But I submit that it is not a dead language at all. Wherever I have travelled, if I have not been able to make myself Understood in any other language, I have been able to make myself understood in Sanskrit. Two decades ago, when I was in Madras, in some of the big temples at Madura, Rameshwaram, Tirupati, I could not make myself understood in English or in any other language, but the moment I started talking in Sanskrit, I found that these people could well understand me and exchange their views. I came away with the impression that at least in Madras there was the glow of culture of Sanskrit. Notwithstanding their inordinate passion-which is only natural-for their regional languages-Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada the Southerners did study Sanskrit on a fairly wide scale.
