January 10, 2008

by Amrit Pal 

Washoe County of Nevada has proclaimed January 12 as Sanskrit Day.A proclamation signed by Robert M. Larkin, Chairman of Washoe County Commission, under the Seal of Washoe County, says, ” PROCLAIMED, That Washoe County recognizes the importance of the Sanskrit language and January 12, 2008 as Sanskrit Day”.

This proclamation is to coincide with two-day Sanskrit language seminar-cum-class, first of its type in the state, organized by prominent Hindu chaplain and Indo-American leader, Rajan Zed, here on January 12-13 next, in which about 50 people are expected to participate. This Washoe County proclamation quotes Mahatma Gandhi as saying “Without the study of Sanskrit, one cannot become a true learned man”. It further says, “As Hinduism expands in the West, it is important that to understand Hinduism, one should have a working knowledge of Sanskrit.”

The Vedas, written in Sanskrit, are dated by different scholars from 6500 BCE to 1500 BCE. Sanskrit language must have evolved to its expressive capability prior to that. Besides Hindu scriptures, a vast amount of Buddhist and Jain scriptures were also written in Sanskrit. According to tradition, self-born God created Sanskrit, which is everlasting and divine. First scripture of the world, Rig-Veda, was written in Sanskrit. Many Sanskrit works are still to be translated. Sanskrit has a close relationship with other classical languages like Latin, Greek, French, German, etc. Famed German philologist Max Muller once said, “Sanskrit is the greatest language of the world.” In America, scholar William D. Whitney wrote the Sanskrit Grammar in 1879. Sanskrit is also known as “the language of the gods”. (ANI)

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