The traditional Indian schooling was offered through residential institutions called "gurukula" that existed in various population centers. The "gurukula"s were run by a family of scholars and were distinguished by the tradition the school imparted. The "gurukula" was the home for the student for a dozen years starting at age six. The Islamic rulers established parallel schools called "madrasa" which were designed to impart Islamic cultural education. The English rulers established the modern school system to impart the British method of learning forcing the traditional Indian schools to become sectarian in character. The "gurukula" was confined to the monasteries and were licensed to prepare priests for Hindu rituals. The repercussions of the colonial invasion to the root of Indian traditions has been severe. I feel delighted to see that many scholars from various residual "gurukula" are attending the Conference. Let me hope that India recovers back with her glory during my life time.
Besides the "gurukula' scholars we have university students and teachers where Sanskrit is taught as a field of study. The entire British educational plan in India was designed to create the support staff for the administration and the analysis for the development of knowledge was not emphasized. The curriculum would mostly rest in collating and translating texts and occasional comparative commentary. The graduates from the schools were expected to be absorbed in employment by the Government, but there developed a glut of Sanskrit graduates leading to massive unemployment. Sanskrit was not considered an "attractive" topic by the students and it led to disuse. Stronger interdisciplinary research and formulation of new frontiers of work in music, phonetics, grammar and poetics is needed by the planners in free India.
Besides the residual scholars on the Vedas and the "shastra"s, the Conference has attracted scholars on the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, literature critics, grammarians, linguistic professionals and researchers on the traditional arts and traditions. We have two papers to present, both scheduled on Tuesday morning. The first paper develops thoughts on the origin of languages and analyzes human speech form the primitives. The paper is titled "Semantics vs. Lexicon - Musings on the Origin of Language" and tries to present evidence that our capacity to understand is higher than our capacity to express. It hypothesizes a concept called "cognitive grammar" as a brain function that can be useful in segmenting information to retain in storage. Prem Nagar presented the paper in the Linguistics track. The track-chair commented that the paper was too inter-disciplinary to be contained in a track. The compartmentalization of field of study roots itself in the British model. The paper was well received by the audience and did elicit good questions.
Our second paper was presented later in the morning by me in the philosophy track. The paper entitled "Rasa-Sanskya" dealt with the psycho-physics of human mood. "rasa" as a word is popular in Sanskrit to define "essence" and it has been put in use by the author of Indian dramaturgy in conveying dramatic moments through words, poetry and action. Ours is a model that tries to answer why the impact of a production is personal on the individual. We suggested through the neurological findings how the biological factor could be dormant in human beings and could be triggered through external stimulus. The paper was well received and we had an an instant fan club for having presented new techniques of research. It is always heartening to receive complimentary comments from other scholars particularly when one does not know them.
At lunch Dr Sampad arranged me to meet Dr Saraju Rath of the University of Leiden, Netherlands. Dr Rath comes from the next village to my ancestral village in Puri, Orissa, and is married and settled in the Netherlands. Her husband Dr Hauben is a linguist and works in Paris. Dr Rath advised that various Oriya-speaking scholars at the Conference could meet to know each other. We agreed to convene a meeting on Wednesday 5:30 PM.
We attended the sessions in Linguistics and Philosophy tracks in the afternoon. I had a desire of visiting the Thai Cultural production of reenacting the Thai history. We reserved tickets and proceeded to this multi-media show performed by two hundred artists in a special theater.