The Kochi International Book Festival 2022 is Óscar Pujol’s first book fest after the pandemic outbreak in Kerala. Having attended several book festivals, including the International Kolkata Book Fair, Óscar says the Kochi book fair stands out. “In Calcutta, people wait for such events to happen so they can buy books in bulk. That’s not the case with Kerala, I believe. The state seems to never go short of books as it has enough libraries, even in rural areas. There are many distributors too,” says Óscar who is also the director of Instituto Cervantes in New Delhi, an institution founded by the Government of Spain in 1991 to promote Spanish and Spain’s co-official languages around the world. Óscar started his career translating poetry. From the 50 poems in ‘Love Thief Poem’ by Kashmiri poet Bilhana to Upanishads, Yogasutra, and Savitri Upakhyan, he has worked extensively with Indian literature. Philosophical works are translated into Spanish and Catalan to spread Sanskrit among Spanish speakers around the world.
Early life
Born and raised in a small village near Barcelona, Óscar claims to have lived a typical European life up until his early 20s. He was fond of Latino-American writers and was proud of his culture. “In the ‘70s, visiting India was a trend in Spain. But I was least interested in Indian culture and used to mock my friends who wanted to travel here. But soon, I joined the cult too, for a girl I met who was keen to visit India. She is my wife now,” he quips.
Upon reaching India, he explored many dimensions within him that he had never truly embraced till then. “I realised my ‘Swadharma’ while I was in Pushkar, Rajasthan. I happened to read an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita. One sloka in Chapter three paved the way for who I’ve become now. It spoke about Karma — he who doesn’t follow the wheel of life would lead a sinful life. This struck me,” says Óscar.
Beyond Spirituality
“India is often considered a land of spirituality. But it is also the land of analytical and critical thinking. This is the nature of Sanskrit,” says Óscar. He claims that modern linguistics wouldn’t have been born if western scholars and European scholars hadn’t discovered Sanskrit, for they knew nothing about phonetics.
“They could not differentiate between voice and unvoiced consonants. Many modern phonetic elements like labial and occlusive are just translations of Sanskrit terms which existed 2,500 years ago,” adds Óscar. “The grammar of Panini details the whole Sanskrit language in 4,000 rules. These are coded in meta language. When printed, it would hardly be 40 pages. But when decoded into natural language, it would turn into a book with nearly 700 pages,” he says.
Many countries now encourage the study of Sanskrit for Yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation. “Much like these sciences that guide you towards well-being and a free mind, learning Sanskrit is also a liberating experience. The discipline can even solve some of the problems raised by modern human science,” says Óscar, adding that Sanskrit has chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, grammar, consciousness studies, and political science.
Sanskrit chose him
Though he headed back to Spain, the Indian culture and Gita had opened his eyes. To read Gita in its crudest form, Óscar learnt Sanskrit in Spain for two years and in 1986, he flew back to Banaras with his wife to learn more about the ancient language. At the Banaras Hindu University, Óscar obtained a PhD in Sanskrit. While taking classes at the university, he also interacted with the Pandits who were well-versed in Sanskrit. This made him want to discover the language beyond his intention of learning the Gita. He authored two dictionaries — Sanskrit to Catalan and Sanskrit to Spanish. “It took me 12 years to finish the Catalan dictionary. It has 64,000 entries,” he says.
Not a dead language
Sanskrit is often called a dead language. “I beg to differ. It is not dead, that is an unfortunate metaphor. It is considered dead because it is not spoken as a mother tongue,” says Óscar. According to him, Sanskrit is being learnt in Brazil, Spain, China, Denmark, Chile, and Japan. Although the language originated in India, Indians don’t use it as much. “This attitude has started to change. Once you achieve excellence in the modern world, you’ll realise that you have missed out on your culture. I know many young Indians learning Sanskrit now, some even on YouTube,” concludes Óscar.