Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai was India's first ambassador to the US (called Agent

General in 1943). After Independence, he went to the UN to represent India.

There's this famous story of his trip to New York. The then President of Truman
had arranged to fly the Indian delegation (consisting of Nehru, Indira Gandhi,
Bajpai and a couple others) in his personal aircraft, the Sacred Cow, from
London to Washington. (This aircraft can be seen today in a museum in Dayton,
OH). So upon landing, the reception committee drove o with Nehru and Indira
Gandhi. Sir Bajpai and a couple others were left to the mercies of a junior ocer
of the US Air Force who asked them brightly, "Speak English?". Apparently,
Bajpai turned red in the face and looked daggers at one of his assistants. The
assistant had to explain to the junior ocer, "He was educated in Oxford. He
speaks King's English which I'm sure most of you Americans don't understand.

Just like we have Kings English (or Queens English) and other ordinary spoken
forms, there have always been Paninian Sanskrit and various degrees of
unPaninian language being used in India during our early history.

That Sanskrit was the refined and cultivated language used by the educated
people is quite obvious.

Patanjalis Mahabhya even has a name for the exemplars of the educated
people - they are called the ia. The ia are described as those who lived in
certain part of the country, whose sole worldly possession was a few days grain
and who had achieved the highest wisdom in some branch of study, for its own
sake. These ia are the people whose speech is the norm for Sanskrit.

The Mahabhya says one of the purposes of the studying the adhyy is to
recognize these ia. It is very instructive that these ia people used correct
forms, as taught in the adhyy, without even having studied it. The argument
is then extended saying that these ia then must know other correct forms
which are not mentioned directly in the adhyy . This is the double benefit of
being able to recognize the ia.

All this goes to show that Sanskrit was very much a living, spoken language and
much of the language was learnt by observing the ia and not necessarily from
books.

In literature there are many instances where one notices this aspect of Sanskrit,
i.e., its living and spoken nature. Thus in the Ramayana when Hanuman first
proposes to speak with Sita, he is in a dilemma as to how he should address
her. He wonders whether he should address her the way ordinary people speak
or should he use the tones of an educated person. He mulls:

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 (R 5.30.18)

If I speak in the polished language of the higher classes (i.e., the 3 upper varnas),
Sita might become afraid thinking Im Ravana (in disguise).
Hanuman is merely concerned about making the right impression on Sita.

Another occasion where the diction employed by the speaker make the right
impression on the listener is again in the Ramayana itself when Rama and
Lakshmana meet Hanuman for the first time.

Rama tells Lakshmana about Hanuman:

(R 4.3.29)

It is clear that he is very learned in the science of grammar. He spoke so long

and so much without making a single grammatical slip.
Did all educated people speak Sanskrit? Evidently so. The notion that Sanskrit
was a living language with native speakers is resisted only by those people
(some among whom are western scholars) who assume implicitly and
uncritically that Sanskrit was exclusively the language of the Brahmana.

Nothing can be further from the truth. It is evident from the example of Hanuman
in the aokavik (cited above) that all the dvijti spoke Sanskrit. Even in
Sanskrit dramas, it is seen as being spoken by the Brahmana, the Kshatriya and
the ascetic classes. We know from other sources that the leaders of trading
delegations (srthavha) spoke Sanskrit too. As for the sudra, the sutra
pratyabhivdeaudre (A 8.2.83), provides more evidence for the sudra having
spoken Sanskrit than for not having spoken it.

Another reason for the resistance to thinking of Sanskrit as a language with

native speakers has been the extraordinary emphasis on grammar in the
teaching of Sanskrit especially in the modern period - when notions of natural
and artificial languages have been in vogue. To be sure, Sanskrit pedagogy has
always been inextricably linked with rigorous teaching of its wonderful grammar.
But then in the earlier periods, such rigor was practiced in a dierent cultural
environment and in dierent institutional setting. But this emphasis on grammar
has led many modern students to believe that a language requiring so much
mastery over grammar could not have been anyones native language.

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In this they are sadly mistaken. Other languages too such as Classical Arabic
have the same rigorous pedagogy insofar has correct grammatical forms are
concerned.

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