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Re: Vedic scholarship in India
Sankar Jayanarayanan wrote:
>
> The contents herein are from a conversation I had over the phone with a friend
> of mine.
>
> Seems there was a Vedic school called "Chitoor Pathasala" in Palghat, situated
> in the border of Tamilnadu and Kerala. In the 18th and 19th centuries, students
> flocked to it from every corner of India to learn the Vedanta. It was reputed
> to be one of the finest schools ever. Today, the Pathasala has one teacher
> and three or four students. Few know of their existence. It has no patrons and
> none is willing to fund it.
In the days of royalty, such Vedic pathashalas were supported by grants
of land and revenue, called brahma-deyam. Since independence, the Hindu
Religious and Charitable Endowments Board governs their administration
in every state I suppose. But the real cause for decline is that
studying at such Vedic pathashalas is not attractive for most people any
more. My grandfather was a mImAmsA SiromaNi from one such school in
Tanjavur, but neither my father nor I nor my brother have studied in
Vedic schools. We may talk all we want about Vedanta, but without there
being real interest in Vedic education, the schools wil continue to
decline. I don't see how this situation can be corrected easily in the
modern context.
>
> The Benaras Hindu University used to have debates on the Vedanta in which the
> opponents argue only in Sanskrit. Extempore speaking competitions were held.
> There were many professors who could teach the philosophy, chanting, etc.
> of the Vedas. Today, there is a single person there who knows the Rg Veda.
> In Benaras, There is only one place that has Vedic scholars. It is the Hanuman
> Ghat, which has a good strength of South-Indians. There are about three scholars
> who have a student or two each.
I hope this is not true. Benares is the symbolic centre of all Vedic
learning, and if it declines, the situation is serious indeed.
But as for pundits being able to converse in Sanskrit directly, I have
seen that happening at Sringeri, at the annual sadas held during the ten
days of the Ganesha Chaturthi festival. And most of those pundits were
from outside Sringeri. Some of them were pretty young too. I assume they
came from different schools in other parts of India.
>
> The only place in India that has any Vedic scholarship at all, I heard, is the
> Sringeri Math. There are three Upadhyayas(meaning "professor" in Sanskrit) and
> about fifteen students. Most of them are studying the Rg Veda.
>
> As my friend said, in a few years, even chanting of the Vedas would be history.
> What was handed down generation after generation as the nectar of spirituality
> is decaying so fast that there may be nothing at all soon.Already, in the north,
> there is almost none who knows the Vedas. The Maths established by Sankara,
> I hear, are in ruins in the North, East and the West. The one at Puri is
> almost empty. There is nothing going on there.
>
The latest information I have on the Sringeri Math's pathashala (1992)
is that there are some 13 teachers there and eighty odd students, about
20 of whom are learning r.g veda and the rest are learning yajur veda.
There are a few sAma vedins also among the pundits associated with the
math, but I don't know if they are teaching the sAma veda to students.
The Sringeri Math also runs an advanced school at their branch in
Bangalore, which typically has some ten students at any time. The
Sringeri Math has recently started another school in Guntur in Andhra
Pradesh recently, with financial support from the AP government.
There is some activity going on at the other three mathas, but I'm not
sure if they are still conducting vedic pathashalas as they used to. The
Puri math is running a veda pathashala, I think, but I don't have any
statistics about it. In Joshimath, there is a succession dispute that
has hampered any real vedic study for a long time. The official
Sankaracharya there is Swami Swaroopananda, but one Swami
Vishnudevananda contests his claim to the seat. In the midst of this
dispute, real learning suffers. Complicating matters is the fact that
Swaroopananda is also the Sankaracharya of Dwaraka, and spends most of
his time far away from Joshimath. I have seen Swami Swaroopananda
usually accompanied by a few students, so I assume that they are
receiving some Vedic learning.
Other than these, there is the school started by Govinda Dikshita in
Kumbhakonam, which still has close to 100 students. This school is
currently being financed by the Kanchi math, I think. I know of other
schools in Srirangam and Tiruvanaikkaval. There is also the Sankara
Gurukulam in Madras, that was started by Thetiyur Subrahmanya Sastrigal
early this century. There is also some activity going on in interior
Kerala, I'm sure. So I guess Vedic scholarship has not completely died
out in the south. Maharashtra also probably has some schools functioning
still.
> It was too sad to hear what was happening. Especially the fact that a beautiful
> Veda like the Sama Veda is...
>
> Can someone please atleast take the trouble of recording the chants of the
> existing portions of the Sama Veda? It would be too sad if it fades into
> oblivion. After say another generation, Sama Veda might become merely a
> written text. What was once the greatest among the Vedas would be lifeless
> without the musical chant.
>
There was some news, about a year ago, of a project where all four vedas
were being recorded as recited by old pundits. Some trust based in Delhi
was doing it, I think, though I can't recollect the details now.
S. Vidyasankar
