Pundits kept Sanskrit scholarship alive during British imperialism: Cambridge University research

London, Oct 16 (PTI) Scholarly pundits kept Sanskrit intellectual thought, literature and arts alive across remote settlements as British imperialism swept across India from the seventeenth century, a new Cambridge University led research project revealed on Thursday.

The researchers point to the scholarly activities of hundreds of such little-known literary experts dispersed across villages in Brahmin settlements, or agrahara, and monasteries, or matha, to counter a traditionally held belief that the expansion of British colonial rule in India steadily suffocated Sanskrit scholarship.

The University of Cambridge experts are now conducting a first extensive survey of these sites in the Kaveri Delta in southern India in search of the Brahmin scholars who kept writing poems, plays, philosophy, theology, legal texts and other forms of literature in Sanskrit as Britain and eventually English tightened its grip on the country.  “There were literary geniuses among these men, historically significant figures, but many people in India don't know them,” said Dr Jonathan Duquette, the project lead from university’s Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Selwyn College.   “Some of these pundits had a huge impact on Sanskrit scholarship. A very small minority still revere them, but they and their works have mostly been forgotten. We will study texts that have never been translated or printed, and it is quite likely we’ll come across texts that have never been studied in Western scholarship or even catalogued. And we should be able to clear up who wrote what, when and where,” he said.  It is known that British colonial power transformed traditional education and knowledge systems in India. After 1799, when the East India Company took control of the court of Thanjavur – the heart of Sanskrit patronage – English-speaking schools began to spread in the region.

Sanskrit had always been studied by an elite minority, with Brahmins attending traditional schools to learn the Vedas and study Sanskrit philosophy and literature. But gradually, after 1799, fewer Brahmin families aimed for their sons to become priests and instead sent them to the new, Western-influenced, schools.  Dr Duquette explains: “This could have suffocated Sanskrit scholarship very quickly, but it survived partly because of these rural settlements. Their remote location may have helped but more importantly the scholars held their land grants in perpetuity, and I think this is one of the factors that protected them from some of the changes taking place in bigger towns.  "There is an assumption that Sanskrit was confined to aristocratic circles, courts and cosmopolitan centres. But our project will show that it had a vibrant life in the countryside and interacted with Tamil scholarship in the region.”  His team is focusing on the period 1650-1800 and expects to identify 20 or more settlements of particular intellectual significance in the Kaveri Delta.

The project begins at a time when Cambridge’s Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies hopes to secure philanthropic funding for posts in Sanskrit and the pre-modern Indo-Persian world.

Sanskrit research and teaching have a long and prestigious history in Cambridge dating back to 1867 and the University Library holds an internationally important collection of Sanskrit manuscripts, the world-leading university points out.  The ‘Beyond the Court’ project, led by Dr Duquette and including a set of international experts, is backed by a grant from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). PTI AK GRS GRS