६ जून २०२५
लेख क्र. ३
भाग २ मध्ये संस्कृत मधील अभ्यास व संशोधन यावरती श्री.अर्जुनवाडकर यांनी केलेले विवेचन व काय काय करता येईल याच्याही कल्पना मांडल्या होत्या. कामाच्या उत्तम कल्पना स्फुरल्या तरी त्या पूर्णत्वास नेण्यासाठी योग्य मनुष्यबळ हवेच! या भागात संस्कृत मध्ये काम करण्यासाठी मनुष्यबळ का मिळत नाही? संस्कृत बद्दल आस्था का वाटत नाही? तरुण वर्ग व सर्वसामान्य संस्कृत आवडत असूनही संस्कृतकडे का आकर्षित होत नाहीत? यावर चिकित्सक चर्चा केली आहे.
संस्कृतची नवीन शिक्षण पद्धत परिपूर्ण नाही; ती पंडितांना पण निर्माण करू शकत नाही आणि सर्वसामान्यांपर्यंत संस्कृत भाषेमधील माधुर्य, रसास्वाद पण पोहोचवू शकत नाही ….अर्थात असा फक्त प्रश्न निर्माण करून ते थांबले नाहीत तर त्यांनी संत्रिकेत संस्कृतसाठीचे उपक्रम पण केले.
Personnel
But where are we going to get the personnel from to execute this grand plan? The old system withered as talent flowed towards the new system, which offered better scope, stability, and status. Talent is now flowing to science, commerce, and technology for the same reason, and almost all humanity subjects are today facing starvation or pulling on with the kind of clientele they are doomed to get. Subjects like Sanskrit that have little market value are faring worst in the changed order. Even scholarships and fellowships are, in recent times, failing to attract good students to Sanskrit. Who will then do the research?
Sanskrit Education: A Historical Review
The problem is very true and brings us to the work SANTRIKA proposes to do at the popular level. The story of Sanskrit education in the modern age is one of lack of foresight and precipitous failure on this front. A casual look at the syllabi, textbooks, and teaching methods of Sanskrit during the last century at the school, college, and university levels reveals that the sculptors of Sanskrit education were guided by the sole object of producing pundits. Whether they succeed in producing pundits of their dreams is another matter, but they little cared for the common man who loved and respected Sanskrit. All that he wanted from Sanskrit was general cultural enlightenment and wisdom; instead, he was given technicalities of grammar, specimens of style, jargon of technical terms, philosophical controversies, moral discourses, and historical records, and all this through a foreign medium—the English. He asked for a cake; the Sanskritists gave him a flour mill! The result was that the common Sanskrit lover was estranged from Sanskrit. But still Sanskrit fared well till recent times, as the field of options was very limited and Sanskrit was practically compulsory. As soon as this protection was lifted off and the field of options widened so as to accommodate easier alternatives, Sanskrit collapsed.
This means the common student studied Sanskrit not because he specially liked it but because he could not help it! The painful but inevitable conclusion is that, in their enthusiasm to produce a specialist, designers of Sanskrit education ignored and estranged the common man. Nor did they succeed much in producing the kind of specialist they had in mind while fashioning the system. What little success they achieved in producing a specialist was negated by their failure to build up popular support. They were attempting an impossible feat: constructing a castle in the sky!
At the Popular Level
It is against this background that SANTRIKA is determined to work even at the popular level by devising ways and means to create and preserve love for Sanskrit in the common man. This is necessary not only for the survival of the specialist but also for Sanskrit to play its part effectively in our national life. It is a great paradox that a cry is often raised to save the Sanskritist, a cry to save Sanskrit—little minding that the saving of Sanskrit would automatically lead to the saving of the Sanskritist. And for the saving of Sanskrit, there is only one way: making people feel intensely like wanting it. If people at large want something, there is no power on earth that would prevent them from getting it. But how to make people want Sanskrit? By convincing them that Sanskrit is their rich heritage, major identity, and goodwill in the world; a powerful integrating element in national life; the vital force of their language and culture; enrichment of life in all stages; and already a part and parcel of their speech and thought. This will remove the popular impression that Sanskrit is a dead, difficult language having little relevance to the present. All talk about Sanskrit being difficult is the outcome of the wrong concepts about the objects and the methods of Sanskrit education. Teaching Sanskrit in a Canadian university revealed to me how easy it is for an Indian student to learn Sanskrit.
When I talk in Sanskrit to a Marathi-knowing person, the person may be unable to answer in Sanskrit but finds no difficulty in understanding me. Once convinced of the value and the easiness of Sanskrit, a culturally sensitive man may be unable to answer in Sanskrit but finds no difficulty in understanding me, for the mere joy of it, little minding its value as a career commodity.
It is out of these considerations that SANTRIKA has been conducting
1. Classes and meetings for Sanskrit lovers for reading classical literature, the great epics, passages from the Rigveda and the Upanishads, the Yoga-vasishtha, and Sanskrit speaking.
2. A scheme of teaching essential Sanskrit in a month is under preparation, and a comprehensive scheme of graded curriculum texts and examinations in Sanskrit and Indian culture is under active consideration.
3. Pamphlets giving simple Sanskrit equivalents for English expressions of greeting as well as those for standard telegrams and festival greeting cards in Sanskrit together with a rendering in another language are among the miscellaneous efforts by SANTRIKA aimed at making room for Sanskrit in everyday life.
4. A publication wing is being gradually developed. This wing publishes annually, as a joint activity of the Dharma-Nirnaya Mandala and the Jnana Prabodhini, the solar national calendar. This calendar is recommended by the Calendar Reform Committee appointed by the Government of India in 1956. It is on the basis of a comprehensive and critical survey of different calendar systems prevalent in India. However, it is known to very few and is used by fewer still. Ours is an effort to create an awareness for and encourage the use of this calendar in the public in general and the student world in particular by supplementing it with cultural and astronomical information. Results of these and similar efforts are expected to be visible during the coming decade.
A Treasure to Rediscover
Sanskrit, having had a glorious past, is today passing through hard times. It can be restored to its rightful place not through force or compulsion, but through love and persuasion. If arts like music and dance, which have little material value, can find an honorable place in society, there is no reason why Sanskrit, which commands an enormous cultural value, should not. Would the source of strength that raised Hindi to the status of pan-Indian language (vide: Report of the Sanskrit Commission, p. 70) fail to assert itself when its own existence is in peril? Great treasures are many times relegated to oblivion and have to be rediscovered, and there are occasions when one discovers even one’s own self. The day would not be too far off when we would rediscover Sanskrit and no longer disbelieve Aurobindo’s prophecy that Sanskrit would be an all-India link language by 1985.
SANTRIKA gratefully records its most sincere thanks to the following Sanskrit lovers, but for whose guidance, active cooperation, and participation, it would not have been what it is today:
- Dr. R. N. Dandekar
- Dr. T. G. Mainkar
- Dr. M. A. Mehendale, Deccan College, Pune.
- Pt. Sivaramkrishna Sastri, Deccan College, Pune.
- Pt. Srinivas Sastri, Deccan College, Pune.
- Pt. Subrahmanya Shastri Patanker.
- Prof. A. G. Mangrulkar, Pune.
- Dr. V. W. Paranjape, Deccan College, Pune.
- Dr. T. N. Dharmadhikari, Vaidik Samshodhan Mandal, Pune.
- Dr. Francis D’sa, De Nobili College, Pune.
- Prof. Mrs. Leela Arjunwadkar
- Pt. V. D. Gore
- Shri V. V. Modak
- Dr. A. N. Aklujkar ube Vancouver (Canada).
- Shri Dr. A. M. Sathaye, Kentucky University, U. S. A.
- Mrs. Shashi Sathaye, U. S. A.
- Dr. V. N. Jha, University of Poona, Pune.
- Dr. S. S. Bahulikar, Deccan College, Pune.
- Shri. G. V. Bondale.
- Shri. D. D. Bahulikar.
समाप्त