Justification for teaching Sanskrit

[aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca]

The following  passages offer an excellent summary of the role played by
Sanskrit in world cultures: 

Source: Keith, A. Berriedale. 1920. A History of Sanskrit Literature.
London: Oxford University Press. Pages 15-16:
"Even in Southern India, despite the existence of a vigorous Kanarese and
Tamil literature, Sanskrit inscriptions appear from the sixth century
onwards, often mixed with Dravidian phrases, attesting the tendency of
Sanskrit to become a Koine, and Sanskrit left a deep impression even on the
virile Dravidian languages. Ceylon fell under its influence, and Sinhalese
shows marked traces of its operation on it. It reached the Sunda Islands,
Borneo, the Philippines, and in Java produced a remarkable development in
the shape of the Kavi speech and literature. Adventures of high rank
founded kingdoms in Further India, where Indian names are already recorded
by the geographer Ptolemy in the second century A.D. The Sanskrit
inscriptions of Campa begin perhaps in that century, those of Cambodia
before A.D. 600, and they bear testimony to the energetic study of Sanskrit
gramamr and literature. Of greater importance still was the passage of
Sanskrit texts to Central Asia and their influence on China, Tibet and
Japan.  

Source: Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language: an Introduction to the Study of
Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. Page 194 of reprint 1963 by
the same publisher: 

"There are just five languages that have had an overwhelming significance
as carriers of culture. They are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic,
Greek, and Latin.