Session IV: Prospects for Making Samskrita as Medium of Intellectual Discourse in India

Chair: Dr. Indulata Das, Educationist and Samskritist

There seems to be a misconception among learned and laity that Samskrit is a language of Samskaras or rituals. Its literature generally deals with spirituality, philosophy, ethics, morality and religion. In 19th century, when Swami Dayananda Sarasvati pronounced that Vedas are the storehouses of all true sciences, no body even the Samskrita scholars in India were ready to believe this statement. Till 20 years back almost 99% of Samskrit scholars were not able to accept that Vedas or Samskrit contains positive sciences. Till date whatever scientific work is done on Vedas or in Samskrit language, scholars from the scientific streams have taken the lead. Most of the Samskrit scholars in India due to their poor background of science, do not dare to take up any scientific studies. And the Samskrita scholars in the west do not want to talk about science in Samskrita out of prejudices and preconceived notions. They have a prejudiced thinking that the science is the prerogative of the modern west and the ancient language like Samskrita have nothing to do with science. They associate past with darkness and primitive races. At the most, they take Vedic literature granted for religious or sacred literature. They forget that Samskrita literature has never propagated religion at any stage or at any time and place. Samskrita literature talks about Dharma and that Dharma is not different from today’s science. Today when the scholars have started thinking in terms of science in Vedas and other Samskrita literature, the things have started changing. Modern scholars and scientists are taking interest in the scientific studies carried out in the Vedic and post Vedic period. During their researches they have been able to locate a vast body of scientific literature written in Samskrita during the times of yore. The various scientific studies carried out in Vedas and allied literature and publication of scientific works in Samskrita has made scholars more curious to search for more and more Vedic scientific literature written in the past. This search can be bi-directional. First thing is to ransack the entire collection of ancient Samskrit manuscripts located in the libraries and museums of the various countries of the world. Secondly, to locate references of scientific books in the available vast body of Samskrit literature.  The aim of the session is to attract the attention of the scholars towards the study of Samskrita so as to develop it as medium of intellectual discourse of India by taking measures to strengthen it through vocabulary building and by encouraging further research in the area.