Languages of Movement: Sanskrit and the Borderlands of Indian Intellectual Traditions

This paper rethinks the history and role of Sanskrit by approaching it not as a static classical language but as a dynamic medium of epistemic and cultural mobility. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of border studies, translational theory, and Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), the paper explores how Sanskrit functioned historically in the borderlands of linguistic, geographic, and disciplinary frontiers. Focusing on lexicography and translation as technologies of knowledge circulation, it traces the multilingual, intercultural life of Sanskrit across Asia prior to colonial disruption. The colonial encounter, it is argued, reconstituted Sanskrit as a fixed and depoliticized tradition, severed from its border-crossing vitality. By recovering Sanskrit’s translational functions and interrogating its marginalization in postcolonial intellectual structures, this study advances a decolonial, mobile framework for reimagining Sanskrit within contemporary knowledge systems.