Department of Sanskrit, University of Mumbai has organized a special lecture series on New Dimensions of Sanskrit Research on 14/02/2022 to 03/03/2022 at 3.00 pm to 5.00 pm. The renowned scholars engaged lectures in the series and explored new dimensions of Sanskrit research.
First lecture was taken by Dr. Nirmala Kulkarni. Dr.Kulkarni elaborated Gender Studies in Sanskrit. She told about the application of theories of feminism in Sanskrit research right from the Vedas and highlighted that this is the unexplored field of Sanskrit research but it should be undertaken by unbiased manner. Dr.Kulkarni elaborated Gender studies in Sanskrit in a very scholarly and unbiased way.
Second lecture was taken by Prof.Vijay Pandya. He rightly explained the critique to the critical edition of Valmiki Ramayana and told that critical edition is the specimen for understanding research methodology. He explored many new unknown dimensions of Valmiki Ramayana. Third speaker was Dr.Pradnya Kulkarni. Her topic was Lexical tools in Sanskrit Research. In her lecture she illustrated importance of lexicon in Sanskrit Research.
Fourth lecture was taken by Prof.Malhar Kulkarni. His topic was Prospects of Research in the field of Sanskrit Grammer. Prof.Kulkarni stated that Sanskrit Vyakaranashastra has got a strong traditions of Arthaprakriya and Shabdaprakriya, both are equally important. There are three fields which are devoted to the language research- first The Philology of Language, second The Philosophy of Language and third one is newly established branch of learning- The Computational Linguistics. He elaborated the new fields that are coming up in order to explain such phenomenon i.e. Cognitive Natural Language Processing (Cognitive NLP), Which utilizes the cognitive aspect of language in addition to data driven approaches. Also he explained the Eye Tracking Methodology which can be applied to figure out the Sanskrit theories, only if it is supervised. He highlighted that Artificial Intelligence, Data Science etc. these fields may going to dominate the research field in coming years. But Artificial Intelligence may create several problems in understanding Sanskrit Grammer for example Over-generation. It is helpful only when it is supervised in specific competence kind of module.
Fifth lecture was taken by Mr.Hemant Rajopadhye with the topic Sanskrit texts, classicism and modernity. He explained that if you want to learn and understand Sanskrit you must have the interdisciplinary approach. He talked about classicism and modernity. His approach of study was very much illustrative and innovative. He has explained many techniques in order to read Sanskrit text in a critical manner.
Sixth lecture was taken by Dr.Rajashree Mohadikar. Her topic was Prakrit-New Avenue for Research. She told, it is believed that Prakrit is an offshoot of Sanskrit, but Prakrit has its own peculiarities because of them, Prakrit is established as being separate language with independent culture and philosophy.
Seventh lecture was taken by Dr.Girish Jani, his topic was Literary Research in Sanskrit. Dr.Jani stated that anything which is conveying from the part of the composer through the medium of composition which is having the relevance to the components and the forms that is Literary Composition. He explained that Creation was the leading thing in the past but now focus is on the ‘The Rachanakara- The Composer. Every researcher of Sanskrit should pay attention to this that, modern style of research in Sanskrit or Indology is altogether different thing from past. We need to find out the soul purpose of any literary composition that way. For what reason the composition is presented before us is important. He elaborated the connection between research and literary criticism. Particularly in India has the tradition, whatever is to be given newly, we have to be presented first as following the path of ancients. We have to search for the new meaning, when we speak about ‘Nutan i.e. Navanitattvam’, the human urge for having something new, thinking something new is actually very old in that sense it is ‘Sanatana’. Dr.Jani expressed his views by giving examples of wellknown scholars, poets compositions. Ancient scholars like Bhoja, Bhamaha, Mahimbhatta, Shreeharsha, Bharavi, Magha, Bhavabhuti, Jagannatha Pandit, Adya Shankaracharya etc and Modern poets like, Pt.Jagannath Pathak, Jayanta Bhatta, Almoda, Revaprasad Dwivedi, Vishveshvar Pandey, Vijjika, K.Vyas, S.B.Vernekar, Kshama Rao, Satyavrat Shastri, Radhavallabh Tripathi, Paramanand Shastri, R.K.Narayan Pillai, Bapuji Arne etc. Through these modern scholars examples, Dr.Jani elaborated that particular critical approach of the commentators indicates about the new possibility of the existence of a new sourse of presentation, the depiction of the sentiments in a different way. Dr.Jani pointed out that how this literature can be studied in a traditional as well as the modern approach.
Mainly all the lectures were illustrative because students must have gain a lot. All the speakers innovative approach towards Sanskrit Research made the lectures enjoyable as well as thought provoking. At the end Dr.Shakuntala Gawde (Head & Asst.Professor, Department of Sanskrit, University of Mumbai) proposed vote of thanks.
-Dr.Medha Deshpande