Foundation of Nalanda University likely in 2009: Amartya Sen
The foundation of the ambitious Nalanda University, which would be a centre of outstanding academic excellence reflecting the collective Asian heritage, is likely to be in the year 2009 and the first teaching class could begin in a few years from then, Nobel Laureate, Amatya Sen, said on Saturday.
Give me Light! Give me Enlightenment! Such has been and is the daily prayer of the Hindus from Vedic times. The fire of knowledge, assures Krishna in the Gita, “turns all karma into ashes.”
From the chanting of the Gayatri to the creation of Gurukulas (Krishna had his education in a Gurukul), from Gurukulas to the universities to Taxila and Nalanda, it has been a glorious march (Jnana Marga) of the Hindus in search of salvation.
Men are of two kinds: the active (Europeans) and the contemplative(Hindus). The former took to karma yoga and the latter to Janna yoga. Which explains why the Hindu civilisation is the richest and greatest of all. The Hindus were naturally known for their Sattwa guna and the Europeans for their rajo guna. Jnana marga and jnana dana came to be closely associated with the Hindus alone.
This explains how the Nalanda university came by its name, for “Nalam” means knowledge “da” means to give dana, Nalanda was the greatest giver of knowledge for either longer centuries till it was destroyed by the Jehadi Muslim invaders. Jnana dana was considered greater than Anna dana by Hindus. This tradition of the Hindus is reflected in every aspect of Hindus civilisation.
Takshashila (Taxila) was perhaps the first university to be built in India. It was mainly devoted to Sanskrit studies. Alexander, the Great, is reported to have met with some of the teachers to Taxila. (They were called Gymnosophistes by the Greeks) And there was Kanchi in the South and Kashi in the North as major centres of learning. Bhojshala in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh is another such university in central India which was started by Vikramadiya.Not to metion Except Kanchi all were destroyed.
Nalanda was built around 427 AD. It began as a Indian University, but came to be an international university. The Hindu dynasty of Guptas made a major contribution to its expansion. And emperor Harsha added many faculties to the university. With 10,000 students, 2000 teachers, Nalanda attracted students and teachers from all over the world and from India.
The university was indeed an architectural wonder with temples, open spaces for recreation, meditation halls, class rooms, lakes, parks, a multi-story library with tens of thousands of manuscripts in Sanskrit and Pali, dormitories for students, etc. Apart from Buddhist studies, Nalanda taught comparative religions, astronomy, fine arts, mathematics, medicine and art of war.
By the 9th century,Nalanda came under attack by Muslim invaders. In 1197 AD, the Khilji commander Bhaktiyar destroyed the Nalanda University.
Learning was suspect in both Christianity and Islam. For a thousand years Europe lived in mental darkness. And Islam is still living in darkness. While the Christians destroyed the best library of Europe, the Muslims destroyed the Library and Museum of Alexandria. Like the Alexandrian Library, Nalanda burnt for months.
For 800 years, the Hindus were not allowed to pursue the jnana marga. Nehru laments in Discovery of India: in 800 years of Muslim rule, they did not build even one college! And had it not been for the law passed by Lord Curzon to protect the great Indian monuments, Nalanda would have been a mere name in Indian history.
Independent India restored the Somnath Temple. Thanks to Dr K M Munshi, a Gujarati. But no Bihari came up with the idea of restoring the Nalanda! Perhaps the idea came first from George Fernandes. In any case, he was the one to approach UNESCO in 1990 for financial assistance. In the event, it is largely financed by Japan.
India needs a world class university like Oxford of Harvard. More so, because the world expects India to provide moral leadership to the world. Nalanda can be the conscience of India, the symbol of our commitment to freedom of thought.
The fear is: Nalanda will end up like Viswabharathi unless it is in the hands of committed men. We are not restoring Nalanda to produce MBAs. Unfortunately, the Mentor Group which is looking after the restoration fails to carry conviction. A Amartya Sen, one of the Group, is not Tagore!
The Mentor Group was right in one thing: they declared that the restoration of Nalanda is part of the Asian renaissance. That is exactly what it is. An Asian renaissance—to be precise, an Asian awakening—is necessary to prepare Asia for a leadership role in the world.
Sen, who heads the Nalanda Mentor Group, said the final report in this regard, is expected to be presented to the East Asia Summit in December this year, which is most likely to be finalized at the fourth meeting of the mentor group in August. The first two meetings of the Nalanda Mentor Group were held in Singapore and Tokyo last year.
''We are expecting that the foundation of the institution, with some luck, would be sometime in 2009. By the time classes begin it has to be more time, possibly an year or two from then,'' Sen said after the conclusion of the third meeting of the Nalanda Mentor Group in New York. The Nalanda Mentor Group also decided to pursue the structure of interim appointment of a rector or registrar who would be stationed at the proposed site to ensure the timely establishment of the university. An eminent academician is likely to be appointed soon for an initial period of five years, he said.
The two day meeting was attended among others by Lord Meghnad Desai, Prof. Emeritus, London School of Economics; Professor Sugata Bose from Harvard University; N K Singh, Deputy Chairman, Bihar Planning Commission, besides high level representation from China, Japan and Singapore.
Terming the establishment of the Nalanda University, a collaborative effort of as many as 16 countries, a challenging project, Sen said: ''This is a new kind of the university in the sense that the subjects are modern and at the same time that we do have an ancient heritage. We also do have the perspective of Asian togetherness, which is very strong. That does not mean that we would not welcome interest and participation from any country in the world, but our focus is Asian, it is an Asian effort and it is distinctly post-imperial in that sense.''
Besides the host India and the 10 ASEAN countries, China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia are part of this collective effort to revive the glorious academic heritage of the historic Nalanda University. The intention is to construct a university in Nalanda on international cooperation across the South and East Asian region with participation from all the countries, with whom the heritage of Nalanda connects, he said.
''We are very keen that we keep our academic standards impeccably very high and faculty with greatest distinction as well as students who are suitable for that kind of studies,'' Sen said, arguing that there would be no compromise with the ''standards'' and standing of the Nalanda University.
Describing his vision of the Nalanda University, Sen said: ''Maintaining past heritage is a very important thing. I think, we have to maintain it through an unconscious process that we respect the past. Nalanda was totally unique as an university, which came to an end at the same time when the Oxford University was being founded and Cambridge was yet to come. It was an outstanding university then, it is maintaining the heritage to be an outstanding university now. Secondly, it was an international university then, and it should be an international university now.''
Sen said: ''It is interesting that the bulk of what we know about Nalanda is not in Sanskrit, but it is in Chinese. It had a global conception then and maintaining that it is important that we should have global conception now and maintain the high standards which teachers there like Huen Tsang would have been proud.''
While the funding aspect of the project would be decided later this year, Sen said the University would six departments / faculties. These are Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions; Historical Studies; International Relations & Peace Studies; Business Management and Development Studies; Languages and Literature; and Ecology and Ecology and Environmental Studies.
With Bihar Government already acquiring the land, Sen said the location of the Nalanda University would be across the historic site, a large portion of which still has not been excavated. ''We would keep our respectful but visible distance from them.'
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Aamir Khan: Mr Blockbuster
He quit studies after Class XII at Mumbai's N.M. College much to his parents' horror, choosing to work as an assistant director for four years. After his pin-up worthy debut in 1988, he wept every day coming home from work, convinced that the nine films he had signed in a rush would crash his career. Then in 2002, after he separated from Reena, his wife of 16 years, he drank a bottle of Bacardi every day for a year-and-a-half, except for the six hours a week and every alternative weekend he would see his children. Not what you would call the perfect ingredients for success. But Aamir Hussain Khan, all 44 years and 5 ft 7 inches of him, his wife's diamond studs twinkling in ears pierced for Lagaan, has always swum against the tide.
Only now the tide seems to be swimming with him. He's just starred in 3 Idiots, a film that has been breaking box office records at home and abroad, making Rs 240 crore in 10 days and still counting. His last four films, released over three successive years, Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, Taare Zameen Par and Ghajini, made a collective box office revenue of over Rs 590 crore. He makes an average of Rs 10 crore a year from each of the six brands he endorses. The way he marketed Ghajini will now be taught as part of a course in film marketing at IIM-Ahmedabad. The profit he is contemplating from 3 Idiots, as a result of a wise decision to forego his fees and split the profit three ways between producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, director Raju Hirani and himself, will be over Rs 20 crore. But more than that, his films have consistently hit a nerve with audiences, either getting them to participate in candlelight vigils inspired by Rang De Basanti, treat children with greater sensitivity as in Taare Zameen Par or even cause them to bulk up their bodies as in Ghajini.
In an industry ripped apart by camps, he is his own institution, working with untested new directors (Farhan Akhtar in Dil Chahta Hai) and even failed filmmakers (Ashutosh Gowariker, who had two flops behind him, in Lagaan). He's been a producer for the smash hit Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na which starred his nephew and made Rs 115 crore at the box office, a director for Taare Zameen Par and even the unofficial CEO of Ghajini Inc. He shuns the awards circus and has never been seen in public performing song and dance routines. Yet his decision to act in one movie at a time is now a mass mantra and a sure career cure. His help was sought in resolving the two-month stand-off with multiplexes last year. And equally, his move to not charge a fee for 3 Idiots could set off a trend of stars putting their talent where their mouth is in these leaner, meaner times.
Yet as he sits folded up in his favourite chair in the projection room of his home, two floors below his mother's home where he was born and brought up, it is hard to think of the word superstar. He exudes an aura, but the room is more suited to that of a messy student, with books such as Katherine Frank's Indira to Abraham Verghese's The Tennis Partner sharing shelf space with PC games and Bob Dylan and Sufi qawwali CDs. The make-up room is stacked with the tools of his trade, from spare costumes to a wigmaker's dummy. And the terminal above his computer has chronologically labelled scripts. The actor himself is on his fourth coffee, talking about how he lost weight for his role of Rancho in 3 Idiots, which director Rajkumar Hirani rewrote for Khan. He speaks of how he modelled the 17-year-old on the boyish director of Ghajini, A.R. Murugadoss, and his 14-year-old nephew Pablo, who can never sit still. He jumps up to demonstrate, as he often does in his exuberance, contorting his body like an over-active teenager. "But Rancho was also dangerous because he is without a flaw. The audience's heart doesn't go out to such a guy. So I made him curious rather than cocky," he says.
Straight from the heart
"I feel I'm a special person and if someone does something to me, I just remove myself from that person's life."
"My brain is like a computer in its memory for scripts. It just soaks everything in and then it's in my head at all times. I'm often thinking of the part and it starts coming to me. Then I start collecting the information. Often it's not thought out."
"The two mistakes I made early on was signing nine films within six months of my debut and giving too much importance to scripts, not directors."
"A star's dependability is measured by his unsuccessful films. Whatever business it does is because of him."
"I was 16 when I realised I wanted to be an actor. My school friend Aditya Bhattacharya decided to cast me in a 40-minute silent film called Paranoia, financed with Rs 8,000 from actor Shriram Lagoo. Making that film convinced me that this is where I belonged. Shabana Azmi saw it and told my parents. All hell broke loose."
"Seeing my father go bankrupt when his film Locket was stuck for eight years taught me to be responsible to the market."
"My first instinct when I go home is to pick up a book, not the remote. I've been reading since I was six."
Thinking deeply about his character is something Khan has done increasingly, whether it is Bhuvan's stance in Lagaan, with his weight evenly distributed on his legs to suggest inner strength, or Aakash's darting eyes in Dil Chahta Hai indicating what a shallow layabout he is. Khan thinks in close-up, wide shot and mid-shot, in total physicality, says film scholar Nasreen Munni Kabir. He borrows a lot of his technique from observation-for one scene where Mona Singh slaps him while he is helping her deliver in 3 Idiots, he cheerfully admits to copying from his ex-wife Reena's difficult labour for their first born. And even more cheerfully says he loves talking to interesting new people. "Sometimes I feel like sucking their brains out."
Khan is a star who doesn't play himself in every film, as Amitabh Bachchan did at the height of his fame or Shah Rukh Khan tends to do. He plays the character, which may be why he tends to work with new directors, who help in creating a fresh persona every time. "Audiences now expect an element of surprise from him," points out Kabir. "Like a magician, they want him to conjure up a new character."
Once he has identified the perfect script, a director whose vision he shares, and a producer who will back it, Khan surrenders himself to the moment. There's no spillover, no hangover. Everything apart from the movie goes into soft focus. "When I read a script, it just goes straight to my brain," he says. "It's like a computer in its memory. It just soaks everything in and then it's in my head at all times," he adds, even as he acts out the first part he got in a play in Class XII. It was a line as a painter in a Gujarati play, a role he couldn't actually perform because he was sacked for missing a day of rehearsals. The line remains etched in his hard drive. He repeats it now: "Bloody hell, no one marries me. I wish his mother gets married to a dog."
On the sets, Khan is a trooper. He will hang out even when he doesn't have lines, or just play Scrabble with the assistants. He will promote the film across the country on every media he can find. And he will just not want to go home. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who directed him in Rang De Basanti, and has been a friend since, says, "He makes himself completely accessible to the filmmaker." Kunal Kohli, who directed him in Fanaa, recalls how Khan was apologetic even asking him for four days off in the middle of the shoot in Mumbai in 2005 because he wanted to get married to Kiran Rao, a highly rated assistant director whose debut feature Dhobi Ghat will release this year. "He's there whether it is for readings or costume trials," adds Kohli. "And he's just incredibly intelligent. How many people do you know who can solve the Rubik's cube with one hand?"
Khan calls this quality "obsessive" and regrets that he cannot spend more time with his children, Junaid, 16, and Ira, 11, when he is acting in a film. His cousin, Nuzhat Hussain, a psychoanalyst, who lives in the building next door, has been close to him since he was 10 and she 15. She says the level of professionalism in his work where each person is given due respect is reflected in his personal life as well, where he is fastidious about his honesty. He simply cannot tell a lie. "But he is not superhuman. He does make mistakes. He hurts himself. But he is totally open to learning and feeling new things, which I think is an act of courage," says Hussain. Khan does have self-doubts. Personally, yes, and also professionally. But he refuses to compromise on his films. He says he learnt that lesson early on when he signed a spate of films in a hurry on the basis of their scripts and then realised the director's vision was completely different from his. He recalls that when he was at his lowest point, having been dismissed as a one film wonder, it was Mahesh Bhatt who offered him a hand, discussing a script with him, which as luck would have it, he didn't like it.
"He was at the peak of his talent, having just done Saaransh, Arth and Naam and I didn't know how I could tell him I didn't like his script. So I bought time, came home and asked Reena. She told me to follow my heart. I did, telling Bhattsaab that I wanted to do instead was a remake of one of my favourite films, Roman Holiday, with Sridevi. He listened but then took out a screenplay of Frank Capra's 1934 film It Happened One Night. Six months later, we would do the film together as Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin." That's a lesson of following his happiness that he hasn't forgotten since then. It's taught him to do things his way, to go with his gut instinct even when every practical sense is screaming no, as it did when Mehra narrated Rang De Basanti to him, which was coming on the heels of four Bhagat Singh flops. And if he still needs advice, he turns to Hussain, who is producer Nasir Hussain's daughter, and actor Imran Khan's mother. "She's one person I go to when I need to talk about anything," he says warmly. "She's a great thinker."
Stardom sits simply on him. Yes, there are the six bodyguards who travel everywhere with him. His man Friday Sachin, his girl Friday Sarita, and his manager Binki seem to stay awake all night. There is also the flashy Toyota Landcruiser and the Rs 10-crore sprawling house in Panchgani. But Khan is essentially a middle-class man, who thinks nothing of upturning the Body Shop shower gel to catch the last drop or blindly trusting his accountant of 20 years to invest his money well. It's ingrained in him because his most formative years, eight to 14, were spent in the shadow of his father, producer Tahir Hussain's imminent bankruptcy.
Coming soon
This year Khan intends to focus onhis three home productions
DHOBI GHAT
It's his wife Kiran Rao's first feature film, based on her script, with multiple concurrent stories, all set in Mumbai. Khan plays a divorced painter while Prateik Babbar is the protagonist.
PEEPLI LIVE
A comic view of a farmer's life directed by former journalist Anusha Rizvi, based on her own script. It's one of the first films from India to be selected in the competitive section of the Sundance Film Festival. Khan has high hopes from it.
DELHI BELLY
An urban comedy about three strugglers, starring Imran Khan, stand up comics Vir Das and Kunal Roy Kapoor. Is directed by ad filmmaker Abhinay Deo. Khan will be sitting in on its post-production and will then plan the marketing.
"My father spent eight years making a film called Locket which was stalled because actors wouldn't give him dates," he says now. "For five years, I remember him getting calls from creditors every day asking him when he would return their money. And my father would always say I'm trying my best. One night, he woke up in the middle of the night, looking for his graduation certificate so he could get a job and feed us. Our fees would always be late and our names would be called out in school," he says of himself and his three siblings, sisters Nikhat and Farhat, and brother Faisal. They survived only because a film their father did in between, Dulha Bikta Hai on dowry, became a surprise hit. That was also the time Khan was devoted to tennis, playing five hours a day at the Khar Gymkhana, travelling all over from Kolhapur to Pune, sharing rooms in lodges with seven other children, becoming Maharashtra No. 1 in boys. But then one day when he was 14, his father, something of a tyrant, announced to his mother that Khan should give up tennis because his marks were falling. "My marks stayed where they were but my tennis stopped," recalls Khan.
He learnt two valuable life lessons from his childhood. One was how to tell a story, as he would sit in a corner of his drawing room listening fascinatedly to writers and directors pitching their narrations to his father. "My father would say things like 'tell me the story in one line please', 'what is your premise' or 'but where's the conflict?'," remembers Khan, things he now knows are taught in film schools. He also learnt the importance of making money for the producers and distributors of his films.
"As an actor it is my responsibility to ensure the producer makes his money back and the audience gets its money worth," he says. It's one reason the cerebral actor, who gets excited by Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of Gandhi, also proudly admits to reading Bollywood trade papers. After all, as a child, his father would make him write down box office collections of his films on the phone from places such as Amravati and Aurangabad.
As much as he is an individualist, Khan needs his family around him. He's close to his mother, Zeenat, now 74, who lives in Pune and whom he is now persuading to return and live with him. There are things she taught him he will never forget. "I remember I would come back from my tennis matches and tell her I'd won, and she would congratulate me while making tea for me. And then ask, but what of the boy who lost? His ammi must be very upset. That would be enough to depress me." It taught him empathy and he started regarding his rival as a human being, whom he would share a cold drink with or an after-match vada pav. There are other things she taught him well-he's probably the only star who knocks before entering a room in his own home and who remembers to show visitors the washroom while they wait for him to freshen up.
He also seems to be looking better than ever. Khan attributes it to his dietician Vinod Dhurandhar who brought his weight down to 68 kg while making 3 Idiots. He slept eight hours a day at least and also started playing badminton, sometimes two hours a day, with students at IIM-Bangalore where they shot for 3 Idiots for over a month. He drinks four litres of water a day. And while friends say he is not above binge drinking, being able to put away several Bacardis for four days in a row, he has stopped smoking for over a year now.
"I just went cold turkey," he says. "I realised this with the three-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week training I did for Ghajini for over a year. The human mind is a very powerful tool. If it wants something badly, the body will give it. It's like what yogis say." Yet for such a sober individual, Khan can be a fun person, who enjoys learning skiing with his children in Canada as much as he takes pleasure in the piano lessons his wife Kiran gives him. He adores Calvin & amp; Hobbes and as is obvious from his well aimed barbs at Shah Rukh, he revels in a little light mischief. The best part about him, says long-time friend, ad man Prasoon Joshi who's worked with him on several campaigns and written songs for some of his films, he doesn't take himself too seriously.
Amit Khanna, chairman of Reliance Entertainment which distributed 3 Idiots, believes Khan is a throwback to the Dilip Kumar-Raj Kapoor-Dev Anand era when filmmakers lived for cinema and believed it had a higher social purpose beyond making money. "Yet he's as savvy as the new kids on the block, up to speed with Facebook and blogging." Khan doesn't quite put it so grandly. "Money doesn't excite me. It gives me comfort but it's not what makes me tick. Neither does throwing my weight around, or making a noisy entry or making a scene. Give me a great book or a great script any day." Given his anointment as the new box office guru of gyaan, there should be no shortage of the latter.
The Bold and the beautiful
Aamir says he has always marched to the tune of his own drummer. "My choices were unusual. But when I started out, I didn't have the power I have now. I had to fight against market forces who were foxed by my so-called bizarre moves."
QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK, 1988
Director: Mansoor Khan
Made at the height of the disco era, it was a breath of fresh air, heralding Sooraj Barjatya's Maine Pyar Kiya and Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. "When we shot it, I was 21 and when it released, I was 23. We would wonder who will watch the film in the theatres."
RANGEELA, 1995
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
"Ramu had four flops before this. Urmila (Matondkar) had eight. The film had no story," he says. But his loveable tapori Munna became the template for Sanjay Dutt's Munnabhai.
GHULAM, 1998
Director: Vikram Bhatt
"It was one of the first films at that time about disenchanted youth. This supposed hero had such sham bravado. He was a macho guy who became almost cerebral." Khan says it took a little time for the market to understand that it would not lose money on his films.
SARFAROSH, 1999
Director: John Mathew Mathan
Mathan was unknown when he came to Khan with Sarfarosh but the movie, with its tough guy police officer, ACP Rathore, and anti terrorist theme "really shocked people as it came out of the blue". He says it marked the turning point for the trade's belief in his bankability.
LAGAAN, 2001
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Khan says, "When I told the late Jhamu Sughand, who was a very hardcore businessman, that I'm doing this film with Gowariker and it will cost a lot of money, he didn't blink. He never asked me are you sure? 1893 and cricket? Sports films haven't worked in India. But he didn't question me."
RANG DE BASANTI, 2006
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
"I told my sister, who is in New York, that I was making the fifth remake of Bhagat Singh. The first four had flopped. She told me you've got to be kidding." The film's nihilism set off debates and its emotional activism sparked candlelight marches but Khan's flashy DJ was memorable. To use his words, "so nice".
TAARE ZAMEEN PAR, 2007
Director: Aamir Khan
It was written by Amole Gupte who directed it for a week, until Khan, the producer, took over from him. He made a simple story of a dyslexic child into a timely movie questioning the education system, which turned out to be a surprise hit.
3 IDIOTS, 2009
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
"My character Rancho was written in a dangerous way. He had no flaws. Your heart doesn't go out to him. It's the flaws that make you loveable. When I realised that very early on, I told Hirani I don't want to play it in a heroic manner as he will get on people's nerves. I didn't want to play it smart but naturally curious." The role required him to lose 10 kg, act like a 17-year-old, terrorise a principal, deliver a baby, and break off an engagement.
Kaveree Bamzai
Only now the tide seems to be swimming with him. He's just starred in 3 Idiots, a film that has been breaking box office records at home and abroad, making Rs 240 crore in 10 days and still counting. His last four films, released over three successive years, Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, Taare Zameen Par and Ghajini, made a collective box office revenue of over Rs 590 crore. He makes an average of Rs 10 crore a year from each of the six brands he endorses. The way he marketed Ghajini will now be taught as part of a course in film marketing at IIM-Ahmedabad. The profit he is contemplating from 3 Idiots, as a result of a wise decision to forego his fees and split the profit three ways between producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, director Raju Hirani and himself, will be over Rs 20 crore. But more than that, his films have consistently hit a nerve with audiences, either getting them to participate in candlelight vigils inspired by Rang De Basanti, treat children with greater sensitivity as in Taare Zameen Par or even cause them to bulk up their bodies as in Ghajini.
In an industry ripped apart by camps, he is his own institution, working with untested new directors (Farhan Akhtar in Dil Chahta Hai) and even failed filmmakers (Ashutosh Gowariker, who had two flops behind him, in Lagaan). He's been a producer for the smash hit Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na which starred his nephew and made Rs 115 crore at the box office, a director for Taare Zameen Par and even the unofficial CEO of Ghajini Inc. He shuns the awards circus and has never been seen in public performing song and dance routines. Yet his decision to act in one movie at a time is now a mass mantra and a sure career cure. His help was sought in resolving the two-month stand-off with multiplexes last year. And equally, his move to not charge a fee for 3 Idiots could set off a trend of stars putting their talent where their mouth is in these leaner, meaner times.
Yet as he sits folded up in his favourite chair in the projection room of his home, two floors below his mother's home where he was born and brought up, it is hard to think of the word superstar. He exudes an aura, but the room is more suited to that of a messy student, with books such as Katherine Frank's Indira to Abraham Verghese's The Tennis Partner sharing shelf space with PC games and Bob Dylan and Sufi qawwali CDs. The make-up room is stacked with the tools of his trade, from spare costumes to a wigmaker's dummy. And the terminal above his computer has chronologically labelled scripts. The actor himself is on his fourth coffee, talking about how he lost weight for his role of Rancho in 3 Idiots, which director Rajkumar Hirani rewrote for Khan. He speaks of how he modelled the 17-year-old on the boyish director of Ghajini, A.R. Murugadoss, and his 14-year-old nephew Pablo, who can never sit still. He jumps up to demonstrate, as he often does in his exuberance, contorting his body like an over-active teenager. "But Rancho was also dangerous because he is without a flaw. The audience's heart doesn't go out to such a guy. So I made him curious rather than cocky," he says.
Straight from the heart
"I feel I'm a special person and if someone does something to me, I just remove myself from that person's life."
"My brain is like a computer in its memory for scripts. It just soaks everything in and then it's in my head at all times. I'm often thinking of the part and it starts coming to me. Then I start collecting the information. Often it's not thought out."
"The two mistakes I made early on was signing nine films within six months of my debut and giving too much importance to scripts, not directors."
"A star's dependability is measured by his unsuccessful films. Whatever business it does is because of him."
"I was 16 when I realised I wanted to be an actor. My school friend Aditya Bhattacharya decided to cast me in a 40-minute silent film called Paranoia, financed with Rs 8,000 from actor Shriram Lagoo. Making that film convinced me that this is where I belonged. Shabana Azmi saw it and told my parents. All hell broke loose."
"Seeing my father go bankrupt when his film Locket was stuck for eight years taught me to be responsible to the market."
"My first instinct when I go home is to pick up a book, not the remote. I've been reading since I was six."
Thinking deeply about his character is something Khan has done increasingly, whether it is Bhuvan's stance in Lagaan, with his weight evenly distributed on his legs to suggest inner strength, or Aakash's darting eyes in Dil Chahta Hai indicating what a shallow layabout he is. Khan thinks in close-up, wide shot and mid-shot, in total physicality, says film scholar Nasreen Munni Kabir. He borrows a lot of his technique from observation-for one scene where Mona Singh slaps him while he is helping her deliver in 3 Idiots, he cheerfully admits to copying from his ex-wife Reena's difficult labour for their first born. And even more cheerfully says he loves talking to interesting new people. "Sometimes I feel like sucking their brains out."
Khan is a star who doesn't play himself in every film, as Amitabh Bachchan did at the height of his fame or Shah Rukh Khan tends to do. He plays the character, which may be why he tends to work with new directors, who help in creating a fresh persona every time. "Audiences now expect an element of surprise from him," points out Kabir. "Like a magician, they want him to conjure up a new character."
Once he has identified the perfect script, a director whose vision he shares, and a producer who will back it, Khan surrenders himself to the moment. There's no spillover, no hangover. Everything apart from the movie goes into soft focus. "When I read a script, it just goes straight to my brain," he says. "It's like a computer in its memory. It just soaks everything in and then it's in my head at all times," he adds, even as he acts out the first part he got in a play in Class XII. It was a line as a painter in a Gujarati play, a role he couldn't actually perform because he was sacked for missing a day of rehearsals. The line remains etched in his hard drive. He repeats it now: "Bloody hell, no one marries me. I wish his mother gets married to a dog."
On the sets, Khan is a trooper. He will hang out even when he doesn't have lines, or just play Scrabble with the assistants. He will promote the film across the country on every media he can find. And he will just not want to go home. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who directed him in Rang De Basanti, and has been a friend since, says, "He makes himself completely accessible to the filmmaker." Kunal Kohli, who directed him in Fanaa, recalls how Khan was apologetic even asking him for four days off in the middle of the shoot in Mumbai in 2005 because he wanted to get married to Kiran Rao, a highly rated assistant director whose debut feature Dhobi Ghat will release this year. "He's there whether it is for readings or costume trials," adds Kohli. "And he's just incredibly intelligent. How many people do you know who can solve the Rubik's cube with one hand?"
Khan calls this quality "obsessive" and regrets that he cannot spend more time with his children, Junaid, 16, and Ira, 11, when he is acting in a film. His cousin, Nuzhat Hussain, a psychoanalyst, who lives in the building next door, has been close to him since he was 10 and she 15. She says the level of professionalism in his work where each person is given due respect is reflected in his personal life as well, where he is fastidious about his honesty. He simply cannot tell a lie. "But he is not superhuman. He does make mistakes. He hurts himself. But he is totally open to learning and feeling new things, which I think is an act of courage," says Hussain. Khan does have self-doubts. Personally, yes, and also professionally. But he refuses to compromise on his films. He says he learnt that lesson early on when he signed a spate of films in a hurry on the basis of their scripts and then realised the director's vision was completely different from his. He recalls that when he was at his lowest point, having been dismissed as a one film wonder, it was Mahesh Bhatt who offered him a hand, discussing a script with him, which as luck would have it, he didn't like it.
"He was at the peak of his talent, having just done Saaransh, Arth and Naam and I didn't know how I could tell him I didn't like his script. So I bought time, came home and asked Reena. She told me to follow my heart. I did, telling Bhattsaab that I wanted to do instead was a remake of one of my favourite films, Roman Holiday, with Sridevi. He listened but then took out a screenplay of Frank Capra's 1934 film It Happened One Night. Six months later, we would do the film together as Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin." That's a lesson of following his happiness that he hasn't forgotten since then. It's taught him to do things his way, to go with his gut instinct even when every practical sense is screaming no, as it did when Mehra narrated Rang De Basanti to him, which was coming on the heels of four Bhagat Singh flops. And if he still needs advice, he turns to Hussain, who is producer Nasir Hussain's daughter, and actor Imran Khan's mother. "She's one person I go to when I need to talk about anything," he says warmly. "She's a great thinker."
Stardom sits simply on him. Yes, there are the six bodyguards who travel everywhere with him. His man Friday Sachin, his girl Friday Sarita, and his manager Binki seem to stay awake all night. There is also the flashy Toyota Landcruiser and the Rs 10-crore sprawling house in Panchgani. But Khan is essentially a middle-class man, who thinks nothing of upturning the Body Shop shower gel to catch the last drop or blindly trusting his accountant of 20 years to invest his money well. It's ingrained in him because his most formative years, eight to 14, were spent in the shadow of his father, producer Tahir Hussain's imminent bankruptcy.
Coming soon
This year Khan intends to focus onhis three home productions
DHOBI GHAT
It's his wife Kiran Rao's first feature film, based on her script, with multiple concurrent stories, all set in Mumbai. Khan plays a divorced painter while Prateik Babbar is the protagonist.
PEEPLI LIVE
A comic view of a farmer's life directed by former journalist Anusha Rizvi, based on her own script. It's one of the first films from India to be selected in the competitive section of the Sundance Film Festival. Khan has high hopes from it.
DELHI BELLY
An urban comedy about three strugglers, starring Imran Khan, stand up comics Vir Das and Kunal Roy Kapoor. Is directed by ad filmmaker Abhinay Deo. Khan will be sitting in on its post-production and will then plan the marketing.
"My father spent eight years making a film called Locket which was stalled because actors wouldn't give him dates," he says now. "For five years, I remember him getting calls from creditors every day asking him when he would return their money. And my father would always say I'm trying my best. One night, he woke up in the middle of the night, looking for his graduation certificate so he could get a job and feed us. Our fees would always be late and our names would be called out in school," he says of himself and his three siblings, sisters Nikhat and Farhat, and brother Faisal. They survived only because a film their father did in between, Dulha Bikta Hai on dowry, became a surprise hit. That was also the time Khan was devoted to tennis, playing five hours a day at the Khar Gymkhana, travelling all over from Kolhapur to Pune, sharing rooms in lodges with seven other children, becoming Maharashtra No. 1 in boys. But then one day when he was 14, his father, something of a tyrant, announced to his mother that Khan should give up tennis because his marks were falling. "My marks stayed where they were but my tennis stopped," recalls Khan.
He learnt two valuable life lessons from his childhood. One was how to tell a story, as he would sit in a corner of his drawing room listening fascinatedly to writers and directors pitching their narrations to his father. "My father would say things like 'tell me the story in one line please', 'what is your premise' or 'but where's the conflict?'," remembers Khan, things he now knows are taught in film schools. He also learnt the importance of making money for the producers and distributors of his films.
"As an actor it is my responsibility to ensure the producer makes his money back and the audience gets its money worth," he says. It's one reason the cerebral actor, who gets excited by Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of Gandhi, also proudly admits to reading Bollywood trade papers. After all, as a child, his father would make him write down box office collections of his films on the phone from places such as Amravati and Aurangabad.
As much as he is an individualist, Khan needs his family around him. He's close to his mother, Zeenat, now 74, who lives in Pune and whom he is now persuading to return and live with him. There are things she taught him he will never forget. "I remember I would come back from my tennis matches and tell her I'd won, and she would congratulate me while making tea for me. And then ask, but what of the boy who lost? His ammi must be very upset. That would be enough to depress me." It taught him empathy and he started regarding his rival as a human being, whom he would share a cold drink with or an after-match vada pav. There are other things she taught him well-he's probably the only star who knocks before entering a room in his own home and who remembers to show visitors the washroom while they wait for him to freshen up.
He also seems to be looking better than ever. Khan attributes it to his dietician Vinod Dhurandhar who brought his weight down to 68 kg while making 3 Idiots. He slept eight hours a day at least and also started playing badminton, sometimes two hours a day, with students at IIM-Bangalore where they shot for 3 Idiots for over a month. He drinks four litres of water a day. And while friends say he is not above binge drinking, being able to put away several Bacardis for four days in a row, he has stopped smoking for over a year now.
"I just went cold turkey," he says. "I realised this with the three-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week training I did for Ghajini for over a year. The human mind is a very powerful tool. If it wants something badly, the body will give it. It's like what yogis say." Yet for such a sober individual, Khan can be a fun person, who enjoys learning skiing with his children in Canada as much as he takes pleasure in the piano lessons his wife Kiran gives him. He adores Calvin & amp; Hobbes and as is obvious from his well aimed barbs at Shah Rukh, he revels in a little light mischief. The best part about him, says long-time friend, ad man Prasoon Joshi who's worked with him on several campaigns and written songs for some of his films, he doesn't take himself too seriously.
Amit Khanna, chairman of Reliance Entertainment which distributed 3 Idiots, believes Khan is a throwback to the Dilip Kumar-Raj Kapoor-Dev Anand era when filmmakers lived for cinema and believed it had a higher social purpose beyond making money. "Yet he's as savvy as the new kids on the block, up to speed with Facebook and blogging." Khan doesn't quite put it so grandly. "Money doesn't excite me. It gives me comfort but it's not what makes me tick. Neither does throwing my weight around, or making a noisy entry or making a scene. Give me a great book or a great script any day." Given his anointment as the new box office guru of gyaan, there should be no shortage of the latter.
The Bold and the beautiful
Aamir says he has always marched to the tune of his own drummer. "My choices were unusual. But when I started out, I didn't have the power I have now. I had to fight against market forces who were foxed by my so-called bizarre moves."
QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK, 1988
Director: Mansoor Khan
Made at the height of the disco era, it was a breath of fresh air, heralding Sooraj Barjatya's Maine Pyar Kiya and Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. "When we shot it, I was 21 and when it released, I was 23. We would wonder who will watch the film in the theatres."
RANGEELA, 1995
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
"Ramu had four flops before this. Urmila (Matondkar) had eight. The film had no story," he says. But his loveable tapori Munna became the template for Sanjay Dutt's Munnabhai.
GHULAM, 1998
Director: Vikram Bhatt
"It was one of the first films at that time about disenchanted youth. This supposed hero had such sham bravado. He was a macho guy who became almost cerebral." Khan says it took a little time for the market to understand that it would not lose money on his films.
SARFAROSH, 1999
Director: John Mathew Mathan
Mathan was unknown when he came to Khan with Sarfarosh but the movie, with its tough guy police officer, ACP Rathore, and anti terrorist theme "really shocked people as it came out of the blue". He says it marked the turning point for the trade's belief in his bankability.
LAGAAN, 2001
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Khan says, "When I told the late Jhamu Sughand, who was a very hardcore businessman, that I'm doing this film with Gowariker and it will cost a lot of money, he didn't blink. He never asked me are you sure? 1893 and cricket? Sports films haven't worked in India. But he didn't question me."
RANG DE BASANTI, 2006
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
"I told my sister, who is in New York, that I was making the fifth remake of Bhagat Singh. The first four had flopped. She told me you've got to be kidding." The film's nihilism set off debates and its emotional activism sparked candlelight marches but Khan's flashy DJ was memorable. To use his words, "so nice".
TAARE ZAMEEN PAR, 2007
Director: Aamir Khan
It was written by Amole Gupte who directed it for a week, until Khan, the producer, took over from him. He made a simple story of a dyslexic child into a timely movie questioning the education system, which turned out to be a surprise hit.
3 IDIOTS, 2009
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
"My character Rancho was written in a dangerous way. He had no flaws. Your heart doesn't go out to him. It's the flaws that make you loveable. When I realised that very early on, I told Hirani I don't want to play it in a heroic manner as he will get on people's nerves. I didn't want to play it smart but naturally curious." The role required him to lose 10 kg, act like a 17-year-old, terrorise a principal, deliver a baby, and break off an engagement.
Kaveree Bamzai
Saturday, February 27, 2010
संस्कृत भारत
संस्कृत भाषासु मुख्या मधुरा दिव्या गीर्वाण भारती।
तस्यां हि काव्यं मधुरं तस्मादपि सुभाषितम्॥
द्राक्षा म्लानमुखी जाता शर्करा चाश्मतां गता।
सुभाषितरसम् दृष्ट्वा सुधा भीता दिवां गता॥
संस्कृत भारत की एक शास्त्रीय भाषा है। यह दुनिया की सबसे पुरानी उल्लिखित भाषाओं में से एक है। संस्कृत हिन्द-यूरोपीय भाषा-परिवार की हिन्द-ईरानी शाखा की हिन्द-आर्य उपशाखा में शामिल है। ये आदिम-हिन्द-यूरोपीय भाषा से बहुत ज़्यादा मेल खाती है। आधुनिक भारतीय भाषाएँ जैसे हिन्दी, उर्दू, कश्मीरी, उड़िया, बांग्ला, मराठी, सिन्धी, पंजाबी, (नेपाली), आदि इसी से उत्पन्न हुई हैं। इन सभी भाषाओं में यूरोपीय बंजारों की रोमानी भाषा भी शामिल है। संस्कृत में हिन्दू धर्म के लगभग सभी धर्मग्रन्थ लिखे हुए हैं। आज भी हिन्दू धर्म के ज़्यादातर यज्ञ और पूजा संस्कृत में ही होती हैं।
संस्कृत भाषा का इतिहास
आधुनिक विद्वानों के अनुसार संस्कृत भाषा का अखंड प्रवाह पाँच सहस्र वर्षों से बहता चला आ रहा है। भारत में यह आर्यभाषा का सर्वाधिक महत्वशाली, व्यापक और संपन्न स्वरूप है। इसके माध्यम से भारत की उत्कृष्टतम मनीषा, प्रतिभा, अमूल्य चिंतन, मनन, विवेक, रचनात्मक, सर्जना और वैचारिक प्रज्ञा का अभिव्यंजन हुआ है। आज भी सभी क्षेत्रों में इस भाषा के द्वारा ग्रंथनिर्माण की क्षीण धारा अविच्छिन्न रूप से वह रही है। आज भी यह भाषा, अत्यंत सीमित क्षेत्र में ही सही, बोली जाती है। इसमें व्याख्यान होते हैं और भारत के विभिन्न प्रादेशिक भाषाभाषी पंडितजन इसका परस्पर वार्तालाप में प्रयोग करते हैं। हिंदुओं के सांस्कारिक कार्यों में आज भी यह प्रयुक्त होती है। इसी कारण ग्रीक और लैटिन आदि प्राचीन मृत भाषाओं (डेड लैंग्वेजेज़) से संस्कृत की स्थिति भिन्न है। यह मृतभाषा नहीं, अमरभाषा है।
नामकरण एवं विकासयात्रा
ऋक्संहिता की भाषा को संस्कृत का आद्यतम उपलब्ध रूप कहा जा सकता है। यह भी माना जाता है कि उक्त संहिता के प्रथम और दशम मंडलों की भाषा प्राचीनतर है। कुछ विद्वान् प्राचीन वैदिक भाषा को परवर्ती पाणिनीय (लौकिक) संस्कृत से भिन्न मानते हैं। पर यह पक्ष भ्रमपूर्ण है। वैदिक भाषा अभ्रांत रूप ससे संस्कृत भाषा का आद्य उपलब्ध रूप है। पाणिनि ने जिस संस्कृत भाषा का व्याकरण लिखा है उसके दो अंश हैं - (1) वैदिक भाषा (जिसे अष्टाव्यायी में "छंदप्" कहा गया है) और (2) भाषा (जिसे लोकभाषा या लौकिक भाषा के रूप में रखा गया है)। "व्याकरण महाभाष्य" नाम से प्रसिद्ध आचार्य पतंजलि के शब्दानुशासन में भी वैदिक भाषा और लौकिक भाषा के शब्दों का आरंभ में उल्लेख हुआ है। "संस्कृत नाम दैंवी वागन्वाख्याता महर्षिभि:" के द्वारा जिसे देवभाषा या संस्कृत कहा गया है उसे संभवत: यास्क, पाणिनि, कात्यायन और पंतजलि के समय तक छंदोभाषा (वैदिक भाषा) और लोकभाषा के दो नामों, स्तरों और रूपों द्वारा व्यक्त किया गया था। बहुत से विद्वानों का मत है कि भाषा के लिए "संस्कृत" का प्रयोग सर्वप्रथ वाल्मीकि रामायण के सुंदरकांड (30 सर्ग) में हनुमन् द्वारा विशेषणरूप से (संस्कृता वाक्) किया गया है। भारतीय परंपरा की किंवदंती के अनुसार संस्कृत भाषा पहले अव्याकृत थी, उसके प्रकृति, प्रत्ययादि का विश्लिष्ट विवेचन नहीं हुआ था। देवों द्वारा प्रार्थना करने पर देवराज इंद्र ने प्रकृति, प्रत्ययादि का विशिलष्ट विवेचन नहीं हुआ था। देवों द्वारा प्रार्थना कने पर देवराज इंद्र ने प्रकृति, प्रत्यय आदि के विश्लेषण विवेचन का उपायात्मक विधान प्रस्तुत किया। इसी "संस्कार" विधान के कारण भारत की प्राचीनतम आर्यभाषा का नाम "संस्कृत" पड़ा। ऋक्संहिताकालीन साधुभाषा तथा "ब्राह्मण", "आरण्यक" और "दशोपनिषद्" की साहित्यिक वैदिक भाषा के अनंतर उसी का विकसित स्वरूप लौकिक संस्कृत" या "पाणिनीय संस्कृत" हुआ। इसे ही "संस्कृत" या संस्कृत भाषा (साहित्यिक संस्कृत भी) कहा गया। पर आज के कुछ भाषाविद् संस्कृत को संस्कार द्वारा बनाई गई कृत्रिम भाषा मानते हैं। ऐसा मानते हैं कि इन संस्कृत का मूलाधार पूर्वतर काल को उदीच्य, मध्यदेशीय या आर्यावर्तीय विभाषाएँ थीं। "विभाषा" या "उदीचाम्" शब्द से पाणिनिसूत्रों में इनका उल्लेख उपलब्ध है। इनके अतिरिक्त भी "प्राच्य" आदि बोलियाँ थीं। परंतु "पाणिनि" ने भाषा का एक सार्वदेशिक और सर्वभारतीय परिष्कृत रूप स्थिर कर दिया। धीरे धीरे पाणिनिसंमत भाषा का प्रयोगरूप और विकास प्राय: स्थायी हो गया। पतंजलि के समय तक "आर्यावर्त" (आर्यनिवास) के शिष्ट जनों में संस्कृत बोलचाल की भाषा थी। झ्र्प्रागादर्शात्प्रत्यक्कालकवनाद्दक्षिणेन हिमवंतमुत्तरेण वारियात्रमेतस्मिन्नार्यावर्तें आर्यानिवासे..... (महाभाष्य, 6।3।109)ट पर शीघ्र ही वह समग्र भारत के द्विजातिवर्ग और विद्वत्समाज की सांस्कृतिक और आकर भाषा हो गई।
काल विभाजन
संस्कृत भाषा के विकासस्तरों की दृष्टि से अनेक विद्वानों ने अनेक रूप स इसका ऐतिहासि कालविभाजन किया है। सामान्य सुविधा की दृष्टि से अधिक मान्य निम्नांकित कालविभाजन दिया जा रहा है -
(1) आदिकाल (वेदसंहिताओं और वाङ्मय का काल - ई. पू. 4500 से 800 ई. पू. तक। )
(2) मध्यकाल ( ई. पू. 800 से 800 ई. तक जिसमें शास्त्रों दर्शनसूत्रों, वेदांग ग्रंथों, काव्यों तथा कुछ प्रमुख साहित्यशास्त्रीय ग्रंथों का निर्माण हुआ, )
(3) परवर्तीकाल ( 800 ई. से लेकर 1600 ई. या अब तक का आधुनिक काल )
जिस युग में काव्य, नाटक, साहित्यशास्त्र, तंत्रशास्त्र, शिल्पशास्त्र आदि के ग्रंथों की रचना के साथ साथ मूल ग्रंथों की व्याख्यात्मक, कृतियों की महत्वपूर्ण सर्जना हुई। भाष्य, टीका, विवरण, व्याख्यान आदि के रूप में जिन सहस्रों ग्रंथों का निर्माण हुआ उनमें अनेक भाष्य और टीकाओं की प्रतिष्ठा, मान्यता, और प्रसिद्धि मूलग्रंथों से भी कहीं-कहीं अधिक हुई।
प्रामाणिकता के विचार से इस भाषा का सर्वप्राचीन उपलब्ध व्याकरण पाणिनि की अष्टाव्यापी है। कम से कम 600 ई. पू. का यह ग्रंथ आज भी समस्त विश्व में अतुलनीय व्याकरण है। विश्व के और मुख्यत: अमरीका के भाषाशास्त्री संघटनात्मक भाषा विज्ञान की दृष्टि से अष्टाध्यायी को आज भी विश्व का सर्वोत्तम ग्रंथ मानते हैं। "ब्रूमफील्ड" ने अपने "लैंग्वेज" तथा अन्य कृतियों में इस तथ्य की पुष्ट स्थापना की है। पाणिनि के पूर्व संस्कृत भाषा निश्चय ही शिष्ट एवं वैदिक जनों की व्यवहारभाषा थी। असंस्कृत जनों में भी बहुत सी बोलियाँ उस समय प्रचलित रही होंगी। पर यह मत आधुनिक भाषाविज्ञों को मान्य नहीं है। वे कहते हैं कि संस्कृत कभी भी व्यवहारभाषा नहीं थी। जनता की भाषाओं को तत्कालीन प्राकृत कहा जा सकता है। देवभाषा तत्वत: कृत्रिम या संस्कार द्वारा निर्मित ब्राह्मणपंडितों की भाषा थी, लोकभाषा नहीं। परंतु यह मत सर्वमान्य नहीं है। पाणिनि से लेकर पतंजलि तक सभी ने संस्कृत का लोक की भाषा कहा है, लौकिक भाषा बताया है। अन्य सैकड़ों प्रमाण सिद्ध करते हैं कि "संस्कृत" वैदिक और वैदिकोत्तर पूर्वपाणिनिकाल में लोकभाषा और व्यवहारभाषा (स्पीकेन लैग्वेज) थी। यह अवश्य रहा होगा कि देश, काल और समाज के संदर्भ में उसकी अपनी सीमा रही होगी। बाद में चलकर वह पठित समाज की साहित्यिक, और सांस्कृतिक भाषा बन गई। तदनंतर यह समस्त भारत में सभी पंडितों की, चाहे वे आर्य रहें हों या आर्येतर जाति के - सभी की, सर्वमान्य सांस्कृतिक भाषा हो गई और आसेतुहिमाचल इसका प्रसार, समादर और प्रचार रहा एवं आज भी बना हुआ है। लगभग सत्रहवीं शताब्दी के पूर्वार्ध से योरप और पश्चिमी देशों के मिशनरी एवं अन्य विद्याप्रेमियों को संस्कृत का परिचय प्राप्त हुआ। धीरे-धीरे पश्चिम में ही नहीं, समस्त विश्व में संस्कृत का प्रचार हुआ। जर्मन, अंग्रेज, फ्रांसीसी, अमरीकी तथा योरप के अनेक छोटे बड़े देश के निवासी विद्वानों ने विशेष रूप से संस्कृत के अध्ययन अनुशीलन को आधुनिक विद्वानों में प्रजाप्रिय बनाया। आधुनिक विद्वानों और अनुशीलकों के मत से विश्व की पुराभाषाओं में संस्कृत सर्वाधिक व्यवस्थित, वैज्ञानिक और संपन्न भाषा है। वह आज केवल भारतीय भाषा ही नहीं, एक रूप से विश्वभाषा भी है। यह कहा जा सकता है कि भूमंडल के प्रयत्न-भाषा-साहित्यों में कदाचित् संस्कृत का वाङ्मय सर्वाधिक विशाल, व्यापक, चतुर्मुखी और संपन्न है। संसार के प्राय: सभी विकसित और संसार के प्राय: सभी विकासमान देशों में संस्कृत भाषा और साहित्य का आज अध्ययन-अध्यापन हो रहा है।
बताया जा चुका है कि इस भाषा का परिचय होने से ही आर्य जाति, उसकी संस्कृति, जीवन और तथाकथित मूल आद्य आर्यभाषा से संबद्ध विषयों के अध्ययन का पश्चिमी विद्वानों को ठोस आधार प्राप्त हुआ। प्राचीन ग्रीक, लातिन, अवस्ता और ऋक्संस्कृत आदि के आधार पर मूल आद्य आर्यभाषा की ध्वि, व्याकरण और स्वरूप की परिकल्पना की जा सकी जिसें ऋक्संस्कृत का अवदान सबसे अधिक महत्व का है। ग्रीक, लातिन प्रत्नगाथिक आदि भाषाओं के साथ संस्कृत का पारिवारिक और निकट संबंध है। पर भारत-इरानी-वर्ग की भाषाओं के साथ (जिनमें अवस्ता, पहलवी, फारसी, ईरानी, पश्तो आदि बहुत सी प्राचीन नवीन भाषाएँ हैं) संस्कृत की सर्वाधिक निकटता है। भारत की सभी आद्य, मध्यकालीन एवं आधुनिक आर्यभाषाओं के विकास में मूलत: ऋग्वेद-एवं तदुत्तरकालीन संस्कृत का आधारिक एवं औपादानिक योगदान रहा है। आधुनिक भाषावैज्ञानिक मानते हैं कि ऋग्वेदकाल से ही जनसामान्य में बोलचाल की तथाभूत प्राकृत भाषाएँ अवश्य प्रचलित रही होंगी। उन्हीं से पालि, प्राकृत अपभ्रंश तथा तदुत्तरकालीन आर्यभाषाओं का विकास हुआ। परंतु इस विकास में संस्कृत भाषा का सर्वाधिक और सर्वविध योगदान रहा है। यहीं पर यह भी याद रखना चाहिए कि संस्कृत भाषा ने भारत के विभिन्न प्रदेशों, और अंचलों की आर्येतर भाषाओं को भी काफी प्रभावित किया तथा स्वयं उनसे प्रभावित हुई; उन भाषाओं और उनके भाषणकर्ताओं की संस्कृति और साहित्य को तो प्रभावित किया ही, उनकी भाषाओं शब्दकोश उनक ध्वनिमाला और लिपिकला को भी अपने योगदान से लाभान्वित किया। भारत की दो प्राचीन लिपियाँ-(1) ब्राह्मी (बाएँ से लिखी जानेवाली) और (2) खरोष्ट्री (दाएँ से लेख्य) थीं। इनमें ब्राह्मी को संस्कृत ने मुख्यत: अपनाया।
भाषा की दृष्टि से संस्कृत की ध्वनिमाला पर्याप्त संपन्न है। स्वरों की दृष्टि से यद्यपि ग्रीक, लातिन आदि का विशिष्ट स्थान है, तथापि अपने क्षेत्र के विचार से संस्कृत की स्वरमाला पर्याप्त और भाषानुरूप है। व्यंजनमाला अत्यंत संपन्न है। सहस्रों वर्षों तक भारतीय आर्यों के आद्यषुतिसाहित्य का अध्यनाध्यापन गुरु शिष्यों द्वारा मौखिक परंपरा के रूप में प्रवर्तमान रहा क्योंकि कदाचित् उस युग में (जैसा आधुनिक इतिहासज्ञ लिपिशास्त्री मानते हैं), लिपिकला का उद्भव और विकास नहीं हो पाया था। संभवत: पाणिनि के कुछ पूर्व या कुछ बाद से लिपि का भारत में प्रयोग चल पड़ा और मुख्यत: "ब्राह्मी" को संस्कृत भाषा का वाहन बनाया गया। इसी ब्राह्मी ने आर्य और आर्यतर अधिकांश लिपियों की वर्णमला और वर्णक्रम को भी प्रभावित किया। यदि मध्यकालीन नाना भारतीय द्रविड़ भाषाओं तथा तमिल, तेलगु आदि की वर्णमाला पर भी संस्कत भाषा और ब्राह्मी लिपि का पर्याप्त प्रभाव है। ध्वनिमाला और ध्वनिक्रम की दृष्टि से पाणिनिकाल से प्रचलित संस्कृत वर्णमाला आज भी कदाचित् विश्व की सर्वाधिक वैज्ञानिक एवं शास्त्रीय वर्णमाला है। संस्कृत भाषा के साथ-साथ समस्त विश्व में प्रत्यक्ष या रोमन अकारांतक के रूप में आज समस्त संसार में इसका प्रचार हो गया है।
भाषावैज्ञानिक वर्गीकरण
ऐतिहासिक भाषाविज्ञान की दृष्टि से संस्कृत भाषा आर्यभाषा परिवार के अंतर्गत रखी गई है। आर्यजाति भारत में बाहर से आई या यहाँ इसका निवास था - इत्यादि विचार अनावश्यक होने से यहाँ नहीं किया जा रहा है। पर आधुनिक भाषाविज्ञान के पंडितों की मान्यता के अनुसार भारत यूरोपीय भाषाभाषियों की जो नाना प्राचीन भाषाएँ, (वैदिक संस्कृत, अवस्ता अर्थात् प्राचीनतम पारसी ग्रीक, प्राचीन गॉथिक तथा प्राचीनतम जर्मन, लैटिन, प्राचीनतम आइरिश तथा नाना वेल्ट बोलियाँ, प्राचीनतम स्लाव एवं बाल्टिक भाषाएँ, अरमीनियन, हित्ती, बुखारी आदि) थी, वे वस्तुत: एक मूलभाषा की (जिसे मूल आर्यभाषा, आद्य आर्यभाषा, इंडोजर्मनिक भाषा, आद्य-भारत-योरोपीय भाषा, फादरलैंग्वेज आदि) देशकालानुसारी विभिन्न शाखाएँ थी। उन सबकी उद्गमभाषा या मूलभाषा का आद्यआर्यभाषा कहते हैं। कुछ विद्वानों के मत में-वीरा-मूलनिवासस्थान के वासी सुसंगठित आर्यों को ही "वीरोस" (ध्र्त्द्धदृद्म) या वीरास् (वीरा:) कहते थे।
वीरोस् (वीरो) शब्द द्वारा जिन पूर्वोक्त प्राचीन आर्यभाषा समूह भाषियों का द्योतन होता है उन विविध प्राचीन भाषाभाषियों को विरास (संवीरा:) कहा गया है। अर्थात् समस्त भाषाएँ पारिवारिक दृष्टि से आर्यपरिवार की भाषाएँ हैं। संस्कृत का इनमें अन्यतम स्थान है। उक्त परिवार की "केंतुम्" और "शतम्" (दोनों ही शतवात्तक शब्द) दो प्रमुख शाखाएँ हैं। प्रथम के अंतर्गत ग्रीक, लातिन आदि आती हैं। संस्कृत का स्थान "शतम्" के अंतर्गत भारतईरानी शाखा में माना गया है। आर्यपरिवार में कौन प्राचीन, प्राचीनतर और प्राचीनतम है यह पूर्णत: निश्चित नहीं है। फिर भी आधुनिक अधिकांश भाषाविद् ग्रीक, लातिन आदि को आद्य आर्यभाषा की ज्येष्ठ संतति और संस्कृत को उनकी छोटी बहिन मानते हैं। इतना ही नहीं भारत-ईरानी-शाखा की प्राचीनतम अवस्ता को भी संस्कृत से प्राचीन मानते हैं। परंतु अनेक भारतीय विद्वान् समझते हैं कि "जिद-अवस्ता" की अवस्ता का स्वरूप ऋक्भाषा की अपेक्षा नव्य है। जो भी हो, इतना निश्चित है कि ग्रंथरूप में स्मृतिरूप से अवशिष्ट वाङ्मय में ऋक्संहिता प्राचीनतम है और इसी कारण वह भाषा भी अपनी उपलब्धि में प्राचीनतम है। उसकी वैदिक संहिताओं की बड़ी विशेषता यह है कि हजारों वर्षों तक जब लिपि कला का भी प्रादुर्भाव नहीं था, वैदिक संहिताएँ मौखिक और श्रुतिपरंपरा द्वारा गुरुशिष्यों के समाज में अखंड रूप से प्रवहमान थीं। उच्चारण की शुद्धता को इतना सुरक्षित रखा गया कि ध्वनि ओर मात्राएँ, ही नहीं, सहस्रों वर्षों पूर्व से आज तक वैदिक मंत्रों में कहीं पाठभेद नहीं हुआ। उदात्त अनुदात्तादि स्वरों का उच्चारण शुद्ध रूप में पूर्णत: अविकृत रहा। आधुनिक भाषावैज्ञानिक यह मानते हैं कि स्वरों की दृष्टि से ग्रीक, लातिन आदि के "केंतुम्" वर्ग की भाषाएँ अधिक संपन्न भी हैं और मूल या आद्य आर्यभाषा के अधिक समीप भी। उनमें उक्त भाषा की स्वरसंपत्ति अधिक सुरक्षित हैं। संस्कृत में व्यंजनसंपत्ति अधिक सुरक्षित है। भाषा के संघटनात्मक अथवा रूपात्मक विचार की दृष्टि से संस्कृत भाषा को विभक्तिप्रधान अथवा "श्लिष्टभाषा" (एग्लुटिनेटिव लैंग्वेज) कहा जाता है।
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)