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 ! "