Teach Me Sanskrit At Any Cost!

During the period when Warren Hastings was the Governor General of Bengal, there was an English judge working in the session court of Kolkata by the name of William Jones. He developed a strong desire to learn Sanskrit. After an extensive search for around one year, he came across a Sanskrit scholar. The scholar was somewhat reluctant, but then he agreed to teach William Jones under a few conditions. The first condition was: Sanskrit is a divine language; anyone desiring to learn Sanskrit should promise not to eat pork and beef during the entire period of learning. The second condition was that the student had to escort the teacher in a palanquin from his residence to the place decided for learning every day. The third condition was that a separate room be constructed outside the bungalow for teaching, which should be cleaned with the water from the holy river Ganga. The fourth condition was the imbursement of a tuition fee Rs.1000/- per month. William Jones was so eager to learn Sanskrit that he agreed upon and complied with all the four conditions.

The scholar taught Sanskrit language and its grammar to William Jones. Jones learned it with such a great devotion, dedication and hard work that he acquired a good mastery over Sanskrit in a short time. In 1784, at the inaugural speech of the foundation of Archaeological Society, to everyone’s surprise, William Jones spoke in Sanskrit about the glory, virtue and wisdom of the Sanskrit language. He said that by his great fortune he had acquired such a key with which he could reveal the secret mystery of all the language of the universe. He also mentioned that Sanskrit was the key language and English, French, German, Italian and other modern Persian language had also originated fundamentally from Sanskrit. Therefore, he made a loud declaration that the people of the entire world must study such an important language, as all their languages were born out of it.

William Jones through his lecture brought to light false propagations that the European languages have originated from Hebrew, because originally the Bible was written in the Hebrew language. Due to the research work of William Jones, people of not only England but also Holland, Germany, Belgium, France, Russia, etc. turned towards the Sanskrit language. In the U.S. at Berkeley University of California, thousands of students from China, Japan, Java, Sumatra, Malaya and Indonesia, etc., have started pouring in to learn Sanskrit. Yet it is unfortunate today that this divine language, Sanskrit, has not even got the status of a second language in the country of its origin, India!