IIT Kanpur 1st engg
institute to start Gita and Ramayan text-audio service @ This is the
first of its kind in the world and in India and it must be respected
Lucknow: IIT
Kanpur has become the first engineering college in India to start a text and
audio service related to Hindu sacred texts. The services are being offered on
the college’s official portal.
Srimad Bhagwadgita, Ramcharitmanas, Brahma
Sutra and Yoga Sutra are among the nine texts uploaded. Among its latest
offerings are Sanskrit renditions of the Sundarkand and Balakkand of the
Valmiki Ramayan, introduced, incidentally, a month before the Supreme Court was
to hear the Ram temple matter on a daily basis. Though the IITs operate
autonomously, their charter has often seen controversial proposals by the
ministry of human resource development which funds them. This project was
started with Rs 25 lakh in funding in 2001 by the Union ministry of information
technology of the then Atal Behari Vajpayee government.
“We have worked on this project with a team
of scholars from within the IITs and outside to make available the sacred
texts. This is the first of its kind in the world and in India and it must be
respected,” said T V Prabhakar, professor, Resource Centre for Indian language
Technology Solutions, department of computer science and engineering, IIT
Kanpur. Prabhakar and IIT Kanpur director Mahendra Aggarwal rejected
controversies on thrusting Hindu religion through these services.] “There will
be criticism for the sake of it for every good thing. Secular credentials can’t
be questioned on such a noble and pious initiative,” added Prabhakar. One of
the objectives of the website describes “Vedanta” as “knowledge gyana” of a
qualified “adhikari (worker, officer, employee)”.
Subject specialists holding post-doctoral
degrees in philosophy from Banaras Hindu University have been roped in to
render the English audio tranlsation of the Gita while the Sanskrit chanting
has been done by Swami Brahmnanda. The rendition of the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi
is by IIT Guwahati faculty member Dev Ananand Pathak. The IIT intends to seek
more funds from the Centre to include more sacred texts.
Source | Times of India | 11th January 2018
Regards
Prof. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library &
Information Science (NET Qualified)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge
Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
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