[INDOLOGY] Imagining Sanskritland Book Announcement

Tue Aug 25 03:19:23 UTC 2026

Dear Pragya and Hans,

Thank you for your support.

Across all the census language token data are very sparse mentions of
people self-identifying as mother-tongue speakers of Vedic Sanskrit, Pali
and Prakrit. One of the issues is that these instances appear in much
earlier enumerations, only featuring a mere handful of tokens at best.
Today, if someone were to self-identify as an L1–L3 speaker of Prakrit,
etc., its token would no doubt end up in the amorphous Other category,
rendering further analyses impossible.

The whole issue of whether or not there are 'Sanskrit-speaking' villages
filled with people only speaking a pure, hybrid or imperfect learning
variety of the language is largely a mute point. While there are fragmented
pockets among the 'rural masses,' most of the villages I visited during my
fieldwork – mentioned in multiple internet blogs, etc. – barely have anyone
speaking Sanskrit.

What my book pivots toward is using the census data to reverse-engineer the
analysis. The data demonstrate where the aspirations to identify as
speakers of Sanskrit are located. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether
someone can speak Sanskrit, or if a village in MP is filled with people who
have become 'cultured and civilised' through Sanskritization. To a certain
degree, empirical linguistic verification becomes obsolete. After all, what
the census data confirm are indications of aspiration to become a Sanskrit
speaker and a commitment to imagine a Sanskritland (Hindu nation) and world.

Importantly, the census data show that this aspiration is mostly found in
urban areas across the Hindi Belt. Linked to this result is the affinity
between Hindi, Sanskrit and English – regardless of their respective
positions within the 3-language formulaic options (SHE, HSE, ESH, etc.)
allowed by the census rules – sits at 95% + in almost every instance.

The following image shows the districts that returned more than 100
L1-Sanskrit tokens in 2011.

[image: F12.2_2011 IND_D_label.png]

The next image shows the top 20 rural sub-districts that returned the
highest L1-Sanskrit tokens (i.e, aspiration) in 2011. It includes the
locations of the more infamous *saṃskṛta-grāms. *What is interesting is
that none of these internet-famous villages are located within any rural
sub-district that returned L1-Sanskrit tokens.

[image: India 2011 top rural districts + village points.png]

Diachronic analysis of state, district and sub-district data demonstrates
token shifts beyond any natural propensity. One example is Sitapur
District, UP.
Notice the shift between 2001 and 2011.

[image: Figure 12.14_Sitapur SDs_2001+2011.png]

Thank you for your interest.

All the best,

Patrick McCartney, PhD
Hiroshima, Japan
New Book
<https://www.routledge.com/Sanskrit-speaking-Villages-Linguistic-Utopias-and-the-Metaphysics-of-Development-Imagining-Sanskritland/McCartney/p/book/9781032759746>
Earlier Book
<https://www.routledge.com/Authenticity-Legitimacy-and-the-Transglobal-Yoga-Industry-A-Sociological-Analysis-of-Shanti-Mandir/McCartney/p/book/9781032762357>
Latest Article
<http://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/issue/view/1685>

On Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 10:38 AM Pragya Jain <pragya1008 at yahoo.in> wrote:

> Superb!
> Can’t wait to grab my own copy.
>
> I wonder there’s any such study on Prakrit!
> Prakrit is an understudied group of dialects that cannot be separated from
> the land of Sanskrit speakers.
>
> Pragya
>
> On 22 Aug 2026, at 2:11 am, Hock, Hans Henrich via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> 
> Congratulations, Patrick
>
> Hans
>
> On Aug 18, 2026, at 05:16, patrick mccartney via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> 
> Dear Friends,
>
> I would like to share news of the imminent release of my second monograph,
> which features as part of the *Routledge Studies of Sociolinguistics.*
>
> *Titled: * ‘Sanskrit-speaking’ Villages, Linguistic Utopias and the
> Metaphysics of Development: Imagining Sanskritland
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.routledge.com/Sanskrit-speaking-Villages-Linguistic-Utopias-and-the-Metaphysics-of-Development-Imagining-Sanskritland/McCartney/p/book/9781003476443__;!!DZ3fjg!5REFnRzaej30Q1kmpMTCvcBibSVi1P-E7NUzPTgDalIkYYa8fCJXaJZu89xDWa-T1LMxZ7v5rvAK2QukHRMOYw9XtYTN$>
>
> *Description: *
> This book is a recollection of McCartney’s journey across ‘Sanskritland,’
> which is the term coined to refer to the utopian landscape within which the
> ‘Language of the Gods’ is thought to be spoken.
>
> There are three destinations on the author’s journey. The first includes
> understanding how Sanskrit narratives are woven into yoga-inflected
> ‘lifestyles,’ forming biographies operationalised toward soft-power
> purposes. Next, the historical sociolinguistic contexts that have shaped
> Sanskritland are discussed, framed by application in sustainable
> development narratives. Finally, comprehensive demographic and linguistic
> analyses of Sanskrit across all of India’s census enumerations (from 1872
> to 2011) shows the ‘shifting sands’ of Sanskrit’s ‘speakers’ and how the
> ‘Sanskrit-speaking’ village data show that most people who identify as
> speakers of Sanskrit live in urban areas and ‘speak’ Sanskrit as a third
> language. All of these together shed light on how, why, and where Sanskrit
> is spoken in the twenty-first century, the complex and dynamic historical
> and contemporary contexts that have allowed this, and how both yoga and
> Sanskrit are instruments for development and soft-power projects.
>
> This book is an essential read for scholars and students of linguistic
> anthropology, Indology and sustainable development.
>
>
> *Reviews:*
>
> 'Bridges persistent gaps between philology, history and ethnography that
> have plagued Indology. Through an empirical study of so-called "Vedic"
> villages, the spoken Sanskrit movement, and transnational wellness
> discourses around Yoga and Ayurveda, the author draws our attention to the
> sociolinguistics, as it were, of an imaginary place called "Sanskritland".
> Given the growing symbolic significance of Sanskrit to the construction of
> a Hindu Rashtra, a space permeated by what policy parlance names "Indian
> Knowledge Systems", this book appears not a moment too soon.'
>
> *Ananya Vajpeyi, *Professor, *Centre for the Study of Developing
> Societies, New Delhi*
>
>
> *'Imagining Sanskritland* is a masterful exploration of the making of a
> linguistic utopia, chiefly as an ideological project that has been shaped
> by the troubles and travails of Hindutva. By putting contemporary Indian
> populist nationalism in the spotlight, the many claims of
> "Sanskrit-speaking"  for authenticity, morality and civilizational pride
> are traced and studied within narratives about the wellness industry,
> consumerism, sustainable development and ecological harmony. In helping us
> understand  the many gaps and disconnects between the ideal worlds of
> Sanskrit revivalism and the realities of the everyday, McCartney has made a
> significant and stellar contribution to the study of cultural politics in
> the age of contemporary populism.'
>
> *Rohan D'Souza*, Professor, *ASAFAS, Kyoto University. *
>
>
> 'McCartney weaves decades of painstaking interdisciplinary research into
> this close study of contemporary Sanskrit revival. Integrating
> anthropological theory, archival research, Sanskrit studies,
> sociolinguistics, census data, and careful fieldwork, his travels in
> Sanskrit-speaking villages in India paint a compelling picture of the role
> of language ideology in a time of profound social change. This study will
> do what all powerful studies should do: question assumptions, topple
> cultural icons, and create debate. The depth and breadth of intellectual
> resources that McCartney brings to the topic make it a key resource for
> anyone interested in the role of tradition in contemporary India.'
>
> *Laurie L. Patton*, Professor of Religion Emerita, *Middlebury College*
>
>
> Thank you for your support.
>
>
> All the best,
>
> Patrick McCartney, PhD
> Hiroshima, Japan
> New Book
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.routledge.com/Sanskrit-speaking-Villages-Linguistic-Utopias-and-the-Metaphysics-of-Development-Imagining-Sanskritland/McCartney/p/book/9781032759746__;!!DZ3fjg!5REFnRzaej30Q1kmpMTCvcBibSVi1P-E7NUzPTgDalIkYYa8fCJXaJZu89xDWa-T1LMxZ7v5rvAK2QukHRMOY7PaU6tX$>
> Earlier Book
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.routledge.com/Authenticity-Legitimacy-and-the-Transglobal-Yoga-Industry-A-Sociological-Analysis-of-Shanti-Mandir/McCartney/p/book/9781032762357__;!!DZ3fjg!5REFnRzaej30Q1kmpMTCvcBibSVi1P-E7NUzPTgDalIkYYa8fCJXaJZu89xDWa-T1LMxZ7v5rvAK2QukHRMOY4Lb2n94$>
> Latest Article
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/issue/view/1685__;!!DZ3fjg!5REFnRzaej30Q1kmpMTCvcBibSVi1P-E7NUzPTgDalIkYYa8fCJXaJZu89xDWa-T1LMxZ7v5rvAK2QukHRMOY6Y2kAq-$>
>
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