Dr. Prabhakar Apte has been editing the Sanskrit dictionary, a mammoth project launched by the Deccan College of Pune, for the past 20 years. He says that the dictionary is “based on historical principles” and is a compilation of words taken from 1,500 works, right from the Vedas to the nineteenth-century Sanskrit texts. Appreciative attempts have been made to record how the meaning of words change with time. This dictionary has been titled “Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principle."
Over 1 crore references were used to create this dictionary, and these references are now stored in a scriptorium. Planned by Prof. S. M. Katre, the director of the institute and former professor of Indo European Philology, this project was launched in 1948. Although 7000 pages have been printed so far, the scholars working on the project are still in the letter “A,” says Dr. Apte.
The dictionary is packed with quotations that will be of great use to researchers and those who deliver religious discourses. Giving the example of the word “agni,” he said that the scholars have chosen 500 citations from around 5000 citations and that the various shades of meanings of this word is more than 100.
Dr. Prabhakar Apte has a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and a Master’s in law; in fact, he obtained the first rank in Hindu law in the university. His chief interest is “Franco-Hindu Jurisprudence,” a term he coined after gaining inspiration from “Essays in Classical and Modern Hindu Law: Anglo-Hindu Legal Problems,” a book by Duncan Derrett, a scholar on Hindu law.
Describing how Hindu law continued to govern even Hindu converts to Christianity in French-ruled Pondicherry, he said that Mitakshara law applied to all Hindus in South India, with the standard law book being “Smriti Chandrika.” The French government appointed a committee in the early nineteenth century to decide cases as per the Hindu law. Leo Storg, the chief justice of Pondicherry, collected and published all such cases in the late nineteenth century. This report comprises a list of 100 Dharma Shastras used by the French to decide cases. Dr. Apte says that the best sources of information for studying “Franco-Hindu Jurisprudence” are the libraries of Paris.
Apte says that the Hindu law was used differently by the Portuguese, the British, and the French. While the Portuguese permitted Hindus to take care of their personal cases, they tried Hindus as per the Portuguese law if they moved the Portuguese courts. The British, on the other hand, tried to incorporate their jurisprudence into Hindu law. The French were the most appreciative of Hindu laws.
Photo by Vivek Bendre taken from The Hindu
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