A ‘dead language’ reviving a nation

“Through Sanskrit, Bharatvarsh descends in your heart” – Mohan Bhagwat, Sarsanghchalak, RSS.

Since the days of invaders, the first attack on our enemies has been on the pillars that sustained the nation and her people. Libraries and the books, authors and the gurus, then the common men, women and children. The motive was to dismantle the belief system, society’s confidence, and eliminate the places that gave confidence and strength to the vanquished masses. Destroy the Brahmins, respect for them, who were the guarantors of the Vedic system, wrote, memorised, disseminated the knowledge, ran the gurukulas, and powered intellectually a society that was sought to be destroyed and converted.

Sanskrit was the first to be targeted. It was the language that nourished the mind and the soul of the land and the people; it shielded the masses against foreign influence, so it was the first target of Islamic and Christian invaders. They banned Sanskrit schools, campaigned to shame Sanskrit and shame those who spoke, wrote and worked in the language of the Vedas. The British colonial administration, particularly through the English Education Act of 1835 driven by Lord Macaulay, actively marginalised Sanskrit schools and the traditional Gurukul system. By withdrawing state funding and making English the medium of instruction for higher education, the British systematically replaced vernacular and Sanskrit-based education with a westernised curriculum. And then they declared with glee, “Sanskrit is a dead language”. Yes, the missionaries, Jesuits and the products of Christian schools were in the forefront to spread the lie – “Sanskrit is a dead language”. It was parroted by the secular Hindu-hater crowd – and a language that reigns our life from birth to marriage to death, a language that defines the land, the people, the ancient knowledge system that was a vehicle to the inventions of calculations and the definitions of cosmic movements, that announced the birth of mathematics, the zero, the trigonometry, that was the language of the ancient scientists, authors, kings, queens, masses, was pronounced ‘dead’.

Once, Kashmir was the global hub of Sanskrit learning. The Sharada Peeth (seat of worship) and ancient university ranked alongside Nalanda and Takshila as a supreme seat of learning. Dedicated to the goddess of knowledge, Sharada (Saraswati), this 5,000-year-old site was a global centre of education for Vedic studies, philosophy, and sciences, attracting scholars from Greece, China, and across Asia. Hundreds of Sanskrit schools flourished under great emperors like Lalitaditya (c. 724–760) and Abhinav Gupta (c. 950–1016 CE). Later attacks by Muslim invaders like Sikandar Shah Miri (1389–1413 CE), known as But-Shikan (Idol-breaker), led to the destruction of Sanskrit schools, and the decline of Sharada Peeth began. Brahmins were forcibly converted, bringing a rapid decline of Sanskrit learning in Kashmir. All Muslim invasions resulted in the destruction of temples and the burning of ancient manuscripts. The forced exodus of Kashmiri Hindus by Islamic terrorists in 1990 led to a massive loss of the traditional keepers of this linguistic and cultural heritage, resulting in the closure of remaining local educational spaces for Sanskrit. Under the Modi government, Lt Governor Manoj Sinha has initiated efforts to revive Sanskrit in schools. It is an Islamic extremist position that India’s one state rejected its original, mother language Kashmiri as its state language and imposed Urdu as its official language in favour of its so-called Muslim identity.

Early 19th-century missionaries often framed Sanskrit literature as pagan, superstitious, and corrupting. John Muir, a Scottish missionary, authored Matapariksa (1839), a work in Sanskrit that criticised Hindu beliefs and attempted to present Christianity as superior, which prompted several responses from Hindu pandits.

Bishop Robert Caldwell promoted the Dravidian race theory. This framework separated South Indian culture from Sanskrit-based “Aryan” Hinduism, characterising the latter as an oppressive foreign imposition and positioning Christianity as a liberating alternative.

Christian missionaries believed that by attacking Sanskrit and the learning of the Brahmins, they could dismantle the central structure of Hinduism, making conversion of the general population easier. During the Goan Inquisition, missionaries under Portuguese rule not only condemned Hindu texts but also destroyed them, forbade the teaching of Sanskrit, and forced conversions.

Against this colonial hatred for Sanskrit, Dr B. R. Ambedkar sought Sanskrit to be declared as India’s national language, but we had a Prime Minister who rejected the proposal. Sanskrit was included in the 22 scheduled languages in the Constitution.

The challenge to answer the calumnious attacks on the core of Bharat was accepted by RSS-inspired Sanskrit scholars, and an organisation, Sanskrit Bharati, was formed in 1981. It aimed to spread Sanskrit through spoken words, through everyday conversation, making the process easy and smooth. It worked wonders. Today, we have villages in India that speak only Sanskrit in daily life, in families; more than 4,500 centres of Sanskrit Bharati work in all states and have vigorous active branches in 28 countries. It has trained 10,00,000 teachers to teach Sanskrit. There are 18 Sanskrit universities in India (3 central, 1 deemed and 14 state universities), supported more intensely during the Modi government. Two states, Uttarakhand and Himachal, have declared Sanskrit as their second official language. Dehradun airport has all signage in English, Hindi and Sanskrit, and thousands of youth now speak fluently in Sanskrit. Based on estimates from the Central Sanskrit University and various reports, it is estimated that roughly 5 crore (50 million) students study Sanskrit at the school level across India.

The world of Sanskrit is becoming more and more all-encompassing and spreading fast at an astounding pace. A few milestones are given below:

School Level: Sanskrit is taught from 1st to 12th standard as an optional language in various states. Over 14,000 schools affiliated with Vidya Bharati alone teach Sanskrit from the 2nd standard onwards.

Traditional Education: There are approximately 5,000 traditional Sanskrit Pathashalas (schools) and 1,000 Veda Pathashalas, with about 3 lakh students studying in this sector.

Higher Education: Roughly 120 general universities offer Sanskrit at the undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) levels, along with 18 specialised Sanskrit universities.

Samskrita Bharati’s Impact: As of 2025, the non-profit organisation Samskrita Bharati reported training over 10 million people in spoken Sanskrit and over 135,000 teachers.

18 Sanskrit Universities: Dedicated to Sanskrit studies.

1220+ Sanskrit Colleges: Affiliated colleges offering specialised education.

26 Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalayas: Institutions for higher study.

These numbers are supported by significant government investment, with over ₹2,500 crore spent on promoting Sanskrit between 2014 and 2025. Surprisingly, it is not Uttarakhand or Himachal but Odisha that tops in privately run Sanskrit colleges and junior-level schools. Odisha hosts numerous voluntary Sanskrit organisations and over 32 colleges offering Sanskrit professional courses, degrees, or diplomas.

According to a 2026 report, Odisha ranks high in the number of recorded Vedic Gurukuls (21 listed), competing with other top states like Rajasthan.

Institutional Presence: The state hosts the Shree Jagannath Sanskrit Vishvavidyalaya (est. 1981 in Puri), a major public university for Sanskrit studies affiliated with the UGC. There is a strong presence of private and voluntary organisations offering Sanskrit education in the region, including many in areas like Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, and Balasore.

So, when Sanskrit Bharati’s tall nine-storeyed headquarters was inaugurated by the RSS chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat on Akshay Tritiya with the name Pranava (Omkar), it was a significant step towards regaining Bharatvarsh for us all. He rightly said – when you learn Sanskrit, Bharat descends in your heart.