Some Facts About Sanskrit Language

It was Never the Language of Common People

Here are some interesting 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 standardbook of linguistics.


2. The oldest inscriptions in India are in Prakrit languages, not inSanskrit.


3. Bhagwan Mahavir and Goutam Buddha gave their sermons in Prakrit languages and they didn't speak anything in Sanskrit. The real reason of this is that Sanskrit did not exist at the time of them. If Sanskrit existed that time, they would have spoken in Sanskrit with Kings like Shrenik Bimbisar and at least with their Bramhin disciples.


4. The so called Sanskrit of Vedas is different language from the Sanskrit of later period. Vedas are written in the language known as Chandas which was another version of Prakrit langauge.



5. Later Jain Acharyas, who were of Bramhin origin used Sanskrit forwriting Jain texts. They gave a Vedic touch to Jain philosophy intheir writings. You can see it clearly in Acharya Jinsena'sliterature, who was a born Vedic Bramhin and who turned south Indian Jainism into ritualistic and Vedic like Jainism.


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 Sanskrit literature.


7. Sanskrit had not its own script for writings as they did not believe in writing. Later they adopted Devnagari script which was invented byNagvanshi people of Shramanic tradition.


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.

(C) Mahavir Sanglikar