L2/03-067
                    …a Draft
                        8.4 Unicode Standard for Vedic Sanskrit -                      other countries in Asia.  Sanskrit is not a dead
                                            a draft .......                            language.  Sanskrit was for over a millenium, a
                        Sanskrit has its own place recognized by the                   living spoken language with a considerable literature
                        linguists all over the world.                                  of its own.  Besides works of literary value, there
                                                                                       was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition.
                        India’s ex-president and philosopher Dr Sarvapally             Sanskrit is still spoken in some Indian families.
                        Radhakrishan said, “Sanskrit as a language is an               Even now new literature is being created in
                        instrument of the greatest value in the delineation            Sanskrit. Seventh system of philosophy,
                        of all thought processes and the most profound                 Paramarthadarshan, has been added to Satdarshan
                        rationisation of all ideas which are deep and subtle,          recently by Pundit Ramavatar Sharma. Its
                        of all forms of aesthetic and emotional perception,            vocabulary has permeated all Indian languages, and
                        and above all, of the most profound and ultimate               thus provides continuity with the past of our
                        forms of intuition and understanding. It is agreed             country. There is renewed interest in learning
                        that the study of Sanskrit enables us to draw freely           Sanskrit because of its rich knowledge base in
                        upon our tradition, which can lead to the new-                 linguistics, philosophy, medicine, mathematics,
                        world outlook of modern man. Further, it helps to              astronomy, etc.  Phonology (Study of Speech) and
                        keep pace with the rapid social change, advances in            orthography (Study of Spelling) have not been so
                        modern science & technology and the process of                 perfectly described in any natural language as in
                        modernization, at the same time inculcating the                Sanskrit. Panini’s book on Sanskrit Grammar,
                        right type of social, moral and spiritual value                named Ashtadhyayi, has been considered by
                        through self-discipline.”                                      eminent American linguist Bloomfield as “one of
                                                                                       the greatest monuments of human intelligence”.
                        Sanskrit language is variously referred to as                  Panini was preceded by a long chain of
                        Devavani, Amarvani, Girvanavani, Surbharati,                   grammarians, and his tradition continued even
                        Amarbharati, etc. each expressing connoting its                afterwards. With his 4000 sutras, each of which is
                        inherent vitality, versatility and greatness. The script       usually no more than two or three words, Panini
                        in which Sanskrit texts are written is called                  was able to explain how almost all the words used
                        Devanagari. It is claimed that the uniqueness of               in Sanskrit of his time were formed. It is precursor
                        the Sanskrit language is that pronunciations of                of today’s generative grammar.
                        words, stanzas and sentences with measured                     Sanskrit grammar is prescriptive, that takes
                        intonation regulates ones giving and harmonizes                phoneme as smallest unit with meaning, knowledge
                        once entire being with the subtle elements in the              representation is deeper and holistic at sentence-
                        cosmic region.                                                 level with three necessary and sufficient conditions
                        If the flow of Sanskrit is arrested other languages,           of Expectancy (+ÉEòÉÆIÉÉ), Compatibility (ªÉÉäMªÉiÉÉ), and
                        its branches, must perish for want of feeding. It is           Proximity (ºÉÊzÉÊvÉ), whereas modern linguistics is
                        for this reason, perhaps, the great poet and seear,            descriptive and empirical, that takes morpheme as
                        Ravindranath Tagore, desired that no professor                 the smallest unit with meaning, uses word-by-word
                        should be in-charge of any language in                         approach rather than sentence respectively.
                        Shantiniketan unless he is well grounded in                    Sanskrit is syntax-free and word-order-free natural
                        Sanskrit.                                                      language.  Shastric Sanskrit is the Natural Language
                        Sanskrit is one of the most ancient languages of               with all the desirable properties of formal artificial
                        the world, which has molded the culture and the                language, such as naturalness, expressiveness, un-
                        thought systems not only of India but also of many             ambiguity and no redundancy.
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                     Karakas are important in case role assignment and      Logic, Semantic Networks, Conceptual
                     thus facilitate in semantic extraction. There is       dependency schemes to represent World
                     equivalence between semantic net [representing         Knowledge.  This may be related to Sabda-bodha
                     tuples of verb, case role, and instance], and sentence concept dealt with in Nyay, Vyakarna and Mimansa.
                     analysis in Sanskrit. Knowledge inferencing in         Scientific & technological innovations which are
                     Sanskrit is therefore rather complete.                 contained in Sanskrit are given below in the
                     Knowledge is dealt with in Apara Vidya Sastras         following chronological table:
                     which are classified into four Vedas (scriptures), six
                     Vedanga-s (Vedic auxiliary Science that deal with      Period                S&T Innovations in
                     phonetics) and four Upanga-s (supplementary                                  Sanskrit
                     subjects).                                             1500 B.C.             Rigveda: concept of natural
                     Rig-Veda had 27 Sakhas, Yajur Veda had Sukla: (15)                           law (rta): 1028 hymns &
                     & Krisna: (86) Sakhas, Sama Veda had 1000 Sakhas                             10,462 richas
                     and Atharva Veda 9 Sakhas. Every Veda has 4 types      1000 B.C.             Samveda: book of melodies
                     of texts; Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and                                    Yajurveda: the book of
                     Upanishad. There is special Vedic grammar, rules                             Sacrificial formulas. The
                     for each Sakha known as Prati Sakhya and phonetic                            whole series of 27 or 28
                     rules known as Siksha.                                                       naksatras. Number names
                     There are four Upangas: Mimansa Sutra-s (described                           upto 1012
                     rules for interpretation of Vedic text), Nyaya &                             Atharveda: astronomical
                     Vaisheshika sutra-s (deal with logical aspects,                              knowledge, more detailed
                     ontological classification, process of human                                 medical Knowledge
                     understanding), Purana-s (narrations of messages
                     and teachings of Veda-s, Dharma Sastra-s (describe     1000 B.C.-500 B.C. Brahmanas, Aranyakas and
                     code of conduct for universal harmony).                                      Upanishads doctrine of
                     There are 26 parameters for each Vedic syllabic                              punchabhutas;
                     definition.                                                                  Codification of medical
                     Rick Briggs, a computer scientist of NASA in USA,                            knowledge into Ayurveda
                     published a paper in the Artificial  Intelligence                            Vedanga Jyotish: 5 year cycle
                     Magazine, 1985 on “Knowledge Representation
                     in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence”. He                                 Sulba-sutras: beginning of
                     demonstrates that a natural language can serve as                            geometry, irrational number
                     an artificial language such as Esperanto also, and                           Early ideas of Vaisheshika,
                     that much work in Artificial Intelligence has been                           Samkhya & Mimamsa; of
                     re-inventing what existed more than two thousand                             Bauddha, Jain  and Charaka
                     years ago. He establishes parallelism between                                darshanas
                     modern scheme of knowledge representation using
                     semantic nets and Sanskrit Grammarian’s                                      Physical concepts: atomism,
                     unambiguous sentence analysis. Modern                                        space, time, motion and
                     knowledge-based computing employ Predicate                                   sound
                    October 2002                                                                                            87
                                               Astronomical ideas:                 Sanskrit Speech and Text
                                               mathematical series                 Sanskrit Grammar has distinguished the terms
                                               (AP&GP)                             varna (phoneme) and akshara (syllable). Both these
                                               Agricultural practices to           terms are used in the context of spoken languages
                                               increase soil fertility             and written languages respectively.
                       400 B.C.-400 A.D.       Ayurvedic treatises - Charaka       Since the oral tradition in India was of a higher
                                               and Sushruta Samhitas;              order, the stress on right pronunciation was laid at
                                               Tridosha theory; extension of       most on the spoken language. To represent such
                                               the doctrine of 5 elements,
                                               space, time and sound               speech nuances in written language, various chinhas
                                               Arthashastra of Kautilya,           (signs) evolved as to strike the equivalence in spoken
                                               Pingala’s Chandah - sutra:          and written expressions. This extra-ordinary activity
                                               Permutation, combinations           is part of the Indian tradition. Therefore, the
                                               and Binomial ideas                  realization of such a system in the context of new
                                                                                   technology seems to be imperative where writing
                       500 A.D.-1500 A.D. Nyaya Bhashya of                         is talked in the context of speech and speech in the
                                               Vatsyayana: extension of            context of writing. The attempt is made to identify
                                               atomic ideas, vision, sound,        varnamala comprising of basic speech sound units
                                               impetus theory; classification      as vowel phonemes (swara varna) and consonant
                                               of animals and plants               phonemes (vyanjan varna). These phonemes
                                               Padartha dharmasamgraha             (varnas) when combined as C. ..C + V or only V
                                               of Prashastapada: atomism,          form complete phonetic cluster. The
                                               space, time, motion, sound          correspondence in spoken and written syllables
                                               Aryabhatta: theory of               must be preserved through the Vedic Sanskrit
                                               rotation of earth, epicycle         Encoding scheme firstly by giving each phoneme
                                               theory of planetary motions,        a distinct code and secondly by giving each chinha
                                               values of pie & sines, square       -denoting nuances of speech -a distinct code.
                                               & cube roots, indeterminate
                                               equation of the first order         Thus the scheme presented here comprises of
                                               Panchasidhantika of                 following elements.
                                               Varahamihira                        1. Phonemes -vowels, consonants
                                               Ganitasarasamgraha                  2. Chinhas
                                               Amarakosa: classification and       3. Punctuation marks
                                               synonyms of plants and
                                               animals, minerals and metals        4. Digits
                                               Authoritative compilation of        Sanskrit Phonology and Orthography
                                               Ayurvedic knowledge; urine          The Devanagari script is used for writing classical
                                               and pulse examination,
                                               Siddha system of medicine           Sanskrit as well as Vedic Sanskrit. This includes the
                                               polytechnics: alchemical            multi-tier usage of diacritic marks of complex
                                               ideas; iron-casting, paper-         compositions, above, below and at the sides of the
                                               making                              base glyphs. Therefore, as compared to modern
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