Sanskrit Language : A new Beginning

1. An Overview Of The State-Of-Affairs

What is Sanskrit?

Sometimes it is said, “Sanskrit is a context-free language.”

What is a context-free language? Surely, I caught this phrase earlier on from the Internet, a phrase which actually relates to an entirely different subject domain: software engineering.

So I went to the wiki for info, and understood that a context-free is a set of instructions fed to a computer that is able to calculate it without any glitch (i.e., without any problems of ambiguity in the “meaning” of the instructions). The trick is, in the set of instructions, profuse use is made of parentheses, so the computer at a time “concentrates” on “understanding” (calculating/ parsing) only what lies within a parenthesis, unmindful of what lies without. That is, the whole instruction (“sentence”) can be spread out into many different branches (calculated individually) each based on the occurrence of the parentheses. Within a parenthesis the jargon and the accompanying rules are simple enough for a computer-language, so no problems there either. High end computing languages, e.g. LISP, openly acknowledge the primacy of this parentheses based logic (called “S-expression”) as their very foundation.

Wiki also informs that pANini’s systemisation of Sanskrit grammar rules as algebraic formulas was the motivation behind this subject. Some rAkshasa-s, on the Internet, write in their blogs, “Sanskrit is just another language. That Panini created rule based grammar for Sanskrit is a credit to Panini, not Sanskrit.”

In long and short, there is a whole lot of misinformation and propaganda on Sanskrit, yet the so-called Hindu vidvAna-s, in reality better termed “the cultural Hindus”, who range anywhere between from theoretical physicists to actual Sanskrit professors “sucking-off” in foreign (and Indian) universities, who far from doing nothing to counter the malignant campaign on Sanskrit are doing their best to spread it even further.

Today a full-time career in Sanskrit is seen as a privilege of those below poverty line who have kinda lost-out on their lives, and once there in their professions are required no more than to translate Sanskrit texts into other languages – thus further killing and rendering Sanskrit obsolete.

What is not told is that Sanskrit was studied by ill-intentioned people (rAkshasa-s) who wanted to create a genuine Artificial Intelligence (AI) by using a language “like Sanskrit” as a medium of direct interaction between humans and machines that could be naturally utilized by both. But this project failed, and today what we have is “fake AI” tidbits that try to convince us otherwise by using brute search power (they can search whole dictionaries in seconds) instead of a natural understanding; and Sanskrit too, features in the wiki article describing the grammar of just plain simple instructions – not AI instructions – for computers.

AI is a sinister project that aims not only at replacing soldiers full-fledged at the war-fronts with AI enabled war-machines, but also in doing so intends to define a world order where – as gauged by AI machines – there would be certain hierarchy of different races on the earth based on their average intelligences – and going still further to the logical conclusion – waging of war against those less intelligent races (not capable of building AI machines themselves), subjugating/ eliminating them, thus ensuring the earth of limited resources secure for the descendants of the intelligent races.

Yet another focus of major conflict is the way rAkshasa-s are propagating the myth – using linguistic mechanics – that Sanskrit is not aboriginal to bhArata. This is in addition to making Panini merely incidental to Sanskrit, as discussed earlier.

Now, this linguistic-mechanics is just like physics where inherently any process occurring in the world is theoretically reversible: that is, for example, it can be shown that if a sugar cube can dissolve in water, then the same sugar cube can come out of the water from the dissolved state: now this second process is not what we observe in our daily lives, but is shown to be still possible, though with a small probability.

In this way, starting from the basic fact of the existence of Indo-European families of languages, any mechanics can show the direction of language spread from either side. In reality, the mechanics is very conveniently chosen to describe migrations into bhArata, and the other scenario – migration out of bhArata – is not spared a thought even by mistake.

The West, overall, is under the impression that the world is moving towards order, opposite to what Hindus believe: that the world is moving from orderliness towards chaos. West is very confident of the material progress it has led, BhArata thinks otherwise.

The West, therefore, sees the orderliness in Sanskrit as a later phenomenon – and thus feels impelled to visualise a much more randomised and chaotic language as a precursor to Sanskrit. A Hindu, on the other hand, sees the order within Sanskrit as the starting point of the language, and understands all the present bhASA-s of today related to Sanskrit – be it Hindi, or Bangla, or English, or German – as corruptions of Sanskrit.

Which viewpoint is right? Is it the best of the times, or the worst of the times?

Seemingly, there has been a lot of progress – forests and wild-life (“less intelligent species”) have been replaced with shining metros and civic order; true, there has been a lot of consumption and laying waste of earth’s resources in so doing, but it is hoped that with advance in Science our Technology will finally become 100% green.

However, to better understand the “arrow of time”, to understand why processes only proceed in one direction and not the other (even though otherwise sanctioned by the mechanics), a new language was investigated. This is known as, “the 2nd law of thermodynamics” and it postulates: “processes take place predominantly in the direction of the increase in the chaos of universe.” Therefore, dissolving of the sugar-cube in the water is along the “arrow of time” because when the atoms of the sugar are dissolved and distributed in the water body, randomness “of the universe” is increased.

Just as the sugar cube has crystalline orderliness about it, Sanskrit too – in this view – originally has its own orderliness. The more we go down the “arrow of time”, the more this crystallinity of Sanskrit gets dissolved.

The most inner (and the finest) structure of Sanskrit is the way it is able to express AdhyAtma and Devata-s. And this structure pretty much gets dissolved within bhArata itself where we have seen how in classical Sanskrit onwards we lost to a great extent what Vedic jargon and Devata-s really meant. And there is no point even going outside bhArata because the mythology outside bhArata though may have a few words cognate with Sanskrit, there is no heads or tails involved as far as transmission of AdhyAtmic idea-s is concerned.

And then, at the second layer of structuring within Sanskrit lies the system of declension – which ensures the free-word-order nature of clauses. We find only a few languages that retain this feature. Free-word-order is what a natural language requires in order to be “context-free” (free from ambiguity) because natural languages cannot employ parentheses to achieve so, the way computer languages do.

At the third layer we have Sanskrit words. We find here a much greater occurrence of transmission but still, the logical structure in the Sanskrit that gives rise to the words in first place – something that is not the handiwork of Panini or any other grammarian but is inbuilt in Sanskrit – is largely missing in other languages.

At the outermost layer we have sound systems. Here also, the chaos and disorder in other languages are apparent, so much so, even the Western Indologists are seen – not without justification – by Hindus as “mlechCha having tongues twisted like dog’s tail” that cannot get simple consonants and vowel sound of Sanskrit straight.

But the purpose of this post ultimately is much more. I talked about the four layers of the structure of Sanskrit; it is clear therefore that to create a clear shared understanding of Sanskrit, we need to get more near to the innermost layers (Devata and declension aspect), instead of wasting our efforts on the outermost ones (rules and sounds).

2. Sanskrit As A Language Of Computation

Can a “parantheses-free” computing language that employs “free word order” of ideas be the future of Computation such as in applications like Quantum Computation?
Surely that is one way forward for Computing & computers. But before that we will see a lot of sociological changes, passing through necessary milestones; one that comes to my mind is: the establishment of “online universities” and freeing up of the control of knowledge off the hands of a few. Knowledge imparting should be freed from commercial profiteering, just like the case in the Vedic age.
To say it in yet another way, “knowledge should be resolved from temporal urges.” This is the very principle that forms the essence of Sanskrit itself: free-word-order.

Programming languages are still English based, that is a huge sociological problem that will, if, take decades to the least to overcome. To understand with an example, let us talk about the state-of-art in Computing today, known as “object oriented programming (OOP)”. Now, programming has three components: data, control structure, and execution. OOP has taken forward programming from its infancy by evolving one of the three aspects – the data – in the correct direction by encapsulating data into “objects”. This is exactly how Sanskrit does it: declension, inflection is nothing but encapsulating data in various objects – be it nouns or verbs. But since the carrier of this idea is still English, the object concept is far from fully integrated; it is implemented by the use of clumsy expressions such as “MyAccount.AccountBalance”.

This is just an example. Computing is still in its infancy, even in the objects there is miles to go before the correct way of encapsulating data is understood. And the less said about the control-structure aspect, the better.

But some credit must be given to the leaders in this field- they stumbled upon a key principle that is going to last. The principle is (relates to the execution aspect of programming), “the resolving of knowledge from temporal necessities”, just what I wrote about earlier. This is achieved via “compiler-interpreter” duo, such as implemented by the programmers in JAVA-language.
This is the real foundation of Computing, just as in the Veda AsviniKumar(s) is the foundation. Computing will surely evolve out of its infancy, but this principle is going to last.

Sanskrit is the language for the Veda, and outrageous as it may sound now, I will not be surprised at all if Sanskrit in one of its avatar becomes the carrier of Computation in a hundred years from today. But as I said already, this should be preceded by other sociological revolutions, led by better evolved, and equipped, humans among us. If someone tries this before that, there is likely to be evil intent behind that, as pointed out in the OP.

3. More On Sanskrit & Computation

Indeed, there is some utility – of the language of computation – in understanding Sanskrit concepts (though one runs the risk of turning into rAkshasa while working at AI!).
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is today being increasingly used in applications (such as torrents). P2P is based on the idea of distributive computing – where the data flow takes place among many computers instead of from a single one (known as server). Classically (not P2P), when we request any data from the Internet, it is the owner of that data – the server computer – that decides to reply to our query.

Sociologically, this server-client model belongs to the TV age of communication (most of the 20th century) when the receiver (client) had no options to interact with the info-owner/broadcaster and therefore had to accept whatever came his way. And as we know, TV was to a big extent a propaganda tool in the hands of powerful politicians (who released one sided info and views) and rich industrialists (who used hypnotic advertisements).

So, to sum up thus far, how does distributive computing connect to object oriented programming (OOP)? In applied Sciences, many researchers have realised the limiting effects of linear models (thinking). Linear thinking means: step by step, procedural thinking. What they have found out is that a vast majority of natural phenomena can only be realistically modelled with non-linear models.

Non-linear means: the effect doesn’t strictly follow the cause; the effect itself is capable of changing the cause. Metaphorically, in non-linear models, cause and effect “interact with each other”.What is interesting is, it was found out that the only way to solving the non-linear models was with the help of computers (indeed, it isn’t unusual today to find Ph.D’s submitting their theses containing a lot of colourful graphical outputs generated in computers, instead of old-fashioned mathematically worked out results).
The computation technique used in solving such models is known as “agent based modelling” – and variants thereof – where there are no clearly defined causes and effects (or servers and clients); instead, everything is made equal – called “agents” – and then the agents thus created are simply left to communicate with each other: a solution naturally emerges after they have communicated enough.
Agents are created as objects in the programming stage – so here is the connection with OOP. The actual computation is along the lines of distributed computation since each of the agents is more or less independent of others and therefore can do its own computing sitting anywhere – one agent in Australia, other in Japan, and so on.

Now consider a simple sentence in Sanskrit:
vidyA dadAti vinayam.विद्या ददाति विनयं ।”Education gives humility.”

The English sentence (equivalent to the Sanskrit one) produced here necessarily belongs to a linear paradigm: therefore, “gives” follows “Education” and “humility” follows “gives”. This isn’t just linearity inherent in the basics of English the language – this is also the linearity inherent in the mental constitution of English speakers. And future is pressing us to remove this limitation.
In the Sanskrit sentence, we can express the same without any change in meaning as-
विद्या ददाति विनयं ।
विद्या विनयं ददाति ।
ददाति विद्या विनयं ।
ददाति विनयं विद्या ।
विनयं विद्या ददाति ।
विनयं ददाति विद्या ।
How is this possible?

With our homework already done, it is not very difficult to understand. All the three words in this sentence should be thought of as agents (or objects).
विद्या – feminine, nominative noun
ददाति – present tense verb, third person singular
विनयं – masc., accusative noun

So, each agent encapsulates data – and local computing (inflection) – within. There is no linear flow of knowledge – the agents interact with each other simultaneously. All agents interact with all agents, and the final picture, the understanding, emerges naturally; sounds almost fantastical, doesn’t it?
This is like an impressionistic painting where the color patches “mix” only in the consciousness of the onlooker to give the whole picture. Or, like quanta emerging from an undifferentiated field.
Importantly, in Sanskrit no basic distinction is made between the noun types (#expressions) and the verb types (#statements), as both are seen as agents. The role of #parentheses is performed by the indeclinables in Sanskrit.

4. Sanskrit : A Level Playing field

Sanskrit is a level playing field: Bhakta-s from different sampradaya-s can come here, from time to time, to gage their progress, by seeing how much of Sanskrit they are able to play.

I don’t think that mentally aggressive types – the Raks (rAkshasa-s) – can do that. They can memorise everything – like a rAvaNa – and even become known as great Sanskritists (like the Indologists), or even teach their computers to do all that instead – but the soul of Sanskrit will ever elude them.

Sanskrit as taught today is wholly memory based. This is because these Sanskrit pandita-s themselves are the problem, the reason why this language is in disuse, and how the Raks have been able so far to take away this heritage (yes the outer forms only) from Hindus.

If we don’t have the access to the Devata layer of Sanskrit, we should very well forget about its revival.

5. Sanskrit : The Devata Layer

Eight Vasu-s, Eleven Rudra-s, Twelve Aditya-s, and so on.. indeed, we are in the right place!
One thing, that is always overlooked is, suppose a Devata X is a Vasu. Does that exclude the possibility of Sri X being a Rudra as well? Or an Aditya as well?

That is a point to ponder, particularly in the context of the unitary field of awareness lived by the Rsis.

“Context” – the word is interesting. Is Sanskrit only approachable via a strictly Vedic route? Or, can Sanskrit be equally approachable by each sampradAya of Hinduism in their own unique ways?

The consistency of Dharma demands that indeed all sampradaya-s do have gateways to the core of Sanskrit. But, we thought a short while ago that the core of Sanskrit, the innermost layer, belongs to Devata. That is, it was understood that it is the Devata-s who hold the keys to the core of Sanskrit.

So, does that mean: the same Vedic Devata-s are worshipped under different names in the various sampradaya-s?

The answer is yes and no. Because each sampradaya is a different “context”. And by this “context” I don’t mean a passive word here: the context itself is a deity, is real. For example, in Vaishnavism, the “context” is Lord Vishnu.

In this way, the “context” becomes important. Even in the Vedic knowledge itself; therefore, what we know as Vasu-s, Rudrá-s, Aditya-s or Maruta-s are mostly the “same Devata-s” under “different contexts”. And, as discussed before, they also aren’t the “same Devata-s” at all.

Let us, therefore, start with the “smallest context”, and that would be, the “Eight Vasu”. And we know Sanskrit noun cases are also eight in number.

Maruta-s (marud•gaNa) are the smallest context, smaller than even the EightVasu (beside the point, but their numbers are quoted always in fractally increased orders). Therefore, the “original” Maruta, who is the “leader” of the marud•gaNa, is likely present in other (larger) contexts.Lord Vayu can be said a marut, when He moves together in the marud•gaNa. However, Maruta himself is different from Vayu.

“mara” means, “die”. The “ta” sound is the sound of Death, as in mrtyu, hatya, etc. On the other hand, the sound related to Vayu – who’s murty is the breath – is the “ha” sound, the same as in “hu” which means, “to sacrifice” or “to do Yagya”. Sacrifice is a precursor to Death; we will come back to this important piece of information when(ever) discussing the Sanskrit Noun cases, the vibhakti-s.

6. Sanskrit : More on the Devata Context

An assertion was made in the last part, regarding the “context”. Let me further illustrate that with relevant examples.

Lord Indra is always listed in as an Aditya. In mahA•bhArata, He is also addressed as vAsava {literally, “of the Vasu (community)”}. So we see, the same Devata can be a Vasu and an Aditya, depending on the “context”.Again, this “context” itself can be a deity. We shouldn’t mistake this word for “different regional contexts, evolved due to differently (and, linearly!) evolved local histories”.

To understand this fully — in mahA•bhArata, a man, in flesh and blood, is also called vAsava. Who is that?

Śri Bhishma!

He was not only a vAsava, but “the vAsava”, because he was the eighth issue from mA gangA. Bhishma was thus the “Eight•Vasu”, the upper bound of all perfections and fullness of nAma and rUpa.

Yet, there is still something to be said: we have vAsudeva Sri KrishNa also there! vAsudeva means “the son of vasudeva”, alright, but we know that vAsudeva is among the thousand nAma-s of Lord Vishnu. And then Krishna was the eighth child as well!

So we have a vAsava and a vAsudeva existing right there at the same place and the same time!

So the “context” has nothing to do with place or time. Let us understand this clearly. These are cosmic movements. Bhishma was the son of Mother•gangA, so we may say that the context here, the dynamics, is Lord Shiva. Or it could be that the ashTa•vasu itself be the context here.

And when KrishNa is addressed as vAsudeva, we know this under the dynamics of Lord Vishnu. On the mundane level, Krishna is “the son of Vasudeva”, and is addressed as such, but the inner meaning many a time is different: Lord Vishnu Himself is called out, who we know — that by “in-to mapping”/ ava•taraNa — can come to be born a Vasu, or an Upendra, or the varAha, so on.
The bottom line is, we don’t even need to go to mahA•bhArata to see it — this great play is unfolding full throttle right here and now in front of our very own souls.