Saving Sanskrit to Save the World
Sanskrit is the primary culture-bearing language of India, with a continuous production of literature in all fields of human endeavor over the course of four millennia. The language and its literature spread throughout Southeast Asia, Central and East Asia, and the influence of Indian knowledge transmitted via the Middle East enriched the sciences and enlightenment literature in Europe. The vast body of Sanskrit literature preserves and transmits knowledge that contains valuable wisdom and scientific insights that can provide essential guidance to the present and future. However, the rapid transition of the principal medium of knowledge from the written and printed to the digital medium now threatens this body of knowledge with destruction. Millions of manuscripts will perish within the next century. As support for libraries dwindles, access to primary sources moved off-site becomes more difficult. Even books and manuscripts that have been digitally scanned remain inaccessible because they are scattered and poorly cataloged.
As fewer scholars gain competence in conducting research in Sanskrit, universities neglect fundamental research in favor of popular themes, and millennial students and scholars accustomed to the digital medium ignore written and printed sources. As a result, this valuable body of knowledge risks perishing from neglect. Current initiatives in India are missing the mark as traditional scholars remain unaware of digital techniques for managing textual information and computer experts untrained or poorly trained in Sanskrit remain unaware of the vast depth and range of the knowledge in it. Without the proper, multi-disciplinary approach, the vast knowledge in Sanskrit will fail to make the transition into the digital realm.
The primary purpose of the Sanskrit Library is to rescue this body of knowledge by bringing Sanskrit literature into the digital medium. Doing so will enable access to the primary materials and original sources and will allow people to engage with those sources themselves rather than to rely on others to interpret the texts for them. To achieve these objectives, the Sanskrit Library has launched the Sanskrit Inter-disciplinary Digital Humanities Initiative or SIDDHI. SIDDHI will have four discrete activity streams that will aim to (1) create digital images of Sanskrit books and manuscripts, (2) improve automated transcription and structured markup of manuscripts and printed books in accordance with universally accepted standards to allow them to be accessible by contemporary digital methods, (3) train young scholars in Sanskrit language via innovative on-line courses and in Sanskrit digital humanities to create high-quality digital catalogs and editions, and (4) conduct profound research utilizing cutting-edge digital methods. Accessibility would include, for instance, making any text available in the script of the reader’s choice, and the creation of a comprehensive knowledge map that allows access to subjects, authors and texts via indigenous Indian categories, diverse parameters, and intelligent search methods. Groundbreaking high-impact research would include, for instance, creating a computational implementation of Panini's generative grammar of Sanskrit, the Aṣṭādhyāyī and the utilization of the methods of analysis of Indian cognitive linguists in the grammatical tradition to enhance the development of superior large language models (LLMs).
We must choose now between two possible outcomes: a renaissance that engages millennia of Indian wisdom with contemporary methods in the digital world on the one hand, and the shrinking scope of Sanskrit studies and the perishing of Sanskrit knowledge on the other. Please reach out. Help ensure Sanskrit flourishes to assist humanity in navigating the pressing issues of our time.
Access the Sanskrit Library here.
About the Authors
Dr. Tanuja Ajotikar is trained both traditionally in Sanskrit and Pāṇinian grammar and technically in digital humanities. She is passionate about bringing Sanskrit traditional knowledge into the digital medium. Her ambition is to teach every Sanskrit student essential technical skills, thereby empowering them to transition traditional Indian knowledge into the digital medium. Such cross functional training will significantly help in disseminating the wisdom recorded in Sanskrit and expand Sanskrit’s global influence.
Dr. Peter Scharf is a world-renowned American Sanskrit scholar who was also traditionally trained in Pāṇinian grammar in Varanasi, India. He pioneered the transition of Sanskrit knowledge into the digital medium by founding the first digital Sanskrit Library in which Sanskrit manuscripts and texts are integrated with dictionaries using linguistic software and by pioneering comprehensive, precise and interactive Sanskrit instructional technology. Apart from teaching at Brown University as well as in India, he has authored and edited more than a dozen books and written a hundred scholarly papers. Now he is spearheading the Sanskrit Interdisciplinary Digital Humanities Initiative (S.I.D.D.H.I.) to lay the foundations of a Sanskrit digital renaissance so that traditional Indian knowledge can guide humanity through its most pressing challenges.
