Kick behind-make teeth fall
Bapa Rao (brao@tis.com)
Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:08:52 -0700 (PDT)
Namaskaram Venkateswara Rao garu.
Enjoyed your posting. Though I wouldn't use the word "ironic" to describe
the fact that "deva" bhaasha is "dead." Having just seen Disney-praNeeta
Yavana-puraNam, aka the movie "Hercules" (in which the hero rejects
immortality for his mortal love), one might say that there is a
cidambara-rahasyam embedded in the fate of Sanskrit--very simply,
the price of immortality is to be not alive, for to be alive is to be
mortal. The two go hand-in-hand. No one and nothing is truly immortal
without being at the same time dead.
Maybe it is time to end the internecine "telusa" sanskrit-vs-non wars, and
instead unite and train our guns on a common foe, the old standby
paapaala-bhairavuDu, the Westerner or apraacyuDu. If you like I can
contribute a little samidha by observing that no language that expresses
a dry logical construct in such a colorful way as to say "pRshTataadaanaat
dantabhanga:" can be considered truly dead. (at least not as long as the
muscle in question continues to provoke salacious giggles among the
young). on the other hand, the truly dead language is that of the
deceased European male, to wit, Latin, which robs logical absurdity
of its mirth by haughtily sniffing, "non sequitur."
Let the war begin. :-)
Best regards,
Bapa Rao