Sanskrit varsity V-C skips first Sanskrit Adhiveshan

On the absence of Prof Chaudhary, Krishna Prasad Nirola, state chairman of Samskrita Bharati, said, “He was to attend the event, but could not as his wife was unwell. So at the last minute, we invited Jayanti Ravi and she obliged.”

When contacted, Prof Chaudhary said, “My wife’s health did not permit me to attend the event in Gandhinagar.”
“I won’t be able to reach on the day two even,” he added, when asked if he would attend on the last day of the event where Governor O P Kohli is scheduled to be the chief guest.

The Somnath Sanskrit University was established by the Gujarat government through an Act of the Legislative Assembly, passed on April 12, 2005. It was one of the among several special universities established by the then chief minister Narendra Modi.

Samskrita Bharati was also actively involved in the inception of the Sanskrit University. From a total of 116 in its first academic session in 2006-07 to over 260 students at present registered on the campus, the university has given affiliation to 35 colleges across Gujarat.

Keeping with the theme, all the special invitees addressed the gathering of over 500 Sanskrit scholars, experts and followers of the language from across the state. “Sanskrit is being promoted and used today but if we use the language in every walk of life, the situation will be much better than this,” said Bhagyesh Jha.

Pandey stressed the importance of Sanskrit. “There are misconceptions that the language is tough and cannot be used in communication… Those who criticise Sanskrit and Samskrita Bharati, their life is a waste,” he said.
It is said that Pandey was among one of the participants of the Sanskrit shivir, organised by Samskrita Bharati, in jail.

Among the recommendations received during the first brainstorming session Thursday, opening of ‘bal kendras’ for promoting Sanskrit among children was suggested.

“Further, how information technology can be used in promoting the language was one of the major discussion point. Though, we have created Whatsapp groups and a ‘wikipedia’ in Sanskrit, we want to explore it further,” said Sukumar Trivedi, Samskrita Bharati spokesperson. It is claimed that the ‘Sanskrit wikipedia’, started a couple of years ago, records over 5 lakh visitors in a month.