Sanskrit Language Facts

Recently my Marathi book on this subject has been published and I would like to translate some chapters of it in English to publish on hub.

Some Facts About Sanskrit Language

1. Sanskrit is not the oldest language of India, Tamil is. Check this in any standard GK book for competitive exams or any standard book of linguistics. Prakirt languages like Magadhi, Ardhamagadhi and Shourseni are much older than classical Sanskrit.

2. The oldest inscriptions in India are in Prakrit languages, not in Sanskrit. It is a fact that the none of the edicts of Emperor Ashok are in Sanskrit. If Sanskrit language existed at his time, some of his edicts were in this language, as his edicts are not only in Magadhi language, but also in other languages including Greek.

3. Bhagwan Mahavir and Goutam Buddha gave their sermons in Prakrit languages (Addhamagadhi and Magadhi, respectively) and they spoke nothing in Sanskrit. The real reason of this is that Sanskrit did not exist at their time. If Sanskrit existed that time, they would have spoken in Sanskrit at least with Kings like Shrenik Bimbisar or with their Bramhin disciples.

4. The so called Sanskrit of Vedas is different language from the Sanskrit of later period. The language of Vedas is Chhandas, and not Sanskrit. Chhandas is another form of Prakrit languages.

5. Later Jain Acharyas, who were of Bramhin origin used Sanskrit for writing Jain texts. They gave a Vedic touch to Jain philosophy in their writings. You can see it clearly in Acharya Jinsena's literature, who was a born Vedic Bramhin and who turned south Indian Jainism into ritualistic and Vedic like Jainism. Same thing happened in case of Buddhist literature.

6. Prakrit Jain literature is loyal with original Jain philosophy, Sanskrit Jain literature is not. Again check this by comparing Acharya Kundkundas Prakrit texts with Acharya Jinsena's literature.

7. Sanskrit language had no script for writings as they did not believe in writing. Later they adopted Brahmi, Nagari and other scripts. They also used regional language scripts for this language and today even Roman script is being used. Please have a look at: Sanskrit: a Language Without Script

8. Today's most of the Indian languages are of Prakrit origins. Sanskrit is also of Prakrit origin. So Sanskrit is not mother of languages like Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi etc, but she is just a sister of them. Sanskrit has no children.

9. Sanskrit was never a language of Masses. It was even not spoken by Brahmins. It was just a language rituals and Vedic literature of later time.

10. There are many similarities between Slavic & other European languages like Russian, German, Latin etc. and Sanskrit. But there are many distinctive features between Sanskrit and other Indian languages. This suggest that the people who created Sanskrit language by culturing Prakrut languages, were of European origin. You may like to read: European Origin of Sanskrit Language

11. Most of the stories in classical Sanskrit languages originally were written in Prakrit languages.Sanskrit translated the stories and destroyed the original sources. Plagiarism was base of Sanskrit language. See: Plagiarism by Sanskrit Authors

12. Great scholars of linguistics, Sanskrit, History and Sociology have given negative comments on Sanskrit languages. See a collection of their quotes at: What The Great Scholars Said About Sanskrit Language?

The final fact: Sanskrit is a dead language.

-Mahavir Sanglikar