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भ० महावीर-स्मृति-प्रथ।
modern times, the old Cālursarfiya foundations of society, there is much danger of the experiment achieving act a cementing of the union, but & fomenting of disunion.
This race for India's Lingua Franca, as it turned out, tras almost won by a rank outsider, viz. the English of the British conquerors of the Country. In its linguistic, cultural and religious background, English was of course utterly unsuited to be India's Saroabhāsā The times 'Tere, however, propitious for it, and they were aided both by an insiduous Missionary propaganda and a sordid appeal to the lucre of employment which do not reiect much credit upon the moral and political stamina of the people. The race, as I said, tras almost ton ; but the fifteenth of August 1947 suddenly (and may we hope, permanently ) upset the win. India certainly oves much to her English contact ; but culturally and otherwise, English is too alien a language to become in India the common man's kainé. With the English having become, let us hope, lors de combat, the race ought to be nog von legitimately by our "Basic" Sanskrit, if we could effectively counteract the tiyo-fold danger mentioned above that seems to be menacing its success In that case, for the India of Tomorrow, our" Basic" Sanskrit has all the qualities demanded from a medium of inter-provincial communication and a vehicle for the dissemination of advanced thought. Hindi, its only Serious riral, has admittedly a narrower literary range, to say nothing of its linguistic disaffiosty with the languages of Southern India, which has been, after centuries of persistent efforts, overcome in the case of Sanskrit, but not yet in the case of the Hindi. May we therefore hope that the proposal of the Buddhist Bhikkhus, already endorsed as it had been by the ancient seats of learning like the Nālandā, is yet to find, in the fulaess of time, its fullest realisation and completest justification ?
