Talk:Sanskrit
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"The richness of Sanskrit language is almost beyond belief. Many centuries ago that language contained words to describe states of the conscious and the subconscious and the unconscious mind and a variety of other concepts which have been evolved by modern psychoanalysis and psyche-therapy. Further, it has many a word, of which there is no exact synonym even in the richest modern languages. That is why some modern writers have been driven occasionally to use Sanskrit words when writing in English. [1] "Panini's grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analyzing language that revolutionized our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology. The most striking feature of Sanskrit grammar is its objective resolution of speech and language into their component elements, and definition of the functions of these elements. Long before Panini (who names over sixty predecessors) ....The study of language in India was much more objective and scientific than in Greece or Rome. The interest was in empirical investigation of language, rather than philosophical and syntactical. Indian study of language was as objective as the dissection of a body by an anatomist." Walter Eugene Clark
Leonard Bloomfield's (1887-1949, American linguist and author of Language, published in 1933) characterization of Panini's Astadhyayi ("The Eight Books") "as one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence is by no means an exaggeration; no one who has had even a small acquaintance with that most remarkable book could fail to agree. In some four thousand sutras or aphorisms - some of them no more than a single syllable in length - Panini sums up the grammar not only of his own spoken language, but of that of the Vedic period as well. The work is the more remarkable when we consider that the author did not write it down but rather worked it all out of his head, as it were. Panini's disciples committed the work to memory and in turn passed it on in the same manner to their disciples; and though the Astadhayayi has long since been committed to writing, rote memorization of the work, with several of the more important commentaries, is still the approved method of studying grammar in India today, as indeed is true of most learning of the traditional culture."
"It was in India, however, that there rose a body of knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about language. The Hindu grammar taught Europeans to analyze speech forms; when one compared the constituent parts, the resemblances, which hitherto had been vaguely recognized, could be set forth with certainty and precision." Leonard Bloomfield's (1887-1949)
Sir William Wilson Hunter has observed: " The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry.
Alain Danielou (1907-1994) founded the Institute for Comparative Music Studies in Berlin and Venice, author of several books on the religion, history, and art of India. He said: "Sanskrit is constructed like geometry and follows a rigorous logic. It is theoretically possible to explain the meaning of the words according to the combined sense of the relative letters, syllables and roots. Sanskrit has no meanings by connotations and consequently does not age. Panini's language is in no way different from that of Hindu scholars conferring in Sanskrit today."
Arthur A. Macdonell (1854-1930) author of History of Sanskrit Literature Motilal Banarsidass has written: "We Europeans, 2,500 years later, and in a scientific age, still employ an alphabet which is not only inadequate to represent all the sounds of our language, but even preserve the random order which vowels and consonants are jumbled up as they were in the Greek adaptation of the primitive Semitic arrangement of 3,000 years ago."
Though ist fame is much restricted by ist specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini’s grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world. A.L. Basham The Wonder that was India
"I believe any sensible man is unknowingly a Hindu and that the only hope for man lies in the abolition of the erratic, dogmatic, unphilosophical creeds people today call religions." Alain Danielou a.k.a Shiv Sharan (1907-1994)
Paul Deussen (1845-1919) says:
"On the tree of Indian wisdom there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy."
In his Philosophy of the Upanishads, Deussen claims for its fundamental thought "an inestimable value for the whole race of mankind." It is in "marvelous agreement with the philosophy founded by Kant, and adopted and perfected by his great successor, Schopenhauer," differing from it, where it does differ, only to excel.
Victor Cousin (1792-1867) French Philosopher, says: "The history of Indian philosophy is the abridged history of the philosophy of the world."
"I believe any sensible man is unknowingly a Hindu and that the only hope for man lies in the abolition of the erratic, dogmatic, unphilosophical creeds people today call religions." Alain Danielou a.k.a Shiv Sharan (1907-1994)aath
He was the first to proclaim that, alongside Greece and Germany, India had produced the greatest and most profound philosophers. And the great Hegel himself, who understood India far more profoundly, was to remark in his work on The Philosophy of History: "It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought..." "India is the land of dreams. India had always dreamt - more of the Bliss that is man's final goal. And this has helped India to be more creative in history than any other nation. Hence the effervescence of myths and legends, religious and philosophies, music, and dances and the different styles of architecture." Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1887--1961)
"It is not only a country and something geographical, but the home and the youth of the soul, the everywhere and nowhere, the oneness of all times." Herman Hesse (1877-1962)
The Laws of Manu as ' a work which is spirited and superior by comparision." Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
He said that, " There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit," adding that: " India is not only at the origin of everything she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison." He wrote to his friend and comrade, the poet Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853): "Here is the actual source of all languages, all the thoughts and poems of the human spirit; everything, everything without exception comes from India." "The divine origin of man, as taught by Vedanta, is continually inculcated, to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and reincorporation with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and reaction. Even the loftiest philosophy of the European, the idealism of reason as it is set forth by the Greek philosophers, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of Oriental idealism like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun, faltering and feeble and ever ready to be extinguished." "In India lay the real source of all tongues, of all thoughts and utterances of the human mind. Everything - yes, everything without exception - has it origin in India." and "The primary source of all intellectual development - in a word the whole human culture - is unquestionably to be found in the traditions of the East."
Frederich von Schlegel (1772-1829)
"We of the Occident are about to arrive at a crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India some seven hundred years before Christ. This is the real reason, why we become both vexed and stimulated, uneasy and yet interested, when confronted with the concepts and images of Oriental wisdom." Zimmer, Dr. Heinrich
He published part of the Shakuntala in Thalia, and in a letter to Wilhelm von Humboldt he wrote that: "in the whole of Greek antiquity there is no poetical representation of beautiful love which approaches Sakuntala even afar." Fredrick von Schiller (1759-1805)
"On the tree of wisdom there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads, and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy,' Paul Deussen (1845-1919)
" When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous." Albert Einstein, (1879-1955) physicist.
"The Christian missionaries in the West coast took away and burnt many valuable manuscripts. Many great scholars died without passing down their knowledge to the descendents. In their quest for livelihood during the nine hundred years of foreign rule, the descendents did not care to preserve their knowledge."
"India has lost much of its great treasures of ancient texts during the successive invasions by foreign rulers. Our great libraries at Nalanda and other places were burnt to ashes. Sachan who collected and edited Al Beruni's works said: "It was like a magic island of quiet and impartial research, in the midst of a world of clashing swords, burning towns, and plundered temples. The work of many eminent scholars contained thousands of volumes of translations of Indian texts, whose original were lost in India owing to the depredations of Mohammedan iconoclasts who destroyed hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist seats of learning, in India including the world famous Nalanda University." "The Christian missionaries in the West coast took away and burnt many valuable manuscripts. Many great scholars died without passing down their knowledge to the descendents. In their quest for livelihood during the nine hundred years of foreign rule, the descendents did not care to preserve their knowledge." (source: Hindu Superiority - Har Bilas Sarda p. 150 and Vision of India - By Sisir Kumar Mitra p. 186 and The Temple Empire - By Vidyavisarada Garimella Veeraraghuvulu. Printed in Sri Gayathri press. Kakinada. India 1982 p. 136-137).. [2] [3]
Alain Danielou observes that: "The sheer volume of Sanskrit literature is immense, and it remains largely unexplored. Probably we shall never know well our own history over the past five millennia until this immense reservoir of Sanskrit documents have been tapped. Many text disappear every year, since the manuscripts are highly perishable in India's extreme climate, and the teams of scholars who once used to recopy damaged manuscripts for the libraries have almost entirely disappeared." (source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892812184/qid=942798764/002-9015698-7769836> - By Alain Danielou p. 16-17).
"Panini's grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analyzing language that revolutionized our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology. The most striking feature of Sanskrit grammar is its objective resolution of speech and language into their component elements, and definition of the functions of these elements. Long before Panini (who names over sixty predecessors) the sounds represented by the letters of the alphabet had been arranged in an overly systematic form, vowels and diphthongs separated from mutes, semi-vowels, and sibilants, and the sounds in each group arranged according to places in the mouth where produced (gutturals, palatals, cerebrals, dentals, and labials). Words were analyzed into roots of which complex words grew by the addition of prefixes and suffixes. General rules were worked out, defining the conditions according to which consonants and vowels influence each other, undergo change, or drop out. The study of language in India was much more objective and scientific than in Greece or Rome. The interest was in empirical investigation of language, rather than philosophical and syntactical. Indian study of language was as objective as the dissection of a body by an anatomist." Walter Eugene Clark
"It was in India, however, that there rose a body of knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about language. The Hindu grammar taught Europeans to analyze speech forms; when one compared the constituent parts, the resemblances, which hitherto had been vaguely recognized, could be set forth with certainty and precision." Leonard Bloomfield's (1887-1949)
"We have shown how much we (Europeans) surpass the Indians in courage and wickedness, and how inferior to them we are in wisdom. Our European nations have mutually destroyed themselves in this land where we only go in search of money, while the first Greeks traveled to the same land only to instruct themselves." Voltaire concluded, " I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc." " It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe..." He found that India was the home of religion in its oldest and purest form. He described India as a country "on which all other countries had to rely, but which did not rely on anyone else." He also believed that Christianity derived from Hinduism. He wrote to and assured Fredrick the Great of Prussia that "our holy Christian religion is solely based upon the ancient religion of Brahma." ( Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1774))
"The greatest human ideal is the great cause of bringing together the thoughts of Europe and Asia; the great soul of India will topple our world." Romain Rolland (1866-1944) French Nobel laureate, professor of the history of music at the Sorbonne and thinker
He also noted as early as 1947 that "the Egyptian myth of Osiris seemed directly inspired from a Shivaite story of the Puranas and that at any rate, Egyptians of those times considered that Osiris had originally come from India mounted on a bull (Nandi), the traditional transport of Shiva." Alain Danielou a.k.a Shiv Sharan (1907-1994)
Friedrich Schlegel "was convinced that all culture and religion possessed an Indian origin and even declared that Egyptian civilisation was the work of Indian missionaries".
Philostratus, (AD 220) ancient Greek writer, son-in-law of Flavius Philostratus. Philostratus puts in the mouth of Apollonius of Tyana these words:
"All wish to live in the nearness of God, but only the Hindus bring it to pass."
Apollonius Tyanaeus, Greek Thinker and Traveler. 1st Century AD, said:
"In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth. but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing."
Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) in comparing the ancient Greeks with the ancient Hindus, says: "Their (Hindus) general learning was more considerable; and in the knowledge of the being and nature of God, they were already in possession of a light which was but faintly perceived even by the loftiest intellects in the best days of Athens."
John Bowle categorically declares that Plato was influenced by Indian ideas.
(source: A New Outline of World History - By John Bowle p. 91).
"The Indian air surrounds us, the original thoughts of kindred spirits.....And O! how the mind is here washed clean of all its early ingrafted Jewish superstition! It is the most profitable and most elevating reading which is possible in the world." "From every sentence (of the Upanishads) deep, original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit...."In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. They are destined sooner or later to become the faith of the people." Schopenhauer, who was in the habit, before going to bed, of performing his devotions from the pages of the Upanishads, regarded them as: " It has been the solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death." He anticipated later speculations with his claim that Christianity had "Indian blood in its veins" and that the moral teachings of the New Testament had their historical source in Asia beyond Israel: "Christianity taught only what the whole of Asia knew already long before and even better" To Schopenhauer the Upanishads were documents of 'almost superhuman conception,' whose authors could hardly be thought of as 'mere mortals.' He also remarked: "How every line is of such strong, determined, and consistent meaning! And on every page we encounter deep, original, lofty thoughts, while the whole world is suffused with a high and holy seriousness." He spoke of India as the 'fatherland of mankind' which 'gave the original religion of our race,' and he expressed the hope that European peoples, 'who stemmed from Asia,...would re-attain the religion of their home.' He believed that the Upanishads, together with the philosophies of Plato and Kant, constituted the foundation on which to erect a proper philosophy of representation. It was the Upanishads' analysis of the self which caused Schopenhauer to stamp them as " the product of the highest human wisdom". He dedicated himself to this task, producing his magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation, in 1819. This is what he says in this book:
"We, on the contrary, now send to the Brahmans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers, in order out of sympathy to put them right, and to point out to them that they are created out of nothing, and that they ought to be grateful and pleased about it. But it is just the same as if we fired a bullet at a cliff. "In India, our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought."
Schopenhauer wrote in the preface of his "The World as a Will and Representation" "According to me, the influence of Sanskrit literature on our time will not be lesser than what was in the 16th century Greece's influence on Renaissance. One day, India's wisdom will flow again on Europe and will totally transform our knowledge and thought." It is well-known that the book 'Oupnekhat' (Upanishad) always lay open on his table and he invariably studied it before retiring to rest. He called the opening up of Sanskrit literature 'the greatest gift of our century', and predicted that the philosophy and knowledge of the Upanishads would becomes the cherished faith of the West.
"Our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Sir William Jones was always impressed by the vastness of Indian literature. He wrote: "Wherever we direct our attention to Hindu literature, the notion of infinity presents itself."
Sir William Jones called the Vedas as the fountain of Indian literature: "From the Vedas are immediately deduced the practical arts of Surgery and Medicine, Music and Dancing, Archery, which comprises the whole art of war, and Architecture, under which the system of mechanical arts is included."
" The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either: yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists..." Sir William Jones (1746-1794)
" I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the never-fading laurels of our immortal Newton, that the whole of his theology, and part of his philosophy, may be found in the Vedas". "The six philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Darsana Sastra, comprise all the metaphysics of the old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum; nor is it possible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the Sages of India." "We are told by the Greek writers that the Indians were the wisest of nations, and in moral wisdom, they were certainly eminent." "The analogies between Greek and Pythagorean philosophy and the Sankhya school are very obvious." Sir William Jones (1746-1794)
Sir Monier-Williams (1860-1888) Indologist and head of the Oxford's Boden Chair says,
"There are many graphical passages in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which for beauty of description cannot be surpassed by anything in Homer. The diction in the Indian epics is more polished, regular and cultivated and the language is in an altogether advanced stage than that of Homer."
"Panini, Katyayana, and Patanjali, are the canonical triad of grammarians of India," and, to quote Mrs. Manning once more, "such (grammatical) works are originated as are unrivalled in the literary history of other nations." "The Panini grammar reflects the wondrous capacity of the human brain, which till today no other country has been able to produce except India." "The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety." Sir Monier-Williams (1819-1899)
Sir Monier-Williams (1860-1888) Indologist and head of the Oxford's Boden Chair says, "Although the Hindus, like the Greeks, have only two great epic poems, namely, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, yet to compare these with the Illiad or the Odyssey is to compare the Indus and the Ganges rising in the snows of the world's most colossal ranges, swollen by numerous tributaries, spreading into vast shallows or branching into deep divergent channels, with the streams of Attica or the mountainous torrents of Thessaly." He continues, "There are many graphical passages in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which for beauty of description cannot be surpassed by anything in Homer. The diction in the Indian epics is more polished, regular and cultivated and the language is in an altogether advanced stage than that of Homer."
According to Thomas Berry, "In quality, in quantity, in significance for man's intellectual, cultural, and spiritual life, this literature in its totality is unsurpassed among all other literary traditions of the world."
(source: Religions of India: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism - Thomas Berry p. 3-16).
(source: Religions of India <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0890120676/qid=991336117/sr=1-40/ref=sc_b_40/102-5083664-1858564>: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism - Thomas Berry p. 3-16).
- In quality, in quantity, in signifiance for man’s intellectual, cultural, and spiritual life, this literature in its totality is unsurpassed among all other literary traditions of the world. (Thomas Berry on Indian literature)
Paul Deussen (1845-1919) says: "On the tree of Indian wisdom there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy." In his Philosophy of the Upanishads, Deussen claims for its fundamental thought "an inestimable value for the whole race of mankind." It is in "marvelous agreement with the philosophy founded by Kant, and adopted and perfected by his great successor, Schopenhauer," differing from it, where it does differ, only to excel.
"The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. The Gita is one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the spiritual thoughts ever to have been made." Aldous Huxley
" When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous." Albert Einstein, (1879-1955) physicist
But the historical importance of the Mahabharata is not the main reason to read the Mahabharata. Quite simply, the Mahabharata is a powerful and amazing text that inspires awe and wonder. It presents sweeping visions of the cosmos and humanity and intriguing and frightening glimpses of divinity in an ancient narrative that is accessible, interesting, and compelling for anyone willing to learn the basic themes of India's culture. The Mahabharata definitely is one of those creations of human language and spirit that has traveled far beyond the place of its original creation and will eventually take its rightful place on the highest shelf of world literature beside Homer's epics, the Greek tragedies, the Bible, Shakespeare, and similarly transcendent works. James L. Fitzgerald
Alain Danielou observes that: "The sheer volume of Sanskrit literature is immense, and it remains largely unexplored. Probably we shall never know well our own history over the past five millennia until this immense reservoir of Sanskrit documents have been tapped. Many text disappear every year, since the manuscripts are highly perishable in India's extreme climate, and the teams of scholars who once used to recopy damaged manuscripts for the libraries have almost entirely disappeared." (source: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation- By Alain Danielou p. 16-17).
"India has lost much of its great treasures of ancient texts during the successive invasions by foreign rulers. Our great libraries at Nalanda and other places were burnt to ashes. Sachan who collected and edited Al Beruni's works said: "It was like a magic island of quiet and impartial research, in the midst of a world of clashing swords, burning towns, and plundered temples. The work of many eminent scholars contained thousands of volumes of translations of Indian texts, whose original were lost in India owing to the depredations of Mohammedan iconoclasts who destroyed hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist seats of learning, in India including the world famous Nalanda University." "The Christian missionaries in the West coast took away and burnt many valuable manuscripts. Many great scholars died without passing down their knowledge to the descendents. In their quest for livelihood during the nine hundred years of foreign rule, the descendents did not care to preserve their knowledge." Vidyavisarada Garimella Veeraraghuvulu
Surplus[edit]
- The Vedic Sanskrit has the largest number of vocables found in the Aryan languages. . . . if the pre-Vedic Aryan language was spoken in different parts of Europe and Asia where the Aryans had settled, . . . how is it that only a few vocables are left in the . . . speech of those parts, while the largest number of them is found in the distant places of ultimate settlement and racial admixture in India? On the contrary, this disparity can easily be explained if the pre-Vedic was the language of the homeland of the Aryans and the other Aryan languages came into existence as a result of the contact between migrating Aryans and non-Aryan elements outside India and Persia.
- A.K. Majumdar 1977, 216) Concise history of ancient India vol 1
- in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.