came via email:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Nationality of Languages</b>
From:Â nachiketa_t@xxx
  Nothing in India has done more damage to India's Hindu identity than the English Language. Not the communists, not the Muslims, not the Euro-Indians, and not even Sonia Gandhi. Languages are conduits thru which cultures are disseminated. Over last two hundred and fifty years of India's affixation with English, there is not even one Indian classic in English that portrays Indian culture accurately and with pride. Each time I speak a sentence in English, I am replacing a small portion of my Indianness, albeit unintentionally, with non-Indianness. That is the power of a language.
    I heard Naipaul once elaborate the connection between language and culture. He said something like: If you have to understand English, you have to master the Bible. No wonder, India's best English authors have all gone thru "convent" schools. I will take Naipaul's argument even further. If you have to understand the Vedas/Upanishads/Puranas...., you have no choice but to read them thru Indian languages. That fact reflects a fundamental truth: The magnitude of Hindu pride is inversely proportional to the extent of our Anglicization thru the English language.
    In this context, I would repeat the Macaulayian cliché, that the English educated folks are "a class of interpreters between us (British) and the millions whom we govern --a class of persons Indian in blood and colour but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect". Frantz Fanon uses the phrase "black skin /white masks" for the same breed. Naipaul calls these guys as "mimic men". Each of these phrases betrays a fundamental trait of colonized and Anglicized folks - dupilcitous character. A mimic man is one who mimics someone other than himself. A person with black skin and white mask is trying to project a face which never really exists.
    This disease of duplicity is all pervasive. It is not a Congress phenomenon alone. Recent self-doubts within BJP on the issue of Hindutva are at a very fundamental level symptomatic of the grip of the English (and the associated inculturation) over BJP's leadership's Hindu minds. It would be wrong to assume that BJP's self-doubt problem is a mere "Vajpayee problem".Â
Developing a national language does not necessarily mean imposing it, and more importantly disadvantaging large sections of people. The agitation of 1965 was fuelled using the argument "look-Hindi-will-make-you-lose-jobs". But essentially it was aimed to stunt the growth of Hindu nation. After all, Naicker, etc. were not exactly Hindu nationalists (or even Tamil nationalists). Instead they were using the language argument to further and fuel secessionism, perhaps and quite likely at the goading of exterior elements. If it would not have been Hindi, it would have been the Brahmin bogey (the Brahmin bogey was also used, right). Or for that sake the Aryan bogey or the Hindu bogey. If Sanskrit would have been proposed as the language, then the same guys would have used the anti-Sanskrit bogey. Several Tamil folks have shed their "Sanskritised names" in lieu of names like "Stalin". Others adopted "Dravidian" names. What kind of a cultural pride is that!!!
If I get disadvantaged due to Hindi" is a valid argument. Hence, disqualification for a job on basis of lack of fluency of Hindi should not be the approach. Coming up with a language policy (which does not promote English) that do not disqualify large sections of people from jobs, is not a nuclear-science question. What is however required is to develop a resolve to shed the bondage of English. Believe me, that act alone will fuel the growth of Hindu identity by leaps and bounds. Over last 50 years, by promoting English, we have actually started to kill virtually all Indian languages. How much respect and veneration does a great Tamil writer get in Tamil land, or a Hindi writer get in Hindi land, vis-Ã -vis say an "intellectual" like Arundhati Roy? Over last 250 years, English language experts have given us a constitution that is rotten, history that is false, leadership that is corrupt, arts that are debased and fuel self hatred ... So why English?
======
    In a land where every state seems to speak a different tongue, there is a dire need for a common medium of communication. How would a Punjabi communicate his thoughts to a Malayali?
    In Adi Sankara's time, he had Samskritam which enabled him to go everywhere from Kashi to Kanchi to argue his case out in that link language. Today English has taken that place and that is disconcerting for us nationalists as we realise the damage done to the Indian Hindu mind by this alien tongue.
    We desperately need to replace it with some native Bharatiya equivalent. And here Hindi has more speakers (people who can understand it and/or speak in some tongue similar to it) than say Telugu or Tamizh. That propels Hindi to be a national language.
      Urdu has a negative connotation for the nationalists due to its origin in the Mughal harems. Clearly the Hindus want to erase that memory of their subjugation and humiliation. Hence we oppose Urdu. It is not a question of being a language purist. It is a question of not using words from alien tongues.
      It is not a question of pure or mongrel or pedigree. Love all dogs, by all means. But why love and feed a snake, I ask? Similarly by all means love Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi and Tamizh. But do not support English, Italian and Urdu.
    Amongst the Bharat - origin languages, the most widespread is undoubtedly Hindi and that is why it is promoted as a national link language.
    And further speak Hindi (which is non-different from Samskritam) well, you can easily understand a significant proportion of any conversation carried out in Marathi, Gujarati or Bengali. (Mind you, this is case only if you speak 'pure' Hindi, not the versions you find in movies and TV shows.) This really links you to more than 60% of India's population.Â
<b>Â Â Â Â Â Â Macaulayâs education has made educated Hindus ignorant of their Vedic heritage and indifferent to attacks on Hinduism, Sanskrit, Hindi and other Bharatiya languages.
    Hindi has more than 750,000 in its vocabulary and has a lot of potential of formation new words according to its format and basic character, while English has got about 250,000 words in its vocabulary. English does not any real potential of forming new words, but it adopts words from other languages. Hindi does not need words of other languages. It is just idiots and foolish people, who put lots of English and Urdu words in Hindi, while Hindi does not need such filth.
</b>
HERE IS A POLICY ISSUE THAT THE BJP OR OTHER GOVT CAN IMPLEMENT:
     The 3 language formula is very useful - but it has not been  possible to follow it due to all kinds of resource constraints.
   Now with the internet and computers being available more easily implementing the 3 language formula will be possible.
 - Development of computer based tests in Indic languages - Making 2 Indic languages mandatory all through the education up to 12th grade, and one Indic language at higher levels.
  Giving credits for knowledge of an extra language. - Liberalizing test taking and making computer based tests
available through companies like NIIT. Just like GRE /GMAT/CAT exams - Indic language tests should also be made available.
     By sheer numbers and economic necessity - More Indians will study either Hindi or their own state language.
 In Southern and Eastern India - more people will start opting for Hindi and their own state language.
 In the North, More students will start learning Sanskrit.
     In any case, in this manner, choice will be available, there will not be any imposition and by a combination of Govt. policy and economic necessity, more people will know Hindi and Samskritam.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/arti...44&parent_id=24
Nepal's Maoists Order Schools to Stop Teaching Sanskrit
Source
KATHMANDU, NEPAL, April 14, 2005: Nepal's elite private schools said yesterday Maoist rebels have told them to shut down in 24 hours unless they cut fees and meet other demands, but the schools have vowed to defy the order. A group representing Nepal's private schools said the rebels demanded the institutions close on Thursday unless they lower admission and tuition costs, <b>scrap singing of the national anthem, stop teaching Sanskrit </b>and remove photographs of King Gyanendra. The demands are part of a drive by the Maoists to install their own "people's education" system in schools and coincides with the start of the new academic year in Nepal.
The Maoist warning is the latest challenge to the authority of King Gyanendra, who seized power February 1, saying the move was necessary to tackle the insurgency. "We've been receiving warnings from the students' union by letter, e-mails and phone to close from Thursday for failing to meet their demands," Umesh Shrestha, head of the Private and Boarding School Organisations-Nepal, said. "But we're not going to comply with the demand to shut." The outlawed All Nepal National Free Student Union-Revolutionary is the student wing of the Maoists who have been fighting since 1996 to set up a communist republic. The conflict has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the Hindu kingdom of 27 million. The students' union also wants children of top government officials excluded from private schools and forced to go state schools. There was no immediate comment available from the students' union but last month it said that it would "retaliate" against private schools if they failed to heed its demands. It did not say how, but in the past, rebels have bombed private schools after students have gone home as well as wrecked classrooms and equipment. The rebel order to private schools to close came as Nepal began returning to normal after an 11-day nationwide road blockade called by the Maoists to protest the king's power grab. About 1.5 million students study in Nepal's 8,500 private and boarding schools. The 4.9 million students studying in Nepal's 25,000 public schools were not affected by the Maoists' demand to close. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Veda Patashala : Appeal for Support</b>
<b>Mission of the Peetham </b>
Enroll limited students and teach them vedas and shAstras (along with their commentaries and meanings).
Prepare the students for competitive exams held by reputed vedic councils.
Teach conversational skills in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, English, and Hindi, while the official language of communication in the Gurukulam will be samskritam.
Teach haTha yOga , mathematics, astrology and vAstu in addition to other subjects on the physical world (geography, history, physical sciences, and computer skills).
Provide free boarding for students.
Maintain a gOshAla (place for cows).
Recruit eminent vedic scholars to live in the gurukulam.
Pay about Rs.10,000/- per month to at least four such vedic gurus.
Present Rs. 1 lakh as a startup package for each graduating student who successfully finishes any veda.
To tailor short courses on vedic recitation for the NRIs during the summer and winter breaks and provide accommodation in the gurukulam allowing audio/video recording of the classes.
<b> Appeal for Support</b>
Our vEdic school will be inaugurated on July 22nd, 2005 with 8 students instead of on April 28th, 2005. We apologize for the postponement of the inauguration which was mainly due to insufficient funds. We are currently securing the funds and any donations will be gratefully accepted.
Total costs for the first year of operation adds upto about Rs. 65 Lakhs. We believe that the mantras/stotras should be available for everyone for free and thus have provided them through vedamantram.com. We particularly encourage those of you who have enjoyed the free mantras/stotras at our website to consider any donation, if it is within your means, to the establishment of the gurukulam. We are currently making arrangements to receive funds in foreign currencies for the Peetham. In the meanwhile, any donations would be gratefully accepted on Sri Venkata Sastry's name. Please mail your checks to:
Vedic Education and Devotional Academy (VEDA)
46919 Fernald Common
Fremont, CA 94539 USA
You may write a check in Indian Rupees to Hari Hara Veda Vidya Peetham and mail it to:
HARIHARA VEDA VIDYA PEETHAM
Vedic Educational Society
C/O Sri M.S. Avadhani
Srinagar Colony
Kothagudem, AP 507101
India
Contact us: +1 510 673 7938 (USA) +91 8744 243640 (India)
Email: vedapandit AT hotmail.com
Blessings were received from:
Sri Jnanananda Teertha Swamy - Founder of Akhila Bharatha Krishna Theera Veda Shastra Vidwath Pariksha Sabha.
Sri Marepalli Satyanarayana Avadhani, Renowned Veda Pandit and formerly T.T.D Vedaparayanadar, Kothagudem and Founder Member & Adhyapak of Mahadeva Veda pathashala, Achalapur, Adilabad Dist. , A.P., India.
Several friends residing within Bharathavarsha (India) and Overseas.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/74653
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: "Kalavai Venkat"
Date: Thu May 5, 2005Â 8:23 pm
Subject: A cause that Hindus must supportÂ
Dear List members,
Please see an appeal for contribution from Prof. Nathan Katz in
message
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/74626 .
This is a cause that must be very dear to every Hindu for two
reasons:
One, Prof. Katz is doing yeomen service by taking Sanskrit to the
community.
Two, Prof. Katz is one of the rare individuals that has paid the
richest tribute to India and her Hindu civilization. Those that have
read his book "Who are the Jews of India?" can easily connect to
what I have stated above. At a time when vested interests indulge in
a campaign of hate and lies against the Hindus and India, Prof. Katz
gratefully recognizes the fact that the Hindus played gracious hosts
to the Jewish people that sought refuge in India. Any Jewish person
or for that reason any balanced individual that has read Prof.
Katz's book will appreciate the pluralistic and tolerant spirit of
the Hindus.
I request every Hindu on this list, especially those living in the
West, to contribute for this effort. Vishal suggested that we can
pool in our contributions and mail it to Prof. Katz. Alternatively,
you can also mail him the contributions individually.
I am reproducing a few passages from Prof. Katz's book [taken from
the Amazon review by my friend Dr. C J S Wallia] so that you will
appreciate how much Prof. Katz's has done for Hindus and India. I am
also reproducing the appeal message in the footnote.
Please respond with suggestions on how we can raise funds and
support this effort.
Prof. Katz writes:
"Indian Jews lived as all Jews should have been allowed to live:
free, proud, observant, creative and prosperous, self-realized, full
contributors to the host community. Then, when twentieth century
conditions permitted they returned en masse to Israel, which they
had always proclaimed to be their true home despite India's
hospitality. The Indian chapter is one of the happiest of the Jewish
Diaspora.
(...)
As late as 1550 the Raja of Cochin refused to fight a battle on
Saturday because on that day his Jewish soldiers would not fight;
and they were the best warriors he had raised. Probably India is the
only country on earth so civilized that in war, out of deference to
its esteemed Jewish soldiers, no battles were fought on the Sabbath.
(...)
A crucial distinction between India and the rest of the Diaspora,
however, is that in India acculturation is not paid for in the
currency of assimilation. By acculturation I mean fitting
comfortably into a society while retaining one's own identity,
whereas by assimilation I mean that the loss of that identity is a
perceived condition for acceptance. The study of Indian Jewish
communities demonstrates that in Indian culture an immigrant group
gains status precisely by maintaining its own identity. Such is the
experience not only of India's Jews, but also of local Christians,
Zoroastrians, and recently, Tibetan Buddhists. This striking feature
of Indian civilization is reflected by each of these immigrant
groups."
Thanks.
PS: Prof. Katz's message:
Dear Friends,
Is Sanskrit a dead language? Unless someone steps up to the plate,
it is as far as FIU is concerned.
We were able to work out a cooperative arrangement with Hindu
University of America to offer two years of Sanskrit online. The
program is excellent in my opinion, and the first year is up and
running, and the second year is ready to go.
Our arrangement requires a modest buy-in from the community of three
thousand dollars per year. We received a pledge of support from
community leaders. Under this arrangement, FIU carries the lion's
share of the costs.
Unfortunately, the pledge has not been redeemed, and as FIU has to
watch costs so closely these days, this excellent program is about
to be cancelled.
This would be very unfortunate, as Sanskrit online benefits FIU, the
local Indian American community, as well as students and scholars
globally.
This is the very last chance to save Sanskrit at FIU. We need the
$3000 immediately.
Thank you for your consideration,
Nathan Katz
Nathan Katz
Professor of Religious Studies
Florida International University
Miami FL 33199
tel.: 305-348-3909
fax: 305-348-1879
Who Are the Jews of India? <http://www.khazaria.com/katz.html>
http://www.khazaria.com/katz.html
Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies: <http://www.usask.ca/relst/jijs.htm>
http://www.usask.ca/relst/jijs.htm
Center for the Study of Spirituality:
<http://cas.fiu.edu/SpiritualityCenter>
http://cas.fiu.edu/SpiritualityCenter
Web page: <http://www.indojudaic.com> http://www.indojudaic.com
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Guys
Here is follow up from Kalavai on the above issue.. Please do the needful.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/74889
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: "Kalavai Venkat" <history_judge@...>
Date: Wed May 11, 2005Â 8:53 pm
Subject: Re: A cause that Hindus must support history_judge
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
Dear Friends,
I wrote to Prof. Nathan Katz and here is his guidance on how to
contribute for this project. Those that have kindly offered to
contribute may send their checks as follows:
Checks should be made payable to: FIU FOUNDATION
On the lower left memo line, please write [This is essential]:
SOCIETY FOR INDO-JUDAIC STUDIES.
Please send your check directly to:
Professor Nathan Katz
Professor of Religious Studies
Florida International University
Miami FL 33199
tel.: 305-348-3909
fax: 305-348-1879
I just mailed my contribution of US $ 208. I have also mentioned, in
my email to Prof. Katz that a couple of other list members have also
pledged for the same and that they will mail him the check cirectly.
Thanks.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't know why ppl think we can't revive Sanskrit if the Jews can revive Hebrew. Most of the Jews in Europe spoke Yiddish before Israel was created but they managed to revive Hebrew as the national language, Hebrew was as dead as Sanskrit at the time. Most Hindus would supp the move to make Sanskrit the connective lang but the the states which will oppose it will include Tamil Nadu (Dravidian parties), Punjab (Sikh majority), Kashmir (Muslim majority), North Eastern states (Christian majority).
People who think Sanskrit is dead, should think again.
Texts in Sanskrit have been composed continuously in India over the millenia and still do, although there has been a drop in last century.
Think of a future 1000 years from hence. It is highly unlikely that any of the modern languages will remain in the present form. For an example, Hindi has evolved in so many different forms from the Hindi of early texts such as Prithviraj-Raso of Chand Bardai as to make it quite difficult to understand without help.
In contrast Sanskrit hasn't. There are clear advantages to this. By learning Sanskrit I can connect easily with millenia of literary activity in India. But one who has learnt only the modern khari-boli hindi will have a hard time even with the hindi of Tulsidas etc.
If I write a text in Sanskrit today, say about Indian music, I can be confident that that text will be seen and understood in the continuity of musical texts even thousands of years from now. Sanskrit grammar and language, being highly codified, can be learnt withought significant distortions. That advantage doesn't belong to other languages. A text written in Hindi would perhaps be hard to interpret even for hindi speakers in remote future.
I am 100% for Sanskrit as an official language. The usual argument about the difficulty of learning a new language like Sanskrit is dishonest, the difficulty applies equally well, if not more, to English, a foreign language.
Just for a sense of perspective, English has been important in world affairs only for a few centuries. And when UK and USA decline in power, English as a language is quite likely to lose its primary position. I don't give more than a century (at most a couple of centuries) for English to remain predominant language in the world.
Indians should learn English because it is important at current juncture of history. But Sanskrit has been around much longer and is intertwined with India in a very deep manner. It is highly evolved language capable of great expressivity. Modern Indian language can't come even remotely close to the capabilities that Sanskrit possesses. If India and Indians truly want to wrest away the linguistic dominance from English, they have to look towards Sanskrit, no other Indian language fits the bill.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the recent past ( 3000 years ? ) sanskrit has not been doing good in the masses...why ? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Amarnath, That argument is often repeated. But without a proper context and perspective is meaningless.
For an idea of the context, just answer this, which language in the whole world has done as well or better than Sanskrit for the last 3000 years?
Only mention can be made of Chinese. (Latin is not that old, and Greek pretty much petered out in productivity millenia ago). But even with chinese, it is the 'characters' that have had the permanence, not the language itself. Amongst the Indian languages mention can be made of Tamil which has been a highly succesful and ancient language. But in overall corpus, literary and geographic breadth and influence Sanskrit far surpasses all Indian languages including Tamil.
IMHO only ancient language that has done well and over the longest period of time continuously is Sanskrit.
Regarding the question of the masses, they were mostly illiterate all over the world. I don't think common englishmen lined up to learn, or were even admitted to the acdemies to learn, Latin when it was their official language.
Not too long ago, India's official buisiness was conducted in Persian (Farsi). Mughals ruled India for hundreds of years with such a difficult and foreign language. Farsi never became the commen peoples' language. But every court or official business was conducted in it. So did British with the foreign language of English.. Even though Englih seems to be there everywhere in India, only a tiny percentage of pupulation understands it. This is no different than the days of the Mughals. And for all their glory and power, the days of Mughals and Farsi did come to an end. And I am confident in next couple of centuries days of English will end too.
It is for the long term that I say that Sanskrit is our one true linguistic treasure. No other Indian language has the expressivity and breadth of Sanskrit and that has influenced so many modern languages of India.
cross posted:
People who think Sanskrit is dead, should think again.
Texts in Sanskrit have been composed continuously in India over the millenia and still do, although there has been a drop in last century.
Think of a future 1000 years from hence. It is highly unlikely that any of the modern languages will remain in the present form. For an example, Hindi has evolved in so many different forms from the Hindi of early texts such as Prithviraj-Raso of Chand Bardai as to make it quite difficult to understand without help.
In contrast Sanskrit hasn't. There are clear advantages to this. By learning Sanskrit I can connect easily with millenia of literary activity in India. But one who has learnt only the modern khari-boli hindi will have a hard time even with the hindi of Tulsidas etc.
If I write a text in Sanskrit today, say about Indian music, I can be confident that that text will be seen and understood in the continuity of musical texts even thousands of years from now. Sanskrit grammar and language, being highly codified, can be learnt withought significant distortions. That advantage doesn't belong to other languages. A text written in Hindi would perhaps be hard to interpret even for hindi speakers in remote future.
I am 100% for Sanskrit as an official language. The usual argument about the difficulty of learning a new language like Sanskrit is dishonest, the difficulty applies equally well, if not more, to English, a foreign language.
Just for a sense of perspective, English has been important in world affairs only for a few centuries. And when UK and USA decline in power, English as a language is quite likely to lose its primary position. I don't give more than a century (at most a couple of centuries) for English to remain predominant language in the world.
Indians should learn English because it is important at current juncture of history. But Sanskrit has been around much longer and is intertwined with India in a very deep manner. It is highly evolved language capable of great expressivity. Modern Indian language can't come even remotely close to the capabilities that Sanskrit possesses. If India and Indians truly want to wrest away the linguistic dominance from English, they have to look towards Sanskrit, no other Indian language fits the bill.
cross posted:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the recent past ( 3000 years ? ) sanskrit has not been doing good in the masses...why ? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Amarnath, That argument is often repeated. But without a proper context and perspective is meaningless.
For an idea of the context, just answer this, which language in the whole world has done as well or better than Sanskrit for the last 3000 years?
Only mention can be made of Chinese. (Latin is not that old, and Greek pretty much petered out in productivity millenia ago). But even with chinese, it is the 'characters' that have had the permanence, not the language itself. Amongst the Indian languages mention can be made of Tamil which has been a highly succesful and ancient language. But in overall corpus, literary and geographic breadth and influence Sanskrit far surpasses all Indian languages including Tamil.
IMHO only ancient language that has done well and over the longest period of time continuously is Sanskrit.
Regarding the question of the masses, they were mostly illiterate all over the world. I don't think common englishmen lined up to learn, or were even admitted to the acdemies to learn, Latin when it was their official language.
Not too long ago, India's official buisiness was conducted in Persian (Farsi). Mughals ruled India for hundreds of years with such a difficult and foreign language. Farsi never became the commen peoples' language. But every court or official business was conducted in it. So did British with the foreign language of English.. Even though Englih seems to be there everywhere in India, only a tiny percentage of pupulation understands it. This is no different than the days of the Mughals. And for all their glory and power, the days of Mughals and Farsi did come to an end. And I am confident in next couple of centuries days of English will end too.
It is for the long term that I say that Sanskrit is our one true linguistic treasure. No other Indian language has the expressivity and breadth of Sanskrit and that has influenced so many modern languages of India.
Sanskrit should become the compulsory medium of instruction for all schools in India, with the mother tongue as second language and English as third language. This is the only way we can regain our respect and throw off the yoke of colonialism.
The way to implement this is to make Sanskrit a compulsory subject in all schools first so that a generation of Sanskrit-literate students emerges. At the same time the Government needs to carry out a mass translation of scientific, engineering and medical texts into Sanskrit. Spain translates 100,000 books every year into Spanish. How many do we translate?
Lord Curzon had decided to make Sanskrit the all-India medium of instruction but was stopped by a group of self-hating Indians.
All the countries of the world use their own languages as media of instruction. What good does English do for us? It gets us menial jobs like call centres, only to face racist abuse from the English people.
In China Chinese is the medium of instruction. Yet the GDP per capita is $5000 - in India it's just $3000. See what English does for us. The first thing that the Chinese government did in Hong Kong was to remove English as the medium of teaching and replace it with Chinese. Has Hong Kong collapsed as a result?
Sanskrit is the only true national language of India - it is the voice of the Indian soul. The language in which the vast treasure of our literature is written. The language which has inspired achievement across the length and breadth of India.
Read this article about what Angreziyat is doing to our education system:
http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/colum...cid=305813
Sanskrit should become the compulsory medium of instruction for all schools in India, with the mother tongue as second language and English as third language. This is the only way we can regain our respect and throw off the yoke of colonialism.
The way to implement this is to make Sanskrit a compulsory subject in all schools first so that a generation of Sanskrit-literate students emerges. At the same time the Government needs to carry out a mass translation of scientific, engineering and medical texts into Sanskrit. Spain translates 100,000 books every year into Spanish. How many do we translate?
Lord Curzon had decided to make Sanskrit the all-India medium of instruction but was stopped by a group of self-hating Indians.
All the countries of the world use their own languages as media of instruction. What good does English do for us? It gets us menial jobs like call centres, only to face racist abuse from the English people.
In China Chinese is the medium of instruction. Yet the GDP per capita is $5000 - in India it's just $3000. See what English does for us. The first thing that the Chinese government did in Hong Kong was to remove English as the medium of teaching and replace it with Chinese. Has Hong Kong collapsed as a result?
Sanskrit is the only true national language of India - it is the voice of the Indian soul. The language in which the vast treasure of our literature is written. The language which has inspired achievement across the length and breadth of India.
Read this article about what Angreziyat is doing to our education system:
http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/colum...cid=305813
Welcome to the forum samskritam_warrior:
(a) Please email or PM one of the moderators regarding changing your userhandle.
(b) Creating threads for topics already under discussion is general frowned upon and I see that you have posted in the Sanskrit thread.
Any specific reason you are requesting a separate thread for this?
Ahok Kumar:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The usual argument about the difficulty of learning a new language like Sanskrit is dishonest, the difficulty applies equally well, if not more, to English, a foreign language.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very true I think. From whatever vague knowledge I have of Sanskrit, it appears that words in Sanskrit are constructed from a relatively small number of primitive concepts. By "joining" such concepts together new words are formed. In that sense it is a very ordered rational language. (From what I am told, Chinese languages also have this property - where each character stands for a notion/concept. By combining characters words are formed). Its ordered structure would make the language easier to learn.
Another advantage - I feel that too many people think verbally rather than conceptually (and I dont claim to be immune from this disease) - think DDM. Imagine what would happen if all our DDM started thinking in Sanskrit. They would be forced to actually think about what they wrote rather than stringing together sentences taken from other sources. The language could trigger a revolution <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Regards,
Sandeep.
I have no doubt that had we adopted Sanskrit as the language of education in 1947, by now we'd have produced loads of nobel laureates in economics, philosophy, physics etc. English education has stopped us from THINKING - it has forced us to MEMORISE.
this topic is way too important. we need to start a national movement to make Sanskrit the language of prestige, the language of administration and courts, of art and literature, of science and medicine, of engineering and physics.
we need to start a national petition to make sanskrit compulsory in ALL schools from 1st to 10th as a second language subject.
we need to donate money and set up a SANSKRIT TRANSLATION FUND to carry out the translation of scientific, engineering and medical books into the language.
samskritam_warrior: Please send me a PM; <b>your username has to change ASAP if need to keep posting on this forum</b>.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->this topic is way too important<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We can leave the topic open for short duration to guage the level of interest and participation.
If I may make a suggestion. There could be two Sanskrit threads - one for "Sanskrit advocacy" and another "Learning Sanskrit" thread. The latter thread could have a set of links in its first post pointing to useful Sanskrit learning sites (there are a whole lot of them in the other thread whic could be collected here). subsequent posts would be from Sanskrit learners who could ask questions (language questions only) which could be answered by guroos <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> or by other learners. Since there already appears to be a thread for Sanskrit advocacy can we convert this thread to "Learning Sanskrit"? This thread could also discuss questions related to creating Sanskrit learning software.
Regards,
Sandeep.
06-11-2005, 09:52 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-11-2005, 09:53 AM by Amber G..)
Sanskrit Chants at MIT graduation...<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->MIT's Hindu chaplain, Swami Tyagananda, offered an invocation in Sanskrit and in English that reflected the large international crowd's spirit of unity and goodwill .
"May we come together for a common purpose. Common be our prayer, common our goal.
"May the one and the same Divine Reality ⦠lead us. May we be granted clear understanding and the courage to pursue the goals of social justice, nonviolence, harmony and peace," he said.
It was "great day to graduate," said Commencement speaker Irwin Jacobs, t
Company Details
newsoffice@mit.edu<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-samskritam_warrior+May 17 2005, 05:32 PM-->QUOTE(samskritam_warrior @ May 17 2005, 05:32 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> this topic is way too important. we need to start a national movement to make Sanskrit the language of prestige, the language of administration and courts, of art and literature, of science and medicine, of engineering and physics.
we need to start a national petition to make sanskrit compulsory in ALL schools from 1st to 10th as a second language subject.
we need to donate money and set up a SANSKRIT TRANSLATION FUND to carry out the translation of scientific, engineering and medical books into the language. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i agreee with you!!!
and yes: I also think that this needs a seperate thread!
I think Hindi is too much mixed with arabian, pesian and english words. I hate that!!
Sanskrit must be the language!!
But I think it will never happen, because most indians are just weak!! yess weak!! sorry to say it like this.
We can learn a lot, from the chinese!!
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