India has always been a religious country and for good reasons.
In India, religious people are exempt from any need to be moral, empathetic, or use common sense. In the grand scheme of things, your religious attitude is the only thing that matters.
Religion has been important. It is more vital than decency, compassion, or common sense.
For the longest time, most Hindus in a constitutionally secular nation have been made to feel that religious feelings are purely personal.
It has been frequently regarded as something which should not be advertised publicly, let alone imposed on others in disobedience of the law.
Due to these circumstances, many Hindus have probably not engaged in their religious impulses for so long that they won't be able to find them when the time comes.
However, there are as many variations of Hinduism as there are Hindus worldwide.
This raises the question of how the Hindus came to be this way — a religion with no religious sensibilities worth offending.
Secularism is the answer in a nutshell.
Hindus seek nothing more than a degree of financial protection for finances against inflation in exchange for unconditional adoration for the Supreme Being.
In a capitalist country like India, the government does not hesitate to grab a little portion of the average man's paltry salary through taxes to improve the wealth of the entire nation.
This situation of the economy offends Hindu religious sensitivities.
However, Hindus are now fighting for patronage and survival.
A long-lost language has likewise been buried under the weight of colonial urbanisation.
It was regarded as the language of the gods and was linked to India's rich cultural heritage.
The topic of concern here is Sanskrit, officially the worlds oldest language.
Sanskrit is a language that was used in the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years.
But, Sanskrit is now considered a minority language in modern India.
With the rise of urban globalisation, Sanskrit is no longer used in everyday speech, and the number of people who can read, write, and speak Sanskrit has rapidly declined.
As a result, the language is being pushed to the margins, and its importance is being disregarded.
Sanskrit is an important component of India's history and culture, hence it is critical to conserve and promote its use.
However, its fertile tongue has come to be regarded as mainly a tool of ceremony and repression in its native nation.
It is fair to argue that India is a country where an extraordinarily rich language legacy, far from being a source of pride, is frequently used as a justification for politics.
Many of these writings include useful ideas and knowledge that can be applied to modern culture.
Sanskrit literature contains a large reservoir of knowledge in subjects such as philosophy, physics, mathematics, and medicine, among others.
However, because Sanskrit has been neglected, this knowledge is mostly inaccessible to the general people.
This is a grossly inadequate comprehension of Sanskrit's large and varied repertory, with its numerous voices and views.
Languages, it has been stated, should not be exploited as instruments of power and politics.
It is critical to recognise that Sanskrit is not necessarily sectarian or hegemonic.
Some consider it unnecessary, if not repugnant, to the secular and emancipated sensibilities of the current age.
In the past, despite its tremendous importance, Sanskrit was valued as a language of all learning and culture.
Throughout a millennia-long premodern career, Sanskrit travelled through South, Central, and Southeast Asia.
Very few people are aware of this, nor do they have the creative exposure or chances to investigate Sanskrit's extraordinary intellectual heritage.
Very few Indians can name an educational system in which a Sanskrit book or an entire genre is devoted to its examination and interpretation.
As a result, many myths circulate, equating obscurantism and archaism with the tongue.
In India, if you study Sanskrit or write history based on representing—rather than bashing—Sanskrit texts in all their magnificence, you risk earning a particular ideological sobriquet or being dubbed a cultural chauvinist.
However, Sanskrit texts represent several points of view, critical voices, and disputes.
They are a fertile medium for the transmission and preservation of vast amounts of knowledge.
Assuming such a view about such a dynamic language would be extremely limiting to Sanskrit's rich history.
Sanskrit has been instrumental in shaping India's identity and cultural heritage.
For millennia, these works have included significant intellectual and spiritual truths that have defined India's cultural character.
Many of India's ancient books, including the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita, are written in Sanskrit.
In early India, for example, plays and poetry (kavya) frequently exposed and critiqued various types of authority.
Sanskrit treatises (shastras) on any subject, on the other hand, often used a dialogic form in which a Purva paksha and a Uttara paksha or contrasting points of view were presented and probed.
To learn the truth, read a Kalidasa or a Shudraka and listen to the Sanskrit litterateur mention things that have been forgotten in modern times.
Bilhana and a Kalhana have revealed the disdain with which these scriptures held almighty kings.
Consider this verse from Bilhana's biography of the 11th-century Chalukyan king of Kalyana, Vikramankadevacharita: "When the kings’ accomplishments are few and far between? Why do people gather around them? What is the need, indeed, for these berry-wearing forest-dwellers to validate the goldsmiths-in-residence?" (1.25).
This was written during an era when a King was at the pinnacle of power.
Given that ancient and mediaeval poets were often patronised by the court.
Commenting on the King's actions was a courageous and risky thing to do, but they did it.
Similarly, there are works like the Chaturbhani, a collection of extremely satirical monologue plays from the 5th century that are humorous.
Others include Mahendravarman's 7th-century Mattavilasaprahasana, Damodaragupta's 9th-century Kuttanimata, and Kshemendra's 11th-century Deshopadesa.
These texts mock and condemn societal hypocrisies in general, and pretentious members of society who are overly aware of their status and purity in particular.
Some works also include commentary on unconventional or deviant attitudes and actions.
Rather than preaching any ideology, they engage with and complicate the subject of what defines right and wrong.
This potential for self-satire, however, has never received the attention it deserves.
In this case, Mahabharata and Ramayana are also excellent examples.
Similarly, Kavyas do not necessarily appear to be committed to replicating systems based on wealth, gender, ceremonial authority, and monarchy, but may instead criticise them.
Perhaps the wider goal of these works had been to move towards a more ethical order for the individual and the community as a whole.
Some of these works' interests and points of view have extended to the underdog, the menial, the criminal, the rebel, and even the 'feminist,' etc.
Many liberal Indians argue that Sanskrit literature is just mouthing what the ruling class of the day wanted to hear and that they were complicit in spreading dominant ideology.
However, it is apparent that Sanskrit writers were not passive "patriarchal house birds."
Sanskrit literature's narratives were significantly deeper and more profound than what some people believe in, and they portrayed a polyphony of worldviews.
All of this would make sense to the intellectual Indians only if they abandoned their Westernised liberal lens and listened without bias.
The trend to dismiss Sanskrit as elite and courtly is with little relevance to the rest of the world.
India risks losing an important element of its cultural legacy if it ignores Sanskrit.
Sanskrit, free of its ties with caste, class, and religion, has been one of India's fundamental classical subjects.
The necessity of acquiring a classical language in school is now being recognised worldwide, however, the trend to abandon 'dead' languages has also become universal recently.
Just like compulsory Latin and Greek are taught in public schools in England as well as schools throughout Europe.
Sanskrit’s reappearance in the Indian curriculum would be beneficial to impose a plethora of knowledge for the Indian youth.
The removal of Sanskrit from the Indian school curriculum in the 1980s should not be seen as a celebration.
Learning a classical language entails some constraints.
Grammar is required for learning. That is why it is critical to include Sanskrit in the educational curriculum.
To ensure that India's rich cultural history and knowledge systems are not lost to future generations.
It is necessary to analyse ideas about Sanskrit literature as a community and work towards a greater understanding of its public interface.
It is also critical to maintain and promote the usage of Sanskrit.
The marginalisation of Sanskrit in modern India should be an immediate source of concern for all Indians.
Sanskrit and the texts associated with it deserve to be respected and recognised.
The virtues held in Sanskrit texts must not be buried beneath the footnotes of liberalisation.
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