History of Sanskrit (Public education and popularisation -part1)


Public education and popularisation

Adult and continuing education

Attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language have been undertaken in the Republic of India since its foundation in 1947 (it was included in the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution).
Organisations like the Samskrta Bharati are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularise the language. The "All-India Sanskrit Festival" (since 2002) holds composition contests. The1991 Indian census reported 49,736 fluent speakers of Sanskrit. All India Radio transmits news bulletins in Sanskrit twice a day across the nation. Besides, Sanskrit learning programmes also feature on the list of most of the AIR broadcasting centres. The Mattur village in central Karnataka claims to have native speakers of Sanskrit among its population. Inhabitants of all castes learn Sanskrit starting in childhood and converse in the language. Even the local Muslims speak and converse in Sanskrit. Historically, the village was given by king Krishnadevaraya of theVijayanagara Empire to Vedic scholars and their families. People in his kingdom spoke Kannada and Telugu. Another effort concentrates on the preservation of oral transmission of the Vedas.Shri Vedabharathi is one such organisation based out of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh that has been digitising the Vedas through voice recording the recitations of Vedic Pandits.
Samskrita Bharati is an organisation working for Sanskrit revival. It is a tax exempt non-profit organisation with its headquarters in New Delhi, India. The International Centre, “Aksharam,” a complex located in Bangalore, India, is its international centre. It houses a research wing, a library, audio-visual lab, and staff quarters. It also has several state-units spread across the country both in the US and India. The US chapter is a registered nonprofit tax-exempt organisation with its headquarters in San Jose, California.

School curricula

The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) of India has made Sanskrit a third language (though it is an option for the school to adopt it or not, the other choice being the state's own official language) in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools affiliated to the ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is Hindi. Sanskrit is also taught in traditional gurukulas throughout India.

In the west

St. James Junior School offers Sanskrit as part of the curriculum.[36] Students from this school are fluent in both spoken Sanskrit[37] and in chanting Sanskrit mantras. In USA, since Sep 2009, high school students have been able receive credits (as Independent Study or towards Foreign Language requirements) by studying Sanskrit, as part of the "SAFL: Samskritam as a Foreign Language" program coordinated by Samskrita Bharati.

Universities

A list of Sanskrit universities is given below in chronological order:

Sr
No
Year
Est.
NameLocationTypeSpecialisation
11791Sampurnanand Sanskrit UniversityVarnasiUttar Pradesh
21961Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit UniversityDarbhangaBihar
31962Rashtriya Sanskrit VidyapeethaTirupati
41962Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Kendriya Sanskrit VidyapeethaNew DelhiCentral Govt
51970Rashtriya Sanskrit SansthanNew DelhiCentral GovtMulti Campus
61981Shri Jagannath Sanskrit VishvavidayalayaPuriOdisha
71993Sree Sankaracharya University
Of Sanskrit
KaladyKerala
81997Kaviguru Kalidas Sanskrit UniversityRamtek, (Nagpur)Maharashtra
92001Jagadguru Ramanandacharya
Rajasthan Sanskrit University
JaipurRajasthan
102005Shree Somnath Sanskrit UniversitySomnath-Veraval,
Junagarh
Gujarat
112008Maharshi Panini Sanskrit
Evam Vedic Vishwavidyalaya
UjjainMadhya Pradesh
52011Karnataka Samskrit UniversityBangaloreKarnataka

Within other universities

Besides this, many universities throughout the world train and employ Sanskrit scholars - either within a separate Sanskrit department, or within a broader focus area - for example, in South Asian studies/linguistics departments in universities across the West. For example, Delhi university has about 400 Sanskrit students, out of which about half are reading it in post-graduation programmes.[21]


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