Sanskrit And Its Plethora Of Scripts

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 19 October 2023 The oldest Sanskrit manuscript in Devanagari found in India is of the 15th Century. The Spitzer Manuscripts found in China/Central Asia are in Brahmi whereas the Manuscripts found in Eastern Afghanistan are in Gandhari. Then, what was the language/script of Vedas ? By Ashok Sharma 16/10/2023 Written Sanskrit is primarily in the Devanāgarī script, though nearly all writing systems used in India have also been used to write Sanskrit. The Vedic Sanskrit form of Sanskrit is a sacred language, as it was the form used for composing the Hindu sacred scripture called the Vedas. The Vedas and the Upanishads were originally meant to be only “ heard” - Shrutis - from the teacher to the students. Therefore, till the early centuries of the Common Era, they were only orally transmitted. But, when the natives of the different parts of ancient India, started recording their texts in writing after the” sudden” discovery of a script ( Brahmi) to record the Edicts of Emperor Ashoka in all his conquered lands after his victory in the Battle of Kalinga, the “ writing” mania caught on with the Sanskrit scholars too, it appears. Throughout its period of dominance, the language never had a script of its own. The Sanskrit scholars, from the early centuries of the Common Era, borrowed the scripts of the regions where they settled. Therefore, the language was written in a variety of scripts. Readers will be surprised to know that the great scholar of Sanskrit, Acharya Kshitimohan Sen, the maternal grandfather of Dr Amartya Sen, was a scholar of Sanskrit. He was a Professor of Sanskrit and an M A in Sanskrit from Queen's College, Benares. He was au fait with Devnagari script of Sanskrit which he learnt in Varanasi. Yet, throughout his life, he wrote Sanskrit treatises and notes in Bangla, his mother tongue! Only three original papers of Sen are available in Devnagari script of Sanskrit. When Adi Shankar from the Down South engaged in polemics with the redoubtable Mandan Mishra, the Maithili Brahmin from Saharsa, Bihar, their common language of discourse was Sanskrit but scripts were different! Mandan Mishra used a script that was a prototype of today's Bangla. Adi Shankar wrote Sanskrit in his mother tongue Tamil, though he was born at Kalady, near Ernakulam which's in Kerala. Jayadeva (12th century) used early Oriya and Bangla scripts for his epic Geet Govinda. Even Panini's Ashtadhyayi (the most authentic work on Sanskrit Grammar) was not written in Devnagari script of Sanskrit. Panini hailed from Takshshila (Taxila in today's Punjab Province of Pakistan). Sharda script was prevalent in that region, though it was originally from Kashmir. Panini resorted to writing a big part of his text in Sharda-Sanskrit (that's Sanskrit in Sharda script). The German scholar of Sanskrit, Max Mueller, read and wrote Sanskrit in Roman script. Even Wendy Doniger's familiarity with Devnagari script is pretty humdrum. But she's considered to be a scholar of Sanskrit. The same can be said about yet another American scholar of Sanskrit, Sheldon Pollock, who speaks Sanskrit but doesn't write it comfortably in Devnagari script. Brahmo Samaj's Keshab Chandra Sen wrote Sanskrit in Bangla script. I'm of the view that not having a definite and universally familiar script right from the beginning, impeded the blossoming of Sanskrit as a world language. Call it my prejudice or partiality, I find Persian and Arabic to be more stable languages than Sanskrit because both these tongues always had a specific script. We read Seven Odes of Pre-Islamic Arabia in early Arabic script despite many phonetic and semantic limitations. I reiterate, it's my personal opinion as I speak Persian and Arabic better than the way I speak Sanskrit despite knowing its Devnagari script very well. You can pick holes in my argument and I shall accept that gladly and sportingly. ------ A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/sanskrit-plethora-scripts/d/130932 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism