“I do not contest that this top-down instrumental use for pure politics was being made to some degree; but to reduce the entire process of cultural evolution to a matter of politics betrays a profound misunderstanding. This view disregards the intrinsic appeal of the Sanskrit tradition, including for non-elites, and the various roles it played in the cultures it touched. In particular, to dismiss the entire symbolic discourse of Sanskrit as 'mystifying' is to apply a reductive Marxism that cannot account for sacredness in the lives of people.”

— Rajiv Malhotra, book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I do not contest that this top-down instrumental use for pure politics was being made to some degree; but to reduce the…" by Rajiv Malhotra?

Rajiv Malhotra33

Indian-American entrepreneur and author 1950

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)

“A human being cannot survive alone and be entirely human. It is through the nature of their social and political institutions that the differences and similarities among cultures are to be accounted for.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 12

“Culture plays also an important role in the life of minorities, who are generally discriminated in such societies where there is no political and religious freedom. Under these circumstances, their cultural values and symbols help them to retain their identity.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

In Search of History, Chapter: Cultural Intervention and Social Change, p. 13/14
Culture

“The creation of Sanskrit, the “refined” language, was a prodigious work on a grand scale. Grammarians and semanticists of genius undertook to create a perfect language, artificial and permanent, belonging to no one, that was to become the language of the entire culture.”

Alain Daniélou (1907–1994) French historian, musicologist, Indologist and expert on Shaivite Hinduism

Alain Danielou in: A Brief History of India https://books.google.co.in/books?id=Kwnv3I6qIosC&pg=PA58, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 11 February 2003, p. 58.

“Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism in action.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"The Curse Of Cultural Marxism" (7 July 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trAyp5XXQgo#t=5m25s <br class="br">2018

“Our entire linear and accumulative culture collapses if we cannot stockpile the past in plain view.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

The Precession of Simulcra, Ramses, or the Rosy-Colored Resurrection
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

“The notion of a language of the gods appears in Sanskrit, Greek, Old Norse and Hittite cultures.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VII Further Observations on Homer

“Although he sees this process as politically driven, Pollock does acknowledge there were no conquering Sanskrit legions that caused Sanskritization, unlike the coercive Romanization which followed Roman military legions. Nor was there a central church-like religious institution and hence no evangelism that could have Sanskritized through religious conversion. He admits that the notion of the Sanskrit cosmopolis does not fit the Western notion of an empire.”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

“"The Sanskrit shall be our " Deva Bhasha)" our sacred language and the "Sanskrit Nishtha" Hindi, the Hindi which is derived from Sanskrit and draws its nourishment from the latter, is our ' 'mr' ' (Rashtra Bhasha) 12 [f.12] our current national language—-besides being the richest and the most cultured of the ancient languages of the world, to us Hindus the Sanskrit is the holiest tongue of tongues. Our scriptures, history, philosophy and culture have their roots so deeply imbedded in the Sanskrit literature that it forms veritably the brain of our Race. Mother of the majority of our mother tongues, she has suckled the rest of them at her breast. All Hindu languages current today whether derived from Sanskrit or grafted on to it can only grow and flourish on the sap of life they imbibe from Sanskrit. The Sanskrit language therefore must ever be an indispensable constituent of the classical course for Hindu youths.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

V.D. Savarkar quoted from B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

“Many people have been taught a social habit, a discourse, for speaking about meaning, which considers only the role of the individual organism, or the individual mind, in the process of making meanings… Mentalistic discourses, by creating a separate realm and locating meanings there, are not useful for understanding the material and social aspects of meaning-making. Mentalistic discourses depend on a common sense view of the separation of mind from body, and individual from society, which has ideological functions in our society. Particular aspects of these discourses deflect attention away from the social, cultural, historical and political dimensions of the meanings we make.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 9

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Rajiv Malhotra33

Related quotes

Related topics