Dawn at Mattur.

~~ Dawn at Mattur ~~
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Disclaimer: I tried my best but could not find the date of the publishing of the text and the issue of ‘Sunday Observer’. I had kept the cutting in my old papers and wish to share with people. If this violates any of the rights of the author / publisher, please inform me, and I will remove the same as soon as possible.
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Dawn at Mattur.

Dawn at Mattur tranquil village of, 2000 people, picturesquely located on the bank of the river Tunga in Karnataka. A fellow journalist in the district head-quarters of Shimoga – the hill area noted for its verdant forests and rain – offers to take me there by car though the distance is only ten kilometers. “Early dawn and twilight are the best time to experience Mattur,” he tells me.

We park the vehicle at the river bank and cross Tunga by boat. Birdsong fills the air. The boatman also starts reciting a prayer. Our eyes feast on the landscape made up of the coconut, areca and banana plants grown in the region. The cool breeze is filled with the lilting notes of Sanskrit verses emanating from homes.

Many beautiful vignettes catch my eyes as I enter the village. Women washing their house-fronts with cow-dung. Girls drawing intricate rangoli designs. Young girls, their plaits filled with jasmine, practicing their music lessons, some of them playing on harmonium. A grandmother teaching Sanskrit words to her grandson barely in his teens. I’m spotted by a local young man who suggests that I meet Shri Ashwatha Narayana Avadhani. “He is the leading light in our village.” He says.

Avadhani greets me warmly with the words ‘Hari Om’ (hello), and  “Agachchhatu” (welcome). He then asks someone to fetch a tender coconut for me to drink. My eyes wander across the street. Groups of boys, dressed in traditional dhotis and angavastrams, their foreheads smeared with vibhuti (sacred ash) are on their way to the local Sanskrit school. At the other end, I see groups of men wending their way to the fields carrying sickles and farm equipment. Surprisingly, they are talking to each other in Sanskrit. Yet another surprise is that many domestic articles at home are all identified with Sanskrit names – something very common in all homes in Mattur. So is the case with grocery stores, where all bottles and bags bear Sanskrit labels. Most homes display a signboard that proclaims: “Sanskrit is spoken here.” I begin to wonder if I have accidentally stepped into a village during Vedic times.

“Sanskrit is the language of the commoner in our village”, Ashwatha Narayana Avadhani tells me. His voice is serene and very well modulated in tune with his scholarship. “Mattur’s antiquity can be traced back to the times of Vijayanagara empire,” I am told. Avadhani assures me that though the village has modern amenities like electricity, television and radio, “we have not allowed them to overtake our traditional lifestyle.”

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Mattur is the only village in India that can truly be called a Sanskrit village. One out of every four persons here speaks fluent Sanskrit, while many others are able to understand the language. Sanskrit is being fostered by the elders of the village who have inculcated a passion for it amongst the younger generation. It is the latter, in fact, who are working hard to popularize the use of this ancient language, a trend that has evoked justifiable admiration many Sanskrit scholars. Together, the young and the old in Mattur have demonstrated that with dedication and determination, this ancient language can be mastered as easily as any other, provided the efforts are genuine and sincere.

At sundown, I accompany Avadhani to the river. I am fascinated by the unique beauty and grandeur of the setting sun reflected in the placid water. As the birds return to their nests, the young and the old of the village sit on the granite steps overlooking the waters to perform the evening prayers – the mass sandhyavandana. Some are seated on the steps, while many more are on the large stone platform, right in the middle of the river. After prayers, all of them assemble under the banyan tree close by. The scholar, Avadhani, engages them in discussions on Vedabhashya, the Purans, Upanishads and other related subjects.

Back at his house, Avadhani tells me that Mattur ensures all-round support to the pursuit of Vedic studies. “We regularly conduct camps for those who want to learn Sanskrit the easy way. We have already held some two hundred camps,” he says. In Mattur, Sanskrit publications are avidly read and Sanskrit plays are staged as part of cultural celebrations and festivals. Even public meetings are conducted in Sanskrit, in addition, to quiz programs for children.

“Our activities are for the benefit of all communities without exception,” assures Avadhani. He is very happy to notice an ever-increasing love for Sanskrit all over the country. The people’s Sanskrit Movement is spearheading nationwide drive to foster modern Sanskrit – bith spoken and written – due to the genuine efforts of many Lok Bhasha Prachar Samitis. One such organization, with its headquartes in Puri in Orissa, has already trained about five thousand persons in speaking modern Sanskrit. The Puri-based organisation’s ‘Speak Sanskrit’ movement has also extended to Nepal and Bhutan, where volunteers are being trained. Notable among the centres propagating Sanskrit studies are the Tirupati Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha founded in ­nineteen sixty two, the Sanskrit Akademi in the holy town of Melkote in Karnataka, where the saint Ramanuja stayed.

While speaking at the Pune institute way back in nineteen fifty six, Jawaharlal Nehru said, “I often wonder which is the most important of the many things that have distinguished India in the past, in its history of thousands of years. I have no doubt in my mind that it is the Sanskrit language. It is that which has embodied the genius and wisdom of our race. Almost everything that has come out in later years can somehow be found to have sprung from this ancient language.

Scholars and experts in linguistics have regarded Sanskrit as a perfect vehicle of communication, says our erudite scholar and (erstwhile) President of India, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, who adds that Sanskrit is more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin and more refined than both. According to him, even the great scientists and thinkers of the modern world, including the west, jave come to believe that Sanskrit is a repository of such profound knowledge that it could also be used successfully as a medium of computer education and as a language for new technology.

Today, one is witness to the growing interest in Sanskrit, which is studied even in Europe, the USA, Russia and Japan.

All these thoughts and attributes of Sanskrit filled my mind when I went round the little village of Mattur and talked with its gentle and hospitable people. It was late ecening when I decided to reluctantly return to bustling Shimoga. I hastened to have one more look at the sky, which had started to turn crimson. The air was again filled with birdsong. River Tunga was meandering with grace and dignity. I remembered the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Sanskrit is like the river Ganga for our languages. If it were dry up, the regional languages also would lose their vitality and power.”

Montage: by T.S.Satyan in Sunday Observer.

Disclaimer: I tried my best but could not find the date of the publishing of the text and the issue of ‘Sunday Observer’. I had kept the cutting in my old papers and wish to share with people. If this violates any of the rights of the author / publisher, please inform me, and I will remove the same as soon as possible.