The 54-year-old institution Sadhvidya Pratishtanam (SVP), which promotes the classical language, has launched Samskrita Sambhashanashala, its fifth online program on teaching spoken Sanskrit.
According to a press release from the institute, SVP, founded by prominent Sanskrit scholar, the late Prof Padamnabha Sharma, aspires to teach Sanskrit to as many as 5,000 individuals by 2027. A former senior bureaucrat who is also SVP’s patron emeritus, CV Gopinath, inaugurated the session.
Even though it is the language of the ancient scriptures, there are only a few thousand people who can speak it. However, a few villages, such Sasana (Odisha), Jhiri (Rajasthan), and (Karnataka), have embraced it as a spoken language.
The SVP has a faculty that includes, among others, former senior Sanskrit professors of the University Prof. Smt. Dharma, Dr. Pitambar Poudel, and Dr. Shankar Dutt Pandey for the classes that are held in two batches every Saturday evening. After completing the Sambhashanashala, students are urged to join the SVP’s Samskrita Swadhyaya Mandala to continue practising spoken Sanskrit.