SAMSKRITAARCANAM !

!अयि सुहृन्नवसत्रमिदं पुरो नवनवा वटव: पथिका गुरो: /
भरतभूवरसंस्कृतिसंगमे स्नपय संस्कृतपथ्यसुपाथसा //

भव सुधास्य उदारदिवौकसामिव सुसंस्कृतसत्पदकौतुकी /
सुखमुपास्स्व यथेष्टवशम्वदप्रियशास्त्रं ज्ञपयन्मनोहरम, //

यदि गुरुर्न वदेत्सुखं वच: सहजं संस्कृतमत्र लीलया /
कथमिहैतु  स उत्तमवृद्धतां कथमिहास्त्वपरोपि स मध्यम: //

शिशुरुदेतु  कथं नवभाषया व्यवहृतिं युगलस्य पश्यतु /
न युगले यदि तच्च वचो भवेत्कथमिदं वटुरस्तु  शिक्षित: //

किमु मुनिर्जननी यदि बाळक: सुख मुवाच  ह  मातृभाषया /
न यदि तत्किळ सत्यमुपाहर सुरगिरा वचनं हितं वटो: //

त्रि: कोटिर्माणवास्ते प्रतिदिनमिह ये  भारते श्रद्दधाना
गैर्वाणी* हन्त वाणी* गुरुकुलमुखत: शिक्षितुं चक्षते भो: /
तेषां चेत्पंक्तिमात्रानुवदनविधिना भाषया चान्ययासौ
शास्ता किं वाक्प्रसन्ना भवति शिशुमतौ ब्रूहि मित्र प्रसन्नः //
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WHEN WE THINK OF INDIA !




     " When indeed we think of India in totality or we go back a few centuries to speak something on India with definite information,this is not possible without an acquaintance of Samskrit and her pervasive literature.Everyday we may come across responsible well-meaning people trying to articulate their views on different aspects of Indian life,culture or society,but they more often than not falter and fail,in spite of the fact that they do their best to convince themselves and others.


        In the VAlmIki RAmAyaNa,in the Ki.skindhyA kANDa,RAma and Lak.smaNa get the first acquaintance of HanumAn and mark him out as one who knew what to speak and how to speak as he had mastered the four Veda-s and grammar that ensured in handling a language with dexterity.HanumAn was a national hero,one who could champion a national cause and so was dependable and worthy of trust,surmised the brothers in their distress of having missed SItA who symbolized their pride and self-esteem.


       HanumAn accepted RAma as his master and wanted to render him selfless service.Thus master and servant were well-poised as they had the best of knowledge and resultant conviction.In statecraft or in social life to conceive the befitting ideas,to articulate them logically and meaningfully and then to implement them selflessly for a definite cause,one needs to be as RAma or HanumAn.One was a king for forty four years for his perception of the ideals of a welfare state and HanumAn as a true devotee and servant was always at the beck and call of that just order ! It was an era of knowledge and selfless action which we look back upon to mend our ways,to know where have we gone wrong and to take to certain correctives to live better and wiser ! 
  
       Samskrit and her glorious literature can certainly be a great asset to infuse that indigenous sense and conscience to visualize and act definitively.She is witness to the wisest human experiences of at least ten thousand years !"


                                                                              - s m mishra

" This seems to be a dream now that the Samskrit text books in schools and colleges will ever be rid of their non-Samskrit explanatory glosses occupying more than three-fourth of a book.The students are averse to do any commentary in Samskrit old or new.The teaching and exams also don't help the Samskrit speech to grow as a contemporary language.

Samskrit is loved at NASA and such other stories,the Samskrit pundits speak to audiences quoting newspaper details,but they fail the very cause of Samskrit at home.This census must be an eye-opener in many ways including our number of Samskrit speakers.

Will the Samskrit-lovers and teachers/students behave responsibly with an eye on the future of the divine language in redefining the Indian paradigm ? "

Can We Co-create !

" ' Co-create' is an inspiring word and an adventurous idea it signifies ! The objective is 'Dharma- Yoga' another fabulous and promising idea !

Charles Savage,a management and economics professor from Munich,Germany and his yoga teacher C S R Prabhu,a known IT scientist from Hyderabad last year and this year came to Kurukshetra to verify our faith and trust in the words of the Bhagavadgita which was born here more than 5,000 years back.

The miseries of the world are due to our lack of awareness of the efficacy and supremacy of Dharma which is the Nature-God-ordained doctrine of life,which does not bind us,but rather sets us free from bondage and self-inflicted limitations.Yoga is alleviating human afflictions,physical and mental,to a great extent and is looked upon with reverence and reliability.There are many Yoga-s everywhere,in the scriptures and now in contemporary practice.But the Yoga of Dharma,Dharma-Yoga is the very pivot as viewed by CSR Prabhu,who has also worked on ancient aeronautics found in Samskrita.Our positive value-based response to the world happenings to create a better and joyously and blissfully livable world is for Prabhu 'Dharma- Yoga' !

Charles Savage 71 asks : 'Can we co-create such conditions that we may 'live lightly and lively according to our self-projected practical values of Dharma-Yoga' ? He calls such a life style as 'low-carbon' as we are not consumptive beyond our/nature's means.He wants to discuss the best in religions,but he mainly draws from the Gita,Veda and Upanishads.He compares Draupadi's predicament at Duryodhana's court as that the mother earth (Gaia in Greek) is faced with at the hands of her own children all over the globe.Prabhu added that all can re-discover this essential goodness and Dharma in their own religions.

On 25,26 & 27 February we had good interaction with the two at Shrikrishna Museum and Samskrita Shodha Parishad in the Sanskrit Department of Kurukshetra University.Now it has taken the form of a certain pro-active forum and foundation named Dharma-Yoga International having chapters at Hyderabad,Bangalore,Munich and Kurukshetra.

Kurukshetra came to be designated as Dharmakshetra by Lord Vishnu when the sage-king Kuru ploughed the land of Brahmavarta and sowed eight seeds which were part and parcel of his own corporeal body purified by sacrifices.The legandary eight seeds are : Tapas (penance),Satya (Truth),Kshamaa (Forgiving),Dayaa (Kindness),Shaucha (Purity),Daana (Charity),Yoga (Spiritual Mastery) and Brahmacarya (Control of Senses).These eight are symbolic of practical Dharma in life.In the great epic Vyasa is in utter pains seeing the unhappy turn of events and speaks out : 'Here throwing up my arms I proclaim in distress,but none does lend an ear to me.I emphasize that out of Dharma(Condut) alone Artha (Resources) and Kaama (Desired objects) emerge ! But why is that Dharma not being practiced ?'

Can Dharma-Yoga bring some peace to the ailing and dying spirit of humanity ? Only our sustained efforts and future can tell ! "

Samskrita in Mizoram !

" In my first ever visit to Chawngte in Mizoram as a Resource Person to deliver some ten lectures at the Min. of Culture NMm-sponsored National Workshop on Manuscriptology & Paleography at the end of January,I found that there is so far no scope and means or facility for study of Samskrita in this state.75% are Mizos now Christians and 20% are Chakma Buddhists and rest 5% are miscellaneous people.I understood that spread of Samskrita can bring down their sensitive group identities and consequent rivalries.The Chakmas consider themselves as the descendants of the Buddha.which has made them determined against conversion.The Mizos were mostly pagans beforehand, worshiping all kinds of natural forces and images including trees.But all of them very lovable people,greatly fond of their languages and scripts.The Chakma people want to preserve and practice their language and script in place of Bengali which they were made to do in the past.

During the period of about a week I stayed in the Chakma Autonomous District Council Guest House I felt the language they spoke closer to me than expected.On the last day at the Valedictory I was made a special guest on the dais and the continuous lectures of a number of other guests in Chakma language,even a few poems were recited,I was enjoying a feast and trying to relish it as best I could.One thing I noticed that I was understanding quite a lot,say up to 70% of what was being said.I thought if I told things in my mother tongue these people would understand as much of it ! When it came to my good turn,I took a sweet friendly revenge by starting to speak in Odia with of course their prior permission,switching over to Bangla and to Hindi too except concluding in English at the end.I emphasized how it is Samskrita that pervades all indian languages and that Chakma as a language could come to benefit from the rich treasure and culture of Samskrita which the Buddha had mastered at an early age although for different reasons he made up his mind to preach his ideas in Pali !

I met a good many zealots for Samskrita and I inspired them as to how to make a beginning.I wish by God's grace something would happen to the divine speech in that beautiful land, which some noted on our way back as bearing a striking similarity to Switzerland.SarasvatI shruti-mahatI mahIyatAm ! "

Indology Days Over ?

" The word "Indology" has a connotation,a time and clime,a purpose that created it and thus it has an associated sense which is more burdening,distorting and disconcerting than it's usual sense in common parlance or if we go for that vogue etymology.

The colonial masters gone and their propagated theories mostly gone,Indology is meeting with cold shoulders in it's old citadels outside India.

How long shall we continue to look at ourselves with the glasses that 'others' used to scan us for a purpose ?

Can we redefine the subject without being laid by the old misleading baggage ? "

Sanskrit and the New Year !

" Whether astronomically correct or not this New Year beginning on January 1 has gained prominence in most parts of the world.Earlier I thought it to be more a wordy and cardy way of expressing the feelings,particularly in India.

Now I got it somewhere that in the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda order this day is named as 'Kalpataru Divas' ! See now the ongoing Kali year is called 'Krodhin' and the coming Hindu New Year is 'Vis'vAvasu' on 23 March 2012 ! That is considered as the day when the creation came to be ! Vide the Puranic statement : jagat sasarja bhagavAn caitrasya prathame 'hani !

This is typical of our indigenous way of naming anything and everything with a name that is factual or based on an aspiration or a promise.And true to it the organization has put it up that way,much in symmetry with Swami Vivekananda's wish to bring the east and west together.

I think let's celebrate this also as the New Year and at the same time not to forget our New Year Day which was once followed all over the civilized world.

And Sanskrit in 20129C.E.) 0r 5113(Kali era) is supposed to grow through IT,sciences and alternative health facilities like Yoga and Ayurveda and a keenness to research in to the history of human ideas and traditions and transactions of knowledge in the world through known and unknown times.

I expect more teachers and students of the foremost language to accept it as a preferred medium in study,teaching and examinations and more so in letters,messages and creative writings.Not to use the language is to do injustice to it.Use it and feel the joy of it,feel it's distinct sweet touch on your tongue and in your mind and heart !"