~ Excerpt from “I Am That” by Osho (emphasis added)
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“Sanskrit is the oldest language on the earth. The very word ‘sanskrit’ means transformed, adorned, crowned, decorated, refined – but remember the word ”transformed”. The language itself was transformed because so many people attained to the ultimate, and because they were using the language, something of their joy penetrated into it, something of their poetry entered into the very cells, the very fiber of the language. Even the language became transformed, illuminated. It was bound to happen. Just as it is happening today in the West, languages are becoming more and more scientific, accurate, mathematical, precise. They have to be because science is giving them its color, its shape, its form. If science is growing, then of course the language in which the science will be expressed will have to be scientific.
The same happened five thousand years before in India with Sanskrit. So many people became enlightened and they were all speaking Sanskrit; their enlightenment entered into it with all its music, with all its poetry, with all its celebration. Sanskrit became luminous Sanskrit is the most poetic and musical language in existence.
A poetic language is just the opposite of a scientific language. In scientific language every word has to be very precise in meaning; it has to have only one meaning. In a poetic language the word has to be liquid, flowing, dynamic, not static, allowing many meanings, many possibilities. The word has to be not precise at all; the more imprecise it is the better, because then it will be able to express all kinds of nuances.
Hence the Sanskrit sutras can be defined in many ways, can be commented upon in many ways – they allow much playfulness. For example, there are eight hundred roots in Sanskrit and out of those eight hundred roots thousands of words have been derived, just as out of one root a tree grows and many branches and thousands of leaves and hundreds of flowers. Each single root becomes a vast tree with great foliage.
For example, the root RAM can mean first ”to be calm”, second ”to rest”, third ”to delight in”, fourth ”cause delight to”, fifth ”to make love”, sixth ”to join”, seventh ”to make happy”, eighth ”to be blissful”, ninth ”to play”, tenth ”to be peaceful”, eleventh ”to stand still”, twelfth ”to stop, to come to a full stop”, and thirteenth ”God, divine, the absolute”. And these are only few of the meanings of the root. Sometimes the meanings are related to each other, sometimes not; sometimes even they are contradictory to each other. Hence the language has a multidimensional quality to it. You can play with those words and through that play you can express the inexpressible; the inexpressible can be hinted.
The Sanskrit language is called DEVAVANI – the divine language. And it certainly is divine in the sense because it is the most poetic and the most musical language. Each word has a music around it, a certain aroma.
How it happened? It happened because so many people used it who were full of inner harmony. Of course those words became luminous: they were used by people who were enlightened. Something of their light filtered to the words, reached to the words; something of their silence entered the very grammar, the very language they were using.
The script in which Sanskrit is written is called DEVANAGARI; DEVANAGARI means ”dwelling-place of the gods”, and so certainly it is. Each word has become divine, just because it has been used by people who had known God or godliness.
~ Excerpt from “I Am That” by Osho
