Setting the Record Straight on our Ancient but Living Language
The Battle For Sanskrit
There is a new awakening that is challenging the ongoing westernization of the discourse about India. The Battle for Sanskrit seeks to alert traditional scholars of Sanskrit and sanskriti ‑ Indian civilization ‑ concerning an important school of thought that has its base in the US and that has started to dominate the discourse on the cultural, social and political aspects of India. This academic field is called Indology or Sanskrit studies. From their analysis of Sanskrit texts, the scholars of this field are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated purpose of removing ‘poisons’ allegedly built into these texts. They hold that many Sanskrit texts are socially oppressive and serve as a political weapon of the ruling elite; that the sacred aspects need to be refuted or side lined; and that Sanskrit has long been dead. The traditional Indian experts would outright reject or at least question these positions.
The start of Rajiv Malhotra’s feisty exploration of where the new thrust in Western Indology goes wrong, and his defence of what he considers the traditional, Indian approach, began with a project related to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham, one of the most sacred institutions for Hindus. There was, as he saw it, a serious risk of distortion of the teachings of the peetham, and of sanatana dharma more broadly.
Whichever side of the fence one may be, The Battle for Sanskrit, offers a spirited debate marshalling new insights and research. It is a valuable addition to an important subject, and in a larger context, on two ways of looking. Is each view exclusive of the other, or can there be a bridge between them? The reader can judge for himself.
Will Indian corporate leaders support Swadeshi Indology? Rajiv Malhotra interviewed by Devapriya Roy
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SHELDON POLLOCK
Do not miss the interesting comments for this article
Read Pollock’s views on the Ramayana at…
LECTURES AND INTERVIEWS
ARTICLES OPPOSING SHELDON POLLOCK
Rajiv Malhotra – In his famous essay titled “The Death of…
Geopolitics And Sanskrit Phobia – Rajiv Malhotra | Infinity …
Jayarava’s Raves: Truth and Philology
Sheldon Pollock and the dangers to Sanskrit (with tweets …
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ROHAN MURTY
Rohan Murty – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Removal of Sheldon Pollock as a mentor and Chief Editor of Murty Classical Library
Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay
Pro-JNU Statement Spawns Petition For Ouster Of Sheldon Pollock As Editor Of Murty Classical Library
Sheldon Pollock stays, says Rohan Murty
https://news.google.com.pk/news/section
cf=all&hl=en&pz=1&ned=en_pk&q=Sheldon+Pollock&ict=clu_bl
Sheldon Pollock Stays, Says Rohan Murty On Protests …
Rohan Murty says American Indologist Sheldon Pollock to stay – The Economic Times
A historian’s response to the petition against Sheldon Pollock: Janaki NairWhat the Petition against the Sanskritist Sheldon Pollock Is Really About
Indians disagree with Rohan Murty
NewsCrunch: Petitioners angry after Sheldon Pollock gets Rohan Murty support – may stay on as Murty Classic Library editor
The Pollock Petition: What Rohan Murthy Missed
Bharatkalyan97: Removal of Sheldon Pollock as a mentor and Chief Editor of Murty Classical Library:
14,522 petitioners. Sign and fwd.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to Rajiv Malhotra’s Works: Indian public disagrees with Rohan Murty’s defensiveness
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Rebuttal to Removal of Sheldon Pollock as Mentor & Chief Editor of Murty Classical Library
Dev Goyal, IIT Kanpur India, MIT Cambridge USA Arlington, MA
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In Hinduism Guru is revered as God. No disciple will take the credit for the knowledge given by his Guru. The disciple will be indebted and grateful to his Guru throughout his life.
What is Computational Linguistics?
The whole world is going gaga over Sanskrit due to Panini’s Grammar Engine. Panini’s grammar makes it easier and faster to translate from one language to the other on the computer. This is the key to future and the main reason why the west is teaching Sanskrit to their young ones as early as possible.
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How do digestion and appropriation look like? It looks like excerpts from “Backus Wikipedia.”
The idea of describing the structure of language using rewriting rules can be traced back to at least the work of Pāṇini (ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian and a revered scholar in Hinduism who lived sometime between the 7th and 4th century BCE).[1][2] His notation to describe Sanskrit word structure notation is equivalent in power to that of Backus and has many similar properties.
John Backus, a programming language designer at IBM, proposed a metalanguage of “metalinguistic formulas”[5][6][7] to describe the syntax of the new programming language IAL, known today as ALGOL 58 (1959). His notation was first used in the ALGOL 60 report.
BNF is a notation for Chomsky’s context-free grammars. Apparently, Backus was familiar with Chomsky’s work.
Further development of ALGOL led to ALGOL 60. In the committee’s 1963 report, Peter Naur called Backus’s notation Backus normal form. Donald Knuth argued that BNF should rather be read as Backus–Naur form, as it is “not a normal form in the conventional sense”,[9] unlike, for instance, Chomsky normal form. The namePāṇini Backus form was also once suggested in view of the fact that the expansion Backus normal form may not be accurate, and that Pāṇini had independently developed a similar notation earlier. Backus–Naur Form
The idea of describing the structure of language using rewriting rules can be traced back to at least the work of Pāṇini (ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian and a revered scholar in Hinduism who lived sometime between the 7th and 4th century BCE).[1][2] His notation to describe Sanskrit word structure notation is equivalent in power to that of Backus and has many similar properties
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Ingerman(1967) in ACM communications mentions why “Backus-Naur Form” should be renamed “Panini-Backus Form”. Rick Briggs of Nasa and Noam Chomsky hail Panini as the father of modern linguistics. It is said that BNF is the notation for Chomsky’s context-free grammar. Apparently, Backus was familiar with Chomsky’s work. This proves that Backus had Panini’s background.
The Backus-Naur form is basically a “morphed form” of Panini’s rules governing the Sanskrit language – Ashtadhyayi.
Since it is traditional in professional circles to give credit where credit is due, and since there is clear evidence that Panini was the earlier independent inventor of the notation, may I suggest the name ” Panini-Backus Form” as being a more desirable one?
Listen to the author of ‘Geek Sublime’ Vikram Chandra from 7.00 to 12.20 minutes
A 17th-century birch bark manuscript of Panini’s grammar treatise from Kashmir
Following are all Indian blogs explaining how great Panini was. Not a single non-Indian blog except Rick Briggs of Nasa and the creators of ‘blog Ashtadhyayi’ mention Panini. It is only us who are patting our backs. When will West start giving due credit to India, Sanskrit and Panini’s grammar?
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Samskritam IT and AI
Sanskrit is 100% phonetic. NASA America’s Space Program is actively looking at Sanskrit in relation to I.T. and artificial intelligence. Sanskrit and computers are a perfect fit. The precision play of Sanskrit with computer tools will awaken the capacity in human beings to utilize their innate higher mental faculty with a momentum that would inevitably transform the mind. In fact, the mere learning of Sanskrit by large numbers of people in itself represents a quantum leap in consciousness, not to mention the rich endowment it will provide in the arena of future communication.
An only western blog where Sage Panini’s name is mentioned!
Articles about CL and AI in Western Media has no mention or even a trace of either ‘Sanskrit’ or ‘Panini’. Panini and Sanskrit have been already digested and appropriated by the ‘West’ claiming programming language as their own creation and that it has nothing to do with Panini.
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Books By Indian Professors
Universities in India got sold in return for the big grants given by the US.
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What is the real reason to learn Sanskrit in the west? Is it really spirituality?
When asked by an Indian reporter about learning Sanskrit in British schools the teacher and the student gave various reasons such as Sanskrit has brilliant linguistic training where one uses all parts of one’s mouth and so it helps to pronounce words with clear diction (the accent, inflection, intonation, and speech-sound quality) and Sanskrit scriptures are inspiring philosophical concepts. Spiritual benefits are also quite high due to learning Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Western teachers and children are definitely interested in diction and linguistic training as Sanskrit has more and complete consonant sounds. But do you really believe these teachers and students care for Hindu spirituality and inspiration from Puranic stories? Are you not surprised why Vatican and Christian clergy is ignoring these Christian children chanting Vedic Hindu Hymns with a Namaste Mudra? It is all a matter of convenience. This is called digestion of Panini’s Sanskrit grammar to master computational linguistics and appropriate it. And we get so emotional about westerners learning and chanting Sanskrit! Hope these kids as grown-ups keep the reverence for Sanskrit- Sankriti and do not take a U-turn to follow in footsteps of W. Doniger, S. Pollock, Courtright, J. Kripal, Jeffrey Lott and many such.
UK
Ireland
Australia
Germany
The summer school in spoken Sanskrit at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg,
India then…
Indian youth before Independence
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During British Raj Macaulay broke our Vedic backbone…
Following Text is quoted from one of his letters to his Father, Kindly click here to read original letter to his father
In a letter to his Father, he wrote:
”No Hindoo, who has received an English education, ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as a matter of policy, but many profess themselves pure Deists and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytize, without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the prospect.”
The life and letters of Lord Macaulay
In a letter to his Father, he wrote:
”No Hindoo, who has received an English education, ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as a matter of policy, but many profess themselves pure Deists and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytize, without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the prospect.”
The life and letters of Lord Macaulay
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India now…
Confused Indian youth after Independence
Sanskrit should be our first choice in schools. Hope children in India start chanting at least daily prayer slokas instead of futile Bollywood and Hollywood rock and pop songs.
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