Scholars toil, agonize over Sanskrit project

PUNE, India — For three generations, they have compiled and argued, agonized and transcribed — toiling in monastic tedium to turn an intricate 44-letter language into six volumes, so far, of word after long-forgotten word.

They have delved into the grammatical roots of “antahpravesakama” and debated the pun hidden in “anangada.” They’ve done a brain-numbingly complete dissection of “anekakrta.”

Now, 55 years after a group of scholars began composing the authoritative dictionary of Sanskrit, the long-dead language of India’s ancient glory, they are almost done — with the first letter.

“Sanskrit,” sighed Vinayaka Bhatta, chief editor of the dictionary project at Deccan College, “is not easy to translate.”

No kidding.

The project has consumed the skills of more than two dozen scholars (so far), cataloged 9 million citations of Sanskrit terms and given the most thorough of definitions to thousands of words.

All this in a language glutted with puns, metaphors and multiple meanings that hasn’t been spoken — except in religious rituals or by a handful of academics — for centuries.

The low estimate to completing the project? At least another 50 years.

That — they’ll tell you in Pune — isn’t really that long.

“Some people say Sanskrit has no value,” said Vinaya Kshirsagar, a grammarian and 18-year dictionary veteran. “But you have to take care of your culture and your civilization.”

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of Sanskrit in this part of the world.

Like Latin in the medieval West, Sanskrit in ancient India was the language of the elite, largely limited to scholars, royalty and priests. The works they wrote, on everything from astronomy to the lives of Hindu deities, helped mold centuries of intellectual life and remained in wide use until about 1100 A.D.

“In those days, it was everything,” said Mr. Bhatta, chief editor of the dictionary project.

These days, it can seem that the dictionary is everything. The project sends learned people — scholars with strings of graduate degrees and the authorship of dense books — floundering for words.

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