“The ancient and classical creations of the Sanskrit tongue both in quality and in body and abundance of excellence, in their potent originality and force and beauty, in their substance and art and structure, in grandeur and justice and charm of speech and in the height and width of the reach of their spirit stand very evidently in the front rank among the world’s great literatures. The language itself, as has been universally recognised by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect and wonderfully sufficient literary instruments developed by the human mind, at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed and full and vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of the character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium. The great and noble use made of it by poet and thinker did not fall below the splendour of its capacities. Nor is it in the Sanskrit tongue alone that the Indian mind has done high and beautiful and perfect things, though it couched in that language the larger part of its most prominent and formative and grandest creations. … The people and the civilisation that count among their great works and their great names the Veda and the Upanishads, the mighty structures of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti and Bhartrihari and Jayadeva and the other rich creations of classical Indian drama and poetry and romance, the Dhammapada and the Jatakas, the Panchatantra, Tulsidas, Vidyapati and Chandidas and Ramprasad, Ramdas and Tukaram, Tiruvalluvar and Kamban and the songs of Nanak and Kabir and Mirabai and the southern Shaiva saints and the Alwars,—to name only the best-known writers and most characteristic productions, though there is a very large body of other work in the different tongues of both the first and the second excellence,—must surely be counted among the greatest civilisations and the world’s most developed and creative peoples. A mental activity so great and of so fine a quality commencing more than three thousand years ago and still not exhausted is unique and the best and most undeniable witness to something extraordinarily sound and vital in the culture.”

[Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Volume 20 (The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture), pp. 314-5]  

On Sanskrit’s Vitality and Role: Some Reflections is first a step towards an empirical assessment of the vitality of Sanskrit in the second decade of the twenty-first century and then a reflection on one of its key roles. The first part will explore answers to the following questions — 1) Has anything new and original been published in Sanskrit after it was pronounced dead? 2) If yes, is there a published bibliography of original Modern Sanskrit Literature and which one is the most comprehensive? 3) Are there any trends to observe in contemporary Sanskrit publications? 4) If yes, what has already been identified? — to respond empirically to the pronouncement of Sanskrit’s supposed death. The second part will commence by invoking the role of Sanskrit as “the Great Integrator” (as seen by Dr V. Raghavan) before diving deeper into some facets of that idea using the prism of a recent Sanskrit music album: Bhārata and her Kāśmīra.