DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

284 TECHNICAL LITERATURE [8.7
literary usage took on so many different supplementary meanings
that a good Sanskrit text cannot be interpreted without a commentary.*
The glosses are often demonstrably wrong, and succeed only in
confusing the text — which has to be restored by critical methods
first developed in Europe. The older terms used in administration
(e.g. Arth., and copper plate charters) were forgotten. In some cases
where obscurity was deliberately imposed (i.e. Tantric mysticism),
cult and meaning of the text vanished together. There were astounding
mnemonic developments, but they too contributed to the same end,
by overspecialization and particular jargons for every discipline. There
still exist Sastris who can recite the whole of one veda, in any order
(literally backward and forward) without mistake in a single letter or
accent. Others know the whole of Panini’s grammar and the
Amarakosa dictionary by heart without exciting special comment.
Yet, there is no individual who really knows the Sanskrit language as a
whole. Mathematical and astronomical works put into karika form
are easily memorized, but incomprehensible to the uninitiated
because each number and operation is denoted by many different
words that have other meanings in ordinary usage. The Brhatsamhita of
Varahamihira does give some practical hints, though mostly for
sacred construction and images ; it belongs to the Gupta age. The
later works on iconography, painting, architecture which are still extant
do not tally with measurements of statutary, buildings, and chemical
analysis of pigments ; the artists and masons went their own way. This
may be contrasted with the treatise of Vitruvius on architecture. There
is no Sanskrit work of any use to the blacksmith, potter, carpenter,
* This may be compared also to the position of the Greek language and studies in
ancient Rome, from the last days Of the Republic to the age of the Antonines, and even
later. The rhetor trained students to argue upon fantastic themes drawn mostly from
Greek mythology, at a period when the courts of Rome were full of the most varied
and interesting cases. The lack of imagination, paucity pf “respectable” material, and
inability to look upon real bear a startling resemblance to the pandit’s attitude, and for
similar reasons. That the language was associated with a class is no reason for neglecting
its study; but current proposals to make Sanskrit compulsory would be fatal.