Sanskrit

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 97-09-19 14:13:36 EDT, Hrid at AOL.COM writes:

<< But
 what about early references specifically to the Sanskrit language? For that
 matter how old is the name "sanskrit"? Do any early texts, teachers etc talk
 specifically about the Sanskrit language as somehow ontologically or
 culturally privileged above other languages? >>

Please refer to the following postings in Indology.

Item #        Date        Time        Recs    Subject
006780      96/12/13   07:23      31        'saMskRta'
006788      96/12/13  19:46       49        Re: 'saMskRta'

It was interesting to me that only PataJjali unambiguously calls the language
Samskrta. Madhav Deshpande's Sanskrit and Prakrit has some information on
this topic also.

On the Tamil side, the first grammar, tolkAppiyam, uses the word 'centamiz',
the correct Tamil. The attitude of ancient Tamil poets towards their language
was similar but secular.

Regards

S. Palaniappan