The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Sanskrit manuscripts should be digitised'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 05, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Sanskrit manuscripts should be digitised'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, SEPT. 4. Sanskrit manuscripts should be collected, microfilmed and digitised for posterity. The country had lost valuable manuscripts and steps should be taken at least to preserve the scripts available in ``vidyapeeths and mutts,'' said speakers at the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute here today.

Kapila Vatsyayan, chairperson, India International Centre, New Delhi, in her presidential address, attributed a steady decline in the number of students studying Sanskrit to a sustained campaign against the language over the years. Sanskrit, she said, was not an ordinary language and it was the culture and civilisation of the country. Hence it was the duty of everyone to preserve the language, she added.

V.R.Panchamukhi, Chancellor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, Tirupati, appealed to the Centre to set up another Sanskrit Commission as the earlier one failed to complete many assigned tasks. He was for a national, regional and local-level interaction among Sanskrit "vidyapeeths" to discuss the problems confronting them and steps to solve them.

Justice B.N. Srikrishna, Supreme Court judge, said there was immense scope for research on how to preserve the Vedas.

Earlier, Dr.Panchamukhi released two publications of the institute. Saroja Bhate, general secretary of the all-India Oriental Conference, Pune, received the first copies.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu