Sanskrit - The Divine Language of Hinduism

Sanskrit is the language of the prime scriptures of Sanatan Dharma. It is also known as Devavani, the language of the Gods, and its script is Devnagari, the city of the Gods.

Sanskrit means 'perfectly made' or that language that was produced in a perfect form. Knowledge of Sanskrit and Sanskrit grammar was revealed in this world by Brahma at the same time as the prime Vedic scriptures.

Sanskrit was so fascinating to early European Indologists, that over 300 years ago they speculated that it was too complex, logical and intelligent to be produced by the local culture. They mistakenly hypothesized that an earlier human culture living outside of India had produced it, and later brought it to India where it was widely adopted.

Sanskrit's true origin is not material; it is Divine. It is the language of the Divine world. It was revealed in the mind of Brahma, transferred to the minds of generations of Saints, and later revealed on this earth as a spoken language. Whenever human civilization ended, it was again reintroduced on this earth in its original form.

Only Sanskrit provides the vocabularly that could express the totality of the Divine experience. For example, in English we have one word for God. In Sanskrit there are hundreds of names, all expressing a particular name, aspect, power or activity of supreme God. Words simply do not exist in other languages to capture these ideas.

Even from an academic point of view, Sanskrit has many outstanding characteristics.

The Sanskrit language has been in use longer than any language in the world. It has the largest quantity of literature of any language of the world. The Mahabharata, one of our prime scriptures is considered to be one of the world's greatest and longest (100,000 verses) literary epics.

Sanskrit is also the root of the the greatest number of languages, including the main languages of Europe, Iran,and the Middle East. Sanskrit root words can be found as far away as in the Hawaiian language.

Linguists, and now scientists, agree the structure of the language is flawless. There are 49 sounds in the Sanskrit script that are formed in five distinct areas of the mouth. The diagram below gives the names of these positions on the left.

The letters are arranged very scientifically so the simple vowels come first, then the dipthongs, then the consonants in uniform groups according to their point of pronunciation. This allows for perfect phonetic accuracy. Every Sanskrit letter has a precise sound in every word, all the time.

Unlike the other languages of the world, every word in Sanskrit is derived from a root. Suffixes and prefixes are added to a root to creates words. All in all, the grammar, form, word meaning and word derivations are more developed than in any other language of the world.

Researchers studying artificial intelligence have tried to design an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing. But the syntax and semantics of most languages are too ambiguous for the transmission of logical data.

It was discovered that only Sanskrit was identical not only in essence but also in form for work in artificial intelligence. (Click here to see the full article.)

Is it necessary to study Sanskrit for your spiritual practice? There are plenty of resources for this.

For most of us it's enough to understand it is Divine in origin, and even if we were to study it, we lack the capacity to grasp its Divine essence. That essence is what ultimately benefits us spiritually.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explained, "Associate with a true Saint - on the basis of your sincere dedication, he will impart to you that Divine knowledge." (4/34) A Divine mind can fully grasp these Divine subjects. If he is a true Guru, he will teach you the essence of this knowledge in your own languge so you can understand it and apply it practically to your devotional practice.