Sanskrit Capital of India: Somnatha

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Sanskrit Capital of India: Somnatha: Posted by Sadvidyananda Swamini

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Tue Sep 5, 2006 2:37 pm (PST)

Harih Om!

 

July '06, Motilal Banarsidas Newsletter

 

India has Rich Haul of Rare Manuscripts

 

That India has always had a vast reservoir of Manuscripts well-known,

but numbers are being put to the manuscript wealth we have.

Dr. Adwait Krishna, paediatrician in Patna is another lucky possessor

of rare Manuscript.his family has for generations possessed one which

was later discovered to contain the originaltext of Geet Govinda

written by Jayadeva and believed to be over 6oo years.

Sudha GopalKrishnan, Director of NATIONAL MISSION OF

MANUSCRIPT

(NMM), a body set by the government three years ago to identify,

document and protet the Manuscripts heritage of India, says, "Over 50

Lakh Manuscripts are believed to be exist in the country today.

However, only about 20% have been identified and documented."

The mission, which has mandate of five years, is now moving on a war

footing to complete its job of creating an exhaustive national

database of Manuscripts. It has set up 48 Manuscript resource

Centers, which are helping it source and document Manuscripts.

The task of documentation is a huge one, says Geetanjali Surendran,

co-coordinator of surveys, NMM. "We are particular about the kind of

Manuscripts we document. Land records are out and so are documents

of

a personal nature. Moreover, the document has to be 75 years old and

handwritten, for it to be classified a Manuscript," she says.

Surveys of locating Manuscripts have apparently yielded a rich haul.

While in Delhi, 85,000 Manuscripts have been sourced, in Gujarat an

astounding 8 lakh have been reportedly unearthed. In Karnataka, about

1.5 lakh Manuscripts have been found, whereas the figure is 42,000

in Assam, 2 lakh in Kerala, 3.5 lakh in Orissa,1.5 lakh in Bihar and

impressive 6 lakh in Tamil Nadu.

Most are either on palm leaf, brich-park, copper plates or handmade

paper and range from texts on madicine, literature, music and science

to Spirituality and religion.

 

 

August '06, Motilal Banarsidas Newsletter

 

 

SOMANATH – INDIA'S SANSKRIT CAPITAL

 

With plans afoot to build a university for the promotion of Sanskrit,

the temple town of Somanatha in Gujarat may soon emerge as India's

Sanskrit capital. The town down the ages has been a place of

religious importance. Now, with a Sanskrit school already in place

and a Sanskrit University in the pipeline, Somanatha can turn itself

around and become a center of knowledge and learning. There exists a

Sanskrit Pathashala or school in which knowledge of Sanskrit and

ancient scriptures and texts are imparted to students. A summer

palace located in Veraval, 5 kilometers from Somanatha, will be

converted into University and the additional 17-acres of land just

adjacent to the palace, would also be utilized for the same. Students

would be taught Sanskrit and Indology in the University. In order to

make a student self reliant, they would be taught the disciplines of

astrology, Vedic mathematics, Karmkand and so on.

 

 

Take care, With Lots of Love and Wishes,

Swamini Sadvidyananda,

Harih Om!