The Author was born in India, and arrived in the United States (US) for the first time in 1948 at the age of eight. His father, a respected economist of his times, had been appointed as a Deputy Director to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). in Washington, D.C. That was less than one year after two very bi-polar events of global impact. In August 1947 India gained independence from the British Raj. The echoes of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's famous mid-night speech 'Longyears ago, we made a tryst with destiny......", which put the Indian mind into a high of celebratory anticipation, had barely died down. That euphoric moment was soon overtaken by a more somber tone. In January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, was assassinated by a 'madman'. The tryst with destiny was replaced by Nehru's public sorrow 'The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere'. It was in this somber mood that, shortly thereafter, the author's family departed for the United States.
The United States then was still recovering from World War II and adjusting to its role as the major political power in the rapidly approaching postcolonial world. After a stint of about four years the author's family returned to India, only to be sent back again by the Government of India to US and IMF few years later. That was 1959. By 2009, the author has spent about fifty-four years in the US and fifteen years in India. The Author's professional career was in science and engineering (see the summarized CV enclosed in the monograph).
It was in the fog of that diverse and multi-cultural background that the author was driven to seek, from an early age, answers as to what was 'his heritage'.
There is a saying 'you can take an Indian out of India, but you cannot take India out of an Indian'. This essay entitled 'Haunting Echoes in the Fog of History: Evolution of Sanskrit and its Derivatives' is written by an Indian, Sudhir Savkar, who spent fifty-four of his sixty-nine years in the USA, but who remained an Indian to the core. The essay is as scholarly as it is intense because it is written by an intense scholar, as I discovered in my long association with Sudhir.
I found this essay fascinating for a number of reasons. First and foremost it is Sudhir's unbelievable ability to 'inquire'. The essay is based on the information that Sudhir had researched painstakingly; but, after all, that information is available to everyone. It is not the information, but it is the 'insight' that is important. Simply stated, information into inquiry equates insight. Access to huge information when multiplied by zero inquiry leads to a zero insight. Sudhir's ability to 'inquire' gives us rare insights into the compelling story of Sanskrit and the subsequent historical evolution of its derivatives.
Further, it is the process of observation, analysis and synthesis that leads to a new product. Sudhir's observation is unusual, since it is through a lens that is different because of his 'bi-polar' background (India born, world travelled, who settled in the US many years ago). His analysis is strong, since he is not just an engineer, he is an engineering scientist. So he not only knows how to design and build, but how to do a deep analysis. With this ability to observe unusually and analyse creatively, we see a synthesis of an essay that is fascinating.
The scholarship of Sudhir is evident as he analyses the evolution of Sanskrit and its derivatives. He explores the time line spanning 4000 years, with a unique chart whose abscissa spans the time period from 2000 BCE to 2000 CE, with an ordinate that gives a measure that defines as to how significant a language was at that time. Construction of this chart is just one example of the unique prowess of an engineering scientist in interpreting a historical evolution.
Vedic Sanskrit is then described with a mention of how Panini earned the recognition as the world's first grammarian, and how when Panini's Ashtadhyayi taken together with Nirukta and Nighantu, mark the beginning of the history of linguistics. These firsts need to be acknowledged proudly.
We then see an account of the early diffusion of Indo-Aryans and their languages southward. The account is based again on a strong evidence based analysis.
We then get some rare insight into how Sanskrit steadily lost favour as the principal language of India and Prakrits emerged, being perceived as more 'natural' languages.
This then follows with a narrative of the resurgence of Sanskrit in the first millennium; followed then with the use of Sanskrit once again showing a decline, levelling off by the 10 century, as primarily a liturgical language and the language of the learned few.
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