This Village Speaks Gods Language S. Kushala, TNN Aug 13, 2005, 11.04
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This village speaks gods language S. Kushala, TNN Aug 13, 2005, 11.04am IST Mattur and Hosahalli are known for their efforts to support Gamaka art, which is a unique form of singing and storytelling in Karnataka. These are two of the very rare villages in India where Sanskrit is spoken as a regional language[citation needed] . Here more than 90%[citation needed] of the population of this village knows Sanskrit . Siddique Ahmed and Kysar Khan, both Standard IX students of Sharada Vilas School, recite shlokas effortlessly along with their classmates. Even after lessons, whether they are at play or back home, they slip into Sanskrit. Indeed, they are even teaching their parents the language. "Our elders began with a smattering hold over it but can now manage to talk," they say. Walk down a few paces from the school where you touch the Ratha Beedhi (Car Street) and graffiti on the wall grabs your attention: 'Maargaha swacchataya viraajithe, gramaha sujanai viraajithe' (Cleanliness is as important for a road as good people are for a village). Other slogans such as 'Keep the temple premises clean', 'Keep the river clean' and 'Trees are the nation's wealth,' in Sanskrit are painted on walls everywhere. That Sanskrit is the language of Gods need not apply to Mathoor. It is the vernacular of a majority of the 5,000 residents of this quaint, sleepy hamlet situated a little over 4 kms from Shimoga. Away from the hustle-bustle of the district headquarters, Mathoor sits pretty with a garland of arecanut and coconut plantations along the Tunga river, which has now been swelling thanks to a good monsoon. At the door of K.N. Markandeya Avadhani, a well-known Vedic scholar, a sticker in Kannada greets you: 'You can speak in Sanskrit in this house'. He says, "This is to tell visitors that in case they are fluent in the language, they can converse with us in Sanskrit." Perhaps this inspired BJP leader Sushma Swaraj to deliver a 20-minute power-packed speech in Sanskrit when she visited Mathoor in May during campaigning for the Shimoga by-election. The practice wasn't born yesterday. History has it that the Vijayanagar emperor gifted Mathoor and neighbouring Hosahalli, known as centres of learning for Sanskrit and Vedic studies from time immemorial, to the "people" in 1512. The gift deed inscriptions on copper plates have been preserved by the archaeology department. Mathoor's Sanskrit-speaking habit got a further boost when Pejawar mutt Pontiff Vishvesha Theertha visited the place in 1982, and christened it 'the Sanskrit village'. For long a colony of Sanketi Brahmins, the village is now home to different communities including backward classes, Muslims and Lambanis. Yet conversing in Sanskrit isn't an adult quirk. Study of the language begins from the Montessori level, where kids are taught rhymes and told stories in Sanskrit â€‖ even Chandamama comics are printed in Sanskrit. While Sanskrit is a compulsory subject in school, teachers and students even talk to each other in this language. At the crack of the dawn, the village resounds with Vedic chants in the many Brahmin households. (Homes are named Trayi, Pavanatmaja, Chintamani, Prasanna-Bhaskara Nilayaha.) in pursuit of higher education. Some are teaching Sanskrit in universities across the state and many others have found jobs as software engineers. "After completing my engineering course, I came back to stay in Mathoor. I tend the land now and live with my family â€‖ about 20 of us across four generations," says Gopal Avadhani, who is in his late 60s. Meanwhile, Rukmini, another family member, pipes in: "Coffeya chaaya kim ichchathi" (What'll you have, coffee or tea)?" Outside, children play and giggle, calling out their names: Manojava, Savyasaachi, Ikshudhanwa, Niharika. Avadhani recalls the names of many foreign students who stayed with them in true guru-shishya tradition to take crash courses in Sanskrit â€‖ "Rutger, Kortemgorst and Vincent came down from Ireland last year". Vincent, he says, surprised everyone by speaking in Sanskrit at the farewell function. And as people go about their daily routine soon after, there's more Sanskrit to be heard. At times, the whole village seems like a pathashala â€‖ everybody, children and menfolk alike, dressed in white dhotis and angasvatra greeting each other with 'Hari Om' (hello) and 'Katham aasthi?' (How are you?). Mathoor, though, isn't a cloistered hermitage shy of the outside world. Many of its youngsters have moved to cities in search of greener pastures or John Mar, a Sanskrit professor from England, was also in the village for a speaking course. Samskruta Bharati, a New Delhi headquartered association involved in promoting the language, has a branch here and Srinidhi, its secretary, runs the show. The organisation teaches functional language for day-to-day conversation. At dusk, the melodious chanting of the Vedas emerges from around the banks of the Tunga. The river is unusually calm. And the stillness removes one from modernity to another era when Sanskrit reigned and when there were no mobile phones. Or, as the residents of Mathoor would put it, when there was no "nishtantu dooravani"! Sanskrit speaking village in Madhya Pradesh Aditya Ghosh, Hindustan Times September 20, 2008 Prem Narayan Chauhan pats his oxen, pushing them to go a little faster. Ziighrataram, ziighrataram chalanti, he urges them. The animals respond to their master’s call, picking up pace on the muddy path that leads to his 10-acre cornfield. Chauhan, 35, dropped out of school early, after Class II. He does not consider it remarkable that he speaks what is considered a dying language (or that his oxen respond to it). For him, Sanskrit is not a devabhasha, the language of the gods, but one rooted in the commonplace, in the ebb and flow of everyday life in Jhiri, the remote hamlet in Madhya Pradesh, where he lives. Mutterings under banyan trees, chit-chat in verandahs, pleasantries on village paths, disputes in the panchayat — in Jhiri, it’s all in Sanskrit. And then, a cellphone rings. The moment of contemporary reality is fleeting. Anachronism and Amar Chitra Katha take over as the conversation begins: ―Namo, namah. Tvam kutra asi?‖ (Greetings. Where are you?) A lost world rediscoveredJhiri is India’s own Jurassic Park. A lost world that has been recreated carefully and painstakingly, but lives a precarious existence, cut off from the compelling realities of the world outside. The 1,000-odd residents of this hamlet, 150 km north of Indore, hardly speak the local dialect, Malwi, any longer. Ten years have been enough for the Sanskritisation of life here. Minus the Brahminical pride historically associated with the language — Jhiri has just one Brahmin family. The much-admired 24-year- old Vimla Panna who teaches Sanskrit in the local school belongs to the Oraon tribe, which is spread over Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. And the village is an eclectic mix of Kshatriyas, Thakurs, Sondhias, Sutars and the tribal Bhils. Panna has been key in popularising Sanskrit with the women of Jhiri. With mothers speaking the language, the children naturally follow. Take 16-year-old unlettered Seema Chauhan. She speaks Sanskrit as fluently as Panna, who studied the language for seven years for her Master’s degree. Chauhan is a livewire, humouring and abusing the village girls in Sanskrit. ―I just listened to Vimla didi,‖ she says. ―In fact, I’m often at a loss for words in Malwi.‖ Just married to a man from a neighbouring village, she says confidently, ―My children will speak in Sanskrit because I will talk to them in it.‖ As eight- year-old Pinky Chauhan joins us, she greets me politely: ―Namo namaha. Bhavaan kim karoti?‖ (What brings you here?) Her father Chander Singh Chauhan laughs and says, ―My wife started speaking to me in this language, so I learnt it to figure out what she was saying behind my back.‖ Let’s get official Mukesh Jain, CEO, Janpad Panchayat, Sarangpur tehsil (which includes Jhiri), recalls, ―I could not believe it when I first came here. It can get difficult during official interactions, but we encourage them.‖ All kinds of logistical problems crop up in Jhiri. This year, 250 students did their school-leaving exams in Sanskrit. ―A Sanskrit teacher had to work along with all the examiners of other subjects,‖ says Jain. But there are some positive offshoots too. Thanks to Sanskrit, Jhiri has re-discovered some lost technologies of irrigation, conservation and agriculture from the old scriptures. A siphon system of water recharging, for instance, resulted in uninterrupted water supply through the year in the fields. Small check-dams, wells and irrigation facilities followed. ―It is matter of pride for us to retrieve these old techniques from the scriptures. With no help from the government and without using any artificial systems, we’ve reaped great benefits,‖ says Uday Singh Chauhan, president of the Vidya Gram Vikash Samity, which runs development programmes in the village. But Jhiri’s pride stops at Sanskrit. The first doctor, engineer, economist, scientist or linguist is yet to walk out from it. After finishing school, most village youth join a political party. Electricity is a matter of luxury, so is sanitation. Even the school does not have a toilet, which is the single biggest reason for girls dropping out at the senior secondary level. The average age of marriage for women is 14. Even Panna, who was thinking of doing her PhD, had to give in to the wishes of the wise men of Jhiri who got her married to the other schoolteacher, Balaprasad Tiwari. There is no public transport; an Internet connection is unimaginable.