Dear Dipak,
As far as Latin and Greek are concerned, things are bad in the US and in Europe as well. Many small Classics departments are being absorbed into larger Foreign Language departments, or else they are being completely eliminated. There is a "university" in my home state of New Hampshire whose foreign language offerings consist of a couple of classes of Spanish and French! Some student activists have tried to organize and advocate for a full range of language offerings, including Sanskrit [they contacted me and asked me to write a letter of suppport, which I did].
When I was a boy in the 60's, I attended a Latin school, where I took six years of Latin and four of German. This school offered courses on Classical Greek as well, but in those days the US was in a race to the moon against the USSR, so we were discouraged from taking Greek. They forced the hard sciences on us instead.
I studied Greek and Sanskrit and Avestan, etc., in college, got involved in Indo-European Studies, but of course my main passion is, and has always been, Vedic, especially the Rigveda.
But even at the University of California at Berekeley, where I studied all of these languages, things have deteriorated. I expect that the Sankrit program there is much smaller now. Maybe one of our friends from Berkeley can be more specific than I can be.
I hope this helps.
Best,
George Thompson
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Dipak Bhattacharya
<dbhattacharya200498@yahoo.com> wrote:
The problem with Sanskrit education in India is that its attraction lies mostly in the guarantee of jobs in schools. When Classical language is made an optional subject in the secondary stage most schools drop the posts of Teacher-in-Sanskrit to save money and the bell tolls for Sanskrit, when made compulsory the University Departments overflow. In Bengal at present we are seeing a tide following a long period of ebb. Let somebody howl and influence a big constituency in Andhra, they will see good days.
Another fact. Till the early part of the twentieth century there was a natural attraction for Sanskrit. The University Sanskrit departments drew the best students till about the sixties in Bengal. The decline came after that.
I often wonder if the same problems arose in the West too regarding Greek and Latin. I asked some friends. They were reticent or did not know. Will somebody kindly enlighten us?
Best
DB
--- On Wed, 29/6/11, Herman Tull <hwtull@MSN.COM> wrote:
From: Herman Tull <hwtull@MSN.COM>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] No incoming Sanskrit students at Andhra University :-(
To: INDOLOGY@liverpool.ac.uk
Date: Wednesday, 29 June, 2011, 12:10 PM
I was there as a student in the Wisconsin program 30+ years ago (actually in Telugu, but Sanskrit and Telugu were housed together). It was a pretty lively place back then...
Has there been a similar dwindling of Sanskrit students at other large Indian public universities?
Herman Tull
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 4:01 AM
To:
Subject: [INDOLOGY] No incoming Sanskrit students at Andhra University :-(
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