LONDON, ENGLAND, October 12, 2006: In 1831, or 175 years ago, London’s Cambridge University started teaching Sanskrit at Oxford. Now the university has made an administrative decision to refrain from offering the ancient language as part of its Oriental undergraduate program. Dr. John Smith, who has taught Sanskrit for 22 years at Cambridge, expresses his perspective on the decision, “There are some subjects simply worth doing. This is a language that has been going 3,000 plus years and hasn’t stopped yet. You cannot understand the culture of the Indian sub-continent and the world outside it without learning Sanskrit.” Dr. Gordon Johnson, Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, insists that, “South Asian Studies are thriving at the University of Cambridge and an agreed plan for their expansion is underway. Students continue to study specialist papers with a South Asian content in History, Geography, Economics, Social and Political Sciences, Social Anthropology, Divinity and Archaeology.” However, according to the news release Smith warns that when he retires and his Sanskrit-scholar colleague does as well, a dozen years from now, Cambridge may be left with no one to teach this liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism and Janinism.
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