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Why did Sanskrit decline in India ? What were the various reasons known, for the decline of this language ?

Some Student
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    This question is off-topic for this site, because it's not really about Hinduism. But in any case the answer is simply this: just as Latin gradually evolved into local vernacular languages like Italian and Spanish, Sanskrit evolved into various modern North Indian languages like Hindi and Gujarati. – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 24 '14 at 08:41
  • @some student: You can ask this question here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/98070/sanskrit-language – Amit Saxena Apr 29 '16 at 18:50

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Sanskrit is not a dead language in the Western concept of a dead language. Sanskrit has not been a common spoken language for thousands of years. Even at the time of Buddha in 500 B.C., Sanskrit was no longer a common spoken language.

Nevertheless, the Vedas are in Sanskrit. The Vedas have survived as the world's oldest scriptures without any altercations for thousands and thousands of years because they have been handed down in the original Sanskrit. The Vedas were revealed to man in Sanskrit. Many important commentaries on the scriptures have been and continue to be written in Sanskrit.

Swami Vivekananda said that all the people of India could be raised spiritually and culturally by the study of Sanskrit and actively encouraged the study of Sanskrit by everyone. Brahmin pundits and scholarly Sadhus are still proficient in both written and spoken Sanskrit. I have met Sadhus whose commentaries on the scriptures are still done in Sanskrit. There are Sanskrit libraries of old commentaries that are still kept and studied in different maths.

Many orders of Sadhus require the study and knowledge of Sanskrit before sannyas is given.

Swami Vishwananda
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  • Actually, Sanskrit is a dead language, because a dead language is defined as a language which is no one's first language. – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 26 '14 at 15:06
  • @KeshavSrinivasan: That is not the only definition of a dead language, and it is a most misleading one, considering the many connotations "dead" has in conventional usage. – ShreevatsaR May 02 '15 at 19:02
  • @ShreevatsaR That is the standard definition of dead language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death "In linguistics, language death (also language extinction, linguistic extinction or linguicide, and rarely also glottophagy) occurs when a language loses its last native speaker." – Keshav Srinivasan May 02 '15 at 19:35
  • @ShreevatsaR And I think the connotations of the term are exactly right. Languages thrive when at least some people are using them as their primary way of understanding the world around them. So it's fair to call them dead when that process has ceased, which unfortunately has happened to Sanskrit (at least for now). – Keshav Srinivasan May 02 '15 at 20:08
  • @KeshavSrinivasan By that definition, Sanskrit has been dead since the moment of its birth (its codification into an unchanging form by Panini), and all the major works of Sanskrit literature — all the works of kavya, shastra, stotra, etc. (consider: Kalidasa, Aryabhata, Shankara/Ramanuja, the Manusmriti, the Arthashastra, the Kamasutra, the Natyashastra) -- were composed after Sanskrit had "died"; nearly everything of value in Sanskrit, an entirely literary and technical ecosystem, are from after Sanskrit's "extinction". That is a nonsensical definition in the context of Sanskrit. – ShreevatsaR May 02 '15 at 23:45
  • @ShreevatsaR No, at the time that most of those texts were written, there were still a lot of people (especially Brahmins) whose first language was Sanskrit. Codification by Panini has nothing to do with language death. – Keshav Srinivasan May 02 '15 at 23:48
  • @KeshavSrinivasan Not at all. The moment a language is fixed and ≠ its evolving form, it becomes a language that needs to be learned. You can read from Xuanzang's account how children who were to learn Sanskrit memorized Aṣṭādhyāyī and Amarakośa in early childhood. And the periods when Sanskrit thrived the most — the greatest royal patronage, the most creativity in literary expression (consider the heights reached by Bāṇabhaṭṭa!), usage in the most spheres of life, the most careful examination of its semantics by the Mīmāṃsaka-s and Navya-naiyāyika-s — are all from after Sanskrit's "death". – ShreevatsaR May 02 '15 at 23:55
  • @ShreevatsaR Long after Panini's codification, there were still plenty of Brahmin families who taught their children Sanskrit before they taught them the local Prakrits. Now it's true that that they tried to teach children Ashtadhyayi and the like as early as possible, but the language that was spoken at home and which parents used to communicate to their kids instructions like "memorize the Ashtadhyayi" was still Sanskrit. Local Prakrits could be learned at a later age, since in early childhood kids seldom left the Agraharam. – Keshav Srinivasan May 03 '15 at 00:04
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – ShreevatsaR May 03 '15 at 00:06
  • @ShreevatsaR I recommend that you read Swami Vivekananda's comments on the importance of everyone learning Sanskrit. It is in his lecture titled "The Future of India" in his Complete Works V3 starting p 285. Also available online here - http://cwsv.belurmath.org/volume_3/vol_3_frame.htm – Swami Vishwananda May 03 '15 at 09:44
  • Thanks, I agree with the importance and joy of learning Sanskrit, I also agree with everything in this answer here. संस्कृतप्रियोऽस्म्यहमपि! I just disagree with @KeshavSrinivasan that Sanskrit became "dead" at some time in first millenium or so — my point is that it has been a learned (and learnéd) language at least since Pāṇini, and given that most of its literature was produced during the period when it was not anyone's "first language" (primary language spoken at home), a definition of "dead language" based on whether it was a "first language" is both irrelevant and misleading. – ShreevatsaR May 03 '15 at 15:42
  • @KeshavSrinivasan I disagree too that Sanskrit is a dead language. There are some places exists in India where Sanskrit is the only language people speak in their general communication. For example this village Mattur – TheLittleNaruto Nov 18 '16 at 04:27
  • @TheLittleNaruto Yes, I was being imprecise, although in another comment on this page I did say "A dead language is a language which is no one's first language. And apart from one or two villages, Sanskrit hasn't been anyone's first language for a very long time." – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 18 '16 at 04:30
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Sanskrit's decline started from around the 11th century when vast parts of India came under Islamic rule. Persian and Arabic influenced Urdu became gradually language of governance after the establishment of Islamic rule. I have seen treaties between the British and the Indian rulers in the Victoria Memorial in English, Persian and Urdu.Then during British rule Sanskrit study (and Persian and Urdu) was basically proscribed and the study of English gained in importance. The reason given for the suppression of Sanskrit as a link language was that using such a language would encourage vile superstition while the English language as a link language was an incomparably better vehicle of progressive and scientific thought. After independence the nationalists acted further against Sanskrit by removing it as a compulsory subject. The Nehru government also stopped supporting traditional Hindu schools which also caused further damage to the study of Sanskrit.

Sanskrit was still used by some even as late as the 17th century. Some of the output of the Kerala school of astronomy and Mathematics (14th to 16th century) was in Sanskrit. The famous scholar Vijnanavikshu (probably around 16th century) also wrote his original works in Sanskrit. The famous 'Sarva Darsana Samgraha' by Madhavacharya written around 14th century was in Sanskrit. Vivekananda and Abhedananda wrote some of their works in Sanskrit in the late 19th and early 20th century. Nevertheless Sanskrit in its role as a link language was finished due to lack of political support.

Pradip Gangopadhyay
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  • Sanskrit became a dead language long before the 11th century. Sanskrit had the same status in, say, 500 AD, that Latin had in Europe in, say, 1000 AD: it was nobody's first language, because everyone was speaking vernacular languages that had evolved out of it. – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 24 '14 at 14:30
  • As you can see, by 800 AD pretty much the only Sanskrit that was being written was commentaries on older Sanskrit works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hindustani#Middle_Ages – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 24 '14 at 14:36
  • Ramanujacharya would have viewed Sanskrit the way Thomas Aquinas or Isaac Newton would have viewed Latin. – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 24 '14 at 14:42
  • There were still a small number of Sanskrit works being written in the Renaissance time (just as Isaac Newton was writing in Latin in the 17th century), but the point is the decline of Sanskrit started long before the 11th century. By the 11th century it was no longer a living language. – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 24 '14 at 15:48
  • but I don't think sanskrit is totally dead language. Many of our scriptures and dharmic scholars still learn sanskrit, and the pandit or acharya pad is given to the one who is fully qualified in sanskrit form any math or sanskrit vidyalaya. – Yogi Oct 24 '14 at 17:48
  • I also heard about some villages in India speaking sanskrit and having about 90% literacy in sanskrit. Can any one tell me which are they? – Yogi Oct 24 '14 at 17:49
  • @Creator A dead language is a language which is no one's first language. And apart from one or two villages, Sanskrit hasn't been anyone's first language for a very long time. – Keshav Srinivasan Oct 26 '14 at 15:08
  • @Yogi Please check this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattur and this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_revival – Triyugi Narayan Mani Jul 04 '16 at 11:59