SRI SRI UNIVERSITY

Sanskrit is widely accepted as the oldest language in the world. The word Sanskrit is the English version of the word Samskruta, the etymological derivation of this word is Sam + kruta. Here Sam is the prefix kru is the root verb. Kruta is the past participle form of the root kru. Here Sam prefix is used in the sense of perfection, very well and very good.

The Rigveda is the first written record is in Sanskrit language and is a collection of hymns. Sanskrit is regarded as a philosophical language for Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. One of the most popular languages in India, Hindi is also highly influenced by Sanskrit. We can find many Sanskrit words used in this language. Many of the Indo – Aryan languages borrow their grammar and vocabulary from Sanskrit. Not only this but also all the Vedas, Upanisads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Arthasastra, Dharmasastra are written in the Sanskrit language. The Sanskrit language has been working as a link language in pan Indian literature. Not only in India but it has a strong linking force in the world.

That is why Sir William Jones has  rightly said – “the Sanskrit Language, whatever may be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure : more perfect than the Greek more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either : yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, that could have been produced by accident : so strong that no philologer could examine the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, without  believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar region though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic had the same origin of the Sanskrit.” Hence it acts as a link language.