Sanskrit was mainly written in the form of poetries-Sutra and Rhymes. All Four Vedas, Upanishads, Brahmsutra, Bhagwadgita, Shreemad Bhagwatam and all Puranas, Bhasya and commentaries were originally written in Sanskrit. Maharshi Balmiki Ramayana is the Legend Epic all written in poetic verses. Then later on poetry was main vidha in Mahakavi Bhasa’s Roopakas. He wrote 13 Roopakas -dramas. The glorification of Karna happened for the first time in his drama Karnabhaaram and to some extent the positive aspects of Duryodhana in Urubangam – this was in B.C.E, before even the time of Mahakavi Kalidasa. Since then the good qualities of Karna were appreciated by all of us and today people considered him on par with Arjuna; not just in archery but also in good qualities- Daanveer Karna. This is actually against the traditional branding of Karna and Duryodhana as part of “dushta-chatushtayam” -the four bad of Mahabharata, along with Dusshasana and Shakuni.
Mahakavi Bhasa was legendary Sanskrit poet – even Kalidasa at one place has mentioned that he wanted to be a great Kavi like Bhaasa. Later in 8th Century, came Mahakavi Magha, who was a Krishna devotee and his Mahakavya – Sisupalvadaham is great Sanskrit epic.
Similarly Maharaja Dushyanta’s character was elevated by Mahakavi Kalidasa in Abhijnanashakuntalam and all over India people even today think that it is only due to Maharishi Durvasa’s curse that Dushyanta forgot about Shakuntala. The original Mahabharata doesn’t have any reference about Shakuntala being cursed by Maharishi Durvasa and Dushyanta forgetting her.
Unless people were regularly watching these Sanskrit dramas – generations after generations, understanding and appreciating – the changed Mahabharata stories won’t be remembered by them.
Some of these examples themselves show that Sanskrit was widely spoken and used since inception till 15th Century.
Even in Ramcharitmanas composed by Saint Tulsidas in 15th century, many instances of Sanskrit verses and Mangalacharan have been used. Rudrashtakam is one such Stuti. Then Sree Sundarakand Stuti for Lord Hanuman is also in Sanskrit. So Sanskrit was the Soul of Indian sub-continent for along time. Unfortunately this wonder language was eroded by the Islamic invasion and then later by British through clever introduction of English in education system.
Till Buddhacharita written in Sanskrit by Ashvagosha, people didn’t know Buddha’s history. People were worshiping only the image of the Ashvattha tree.
There is an ancient pillar in Sanchi, the UNESCO World heritage site depicting the Dhyana of Sri. Buddha- actually the sculpture shows only a big Ashvattha tree and not Gautam Buddha.
Specially after the Sanskrit treatises of Sri. Nagarjuna – Mula-madhyama-kaarika and prajnaa-paaramita-hrdaya sutram – people were able to understand Lord Buddha’s teachings clearly. Subsequently Buddhism got accepted widely in China and other East Asian countries. Here also medium was Sanskrit and not Pali as both Ashvaghosh and Nagarjuna wrote in Sanskrit unlike Triptikas written in Pali language. Therefore there was no worshiping of just Ashvattha tree in China. Sri. Nagarjuna is second only to Lord Buddha himself in terms of reverence in all sects of Buddhism – From old schools of Maadhyamika, Yogachara, Sautrantika, Abhidharma to neo Buddhist schools of Mahayana, Theravaada, Vajrayana.
People like Buddhaswamin, Kumarajeeva, Dharmakirti, Dingnaga, Chandrakirti, Bodhidharma, and many other Buddhist philosophers wrote only in Sanskrit.
Similarily, there are countless Jain treatises in Sanskrit right from the Jain tattva to Jain mathematics.
Hiuen Tsiang, who was travelling in India right from Gandhara -today’s Afghanistan to Malakka straits- today’s Malaysia/Indonesia) has recorded in his travelogue, that people converse in Sanskrit all over Bharatam . He himself learnt Sanskrit and translated many Buddhist texts into Chinese.
Bodhidarma , a prince from the Pallava dynasty from Kanchipuram, wrote his entire work on Zen Buddhism in Sanskrit. Dhyaana in Bharat, Chan in China, and Zen in Japan. Even the Pallava King Mahendravarman – I, wrote his comedy drama -Mono act “Matta-Vilasa Prahasanam” in Sanskrit.
The acclaimed wisdom tales like “Panchatantra”, “Hitopatesha”, “Brihatkatha manjari” – all are composed in Sanskrit.
Maharaja Bhoja wrote his major works – Kavya, Alankara, Architecture, etc. in Sanskrit. He was the first King to defeat the forces of Mohammad Ghazni and rebuilt the Somnath temple in Gujarat. Somnath Temple was rebuilt nine times. First rebuilding by Maharaja Bhoja and 9th rebuilding by Sardar Valabbhai Patel and K.M.Munshi.
When the Kavi Kalhana wrote Rajatarangini, Kashmir’s history – it is written in Sanskrit.
The entire series of Kerala school of Mathematics right from Madhava of Sangamagrama ,today’s Irijnalakuda to Achyuta Pishoradi, Neelakanta Somayaji, etc. in Sanskrit.
Jayadev Swami of Odisha wrote Gita Govinda in 15th Century, which was a masterpiece Bhakti granth in Sanskrit.
In 17th century, Grammarians Sri. Nagesha Bhatta from Andhra region and Sri. Narayana Bhattathiri from Kerala region wrote their works like “Sabdendu shekara”, “Vyakarana siddhanta Manjusha” and “Prakriya sarvasvam” in Sanskrit.
Maharaja Shivaji wrote his works on Commerce and Warfare in Sanskrit.
As late as 19th century – Maharaja Swatithirunal in Kerala wrote short Kavya many Keertanas in Sanskrit.
As late as late 19th century Swami Vivekananda wrote letters (Post cards) in Sanskrit – he used to converse with the Raja of Ramnathapuram in Tamil Nadu, Bhaskara Setupathi in Sanskrit.
Even in 2011, during the First World Sanskrit book exhibition hosted at Bengaluru, Rs. 6 crore worth of ‘only Sanskrit’ books were sold in just 2 days.
Even today Chowkhamba of Varanasi, Motilal Banarasidas, Nag publishers, Ram Lal Kapoor trust, Shri Aurobindo Foundation, R. S. Vadyar, Giri Publications of Chennai and many other Sanskrit book publishers are publishing books in Sanskrit and people are buying.
Sanskrit was always a language of communication. The myth created by British historians has been busted. It doesn’t mean there weren’t other languages. Old languages like Pali, Prakrit, Tamil, and few others were also there organically blending simultaneously.
Every single scholarly work, be it from Sanatana Dharma, Bauddh Dharma or Jaini Dharma – all were written in Sanskrit in the past 1500+ years. If people were not communicating then why would ALL Poets and Writers wrote in Sanskrit. A myth has been created with distortion in the Glorious history of India that Sanskrit was not a language of communication but was only a language of scholars and Brahmins.
It is also a matter of record that the usage of Sanskrit as a day-to-day communication language by common people has been diminishing ever since Muslim invasion and totally stopped during British times. But these facts have been deftly sanitized by the Historians of the past.
A Buddhist manuscript found in Tibet, in Pali language /Tibetan script) called Samavayanga Sutra (3rd century B.C.E) lists over 60 scripts of Sanskrit and many other languages in ancient Bharat. This is announced as Manuscript treasure (knowledge treasure) by the National Manuscript Mission by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India along with 64 other Manuscripts. Kannada script of Vijaynagar Empire was also one of that listed in that old treatise.
The ability of Sanskrit’s rich vocabulary, the ability of inflectional morphology i.e. to coin new words in an instant manner with over several hundreds suffixes, the ability of each Verb root of Sanskrit having multiple meanings, both with and without using affixes, etc. were highly praised by the Sanskrit Poets and hence it was easy for them to write in Sanskrit despite the strict metrical rules of Sanskrit poetry. Richness of root words and lexicons and a mathematical grammar have really made Sanskrit repository so vast and far wide in the world.
Sanskrit has ruled over the world in the past what the English is today. The British have successfully replaced indispensable Sanskrit with English from the mindset of Billion of Indians. This is really a great threat to the Bharatiya Sanskriti for which Sanskrit was synonymous. Time to ponder and undo the damages.
Jai Ho.