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rubbish. Once you know it, you will be surprised -- what is sacred about it? But chanted in Sanskrit, you don't know what it means, you are mystified.
To keep the scriptures sacred it was necessary to keep them secret. They should not reach the people, people should not be able to read them. Whenever they need, the priest is available, he will read it. When printing was introduced Hindus were very reluctant for their scriptures to be printed: what would happen to the mystifying that they had been maintaining for thousands of years?
Hindus have mystified the whole country with the idea that they have all the secrets in their sacred books -- but of those sacred books, ninety-nine percent is simply cow-dung! For Hindus it may be holy, but for nobody else is it holy. When those sacred books were translated into other languages the mystifying process stopped; Hinduism lost its height, its glory, because then you could read it in any language -- all those scriptures were available.
Mahavira never spoke in Sanskrit, Gautam Buddha never spoke in Sanskrit -- for the simple reason that they were trying to defy the priesthood. They spoke in the language of the people. They were condemned by the priesthood: "This is not the right way. You should speak in Sanskrit. And both of you are perfectly well educated " -- both were sons of great kings -- " you know Sanskrit, so why do you speak ordinary people's languages?"
They said, "For a certain reason: we want people to know that this mystifying has to be exposed. There is nothing in your scriptures, but because they are in a language which nobody understands, it is left to the people's imagination."
Even the priest may not understand what he is reciting because Sanskrit has to be learned by memorizing, not by understanding. There is a great difference between the two. Sanskrit has to be learned by rote, by memory; you have to memorize it. Its whole emphasis is on memory, not on understanding. There is no need to be bothered what it means; all that you should be concerned about is how it is chanted.
And of course Sanskrit is a very beautiful language, having the quality of singing. You can
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