Mattur, the only Sanksrit-speaking village in India

Bengaluru: The only place in India where the ancient language – Sanskrit - continues to flourish is Mattur as nearly 5,000 residents here converse with eacAh other in the sacred language of Hinduism. Mattur, a village located in Shimoga district, occupies a unique place as Vedic chants resonate from the tile-roofed homes and schools.

It also gives a glimpse of ancient India in modern times. With the objective of keeping the ancient language alive, Mattur residents have chosen to communicate in Sanskrit. The love of the language is so much that the children here start studying the Vedas at the age of 10 along with English and ancient traditional arts. It is like music to ears of visitor as the residents exchange pleasantries in Sanskrit such as: Katham Asti (How are you?), Aham Gacchami (I am going), and Shubham Bhavatu (May all good happen to me). A workshop that was conducted by Sanskrita Bharati way back in 1981 rekindled the interest of Mattur residents in the language and paved the way for their embracing it in their daily life.

The residents, about a hundred Sanketi Brahmin families, migrated here from Tamil Nadu in the 15th century. Although they speak Sanketi, an amalgam of Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada, everyone in the colony converses in Sanskrit. Today all the people in the Agrahara and many in the village can speak Tamil which is their mother tongue, Kannada which is the local language, and Sanskrit which is the chosen language of the village.

Their main occupation is arecanut and coconut cultivation in the land that they own in and around the village. Mattur has temples dedicated to Rama, Shiva, Someshwara and Lakshmikeshava. Its twin village, Hosahalli, shares almost all the characteristics of Mattur.

Hosahalli is situated across the bank of the Tunga River. These two villages are almost always referred to together. Mattur and Hosahalli are known for their efforts to support Gamaka art, which is a unique form of singing and storytelling in Karnataka. These are two of the very rare villages in India where Sanskrit is spoken as a regional language. Sanskrit is the main language of the majority of the 5,000 residents of this village situated around 8 km from Shimoga.

For the last 600 years, the Sankethis, a community of Brahmins have been living together and leading an insular life. Since, Sanskrit is heard spoken by the ordinary person clad in jeans using a mobile, riding motorcycles, these two villages have become a unique and brilliant example of the synthesis and coming together of the ancient and the modern. In short, it isn't as though speaking in Sanskrit made one ancient.

While Sanskrit is the language of an advanced civilisation that most probably was lost and buried in the winds of time, in Mattur, young boys are taught Vedas from the age of 10 at school along with English and ancient traditional art. Though Mattur is a Sanskrit-speaking village, it is not detached from the modern world which is proved by the fact that almost every house in this village has an IT professional and many of them work abroad with huge salaries.

The village now has adopted technology to teach Sanskrit to the world. Many young entrepreneurs here teach Sanskrit online from the village.