World Sanskrit Day: When Mughals Promoted Sanskrit!
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
12 August
2022
Sanskrit And Persian, The Language Of The Mughals,
Are Siamese Twins
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Picture courtesy: Mail Today' A scene
from Akbar’s court.
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Today (
August 12) is World Sanskrit Day. In these times and climes of linguistic
poverty across the world and many languages either already dead or moribund,
talking about Sanskrit sounds rather outdated and when one tries to associate
its development with Mughals (the anathema to today's Hindu India), it's a
veritable last straw on the camel's back.
But the
truth cannot be denied that Mughals did a lot to ameliorate the state and
status of Sanskrit.
'Pseudo-nationalists' may hatch a plan to teach me a lesson for making
this claim, but I'll request that they must read Audrey Truschke's "
Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court."
Though the
author has made many factual errors (her own understanding of Persian and
Sanskrit is questionable) and one can sense that her motives are a trifle
dubious with a view to pleasing a particular political dispensation, certain
facts are laudable.
Before
admiring Mughals for the promotion of Sanskrit, it must be mentioned that
Sanskrit and Persian (the language of the Mughals) are Siamese Twins.
Both are
structurally, semantically and syntactically quite similar. So much so that if
you know Sanskrit pretty well, you can pick up Persian within a fortnight and
vice versa. Yours truly learnt Sanskrit through Persian and found both the
tongues to be two sides of the same coin.
If you read
Krishna Das' ' Paarsiprakasa ' (also spelt as Farsi- Prakash), the syntax of
both the tongues is very similar. Sanskrit word Tan ( body) becomes Tanam in
Persian: Munbilam be Zakhm Na Saayad Tanam ( Nizami), Ashva (a
horse) in Sanskrit becomes Aspa in Persian, Trishna ( thirst) in
Sanskrit is Tishnagi in Persian, Shrigaal ( fox, Lomdi Or Siyaar in Hindi) is Shigaal/Shighaal
in Persian. Here it must be noted that from the perspective of Syntax Formation
( Mafazir in Persian linguistics), both Sanskrit and Persian have ramification
extensions. For example, the Sanskrit word ' Shrigaal' means a male fox
and rather archaic 'Shrigeel' is a female fox. Likewise in Sanskrit, ' ShaGaal'
( with a Gaaf) is a male fox and ' ShaGHaal' ( with a Ghain) is a
female fox. ' Abhra ' (cloud) in Sanskrit is ' Abra ' in Persian
(Falak Abraalood Ast: The firmament is cloudy). ' Chibuk' ( 'Thodi'
in Hindi and 'chin' in English) is ' Chabak' in Persian but enunciated at 'Shabak'
while speaking. Sanskrit word ' Ritu ' (season) is ' Rut ' in
Persian/ Urdu. The list is endless.
Coming back
to Mughals patronizing Sanskrit, one should read the prelude to Platt's '
Persian Dictionary for the students of Calcutta University,' 1910).
The prelude
describes how Akbar, Jahangir and particularly Dara Shikoh ( who learnt
Sanskrit from the pundits of Banaras) promoted Sanskrit and Persian and
encouraged the Brahmins and Jain scholars (who spoke Prakrit, a derivative of
Sanskrit) in their court.
Ramayana, Mahabharata
and Upanishads were rendered into Persian and Dara along with Muslim scholars
like Dafir, Shaista Khorasani, Tahmir, Farhaan, among others studied Panini's
Ashtadhyayi to learn Sanskrit like native speakers.
But the
fact that Mughals unconditionally tried to encourage Persian is often
airbrushed with a sinister motive.
Alas, both
the languages, Persian as well as Sanskrit, are no longer functional in the
sub-continent. I'm still not sure, how many Muslims in India speak Persian as a
colloquial language and think in it and how many Hindus know Sanskrit at a
functional level and can speak it effortlessly.
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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 world's premier publications in several languages
including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-culture/sanskrit-mughals-persian-shiloh-/d/127699
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