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Sanskrit Is Not Dead Sanskrit is Not Dead Satyanarayana Dasa Abstract Sheldon Pollock’s 2001 argument of Sanskrit’s decline is a justifiable one, but he has overstated the case by equating this decrease in production to the death of the language. He has similarly overextended the case in asserting that Sanskrit is no longer a medium for living thought. Through a case study of the Vraja region of North India between Delhi and Agra, with a special focus on the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, we analyze the significant literary contributions to novel thought in the 16-17th centuries. We further show Sanskrit in Vraja, and within the Gauḍiya tradition, has possessed historical continuity and vitality since the 16th century, and is thus not dead. In our pūrvapakṣa, we engage with the five primary arguments of Pollock’s introduction before he launches into his four case studies. First, we argue that language cannot be divorced from its socio-political context, so whether or not Sanskrit is being deployed as a political instrument is not germane to the vitality of the language. Second, Pollock makes bold assertions about the low level Sanskrit education, but he doesn’t define the terms of his rhetoric, provide statistical evidence, nor reference for his claims. Third, in referencing the first six Sanskrit awards from the Sahitya Akademi, Pollock argues Sanskrit’s contemporary literary potency is near extinction; we contend that while not a star performer amongst Indian languages, Sanskrit is performing adequately. Fourth, Pollock claims Sanskrit literature experienced a “momentous rupture” after a vibrant period from 1550-1750, but we point to the statistics of Sanskrit authors and literary works indicating this assertion has been overstated. Finally, we analyze some of the problems of Pollock’s vague terminology to raise doubts to his conclusion that Sanskrit is dead. An important consequence of more clearly defining “language death”, using Pollock’s own metrics, allows us to think of a living language as a vehicle of novel thought and imagination. Our case study begins by applying a popular Sanskrit maxim from Nyāya to suggest that existence of particulars point to the existence of universals—a method to show that if Sanskrit is not dead in Vraja or the Gauḍīya tradition, more specifically, then it can be inferred that Sanskrit is not dead. The crux of our paper then focuses on what Pollock claims to be a gap in the intellectual history of Sanskrit from the 16-18th century, to prove that Sanskrit literature in Vraja was making history, demonstrating vitality, and producing novel—dare we say radical—thought. We specifically reference the new ideas and associated literary production of the Gosvāmin-s of Vrindāvan, with some additional attention to a selection of their contemporaries and successors. Our focus then shifts to contemporary Sanskrit education and ritual performance in Vraja. These mediums intersect through the innovated ritual of Bhāgavata-kathā (stories from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa), a driver of cultural animation and social imagination. Finally, we examine Gauḍīya Sanskrit literary production since 1800 by identifying a selection of major scholars and their works. We conclude that there is sufficient doubt in Pollock’s argument to refute the claim that Sanskrit is dead. Introduction “Government feeding tubes and oxygen tanks may try to preserve the language in a state of quasi-animation, but most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead… Sanskrit literature could hardly be said to be alive if it had ceased to function as the vehicle for living thought, thought that supplemented and not simply duplicated reality” (Pollock 2001:393,414). Sheldon Pollock’s 2001 argument of Sanskrit’s decline is a justifiable one, but he has overstated the case by equating this decrease in production to the death of the language. He has similarly overextended the case in asserting that Sanskrit is no longer a medium for living thought. Through a case study of the Vraja region, with a special focus on the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, we analyze in this paper the significant literary contributions to novel thought expressed in Sanskrit in the 16-17th centuries CE. We further show Sanskrit in Vraja, and within the Gauḍīya tradition, has possessed historical continuity and vitality since the 16th century, and is thus not dead. In our pūrva-pakṣa, we engage with the five primary arguments of Pollock’s Introduction before he launches into his four case studies. First, we argue that language cannot be divorced from its socio-political context, so whether or not Sanskrit is being deployed as a political instrument is not germane to the vitality of the language. Second, Pollock makes bold assertions about the elementary level Sanskrit education, but he does not define the terms of his rhetoric, provide statisticalevidence, nor any references for his claims. Third, in referencing the first six Sanskrit awards from the Sahitya Akademi, Pollock argues Sanskrit’s contemporary literary potency is near extinction; we contend that while not a star performer amongst Indian languages, Sanskrit is performing adequately. Fourth, Pollock claims Sanskrit literature experienced a “momentous rupture” after a vibrant period from 1550-1750, but we point to the statistics of Sanskrit authors and literary works indicating this assertion as overstated. Finally, we analyze some of the problems of Pollock’s vague terminology to raise doubts about his conclusion that Sanskrit is dead. An important consequence of more clearly defining language death, using Pollock’s own metrics, allows us to think of living language as a vehicle of novel thought and imagination. Our case study begins by applying a popular Sanskrit maxim from Nyāya to suggest that existence of particulars point to the existence of universals—a method to show that if Sanskrit is not dead in Vraja or the Gauḍīya tradition, more specifically, then it can be inferred that Sanskrit is not dead. The crux of our paper then focuses on what Pollock claims to be a gap in the intellectual history of Sanskrit from the 16-18th century, in order to prove that Sanskrit literature in Vraja was making history, demonstrating vitality, and producing novel—dare we say radical—thought. We specifically reference the new ideas and associated literary production of the Gosvāmin-s of Vrindāvan, with some additional attention to a selection of their contemporaries and successors. Our focus then shifts to contemporary Sanskrit education and ritual performance in Vraja. These mediums intersect through the innovated ritual of Bhāgavata kathā, a driver of cultural animation and social imagination. Finally, we examine Gauḍīya Sanskrit literary production since 1800 by identifying a selection of major scholars and their works. We conclude that there is sufficient doubt in Pollock’s argument – in order to refute his claim that Sanskrit is dead. PŪRVA PAKṢA Political Context Pollock opens his paper by locating Sanskrit in the Indian political climate since the 1990s, stating that Sanskrit is central to the rhetoric of the contemporary Indian political right, specifically the BJP and VHP. He refers to political propaganda citing Sanskrit’s role as a “source and preserver of world culture” and the evidence for Sanskrit’s 4000-5000 year existence to be the seals from the Indus Valley civilization (Pollock 2001:392). We are not endorsing nor defending these claims. We suggest that since language cannot be separated from its socio-political context, the potential politicization of a language is perhaps an expected outcome, and thus, not necessarily discrediting the merits of the language’s utility and relevance (Mufwene 2004:206). Regardless of the degree to which one agrees with the argument that Sanskrit is being deployed as an instrument of Hindu identity politics, Pollock’s suggestion that Sanskrit’s relevance is limited to this sphere—as rhetorical political currency— is overreaching. Education In summarizing Sanskrit’s role in independent India, Pollock suggests “disparities in political inputs and cultural outcomes could be detailed across the board” (Pollock 2001:393). However, the two examples he utilizes to make his case do not have much support. First, he addresses Sanskrit’s status as an official language of India and its associated funding benefits, specifically at colleges and universities. Yet in the discussion of the original fifteen, now eighteen, official languages of democratic India, Pollock seems to be suggesting Sanskrit’s inclusion is based largely on statecraft rather than merit. He curiously propounds this view without any references or statistics: “with few exceptions, however, the Sanskrit pedagogy and scholarship at these institutions have shown a precipitous decline from pre-Independence quality and standards, almost in inverse proportion to the amount of funding they receive.” (Pollock 2001:392) Pollock neglects to define the metrics he has deployed for all of the categories supporting this unsubstantiated assertion: pedagogy, scholarship, quality, and standards. He neither provides further qualitative explanation to the difference between the pre-Independence and post- Independence context. However, perhaps most problematic is the absence of funding data to support his assertion of an inverse relationship between input and output. There is an additional curiosity in Pollock’s claim: to which time period exactly does “pre- Independence” refer? Pollock claims that Sanskrit’s pre-modern decline was so significant
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