This idea, that Panini codified, was independently re-discovered in the 1950s by IBM engineers, as they tried to figure out a way to communicate with computers. What they needed was to find a way to instruct computers in totally unambiguous fashion. So Backus and Naur came up with context-free grammars (there was some work by Noam Chomsky at MIT in this area), and lo and behold, they were astonished to find out Panini had anticipated them by two and a half millennia!
... So what exactly does “context-free” mean? It means that the meaning doesn’t depend on contextual knowledge or common sense. Obviously human languages are context-sensitive: you just have to know certain things as a user of the language or else you will be confused. Here is an example of two sentences in English:
1. Fruit flies like an apple
2. Time flies like an arrow
The two sentences are lexically identical, but to the human reader, based on contextual knowledge, they are vastly different. But to a computer, which has no context, they are identical. If the computer is fed the first and told that fruit flies are a kind of fly and that apples are fruits, it will create certain semantic model. Then, when given the second sentence, it will conclude that ‘time flies’ are a kind of fly and that arrows are fruits!
It is essentially impossible to write such ambiguous sentences in Paninian Sanskrit. That is one of the reasons why word order doesn’t matter in Paninian Sanskrit, as it does in English (imagine “Rama killed Ravana” and “Ravana killed Rama” as examples).
That someone millennia ago was able to conceptualize, and even more astonishingly, created a Grand Unified Theory of Language is simply stunning. Let us note that even a widely acknowledged genius like Albert Einstein failed to come up with a Grand Unified Theory of Physics, even though he tried hard. Arguably, Panini’s successful effort then was the greatest accomplishment of a single mind in all of recorded history: creating something so advanced that it took 2500 years to figure out how to use it!
There is another reason for the perfection of Sanskrit, and that is the logical nature of . There is no other alphabet that so scientifically orders different sound families horizontally, and the associated types (dental, retroflex etc.) horizontally. Just consider the Roman script – it has a randomly assembled set of sounds, in no particular order, in stark contrast to the rigorous order of Devanagari.
Many of us have studied another rigorously ordered scientific table that has horizontal families and vertical variants or types: that is the Periodic Table of Elements of Mendeleev, which was also so advanced that he was able to group the elements and suggest that there were gaps where new elements, yet to be discovered, belonged. The resemblance is no coincidence: Mendeelev was strongly influenced by Devanagari, and he acknowledged as much in his terminology.
Where there were gaps, he would call the missing, to-be-discovered elements eka-boron, or dvi-silicon or tria-carbon, consciously using the Sanskrit words for one, two, three etc. Later, these anticipated elements were indeed discovered and given new names. So here’s an example of what Rajiv Malhotra might call “digestion” of Indic ideas into western memes, although, to be fair, there is indirect credit.”
How Should I Start?
Since by Samskrit we mean the Values and cultural paradigm and not merely a language; learning Samskrit is easy and fun. Apart from formal Samkrit education here are a few popular ways:
- By reading Etithaasa like Ramayana and Mahabharata Samskrit text along with translation in language you are most comfortable with regularly.
- By including Samskrit Chants and Stutis in daily worship.
- By reading Samskrit dictionaries like Amarkosha etc.
- By reading Samskrit literature along with translations
- Reading online courses.
