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Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh's address at the World Sanskrit Conference
"Sanskrit Bharat ki aatma hai. Iss liye mujhe aaj iss sammelan mein shaamil hote huey bahut khushi praapt ho rahi hai.”
I compliment my colleague Shri Kapil Sibal, and the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the International Association of Sanskrit Studies (IASS) for organizing this truly unique event. I also extend my very warm greetings to all the scholars who are participating in this Conference and have come to Delhi from far corners of the world.
The IASS owes its origin to an International Sanskrit Conference that was held in Delhi way back in 1972 and was sponsored by the Government of India in collaboration with UNESCO. Since its inception, the IASS has been organizing the World Sanskrit Conference every three years, with three previous Conferences having been held in India. I learn that the IASS is not concerned with Sanskrit in the narrow sense but more broadly with research work based on solid knowledge of one or more Indian languages and on fundamental textual sources from South and South-East Asia. This is indeed a most worthy cause.
Sanskrit, which is recognized as one of the oldest living languages of the world, is often misunderstood as only a language of religious hymns and rituals. Such an understanding does injustice to the great genius of this language and betrays ignorance of the work of great writers, thinkers, sages and scientists like Kautilya, Charaka, Sushruta, Aryabhatta, Varahamihira, Brahmagupta, Bhaskaracharya and many others. Indeed, Sanskrit, is much more than a language. It is a complete knowledge system that embodies the great learning traditions of ancient India.
Jawaharlal Nehru, once described Sanskrit language and literature as the "the greatest treasure that India possesses”. He went on to say “this is a magnificent inheritance; so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue to flourish."
