Why study Sanskrit?

Sanskrit is one of the privileged keys to have access to the heart of Classical Indian civilization, not only because it’s the pan-indian cultural language in which all the relevant texts are written, but also because it is itself one of the best products (if not the best product) of this same civilization, bearing in itself characteristics typical of the Indian civilization as a whole.

The first reason mentioned is self-evident: the Mahabharata is in Sanskrit, the Ramayana, the founding texts (often called sutra) of philosophy, law and politics texts, texts codifying ethics, the most ancient and influent poetry texts that deeply influenced indian aesthetics as a whole, the founding medical texts: all these were written in Sanskrit.

This means that the whole speculation on man, society end nature made use and developed around Sanskrit terms the majority of which difficult, if not impossible, to translate.
For example, just following free association, I might mention the followings: dharma, adharma, karma, samsara, varna, jati, kula, artha, purushartha, karuna, nirvana, kama, moksa, rasa, dhvani, kavya, brahman, atman, yoga, prana, danda, niti, shastra, guna, dosha, prakrti, buddhi, purusha, citta, sat, asat, bhakti, advaita, jiva, linga, shakti, maya, lila, muni, tapas, rta, anrta, yukta, shruti, smrti, yama, prayashcitta, saccidananda, and one could add many more.

Already some basic knowledge of the main concepts of Sanskrit grammar grants the possibility to grasp shades of meaning that clarify more the realities behind the terms, permitting a better understanding of their significance.

On the other hand, without knowing the basic grammar one cannot interrogate the texts in their original, so that it will be very difficult to deeply understand the concepts that one finds in Indian Civilization, in the double meaning of going deep into them and to deeply assimilate them.

The second reason mentioned, i.e. the fact that it is a grammatical language, which means a language at least partially not natural, not spontaneous, but made up, “improved” by a grammatical analysis (Sanskrit is born out of a centuries long grammatical enquiry addressed on the one hand to the language of the Vedas, and on the other to the language of the learned), allows one to appreciate, while he’s studying it, the fundamental criteria that lead this enquiry, criteria that are found in the whole Classical civilization.

For example I might mention the extreme rationality (everything must have an explanation), the constant search for an order (often some sort of hierarchy), the freedom to choose different ways respecting clear and common rules, the search for a harmony with Nature (so much better the grammatical rule, or the social norm, or the philosophical concept that finds a correspondence in some natural phenomenon), the interest for ideal models, never changing and all comprising, that somehow “ameliorate” reality finding a deeper and truer, because more stable, reality.

Last but not least, the study of Sanskrit grammar, forcing to reflect and constantly operate with realities such as phonetical changes, vowel gradation, roots, suffixes, terminations, greatly improves one’s linguistic knowledge, something very useful to make a better use of one’s own language and to facilitate the study of foreign languages (at least remaining in the domain of Indo-European languages).

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