Sanskrit Studies in the 21st Century -
National Students Seminar
On 06 April 2022, the School of Linguistics and Literary Studies held a national students seminar for UG and PG students, and PhD researchers from all over India on the theme ‘Sanskrit Studies in the 21st Century’. There were 190 registrations and twenty-odd abstract submissions of which seventeen papers were chosen.
Prof. C. Rajendran, Retd. Sanskrit Professor, University of Calicut, was the day’s featured keynote speaker. He spoke on the status of Sanskrit in the modern world, its contribution to the popularisation of Indian culture, and our duty as individuals who are closely tied with this language.
Ms. R. Gayathri, a research scholar, spoke on ‘An Introduction to Sanskrit Diary Literature’, based on the writings of Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri’s diary ‘dine dine yAti madIyajIvitam’. This talk was one of the event’s highlights. The topic piqued the chair’s interest and there was a lively discussion about it during the Q&A session.
Another intriguing paper was presented by Kavita Verma (IM Vedanta, CVV) who presented a paper on ‘Three Levels of Existence According to the Works of Shankaracharya and Plato – A Comparative Analysis’. Shreya Pavitran (Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Ernakulam) talked on ‘Children’s Literature on Modern Sanskrit’ and Ramyajit Sarkar (UG student, Department of History, Saldiha College, Bankura) spoke on the ‘History of Sanskrit Education in Bankura from Ancient to Modern’. The paper ‘Areas in Sanskrit Studies that Need to be Focused On’, by Alok Kumar (first-year BA Sanskrit, CVV) was well received. The seminar received a diverse range of themes that may be classified as past, present, or future in Sanskrit.
The event was chaired by Dr. Gopal Desikan (Assistant Professor, School of Vedic Knowledge Systems, CVV), Dr. Pavan Kumar Satuluri and Dr. Sudarshan Chiplunkar (Assistant Professors, School of Linguistics and Literary Studies (LLS), CVV). The event was organised by BA Sanskrit students and coordinated by S. Hridya (second-year BA Sanskrit) under the leadership of Dr. L. Sampath Kumar (Head, School of LLS) and faculty coordinator Dr. Anil Narayanan N. (Assistant Professor, School of LLS).
The seminar ended with the announcement of the winners of the three best papers.
First place: ‘श्रवणादि नां स्वरूपप्रयोजनसम्बन्धनि रुपणम्’ by Avinash K. Chavan (Research Scholar, CVV)
Second place: ‘Three Levels of Existence: Shankaracharya & Plato’ by Kavita Verma (fourth-year IM Vedanta, CVV), ‘ब्रह्म सत्यं जगत्ममथ्या – Vedantic Analogies of this Philosophy’ by Rupal Shukla (fourth-year IM Vedanta, CVV)
Third place: An Introduction to Sanskrit Diary Literature’ by Ms. R. Gayathri (MPhil Research Scholar, The Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai).