10-20-2005, 05:13 AM
Love for Sanskrit
Special correspondent
KOZHIKODE: : Jagiellonian University in Krakow in Poland played host a lively seminar on Saskrit poetry demonstrating once again that the love for Sanskrit language persists even outside India. The seminar was at Zakopane, a mountainous, lushful and stunningly beautiful town two hours drive away. Recalls Rajendran, head of the Department of Sanskrit-University of Calicut who was there recently to attend a three-day seminar on love and nature in Sanskrit poetry.
The event was organised by Lidia Sudyka, Professor of Sanskrit, at Jageillonion University which is one of the oldest universities of Europe. It had once on its rolls celebrities like Copernicus and the late Paul Pope. More importantly, it has also an active Indian Study Centre.
Looking back at his Poland visit, Prof. Rajendran was amazed to find such a vibrant academic community in central Europe "engaged in serious deliberations on an unearthly subject like Sanskrit."
The scholars gathered for the seminar were from Poland, Italy, England, Finland, France and the Czek Republic. To them it was a regular get-together, an annual communion triggered off by the sheer love of an exotic language which they study in right earnest.
Said Prof. Rajendran: They were articulate and passionate about Sanskrit poetry. They discussed sea and rivers, parrot and cat, elephant and lion, jasmine and "parijata" in sessions that lasted from dawn to dusk .The range of their knowledge was staggering. The manner in which they could distinguish subtle differences of meaning of Sanskrit words was remarkable. They had the right perspective and the right kind of tools to make sense of a distant, glorious literature which, they felt, strangely soothing. Prof. Rajendran was the only Indian among the Indologists, young and old, who had gathered there to attend the deliberations. But he felt at home for they were united in their love for Sanskrit. Apart from Sanskrit, some of them knew Tamil and Hindi.
Jaroslav Vacek, the very learned Dean Of Charles University of Czek Repulic, talked to Prof. Rajendran in Tamil with a perfect accent. Some young scholars knew enough Hindi to carry on a conversation. They spoke chaste Tamil and chaste Hindi though with a strange accent.
Cezary Galewicz, a young and very accomplished scholar at Jageillonion University, has even made a film on Aksarasloka. It is titled The Undying Verses. "You study Sanskrit and we study about Sanskrit," remarked Prof. Vacek, a participant, wistfully. "There is not much difference between the two" says Prof. Rajendran.
Special correspondent
KOZHIKODE: : Jagiellonian University in Krakow in Poland played host a lively seminar on Saskrit poetry demonstrating once again that the love for Sanskrit language persists even outside India. The seminar was at Zakopane, a mountainous, lushful and stunningly beautiful town two hours drive away. Recalls Rajendran, head of the Department of Sanskrit-University of Calicut who was there recently to attend a three-day seminar on love and nature in Sanskrit poetry.
The event was organised by Lidia Sudyka, Professor of Sanskrit, at Jageillonion University which is one of the oldest universities of Europe. It had once on its rolls celebrities like Copernicus and the late Paul Pope. More importantly, it has also an active Indian Study Centre.
Looking back at his Poland visit, Prof. Rajendran was amazed to find such a vibrant academic community in central Europe "engaged in serious deliberations on an unearthly subject like Sanskrit."
The scholars gathered for the seminar were from Poland, Italy, England, Finland, France and the Czek Republic. To them it was a regular get-together, an annual communion triggered off by the sheer love of an exotic language which they study in right earnest.
Said Prof. Rajendran: They were articulate and passionate about Sanskrit poetry. They discussed sea and rivers, parrot and cat, elephant and lion, jasmine and "parijata" in sessions that lasted from dawn to dusk .The range of their knowledge was staggering. The manner in which they could distinguish subtle differences of meaning of Sanskrit words was remarkable. They had the right perspective and the right kind of tools to make sense of a distant, glorious literature which, they felt, strangely soothing. Prof. Rajendran was the only Indian among the Indologists, young and old, who had gathered there to attend the deliberations. But he felt at home for they were united in their love for Sanskrit. Apart from Sanskrit, some of them knew Tamil and Hindi.
Jaroslav Vacek, the very learned Dean Of Charles University of Czek Repulic, talked to Prof. Rajendran in Tamil with a perfect accent. Some young scholars knew enough Hindi to carry on a conversation. They spoke chaste Tamil and chaste Hindi though with a strange accent.
Cezary Galewicz, a young and very accomplished scholar at Jageillonion University, has even made a film on Aksarasloka. It is titled The Undying Verses. "You study Sanskrit and we study about Sanskrit," remarked Prof. Vacek, a participant, wistfully. "There is not much difference between the two" says Prof. Rajendran.