This village speaks gods language

S. Kushala, TNN Aug 13, 2005, 11.04am IST

Mattur and are known for their efforts to support Gamaka art, which is a unique form of singing and storytelling in . These are two of the very rare villages in 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 . 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 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. Jhiri desperately needs to connect to the rest of the world, to explore its infinite possibilities, to grow. But Jhiri is still a success story, especially when you consider that a similar experiment, started a couple of decades ago in Muttur village of Karnataka’s , failed, because of the caste factor — it remained caged with Brahmin patrons. ―About 80 per cent people of the village are Brahmins who know Sanskrit but won’t speak it. This is because the carpenters and blacksmiths would not respond to it,‖ says Dr Mathur Krishnaswami, head of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, who was involved with the movement. ―No language in the world can survive until the common man starts speaking it,‖ he points out. Muttur failed. Jurassic Park destroyed itself. Jhiri must not.

SANSKRIT IS NOT A LANGUAGE, IT'S A WAY OF LIFE IN TRIBAL VILLAGE

(Tribal Village in Banswada district of Rajasthan) by Anuradha Nagraj ,Ganoda (Banswada) Courtesy - Indian Express, Friday, 14th march 2003

From the Walls of Shambhunath Jha's house, plastered posters vie for attention. But the one that catches your eye is a conversation chart that goes something like this : "Welcome, please sit down. Would you like something to drink? Nice to meet you. See you again. Goodbye." The chart doesn't just tell you how to make polite conversation. It also tells you how to do it in Sanskrit.

Jha's little daughter rapidly replies to her father's questions, all in Sanskrit. Near the kitchen, the Jha household has put up another chart, this time listing the name of cooking ingredients and food items. "We use it as a regular glossary. Sanskrit is not our mother tongue, so sometimes we need to look up the chart. But most of the time, we manage without it" says Jha proudly.

The professor is one of the many residents in Ganoda village who are confident they can carry on an entire conversation in Sanskrit without a problem. The grocery shop owner claims he can rattle off shlokas in Sanskrit while in the adjoining utensil store the owner informs that he helps his children with their language homework.

"Almost everyone can speak or understand the language here", Naresh Doshi says. "I studied only till Class VIII but I still manage in Sanskrit. We don't speak it at home all the time, but we understand and if someone comes to my shop and asks for something in Sanskrit, I'll know what to give."

In this tribal-dominated village, Sanskrit is slowly becoming a way of life. Slogans in Sanskrit make the village walls, the language spoken in practically every house and every school-going child rattling off a few sentences. The entire process actually started by default. Until about 10 years ago, Ganoda village was like any other in Banswada district of Rajasthan. Tribal dominated, average literacy levels and a nondescrpt entity. But the growing number of students passing out of the government Sanskrit college in Ganoda changed all that. Over 100 students in the three Sanskrit institutions of the village - a primary school, middle school and the college - have joined hands with a group of their teachers to try and make Sanskrit the second language of the Wagdi speaking population.

Kanhaiya Lala Yadav is a first generation learner from his tribal household in Dukhvada. "We speak Wagdi at home but I often debate with my friends in Sanskrit" says the undergraduate student. Jha adds, "We decided recently to try and take the language to as many people as possible. There's already an atmosphere of learning that has been created over the years. Now we are trying to reach out to as many people as possible in remote areas and teach them Sanskrit." And to spread the good word, the teachers and students are practically going door-to-door, teaching, putting up posters and impressing many with their synchronised recitation of shlokas.

For the motivated Sanskrit speaking lot of Ganoda, the ultimate aim is to make it a unique and model Sanskrit village. Their punchline is "don't say hello, say Hari Om". A Sanskrit-Speaking Village in Assam Posted on August 5, 2012 by Venetia Ansell

असभप्रान्त े भहानदस्म ब्रह्भऩत्रु स्म तटे ’गमभरय’ इतत नाम्नैको ग्राभ्वततते । तत्र गाव् ऩादचारयणो 饍ववचक्रिकाश्चाववशारेष ु भगेष ु सचं यन्न्त । अ쥍ऩा쥍ऩातन काय-् वहनातन 饃श्मन्त े । अ配मन्ु नता वशं वऺृ ा आकाश ं स्ऩशन्त तीव । ताम्फरू वऺृ ा् ऩगू ीपरातन नागव쥍쥍मश्च बयू ी वतन्त त े । चैऩत्रवऺृ ाणाभावरमो भन् हयन्न्त । सवत्रत हरयतवणभत मा प्रकृ ततयेव ववरसतत । नदस्म प्रावना配त ु जना दरय饍ा् सन्न्त । प्रततवष ं जरौघस्म कायणात ् के षांचचत ् जनानां गहृ ाणण भ्रष्टाणण बवन्न्त।

―एष् साधयणोऽसभप्रान्तवती ग्राभ्‖ इतत कोऽप्मत्र प्राप्म एतत ् सव ं 饃ष््वा च भन्मत े ।

क्रकन्配वत्र जना् ’सेर ् योटट’ (एकं खा饍मववशषे ं मत ् नेऩारीसभाज एव वव饍मत)े अततचथभ्मो ऩरयवेषमन्न्त । अत्र मान्म敍गवस्त्राणण द配तातन तातन नेऩारीयी配मा तनमभततातन । क्रकभथं ? मत् ग्रामभण् प्रधानतमा नेऩारीजना् । तषे ां ऩवू जत ा् फहो् कारात ् ऩवू भत त्राग配म तनवास ं कृ तवन्त् । इदानीं ऩमन्त तभेत े जना् नेऩारीबाषां यक्षऺ配वा गहृ स्म अन्ततो फटहश्च वदन्न्त । एतने वै प्रकायेण त े ग्रामभण् काभप्मन्मां बाषां यऺन्त् प्रततटदनं वदन्न्त । एषा बाषा? का सस्ं कृ तबाषवै ।

तत्र गहृ ेष ु भागेष ु च सस्ं कृ त ं श्रोत ुं श啍मत े । म饍मवऩ सस्ं कृ तग्राभ् सऩं णू त मा饍म ऩमन्त त ं नाबवत ् तथावऩ सस्ं कृ तभम ं वातावयणभनबु ववत ुं श啍मभ ् । रघवो फारा व饍ृ ा् वऩताभहाश्च सस्ं कृ तवातातराऩ ं कु वन्त न्त । ऩाकशारास ु सबास ु कऺास ु च सस्ं कृ त ं श्रूमत े । मेऽवऩ जना् सस्ं कृ त ं न वटदत ुं श啍नवु न्न्त त े सस्ं कृ तभवगन्त ुं प्रबवन्न्त ।

कस्भात ् कायणादेषा शबु ा ऩरयन्स्थतत셁配ऩाटदतान्स्त ? अत्र 饍वे सस्ं थे ऩरयश्रभेण सस्ं कृ तप्रसायं कु वन्त त् सन्न्त – सस्ं कृ तप्रसारयणीसबा सस्ं कृ तबायती च । अन्स्भन ् रेखे सस्ं कृ तबाय配मा् ऩरयचमो नावश्मक् । सस्ं कृ तप्रसारयणीसबा 配वववटदता स्मात ् ।

१९९७-तभवष त एतस्मा् सस्ं थामा उ配ऩन्配तयबवत ् । तस्मा् प्रभखु ौ नामकौ डा. मशवाचामतभहोदम् श्रीतरु सीशयण-उऩाध्मामभहोदमश्च । एतमो् भागदत मश配त वेन सस्ं थामा ववृ 饍जात ा । सबामा् सदस्मा् सस्ं कृ तमशबफयाणण चारमन्न्त सस्ं कृ तभहो配सवा् सम्ऩादमन्न्त सस्ं कृ तऩस्ु तकातन प्रकाशमन्न्त च । ―सस्ं कृ तऩबत्रकामा् प्रकाशन ं बवेत ् , सस्ं कृ तस敍गीतस्म ध्वतनभटु 饍कामा् तनभातणं बवे饍 ‖ इ配माटद संस्थामा अन्मान्मवऩ रक्ष्मातन सन्न्त । धन ं प्राप्त ं चे饍 एतान्मऩ सस्ं कृ तकामातणण त े तनश्चमेन करयष्मन्न्त ।

ग्राभस्म ववषमे रक्ष्म ं क्रकभ ् ? सवेष ु गहृ ेष ु सवेष ु भागेष ु च सस्ं कृ त ं श्रूमाटदतत तषे ाभाशा । मथा नेऩारीबाषा नेऩारीसस्ं कृ ततयत्र सयु क्षऺता वतत े तथैव सस्ं कृ तबाषा सस्ं कृ तसस्ं कृ ततयवऩ एतग्रै ातमभणणमब् सयु क्षऺता सवदत ा बवेत ् ।