Friday, July 10, 2009

Sanskrit: some GOOD news

The news of the untimely demise of the Clay Sanskrit Library is at least somewhat offset by something just posted over at the Hindu Blog on the subject of the Revival of Sanskrit – Urban Young Indians Enrolling for Sanskrit Classes.

That post, in turn, links to an article over at Outlook India on the trend in India of young people rediscovering the lure of Sanskrit.

Tens of thousands of young Indians are now enrolled in Sanskrit courses that utilize the Bhagavad Gita as the primary text. Those classes are part of a broader effort that started with just 7 people studying Sanskrit together in 1981. In 2008 more than 2,000 people enrolled in Sanskrit classes in Delhi alone, and well over half of them were between 18 and 28 years of age -- in all, over 7 million people have enrolled in these Sanskrit classes since 1981. These classes also emphasize spoken Sanskrit and tens of thousands of Indians now claim Sanskrit as their "mother tongue".

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