Imagining Sanskrit Land is a documentary short-film series about life in some Indian villages that have become known for their aspiration to speak only fluent Sanskrit. These villages are somewhat famous within India and around the world due to misleading media reports that suggest 'everyone speaks only fluent Sanskrit'. This research aims to put this claim into proper perspective. My research in general focuses on how and where the politics of imagination, the sociology of spirituality and the economics of religion meet. I am interested in how particular identities and practices accrete and manifest around the utopian aspiration of the 'Vedic way of life', which can be thought of as a reconstituted neo-Hindu interpretation of the Vedic period (ca. 1500-500 BCE) and is expressed, in a sense, as a political ideology and also as a moniker of a consumable lifestyle within the transglobal yoga, wellness and spiritual tourism industry.
Season 1 explores life in the village of Jhiri, Madhya Pradesh. Jhiri is a tiny hamlet of about 600 people that does not have any running water or electricity.
In Episode 4 -
https://youtu.be/_B3un7aHEAc - we catch a glimpse of some of the culture surrounding life and weddings in Jhiri. I have tried to capture some of the joy, sadness and mayhem involved through showing aspects of a few weddings that occurred during my time in Jhiri during April-May 2015. Because the music was so loud during a lot of the wedding processions this film does not have much dialogue. This was because it was impossible to hear what was spoken a lot of the time. The music was so loud that even on some occasions I recall my teeth hurt.
One important socio-linguistic aspect is that the annual exodus of women from the village means that this particular Sanskrit language nest 'leaks'. Viable Sanskrit-speaking women might move 50 kms away to their in-laws home; which is what happens to one woman in the film who moves to Dungri. No Sanskrit is spoken there and there is also a language change as well. In Dungri people speak Hindi and not Malvi, which is the first language of Jhiri. It is a mutually intelligible variant of the Western branch of the Hindi family. However, unlike Hindi, which is one of India's two Official Languages and the state language of Madhya Pradesh, Malvi suffers from a perceived lack of prestige and is disparagingly referred to by those who do not speak it as a 'kheti bhāṣā' or 'farmer's language'. This is one reason that the residents of Jhiri seek to transition to Sanskrit as it is considered to be more prestigious. It is also believed that Sanskrit will facilitate a cultural and moral renaissance. Simply by hearing it spoken it is believed by the promoters of spoken Sanskrit that this will help bring about a cultural, linguistic and political shift towards creating a theological state otherwise known as the Hindu nation. This is part an explicit utopian aspiration to create a pan-global Hindu world and have Sanskrit replace English as the next global lingua franca.
I hope you enjoy this latest instalment of Imagining Sanskrit Land.