Did you hear this?

Tue Jan 30 00:01:20 UTC 2001

 Dead Language Talking by Manu Joseph

2:00 a.m. Jan. 29, 2001 PST

 MUMBAI, India -- Some of the most forward-looking engineering students in
India will soon be learning the ancient language of Sanskrit.

The decision by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi to offer
science courses based on Sanskrit teachings is raising eyebrows at a school
that is essentially India's answer to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. After all, there are no treatises in Sanskrit on nuclear physics
or genetic engineering.

Or as one undergraduate put it, "Yes, I know Sanskrit. It's an ancient
Indian language, right? But we're all too preoccupied with learning here. We
don't want Sanskrit," he said.

But the idea isn't to counter science as we know it today, its backers say.
It's to widen the spectrum of the student's database, and to give them a
sense that Indians didn't begin learning about science the day the English
colonized them.

Ancient Indians are credited with having made amazing discoveries in
astronomy, architecture, medicine and other fields. They had a unique method
of calculation, which is now called Vedic Mathematics.

Most of the information of that age was recorded in Sanskrit -- a language
that hasn't been widely used in a thousand years.

"Our notion of science comes from (the) West, in the same way that our
notion of education, politics, literature, et cetera, come from the West,"
said Wagish Shukla, a mathematics professor at IIT, Delhi, who is also a
Sanskrit scholar. "We have become an intellectual colony of the West under
amnesia, regarding the knowledge society we were.

"The problem today is that inputs from Sanskrit are disenfranchised from our
education. For instance, when a student wants to understand a particular
issue, he or she is debarred from finding out what Vedanta or Nyaya or
Mimamsa (ancient Indian knowledge bases) has to say about it."

Two courses have been proposed: Knowledge Orders in Sanskrit Texts and
Building Scientific Discourse the Indian Way.

The courses will concentrate on how Indian thinkers approached and developed
academic discipline. For instance, what did they mean by "proof,"
"observation," "rule" and other scientific definitions.

"There are things of value in Sanskrit texts," Shukla said. "They will have
to be annotated and retold for the contemporary science worker. Translations
of Sanskrit texts make no attempt to integrate that knowledge into a usable
product for the present-day worker in science. In any case, most of the
Sanskrit texts, have not even been published."

 He also pointed out that some original Sanskrit texts will be discussed --
"perhaps through English" -- for a better understanding. That's no
consolation for many students in IIT (Delhi). There are murmurs of muffled
protests, but since it is an elective the students can simply avoid it.

 "Going back to the roots is all fine, but I don't think I will take up
Sanskrit," said Subhajit Sanyal, a Ph.D. student in the computer science
department in IIT, Delhi. "There are some students who are very curious to
explore what old Indian texts have to say about various things, but such
guys are very few."

 While the IIT administration has confirmed that it will be including
Sanskrit courses soon, the exact time of inception is yet to be finalized.

 There are six Indian Institutes of Technology in different parts of the
country, but at this point only the Delhi campus has decided to include
Sanskrit in the curriculum for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate
students.

 Sanskrit is taught at other universities throughout the country, but not in
the context of using it to understand scientific and mathematic principles.

 Sanskrit is believed to be over 3,000 years old. It constantly evolved
throughout its long history. By about 1000 AD, original Sanskrit had almost
vanished and given way to newer Indian languages that had evolved along the
way.

 The 1951 Indian census report said that among a population of 362 million
Indians, only 555 spoke Sanskrit. Today, those who understand or speak
Sanskrit are predominantly academicians concerned with the subject.

Have a peaceful and joyous day.
Aditya Mishra
Primary email: a018967t at bc.seflin.org
Primary homepage: http://www.pompano.net/~aditya
ICQ # 1131674 Phone #: (954)746-0442  Fax # (209)315-8571
Random thought of the day:
        Nothing soothes me more after a long and maddening course of pianoforte recitals than to sit and have my teeth drilled.  ... George Bernard Shaw