I disagree with letter-writer Sharada Schaffter (July 23) on how old Sanskrit is. An encyclopedia on Indology says: “It is a well-known fact that the Vedas are in Sanskrit language. It is generally accepted that Lord Buddha appeared about 2,500 years ago, and we know that Lord Buddha preached against the Vedas. So the Vedas had to have been existing at that time, otherwise how could he preach against them? In fact the reason why he no longer accepted the Vedas was because many of the leading Vedic followers were no longer truly following them … So if the deterioration had reached such an extreme 2,500 years ago that people embraced Buddha’s teachings, then clearly such gradual degeneration had been going on for many hundreds of years. Since the Vedas were a highly developed form of philosophy, it would indicate that they must have been in existence and quite widespread several thousand years before that.”
Mukunda Das,Chennai
Those who are against “Sanskrit Week” would not even paused for a second if it had been the celebration of a “German Week” or a “French Week.” Those who oppose Sanskrit constitute some of those who cannot even pronounce Tamil words right.
N. Ramanathan,Chennai
Those who know Sanskrit should feel sorry for those who have set their face against it out of ignorance of its beauty and richness of content and expression. Jawaharlal Nehru described it as “amazingly rich, efflorescent, full of luxuriant growths of all kinds, and yet precise and strictly keeping within the network of grammar Panini laid down 2500 years ago.” Sir William Jones said Sanskrit “is more prefect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either.” Euler’s Theorem, named after the French mathematician of the 17th century, deals with the movement of the knight on a chess board, such that it lands only once in each square. Centuries earlier, Vedanta Desika described it in two stanzas in the “Paduka Sahasram.”
P. Venkatesan,Chennai
Most letter-writers appear to have disagreed with the move by the Tamil Nadu government. It should be noted that only political leaders have come out in opposition while Tamil scholars, students and other citizens have no objections. Politicians, especially in Tamil Nadu, appear to be solely concerned with the politics of language. The history of the Dravidian parties shows how they sustained on anti-Hindi and anti-English agitations. The vehemence of opposition of each party is born out of a fear. Opposing “Sanskrit Week” has dual intentions — to keep the Tamil vote bank intact and to prevent strengthening of a Sanskrit vote bank in favour of the BJP.
P.R.V. Raja,Pandalam, Kerala
