By Vijaysree Venkatraman | Contributor to The Christian Science
Monitor
Page 1 of 3
Cambridge,
Mass. - Deep inside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
on a Wednesday evening recently, a class of about a dozen students
were speaking an arcane ancient tongue.
"It
is time for exams, and I play every day," says one.
"Perhaps,
you should study, too," counters another at the conversation
table. The others laugh.
No,
this isn't Latin 101 that would be easy. This is Sanskrit,
a classical language that is the Indian equivalent of ancient
Greek or Latin.
Today,
spoken Sanskrit is enjoying a revival both in India and
among Indian expatriates in the United States. There is even evidence
of Sanskrit emerging in American popular culture as more and more
people roll out yoga mats at the local gym and greet one another
with "Namaste."
Soon,
the conversation at the MIT class turns to plans for the summer.
Most of those attending are graduate students. Lavanya Marla,
working toward a PhD in transportation engineering, says the informal
setting is a good break from science. "Plus, the homework
is easy," she adds.
Among
the other attendees are a French post-doctoral physics candidate
(who attended out of sheer curiosity at first, then stayed), and
an eleventh-grader from Lexington (Mass.) High School. Another
is a self-described "old Yankee" from Salem, Mass.,
who has diligently taught himself Sanskrit script as well.
Harvard,
Yale, and the University of Chicago, among others, have long offered
Sanskrit courses to undergrads. But the demand for these classes
is growing beyond academic settings. A decade-long economic boom
has brought Indians some measure of prosperity, and with it a
sense of pride in the nation's past. In large part, however, the
revival is the result of the efforts of a private group, Samskrita
Bharati, headquartered in New Delhi. The volunteer-based group's
mission: Bring the pan-Indian language back to the mainstream
and lay the groundwork for a cultural renaissance.
"There
were many reasons for the decline of Sanskrit," says Chamu
Krishna Shastry, who founded Samskrita Bharati in 1981, "but
one of the foremost was the unimaginative way it was taught since
[British] colonial times." Later, in a newly democratic India,
the language associated with upper-caste Brahmin priests held
little appeal to the masses. The present movement to revive Sanskrit
aims to teach the "language of the gods" to anyone who
cares to learn it.
n India today, Sanskrit is mostly known as the written language
of religion and metaphysics. Hindus who make up 80 percent
of the population in India typically know some Sanskrit
prayers by heart. Those who marry by the ceremonial sacred fire
recite their vows in Sanskrit. Traces of the ancient language
can be found in nearly all of the 15 modern languages spoken in
India. (Hundreds of pure Sanskrit words are present in English
as well. )
"To dispel the notion that the language was nonliving and
difficult to learn," Mr. Shastry says in a phone interview,
"we decided to teach basic spoken Sanskrit in 10 days and
to teach through Sanskrit only."
An
eager network of volunteers experimented with this new method,
teaching groups in villages, cities, and abroad through Indian
expatriates. "We now hold classes even in prisons,"
Shastry says.
When
the movement began, there was no money for printed flyers to advertise
the classes, so publicity was strictly via word-of-mouth. Volunteers
performed sidewalk skits about social themes using Sanskrit to
draw the attention of passersby.
"[People]
saw that Sanskrit need not be confined to rituals and prayer,"
says Pallamraju Duggirala, a part-time
Samskrita
Bharati volunteer (and full-time space physicist) who has been
teaching the free classes at MIT since September 2003.
In
25 years, an estimated 7 million people have attended spoken Sanskrit
classes offered by Samskrita Bharati in India and abroad, says
Shastry. There are 250 full-time volunteers and 5,000 part-time
teachers in the United States and India, and their numbers are
growing.
Samskrita Bharati has chapters in 26 of India's 28 states. There
are also groups in such places as San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Pittsburgh;
Buffalo, N.Y.; Dallas; San Diego; and Chicago. Requests are coming
in from other US cities as well.
Like
Latin and Greek, Sanskrit eventually became only the language
of scholars as dialects spread in medieval times, notes David
Shulman of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in an e-mail interview.
When the British Raj began in 1757, English slowly replaced Sanskrit.
Yoga
practitioners in the US are seeking out the authentic Sanskrit
names of various poses such as "downward dog" or "spinal
twist" and the philosophy behind the practice as spelled
out in the Yoga Sutras the original treatise on the subject
written in Sanskrit thousands of years ago.
Science-history
buffs see old works in Sanskrit as treasure troves of ancient
knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, and
metallurgy. When Copernicus announced that the sun was the center
of the universe in 1543, it was a defining moment for Western
science. In Samskrita Bharati's recently released "Pride
of India" a compilation that offers a glimpse into
India's scientific heritage Sanskrit scholars point to
calculations from AD 499 that indicate astronomer Aryabhatta's
underlying concept of a sun-centered planetary model.
"This
knowledge tradition is what we hope to revive through the spread
of Sanskrit," says Shastry.