Sanskrit had always been the unifying language of India before the Islamic invasion started around 1400 years ago. However, some experts with vested interests argue that Sanskrit has never been used as a medium of spoken communication in the southern part of India.
Even today, if you see, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam are the predominant languages of south India. So, the question arises: if Sanskrit were not spoken throughout the country, why is it so important to make it the national language of India?
Well, there are many strong reasons to do so. But before I begin with my points on why Sanskrit should be the national language of India, I must introduce to you some common misconceptions around the language that an average person has been fed by the media.
Misconceptions Of Sanskrit Language
Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world, even older than Tamil and Telugu. Therefore, the rest of the present-day languages that originated from it have inherently borrowed hundreds of thousands of words in their vocabulary.
For example, words like Surya, Agni, Vayu, Chandra, Bhumi, and countless others can be understood across the country regardless of the diversity of regional languages. So, when someone argues that in ancient times, Sanskrit was not used as the commonly linked language which binded all the separated regions of India, then they either are not educated on the subject enough or want to intentionally propagate this false theory in our mind.
The discovery of Roman gold coins in several temples in South India is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that debunks this common misconception. These gold coins vouch for the fact of the ancient trade relationship that existed between India and the Roman Empire.
So, if Indians were able to communicate and trade with a foreign country, why do so-called experts argue that neighboring states within the same country were unable to communicate in a third language like Sanskrit? Of course, they used to interact with each other using Sanskrit as the unifying language similar to how we nowadays use English to communicate with each other regardless of our different regional language.
The list of the misconceptions around the Sanskrit language is so big that I have written a separate article on it. The following are the most important reasons why Sanskrit should be the national language of India.
Sanskrit Is Entirely Indigenous To India
Sanskrit originated in India, thus making it an inseparable part of the authentic Vedic culture of India. Making Sanskrit the national language of the country would be the first stepping stone towards restoring the rich vedic values in India’s diluted lifestyle.
Sanskrit Carries Invaluable Knowledge Of Our Ancestors
Sanskrit, the oldest and original language of the land, preserves our forefathers’ invaluable knowledge. Getting back those incredibly valuable insights of our forefathers would help India claim its title of being the vaishya-guru (superpower).
Sanskrit Has Near Perfect Grammar
Sanskrit as a language has near-perfect grammar, which makes it one of the most suitable languages for scientific experiments. There are many papers published describing the usability of Sanskrit in detail. It is demonstrated by the fact that 14 universities in Germany alone teach and conduct research in Sanskrit.
Sanskrit Has The Biggest Collection Of Words
Sanskrit has the most voluminous collection of words compared to any other language on earth. To give you an idea of how large the Sanskrit vocabulary is, you can compare the Oxford English Dictionary with all the scientific names; it is only about one million words, whereas there are over ten million words in the Sanskrit language.
Sanskrit Helps Make The Brain Efficient
Sanskrit helps make the brain efficient. Sanskrit is gaining popularity in all major developed countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Many pre-schools have even made the language compulsory for kids.
Sanskrit Eliminates Ambiguity In Word Pronunciation
All the languages in India are written as they are pronounced, removing any ambiguity in word pronunciation. Sanskrit, being the mother of all languages, is the leader in this field. Have you ever thought about why many similar words in English and other Latin-based languages are pronounced differently?
Consider the words “but” and “put”, which, despite their structural similarity, are pronounced completely differently. Because of it, oftentimes we have to do a little guesswork for the correct pronunciation of new unknown words when spotting them for the first time.
Due to this, all these languages produce a variety of accents developed in different regions that often sound very different from each other. Sanskrit kills the ambiguity in word pronunciation as it is written as its pronunciation.