137-408: Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Agni Purana , ( Sanskrit : अग्नि पुराण , Agni Purāṇa ) is a Sanskrit text and one of the eighteen major Puranas of Hinduism . The text is variously classified as a Purana related to Shaivism , Vaishnavism , Shaktism and Smartism , but also considered as
274-537: A book titled Archaeology in India With Especial Reference to the Work of Babu Rajendralal Mitra . While many of Mitra's archaeological observations and inferences were later refined or rejected, he was a pioneer in the field and his works were often substantially better than those of his European counterparts. Rajendralal Mitra was the first Indian who tried to engage people in a discourse of
411-608: A careful collection of manuscripts, and in his various contributions to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he has proved himself completely above the prejudices of his class, freed from the erroneous views on the history and literature in India in which every Brahman is brought up, and thoroughly imbued with those principles of criticism which men like Colebrooke, Lassen and Burnouf have followed in their researches into
548-514: A co-founder of the short-lived Sarasvat Samaj —a literature society set up by Jyotirindranath Tagore with help from the colonial government for publication of higher-education books in Bengali and enrichment of Bengali language in 1882 —he wrote "A Scheme for the Rendering of European Scientific terms in India", which contains ideas for the vernacularization of scientific discourse. He was also
685-413: A corruption of Hindu culture and also opposed polygamy. He wrote numerous discourses on the socio-cultural history of the nation, including about beef consumption and the prevalence of drinking alcohol in ancient India-the latter at a time when Muslims were increasingly blamed for the social affinity for drinking. Mitra was generally apathetic towards religion; he sought the disassociation of religion from
822-454: A craft or a trade or settles upon him a property, whereby he earns a livelihood, acquires infinite merit. — Agni Purana 211.63 , Translator: MN Dutt Tradition has it that its title is named after Agni because it was originally recited by Agni to the sage Vasishta when the latter wanted to learn about the Brahman , and Vasishta later recited it to Vyasa – the sage who compiled all
959-496: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." Rajendralal Mitra Raja Rajendralal Mitra (16 February 1822 – 26 July 1891) was among the first Indian cultural researchers and historians writing in English. A polymath and
1096-532: A detailed study of varying forms of temple architecture across India. Unlike his European counterparts, who attributed the presence of nude sculptures in Indian temples to a perceived lack of morality in ancient Indian social life, Mitra correctly hypothesized the reasons for it. A standard theme of Rajendralal's archaeological texts is the rebuttal of the prevalent European scholarly notion that India's architectural forms, especially stone buildings, were derived from
1233-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
1370-669: A grant from the Vernacular Literature Society, Mitra started publishing the Bibhidartha Sangraha , an illustrated monthly periodical. It was the first of its kind in Bengal and aimed to educate Indian people in western knowledge without coming across as too rigid. It had a huge readership, and introduced the concept of literary criticism and reviews into Bengali literature. It is also notable for introducing Michael Madhusudan Dutt 's Bengali works to
1507-538: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
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#17327648978471644-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
1781-464: A literal sense and as an indicator of mainstream Buddhist Tantra, "the most revolting and horrible that human depravity could think of", were criticised and rejected, especially because such texts were long historically disconnected from the culture that created and sustained them. Renowned polymath Sushil Kumar De has noted that while Mitra's works have been superseded by more accurate translations and commentaries, they still retain significant value as
1918-613: A member of several other societies, including the Vernacular Literature Society , and Calcutta School-Book Society , which played important roles in the propagation of vernacular books, esp. in Bengali literature, and in Wellesley's Textbook Committee (1877). Many of his Bengali texts were adopted for use in schools and one of his texts on Bengali Grammar and his " Patra-Kaumudi " (Book of Letters) became widely popular in later times. From 1851 onward, under
2055-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2192-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
2329-534: A number of Sanskrit and English texts in the Bibliotheca Indica series, as well as major scholarly works including The antiquities of Orissa (2 volumes, 1875–80), Bodh Gaya (1878), Indo-Aryans (2 volumes, 1881) and more. Raja Rajendralal Mitra was born in Soora (now Beliaghata ) in eastern Calcutta (Kolkata), on 16 February 1822 to Janmajeya Mitra. He was the third of Janmajeya's six sons and also had
2466-607: A palace, or a heap of ruins, was alone sufficient to sweep away everything in the way of sacred building. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar criticized Mitra's command of Sanskrit grammar; some contemporaneous writers described him as having exploited Sanskrit Pandits in the collecting and editing of ancient texts without giving them the required credit. However, this criticism has been refuted. Many of Mitra's textual commentaries were later deemed to be faulty and rejected by modern scholars. His equating of extreme examples of Tathagata Tantric traditions from GuhyaSamaja Tantra scriptures in
2603-539: A pan-Indian perspective, R. G. Bhandarkar , who similarly used scientific historiography, was one of Mitra's contemporaries. Hara Prasad Shastri named Mitra as one of his primary influences. Mitra has been alluded to have triggered the golden age of Bengali historiography, that saw the rise of numerous stalwarts, including Akshaya Kumar Maitra , Nikhil Nath Roy , Rajani Kanta Gupta , Rakhaldas Bandopadhyay and Ramaprasad Chandra . Historian R.S. Sharma described Mitra as "a great lover of ancient heritage [who] took
2740-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
2877-820: A profound dislike of the Muslim invasion of India. According to Mitra: Countries like Kabul, Kandahar and Balkh from where Muslims had flooded India and had destroyed Hindu freedom, had sometimes been brought under the sway of the kings of the Sun (Saura) dynasty. Sometimes peoples of those countries had passed their days by carrying the orders of the Hindus. The dynasty had a tremendous power with which it had been ruling India for two thousand years;... Moslem fanaticism, which after repeated incursions, reigned supreme in India for six hundred years, devastating everything Hindu and converting every available temple, or its materials, into masjid, or
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#17327648978473014-518: A rational view of ancient society". Mitra's "Sanskrit Buddhist Literature" was heavily used by Rabindranath Tagore for many episodes of his poems and plays. A street in Calcutta adjoining Mitra's birthplace is named after him. In 1863, University of Calcutta appointed Mitra as a corresponding fellow, where he played an important role in its education reforms, and in 1876, the university honoured Mitra with an honorary doctorate degree . In 1864,
3151-573: A reconstruction of the socio-cultural history of the area and its architectural depictions. Along with Alexander Cunningham , Mitra also played an important role in the excavation and restoration of the Mahabodhi Temple . Another of his major works is Buddha Gaya: the Hermitage of Sakya Mani which collated the observations and commentaries of various scholars about Bodh Gaya . These works, along with his other essays, contributed to
3288-578: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
3425-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
3562-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
3699-485: A single date of composition. (...) it is as if they were libraries to which new volumes have been continuously added, not necessarily at the end of the shelf, but randomly. The published manuscripts are divided into 382 or 383 chapters, and ranging between 12,000 and 15,000 verses. Many subjects it covers are in specific chapters, but states Rocher, these "succeed one another without the slightest connection or transition". In other cases, such as its discussion of iconography,
3836-605: A sister. Rajendralal was raised primarily by his widowed and childless aunt. The Mitra family traced its origins to ancient Bengal ; and Rajendralal further claimed descent from the sage Vishvamitra of Adisura myth . The family were members of the Kulin Kayastha caste and were devout Vaishnavs . Rajendralal's 4th great-grandfather Ramchandra was a Dewan of the Nawabs of Murshidabad and Rajendralal's great-grandfather Pitambar Mitra held important positions at
3973-403: A text that covers them all impartially without leaning towards a particular theology. The text exists in numerous versions, some very different from others. The published manuscripts are divided into 382 or 383 chapters, containing between 12,000 and 15,000 verses. The chapters of the text were likely composed in different centuries, with earliest version probably after the 7th-century, but before
4110-403: A theory of universalism and sought to make a comparative study of different races by chronicling history through cultural changes rather than political events whilst James Prinsep et al. sought greater cultural diversity and glorified the past. Mitra went on to utilize the tools of comparative philology and comparative mythology to write an orientalist narrative of the cultural history of
4247-828: A variety of societies including the famed Tattwabodhini Sabha . He was an executive committee member of the Bethune Society , served as a translator for the Calcutta Photographic Society and was an influential figure in the Society for the Promotion of the Industrial Art , which played an important role in the development of voluntary education in Bengal. Mitra wrote several essays about social activities. Describing widow-remarriage as an ancient societal norm, he opposed its portrayal as
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4384-794: A village school, followed by a private English-medium school in Pathuriaghata . At around 10 years of age, he attended the Hindu School in Calcutta. Mitra's education became increasingly sporadic from this point; although he enrolled at Calcutta Medical College in December 1837—where he apparently performed well—he was forced to leave in 1841 after becoming involved in a controversy. He then began legal training , although not for long, and then changed to studying languages including Greek , Latin , French and German , which led to his eventual interest in philology . In 1839, when he
4521-516: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
4658-611: Is assumed to be a Purana. The range of topics covered by this text include cosmology , mythology, genealogy, politics, education system, iconography, taxation theories, organization of army, theories on proper causes for war, martial arts, diplomacy, local laws, building public projects, water distribution methods, trees and plants, medicine, design and architecture, gemology, grammar, metrics, poetry, food and agriculture, rituals, geography and travel guide to Mithila ( Bihar and neighboring states), cultural history, and numerous other topics. Charity The man who gratuitously teaches another,
4795-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
4932-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
5069-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
5206-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
5343-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
5480-489: The editio princeps . Some of Mitra's extreme biases might have been a response to European scholars like James Fergusson , who were extremely anti-Indian in their perspectives. In addition, orientalist scholarship had a number of unavoidable limitations, including the lack of social anthropology. Mitra has been also criticised for not speaking out against the conservative society in favor of social reform, and for maintaining an ambiguous, nuanced stance. For example, when
5617-527: The Adisura myth. Later studies have shown the shortcomings of his works did not render his inferences entirely invalid or absurd. Mitra held the Aryans to be a superior race and wrote numerous discourses covering time spans that were self-admittedly far removed from the realms of authentic history. His archaeological discourses have been criticized for suffering from the same issues and being used to promote
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5754-708: The Asiatic Society in April 1846. He held the office for nearly 10 years, vacating it in February 1856. He was subsequently elected as the Secretary of the Society and was later appointed to the governing council. He was elected vice-president on three occasions, and in 1885 Mitra became the first Indian president of the Asiatic Society. Although Mitra had received little formal training in history, his work with
5891-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
6028-734: The German Oriental Society appointed him as a corresponding fellow. In 1865, the Royal Academy of Science, Hungary , appointed Mitra as a foreign fellow. In 1865, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain appointed him as an honorary fellow. In October 1867, the American Oriental Society appointed him as an honorary fellow. Mitra was awarded with the honorary titles of Rai Bahadur in 1877, C.I.E. in 1878 and Raja in 1888 by
6165-675: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
6302-636: The Pandits of the Society. He, along with several other scholars, followed a central theme of the European Renaissance that emphasized the collection of ancient texts ( puthi ) followed by their translation into the lingua franca . A variety of Indic texts, along with extensive commentaries, were published, especially in the Bibliotheca Indica series, and many were subsequently translated into English. Mitra's instructions for
6439-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
6576-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
6713-585: The Shaka era and Gregorian calendar , thus identifying the year of Kanishka 's ascent to the throne, and contributed to an accurate reconstruction of the history of Medieval Bengal, especially that of the Pala and Sena dynasties, by deciphering historical edicts. He studied the Gwaliorian monuments and inscriptions , discovering many unknown kings and chieftains, and assigned approximate time spans to them. He
6850-612: The phonology and morphology of Indian languages, and tried to establish philology as a science. He debated European scholars about linguistic advances in Aryan culture and theorized that the Aryans had their own script that was not derived from Dravidian culture. Mitra also did seminal work on Sanskrit and Pali literature of the Buddhists , as well as on the Gatha dialect. Mitra
6987-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
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#17327648978477124-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
7261-630: The 11th century because the early 11th-century Persian scholar Al-Biruni acknowledged its existence in his memoir on India. The youngest layer of the text in the Agni Purana may be from the 17th century. The Agni Purana is a medieval era encyclopedia that covers a diverse range of topics, and its "382 or 383 chapters actually deal with anything and everything", remark scholars such as Moriz Winternitz and Ludo Rocher . Its encyclopedic secular style led some 19th-century Indologists such as Horace Hayman Wilson to question if it even qualifies as what
7398-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
7535-532: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
7672-495: The Asiatic Society helped establish him as a leading advocate of the historical method in Indian historiography . Mitra was also associated with Barendra Research Society of Rajshahi —a local historical society. During his tenure at the Asiatic Society, Rajendralal came in contact with many notable persons and was impressed by two thought-streams of orientalist intellectualism . Noted scholars William Jones (the founder of Asiatic Society) and H.T. Colebrooke had propounded
7809-570: The British Government sought the views of notable Indian thinkers about establishing a minimum legal age for marriage with the aim of abolishing child marriage, Mitra spoke against the ban, emphasizing the social and religious relevance of child marriage and Hindu customs. Rajendralal Mitra spent the last years of his life at the Wards' Institution, Maniktala , which was his de facto residence after its closure. Even in his last days, he
7946-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
8083-532: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
8220-521: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
8357-731: The Greeks and that there was no significant architectural advancement in the Aryan civilization. He often noted that the architecture of pre-Muslim India is equivalent to the Greek architecture and proposed the racial similarity of the Greeks and the Aryans, who had the same intellectual capacity. Mitra often came into conflict with European scholars regarding this subject, such as his acrimonious dispute with James Fergusson . After Mitra criticized Fergusson's commentary about Odisa architecture in The Antiquities of Orissa , Fergusson wrote
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#17327648978478494-476: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
8631-459: The Indo-Aryans. Although Mitra subscribed to the philosophies of orientalism, he did not subscribe to blindly following past precedents and asked others to shun traditions, if they hindered the progress of the nation. Mitra was a noted antiquarian and played a substantial role in discovering and deciphering historical inscriptions, coins, and texts. He established the relationship between
8768-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
8905-479: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
9042-555: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
9179-459: The Pandits to copy the texts verbatim and abide by the concept of varia lectio (different readings) has been favourably critiqued . Mitra was also one of the few archivists who emphasized the importance of cataloguing and describing all manuscripts, irrespective of factors like rarity. Mitra did significant work in documenting the development of Aryan architecture in prehistoric times. Under
9316-734: The Royal Court of Ajodhya and Delhi. Janmajeya was a noted oriental scholar, who was revered in Brahmo circles and was probably the first Bengali to learn chemistry; he had also prepared a detailed list of the content of eighteen puranas. Raja Digambar Mitra of Jhamapukur was a relative of the family, as well. Due to a combination of the spendthriftness of his grandfather Vrindavan Mitra and his father's refusal to seek paid employment, Rajendralal spent his early childhood in poverty. Rajendralal Mitra received his early education in Bengali at
9453-420: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
9590-406: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
9727-442: The Vedas, Puranas and many other historic texts. Vyasa recited it to Suta, who then recited to the rishis in Naimisharanya . The Skanda Purana and Matsya Purana assert that the Agni Purana describes Isana-kalpa as described by god Agni, but the surviving manuscripts make no mention of Isana-kalpa. Similarly, medieval Hindu texts cite verses that they claim are from Agni Purana, but these verses do not exist in current editions of
9864-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
10001-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
10138-407: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
10275-492: The auspices of Lt. Gov. Charles Eliot to commemorate Mitra as well as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar , who also died around the same time, and was the first event of its type to be presided over by a Lieutenant Governor. Mitra's academic works along with his oratory, debating skills and miscellaneous writings, were extensively praised by his contemporaries and admired for their exceptionally clarity. Max Müller showered praise on Mitra, writing: He has edited Sanskrit texts after
10412-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
10549-536: The chapters on metrics likely predate 950 CE because Pingala-sutras text by the 10th-century scholar Halayudha cites this text. The section on poetics is likely a post-900 CE composition, while its summary on Tantra is likely to be a composition between 800 and 1100 CE. The Agni Purana exists in many versions and it exemplifies the complex chronology of the Puranic genre of Indian literature that has survived into modern times. The number of chapters, number of verses and
10686-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
10823-614: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
10960-659: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
11097-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
11234-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
11371-460: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
11508-493: The first Indian president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal , he was a pioneering figure in the Bengali Renaissance . Mitra belonged to a respected family of Bengal writers. After studying by himself, he was hired in 1846 as a librarian in the Asiatic Society of Bengal , for which he then worked throughout his life as second secretary, vice president, and finally the first native president in 1885. Mitra published
11645-548: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
11782-523: The first modern historian of Bengal who applied a rigorous scientific methodology to the study of history. He was preceded by historians including Govind Chandra Sen , Gopal Lal Mitra , Baidyanath Mukhopadhyay , Ramram Basu , Mrityunjaya Vidyalankar and Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan ; all of whom, despite being aware of the modern concepts of Western history, depended heavily upon translating and adopting European history texts with their own noble interpretations, and hence were not professional historians. From
11919-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
12056-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
12193-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
12330-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
12467-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
12604-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
12741-628: The literary treasures of his country. His English is remarkably clear and simple, and his arguments would do credit to any Sanskrit scholar in England. Rabindranath Tagore said Mitra "could work with both hands. He was an entire association condensed into one man". Bankim Chandra Chatterjee had also praised Mitra's work as a historian. Contemporaneous historians Rajkrishna Mukhopadhyay and Ramdas Sen were heavily influenced by Mitra. Roper Lethbridge and Romesh Chunder Dutt also derived from his works. Rajendralal Mitra has been widely viewed as
12878-514: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
13015-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
13152-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
13289-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
13426-602: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
13563-409: The mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
13700-435: The northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of
13837-597: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
13974-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
14111-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
14248-677: The patronage of the Royal Society of Arts and the colonial government , Mitra led an expedition to the Bhubaneshwar region of Odisha in 1868–1869 to study and obtain casts of Indian sculptures. The results were compiled in The Antiquities of Orissa , which has since been revered as a magnum opus about Orissan architecture. The work was modelled on Ancient Egyptians by John Gardner Wilkinson and published in two volumes consisting of his own observations followed by
14385-529: The political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from
14522-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
14659-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
14796-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
14933-463: The public. Mitra retired from its editorship in 1856, citing health reasons. Kaliprasanna Singha took over the role. In 1861, the government compelled the magazine to withdraw from publication; then in 1863, Mitra started a similar publication under the name Rahasya Sandarbha , maintaining the same form and content. This continued for about five and a half years before closing voluntarily. Mitra's writings in these magazines have been acclaimed. He
15070-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
15207-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
15344-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
15481-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
15618-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
15755-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
15892-466: The specific content vary across Agni Purana manuscripts. Dimmitt and van Buitenen state that each of the Puranas is encyclopedic in style, and it is difficult to ascertain when, where, why and by whom these were written: As they exist today, the Puranas are a stratified literature. Each titled work consists of material that has grown by numerous accretions in successive historical eras. Thus, no Puran has
16029-847: The state and spoke against the proposals of the colonial government to tax Indians to fund the spread of Christian ideologies. From 1856 until its closure in 1881, Mitra was the director of the Wards' Institution , an establishment formed by the Colonial Government for the privileged education of the heirs of zamindars and other upper classes. He was active in the British Indian Association since its inception, serving as its president for three terms (1881–82, 1883–84, 1886–87) and vice-president for another three terms (1878–80, 1887–88, 1890–91). Several of his speeches on regional politics have also been recorded. Mitra
16166-489: The text declares its scope to be such. Some subjects covered by the text include: Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from
16303-421: The text. These inconsistencies, considered together, have led scholars such as Rajendra Hazra to conclude that the extant manuscripts are different from the text Skanda and Matsya Puranas are referring to. The earliest core of the text is likely a post 7th-century composition, and a version existed by the 11th century. The chapters that discuss grammar and lexicography may be an addition in the 12th century, while
16440-653: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
16577-607: The uncritical acceptance of the glory of their own past, his works have suffered from ethno-nationalist biases. Mitra often intended to prove the ancient origin of the Hindus; his acceptance of legends and myths at face value is evident in his Antiquities in Orissa . In the reconstruction of the history of the Sen dynasty , Mitra relied upon a number of ideal propositions rather than contemporarily accepted genealogical tables whose authenticity Mitra doubted, and assigned historical status to
16714-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
16851-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
16988-523: The verses are found in many sections of the Agni Purana . The first printed edition of the text was edited by Rajendralal Mitra in the 1870s (Calcutta : Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1870–1879, 3 volumes; Bibliotheca Indica, 65, 1–3). The entire text extends to slightly below one million characters . An English translation was published in two volumes by Manmatha Nath Dutt in 1903–04. There are several versions published by different companies. The extant manuscripts are encyclopedic. The first chapter of
17125-555: The view that Aryans settled in Northern India. A preface of one of his books says: The race [the Aryans] of whom it is proposed to give a brief sketch in this paper belonged to a period of remote antiquity, far away from the range of authentic history; ... The subject, however, is of engrossing interest, concerning, as it does, the early history of the most progressive branch of the human race. He venerated Hindu rule and had
17262-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
17399-469: Was a pioneer in the publication of maps in the Bengali language and he also constructed Bengali versions of numerous geographical terms that were previously only used in English. He published a series of maps of districts of Bihar, Bengal, and Odisa for indigenous use that were notable for his assignment of correct names to even small villages, sourced from local people. Mitra's efforts in the vernacularization of western science has been widely acclaimed. As
17536-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
17673-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
17810-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
17947-613: Was also involved with the Hindoo Patriot , of which he held editorial duties for a while. Rajendralal Mitra was a prominent social figure and a poster child of the Bengal renaissance. Close to contemporaneous thinkers including Rangalal Bandyopadhyay , Michael Madhusudan Dutt , Kishori Chand Mitra , Peary Chand Mitra , Ramgopal Ghosh , and Digambar Mitra , he partook in a wide range of social activities ranging from hosting condolence meetings to presiding over sabhas and giving political speeches. He held important roles in
18084-738: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
18221-420: Was also the only historian among his contemporaries to assign a near-precise time frame to the rule of Toramana . Mitra's affinity for factual observations and inferences and dislike for abstract reasoning, in contrast with most Indo-historians of those days, has been favorably received in later years. As a librarian of the Asiatic Society, Rajendralal was charged with cataloging Indic manuscripts collected by
18358-432: Was around 17 years old, Mitra married Soudamini. They had one child, a daughter, on 22 August 1844 and Soudamini died soon after giving birth. The daughter died within a few weeks of her mother. Mitra's second marriage was to Bhubanmohini, which took place at some point between 1860 and 1861. They had two sons: Ramendralal, born on 26 November 1864, and Mahendralal. Mitra was appointed librarian-cum-assistant-secretary of
18495-507: Was extensively involved with the Asiatic Society and was a member of multiple sub-committees. At around 9:00 pm on 26 July 1891, Mitra died in his home after suffering intense bouts of fever. According to contemporary news reports, Mitra had endured these fevers for the last few years following a stroke that caused paralysis and grossly affected his health. Numerous condolence meetings were held and newspapers were filled with obituaries. A huge gathering took place at Calcutta Town Hall under
18632-820: Was involved with the Indian National Congress , serving as the president of the Reception Committee in the Second National Conference in Calcutta and was also a Justice of the peace of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for many years, having served as its commissioner from 1876. Despite the general acclaim that has met his works, Rajendralal Mitra has also been the subject of criticism. Despite his self-declared agnosticism towards Indian mythology and his criticism of Indians' obsession with
18769-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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