Sanskrit, Self-realization and Krishna West
Yesterday I wrote about a book that I just finished today, the Sanskrit translation of an Oriya novel, Yājñasenī . I read through the 450 pages from beginning to end pretty much without stopping, which was an exciting new experience for me. After all, I have been studying Sanskrit for a long time, and it was a joy to be able to become absorbed in a book almost as though the language had finally become completely natural to me. It seems, though, that a lot of what I do these days makes me reflect on the whole "Krishna West" debate. Yesterday, I spoke in favor of opening Sanskrit to foreign influences through translation. Though this may still be a good idea, it may be worth considering the view that perhaps keeping the Sanskritic tradition hermetically sealed in an India of the past may also be one. Now learning Sanskrit is something that I did quite spontaneously without really giving it a great deal of thought, and the paths to learning it were opened to me in the Ha...