Words’ worth

During the course of his doctoral research,he began working on a Sanskrit-Catalan dictionary—the first of its kind. The dictionary,published in 2006,contains 60,000 words and lists double etymologies by Indian grammarians and modern linguists. Mother tongue of Pujol,who hails from Barcelona,Catalan is the official language of Andorra,almost hidden on the border between France and Spain. The little-known language is as old as Spanish.

“I have given long explanations with quotations and phrases,besides explaining the etymology and usages in various languages,” says Pujol,50,who is now the director of Instituto Cervantes,the Spanish cultural centre located at Connaught Place. For instance,as Pujol traces the itinerary of the Sanskrit word shakara,meaning sugar,he notes,“The word shakara is an Indian invention,which came from Sanskrit into Greek as sakkhar,Latin as saccharum,travelled into Persian as sakar,transformed into sukkar in Arabic and in Catalan as sucre”. Likewise,the word that stands for snake in Sanskrit becomes serp in Catalan and serpiente in Spanish. “While there are no major similarities between Catalan and Sanskrit,there might be a few similarities in pronunciation that one can gauge if one knows both the languages,” says the Sanskrit scholar.

Pujol began working on the dictionary,published by Spanish publisher Enciclopedia Catalana,in 1993. However,language was not the reason he came to India. “I came here for a personal reason,for my wife who was visiting India in 1979. During my travels in south India,I found a copy of the Bhagwad Gita in English in a hotel room. It gave the answers to life’s many questions and I was quite fascinated by the third chapter. So I decided to return to India in the ’80s and learn the language. Sanskrit is so lyrical and soothing,” says Pujol,who still carries around a pocket version of the Bhagwad Gita.

Though life as director of the cultural centre is hectic,he still visits Varanasi. Says Pujol,who likes to listen to Tulsidasa’s Ramayana being recited by Pandit Channulal Sharma,“I am still in touch with my teacher Shri Narayan Mishra,who is retired now,and I love sitting with the pandits of Varanasi and hearing their discourses.”

Author of a half dozen books—all in Spanish,the latest one published last year is about Patanjali and Spinoza—Pujol,who has also been teaching Spanish at BHU,is now working on a Sanskrit-Spanish dictionary.