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The way Sanskrit is taught institutionally in India is essentially through syllabi that have been frozen for decades, and in an examination format that kills innovative thinking. To really make Sanskrit come alive, one has to ask questions that feed into contemporary intellectual questions how might the sophisticated systematisations of doubt in Indian philosophy feed into similar questions being asked in Western analytic philosophy? How might the idea of mood developed so eloquently by Bhavabhuti relate to ideas of self in modern Telugu literature? What was the relationship between science, ethics and politics then, and how might this conjuncture relate to present dilemmas? While, ironically, scientists might be terrified at how to translate thermodynamics into Sanskrit, it is the humanities that can relate most meaningfully to the set of concerns that have been so ably articulated in Sanskritic formulations of the ethical life. Far from finding some ancient, obscure text that might have some misty relation to a European mathematical concept, the humanities can best treat Sanskrit as a contemporary language with the vital resources available for today's world. We are far from any of this happening, because we have failed to separate the wheat from the chaff. The aim is to teach Sanskrit not out of a mindless patriotism, but as it speaks to other disciplines literature, or historiography, or science. This is by no means an easy task. To many, for example, Sanskrit literature is too ornate, and does not have the easy identification that, say, reading Greek dramatists might have. The aesthetics are difficult to appreciate how many things can be endlessly and tediously compared to the lotus or the moon? The challenge of pedagogy is to be able to make this Sanskritic world interesting and only those who have tried hard to teach it know how difficult this is. Further, Sanskrit is reduced to a language as if all ideas can be reduced to language. To teach Sanskrit in a civilisational sense is not to have to learn Sanskrit (a difficult language for most to learn, with its endless tables), at least in the early stages. Why would one be motivated to learn at all unless one has glimpsed at least some of its treasures by translation? But for this sense of wonder at that world, one must be able to have clearly experienced that world translation itself may not suffice, and there would need to be a whole range of pedagogical and intermediate material explaining the special significance of Sanskrit ideas be they in science or any other field. This is the work the government would do well to support and encourage but, unfortunately, we do not yet have indication that their thoughts have travelled