Prompted by his guru Shri Vidyamanya Tirtha Swamiji of Bhandarakere Mutt, Poornaprajna Vidyapeetha, a residential school of classical learning, was founded by Shri Vishwesha Tirtha Swamiji of Pejawar Mutt in 1956. The good old Gurukula celebrated its golden jubilee last year.
According to Prof K T Pandurangi, recipient of this year’s Rajyotsava Award, traditional type Gurukulas like Vidya Peetha are more relevant now than ever before as modern education tends to focus more on materialistic world than preserving our ancient knowledge and culture.
Bangalore University retired professor, Mr Pandurangi, has been guiding the academic activities of this Vidyapeetha since 1971. The octogenarian scholar is Upakulapathi of Poornaprajna Vidyapeetha.
At Vidyapeetha, youngsters (of 5-18 age group) can pursue their Sanskrit and Vedashastra courses for as long as 13 years. The Gurukula provides free boarding and lodging to all students till the completion of their courses and the institution is maintained mainly on public donations as the annual grants, received from State and Central Governments, are insufficient.
The Gurukula students are offered courses up to Sahitya examination conducted by Karnataka Government and for their graduation they are taught subjects like Tarka, Alankara and Dwaitha Vedantha.
Vidyapeetha also has research and guides facilities for students doing their Vidyavaridhi (PHD) degree. Sanskrit and Vedashastras apart, the Gurukula extends all help to its students continuing their formal education through Open University and evening college courses.
The Central Government recognised Gurukula, Poornaprajna Vidyapeetha, founded 50 years ago at Kalyani Raghavendra Swamy mutt of N R Colony, initially with twelve students, started its Sanskrit college in 1976.
The college now functions from its three storied building located at Kathriguppe in Bangalore. For the current academic year there are more than 400 students and the Gurukula has about 40 scholarly and motivated teachers to handle regular classes.
Vidyapeetha's Poornaprajna Samshodhana Mandira (Research Centre) was established in 1990, with the objectives of collection, conservation and publication of Talapatra (palm leaf) and other ancient scripts.
The Research Centre has been regularly publishing Kannada books, many of which are actually translated versions of the centuries old Sanskrit literature.
Gurukula has a good library with palm leaf manuscripts and thousands of Kannada and Sanskrit reference books collected basically for the benefit of research students.
Right now, eight students are doing their doctoral course here and six students of the earlier batch have successfully completed their PHDs.
The Vidyapeetha Poornaprajna Samshodhana Mandira has a dedicated team of distinguished professors and Sanskrit scholars for research work and also to guide PHD students. Under the Central Government Adarsha Shodha Samstha Scheme, Vidyapeetha got recognition in 1994.
Other than Bangalore, Poornaprajna Vidyapeetha has been functioning at Pajaka, Gangavathi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Varanasi.
