We cannot blame
any language.
All languages
have their own multiple functions, immense importance in certain domains and
geographical locations, strengths and weaknesses and so on.
It is our attitude that needs to be blamed.
It is a major
weakness in certain countries, India is one among them, of giving more
importance to tongue in which something is spoken than the talent, thoughts, truth
that are conveyed .
Besides all
languages are vulnerable to the understanding capacity of the brain; frames of
reference of the mind; interpretations of the mind out of context which again
may be influenced by various identity based factors like culture, religion,
social mores and collective prejudices and trends.
Generally
people get angry when I indicate this as a symptom of a disease that most Indians,
especially the elites suffer, that of pushing to the back ground the intrinsic
aspects, main concepts and contents, purpose and pay more attention to the outward
exhibition of rituals like what type of saree to wear for a specific occasion
and what menu to cook for any festival and so on.
So, the fault
lies in our attitude.
I have enjoyed
and remember the songs rendered by Rafi and Mukesh when I never knew a word of
Hindi; Songs of Dr. M. Balamurali Krishna without knowing a word of Telugu; I
love and wish everyone adopts the great social philosophy and sophistications of
romance that Tituvalluvar writes without ever having a very clear understanding of the wonderful , chaste and highly literary
Tamil in which Tirukural is written; the plots of many Shakespeare’s plays
without having a perfect understanding of his poetic English that he uses; for
that matter the great philosophical
concepts in Mahabaratha without clear understanding of Sanskrit.
Plants,
vegetables, fruits, automobiles, rockets, electricity, petrol etc speak no
language but we like, love and live with them for their inherent attributes and
utility.
There is on whole tribe called, ‘Munduruku whose language has no tenses; no plurals and no words for
numbers beyond five’ [Alex’s Adventures in NumberLand] and the best part is
they count and give their produce running into few lakhs every week and
they are considered one among the smartest tribes in Rain forests.
There is no
need to put down or develop any animosity towards anything irrationally when
that thing did nothing wrong, in this case a particular language English, but
our attitude did it.
Heart itself is wonderfully referred to as HRUDAYA in Sanskrit
which is one of the most perfect terms to indicate both the physical and psychological
functionality of the heart.
Besides these surface meaning there is also an esoteric meaning
in most of the Sanskrit words.
Meaning of "Hrudaya" from the
Bruhadaranya Upanishad:
'Hru' means to bring. This involves bringing impure blood from
the body to the heart.
'Da' means to give, involves giving pure blood to the body.
'Ya' means to set right all the activities and maintain the
stability of the body.
There are
some wonderful and worthy observation from an excellent blog maintained by my friend
Mike Magee http://www.shivashakti.com/ [don’t miss to see his page http://www.shivashakti.com/datta.htm] about some aspect of Sanskrit language
“One of the unique but mysterious features of the Sanskrit language is how many words
can be used at three separate and distinct levels of thought. Even whole verses
have this remarkable feature. It is one of the factors which have made
translation into other languages so difficult. The difference presupposes three
groups of people. First there is the literal meaning intended for the
householder or worldly man, and a guide to better thought and action. The
second is the meaning on a higher level intended for the mumukshi or hungry
seeker for God. Here the same words take the reader from the mundane level to
the higher level, and the implications. The third is the meaning intended for
the soul who has attained or is nearly ready to attain liberation”.
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