LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 24:4 April 2024
ISSN 1930-2940

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Sanskrit Renaissance and the Re-construction of Socio-cultural Power in Nation: Colonial European Cultural Interactions

Dr. S. Sridevi

Abstract

This paper aims to study the new energy of Sanskrit renaissance in Europe due to European voyages to India, followed by trade and then the construction of British India. It created a new social impetus to Sanskrit in India too, and the Indian intelligentsia, empowered by western education also began to examine texts written in the language. Interpretations came out in a pouring manner of these ancient texts, some locating them as the manufacturers of caste system, and some appreciating their contribution to science, literature, and philosophy and especially law. We have to re-understand how German intelligentsia interpreted and viewed these texts. The concept of nation in the age of nationalism, and its ideology of an imagined community with similar culture and shared beliefs has brought forth the necessity to enquire into the foundation of India’s modern identity, as perhaps, constructed by Oriental scholarship and the knowledge with new developments it brought forth.

Keywords: Sanskrit Renaissance, Colonial European Cultural Interactions, Re-construction of Socio-cultural Power, Indian subcontinent

Marx’s writings brought forth the tradition of historical materialism that studies “how our everyday lives are structured by the connection between relations of power and economic processes.” Accordingly, it studies questions of “how specific relations of power and specific economic formations have developed historically.” These relations “form the context in which the institutions, practices, beliefs, and social rules (norms) of everyday life are situated.” A society evolves its “shared practices, values, beliefs, and artifacts” based on the way its economic production operates. It argues that “human societies act upon their environment and its resources in order to use them to meet their needs. Hunter-gatherer, agrarian, feudal, and capitalist modes of production have been the economic basis for very different types of society throughout world history” (Little, et al).

In this line of thought scholars in popular culture have begun to argue that the rise of the middle classes all over the world has brought about economic and political changes. As the Catholic Church did not support the business men “they split from the old Church (Catholic), and created their own new church (Protestantism), that did not look down on money lending, and moved from Europe to America to create a republic that supported free enterprise and did not care much for inherited entitlement. In the new world order created by Americans, professionalism matters more than loyalty.” To avoid this shift from feudalism to capitalism in India, “the feudal orders were legitimised by brahmins, who helped establish new villages especially in the south, and created systems for tax collection for God’s first servant, the king.” The business class was “patronised by the monastic Buddhist and Jain orders, who looked down on violence that was integral to war and agricultural activities.” There are exceptions to this as “many trading communities embraced Brahminism such as the Gujarati Vaishnavas and the Tamil Chettiars.” Mainstream economy in India “favoured the kshatriya feudalism to market-based economies of vaishyas.” Before this period India was “a country of sea-faring merchants” and “outsourced international trade to Arabs.” After social codes began insisting on “valuing submission to authority” the economic power of India came down (Pattanaik).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. S. Sridevi
Professor of English and Principal
Chevalier T. Thomas Elizabeth College for Women
Chennai 600011, Tamil Nadu, India
sridevisaral@gmail.com
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