Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat The Sanskrit Language: an Overview History and structure, linguistic and philosophical representations, uses and users Translated from the French by TK. Gopalan Be ErSa(l (i ice TRotenCover illustration: Sanskrit manuscript of Yoga Vasistha Sara Original title: Le Sanskrit © Presses Universitaires de France, 1992 Coilection Que sais-je? n° 1416 © This edition: 2000 Indica Books D 40/18 Godowlia Varanasi - 221 001 (U.P.) India ISBN: 81-86569-17-0 Published with the assistance of the Cultural Section of the Embassy of France in India Acknowledgements ofthe Translator: Lam grateful, among several friends, to Dr. V. Kameswari, and especially to ‘T.V. Vasudeva, of the Kuppuswamy Sastri Research Institute, Chennai, for helping with the citations in Chapters | and 2, oT. Jayaraman of the cemment Arts College, Mannargndi for exhaustively going through the it tial draft ofthe translation and offering numerous eitical comments, to Pro- fessor PS. Filiozat for eadingboth the intial and the subsequent drafts and clearing my doubts and to Dominik Wujastyk ofthe Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, for going through the final version with meticulous care and suggesting a number of corrections, and for providing ‘an original translation ofthe passage from Caraka figuring in chapter 3. ‘TK.Gopalan Printed in India by Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi 110 020CONTENTS Introduction Chapter I. The Language 1. The history of the language 1. The Vedic language 2. Bvolution and preservation of Vedic. The recitation of the Vedas 3. Panini, Katyayana, Pataijali 4, The stabilisation of Sanskrit II. The structure of Sanskrit 1. The name of Sanskrit 2. The Paninian structures 3. The script Chapter II. Representations of Sanskrit and philosophy of speech I. Sanskrit and other languages IL The place given to Sanskrit in the world and in society IIL, Sanskrit and the transcended speech. 1, Sanskrit, the eternal word . 2. The transcended word 3, Sanskrit as a way to religious salvation 1 BT 11 56 59 60 64