Editing Sanskrit (section)

== Influence ==
{{Quote box
| quote = Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30&nbsp;million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting the largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press.
| source = — Foreword of ''Sanskrit Computational Linguistics'' (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf<ref>{{cite book|author1=Gérard Huet|author2=Amba Kulkarni|author3=Peter Scharf|title=Sanskrit Computational Linguistics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P3pqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PR5|year=2009|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-642-00155-0|pages=v–vi|access-date=20 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135412/https://books.google.com/books?id=P3pqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PR5#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=P M Scharf|author2=M Hyman|editor=V Govindaraju and S Setlur|title=Guide to OCR for Indic Scripts: Document Recognition and Retrieval|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WdSR9OJ0kxYC&pg=PA238|year=2009|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-84800-330-9|page=238|access-date=20 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135502/https://books.google.com/books?id=WdSR9OJ0kxYC&pg=PA238#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|The Indian Mission for Manuscripts initiative has already counted over 5 million manuscripts. The thirty million estimate is of [[David Pingree]], a manuscriptologist and historian. – Peter M. Scharf<ref name=scharf233>{{cite book|author1=Justin McDaniel|author2=Lynn Ransom|title=From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls: New Approaches to the Study of Asian Manuscript Traditions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KL-XCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA233|year=2015|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4736-7|pages=233–234|access-date=20 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135232/https://books.google.com/books?id=KL-XCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA233#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>}}
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Sanskrit has been the predominant language of [[Hindu texts]] encompassing a rich tradition of [[Hindu philosophy|philosophical]] and [[dharma|religious]] texts, as well as poetry, music, [[Sanskrit drama|drama]], [[Scientific literature|scientific]], technical and others.<ref>{{cite book|author=Gaurinath Bhattacharyya Shastri|title=A Concise History of Classical Sanskrit Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC|year=1987|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0027-4|access-date=19 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134732/https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Banerji|1989|pp=618–632, see also the extended list of Sanskrit texts in Part II}} It is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st&nbsp;century&nbsp;BCE, such as the [[Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana]] and [[Hathibada Ghosundi inscriptions|Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh)]].{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=86–87}}

Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism.<ref name="Parret1976p102"/>{{sfn|Burrow|1973|pp=57–64, 289, 319}} The structure and capabilities of the Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language.<ref name="Parret1976p102"/><ref name=deshpande2010/> They speculated on the role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other.<ref name=deshpande2010>Madhav Deshpande (2010), ''Language and Testimony in Classical Indian Philosophy'', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-india/ Source Link] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135433/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-india/ |date=29 March 2024 }}</ref>{{efn|A celebrated work on the philosophy of language is the ''Vakyapadiya'' by the 5th-century Hindu scholar Bhartrhari.<ref name="Parret1976p102"/><ref>Stephanie Theodorou (2011), ''Bhartrihari (c. 450—510&nbsp;CE)'', IEP, [https://www.iep.utm.edu/bhartrihari/ Source link] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720081334/https://www.iep.utm.edu/bhartrihari/ |date=20 July 2018 }}</ref><ref name="Parret1976p121">{{cite book |author=J.F. Staal |editor=Herman Parret |title=History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hQh0bC5RAe8C&pg=PA102 |year=1976 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-005818-5 |pages=121–125 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135311/https://books.google.com/books?id=hQh0bC5RAe8C&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>}} These speculations became particularly important to the [[Mīmāṃsā]] and the [[Nyaya]] schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states [[Frits Staal]]—a scholar of Linguistics with a focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit.<ref name="Parret1976p102">{{cite book |author=J.F. Staal |editor=Herman Parret |title=History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hQh0bC5RAe8C&pg=PA102 |year=1976 |publisher=Walter de&nbsp;Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-005818-5 |pages=102–130 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135311/https://books.google.com/books?id=hQh0bC5RAe8C&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship;{{sfn|Wayman|1965|pp=111–115}} for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, [[Nagarjuna]] ({{circa}}200&nbsp;CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts.<ref>{{cite book |author=John Kelly |editor=Jan E.M. Houben |title=Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_eqr833q9qYC&pg=PA87 |year=1996 |publisher=BRILL Academic |isbn=978-90-04-10613-0 |pages=87–102 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329140002/https://books.google.com/books?id=_eqr833q9qYC&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Renou, Sanskrit had a limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The [[Mahāsāṃghika]] and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature.{{sfn|Louis Renou|Jagbans Kishore Balbir|2004|pp=177–180}} Sanskrit was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the ''Tattvartha Sutra'' by [[Umaswati]].{{efn|'That Which Is', known as the ''Tattvartha Sutra'' to Jains, is recognized by all four Jain traditions as the earliest, most authoritative, and comprehensive summary of their religion. —{{sfn|Umāsvāti|1994|pp=xi–xiii}} }}<ref>{{cite book |author=Paul Dundas |editor=Patrick Olivelle |title=Between the Empires : Society in India 300&nbsp;BCE to 400&nbsp;CE |year=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-977507-1 |pages=395–396 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=efaOR_-YsIcC |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135744/https://books.google.co.ma/books?id=efaOR_-YsIcC&redir_esc=y |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:2nd-century CE Sanskrit, Kizil China, Spitzer Manuscript folio 383 fragment recto and verso.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25 | The [[Spitzer Manuscript]] is dated to about the 2nd&nbsp;century CE (above: folio 383 fragment). Discovered in the [[Kizil Caves]], near the northern branch of the Central Asian [[Silk Route]] in northwest China,<ref>{{cite book |author=K. Preisendanz |editor1=Florence Bretelle-Establet |editor2=Stéphane Schmitt |title=Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYteDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175 |year=2018 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-78467-0 |pages=175–178 with footnotes |access-date=16 December 2019 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135939/https://books.google.com/books?id=XYteDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> it is the oldest Sanskrit philosophical manuscript known so far.<ref>Eli Franco (2004), ''The Spitzer Manuscript: The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit'', Volume&nbsp;1 & 2, Verlag Der Österreichischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften (Austrian Academy of Sciences Press), {{ISBN|978-37001-3-3018}}, pp. 461–465</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit |author=Eli Franco |s2cid=169685693 |journal=Journal of Indian Philosophy |volume=31 |pages=21–31 |number=1/3 |year=2003 |jstor=23497034 |doi= 10.1023/A:1024690001755}}</ref>]]
The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402&nbsp;CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim [[Faxian]] who translated them into Chinese by 418&nbsp;CE.{{sfn|Robert E. Buswell Jr.|Donald S. Lopez Jr.|2013|p=504}} [[Xuanzang]], another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657&nbsp;Sanskrit texts to China in the 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong.<ref>{{cite book |author=Stephen K. Stein |title=The Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, and Trade &#91;2 volumes&#93; |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QmOWDgAAQBAJ |year=2017 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-3551-3 |page=147 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135836/https://books.google.com/books?id=QmOWDgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Charles Taliaferro |title=A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CfWoAwAAQBAJ |date=2010 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-8504-4 |pages=245–246 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135940/https://books.google.com/books?id=CfWoAwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia,{{sfn|Ramesh Chandra Majumdar|1974|pp=1–4}} parts of the East Asia<ref name="OrzechSørensen2011"/> and the Central Asia.{{sfn|Banerji|1989|pp=595–596}} It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions.{{sfn|Michael C. Howard|2012|p=21}} According to the [[Dalai Lama]], the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called ''legjar lhai-ka'' or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet.{{sfn|The Fourteenth Dalai Lama|1979|pp=3–5}}

[[File:One of earliest Sanskrit inscriptions in Java Indonesia.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|A 5th-century [[Sanskrit inscriptions in the Malay world|Sanskrit inscription]] discovered in [[Java]], [[Indonesia]]—one of the earliest in southeast Asia after the [[Yūpa#Yūpa inscription in Indonesia|Mulavarman inscription]] discovered in [[Kutai]], eastern [[Borneo]]. The [[Ciaruteun inscription]] combines two writing scripts and compares the king to the Hindu god [[Vishnu]]. It provides a ''[[terminus ad quem]]'' to the presence of Hinduism in the Indonesian islands. The oldest southeast Asian Sanskrit inscription—called the [[Võ Cạnh inscription|Vo Canh inscription]]—so far discovered is near [[Nha Trang]], [[Vietnam]], and it is dated to the late 4th century to early 5th century&nbsp;CE.{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=55–56}}<ref>{{cite book |author=Ooi |first=Keat Gin |author-link=Keat Gin Ooi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QKgraWbb7yoC |title=Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-57607-770-2 |page=643 |access-date=21 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116094029/https://books.google.com/books?id=QKgraWbb7yoC |archive-date=16 January 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
The Sanskrit language created a pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=222–223}}{{sfn|Burrow|1973|p=60}} It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent.{{sfn|Burrow|1973|p=60}} As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language.{{sfn|Burrow|1973|p=60}} It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given the first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=222–223}} Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to the more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as {{Transliteration|sa|namah}}.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=222–223}}

Classical Sanskrit is the standard [[Register (sociolinguistics)|register]] as laid out in the grammar of {{IAST|[[Pāṇini]]}}, around the fourth century&nbsp;BCE.<ref name="Houben 1996 p. ">{{cite book|last=Houben|first=Jan|title=Ideology and status of Sanskrit: contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language|publisher=E.J. Brill|location=Leiden New York|year=1996|isbn=978-90-04-10613-0|page=11}}</ref> Its position in the cultures of [[Greater India]] is akin to that of [[Latin]] and [[Ancient Greek]] in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the [[Indian subcontinent]], particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent.<ref name="Bright2014p16">{{cite book|author=William Bright|title=American Indian Linguistics and Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TVa1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16|year=2014|publisher=Walter De Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-086311-6|pages=16–17|access-date=17 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329140013/https://books.google.com/books?id=TVa1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Groff2017">{{cite book|author=Cynthia Groff|title=The Ecology of Language in Multilingual India: Voices of Women and Educators in the Himalayan Foothills|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qLc7DwAAQBAJ|year=2017|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1-137-51961-0|pages=183–185|access-date=17 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135747/https://books.google.com/books?id=qLc7DwAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Pandey2015p86">{{cite book|author=Iswari P. Pandey|title=South Asian in the Mid-South: Migrations of Literacies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vFnkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT86|year=2015|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|isbn=978-0-8229-8102-2|pages=85–86|access-date=17 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329140436/https://books.google.com/books?id=vFnkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT86#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Decline ===
The decline of Sanskrit began in the 13th century.<ref name=pollock1996p197/>{{Sfn|Hock|1983}} This coincides with the beginning of [[Islam]]ic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand the [[Muslim]] rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the [[Mughal Empire]].{{sfn|Sheldon Pollock|2009|pp=167–168}} Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression.{{sfn|Pollock|2001}}

With the fall of [[Kashmir]] around the 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared,{{sfn|Hanneder|2002|pp=293–310}} perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock.{{Sfn|Pollock|2001|pp=397–398}} The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century.{{sfn|Pollock|2001|p=398}} As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and the South India, such as the great [[Vijayanagara Empire]], so did Sanskrit.{{sfn|Hanneder|2002|pp=293–310}} There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor [[Akbar]].<ref name="Truschke2016p9">{{cite book |author=Audrey Truschke |title=Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DMJ1CwAAQBAJ |year=2016 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-54097-1 |pages=9–15, 30–36, 45–47}}</ref> Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with the Muslim rulers.<ref name="Deshpande1993p118" /> Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the [[Maratha Empire]], reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity.<ref name="Deshpande1993p118">{{cite book|last=Deshpande|first=Madhav M.|title=Sanskrit & Prakrit, Sociolinguistic Issues |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NDrqaELkKTEC |year=1993 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-1136-2 |pages=118–124}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=B.B. Kachru|title=Kashmiri Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3mAlg5qw130C|year=1981|publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag|isbn=978-3-447-02129-6|pages=24–25|access-date=20 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329140437/https://books.google.com/books?id=3mAlg5qw130C|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Gurnam Singh Sidhu Brard |title=East of Indus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UUdYFH9skIkC |year=2007 |publisher=Hemkunt Press |isbn=978-81-7010-360-8 |pages=80–82 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329150337/https://books.google.com/books?id=UUdYFH9skIkC |url-status=live }}</ref> After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support the historic Sanskrit literary culture{{sfn|Hanneder|2002|pp=293–310}} and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment.{{sfn|Pollock|2001}}

[[Sheldon Pollock]] states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is [[language death|dead]]".{{sfn|Pollock|2001|p=393}} After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with the previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock.{{sfn|Pollock|2001|p=398}}

Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes a negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder,<ref name="Hatcher 2007 pp. 333 – 361">{{cite journal |last1=Hatcher |first1=Brian A. |title=Sanskrit and the morning after: The metaphorics and theory of intellectual change |journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review |date=September 2007 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=333–361 |doi=10.1177/001946460704400303 |s2cid=144219653}}</ref>

{{blockquote|On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be a dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead."{{sfn|Hanneder|2002|pp=293–310}}}}

{{multiple image
 | align = right
 | direction = vertical
 | width = 300
 | image1 = Isha Upanishad Verses 1 to 3, Shukla Yajurveda, Sanskrit, Devanagari.jpg
 | image2 = 1863 CE palm leaf manuscript, Jaiminiya Aranyaka Gana, Samaveda (unidentified layer of texts), Sanskrit, Southern Grantha script, Malayali scribe Kecavan, sample ii.jpg
 | image3 = 3rd Chapter Verses 1-2, Bhagavad Gita, Gurmukhi script, Punjab.jpg
 | image4 = Vedanta Sara manuscript, page 4 recto, Sanskrit, Telugu script.jpg
 | image5 = Manuscript fragment of the Buddhist Jatakamala, Sanskrit language in the Gilgit-Bamiyan-Typ II Protosarada script, Toyuk, probably 8th-9th century - Ethnological Museum, Berlin - DSC01754.JPG
 | footer = Sanskrit language manuscripts exist in many scripts. Above from top: ''Isha Upanishad'' (Devanagari), ''Samaveda'' (Tamil Grantha), ''Bhagavad Gita'' (Gurmukhi), ''Vedanta Sara'' (Telugu), ''Jatakamala'' (early Sharada). All are Hindu texts except the last Buddhist text.
}}
The Sanskrit language scholar [[Moriz Winternitz]] states that Sanskrit was never a dead language and it is still alive though its prevalence is lesser than ancient and medieval times. Sanskrit remains an integral part of Hindu journals, festivals, Ramlila plays, drama, rituals and the rites-of-passage.<ref>{{cite book|author=Moriz Winternitz|title=A History of Indian Literature, Volume 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JRfuJFRV_O8C|year=1996|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0264-3|pages=37–39|access-date=20 July 2018|archive-date=26 December 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226083105/https://books.google.com/books?id=JRfuJFRV_O8C|url-status=live}}</ref> Similarly, Brian Hatcher states that the "metaphors of historical rupture" by Pollock are not valid, that there is ample proof that Sanskrit was very much alive in the narrow confines of surviving Hindu kingdoms between the 13th and 18th centuries, and its reverence and tradition continues.<ref name="Hatcher 2007 pp. 333 – 361" />

Hanneder states that modern works in Sanskrit are either ignored or their "modernity" contested.<ref>{{citation|last=Hanneder|first=J.|year=2009|contribution=Modernes Sanskrit: eine vergessene Literatur|title=Pāsādikadānaṃ: Festschrift für Bhikkhu Pāsādika|editor-last=Straube|editor-first=Martin|editor2-last=Steiner|editor2-first=Roland|editor3-last=Soni|editor3-first=Jayandra|editor4-last=Hahn|editor4-first=Michael|editor5-last=Demoto|editor5-first=Mitsuyo|publisher=Indica et Tibetica Verlag|pages=205–228|url=http://indologica.de/drupal/?q=node/749|access-date=23 November 2014|archive-date=27 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141027040119/http://indologica.de/drupal/?q=node/749|url-status=live}}</ref>

According to [[Robert P. Goldman]] and Sally Sutherland, Sanskrit is neither "dead" nor "living" in the conventional sense. It is a special, timeless language that lives in the numerous manuscripts, daily chants, and ceremonial recitations, a ''heritage language'' that Indians contextually prize, and which some practice.{{sfn|Robert P. Goldman|Sally J Sutherland Goldman|2002|pp=xi–xii}}

When the British introduced English to India in the 19th century, knowledge of Sanskrit and ancient literature continued to flourish as the study of Sanskrit changed from a more traditional style into a form of analytical and comparative scholarship mirroring that of Europe.{{sfn|Seth|2007|pp=172–176}}

=== Modern Indo-Aryan languages ===
The relationship of Sanskrit to the Prakrit languages, particularly the modern form of Indian languages, is complex and spans about 3,500&nbsp;years, states [[Colin Masica]]—a linguist specializing in South Asian languages. A part of the difficulty is the lack of sufficient textual, archaeological and epigraphical evidence for the ancient Prakrit languages with rare exceptions such as Pali, leading to a tendency toward [[anachronism|anachronistic]] errors.{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=50–57}} Sanskrit and Prakrit languages may be divided into Old Indo-Aryan (1500&nbsp;BCE – 600&nbsp;BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan (600&nbsp;BCE – 1000&nbsp;CE) and New Indo-Aryan (1000&nbsp;CE – present), each can further be subdivided into early, middle or second, and late evolutionary substages.{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=50–57}}

Vedic Sanskrit belongs to the early Old Indo-Aryan stage, while Classical Sanskrit to the later Old Indo-Aryan stage. The evidence for Prakrits such as Pali (Theravada Buddhism) and Ardhamagadhi (Jainism), along with Magadhi, Maharashtri, Sinhala, Sauraseni and Niya (Gandhari), emerge in the Middle Indo-Aryan stage in two versions—archaic and more formalized—that may be placed in early and middle substages of the 600&nbsp;BCE – 1000&nbsp;CE period.{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=50–57}} Two literary Indo-Aryan languages can be traced to the late Middle Indo-Aryan stage and these are ''Apabhramsa'' and ''Elu'' (a literary form of [[Sinhala language|Sinhalese]]). Numerous North, Central, Eastern and Western Indian languages, such as Hindi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Nepali, Braj, Awadhi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Marathi, and others belong to the New Indo-Aryan stage.{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=50–57}}

There is an extensive overlap in the vocabulary, phonetics and other aspects of these New Indo-Aryan languages with Sanskrit, but it is neither universal nor identical across the languages. They likely emerged from a synthesis of the ancient Sanskrit language traditions and an admixture of various regional dialects. Each language has some unique and regionally creative aspects, with unclear origins. Prakrit languages do have a grammatical structure, but like Vedic Sanskrit, it is far less rigorous than Classical Sanskrit. While the roots of all Prakrit languages may be in Vedic Sanskrit and ultimately the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, their structural details vary from Classical Sanskrit.<ref name="Woolner1986p3"/>{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=50–57}} It is generally accepted by scholars and widely believed in India that the modern [[Indo-Aryan languages]] – such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, and Punjabi – are descendants of the Sanskrit language.{{sfn|Philipp Strazny|2013|pp=499–500}}<ref>{{cite book|first=Sagarika|last=Dutt|title=India in a Globalized World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ouYdDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA16|year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-6901-7|pages=16–17|access-date=24 September 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329140726/https://books.google.com/books?id=ouYdDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA16|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Cynthia |last=Groff |title=The Ecology of Language in Multilingual India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qLc7DwAAQBAJ |year=2017 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-51961-0 |pages=183–185 |access-date=17 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135747/https://books.google.com/books?id=qLc7DwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Sanskrit, states Burjor Avari, can be described as "the mother language of almost all the languages of north India".<ref>{{cite book |first=Burjor |last=Avari |author-link=Burjor Avari |title=India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent from c. 7000&nbsp;BCE to CE&nbsp;1200 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaTDAAAQBAJ |year=2016 |orig-year=first published 2007 |edition=2nd |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-23673-3 |pages=66–67 |access-date=24 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329140330/https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaTDAAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>