423.3.8.1  : INDIGENOUS SOURCES

     Unlike in source and technology, the terminology in basic social sciences and humanities had a long tradition in India. In particular, terms pertaining to philosophy, aesthetics, poetics, linguistics and literary criticism have come mainly from Sanskrit literature and constitute tatsam and tadbhav stock of the Indian vocabulary. While the existence of these indigenous terms may only half way the concepts of the English terms. For instance, the Sanskrit terms 'pad' and 'praatirpaadak' meet only partially the concepts denoted by the English terms "term" and "stem". The problem became more acute in respect of the last developing discipline like economics, commerce, business management and linguistics where new meanings were being constantly added or assigned to the existing English terms. The Commission in such cases either substituted the existing Indian equivalent by a new one, or two or more equivalents were provided for use in different contexts. e.g.

     Similarly, a large bulk of terminology pertaining to administration, law, revenue, politics, architecture and commerce has come from the Perso-Arabic stock which characterized the language of governance during the Mughal period. In a process of socio-linguistic fusion, this vocabulary got assimilated in the Indian languages over a period of time and in the north, where its impact was the strongest, it marked the emergence of a style called Hindustani which provided equivalents that were in actual use in professional transactions, e.g.