KOLLAM: Muthukulam Sreedharan has won this year’s Amrita Keerthi Puraskar for his contributions to Sanskrit literature. The award will be handed over to him on September 27 at Amritapuri, during the 62nd birthday celebrations of Mata Amritanandamayi.
The Amrita Keerthi Puraskar - which has been awarded annually since 2001 to individuals making outstanding contributions in the field of spirituality, philosophy, science and literature-comes with a cash prize of `1,23,456, a statuette of Saraswati Devi created by sculptor Namboodiri, and a citation from the Mata Amritanandamayi Math.
The jury consisted of P Parameswaran, Director of the Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram; Dr N P Unni, former Vice-Chancellor of Kalady Sri Sankara University; poet P Narayana Kurup; Dr. Shankar Abhayankar, Pratibha Ray, Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri, Vice-Chairman of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math, and Swami Turiyamritanananda Puri of MAM.
A Sanskrit scholar and a teacher, Muthukulam Sreedharan’s first major work in Sanskrit, Nava Bharatam, was published with support from the Central Government in 1976. Since then, he has published many works in the language, such as Vidyadiraja Vijayam, Nayakabharanam, Asrupuja and Dharmasthaliyam.
He has also written many books and translated many works into Malayalam, including Sri Narayana Charitamritam, Sri Vidyadiraja Charitamritam and Pancha Mahakavyangal. He has written two books based on the teachings of Mata Amritanandamayi: Amritayanam and Amrita Gita.
Previous winners of the Amrita Keerthi Puraskar include Acharya Narendra Bhushan, P Parameswaran, M H Shastrikal, P Narayana Kurup, Prof Vasudevan Potti, Prof K V Dev, Paravoor Sreedharan Tantrikal, Dr N P Unni, M P Veerendrakumar, C Radhakrishnan and S Ramesan Nair.