One of my best friends was a Sanskrit Scholar in college. So what I learned from him about Sanskrit is that it is an ancient language and that most Hindu and Buddhist texts are written in it, much the same as Latin is a language that many Christian Texts were originally written in alongside Greek in the beginning of the Christian Era. And the Hindi language originates from Sanskrit as well as Tibetan and possibly Newari (Nepal's language) as well. There may be other languages in this area that also have there origins in Sanskrit as well.

So, in some ways what Latin is to all romance languages in Europe, Sanskrit is to many languages around India, Nepal and Tibet. begin quote from wikipedia under the title "Sanskrit".

Sanskrit

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Sanskrit
संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam
Pronunciation	[sə̃skɹ̩t̪əm]
Spoken in	Greater India
Total speakers	14,135 native speakers in India (2001)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Sanskrit
Writing system	Devanāgarī (de facto), various Brāhmī–based scripts, and Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in	India (Uttarakhand) one of the 22 scheduled languages of India
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sa
ISO 639-2	san
ISO 639-3	san
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Sanskrit (संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam, properly saṃskṛtā vāk, later also saṃskṛtabhāṣā, "refined speech"), is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism^{[note 1]}. Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India^[2] and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand.^[3]
Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the 4th century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent, particularly in India and Nepal.^[4]
The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back to as early as 1500 BCE.^[5] This qualifies Rigvedic Sanskrit as one of the oldest attestations of any Indo-Iranian language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family, the family which includes English and most European languages.^[6]
The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and Hindu religious texts. Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India and there are many attempts at revival. end quote from wikipedia.