Yet more on the Death of Sanskrit

[John C. Huntington]

One thing that has not been taken into account is the large and very
active Sanskrit community in both Newar and Parbatia Nepal.  I have
no idea the numbers, but in the Buddhist communities that we  work in
many of the senior Vajracharya teachers are quite fluent and there
are a lot of Shakya scholars who also know the language. I have met
and worked with Local priests, at various shrines who read and
completely understood, long tracts of Sanskrit.

Moreover, although I only know one personally, I am certain that
among the Hindu community there are also significant numbers of
Brahmins who also know Sanskrit very well. Sanskrit, "Buddhist
Sanskrit" at least, is certainly alive and well in Nepal.

Whether you could call any of these scholars "Sanskrit Panditas" or
not is a little less clear to me but there is clearly a high level
knowledge base among the most educated priests.

Also what about the Kerala Vedic priests? Wouldn't some of them know
Sanskrit well also?

John
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