After Yoga, it’s now the turn of Sanskrit to take the global state

The Durbar Hall, brightly painted in Jodhpur blue and enveloped in stained-glass windows, was packed to capacity. The audience represented many nationalities, but they were bound together in their reverence for one language—Sanskrit. At the 13th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival held in the stately 19th-century Diggi Palace in the Pink City, Sanskrit stole the show and no one was complaining.

One of the key topics at the JLF, called the ‘Kumbh Mela of Literature’, this year was Sanskrit as a living language. “Sanskrit is very much alive and well,” said Oscar Pujol, a Sanskrit scholar from Spain, who has authored two dictionaries in the language. “Sanskrit can still influence philosophical thought and human sciences in the world,” added Pujol, who heads the Cervantes Institute, the cultural arm of the Spanish embassy, in Delhi.

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