Sanskrit and its Uniqueness

That Sanskrit is unique is the popular quotation we find in every manual of its teaching. Look at the few following realities:

1. Sanskrit is the oldest and living language on our planet. Hence in its study and research we see a wonderful history passing through many millennia. 

2. It is the language of the most ancient Indian scriptures belonging to various faiths. Sanskrit is a spiritual language. Owing to these reasons, the description is very popular, like .as old as the hills., that Sanskrit is the language of Divinity, language of gods.

3. It is a language of classical literature . rich and abundant.

4. As its name itself explains, it is systematised and perfected. Its alphabets are impeccably arranged. They are easy to remember and help in memorising textual stanzas which explains why the oral tradition of Indian wisdom is so popular and long-standing in the entire world. 

Virtually everything, including those subjects which are technical - like science, engineering, medicine, grammar, philosophy, law . are in poetry, easy to memorise and to quote them melodiously. Not even a Sanskrit dictionary (Amara-kosha) is spared from this impeccably convenient structure/formation. 

5. Sanskrit literature is unique in its overwhelmingly poetic character.

6. Rationality is in everything including the arrangement of its alphabets. It is perfected. The Devanagari script used to write Sanskrit is also complete. Being phonetic, it can easily be adopted to write any language.

7. It is a global language. It has no territory, has no bias; hence has no limitations. 

8. Sanskrit is a 'world language' in the real sense of the term. It hasn't got local variations or vernaculars nor dialects nor usages of slang words. Its uniformity owes to this aspect as well. 

9. It has written rules of grammar, phonetics, etymology and epistemology which are all followed wherever Sanskrit is used. The wonder that this bedrock of Sanskrit grammar, which is, allows its purity to continue no matter however it grows. 

Consequent to this, the uniformity found only in Sanskrit has not changed even after many millennia of its expansion as well as migration to so many lands outside India.

10. There is infinity in its word-formation possibilities and they are all well-structured, computerized long before the computers came in use. 

11. There is a vibration or resonance in the sounds well-expressed in Sanskrit speaking.

12. Absolute freedom is in using this language because of "No syntax". This means that even a beginner can proceed with words as one.s thoughts progress. 

13. Flexibility or adaptability - Same sentence can be said in a variety of ways. 

Brevity and elaboration . both are possible, thanks to the 'classical' nature of Sanskrit. If one sentence in Banabhatta's novel - "Kadambari" virtually runs beyond 20 printed pages and a single word extends to 13 printed lines, imagine the range of expansion and contraction achieved by this celestial language namely, Sanskrit!

Here, a mention has to be made about the Dwi-sandhana Kavyas and other specimen of Chitra kavyas in Sanskrit which exhibit a funtastic world. On those lines you will be able to say a whole story . even of whole Ramayana if you like, in one set of formation, say, in one set of letters, or in one set of words . only nouns and those nouns only in the Nominative case, singular no. etc... 

E.g.

.Ayodhya-emperor, three-wived-Dasharatha, child-less, performer-of-Putrakameshti-sacrifice, becoming-the-father-of-four-sons, - Rama- Lakshmana-Bharata-Shatrughna-as-well, consequently-the-sender-of-two-of-his-sons-namely-Rama-and Lakshmana-along-with-viswamitra-sage-who-came-with-request-for-the-king.s-help-to-rescue-his-sacrifice . . . . . .. 

Such a never-ending phrase = ANANTYA-PADAM or ANANTYA-VAKYAM = one single sentence for the whole story i.e. going to any length can contain in it, not just an episode, but the whole epic of Ramayana itself. Such a feat is possible in a Sanskrit narration. There are many reasons for this amazing power of Sanskrit which all explain the richness and inexhaustibility of this classical language.

Depending upon how pedantic the narrator could be, even in one long word . running for many pages - one can fill in the whole story.

Owing to its enormous flexibility, only Sanskrit can imitate any language in the sentence structure.

14. Its universality. It can do all functions, - scriptural (holiness), technical (precision and derivative power) and romantic (resourceful and flowery style) but can never be slang.

15. Has a very rational derivative power. In Sanskrit, etymology (Niruktam) is a special science (Sastra) of finding the derivations. The derivative potential of Sanskrit words is breath-taking. Unbelievable it may look though, there are no proper nouns in Sanskrit! Every single Sanskrit word has a meaning built into the word itself; the root hidden in the word contains the meaning of that word. Hence a Sanskrit scholar seldom runs for a dictionary to find out the meaning of any new or a strange word one may come across. He uses the key of etymology which breaks the egg, and the contents come out!

16. Its economy. Sanskrit letters can be used to write other languages as well. Any lengthy expression could be put in brief in Sanskrit - as small as a word; or sometimes it is smaller than a word, say a syllable! E.g. A Bijakshara like OM.

Passive voice sentences are more in Sanskrit also owing to this reason which are surprisingly shorter expressions!

17. Sanskrit words possess a special vibration of sound waves whose resonance is very effective. People use Sanskrit Mantras for healing. They owe this mystic character and holiness to the essential spiritual character of Sanskrit. 

18. Spirituality has moulded into Sanskrit! Hence its name , - perfection to be reached by any word. 

Different voices . 3 of them . in Sanskrit make way for different aspects related to the same . i.e. Reality. 

By knowing Sanskrit, you are now in touch with a language which is very natural (sound-oriented), rationally developed or systematised in its structure and versatile in its usage even while retaining its purity and uniformity. Its ancient, abundant, full of variety and everlasting literature passing through the longest period of time has plentiful wonders to offer to those interested in any of them.