And now – for another view on Sanskrit, lest we step unwittingly into a war that has been raging for thousands of years, about who controls the truth. Keep in mind that the whole idea of Sanskrit is that this is how the male priests of certain castes spoke in the Bronze Age, with its wife-burning, slavery, and oppression of dark-skinned people by lighter-skinned ones.
“Sanskrit is the stagnant water of the Lord's private well," Kabir said, whereas "the spoken language is the rippling water of the running stream."
“The bhakti poets composed in the regional languages, deliberately breaking the literary and religious hold of Sanskrit.”
The debate has been going on since before the time of Buddha, as people have railed against the control, secrecy, and dominion of the elite families of priests who have controlled all worship.
Sanskrit as Mrita bhasha, or a dead language
From The Times of India in 2009:
“For some, though, the mother tongue is a holy cow. They argue that only through the mother tongue can one express oneself effectively. Indian English writers, whose mother tongue is not English, give the lie to this claim. Franz Kafka, a great in European literature and a Czech, wrote his books not in his mother tongue, but in German. Similarly Arthur Koestler, Joseph Conrad and Jacob Bronowski, to mention only a few names, wrote theirs in languages that were not their mother tongues. There is a grouse that English subdues vernaculars, the way Sanskrit was accused of doing earlier. In the sixties, the literary world of Kerala was set abuzz with an anti-Sanskrit movement led by overzealous lovers of Malayalam. But it soon burnt itself out. The purists who wanted to rid Malayalam of Sanskrit influence were up in arms against writers using Sanskrit words. They argued that Sanskrit was a mrita bhasha, or a dead language.”
Portrait of Kabir, Bodleian library, Oxford, Mrs. Douce
“Kabir was probably adopted by an impoverished Muslim weaver. ... and as a result he was persecuted by both the Brahmins and the Muslim community.”
Kabir says, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath within the breath.
“Kabir was born in 1398 a time of great political upheaval in India. Ramananda was his spiritual Master. He spent most of his life around Benaras, the seat of Brahmin orthodoxy. The Brahmins exerted great influence on every level of society, but Kabir denounced them in a satirical way. He also ridiculed the authority of Vedas and Quran as well as the Brahmin and the Qazi. Thus the orthodoxy of both religions hated him. However he had a large following and was safe from their persecution. He had won the hearts of the common people and influenced the religious beliefs of the simple rural folks by denouncing the heavy burdens placed upon them by the religious authorities. Kabir stressed a simple life, the equality of man and condemned religious bigotry. There are many legends surrounding his death, but according to British Scholar Charlotte Vaudenville, he died in the year 1448.” - from onetruename.com
- Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the early twentieth century By Susie J. Tharu, Ke Lalita
