INTEGRATING SANSKRIT NON-TRANSLATABLES INTO TEACHER EDUCATION: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Teachers in India, especially at the middle-school level impart education in English, and often use English equivalents of original Sanskrit and regional terms. Many students have limited familiarity with Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) and end up never learning core Sanskrit concepts and Indian values. They are unable to appreciate their own cultural and intellectual heritage, as well as India’s historical achievements in science, arts, mind sciences, medicine, and mathematics. Moreover, often many English translations of Sanskrit terms are imprecise and introduce conceptual distortions. We argue that the integration of the Sanskrit non-translatables (SNT) framework into teacher training is needed to address these issues and to help mitigate deep-seated colonial biases. We use a conceptual approach to demonstrate how using Sanskrit terms into English-medium classroom discussions rather than replacing them with approximate English equivalents, will allow teachers to explain concepts that are deeply rooted in the Bharatiya intellectual tradition. Given that at this stage, students are developing critical thinking skills, this approach can expand their conceptual vocabulary and allow them to understand various cultural similarities and differences.