'Dhatus' whose meaning is 'component parts' are the fundamental building blocks of the Ancient Sanskrit language. Imagine a lego set with over 2000 building blocks enabling one to construct a 'house' or a 'boat' or a 'plane' its a similar thing in Sanskrit.

 

If we open up our Sanskrit lego box we find there are over two thousand linguistic building blocks, known as dhatus. One such dhatu is 'ka' whose meaning is 'sky' another is 'ga' whose meaning is "go" now if we connect them together we get "kaga" whose meaning is 'bird' or that which goes ( ga ) by the sky ( ka ).

 

Another linguistic building block is 'na' whose meaning is 'water' and if we connect it to 'ga' whose meaning is 'go' we get 'naga' meaning 'snake' or that which goes ( ga ) by the waters ( na ). As we again reach into the Sanskrit lego box we pull out 'da' whose meaning is to 'give' and when we attach it to 'tr' whose meaning is to 'perform' we get 'datr' whose meaning is the 'giver'.

 

 

Vedantists who declare that Sanskrit is an eternal language, one which descends from the gods and one which has survived for millions of years, are referring to these "Dhatus" these linguistic building blocks whose lifespan has been carefully nourished by the Devas, whose earthly presence spans millions of years ending with the coming of Kali Yuga some 5000 years ago.

 

One who knows these dhatus can understand the meaning of any Sanskrit word whereas if one knew every word in the English dictionary one could still spend eternity trying to guess the meaning of 'bird' and this is one of the reasons why Sanskrit has no need for 'loan words' as one can simply reach into the Sanskrit lego box and produce a word which reflects the qualities of the object in question.

 

An example is 'camera' a modern day word which describes a product of modern day technology and if we were to give this a Sanskrit name we would simply look at its qualities which are to 'capture' as in the Sanskrit 'graha' and 'pictures' as in the Sanskrit 'rupa' and combined we have 'rupagrahika" whose meaning is that which captures ( graha ) pictures ( rupa ).

 

 

Another example is a 'microphone' or that which 'records' and as we look at the qualities of the object we simply put our hand into the Sanskrit lego box and form the word 'sabda' whose meaning is 'sound' which we then attach to 'Graha' whose meaning is to 'capture' and this produces 'Sabdagrahika' whose meaning is that which captures ( graha ) sound ( sabda ).

 

As mentioned previously Sanskrit has no need for loan words, its capacity is unlimited and the Sanskrit scholar Dr Sampadananda Misra who provided these wonderful examples, informs us that the Sanskrit dhatus are capable of producing over 300 million words, compare this to the paucity of the first English dictionary which contained some 3000 words.

 

Today the standard language is 'English' a language which is composed of numerous meaningless words such as 'lotus' 'bird' and 'mouse' all about as meaningful as naming your dog 'fido' which is quite apt as English is a mongrel language composed of many different cultures whereas Sanskrit retains its uniqueness due to the dhatus, the linguistic building blocks handed down billions of years ago by the great goddess of learning 'Sarasvati' and maintained universally by the Devas.