Introduction*
INTRODUCTION | 1 Introduction* Radhavallabh Tripathi IT is almost an impossible task for a single person to present a comprehensive view on the status and trends of Sanskrit studies in a vast country like India. What is being done here would just appear to be a sketchy account, containing snippets of information, that is to be further corroborated, properly analysed and explored. India is divided into 28 states, 7 union territories and 644 districts. There is hardly any district or region where Sanskrit is not studied in some form or the other. Sanskrit is mentioned in the list of 22 major languages, officially accepted in the Constitution of India, and it is also one of the three languages there, that have an all India character. Teaching, Education and Research In India there are 282 universities as per the records with the AIU, at least 112 of which have postgraduate and research departments of Sanskrit. The number of colleges teaching Sanskrit is around 10,000. “Modern methods” are adopted in these institutions for teaching programmes in Sanskrit. Apart from these universities and colleges, there are 16 Sanskrit universities and a number of Sanskrit pÀÇhaœÀlÀs or Sanskrit * This is an enlarged and revised version of my paper “Sanskrit Studies in India” published in the Bulletin of IASS, 2012. 2 | SIXTY YEARS OF SANSKRIT STUDIES: VOL. 1 colleges where traditional method also known as pÀÇhaœÀlÀ paddhati is practised. As per a recent state-wise survey conducted by the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (RSkS) the number of Sanskrit pÀÇhaœÀlÀs in Madhya Pradesh is 644, in Chhattisgarh 32, in Uttar Pradesh 1347, Uttarakhand 115, in Karnataka it is 290, in Orissa 433, Punjab 8, Rajasthan 1698, Sikkim 36, Tamil Nadu 55, and in Himachal Pradesh 129, Andhra Pradesh 509, Assam 83, Bihar 717, Goa 4, Gujarat 63, Haryana 74, Jammu & Kashmir 43, Jharkhand 3, Kerala 31, Maharashtra 63, Manipur 8.
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