PUNE

The Sanskrit Dictionary initiative is an expansive challenge that bears testimony to the perseverance and scholastic dedication of intellectuals over 76 years. This linguistic odyssey traces its roots to the 12 months following India’s liberation from British rule.

The challenge which was incubated on the Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, in Pune, garnered help from the central authorities, discovering an ally within the Central Sanskrit University (CSU), Delhi, final month. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the 2 institutes with a concentrate on useful resource trade to fortify the challenge, coupled with collaborative efforts in operating Sanskrit programs.

Prof Shrinivasa Varakhedi, vice-chancellor, CSU, stated the institute has not been capable of decide up sufficient tasks as a result of funds constraints. “We have resumed working on fresh projects with support of education ministry. A year ago, work on the Sanskrit Dictionary project was brought to my notice. Apart from giving funds we will also collaborate on human resources,” he stated.

Project evaluation

The encyclopedic dictionary of Sanskrit to English, spans 2.2 million vocables and a staggering 10 million references, throughout 35 volumes, revealed via 6056 pages thus far.

According to Ganesh Devy, a language knowledgeable greatest identified for his work on People’s Linguistic Survey of India, the challenge is exclusive as a result of it’s making an attempt to exhaust the entire vary of Sanskrit language. “This dictionary can be used to know real history about ancient times, and the Indian subcontinent’s relations with central and west Asia. More importantly, we will be able to interpret various ancient learnings in an appropriate way,” stated Devy.

The challenge’s initiation dates again to 1948. It was conceived and deliberate by SM Katre, former professor of Indo-European Philology and director of the Deccan faculty. The object was to render Sanskrit language into English. He launched into the mission after collaborating within the Wilson Philological lectures, in UK, when he found that dictionaries existed for different languages however none for Sanskrit.

Spanning greater than three generations of lexicographers, the dictionary challenge has change into a legacy, with editors passing on the torch. The institute claims that the Sanskrit Dictionary surpasses the famed Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in magnitude, which has 0.5 million entries, 3.5 million quotations overlaying a span of 1000 years of the language.

In his e book ‘The Wonder That Was India,’ famous professor, historian, writer and an Indologist Arthur Llewellyn Basham asserted that this “dictionary, upon completion, would stand as the greatest work of Sanskrit Lexicography ever witnessed worldwide”. Basham, who handed away in 1986, taught luminaries akin to Romila Thapar and Ram Sharan Sharma.

“There are Greek and Latin dictionaries. But none exist for Sanskrit covering the history and timespan of that language – by history we mean the first piece of literature available, either oral or written. For Sanskrit, the Rigveda is the first available text evidence of the language,” stated Prasad Joshi, Deccan College professor, and basic editor of Sanskrit Dictionary Project since 2017.

Play with phrases

The dictionary focuses on how phrases and their types have modified over time, and the way their that means has developed. They are analysed logically and linked to varied nuances and shades collectively. The encyclopedic nature of the dictionary offers info on the type of vocables as a information, the a part of the speech of the phrase to which it belongs, accent, etymology, derivation and the event in Indo-Aryan period.

It was no straightforward process.

“After identifying words, we collect their references. The scholars study the context and meaning before finalising the entries. It is checked, re-checked and edited, before it is sent for publishing,” stated Joshi. It attracts inspiration from a major corpus of roughly 1500 Sanskrit treatises, spanning 1400 BC to 1850 AD.

Retired professor Jayashree Sathe, who was the final editor of the challenge between 2010 to 2017, stated, “We faced serious challenges when I came onboard, as research scholars appointed for posts created by the central government retired, leaving us with a paltry support staff. When I started the work in 1985 there were around 38 to 40 research scholars and when I became the editor, we had a team of hardly 13 to 14 people. There was always a fear of the department shutting down due to shortage of manpower.”

She stated the fruits of labour materialized with the discharge of the primary quantity in 1976, three years after its modifying course of started. Given {that a} staff of round 20 linguistic and Sanskrit consultants are engaged on the challenge, it would take greater than a century for it to be full, she added.

The dictionary has been categorised into 62 branches, akin to veda, darśana, epics, dharmaśāstra and historic lexicons. It additionally consists of literature, poetics, dramaturgy, prosody, anthologies or matters with science as base akin to arithmetic, structure, alchemy, agriculture, medication and veterinary sciences. It additionally consists of phrases pertaining to music, in-door video games, inscriptions, warfare and economics.

Speaking about the way in which forward for this challenge, Joshi stated, “The first stage of compiling the data is complete and the second stage of upgradation has started, which is likely to be complete in 10 years. If manpower is increased, the editing process will be expedited we will be able to publish more volumes in one year.”

Meanwhile, recognising the necessity for digital footprint, CDAC has been enlisted to spearhead the digitization of the works. “We don’t see youths coming to libraries to collect books. So, we will make the dictionary available online for people to access from across the world. In future, we will also create mobile apps,” stated Joshi.

The magnitude of knowledge makes it an necessary device for varied fields akin to historical past, tradition, linguistics, philology, computational linguistics, patents and many others.

“It is definitive and comprehensive – in that sense it is unique,” stated Devy.