Re: 'dyeus' chronology

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@...> wrote:

> [Moderator Note: This thread has clearly outlived any usefulness
> that it may once have had; I'm allowing these two posts from
> Shivraj and, if he wishes to make one, a single response from
> Francesco and declaring the thread closed. -BMS]

Agreed, Brian; but, please, let me just address the issue under discussion a little better, so as to make it clear that Shivraj's statement that "everyone in India does [Sanskrit] at least upto class 8th" is patently false.

Now he writes:

> I will write it in capital for you what the Govt of India says on
> its web site:
>
> "Teaching of three languages - English, Hindi & Sanskrit from Class
> VI to VIII is compulsory" for the schools the Govt of India
> operates. Hence it is an official policy of GOI.

You have added nothing new. This statement is, once again, taken from a website set up by the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools (which, of course, depend on the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Govt. of India, as we have already made it clear):

http://www.kvhappyvalley.org/mis_vis.htm

Brian was right in pointing out that Kendriya Vidyalayas ('Central Schools') were established primarily to provide uninterrupted education to the wards of transferable Central Government employees. The curricula followed in these schools are not the same followed in the majority of other Indian public schools.

According to the Wikipedia article on "Kendriya Vidyalaya",

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendriya_Vidyalaya
"Presently, there are 1073 schools known as Kendriya Vidyalayas, out of which 1070 are in India and four in abroad. A total of 10,33,516 students (as of September 30, 2009) and 49,276 employees (including outsourced) are on rolls (as of November 1, 2009)."

Thus, by 2009 only about one million Indian students were frequenting these special governmental schools...

What about the curricula followed by the remaining hundreds of millions of Indian students? Did all ot these include the learning of Sanskrit, as Shivraj has recklessly suggested in the post of his I objected to?

Again he wrote:

> Position of the Govt of India Ministry of HRD is clear on Sanskrit
> as stated above.

No, it is clear only as far as the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools are concerned.

> Now let us come to Oriya kids:
>
> THE ORISSA CONDUCT OF EXAMINATION ACT, 1988
> Regulations for Prathama Certificate Exam. 2003 & Onwards
>
> http://www.bseorissa.in/Prathama.asp?glink=GL003&plink=PL015&selPlink=PL015
>
> "6. The Prathama Certificate Examination shall be open to the
> following categories of candidates. The candidates who have
> satisfactorily prosecuted a regular course of study in 1st year and
> 2nd year of Prathama Classes (Class-VI & VII) in one or more
> vidyalayas recognised by the sanskrit Vishvavidyalaya, Puri or
> Director of Secondary Education, Orissa / or Board of Secondary
> Education, Orissa as the case may be and who have been duly
> selected for the examination by the Head of the Institution last
> attended. The candidates who have failed previously at the
> examination are not eligible to appear at this examination. In
> otherwords they have to read in Prathama (Class - VII) again. "
>
> So yes Orissa board of education teaches kids sanskrit too and just
> like central schools run by the govt of India it has a board
> examination in class eighth.

If you had been a little more careful in your search on the Web, you would have noticed that the same site of the Board of Secondary Education, Orissa from which you drawn the above quote states that the Scheme of Studies for Class VIII (one of the classes we are talking about) includes the study of Sanskrit (as the fourth language) only for those students who have Oriya, Hindi, Bengali, or Telugu as their first language. The study of Sanskrit is not compulsory for the (many) students who have chosen English as their first language:

http://www.bseorissa.in/ExamVIII.asp?glink=GL004&plink=PL034&selPlink=PL034

> You are welcome to visit India and see what is going on. Merely
> cutting and pasting info from outdated websites does not let one
> see the full picture.

The picture of the teaching of Sanskrit in Indian Middle Education (Classes VI to VIII), barring the Vendriya Vidyalayas schools, is much more complex than you believe. Of course, it is SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE that tens or hundreds of millions of Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Munda, and Urdu students from 10 to 13 years old are *compelled* to study Sanskrit from Class VI to VIII throughout the nation. The study of Sanskrit is being slowly implemented in Indian schools at all levels, with certain States making it compulsory, but in non-Indo-Aryan-speaking States it is still optional. As to the Indo-Aryan-speaking states, I have checked the following cases -- States where Sanskrit was introduced as a compulsory subject in recent years:

Himachal Pradesh:

http://hpeducationboard.nic.in/chap4.htm
(Sanskrit compulsory as Third language)

Gujarat:

http://www.languageinindia.com/sep2002/gujaratlangpolicy.html
(Sanskrit compulsory as Fourth language)

Madhya Pradesh:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071101/asp/nation/story_8497475.asp
(Sanskrit recently made a compulsory subject starting even from Class I!)

Yet, the overall picture is still that represented in this 1990 report available on the Ministry of Human Resource Development website at

http://www.education.nic.in/cd50years/u/47/3x/473X0I01.htm
(search the word 'sanskrit' in the page, and examine especially the cases of the non-Indo-Aryan-speaking States)

Ends of discussion -- no "EVERYONE in India does [Sanskrit] at least upto class 8th" in sight!

Francesco