The Battle for Sanskrit – Rajiv Malhotra - in a 1000 words

Rajiv Malhotra ji is a famous indologist who is working tirelessly to defend Santana dharma and its traditions. He is leading from the front in providing a well researched fight back to western indologists on various topics concerning Hindu dharma. His latest work “The Battle for Sanskrit” talks about the sinister motives of the western institutions and scholars to disparage Sanskrit as a language and its influence on Bhratiya sanskriti. The beauty of Rajiv Malhotra’s writings is that he calls for discussions and debates on all areas of disagreements and not confrontation.

My attempt is to summarize the contents of the well researched book in about a 1000 words, you should be able to read this in 10 mins. It is important for all us (Indians) and those of Indian heritage to understand our selves better and become owners of our heritage –

• Indians have given away control of our language (in this case Sanskrit studies), culture and heritage to western institutions and individuals. No serious attempt by India, Indians or its institutions to establish seats of learning and research to protect and build our heritage. Through our neglect they became insiders ( experts on our subjects) and we outsiders (trying to catch up to defend)
• Western scholars allege that Sanskrit was used a tool for political domination and suppression of masses, for many decades they spread such views in Indian universities and other channels to gain credibility. Indian traditionalists did not care to debate this point of view for a long time, did not create a platform to fight back the western interpretations of Sanskrit. We ignored them to our peril
• Western scholars with their limited understanding have brain washed a generation of Indians that our Vedic and other systems of knowledge are myths and non sensical
• Our scholars and teachers did not engage in Uttara paksha (debate) with these scholars and institutions to challenge their deductions. We ignored them for too long while they wrote tomes of analysis about our Sanskrit literature and hijacked our heritage. We are now ill equipped to fight back
• They incorrectly claim Sanskrit was used as political tool used for social abuse. This is due to their poor understanding of our heritage, but we never engaged them in a debate to correct their point of view
• We did not make them understand that Sanskrit was and is an integrated component of a Hindus life - Prayer, mantras, culture, built into our vernaculars and in many other areas of life. Though it is delayed it is our sacred duty now to protect and bring it back to life
• Western indologists with a sinister motive deride Sanskrit propagating that it was used as a tool for social oppression, that it perpetuates elitism and that mantras and yagnas as meaningless. For us since ages it is an integrating factor
• Traditionalists argue there is no truth that Sanskrit was used as a tool for oppression and see it as a tool for liberation for all human beings. Traditionalists too are critical of any kind of social oppression and they do not see Sanskrit as the vehicle for the same
• Western scholars base their study and analysis on written texts, they believe oral traditions as unreliable, they also mischievously propagate that writing started in India after Buddhism came while the data shows a different truth
• Western scholars view Sanskrit as a foreign language brought to India by so called Aryans. They claim Sanskrit spread across Asia by kings for political purposes to wield control over public, for traditionalists it is an indigenous language which has played a major role in development of vernaculars and there was enrichment of both Sanskrit and vernaculars due to this
• Western scholars degrade shastras since they are derived from Vedas and hence they assume they carry the limitations of the source ( lack creativity ), they believe kavyas have some originality since they have some creative freedom, traditionalists dismiss such distinction and claim both shastras and kavyas have the same source but their expression only differs ( kavyas are poetic, shastras are texts)
• Outsiders allege that European indologists took the ideas of social oppression from Sanskrit texts and used the same against their population ( Nazis against jews), such interpretation is rejected by traditionalists saying infact Europeans came with such a conditioning and misinterpreted out sacred texts
• Misinterpretation of our scared text Ramayana and Mahabharata, for instance Sheldon Pollock says that Ramayana encourages “othering” Us vs Them ( rama vs ravana) which encourages bigotary, obvioulsy he takes a myopic view of the ramayana and Mahabharata
• Western thought tries to highlight differences in the hindu society due to caste, and between Vedic and Buddhist thought, traditionalists argue such differences if any are part of a broader continuum in the evolutionary process and no western intervention is required to correct the same
• We should map Sanskrit to ancient languages like mandarin, Arabic and Persian and work and must revive Sanskrit ourselves and not allow western scholars dictate us the same ( western scholars try to map Sanskrit to Latin and other dead languages )
• Establish higher learning institutions of Sanskrit in India such that our bright youth stay back and contribute towards integrating their studies with the larger society.
• Deploy Purva-paksha & Uttara-paksha methodologies vigorously to defend our point of view instead of meek surrender
• Rajiv gives the way forward –
• Revive Sanskrit ecosystem in a holistic way - battle for Sanskrit, Sanskrit and dharma are interrelated. ( organizations like sanskrita bharati are trying to revive use of Sanskrit)
• Non- translatable Sanskrit terms must enter main stream – sanskritize english
• Shastras must be seen as a platform for innovation
• New itihas and smritis must be written - for example traumatic events over the last 1000 years in India ( invasions etc)
• Sacred philology must compete against political liberation philology – that Sanskrit cannot be divorced from vedas and other sacred texts
• Revive purva paksha tradition
• Encounter with chistianity, islam – hindu understanding of Islam and christainity to engage in debates through purva-paksha, uttara-paksha process
• Encounter with western secularism – do a purva-paksha of the west ( question and debate their models, ideas etc)
• Develop institutions to conduct trainings and research on our heritage
• Contest the use of Buddhism as a wedge against Hinduism & mischievously changing chronology of hindu texts – disprove this through research
• Allegation of Sanskrit’s death – debate this with data and the attempts being made to revive the same

And many other steps to provide fitting response to the well organized western scholars and institutions.

Credits and Gratitude – all content from Rajiv Malhotra’s (The battle for Sanskrit)