Sanskrit as Link Language and Devanagiri as Common Script continues...

In the remaining states and union territories, the number of those who returned Sanskrit as their mother tongue was less than 100 with the lowest being one each in Tripura and Nagaland. In 1991, 56 per cent of those whose mother tongue was Sanskrit were men and 86 per cent of them lived in rural areas. Despite the low numbers of those whose mother tongue is Sanskrit, the language nevertheless has an unquestionable all India presence. It was this all-India character of the language, and the existence of Sanskrit words in large number in all Indian languages that made British imperialists target, denigrate and marginalize Sanskrit as a link language.

Hence, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) believed that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabic”. But this did not stop scholars from praising Sanskrit. Max Mueller (1823-1900) who first printed and published the Rigveda called Sanskrit the “greatest language” of the world.

Sir William Jones compared Sanskrit with the classical languages of Europe and declared in 1786, “The language of Sanskrit, whatever be its antiquity, is of the wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either….” C. Rajagopalachari is reported to have remarked that Sanskrit was a “symbol of our seniority among peoples of the world”. Among the languages that started developing a literature in the pre-Christian era, Sanskrit is the only one that continues as a living language. The languages of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Syria and Carthage are only historical names in history now.

The new socio-religious movements of the 19th century among Hindus, however, did not find Sanskrit of much use to mobilize the masses. It became the second language of the Arya Samajists. The founder of the Arya Samaj, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, began spreading his gospel in Sanskrit. Swami Dayanand became an ardent supporter of Hindi as well, called it the “Arya Bhasa” and wrote all his later works in it.

to be continued....