Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today decried the tendency to see Sanskrit as a mere Brahminical language, saying it is an ancient intellectual and scholarly heritage of the country.
He described as incorrect the notion that Sanskrit is a language of Brahmins and said ancient poets, including Valmiki and Ved Vyasa, had penned epics like Ramayana and Mahabharatha in Sanskrit.
"They (Vyasa and Valmiki) were not from the Brahmin community. The tendency to link the ancient language with Brahminism is incorrect," he said.
Sanskrit is an ancient intellectual and scholarly heritage of the country, he said and emphasised the need to shed the light of the knowledge in Sanskrit language to other languages, including Malayalam.
Inaugurating the silver jubilee celebrations of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit at nearby Kalady, he lamented that the number of people with in depth knowledge of the Sanskrit language was coming down.
The Chief Minister said Sanskrit language and literature are part of general society and its culture and added that the light of the knowledge in the language should reach all sections of society.
He urged the progressive sections not to distance themselves from Sanskrit, considering it as Brahminical.
"Foreign scholars,realising the significance of Sanskrit, have done deep research and studies in the language and presented the findings from the ancient Indian language as if they were their original contribution," he said.
Vijayan criticised the Union government's education policy, saying it was being moulded to create a generation favouring market forces.
He said the higher education sector should be independent and based on democratic values.
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