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term usually translated as ‘Root’, but applicable to any primordial
constituent substance, whether of words, or rocks, or living
organisms, and then, being so evolved, goes through a process of
‘putting together’ by the combination of other elementary
constituents.” [Sanskrit, thus, becomes a language correspondence
of the evolution, structure and dynamics of the world of reality,
and Veda as articulation of the reality of existence.]
“Furthermore, the process of ‘putting together’ implies,
of course, the possibility of a converse process of vyakarana. by
which I mean ‘undoing’ or decomposition (deconstruction), that
is to say, the resolution of every root-evolved word into its
component elements. So that in endeavouring to exhibit these
processes of synthesis and analysis, we appear to be engaged,
like a chemist, in combining elementary substances into solid
forms, and again in resolving these forms into their constituent
ingredients.” (p. xii). And in respect of this special character,
Sanskrit, he says, is a different language from the Semitic
languages (of which the Bible and the Quran are expressions).
And yet, in spite of this clear understanding of Sanskrit,
an Arsha dictionary remained with him only “a beautiful
philological dream, a dream, however, which could not receive
practical shape without raising the Lexicon to a level of scientific
perfection unsuited to the needs of ordinary students.” (p. xiii)
Why unsuited?
The answer lies in his mission and the
main object of his mission. The scientific way of interpretation
and explanation was counter to the purpose for whichMonier
WiIliams was appointed Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford
where
he occupied the Boden Chair after H.H.Wilson who had been a
member of the Committee of Public Instruction in India under
Lord Macaulay as Chairman and Lord William Bentinck as
Governor General of India. And then English had been accepted
and introduced as the medium as well as the content of Education.
Monier Williams says: “One consideration which led my
predecessor (Professor H.H.Wilson) to pass on to me his project
of a root-arranged Lexicon was that, on being elected to the Boden
Chair, he felt that the elaboration of such a work would be
incompatible with the practical objects for which the Boden
( xxv )
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