An initiative to take Sanskrit from classrooms to streets

Chandigarh, February 28, 2023: Spoken Sanskrit camp at the Panjab University which began on 22nd February, reached its conclusion today i.e 28th February 2023 at university’s Sanskrit department.  This camp was organised by the department in collaboration with the Lok Bhasha Prachar Samiti Chandigarh under the direction of Prof. Renu Vig, the DUI as well as Chairperson, Deptt. of Sanskrit.  Participants of the camp were from diverse age groups and professions. 

Professor V. K. Alankar, academic incharge of Sanskrit department expressed joy at the successful completion of the camp. “I hope that participants have learnt conversational Sanskrit here and I invite all in advance for the next camp”, said Prof. Alankar. 79 year old participant Mrs. Krishna Sharma told that she thoroughly enjoyed the camp. She said, “the instructors taught us according to our level, which is highly appreciable”.

In the camp, participants were trained in both formal and informal types of written and spoken Sanskrit. Vijay Bharadwaj, Anshul Chaudhary and Naresh Kumar were the instructors for this camp. Mr. Vijay Bharadwaj who was one of the instructors, and is also a guest faculty at the department said, “We have received a good response from the participants which is evident from their suggestions to organise these camps twice or thrice a year instead of just once”. To teach conversational Sanskrit, Bharadwaj took many of the participants to PU’s Rose Festival and introduced them to the Sanskrit names of flora and fauna displayed there. “Those around us got interested in our teaching session and expressed eagerness to learn Sanskrit”, said Bharadwaj.

PU’s Sanskrit department has been organizing spoken Sanskrit camps since a long time, a tradition which will continue. The department aims at taking Sanskrit from the classrooms to streets, where people could converse in Sanskrit as fluently as their native language, which in most cases is an offshoot of Sanskrit.

Prof. Alankar also invited all to a five-day workshop on Vedic Sanskaras to be organised daily at 2:30 pm, by Dayanand Chair for Vedic studies from 1st march 2023 in Guru Teg Bahadur Building, 2nd floor, opposite USOL building, Panjab University.