C Rajendran in conversation with Oscar Pujol
The session which featured C Rajendran and Oscar Pujol traced the linguistic and civilizational links between Europe and India. C Rajendran kick-started the session by affirming the active interactions that India and Europe have in the first place. The talk was marked as one of the most informative sessions in which the Indian contribution to the linguistics and numeric were deeply analysed and discussed. The session stressed on the fact that the knowledge of languages in Europe before coming to India was very poor and the discovery of Sanskrit by western scholars was a very significant moment in the history of Europe. The richness of Indian languages and the knowledge upheld by the Indian linguists such as Panini became the key area of discussion. Oscar Pujol also commented on the relation that they possess with Kozhikode. “Kozhikode is the first place where Spanish was spoken in India. It’s the first connection we have,” he said. The speaker also discussed the possibilities that Sanskrit has, which can be extracted from it for the modern times and marked the urge to head towards the third revolution of Sanskrit. The session ended with the note that India as a national unity is new, but as a cultural unity is very old.