paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Is Vedic Sanskrit a dead or a near dead language?
Thread open to all human beings of a religion or no religion.
Regards
Thread open to all human beings of a religion or no religion.
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Is Vedic Sanskrit a dead or a near dead language?
Thread open to all human beings of a religion or no religion.
Regards
Do not discount the thousands of students who learn Sanskrit and Vedas all over India. Neither the teacher requires a book nor the students. It is in their memory.
This highlights another difference in paradigms. In Sanskrit, the sound itself conveys a feeling, or meaning. Just as music as sound can make us calm, excited, etc. so too does Sanskrit convey mood. It's a bit like onomatopoeia that way. So it's not entirely necessary to know the meaning. This is especially true with Bhij mantras.A few years ago at temple there was an event where a large group of preteen and early teens recited the Sri Vishnu Sahasranama, in perfect unison, not missing a syllable or stumbling for a second. It was incredible. However, I wonder if they knew what they were saying, or simply learned it by rote memorization. Do they actually understand the words? I tend to think they do. It would be even more credit to their knowledge and ability if they understood.
If they were able to remember the thousand names, I am sure, they understood the meaning also. Many meanings are sort of self-apparent, they will have the words commonly used in their language. otherwise it is normal for children to ask the teacher, their friends or family members for the meaning. See the hands of pupils in the second image, they are counting the rhythm. That is a necessary part of Vedic chanting or Indian music.However, I wonder if they knew what they were saying, or simply learned it by rote memorization. Do they actually understand the words? I tend to think they do. It would be even more credit to their knowledge and ability if they understood.
This highlights another difference in paradigms. In Sanskrit, the sound itself conveys a feeling, or meaning. Just as music as sound can make us calm, excited, etc. so too does Sanskrit convey mood. It's a bit like onomatopoeia that way. So it's not entirely necessary to know the meaning. This is especially true with Bhij mantras.
It's a liturgical language.
Like Latin, it's still used in a religious context. Like Latin, it gave rise to a lot of vocabulary in later languages.
Like Latin, there's no country or ethnic group still using it as a native tongue.
A dead language is a language no longer in everyday use by a population in colloquial communication.
From Dictionary.com:
Sanskrit, though still used liturgically, and spoken by a handful of swamis, linguists and aficionados, is a dead language.
If they were able to remember the thousand names, I am sure, they understood the meaning also.
Anyway, the OP was specific about Vedic Sanskrit and I agree with Valijean that Vedic sanskrit has been dead for a long time - outside the Liturgical context. Classical, post Panian sanskrit is another matter, but many posters here have not taken the difference between Vedic and Classical sanskrit into account.
Especially the oldest stage of the language, Rigvedic Sanskrit, the language of the hymns of the Rigveda, is preserved only in a redacted form several centuries younger than the texts' composition. Recovering its original form is a matter of linguistic reconstruction.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_Sanskrit
Yaska is dated by Wikipedia at 700 BC which I think is correct. Did Yaska live earlier than Yajnavalkya who lived around 2,500 BC. This we know by the astronomical data available in Taittiriya Samhita. That was the time when the beginning of the year was changed from Orion to Krittika (Prajapati following Rohini controversy). Of course, even in Yajnavalyka's time, Vedas were not correctly understood. The reason was change of locale and passage of time (a few thousand years), from Sub-Arctic regions to temperate regions. They would not understand 'Ati-Ratra' or a dawn of one month.As I have mentioned elsewhere, 2800 years ago, Yaaska noted that people were simply memorizing the Veda, without understanding it.
IMHO, that is not a very big difference. Of course, there is a difference but if one knows Sanskrit, I think one can understand Vedic Sanskrit also. It is not undecipherable to one who knows Sanskrit. At the same time, some of the hymns were not as old. There are parts which are old and parts which are not so old. It is like Sanskrit and Pali. Same roots in most words.So that answers my question about the difference between "aikam sat .." and "ekam sat .." in RV 1.164.46
BS. Vedic language is not a commonly used language. It is unparsed sound. Om is the root. Where will it go? You and I are made of it.
There are four levels of speech – para, pashyanti, madhyama, vaikari. Human beings speak only the fourth level. The language we speak is vaikari.
Rig Veda 1.164.45 “catvari vak parimita padani tani vidur brahmana ye minishinah, guha trini nihita neengayanti turiyam vaco manushya vadanti”
The knowers know of the Vak (Word-Speech) that exists in four forms. Three are hidden and the fourth is what men speak.
....
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/329144/four-levels-speech.html
https://auromere.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/vedic-vak-four-levels-of-sound/
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/chittaranjan/advaita_chittaranjan.htm
THE MYSTICAL REALITY
The nature of Reality is mystical. The magic of words plays upon the screen of non-duality and hold us enrapt to the siren songs of plurality. A word is essentially one with Brahman. That is para vak. It springs from Its living waters into the formless embryo - the pashyanti - the causal seed that is ready to sprout into manifest form. In its middling state - madhyama - it presents the forms in ideality before it springs into the luxuriance of the created world as vaikhari.
These are the four stages of Vak - para, pashyanti, madhyama and vaikhari. The mystery is that there is no difference in what it points to in all these stages, because if there were a difference, the word would not point to the same object in all its stages. We may give a name to this paradoxical nature of words and feel satisfied that we have found the truth, but the moment we attempt to determine its truth, it negates itself in the very determination. Difference arises through Vak, and yet there is no difference in its forms. Its difference is the mystery of its own 'difference', as it were, and the world springs into being in the womb of this great mystery. It is the heart of the mystical - the inexplicable power of the Lord to make many out of One while still remaining immutably One. That is His Maya. It needs the eye of a mystic to see the One in All and the All in One. It is the sahaja samadhi spoken of in Vedanta.
Is Vedic Sanskrit a dead or a near dead language?
Thread open to all human beings of a religion or no religion.
Regards