IMAGINING SANSKRIT LAND: ARENA MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2008

IASSI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Science, 2021

M.N Srinivas’ concept of Sanskritisation helped us understand that the emulation of ritual practices of people in the upper strata of the Hindu social order by those in the lower order is a critical route of social mobility in everyday life. It is in this context that the present article, delineates as to how Srinivas’s concept of ‘sanskritisation’ seen as a ‘Chronotope’ (or layered-process; used in the Bakhtian sense) helps us to (a) bring the debate out of the Brahmanical mould and hence entrench it into non-brahmanical hierarchies and (b) examine the change in community-interaction from being a mere emulation of established orders to that of setting up of alternatives. In other words, this paper tries to prod on the question as to why in recent years are caste communities articulating an independent cultural identity.

The Book Review, Volume XLI Number 3 March 2017, South Asia XXX, p. 9.

The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2006

A vast corpus of Sanskrit poetry (kāvya) was produced over the last thousand years; most of these works reveal a vital and organic relation to the crystallising regional traditions of the subcontinent and to emerging vernacular literatures. Thus we have, for example, the Sanskrit literatures of Kerala, of Bengal-Orissa, of Andhra, and so on. These works, often addressed primarily to local audiences, have remained largely unknown and mostly undervalued, despite their intrinsic merits and enormous importance for the cultural history of India. We explore the particular forms of complex expressivity, including rich temporal and spatial modalities, apparent in such poems, focusing in particular on Vedānta Deśika’s Haṃsasandeśa, a fourteenth-century messenger-poem modelled after Kālidāsa’s Meghasandeśa. We hypothesise a principle: as localisation increases, what is lost in geographical range is made up for by increasing depth. Sanskrit poetry thus comes to play a critical, highly original role in the elaboration of regional cultural identities and the articulation of innovative cultural thematics; a re-conceptualised ecology of Sanskrit genres, including entirely new forms keyed to local experience, eventually appears in each of the regions. In short, rumours of the death of Sanskrit after 1000 A.D. are greatly exaggerated.

Bhasha, 2022

Over three sections, the 2001 and 2011 Indian censuses are scrutinised to locate, down to the sub‑district administrative and village levels, where L1‑L3 (first to third language) Sanskrit tokens were returned during census enumeration. First, there is a theo‑political discussion of Sanskrit’s imaginative power for faith‑based development. This includes a discussion on how ‘Sanskrit‑speaking’ villages signify an ambition toward cultural renaissance. Next, Sanskrit’s national‑level enumeration is discussed. Finally, closer scrutiny is paid to the top four states (Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh). On average, more Sanskrit tokens were returned by men than women; 92% of L2‑Sanskrit tokens are linked to L1‑Hindi; most L1‑L3‑Sanskrit tokens cluster with Hindi, English, and/or the State Official Language; most Sanskrit tokens are Urban, as opposed to Rural; and most tokens are found across the Hindi Belt of north India. https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/bhasha/2022/1/sanskrit-speaking-villages-faith-based-development/

I) The sounds of Sanskrit: Ancient Indian linguistics in a nutshell While this course won’t promise to make you “speak Sanskrit in ten days”, as the title of a popular booklet goes, participants will be encouraged to have some first-hand experience of “the language of the Gods” (Pollock), practising the letters of the Indic devanāgari script and doing lip service to the great grammarian Pāṇini: “k, kh, g, gh…” – Such breathtaking exercises in phonetics and phonology will be setting the stage for exploring the sounds of Sanskrit right up to the sophisticated methods of Vedic recitation, including a very short introduction to the notorious sandhi rules as well as a variety of simple words and paradigms: a modest tribute to the lasting traditions of ancient Indian linguistics. II) From comparative linguistics to post/colonial encounters When William Jones was speculating about the linguistic significance of Sanskrit – “more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin”, believing the various languages “to have sprung from some common source”, comparative philology was yet to be established as a discipline: as the work of pioneers was followed by years of painstaking research in the nascent field of Indo-European linguistics, the comparative method turned language into a „family plot“ of almost Hitchcockean proportions. Learning to distrust the evidence of lexical similarities, participants will get a chance to dig up relations between such terms as Sanskrit “pitar” and English “father”, juggling with a range of equivalents from Greek and Latin as well as modern Indo-European languages. While this course won’t promise to make you “speak Sanskrit in ten days”, as the title of a popular booklet goes, you will be encouraged to have some first-hand experience of “the language of the Gods” (Pollock), doing lip service to the great grammarian Pāṇini: “k, kh, g, gh…” – Such breathtaking exercises in phonetics and phonology will be setting the stage for considering the possible impact of Sanskrit upon linguistic theories in Europe, including structuralist notions of modern linguistics as well as recent trends in computational modelling. However, as regards (our passage to) the languages of India, that is only half of the story. In addition to its classical heritage and oral traditions, including such ancient literary languages as Sanskrit, Tamil and Bengali, the Indian subcontinent has yet another “world of words” (Dustoor) to offer, as – amidst a rich and varied scenario of spoken languages and dialects – English turns Indian: the English language, a colonial legacy once detrimental to indigenous systems of communication and knowledge, has gradually adapted to Indian linguistic and cultural contexts, altering its features of phonology, grammar, lexis and discourse. Thus, within the larger context of “World Englishes” (Kachru) and the postcolonial conditions of diasporic communities, words of Indian origin are increasingly entering domains of spoken English as well as standard English dictionaries. Far from being “minorityware” – i.e. “a type of art, entertainment, etc., that appeals to a small number of people” (Chowdury-Sengupta), Indian varieties of English are “carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers”, as Salman Rushdie once put it with regard to the role of English as an Indian literary language. Literature: A reader (including a text to be prepared for the first session) will be provided on Moodle. Registered students are going to receive a specially devised coursebook for this unit during the first weeks of the term. Requirements: Set reading and assignments (plus final test or term paper for graded credits). Das Proseminar ist als einführende Lehrveranstaltung für Studierende der Anglistik und Amerikanistik bzw. sprachtheoretischer und/ oder kulturwissenschaftlicher Fachrichtungen konzipiert. Mit einem spezifisch anglo-indischen Fokus auf linguistische Wissenstraditionen post/kolonialer Provenienz zielt der Kurs darauf ab, Fragestellungen aus dem traditionellen Gebiet der historisch-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft mit aktuellen Belangen der „World Englishes“ in einem umfassenden kulturwissenschaftlichen Rahmen zu erörtern. Die Vermittlung der Inhalte wird sich mithilfe eines eigens für den Unterricht konzipierten Lehrbuches (As Europe learns Sanskrit, English turns Indian: From comparative linguistics to post/colonial encounters. An introductory coursebook and resource book for students) an folgenden Themenblöcken orientieren: 1. Europe learns Sanskrit: Of pioneers and paṇḍits 2. The comparative method: Language families and typologies 3. Post/colonial contexts and World Englishes: The languages of India 4. Coming to terms with Sanskrit: the “language of the Gods” and the devanāgari script 5. Classical Indian theories of language and modern linguistics

The Wire, 2020

https://thewire.in/culture/india-census-sanskrit Part 1 is about the 2011 and 2001 Indian census results in relation to the mother tongue, 2nd and 3rd language tokens. I've made some maps and stuff to show down to the sub-district level where people who self-identify as Sanskrit speakers were at the time of the census enumeration. Part 2 builds on this to discuss the application of Sanskrit in relation to faith-based / sustainable development.

Becoming Sanskrit: A Study of Language and Person in the R̥gvedic Āraṇyakas, 2015

This work argues, firstly, that the parameters currently ascribed to Sanskrit – the justifications of its specialised status, the focus on structure and style in definitions of genre, the treatment of revelation as static and non-subjective – are markedly narrower than those demonstrated in Vedic texts, and as such obscure the possibility of alternative phenomenological, language-based and non-elite explanations for Sanskrit’s ongoing appeal in South Asian religious culture. Secondly, it contends that understandings of language, ancient and modern alike, implicate deeply embedded conceptions of the relationship between language and the human subject, particularly as relates to the formation and refinement of personal identity – a matter which draws revelation and embodiment together in the provision of a living context for self-transformation. These two considerations will be explored through a close examination of the Ṛgvedic Āraṇyakas, since they provide an exemplary instance of the way that familiar approaches to Sanskrit must be adapted in accordance with the demands of texts if we are to retrieve their internal integrity and thereby reach a deeper understanding of what it means to become saṃskṛta.

Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1979

The purpose of this article, as the title indicates, is to consider together two of the most important processes that, have been identified as operating for a long time in Hindu society-. I have concentrated on Nirmal Kumar Bose for his formulations on tribal absorption and on M.N. Srinivas for his elaboration of the process of Sanskritization in Hindu society. The emphasis is on a systematic treatment of such contributions made by Bose and Srinivas as are relevant to the theme of this article. First of all, an effort is made to reconstruct the expositions of their formulations, as far as possible in the language of the authors themselves. Next, Bose and Srinivas are subjected to a critical theoretical examination. Finally, draw¬ing from the analysis, certain related substantive issues are raised. The critique that emerges through this effort, thus, does not aspire to be exhaustive. I have tried to formulate an argument that has received rela¬tively little attention in Indian sociology. It is hoped that this article will bring out the relevance of such an analysis, particularly of treating Bose and Srinivas together.

Despite its neglect by scholars in the Western academic world, Rajiv Malhotra’s recent bestselling and impactive book `The Battle for Sanskrit’ (TBFS) succeeds in its objective and will resonate with its target readers: traditional Sanskrit scholars in India as well as English-speaking right-leaning Hindus across the world. Malhotra raises hard questions and presents grim facts in lucid vocabulary and a style which is a combination of academic, critical, trenchant, and motivational. He summarizes debatable and objectionable views and theories of Sheldon Pollock and what he calls ‘American Orientalism’; offers counter-views and alternate theories; and exhorts traditional Sanskrit scholars to critique Pollock’s works, views, and theories more substantially. In this article, I present a detailed review of the book and highlight what in my opinion are the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Although I have a favourable opinion of Malhotra’s book, I hope the contents of the article will prove useful, for the purpose of discussions and debates around the issues raised in the book, to even readers who are neutral or opposed to Malhotra’s views. In addition to an appendix on proofreading errors in TBFS, the article includes two more appendixes—one critiquing Pollock’s claim of an instance of semantic inversion and another analyzing contents of a recent statement that Pollock signed.