Students vouch for Sanskrit's immense utilities at varsity convocation

Sanskrit University signs agreements with institutes across countries

The Karnataka Sanskrit University is planning to introduce many programmes such as teacher-student exchange programmes between various national and international universities, besides starting study centres of foreign languages on its campus.

This was announced at the sixth convocation of the university here on Tuesday.

"We have to open study centres for foreign languages such as Malay, Thai and Lao in our university, which will help in improving relations with countries where these languages are spoken. Prominent works in Sanskrit should be translated to regional languages and we need to introduce a translation course. We need to focus on developing Sanskrit at the global level," said Prof Satyavathi Shastri, Jnanapeeth awardee, who presided over the programme.

The university has entered into agreements with national and international universities such as Ghent University in Belgium, French Institute of Pondicherry, Somanath Sanskrit University in Gujarat and Manipal University for a student-teacher exchange programme from next year.

Degrees were conferred on 943 students at its sixth convocation ceremony by Governor Vajubhai Vala.

Gold medals were awarded to 12 students in post-graduate degree courses. Eight students of PG and graduate courses received scholarships from Infosys. Abhijit Joshi and Vidwan B Rajashekaraiah were honoured with D Litt degrees.

Balachandra Krishna Bhat, who bagged a gold medal in Alankara Shastra (post-graduation) said, "I feel very happy on winning this medal and for scoring 86%. Sanskrit is relevant even today and there is immense knowledge on science and mathematics in this language."

Another gold medalist Jahnavi is a mother of two children. She had not learnt Sanskrit in school and it was only after knowing the tremendous social work done by Samskrita Bharati across India that she was motivated to study the language.

Shivayya Hiremath, who has secured a gold medal in Jain Siddhanth, said most people have a misconception that Sanskrit is a difficult language. "It is not true. Sanskrit is a very simple language and I have been learning it since the age of seven years," he said.