DEHRADUN: Sanskrit Club of the IIT-Roorkee in association with Sanskrit Bharati, a non- profit organization, is organising a 15-day worldwide online camp on spoken Sanskrit.
“Sanskrit is among the oldest languages in the world. There is a need to explore the pearls of wisdom hidden in Sanskrit literature in disciplines such as science, astronomy, medicine, and diplomacy,” said Prof. Ajit Chaturvedi, Director of IIT-Roorkee
This one-of-a-kind event titled ‘Subhashitam Sanskritam’ witnessed participation by over 4,800 language enthusiasts from India and abroad.
The classes will be followed by four advanced courses in Sanskrit. The objective of the event was to create awareness about the significance of Sanskrit among the young generation.
Dr. H.R.Vishwasa, Head, Teacher Training, SanskritBharati, who delivered the inaugural address in Sanskrit highlighting the significance of the language in the Indian culture said, "The uniqueness of Sanskrit lies in the derivation of words from root syllables and a highly inflected grammatical structure. Since antiquity, it has continued to exist in its pristine form without any alteration in pronunciation of its 36 consonants and 16 vowels. "Sambhashan’(conversation) is the first step towards reviving Sanskrit and making the young generation aware of its significance."
The inaugural session was followed by an online session wherein Sanskrit experts taught the foundational aspects of the language.
In March this year, a pilot project was launched from Srinagar assembly constituency of higher education minister Dhan Singh Rawat under which every block in the hill state was to have at least one Sanskrit speaking village. At present, the hill state has 95 development blocks.
However, the project has to be postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
Last year, the state government decided to make the language compulsory in all government and private schools from Class 3 to 8.
The state government was also planning to launch a satellite Sanskrit TV channel titled 'SS-Sanskrit evam Sanskriti' to promote the language of Hindu religious scriptures.
The proposed channel was planned to be run by the academy only under Public-Private-partnership (PPP) model to air programmes based on Sanskrit literature and Hindu mythology such as shows on Ramayana and Mahabharata with Hindi and English subtitles.