BITTER quarrels among the bookish colleagues over meanings of words are common. Sleepless nights fretting about the possible roots of language are not unheard of. Scholars have taken as long as six months to divine the depths of a single adjective.
Compiling the most comprehensive dictionary of Sanskrit, the long-dead language of India’s glorious past, is a fraught and time-consuming business: extremely time consuming. Fifty-five years after the project began the team is half way through — the first letter.
At present pace the “As” alone could take another 18 years. Entries for some of the completed words are so complex that they run to five pages. Once they get through “A”, only another 43 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet remain.
“I won’t even hazard a guess as to how many volumes it will take,” said Vinayaka Bhatta, 55, a 22-year dictionary veteran elevated to acting chief editor of the project at Deccan College in Pune, Maharashtra. “Or when, perhaps if, we’ll finish this. It’s just a huge task.”
The first 34 years were spent cataloguing ten million references to words from nearly 1,600 seminal Sanskrit volumes. They date back to the 2nd century BC in disciplines as diverse as philosophy, ancient Hindu medicine and astrology. About 20 scholars working on the dictionary have retired already.
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But the daunting magnitude leads few to doubt its importance. “Sanskrit gives India a great sense of identity,” Katragadda Paddayya, the college’s director, said. “It serves to unify the country and is a repository for our ancient knowledge.”
Sanskrit was the language of the elite, restricted to the aristocracy, scholars and priests. For centuries they used it to shape India’s intellectual heritage, with works on everything from mathematics to the epics of Hindu mythology, before it passed from general usage in about AD1100.
Sanskrit remains one of India’s 18 official languages, together with English and the most widely spoken, Hindi. The dictionary translates from Sanskrit to English, reflecting the nationwide appeal of both languages.
Now in a functional 20th-century block tucked at the campus’s rear, rows of scholars toil to give Sanskrit new life in a dusty realm that time has largely forgotten. Musty yellowing reference books line steel shelves and fans stir the languid monsoon air. Little of the modern world intrudes on the editorial room’s unhurried calm. A sole computer lies idle. Working with nothing more than pencils and reference cards mined from the “scriptorium” below, 18 scholars spend their days at scuffed wooden desks indulging in mental gymnastics.
It was all so different when the college, long-renowned for its Sanskrit studies, embarked on the project in 1948, a year after India’s independence. Then there were 30 scholars beavering away as the newly minted India strived to spotlight its illustrious history.
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Today appeals for funds go unheeded and 34 posts are unfilled, among them that of the chief editor, which has been “temporarily” vacant for six years. “We’re emaciated and impoverished,” Dr Bhatta said.
Still, political pressure is mounting to finish the project. “Sometimes the Government says we should complete this in five years,” Professor Paddayya says. “Even if it could be done in that time, the quality would suffer.” With a wave of his hand across the fraying leather-bound tomes, Dr Bhatta dismisses any notion of upping the pace.
Sanskrit’s sheer complexity means that, even after 40 years of study, if he strays into a text outside his specialities of logic and philosophy he has little hope of understanding it straight off. As an example of the difficulties, he flips open a completed volume and picks out anuvas, which can mean “to cover or clothe”, “to dwell or inhabit”, or even “to sweeten”. It also has subtle variations, depending on the context and era from which it has been taken. “Words like that are horrible and give us a lot of trouble,” said Dr Bhatta, a reluctant Sanskrit student who grew to love his work only after ten years in the job. “I spent sleepless nights trying to work that one out.”
Even when one editor settles on a solution, others may disagree. “We fight all the time,” Dr Bhatta said. On cue, a robust discussion breaks out between two scholars seated side-by-side at the back of the room. Pratibha Pingle, at 57 a 24-year veteran, and Yahodhara Wadhwani-Shah, 59, her senior in service by five years, are having a heated exchange about a word. “It’s mind- boggling,” Dr Wadhwani-Shah said. “We’re having doubts about this enormous entry. Now we can’t agree. We’re friends, but we argue.”
To ensure that there is some hope of finishing some day, Dr Bhatta is the final arbiter. “I have to end our discussions and say: ‘Full stop,’ ” he said. “The others don’t necessarily agree and I don’t always make satisfactory decisions.” At least there will be plenty of time to put them right in future.