The ills of the universities in the county make a formidable list. One fundamental issue, however, is seldom referred to the neglect of Sanskrit.
For over a century and a half, the Macaulay tradition has been dominant in our country. No wonder most of us are referred to as the children of Macaulay.
When we wish to dig into the vast storehouse of knowledge it is not to our own languages that we turn. Anyone who is seeking knowledge turns to the West where, by now, an enormous amount of knowledge has been generated and more is being generated every day. We import knowledge. Occasionally we contribute to it but anything like an indigenous tradition of knowledge, whether in the form of science or practical in the form of technology, is yet to be established.
TRADITION
What is the status of Sanskrit in this knowledge syndrome and, does it have a role or not in the growth of an indigenous tradition? The answer should be in the affirmative.
The relevance of the study of Sanskrit should be evident in the case of the humanities. What must be recognized in that it is relevant to other fields also, particularly the social sciences. One reason, among several, why the social sciences are in a somewhat anemic condition is because we are borrowing everything from the West and not relating it meaningfully to the reality on the ground.
To understand the Indian reality we have to be firmly grounded in our own tradition. The knowledge of Sanskrit is indispensable for that purpose. This statement should not be taken literally, but in a broad sense: the knowledge of Sanskrit is a necessary input into a proper awareness of what constitutes the Indian reality.
Quite a number of universities have departments of Sanskrit as do about 10 per cent of colleges. At the school level too, Sanskrit is taught but not many students opt for it. That should not be a cause for disquiet except that it is the rejects of the academic system who opt for the study of Sanskrit. The talented invariably opt for other disciplines and look down upon Sanskrit.
The issue is not that many more people should study Sanskrit; that ought to happen in any case. The issue is more basic: should we look upon Sanskrit as a relic of the past about which we need not bother too much or should we look upon it as a treasure house of traditional Indian knowledge?
The argument advanced here is that by turning our back upon our past, we are hurting ourselves. Not only for psychological reasons, which are important, but for reasons which have a more direct bearing upon our capability to establish and sustain a tradition of scholarship in the country. More precisely, what is advocated is a more indigenous and, therefore, more purposeful grounding in disciplines like philosophy, psychology, linguistics, comparative literature, the fine arts, political science, sociology, anthropology and several others.
In the field of science and technology there may be no direct insights provided but there is ample material available to indicate that impressive advances are made in the past in chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, botany and several other fields. Books already exist which give us what is called a history of Hindu chemistry and so no. Of late there has been a revival of interest in what is called Vedic mathematics. It would be useful to know all this and in certain cases, establish linkages as well.
Because of the poverty of talent which opts for the study of Sanskrit (and this process has been at work for several generations now) we find that it is more in foreign universities than in our own that the study of Sanskrit is being pursued seriously and vigorously. Not only that, in those countries, there is considerable cross-fertilisation between the study of Sanskrit and the various other disciplines referred to already.
There are approximately 300,000 Sanskrit manuscripts lying around in different libraries in the country. They have still to be edited and published. While some of then are copies of manuscripts available elsewhere, there is reason to believe that something like one-quarter are important enough to deserve to be published and made available to the community of scholars.
CREATIVE INTEGRATION
Three other issues may be referred to briefly. One is the tradition of indigenous learning which the pandits have carried on from generation to generation. Except for north India where Persian became the dominant language for five or six centuries, in the rest of the country that tradition has continued more or less unbroken. Something has been done to sustain that tradition even in the modern period. What is required is much more than that; and that is to integrate it with the tradition of modern scholarship. The two are bound to enrich each other.
For anyone to imagine that this confluence between the two is not going to be useful is to refuse to change with the changing times. One knows of attempts made by philosophers, linguists, students of comparative literature and others to build bridges with the indigenous tradition. They have had some success but, as argued above, real success will come only when there is creative integration between the two traditions.
DAMAGE
The second issue relates to chauvinism in regard to the promotion and propagation of Sanskrit. It does not do any good to the cause of Sanskrit; on the contrary, it may do some damage. Sanskrit deserves to be studied for its own sake and in its own right and not for reasons which suggest revivalism of any kind. Revivalism is a political phenomenon and should be allowed to run its own course or wither away, as the case might be. To link it up with Sanskrit is not going to help.
To some extent the cause of Hindi has been hurt by the undertone of revivalism that has accompanied its advocacy. Were the same to happen in the case of Sanskrit, it would be tragic indeed.
And finally, one may pose a simple question who else other than the people who gave birth to his language and have sustained it as a vehicle of thought and knowledge for several thousand years should promote its study and research? That others are doing it possibly much better than we are is ironic in the extreme. More than that, it is a comment on our sense of priorities.