flouride to water. Slow and steady death of Indian-ness.
Q) Who wants to learn a dead and difficult language like Sanskrit. No wonder it is dead. In fact it's better off dead. Language is the vehicle of more than just communication. English does and should serve as our communication mechanism with the World.
A society and it's culture - the way it views the world, itself and others - are all part of it.
Rajiv Malhotra explains this in his video on "Being Different : An Indian Alternative to Western Universalism" :
http://youtu.be/mlnrRykssrw?t=1m16s
What is the state of Australian aborigines or Red Indians or AfricanAmericans.
The "smart ones" left their culture and language behind, the rest are left in a limbo with their way of life stuck in museums.
They've been melted down like scrap metal losing their identity to the dominant Western narrative.
We only get to hear their "exotic/Chic/ethnic" musical instrument dijderido in A.R. Rehman music to spice up the mix.
Will we too end up discarding our culture in our daily lives and only show-case some "primitive desis as in India Tourism for exotica-seeking mono-cultural Western tourists".
French speak French. Germans speak German. That doesn't make them any less developed.
The truth is that their prosperity was fueled by enormous resources looted from all corners of the world.
It has lasted them a long time and they mean to keep it that way by interventions in upcoming "third-world" countries.
China/Russia/Japan keep their cultural narratives and nationalistic pride alive and kicking.
Note the anti-India narrative in our media. It's an auto-immune disease.
Q) I hate the backward dehati desis. Far better to learn English the language of progressive, developed West.Colonized peoples like ourselves equate English with Development. This is because learning English was a sure-fire way to get a job in Gora-Saab's office.
Away from floods, famines and other natural vagaries brought on by English rules like making lakes, forests, rivers govt. property.
See Satyameva Jayate on how a British ruling made nearly 200 lakes supplying water in Mysore state be abandoned by people.
They'd been upkeeping lakes and forests by bund making and controlling usage for generations.
Today we're seeing a reversal of this thinking in the trendy new Nobel prize winning "Commons" approach in which users are the stakeholders and deciders of usage.
Indians are very focussed and competitive when it comes to their personal/career goals.
Just look at the number of 10th class suicides to get an idea.
However when it comes to their culture anything goes.
This is primarily promoted by "Culture-vulture kya lene ka hai. Pehle padho likho, afsar bano. Ye sab ke liye saari zindagi padi hai. Yeh culture se kya pet bharegaa tera?!!"
Another opinion is "It's ALL superstition and a waste of time."
Others often invoke weasel words like 'this is all maya' and other vedantic concepts to absolve themselves of any stand in such matters.
Q) Track record of West BEFORE and AFTER colonization
We mistakenly attribute MONEY/MILITARY power of West with some difference in their moral/civilizational ethos.
"Gold of rich man makes all his qualities golden"
Greece and Rome both fell to almost third world status after they were conquered/looted by other civilizations.
The West as we know it copied their ideas and claimed inheritance.
The cultural aspects of Greece a "pagan" nation were conveniently turned into "mythology".
Something similar is being done to our Sanskriti.
India and China were 24% of world economy in 17th Century. Combined West was a paltry 1%.
What fueled the Industrial Revolution in terms of ideas, resources and labour from other cultures like India and other colonies.
So today's "third world" was actually "first world" before the looting and stripping of resources for nearly 200 years.
What does this say about the 'moral flexibility' of these Westerners looking down on us with pity, disgust and derision.
The descendents of the looters are enjoying world domination and have the temerity to preach "human rights" to others.
Q) How reliable are Western Scientific Universalisms
Western Science though it claims an authority made on very tenuous basis is held in respect all round. In our very life time we've seen many holy-grails being cast-aside like exo-planets etc.
Indian puja of Ganga is looked down as superstition.
Having lots of "numbers" on Global Warming is respectable but planting Tulsi, worshipping mountains, rivers, trees is backward and superstitious.
How long before Cultural diversity like Environment is sacrificed to the all-successful (and hence all-knowing short-sighted Western gaze).
How long before we ourselves are sacrificed to our very own short-sightedness.
Q) People make claims that Sanskrit is a 'divine language' etc. It's all B.S!!
+ Simple explanation yet Brilliant insight into only a FEW of the things that make Sanskrit so awesome. http://uttishthabharata.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/sanskrit/
+ For more jaw-droppingly awesome stuff on cryptography, BNF-Grammar etc. you can refer "The Wonder That is Sanskrit" by Sri Aurobindo Publications.
Q) If Sanskrit is TRULY such a Great Language how come nobody ever talks about it?!!
Why are these things you never get to see in media.
The reason is that most of these Delhi journalists (and their followers) are convent educated, leftist-liberals like Arundhati Roy who wax eloquent in Shakespearean language.
Q) Sanskrit is language promoted by RSS
A scientist called Pavlov conducted some experiments like ringing a bell every time he served food to some dogs.
Later just ringing the bell would causes trained dogs to salivate as they associate the bell-ring with food.
This is a trained automatic response.
Associating keywords with pre-programmed behaviour is a standard part of BrainWash/Mesmerism/Hypnotism.
Media has successfully trained educated Indians to equate keywords with associations and trained responses.
24x7 => At Your Service
9/11 => Attack On Democracy
WMD => War on Terror (not invasion of sovereign nations BTW)
Taliban => Freedom Fighters in Russian Era/Terrorists in Bush Era.
2002/Godra => riots/violence/oppression
Hindu => backward
RSS/Hindutva => communal
Sanskrit => Good Old Days Syndrome
Temple => Superstition.
This keyword training is done systematically to make the word ubiquitous and substitute a keyword for a long brain-wash story and the trained response.
By same logic in fact imposition of Urdu/English on Indians can be equated with "Jaziya-tax" or "Salt-Tax".
Q) Sanskrit is a difficult language for even experts. Are you going to burden kids with one MORE difficult language full of memorization and rote-learning?
+ Nearly 70% of regional language words are Sanskrit.
So learning Sanskrit reinforces the mother-tongue and vice-versa.
This feedback loop should dramatically accelerate learning of not only mother-tongue but also make it possible to learn OTHER Indian languages!!
+ Samskrita Bharati (http://samskritabharati.in) conducts a 10-day workshop to teach simple spoken Sanskrit.
+ They even conduct Bhagvad-Gita hour on week-ends to allow students to read and understand it for themselves using (and increasing) their skills.
Q) Sanskrit is not dead. It has evolved to others like hindi and all the other languages. So why not use Sanskrit 2.0 i.e. regional languages INSTEAD
a) While these languages evolved from Sanskrit. It was a lossy evolution. There is a lot in Sanskrit which is not used in regional languages
b) Our idea of a Nation has been almost irretreivably screwed up by Nhru dy-nasty and its westernized, fabianism/socialism.
Almost 70 years after Independence we are slowly coming out of the shadow of the Cultural Cleansing of this regime.
c) Not having a common Indian language for Indians to share their ideas and build the Grand Indian Narrative directly affects National development.
The way English is promoted in the media if Sanskrit were to be promoted we'd have a nation talking away in Sanskrit in a few years.
Q) Of what use is Sanskrit/Sanskriti in today's world. These are all old and useless things.
Latest cognitive science (western) did MRI scans of brain of people solving problems.
The tougher problems required the usage of more areas of both hemispheres of brain.
The two hemispheres are connected by a X shaped connection.
The thicker the corpus callosum the better the interconnections between various diverse ideas.
Think iPhone vs. old mobile.
This is the stuff of GENIUS. more connections being made across diverse areas.
The constant buzz-words of 'innovation' and 'invention', 'value-addition' would be a reality instead of serial-thinking lobotomised worker class made for assembly line serialized thinking.
See Sir Ken Robinson's thoughts on linear thinking : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc
Note: This is from a British upper class educated guy.
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David Kelley of Ideo talks about need for more inter-disciplinary interactions for design ideas :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkb6vfKMI4
His company gave Apple/Steve Jobs many ideas for iPhone etc. He hires doctors, journalists, artists, engineers to form a think-tank
Now imagine your child doing all that in his own brain. That is Holistic vision and world-view. The one we stand to lose along with our Sanskriti and many valuable things.
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For us at least Sanskrit and Sanskriti are the way for us to come out of the shadow of Colonization.
More usage from young age will create a generation of people "who don't do different things but do things differently"
The number of polymaths (like Leonardo) in our Sanskriti were many because of this. Experts in a number of fields like music, maths etc.
In fact there is
no separation between arts and sciences in our Sanskriti.
Fundamental and underlying principles are applied across Ayurveda, Sangeet-shastra, Vaadya, Bharatnatyam, Astronomy, Rasayana-shastra, Ganita-shastra and of course Sanskrit itself.
This is because the Sanskrit word Yoga itself means TO-JOIN/UNIFY.
In fact Vedas themselves were handed down from generations.
Errors are impossible due to built in error-correction codes.
The process of validating the verse is called as Ghana paatha i.e. rendering the verses in rows and columns, forwards and backwards so that any single syllable error is immediately apparent.
For example this is a practical application of our Insight into the Brain and Body connection which is used in studies.
Why uthak-baithak is an accupressure cure to increase Intelligence.
It was meant for weak students and NOT meant as a punishment.
Left Brain activity = linear logical step-by-step.
Right Brain activity = non-linear, "out of the box" super creative ideas.
Ability to synchronize BOTH types of thinking is mostly seen in Math Geniuses.
So if you want yourself or kids to have more of that ability start doing Uthak-Baithak or "Super Brain Yoga"!!
And how 'scientific research' is reusing this technique to help 'mentally challenged' children improve their memory and intelligence :
Q) So do you propose we go back to Gurukul system in today's modern world.
In fact Head First Series based on cognitive science research tries to engage student recall by adding stories, situations, conversations, discussions etc.
This is nothing but our story-based, analogy-based higher order education in Gurukul system.
Experience and wisdom were part of the handed-down knowledge.
