Voices Anand Neelakantan Neha Sinha Shampa Dhar-Kamath Ravi Shankar Dr Ramya Alakkal Swami Sukhabodhananda THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment may 17 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 The Return of Sanskrit In yoga studios and IIT laboratories, in Mumbai apartments and in rural India where it never became extinct, an ancient tongue is staging a quiet, magnificent comeback For many learners today, Sanskrit is a gateway into philosophy, spirituality, linguistics, and history T By Bindu Gopal Rao here is a word in Sanskrit used commonly—punarjanma—which means rebirth. It signifies transmigration of a soul across lifetimes, with every incarnation bearing the karmic residue of everything that came before. It is, perhaps, the most useful lens through which to understand what is happening to Sanskrit itself right now. It is a return, not resurrection. The language of the gods was never quite dead; it stayed woven into the cultural and intellectual fabric of the country Sanskrit has witnessed a quiet yet steady resur. gence in recent years. Once perceived largely as a classical or liturgical language, it is now increasingly being approached as a living intellectual tradition—one that offers access not just to scriptures, but to philosophy linguistics, literature, math, ematics, and even environmental thought embedded in ancient texts. Across India and among diaspora communities, new learners are discovering Sanskrit through yoga philosophy chanting, digital courses, and conversational programmes, giving , the language a renewed contemporary relevance. Take Shruti Jain, all of 33 years, who speaks about The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali the way other women her age might describe discovering a therapist who finally gets it. Until recently she , worked in communications, writing press releases, creating brand decks, all using the professional grammar of persuasion. Today she teaches yoga in Chennai and is 22 months deep into a Sanskrit diploma programme that has reoriented, by her own account, the entire architecture of her inner life. “My perception of the world has changed quite a bit. It reflects in the way I am present in situations; with people, and myself, as my understanding of the self has gotten better. Understanding the symptoms of the mind in Sanskrit has helped me notice when the mind is playing tricks, and that helps me separate from a situation and look at it from a different perspective. It helps me set healthy boundaries, protecting me and my peace,” she explains. Jain is talking, specifically about the vrttis—the fluctua, tions of consciousness that Patañjali catalogued in the second century CE. Yogas citta-vrtti-nirodha, he wrote—“Yoga is the cessation of the mind’s turbulence.” What drew Jain in first, though, was not grammar but sound. About a year before going for the diploma, she began listening to bhajans and Sanskrit chants during her morning routine. “I started memorising some of these chants and have found that just their plain recitation brings me immense calmness and eases my nerves. I feel mentally and emotionally charged in my body and I feel good about myself. , There is great power even in the recitation of the Sanskrit words,” she adds. This is not, as it happens, superstition. Scholars of phonosemantics have argued for decades that Sanskrit’s phonological structure, its precise articulation of vowels, and consonants, mapped onto the human oral cavity with extraordinary intentionality by the ancient grammarian Panini, produces measurable physiological effects. The ancients simply called it nada—primordial sound, the vibratory substrate of consciousness itself. Across the country institutions and , volunteer-driven organisations have been reporting an uptick in interest in Sanskrit learning, particularly among working professionals and retirees who see it as a way to reconnect with India’s intellectual heritage. Short-term conversational courses, online lectures, podcasts, and Sanskrit learning apps have made the language more accessible. Social media communities now regularly share daily Sanskrit vocabulary spoken Sanskrit , challenges, and simplified grammar lessons to help learners engage with the language outside traditional academic settings. Kiran Motani, a 62-year-old biomedical engineer based in Chikoowadi, Borivali (West), Mumbai, began learning Sanskrit in 2017 at a 10-day conversational Sanskrit camp organised by Samskrita Bharati, an institution that is working towards popularising Sanskrit. The camp ran for two hours every day and around , 100 people participated. “During this time, I learned basic Sanskrit vocabulary and sentence formation. After the camp, I continued attending regular classes and correspondence courses offered by Samskrita Bharati. Gradually I became , comfortable conversing in Sanskrit. Over time, with consistent practice and by reading the Sanskrit magazine Sambhashana Sandesha (more on that later), my confidence improved. I also learned through YouTube lectures and eventually began teaching Sanskrit online through Zoom and Google Meet. In 2022, I enrolled in a three-year Advaita Vedanta programme at CSU, equivalent to a BA degree.” Learning the language has helped Motani to understand India’s ancient texts and philosophies deeply “Sanskrit is an . extremely logical language, and its grammar is often compared to mathematical formulas, which makes it structured and precise. Another unique aspect of Sanskrit is that it is written exactly as it is spoken, with no silent letters or regional dialect differences,” he adds. He now teaches Sanskrit to children from different parts of the world every Sunday , which he does through songs, games, and stories in Sanskrit, making the learning process fun and interactive. The response, he says, has been extremely encouraging. As it happens, certain researchers at IIT Madras are now suggesting the resurgence of interest and practice is not an accident at all. Prof. Deepak Paramashivan’s office at IIT Madras does not look like a place where ancient and future collide, but it is. He teaches Indian logic from the Tarka Sangraha, a 17th-century text of the Nyaya school; he teaches advanced Sanskrit literature, and also teaches Sanskrit for yoga practitioners. He will soon introduce a course in computational linguistics rooted entirely in the Paninian grammatical tradition. His BTech students have already built a RetrievalAugmented Generation model—the architecture currently powering much of modern artificial intelligence’s ability to reason from documents—to help students query classical texts and receive structured explanations drawn from traditional commentaries. Under the leadership of the institute’s director, Prof. V Kamakoti, IIT Madras has also begun establishing Indian Knowledge Systems corridors across departments on campus. These curated exhibits present the scientific and technological insights embedded in ancient Sanskrit texts, highlighting India’s long-standing contributions to mathematics, astronomy medicine, , architecture, and engineering. The institution is collaborating with Madras Sanskrit College on a project to develop a Sanskrit-based large language model. “Sanskrit is an etymological language, and many words in other languages have their origin in it,” explains Dr Vinayak Namannavar, head of manuscriptology at Karnataka Sanskrit University in Bengaluru, where students can pursue doctorates in disciplines ranging from Nyaya-Vaisesika—the ancient school that combined Turn to page 2 Not Lost in Translation  Once perceived largely as a classical or liturgical language, Sanskrit is now increasingly being approached as a living intellectual tradition  Short-term conversational courses, online lectures, podcasts, and Sanskrit learning apps have made the language more accessible  Learning the Sanskrit language helps understand India’s philosophies deeply  At IIT Madras, Indian logic is taught from the Tarka Sangraha, a 17th-century text of the Nyaya school  The institution is collaborating with Madras Sanskrit College on a project to develop a Sanskritbased large language model  In Mattur, a village in Karnataka’s Shimoga district, Sanskrit circulates as a lived idiom  Sambhasana Sandesa Patrika is the world’s only Sanskrit audio magazine  Through the Patrika’s Balakendra programme for children, more than 2,000 children across India now speak Sanskrit as their mother tongue  In Mysuru, Sudharma is a daily newspaper written entirely in Sanskrit, which has appeared without interruption since 1970  Its e-paper, launched in 2009, has readers across continents  For many learners today, Sanskrit is no longer merely a subject in school textbooks but a gateway into philosophy, spirituality, linguistics, and history  Beyond universities, several organisations are working to make Sanskrit part of everyday speech