Selected Bibliography with Annotations

Author(s): Eastern School
Publisher: Eastern School

Page 4

Introduction
Sanskrit is the most perfect language known. It is, as its name means, "perfected, refined, polished, finished, well put together, perfectly constructed." It is constructed from verb roots, which undergo regular processes to form noun or verb stems, which in turn are given declensional or conjugational endings. Its classical grammar, that written by Panini some centuries before the Christian era, is also the most perfect known. Sanskrit grammar, or vyākaraṇa, is as its name means, the "taking apart" of the words of the language, which are so regularly and "perfectly constructed" as to allow such analysis. It is also unique among the world's languages in having its alphabet sounds systematically arranged on a scientific basis. Sanskrit is the eldest sister of all Indo-European languages, being in the words of Sir William Jones, "more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either." It is thus a linguist's dream, and has even been considered by computer programmers as the basis of an "artificial intelligence" language.
How is it that a language as perfect as Sanskrit has come into existence? According to Indian tradition, Sanskrit is not a humanly evolved language, but is the language of the gods (deva-vāņi, daivi-vāk). As such it has special sanctity and special efficacy. Its verb roots are thought to be the primal vibrations which brought the worlds and everything in them into manifestation. Sanskrit words are thought to be the true or archetypal names of their referents, not just arbitrary appellations. For this reason Sanskrit has been in India pre-eminently the language of mantra, i.e., Sanskrit words recited for their effect as sound.
But perhaps the main reason that most people undertake study of Sanskrit is to directly access its voluminous writings, including sacred texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. There exist thousands upon thousands of untranslated Sanskrit manuscripts. Even among the important texts that have been translated, anyone who has compared a few different translations of the same work will quickly see that their meaning cannot be captured in a single translation, and in many cases cannot be captured in a European language like English at all.