Dr. Sampadananda Mishra takes a brief look at Sri Aurobindo’s mastery of the Sanskrit language and literature, the new insights he has given to them and his own original contributions to it. This short introduction will inspire readers interested in Sanskrit to look at Sri Aurobindo’s original works and his writings on Sanskrit texts.
The foreword states, “very little is known about Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge of Sanskrit language and literature, the new insights he has given into its origins, and about his original contributions to it. Though these may not be very large, in comparison to his other writings, they are sufficiently extensive and reveal his great mastery of the Sankrit language.”
Excerpts:
….. “mankind has one original language based on certain eternal types of sound, developed by certain laws of rhythmic variation, perfectly harmonious and symmetrical in its structure and evolution. This is the devabhasha and is spoken in the Satyayuga.”
He (Sri Aurobindo) has greatly brought out the poetic force of the hymns, their magnificent colouring and images, the noble and beautiful rhythm and the perfect diction as far as possible in English, so foreign a language to express all these.
Sri Aurobindo regarded it (the Gita) as a link in the spiritual heritage of the Vedas and Upanishads; “ …. a gate opening on the world of spiritual truth and experience.” He declares that the Gita stands at the top rank of the world’s scriptures.
(Translation by Sri Aurobindo of a saying in the Mahabharata) What can be more wonderful than the fact that in spite of deaths happening every day before their eyes the survivors think that for them there is no death!
