Language of The Past, and The Future : Sanskrit in AI Era

Once upon a time, there was a village of potters known for making beautiful pots from the finest clay with intricate designs from generations. The potters were known for their high quality, wisdom, and craftsmanship.

One day, a stranger (potter himself) came to the village from a different part of the world. He was impressed by the potters.

He learned that this is such a unique talent and thus he can’t sell his pottery methods here. Thus, he started mocking villagers’ methods, calling it outdated, inferior, and substandard.

The stranger sounded confident, and the villagers were confused and upset and began doubting themselves. They stopped following their methods and adopted the stranger’s methods.

Given the villagers’ strong technical know-how, the stranger quickly became the most successful potter.

However, the stranger's success was short-lived as he did not understand the culture of the village, thus failing in the long run.

On the other side, because the villagers started aping someone’s else methods, they forgot their methods and lost trust in their own skills. As a result, as the generations progressed, the potters became unhappy, bitter, and frustrated, resulting in poor interest in the work they once were very passionate about.

Realizing the gap and failing pottery business, the stranger very cleverly packaged the same traditional methods as his “Own Creation” and started teaching the villagers back the old traditional pottery methods.

Ironically, the villagers accepted it as new wisdom and hailed the stranger as “The Thought Leader”.

Well, I will pause here and ask us to reflect on this neo-reality of our times!

But, why this story now?

31st August is World Sanskrit Day (Viswa Samskrita Dinam - ?????????????????).

It is celebrated on Shraavana Poornima (Full Moon) which falls on 31st August this year. It was established by?the MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Government of India Official , and was first celebrated in1969 to promote the language.

Thus, to celebrate this day, I dialled my next Guest.

My guests are India’s First duo to receive Padma Shri (4th Highest Citizen award) Smt. K.S. Jayalakshmi and Shri K. V. Sampathkumar (Posthumous). Late Sri?K.V. Sampath Kumar?and his wife Smt. Jayalakshmi KS?is the owner of the world’s first Sanskrit?daily?news-paper ‘Sudharma’. Today, it reaches more than 90 countries with more than a lakh readers. From its inception to date, Sudharma has been the only Sanskrit Daily e-paper in the World.

Excerpt of my conversation with Padma Shri Smt KS Jayalakshmi ji

About Sudharma:

On the 15th of July 1970, Late Pandit Varadaraja Iyengar, the Founder Editor laid the foundation of Sudharma in the by-lanes of Mysuru with the mission to promote Sanskrit.

In 1990, Pandit Varadaraja Iyengar’s passed away, and since then, Vidwaan H. V. Nagarajarao, Vidwaan Dr. T. V. Sathyanarayana, Vidwan Gangadhara Bhat, Late Sri K. V. Sampath Kumar & Smt. Jayalakshmi K.S. has been tirelessly working towards fulfilling Sudharma’s mission.

Dealing with skeptics:

From the date of its formation, skeptics continued to predict its failure. However, its founding members, and later, Late Sri K. V. Sampath Kumar & Smt. Jayalakshmi K.S. continued to have faith and belief in the mission. Despite all the challenges, they continued to modernize, expand and innovate to keep it afloat.

Challenges:

• Resource constraints: I was astonished to learn Sudharma operates with such minimal manpower that I was forced to ask, “What’s the backup if someone takes a leave?”. Jayalakshmi ji smiled and replied,

“I am very hands-on. I frequently work on printing, folding, operating machines, affixing postage stamps, etc. There is nothing special about being a Proprietress", she laughed.?

• Delivery: No one was ready to distribute our newspaper. Thus, we were forced to rely on the Indian Postage service as our readers range right from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
• Financial: “There is unfortunately an impression that Sanskrit is an inaccessible language and has negligible value in daily life. Thus, readers are hesitant to pay for it. But our mission is our passion, thus we will do our best to keep it alive”, she asserted with a firm and confident voice.

On receiving Padma Shri:

It was a such pleasant surprise. We didn’t know our work from generations is valued so much. I was amused when Honourable Prime Minister @narendramodi ji congratulated us and spoke at length about Sudharma in our personal interaction. It was beyond my expectation that he is so well-versed in our newspaper and contribution. But just then her joyful voice turned heavy and her eyes turned teary,

“I missed my husband, as he passed away and wasn’t around to collect this honor.”

Life Lessons:

1. Have faith in your mission. There will be ups and downs in our journey, but we must have faith in ourselves.
2. Resilience: Be resilient, stay positive, and continue with hard work and passion. We celebrated our 50th year i.e., Golden Jubilee in 2020, and that is a testament to our resilience and passion.
3. Culture is important: We must protect our culture. Culture defines our identity.

How can you support Sudharma?

Well, they offer subscriptions with a minuscule cost, you can support them by subscribing to their publication check this out, https://sudharmasanskritdaily.in/subscribe/

With those thoughts, we wrapped our conversation.

But………

But the conversation ignited the bug in me to do further digging.

My quest was to explore the relevance of Sanskrit objectively (keeping its emotional and ancestral pride aside) for my kids, students, and my executive colleagues/clients who all live, breathe, learn, and sleep in the fast-paced AI era. While it’s good to take pride in our culture but are they relevant in today’s context?

At last, I must thank Padma Shri Jayalaksmi ji & entire Sudharma family, for sharing their journey with us and making efforts to keep the language alive.?I did my part to support the mission, have you? Ministry of Culture

And if you are one of those who are:

"Unknowingly Neglecting Sanskrit's Vital Role in the Digital & AI Revolution?"

Then wait till 30th August 2023 (Wednesday) for the extremely insightful Part 2.

#sanskrit #IndianCulture