The Sanskrit Language

The word 'Sanskrit' stands for 'Cultured' and the Sanskrit language has long been considered one of the most cultured and sophisticated languages in the world. It is also one of the oldest, tracing its roots back to the Indo-Iranian sub family of the Indo-European family of languages. There is some debate whether Sanskrit came to India from the northwest or whether it was exported from India and then influenced the other Indo-European languages. Whatever the origins of Sanskrit, the language flourished in India. It was the language used by the learned high class and in classic literature; in fact, knowing Sanskrit signified the person had a high social and intellectual standing.

In modern times, there have been no linguistic developments in Sanskrit, leading some people to term it as a 'dead' language. However, it is one of India's 22 official languages, is regularly taught in schools, is broadcast over All India Radio and is used in the religious or scholarly context.

There are two forms of Sanskrit, the Vedic or Pre-Classical Sanskrit, and the Paninian or Classical Sanskrit.

Vedic Sanskrit is the language used in the Vedas, the huge compilation of Hindu sacred and philosophical texts. The Vedas were composed around 1500 BCE, so the language dates before that. In this period, Sanskrit did not have a written script. The Vedas were memorized and transmitted orally from Guru to Shishya (student). In order to study and understand the Vedas, people had to know the six Vedangas – Vyakaran (grammar), Jyotish (astronomy/astrology), Nirukt (etymology), Shiksha (phonetics), Chandas (meter) and Kalpa (ritual).

Paninian Sanskrit followed grammar rules set down by the famous ancient Indian grammarian Panini. He wrote a grammar treatise called Astadhyayi (Eight Sections), containing 3990 sutras, in the 5th Century BCE. Later, two other ancient grammarians Katyayana and Patajali composed commentaries on the Astadhyayi, the Vartikas and the Mahabhasya respectively. These three grammar works, taken together, are known as Trimuni Vyakarana.

Beginning with the Rigveda, the earliest Vedic text, to the later three Vedas – Samveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda – to the Brahmanas and ending with the Upanishads, the Vedic period was a period of oral tradition. This continued into the early Classical period, but around the 1st millennium BC Sanskrit began to be written down. At various periods, various regional language scripts like Brahmi, Kharoshti, Gupta, Sharada, Devanagari, Bengali, Oriya, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam were used for writing Sanskrit.

In modern times, the Devanagari script is used to write Sanskrit. Like most Indian scripts, this is a phonetic script.

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