Sanskrit – language of the divine!

It's day two of the intensive course on Sanskrit I am attending and it’s already a bit of knowledge overload on me as I am a very slow learner when it comes to languages – someone, who can well and truly be called a laggard!

Our guru is very diligent and patient as he tries his best to break the monotony that some of us find ourselves in a class of thirty comprising of pupils from practically all over the world – from the Americas to Europe and of course from across the length and breadth of India.

Per guruji, most ancient languages such as Sanksrit, Tamil, Latin, Greek, etc. are derived languages from a mother of all languages and it’s very difficult to say, which is the mother of all the world languages. Further, guruji said that as per Sri Aurobindo, old Sanskrit (language that was before the classical and epic Sanskrit in which the Ved, the Bhagwad Gita, et al were written) is also known as the “Dev Bhasha” and it is this that is the mother of all world languages – nevertheless, this is still a disputed fact.

During the course of the day, guruji explained that as opposed to most other languages of the world where passive speech is not practiced, in Sanskrit, it’s normal to have passive speech – further, he said that most of activities done by one, is described in Sanskrit as those that are done through them rather than by the person doing them. Unlike this, most other world languages maintain that it’s the individual that performs all the actions undertaken by them.

This led me to explore this a bit more. If in Sanskrit, it’s normal to have majority of sentence formations to happen in passive voice, as if the action is being performed through the person rather than by the person, then the only way this can be presumed to be true is when instead of the actual doer, that is the person performing the action, it is the divine that is conducting the activity through the person. In other words, this means that Sanskrit presumes that the divine performs all activities conducted by the humans – a fact that's also revealed in the Bhagwad Gita by Lord Krishn to Arjun. Whereas, it's just the opposite that is practiced in all other world languages where passive speech is avoided actively. This also explains, albeit empirically and am sure for some of you in lesser ways the lack of acceptance of passive voice in most other languages. Perhaps, this is the evidence which further strengthens the claim that Sanskrit's old form is the “Dev Bhasha”, language of the divine and the mother of all other world languages – a language in which the divine conversed and hence it underplayed the effect of ‘aham’ or ‘individuality’ or the ‘ego’ and rather underscored the divine force that leads us all to perform a particular action. However, with the corresponding decline of divinity in humans over the ages and with the rise of ‘aham’ or ‘individuality’ or the ‘ego’, concepts that have become the cornerstone of modern living, concepts that have become the driving force leading to thriving of newer languages all around the world – these newer languages, therefore, give more importance to the physical doer than the divine force that conducts all actions through each of us. With this paradigm shift in human outlook from divinity to ‘aham’ or ‘individuality’ or the ‘ego’, set-in rise of other world languages and the eventual decline of Sanskrit to it’s current state. Strangely, the steepest decline in Sanskrit's to it's current state of penury also occurred in the last  150-200 years in a more pronounced manner, a period when human growth and development – read as greed, ‘aham’ or ‘individuality’ or the ‘ego’ – took to newer heights or so it seems to us!

Therefore, it’s time we realize this and act earnestly to arrest any further decline of “Dev Bhasha”, Sanskrit by embracing it in each and every aspect of our lives and revive it to bring back to glory the divinity that’s dimming from our world with each passing day.