
With the Mahakumbh starting on January 13, based on Jupiter's planetary revolution, it seems appropriate to recall some very human love stories with the source of this event, the Sanskrit language. But what is Mahakumbh? The legend goes after the Samudra Manthan that day, Mahavishnu was carrying a kumbh (pot) of amrit (the elixir of immortality) when a scuffle broke out between the devas and asuras, four drops were spilled on earth. They fell at the four tirthas of Prayag, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain, a tirtha being a place where devotees hope to attain salvation. The next Mahakumbh will be in 2037. How did they know millennia ago about the 12-year revolution of Jupiter (Brihaspati) around the sun? The mind boggles.
As for the love stories, let's start with Frits Staal, the eminent Dutch-born Indologist. He was an emeritus professor of philosophy and South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, having studied in Amsterdam and Varanasi, with his PhD from the University of Madras. I first met Frits in Bangkok 15 years ago, and he asked me to visit him at his house in the wooded hills outside Chiang Mai.
Frits set great store by Rishi Yajnavalkya and was not best pleased with my levity in calling him "a big show-off" and "a bully". Only to annoy, I mailed him an old thing I'd written called 'What Gargi really said'. He looked forward, he said, to talking about it. I should have run away right then to save myself from certain death-by-inadequacy, but though learned, Frits was interested, kind, and so bitingly funny that I said I would love to. "We will talk all day, eat, and walk in the woods," he mailed.
As a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam, Frits was keen on mathematics and philosophy. He specialised in mathematical logic. His interest in Indian philosophy was sparked by two lectures at the 10th International Congress for Philosophy held in Amsterdam in 1948: "One was by L E J Brouwer, the greatest Dutch mathematician since Christiaan Huygens. Brouwer put a long quotation from the Bhagavad Gita in the middle of a forest of mathematical symbols. The other lecture was by T M P Mahadevan of the University of Madras."
Entranced, Frits went to Madras in 1954 to learn Sanskrit, discovering it was more alive in India than classical Greek and Latin in Europe. He was influenced by Professor V Raghavan, a member of the Government of India Sanskrit Commission, whose report recommended the three-language formula and the creation of the Central Institute of Indology. Frits found Raghavan's outlook "truly universal", supporting not only Sanskrit but all classical languages and the study of living and popular cultures, of Munda, Dravidian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Central Asian, Chinese and Southeast-Asian studies, Egyptian, Hittite and Iranian histories.
Raghavan made Frits see "there was no limit to the interplay between traditions and innovations within a civilisation", that classical languages and Panini, whom Frits called India's Euclid, lit the path to the artificial languages of modern science as classical languages focus on the transmission of knowledge.
In 1975, Frits organised the 12-day Vedic sacrifice Atiraatra-Agnichayana with eminences Cherumukku Vaidikan and Itti Ravi Nambudiri in Kerala, supported by prestigious foreign funders. A monumental two volumes on Agni emerged in 1983.
"Do you have one reverent nerve?" he chuckled while I looked at his books and poured myself tea from a pot in a padded basket. Frits passed away before we could meet again. Thank you, Frits, for the chance to connect with your luminous mind and kind attitude.
Another such love story with Sanskrit befell Roberto Calasso, an Italian writer and publisher. Besides Italian, Calasso was fluent in French, English, Spanish, German, Latin and ancient Greek. It's said he was "a literary institution of one" and "the theme of his work is the relationship between myth and the emergence of modern consciousness".
While a student at the University of Rome, he happened to look at a German translation of the Rig Veda in the university library. He fell headlong in love and resolved to learn Sanskrit, so he could directly enter that world. Eventually, he wrote what I consider a grand retelling of Hindu theology, the dense, layered book Ka, in 1996. In it, he uses actual lines from Vedic hymns as dialogue so naturally that it stuns you. Even without spotting that, its elegance of mind makes it a wonderful read. I cannot recommend it enough to whoever may be interested.
I met Calasso several times in Delhi and interviewed him for Doordarshan in English. I cherish signed copies of all his books and keep rereading them to refresh my mind.
Another such story is set in Tamil Nadu. A young boy in the temple town of Tiruvidaimarudur heard the Sama Veda being chanted every day on his way to school and its vibrations took hold of him. Remember, our music comes from the Saman. His father was in government service and wanted a modern career for him like any parent today.
The boy did well in college to satisfy his father. But when it came to a job, he joined a Vedic patashala instead, submitting to its rigours for seven years. He earns a sketchy living as a priest serving society, but his contentment has to be seen to be believed. He was cheerfully saving up to buy a motorcycle with his scant earnings when I met him in 2009.
Such stories make you marvel at the magic classical languages possess to transform lives. What do you think?
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan