Spoken sanskrit movement fills Sheldon Bollocks with nausea

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विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)

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Jun 13, 2021, 11:43:39 PM6/13/21
to bhAratIya-vidvat-pariShad भारतीय-विद्वत्परिषद्
Per his words in this video snippet: https://twitter.com/pvaal2/status/1301890398407856128


Also interesting are his views at https://twitter.com/pvaal2/status/1301913079563812866 :  
"Inheritors of a past that they did not create themselves have an obligation to share it ... "

The premise is wrong, of course. I find it very striking that one does not see oneself as an extension of one's forefathers (sagely or otherwise). Perhaps this comes from not feeling gratitude towards and revering them (via tarpaNa type rituals). Quite ahistorical an attitude for one so obsessed with it.



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Vishvas /विश्वासः

Nagaraj Paturi

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Jun 14, 2021, 12:29:35 AM6/14/21
to Bharatiya Vidvat parishad
Regarding the words of Prof. Pollock in the first video clip:

1. Spoken Sanskrit movement is not happening in the place of or to replace the creative use of Sanskrit. We have been showing to the world how the creativity in Sanskrit did not stop from 1800  as observed by him in his Death of Sanskrit piece. We have been showing how creativity in Sanskrit continued during the from 1800 as before if not in more ways than before, till date. Spoken Sanskrit movement did not and does not obstruct that incessant continuation. It can , if at all , add to it, by bringing more people with more variegated contemporary and modern backgrounds into Sanskrit creativity. That is showing up today. 

One of his arguments in his  Death of Sanskrit piece is that modernity did not get articulated through Sanskrit.  Ordering Chai in Sanskrit on Bengaluru street is part of articulation of an entire contemporary Indian life through Sanskrit. He must have the scholarly ability to understand the change that language of his focus is undergoing through such a colossal movement. How it results in new literary artefacts for him to study is what he has to look for and apply his scholarship to. 

  Regarding his words in the second video clip:  

2. What a ridiculous argument !

'which you did not create' is the most hurting part of it, hurting not only to Indians but all the global communities participating in the preservation and continuance of the cultural and knowledge heritage whether in the form of oral, written and other forms of texts or in the form of memory, inherited from their ancestors. 

Even from a common legal understanding, did we all create the properties that we inherit from our ancestors and own with all the rights ? 

Apart from a community cultural heritage as a right of the inheritor, do the libraries that restrict access to their collections and holdings only to those having membership on the basis of certain criteria also are wrong in doing so ?



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Nagaraj Paturi
 
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.


Director, Indic Academy
BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra
BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek, Maharashtra
BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru.
Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam, Bengaluru
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venkat veeraraghavan

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Jun 14, 2021, 2:04:26 AM6/14/21
to भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Shri Paturi garu

Hurt ensues where expectations are broken.
It is high time desi vidvans started having an appreciation for themselves instead of always asking what does pollock or maybe as Vishvas has more appropriately put it bollocks thinks.

I find it ridiculous that vidvans of bvp many of whom pollock is not fit be a shoeshine boy for should care what some white skinned supremacist thinks.

Please appreciate yourself and your heritage more and stop giving these agenda driven cretins legitimacy.

Regards

V

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Nagaraj Paturi

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Jun 14, 2021, 2:46:56 AM6/14/21
to Bharatiya Vidvat parishad
It does not hurt to refer to our purvapakshin with their names and titles. 

Let us,  as a scholarly forum , continue our traditional heritage of conversational etiquette. 

When we bring the ideas expressed to the table, let us not say we don't care. We bring to the table, because we noticed, we want to take notice of . 

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विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)

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Jul 26, 2021, 12:38:52 AM7/26/21
to bhAratIya-vidvat-pariShad भारतीय-विद्वत्परिषद्, meta-indology
To add to this Pollck vid, archiving some classic emails by some "western" Indologists for future reference (with emphasis on "interesting" parts), since the urls have shifted ( https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/2008-August/thread.html seems ok).

First by this lady who can be seen here being welcomed by our Canada diplomat - https://twitter.com/AkhileshIFS/status/639608306835849217 .

Stella Sandahl ssandahl at SYMPATICO.CA
Wed Aug 13 03:49:54 EDT 2008

In the current debate about "spoken Sanskrit" I believe we are  
talking about two different things. It is one thing when for example  
a Bengali pandit speaks to Telugu pandit in Sanskrit in order to  
debate finer points in a text, or a philosophical issue, a literary  
allusion and so forth. Sanskrit is then their common language, a  
language of learning, of elegance and wit. And this is quite wonderful.

It is an entirely different matter to try to revive and 'modernize'  
Sanskrit. Lying on a table in our university library I found a  
typical example of the latter. There were new-fangled "Sanskrit"  
words for money order, check-out counter, bus station, bank draft -  
as if one finds these things in classical Sanskrit texts! These  
manuals are quite ridiculous: I found a sentence like ahaM  
sevaphalAni khAdAmi which was supposed to mean 'I eat apples'. First,  
as far as I know there were no apples in classical India (weren't  
they brought in by Babur?), second the word seva is obviously modeled  
on Hindi seb 'apple' from the Persian sib with the same meaning. This  
is exactly in line with the examples given by Professor Nair: "adya  
kati iddali bhakshitam?" "adya chayam piitam kim?", equally  
ridiculous.  My niece in Delhi once asked to help her with her  
Sanskrit homework. She had to translate the sentence "Kings live in  
palaces" into Sanskrit. The word given by the teacher for palace was  
'mahala' !!!  I tried to convince the little girl that there was no  
such word in Sanskrit. In vain. The girl said :"teacher says it is  
mahala", and that was what it had to be.

It is very sad to se how the ignorant Hindutva forces demean and make  
the wonderful classical language into something trivial and  
ridiculous. How do we stop them?
How can we rescue Sanskrit from these vandals? I doubt that the  
sevaphalAni-eating student in his mahala can read and understand even  
one line by Kalidasa or Bana or Jayadeva.
But he can cut the throat of those who cannot speak his so called  
Sanskrit. When he is not busy demolishing mosques and raping nuns.

Stella Sandahl


--
Professor Stella Sandahl
Department of East Asian Studies
130 St. George St. room 14087
Toronto, ON M5S 3H1
ssandahl at sympatico.ca
stella.sandahl at utoronto.ca
Tel. (416) 978-4295
Fax. (416) 978-5711

Maheswaran Nair swantam at ASIANETINDIA.COM
Thu Aug 14 11:00:55 UTC 2008

Dear list,
I agree that Sanskrit teachers and students should surely learn to  
fluently communicate in Sanskrit. The present state (especialyy in  
Kerala)is deplorable.
Objection is against utilising Sanskrit for "other" purposes.  
Hindutvavadins have specific agenda behind popularising Sanskrit. They  
have brought out many books among which a small one entitled  
"Samskrtam vada aadhuniko bhava"(published from Aluva, Kerala)  
contains their sectarian approach.They consider Sanskrit only as the  
cultural language of India which is far from truth. They paste  
everywhere a poster which reads "Samskrtam bharatasya  
samskrtikabhasha". What about other Indian languages? Making use of  
Sanskrit in place of Ramakshetra for demolishing Babrimasjid is  
objectionable.
You know what happened in Gujarat. First the poster containing AUM was  
pasted in front of houses of Hindus as a distinguishing mark for the  
convenience of Hindu rioteers before "action". My humble doubt and  
fear is that Sanskrit will be used as a "marker" in the coming  
years.Let it not happen.
Regards
K.Maheswaran Nair
Maheswaran Nair swantam at ASIANETINDIA.COM
Wed Aug 13 06:42:17 UTC 2008

Hello,

  In Malayalam, my native tongue, 60 to 70 percent words of the  
language of an educated Malayalee are Sanskrit. In many Indian  
languages the state of this affair will slightly change. Such people  
need not make Sanskrit their spoken language. There is hidden agenda  
behind popularising spoken Sanskrit. Hindu revivalists and  
communalists are popularising it. They have organizations for the  
same. At times of mass murders of people belonging to other religions  
there is need to distinguish them. "Interested parties" have plans to  
make Sanskrit the national language of India. A time may come when  
during purposely created communal riots, the question will be put  
"bhavaan samskrtam janaati kim?" Those who reply in the affirmative in  
Sanskrit will be spared and others will be butchered.
I am also fluent in Sanskrit and have evolved an easy  method for  
teaching Spoken Sanskrit, not the spoken Sanskrit popularised by the  
revivalists which is like "adya kati iddali bhakshitam?" "adya chayam  
piitam kim?".
Regards
K.Maheswaran Nair
Professor of Sanskrit
University of Kerala
India

hhhock hhhock at EXPRESS.CITES.UIUC.EDU
Wed Aug 13 15:31:11 UTC 2008

The thread on spoken Sanskrit has been very interesting, and some  
points strike me as quite a propos. First, I don't see any problems  
with neologisms. Even if we ignore the sometimes controversial  
examples of supposed Dravidian borrowing in early Vedic and the much  
less controversial ones in later Vedic and post-Vedic (such as  
niira-), or the late borrowings from North Indian languages in late  
Sanskrit texts, there is evidence for borrowing at many other stages,  
and in many different spheres (consider e.g. (tri-)koNa, horaa and  
the like, from Greek). Moreover, if Sanskrit is to be used in a  
modern context, not only to discuss fine points of philosophy or  
grammar, it has to be modernized to make it possible to talk about  
trains, apples, and the like (and hybrids like relayaana strike me as  
much more felicitous than words such as agniratha(...)yaana). There  
is a problem, however, as far as the lexicon goes, namely the whole- 
scale importation of Sanskrit-derived Hindi, Marathi, etc. words into  
Sanskrit, with their modern meanings, rather than the use of  
established Sanskrit words (consider the use of aarambha instead of  
utsava in the Hindi-speaking area). While Sanskrit needs to be  
modernized, it does not need to be intellectualized, thank you; it  
always has been perfectly capable to deal with intellectual issues.

Second, I agree that the kind of spoken Sanskrit that is being  
propagated by Hindutva organizations is grammatically, lexically, and  
intellectually without merit, not far removed from a pidgin form of  
the language. The fact that it does not provide a useful entry to the  
full form of the language, as found in the philosophical, religious,  
and literary tradition of India (not to speak of the vast range of  
technical literature), supports the view that the motivation for this  
enterprise is not to connect modern Indians with their traditions but  
to give Hindus (or better: Hindutvavaadins) a false, manufactured  
sense of identity. (I should add that the founders of this movement,  
such as Krishna Shastri, had a much fuller grasp of the language and  
spoke it very well.)

Best wishes,

Hans


adheesh sathaye adheesh at OCF.BERKELEY.EDU
Wed Aug 13 10:33:20 UTC 2008

Dear Profs. Hart, Nair, and Sandahl, and colleagues,

With all due respect, I find it hard to accept that the construction  
of neologisms like 'seva-phala', 'iDDali' or even misuses like  
'mahAla' are in any way indicative of 'ignorant Hindutva forces'. It  
is not at all uncommon  to see vernacular words or forms used within  
medieval Sanskrit manuscripts, and particularly when the concept does  
not occur in classical Sanskrit. Certain MSS of zivadAsa's or  
jambhaladatta's vetAla-paJcaviMzati, for example, appear to be  
replete with north Indian vernacular 'loan-words' and shoddy, Hindi-  
or Marathi-based grammatical forms. This is  just the tip of the  
iceberg. Moreover, contemporary spoken Sanskrit is quite obviously  
and self-consciously a simplification of classical Sanskrit, and this  
has been done in order for the language to be more accessible and  
appealing to young, twenty-first century students, who WOULD like to  
express their thoughts about riding the bus, eating apples, using  
computers, and other modern-day activities. It's actually quite a fun  
thing to do.

One must, it is true, engage in this linguistic practice knowing full  
well that what one is speaking is a hybridized and simplified form of  
the classical parole, and this I think is where some of the Hindu  
nationalist ideological projects are indeed harmful, as Prof. Nair  
points out, in representing spoken Sanskrit to the Indian public as  
being both authentic and Hindu. What's most disturbing to me about  
the Hindu spoken Sanskrit movement is not how the language is  
treated, but how many textbooks attempt to naturalize (and  
nationalize) upper-caste, puritanical Hindu practices through  
language teaching.

On the other hand, may I respectfully suggest that the idea that the  
ancientness of Sanskrit somehow debilitates this language from  
accepting neologisms, or makes it useless for expressing modern  
ideas, itself might be construed as an act of intellectual violence  
on par with 'cutting throats', 'demolishing mosques', or 'raping  
nuns'? Clearly, as scholars of classical Sanskrit, we have an  
obligation to continue to teach students how to read and understand  
kAlidAsa, bANa, or perhaps even the magisterial ZrIharSa--but can  
this teaching not occur side-by-side with an acceptance of a  
consciously different register of the Sanskrit language, albeit  
contrived and manufactured, for contemporary, everyday usage? Perhaps  
the latter might serve as a kind of gateway for the former?

with best regards,

Adheesh
--
Dr. Adheesh Sathaye
Department of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia
408 Asian Centre
1871 West Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
604.822.5188
adheesh at interchange.ubc.ca
George Hart glhart at BERKELEY.EDU
Wed Aug 13 14:27:43 UTC 2008

Years ago, the late highly learned Sanskrit scholar Dr. Janaki stayed  
at our house.  She showed me a column she had written in Sanskrit  
about the McEnroe - Borg tennis competition.  Her command of the  
language was awesome -- she was capable to expressing just about  
anything, using the full resources of the language.  I still remember  
getting up one morning about 6:00 and encountering a bright-eyed  
Janaki chattering away in fluent (and extremely rapid) Sanskrit, and  
struggling with little success to process what she said in my still  
numbed state.  The problem, I feel, with the kind of spoken Sanskrit  
we're talking about is not that it borrows Hindi words or Tamil  
syntax.  As Adheesh says, Sanskrit has been borrowing or innovating  
since the beginning (many of its most common words are Dravidian).   
The problem is that spoken "Sanskrit" is incapable of expressing a  
complex thought -- "How many Idlis did you eat today" is not exactly a  
profound idea.  Real languages are highly complex because they need to  
be used to express complex ideas.  Sanskrit is no exception.  As Prof.  
Nair notes, languages such as Malayalam can make use of the entire  
Sanskrit vocabulary to express thoughts that are extremely complicated  
(one might also remark that Malayalam, which was a dialect of Tamil  
1000 years ago, also retains a huge inherited Dravidian vocabulary).    
If one goes to a village and encounters the (rare) illiterate  
Malayali, one would discover that while that person might not know all  
the Sanskrit words used in a scholarly essay, he or she can still use  
the language for expressing quite complicated ideas.  Sadly, neo- 
Sanskrit seems incapable of being used this way.  It is a consciously  
dumbed-down language that eschews its own grand tradition.  If people  
enjoy learning it in a rudimentary way to express simple things,  
obviously there's nothing wrong with that.  The problem as I see it  
lies in the fact that these "Sanskrit" speakers often think that just  
because they use the language in a rudimentary way, they are somehow  
connecting with the great intellectual tradition that the language  
contains.  Or, worse, that they are embodiments of some "Hindu-ness"  
that is inherent in the language.  Their rudimentary use of the  
language fosters a kind of arrogance and sense of superiority that is  
unwarranted.  I remember reading the Rasagangadhara with Pandit  
Seshadrinathan and remarking on the breathtaking boldness of the  
beginning verses.  When I suggested that Jagannatha seemed a bit  
arrogant and overbearing, Seshadrinathan remarked "sthaane."  Yes, if  
someone knows Sanskrit 5% as well as Jagannatha, then he or she is  
entitled to be proud.  Saying "How many idlis did you eat today?" in  
neo-Sanskrit may be fun, but it's hardly grounds for the sort of  
overweening pride that such speakers often seem to project.

George Hart



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Manas Talukdar <mana...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 7:28 AM
Subject: negative comments on spoken Samskrita initiative

Apparently according to Dr. Stella Sandahl, Samskrita revivalists are interested in "cutting throats", "raping nuns", "destroying mosques", etc. This preposterous and extremely offensive allegation was made in an academic e-list no less, eliciting a couple of muted protests. Dr. Sandahl also makes the equally outrageous allegation that Samskrita revivalists are all proponents of the Hindutva political movement.
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0808&L=INDOLOGY&O=D&F=PPPPP&I=-3&P=6368

Here we find one Dr. Maheswaran Nair positing that Samskrita speakers are wannabe mass-murderers.
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0808&L=INDOLOGY&O=D&F=PPPPP&I=-3&P=6266

Prof. Sheldon Pollock in an interview (available on youtube) also made some comments against the spoken Samskrita movement, though he was relatively subdued. His thesis being what I indicated earlier - spoken Samskrita doesn't do justice to a language of high intellectual output.

I read those papers you have linked. I must give credit to Dr. Hastings for presenting a picture that is relatively objective notwithstanding what I see as his apparent predilections and amusing over-analysis of a book of simple sentences.

For better or for worse, I have gradually come around to finding some merit in the observation made by shrI L Aravind, as elucidated earlier over at Facebook. He has on more than one occasion spoken of organized efforts at certain places to sequester Indic knowledge systems from its natural milieu while also working to stymie its survival therein. Unfortunately, until and unless certain trends take a favorable turn, specially in India, I am hard-pressed to see things change for the better.



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