Sanskrit

Its earliest records dating back to the Vedas, where it appears in its most ancient form (Vedic Sanskrit), it is the language of the Upaniṣads, Brahmanic texts on the soul and the absolute, as well as of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata epics, the latter of which includes the famous Bhagavadgītā (Chant du Bienheureux), and ancient foundational legends of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, the Purāṇas, a vast body of literature encompassing stories, plays, romance fiction and poetry of varying styles. 

It was the language of the Brahmanic and Hinduist elite, unlike Jain and Buddhist traditions, which initially used vernacular languages (the Prakrits) as opposed to the 'perfectly formed' Sanskrit, which many considered to be the 'language of the gods', 'pure' and 'eternal'. Sanskrit is also the language of knowledge (the śāstras) and, being used with unwavering consistency over time, it became a supraregional vehicular language appropriated by the most diverse of communities across the subcontinent, and has continued to be used alongside vernacular languages. With its exceptionally rich morphology and vocabulary, which includes a large number of nominal compounds, Sanskrit is an important, but not the sole, source of vocabulary in Middle Indic and Neo-Indic languages (Indo-Aryan languages, but, to a certain extent, also Dravidian languages) and has influenced, among other things, the coining of scholarly neologisms. 

The first works to be included in the Bibliothèque Nationale's inventory were indeed manuscripts written in Sanskrit – a reflection of the great appetite for what was viewed as an ancient language of culture. And it was the Jesuits who sent the linguistic tools necessary for the language to be learned. Of particular note is the collection of 168 Sanskrit manuscripts written in Bengali characters, collated by Jesuit Father Jean-François Pons (1698-1757) from Chandernagor. It includes an ancient copy, on a palm leaf, of Śakuntalā, a famous play by Kālidāsa, which A. de Chézy (1775-1832) used for his edition and its translation. J.-F. Pons also authored a Sanskrit grammar, which uses Bengali script in one of his manuscripts and Telugu script in the other. The Jesuit had been in direct contact with the Indians who had passed down the indigenous Sanskrit grammar (vyākaraṇa), and used two examples of this to help with his own description, which covers the letters (i.e. phonemes and characters), including sandhi, pronouns, cases, noun and verb paradigms, and syntax. It served as a guide for Chézy, as well as for other international scholars. The establishment of the Chair of Sanskrit at the Collège de France, held by Chézy from 1815 to 1832, and then by E. Burnouf from 1832 to 1852, inspired the creation and genuine development of Sanskrit studies, in all their forms, on an international scale. Simultaneously, throughout the 19th century, scholars and sometimes even hobbyists set about translating Sanskrit literary works into French.
 

Written in january 2023