Now, I've no doubt Katju is a nice guy but he's real stupid and ignorant. Compare him to people like Chief Justice Gajendragadkar or Anantanarayananan- equal masters of Sanskrit and English and their own mother tongue- and one becomes aware of the steep fall in the quality of the Judiciary arising out of (for those recruited from Katju's crooked, supposedly India conserving, 'Universal Culture'- as opposed to people who are or are prepared to be Judges coz Judging- i.e. rationality-as-impartiality- is their metier) the dramatic fall in their real wage.
This crazy old coot thinks that Sanskrit, as opposed to Tamil or Bengali, was the only language fit for scientific enquiry or rigorous thought. He is wrong. Maths, Medicine and Science existed before and after Paninian Sanskrit. Look at the epigraphic evidence you worthless fuckwit. Ind's great scholarly lineages and centres of learning evolved before Classical Sanskrit. Jains, Buddhists, Ajvikas, etc, had a considerable and diverse literature in various Prakrits. True, Classical Sanskrit functioned as a sort of academic lingua franca, in the same manner that Arabic and Latin did, but there are important Medical, Legal, Mathematical and other manuscripts written in Pali, Ardhamaghadi, Tamil and so on. Katju's Kashmiri ancestors did propagate something new in Sanskrit for a couple of centuries about a thousand years ago. But, it wasn't Maths or Science, but Tantric psilosophy and Dhvani aesthetic doctrine, neither of which are vehicles for enquiring minds as opposed to corrupt mystagogues. Indeed, Sanskrit verse, especially in polished and allusive form, was highly unsuitable for the preservation of Mathematical or other exact knowledge. The actual working papers and full development of the discourse was probably in the vernacular- Sanskrit prose, or macaronics, can get awfully tangled very quickly- and so, I think, the Sanskrit shite which has come down to us was a sort of prestige publication. Al Biruni, whom I take for an armchair scholar waxing wise off the labour of his Hindu slaves, and who I don't believe ever visited India, blamed the Indian love of Sanskrit poetry- verbose, witless shite- for the unintelligibility, inaccuracy, and negligible intellectual impact of their works as presented in Classical Sanskrit. What that old fraud and plagiarist didn't realize was that the Sanskrit versification was done after the thesis had been formulated by the author and that it was memorized by students before proper induction into that field of studies by the instructor. In that sense, it had a dhvani suggestiveness and leant beauty and grace to a burgeoning and ultimately shared Bildungs-Lebenswelt, so to speak. True, a lot of people in useful professions may have been able to read and even write Classical Sanskrit. What they didn't do is think in it, argue in it, or provide complete prose treatments of their theories in it. Since Classical Sanskrit took more effort to write, the most laborious and worthless type of literary work- viz. euphonious versification replete with allusion and assonance- became its province, not as a stimulus to thought but purely as ornamentation.
The problem is this sort of glistering Sanskrit chandas tend to get preserved while local language texts are superseded. Most maths work was probably in vernaculars like the yukitbhasa of Jyeshtadeva.
Katju disagrees.
He says- 'Science requires precision. Panini made Sanskrit a powerful vehicle in which scientific ideas could be expressed with great precision and with great clarity and it was made uniform all over India, so that thinkers in one part of the sub-continent could interact with thinkers of another part easily. That was his great contribution.'
Panini did not endow Sanskrit with precision, if by precision is meant certainty as to the referent. What he did was to make it easy to write correct Sanskrit- according to his own rules. Indeed, only Paninian Sankrit is sufficiently artificial to permit the writing of a book which has two quite different meanings or tells two totally different stories simultaneously. This is possible because the artificiality of the language encourages ornamentalism such that synonyms grow exponentially by synechdoche. One reason it was easy to write correct Sanskrit was because- once words lost precision w.r.t to the emotional or other valence of the referent- nothing constrained the writer to only expressing a thought which he had actually formulated for himself rather than sacrificing all for euphony. We, in English, or any actual spoken language, can tell the difference between a grammatically correct but meaningless sentence such as 'Green ideas sleep furiously' because, since childhood, a specific discipline has been applied to us- viz. to avoid talking shite. No such discipline applied to writers of Sanskrit shite. That's why it's shite.
Greek is still the bedrock for the vocabularies of Medicine and Physics but the Greeks had no Panini who permitted all words to become synonyms. Instead, they had Aristotle, who used observation of Nature to make distinctions between things in the world, to taxonomise things on the basis of genus and species, such that words cease to be synonyms and Thought, to express itself without risk of censure, must refer in a precise way to alternate states of the world.
What Greek literature teaches Western European Vernaculars is that grammar don't fucking matter. Rigour of thought does. Ornamental euphonious shite is shite only because Ornamentalism is shite, Euphuism is shite. Don't fucking do it. Don't inhale. Just say no.
What matters is Thought- and Thought, to be worthy of expression, must be precise and refer directly and unambiguously to states of the world. You may say- ah! but what about Wittgenstein's similarity to Bhratrhari? Fuck off. Wittgenstien was a fuckwit. He produced not one single Scientific or Mathematical advance. The same goes for any talk of fucking Heidegger, or Gadamer or Derrida and other such fuckwits. Lacan never fucking cured anybody. He was a quack. If their shite is similar to Sanskrit shite- its coz both were and are shite and even if you are a total fuckwit, are you being paid enough to puff that sort of fuckwittery? You're not being paid? You're prostituting yourself gratis? That's just sad, dude.
English, at present, is the International language of Science. Why? Is it because English is more precise than other languages or that it has a scientific grammar? Not at all. English speaking countries dominate militarily, economically, culturally and also in terms of Academic Research.
Ancient India needed a lingua franca. Some artificial system like that of Panini would, in all likelihood, been the solution to the co-ordination problem. However, because Panini's solution allows stupid fuckwits, like Katju, to think they are thinking just because they are writing or speaking grammatically, the solution was decidedly sub-optimal.
He says- 'Bengali and Tamil have only stories, novels and moral literature (like Thirukkural) but they do not have any discussion on mathematics, law, medicine, etc. Sanskrit was the language of people with an enquiring mind, who enquired about everything, and therefore there is a whole range of subjects which have been discussed in Sanskrit. '
This is racist. This Kashmiri Pandit, whose ancestral vocation was Sanskrit related, is telling us Tamils didn't have enquiring minds. If by chance their minds suddenly become enquiring, immediately they become Sanskrit speakers.
The Chief Justice is also a misogynist. In Classical Sanskrit plays, women speak Prakrit. This shows they don't have enquiring minds. They are stupid.
The truth is Classical Sanskrit, in the hands of Katjus's ancestors, became a resource for the fabrication of Tantric texts which supposedly endowed magical powers on the elite practitioners of its sordid and absurd rituals. Yet Katju thinks this sort of Sanskrit was 'the language of people with enquiring minds'. Why? The fuckwit thinks people with enquiring minds want to gain super-powers for themselves while letting the country go rot. This is not true. People with enquiring minds know, a priori, that reading some worthless Sanskrit shite and fucking your daughter don't make you God. It just won't happen. Katju won't believe me. People like him think they have 'enquiring minds'. All they enquire after is how they can give themselves a leg up and grab more power and prestige for themselves. That's what minds are for. What is worth enquiring about is power, pelf and privilege for oneself alone, nothing for the Common Weal. But, so what if some fucking Tantric actually gains God like powers by fucking his daughter or feeding on corpses or whatever? The guy remains a fuckwit who won't use his powers for any good for the rest of us. And what's the point of being a God if you can't do anything for suffering creatures?
For Katju and his ilk, enquiring minds are greedy only to posess Sanskrit of this Kashmiri Tantric sort and Urdu of the sycophantic 'please, please Laat Saab, increase my pension by reducing the share of my cousins because the back of your hand is the qibla of kisses and the palm of your hand is the ka'ba of hope'.
Vernacular languages, like Tamil, Bengali, Gujerati and so on are bound up with a country to which all its speakers owe loyalty. If the country progresses, all are better off. On the other hand, if your Uncle becomes a Tantric God- I should say demon rather- he will fuck you up and he will fuck up the place where you live. Same goes for if this Uncle manages to suck up to the new Governor. His gain is your loss. Worthless artificial, euphuistic macaronic, languages like Katju's Sanskrit or Urdu are a menace to the Common Weal.
Read Valmiki Ramayan, or Bhagvad Gita by all means. They aren't Tantric shite. They are pure poetry because they are genuinely profound and seek to advantage all equally- not confer magical powers on some fuckwit who has sex with his daughter or chews corpses by night.
There is not a single book, written in Sanskrit, on Maths, Medicine, Law, or any other field, published in the last 200 years, which isn't a great steaming pile of crap compared to stuff in Tamil, Bengali and other such languages. True, Shyamji Krishna Varma started out as a Sanskrit orator, but the point about him is that he abandoned that worthless vocation for Herbert Spencer's Sociology and Revolutionary Politics. Varma had an enquiring mind. Katju has shit for brains. Compared to him, the syphilitic whores of the Indian Journalistic community start looking quite smart.
For the generation born after Independence, English has utterly eclipsed every and any Indian language. Not because English is more 'scientific' or 'logical' or 'moral' or 'refined' but because every official Indian language is way more 'scientific' and 'logical' and 'moral' and 'refined' and scholarly and noble and, in consequence, is suitable for nothing by pi-jaw, hypocrisy and lies. Not being able to read an Indian language, even your own mother tongue, is a good thing because it protects you from the shite the netas and their ideological stooges spout. In the 1940's there was a Marxist historian, living in Moscow, who made a point of writing in Hindi. Since then, there is not a single serious Academic, working in any field, who writes exclusively in an Indian language. Indeed, it is now compulsory to submit an English version of one's dissertation to get a Phd- a vital qualification for a career criminal because its possession automatically qualifies one for better treatment in jail- in every subject save vernacular literature.
We can't adopt English as our National language because many of our people who know it and are in positions of authority are demonstrably the most worthless cunts in history. But, English aint the shite spouted by Katju. And that other, non Katju, English is the English everybody in India wants to know. Nobody wants to know Urdu or Sanskrit unless they already know non-Katju English or are just fucked in the head.
Sanskrit Mimamsa, of Katju's sort, is utter stupidity. So is learning Paninian Sanskrit. That is why Sankaracharya, in his Bhaja Govinda, condemned it as sheer foolishness. Katju is a fuckwit of truly epic proportions. Sanskrit is dead. No one who quotes it is not a fool or a knave or both.
Katju thinks he belongs to the 92% of Indians who are immigrants. Urdu, however, unlike Sanskrit, was born in India and thus not an immigrant. This places it on a higher footing than Tamil, which is merely regional. True, Katju says Munda speakers belong to the 8% of Indians who are not immigrants. However, they speak an Austric language which, therefore, must be an immigrant (otherwise, Katjus thesis that people never emigrate from India is contradicted). Urdu alone is a wholly Indian language. A great injustice has been done to this true son of the soil by all these immigrant languages, like Tamil. The State of Jammu and Kashmir has adopted Urdu as its official language. Those stupid Tamils- lacking enquiring minds because they reject Sanskrit- should take the hint and kindly follow suit.
This is the fugugly fellow below.
Where precisely did you immigrate from you worthless pile of shite? Could you kindly fuck off back there?
You get 2000 dollars a month and think 2000 dollars a month worth of deeply janitorial thought.
For example-
'Unlike Hindi, Urdu is a language with real 'dam'. '
If you write poetry in Hindi it is bound to be shite. Write in Urdu and you have a chance. Real poets write in Urdu. If they don't know Urdu, they're fucked.
I see. So, Harivansh Rai Bacchan wrote shite did he? How come his books outsold Urdu shite? Katju won't tell us.
Tagore wasn't a poet- why? He wrote in Bengali, not Urdu. Iqbal was a poet. He was descended from Kashmiri Brahmins and wrote crap in Urdu, while priding himself on his un-idiomatic Persian. However, only his English prose is without blemish and not utterly risible.
Still, Katju has a point. Iqbal used Urdu to build and unify a Nation. Not India but Pakistan. You are in the wrong country dude. But you already know that because you are a self-professed immigrant.
Like Ghalib, who genuinely was an immigrant, Iqbal considered Urdu a deeply second rate language. Incidentally, the best novelist in Urdu, Abdullah Hussein, switched to English. Why? Urdu wasn't his mother tongue and, by the 70's, it was clearly fucked.
Faiz, for whom Farsi was a mother tongue, started writing crap English verse. Why? Urdu was played out- or rather it was a neverwozzer.
Serious poetry was always written in Persian. However, the Persians consider only Amir Khusrau- who wrote in Hindvi, not tarted up Urdu- a true poet.
Kashmir's Nund Reshi- because he didn't know either Persian or Sanskrit or Urdu, did not have an enquiring mind nor did his poetry have 'real dam'.
What Sanskrit and Urdu have in common is that they appeal to deeply provincial fuckwits who get a thrill out of feeling superior to other people. Neither language is difficult to learn and one can say really trite things in them while still feeling you're being terribly profound.
Katju's real thesis- though he doesn't know it- is that India should break up. Nothing holds it together. At least, nothing worthwhile.
India does not have a 'Sanskrit-Urdu' culture. Both languages have been shown to be worthless shite. Nobody believes God will grant your prayer if you can talk to him in Sanskrit. Nobody still thinks their Urdu ghazal will win them a pot of gold from the Sultan. Those days are gone.
Sanskrit, at one time, served as a sort of link language but it is utter shit and nobody, literally nobody, writes anything in it. Urdu too, very briefly, held a sort of prestige. But, it's shite. Arabic is worthwhile. Persian is worthwhile. Urdu is third rate. The point about Urdu, in the old days, was that it was a stepping stone to Persian as Persian was a stepping stone to Arabic. Now, Urdu is not needed. You can learn Arabic and Persian directly and not have to struggle to rid yourself of your Urdu accent and infelicities of style.
Official Urdu or Hindi or Tamil, etc, is just a direct translation of Bureaucratic English into a stilted jargon. But, instead of mastering that crap, why not just learn Maths and functional English- or Globish as a French Academic has named it?
Why be part of a country whose Chief Justice is a racist, misogynist, fool who can't frame a logical argument to save his life?
India is a country where, if Katju-style sententious stupidity is allowed to get the upper hand, not 92% but 100% of the population will want to emigrate. The only practicable way this can happen is if India is officially designated as having boundaries as small as the Vatican State. Which part of New Delhi should it enclose? Obviously the chiddiyaghar- the zoo, Katju- teach your Sanskrit Urdu culture to the animals. I hope they eat you.
Incidentally- this is you on Ghalib-
Eemaan mujhe roke hai, kheeche hai mujhe kufra kaaba mere peeche hai, kalisa mere aage” | |
i.e. “Faith is stopping me, while atheism is pulling me forward. Kaaba is behind me, the Church is in front.” Here the word `Kaleesa’ only ostensibly means `Church’, but its real meaning is modern civilization. Thus Ghalib, like many Urdu writers, is opposed to feudal civilization and commends modernism. So, Katju- you think you know Urdu but can't understand one of the oldest tropes in Islamic literature. You think, the Church, for Ghalib, represented progress and the Ka'aba backwardness. I see. Fatwa time anyone? You think you know Sanskrit Mimamsa, but can't reason worth a damn- what is wrong with you? Oh. I see. You didn't take bribes as a Judge. So your owe it to the Public to explain that your failure in this respect was entirely due to feeble-mindedness rather than lack of 'Urdu-Sanskrit' culture. Well done thou good and faithful servant. Now depart in peace. By which we mean- shut the fuck up. |
TOTALLY FALSE! SANSKRIT IS ONLY PURELY SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE. EUROPE ONLY BECAME SCIENTIFICALLY ADVANCED AFTER THEIR SCHOLARS LEARNT SANSKRIT STARTING FROM 17 CENTURY. AS MORE AND MORE THEY STUDIED IT, PACE OF THEIR SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS WAS MUCH FASTER.
ReplyDeleteYOU ARE IGNORING RACIAL ASPECT. DUE TO MIXING OF RACE, INDIANS ARE VERY INFERIOR AND UNABLE TO BENEFIT BY SANSKRIT. HOWEVER, EUROPE AND WHITE RACE HAS EASILY BENEFITED AND GONE TO SUMMIT OF SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT.
PROBABLY YOU ARE DARK SKINNED DRAVIDIAN AND HAVE INFERIORITY COMPLEX.