No incentives needed to justify learning Sanskrit: Ansari

There is no need to invoke higher spiritual incentives in order to justify learning Sanskrit as the language makes a case for itself, Vice President Hamid Ansari today said.
He said the transition from an oral to a written form saw the rapid spread of Sanskrit across southern and eastern Asia and added that Thai and other Southeast Asian languages have strong roots in Sanskrit.
Underscoring its importance , Ansari said the corpus of scientific, philosophical, sacral and poetic texts produced in Sanskrit is one of the richest contributions to global textual culture.
"Its grammar offers a clear structure as was recognised by Indian grammarians over 2,500 years ago. The script it is written in was designed especially for it and allows us to know with great certainty how it is pronounced," he said.

The Vice President was addressing a gathering after giving away the World Sanskrit Award 2015 and 2016, instituted by Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), here today.
He also conferred the awards to Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand and George Cardona, an American linguist and Indologist.

Union Minister M J Akbar, who was also present at the event, said a mistake is often made by confusing language with religion.
He said today Sanskrit is the part of the culture of Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists and even Chinese owe something to the language.
"Much of Indian cultural landscape has been formed by Sanskrit and the modern Indian languages bear the impact of its magnificence and richness. It encompasses one of the largest literatures of any language and incorporates the sacred literature of three of the world's major religions.

"The case for studying Sanskrit makes itself, and there is no need at all to invoke higher spiritual incentives in order to justify this," Ansari said.