Manipravalam is a literary style that emerged from the blending of Malayalam and Sanskrit languages, known for its fusion of Malayalam and Sanskrit words into a single composition. The term "Manipravalam" itself reflects this fusion, with "mani" representing Malayalam and "pravala" representing Sanskrit. This unique style of composition arose out of a desire to integrate Sanskrit, which was gaining popularity among scholars, with the native languages of Tamil and Malayalam. Traditionally attributed to the poet Tolan in the court of King Kulashekhara around the 9th century CE, Manipravalam gained further structure and rules through works like Lilatilaka, a grammar of Malayalam, which systematized the style around the mid-15th century CE. In Manipravalam literature, both Malayalam and Sanskrit words that were already in common usage were seamlessly woven together. This style gave rise to two distinct categories of compositions: sandesha and champu. San...

Sanskrit Divas is annually observed on the Shravan Purnima day. The main objective of the observance of Sanskrit day is to promote Sanskrit and to educate the general public about the importance of Sanskrit. Samskrit Divas 2025 date is August 9. Organizations that promote Sanskrit, government, schools and colleges, temples and other education institutions organize various programs on the day. Book fairs, publication of Sanskrit books, lectures, reading of Sanskrit texts, talks and debates are organized on the day. Related Sudharma – The Sanskrit Newspaper Goes Online The Story - How Sanskrit Came To Be Known To Humans? Memorizing Ancient Mantras In Hindu Religion Improves Brain Power  Learn Sanskrit Language Online For Free

The Sringeri Sharada Peetham at Sringeri in Karnataka runs a chain of institutions to teach the Vedas and Sanskrit. Sri Sadvidya Sanjeevini Samskrutha Mahapatashala at Sringeri was established for the purpose in 1895. The institution is rated as one of the top Vedic Schools in the country. Students are admitted into the Maha Patashala at the age of eight after their Upanayana (initiation ceremony). They undergo rigorous training in mula pata (basic study of Vedas), pada pata, karma pata and ghana pata. It takes five years to complete the Mula pata, two years to do the Pada Pata and another two years to do the Krama Pata. The Ghana Pata, the highest qualification, has more academic value that a Ph.D. It takes at least 11 years to complete the Ghana pata. Every year more than 40 students from different parts of the country and places such as Nepal get admitted into the Maha Patashala. Education, food and accommodation are free. The Rig Veda, Yajur Veda and Shastras, Tharka, Vyakhyana...

Memorizing ancient mantras in Vedas in Hindu religion increases the size of brain regions associated with cognitive function. India's Vedic Sanskrit pandits train for years to orally memorize and exactly recite 3,000-year old oral texts ranging from 40,000 to over 100,000 words. ….the structural MRI scanning was remarkable. Numerous regions in the brains of the pandits were dramatically larger than those of controls, with over 10 percent more grey matter across both cerebral hemispheres, and substantial increases in cortical thickness. Most interestingly for verbal memory was that the pandits' right hippocampus—a region of the brain that plays a vital role in both short and long-term memory—had more gray matter than controls across nearly 75 percent of this subcortical structure. The pandits also showed substantially thickening of right temporal cortex regions that are associated with speech prosody and voice identity. Does the pandits’ substantial i...

An opportunity to learn Sanskrit language online for free is provided by Acharya website by Systems Development Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras . The basic lessons on Sanskrit provided by Acharya help to learn the language through self study. The online lessons have been catering to thousands of students more than a decade. The online course consists of a series of twelve lessons and is aimed at giving the student a reasonably good introduction to the Sanskrit language. The website also contains a Sanskrit dictionary. You can find more about Learn Sanskrit through self study here - Acharya.

No one created Sanskrit as it is Vedavani (language of Veda) and the language of nature. There is also no origin to Sanskrit as it is eternal. But how Sanskrit came to be known to humans is narrated to child Aitareya by his father and is found in the Aitareya Upanishad. Shiva in his Nataraja form performed a great dance in the center of the universe. Shiva was the dancer, the dance and the audience. With bells ringing and flames encircling him, he danced, his braided hair whirling as he spun round and round. In his left hand he held the flame of destruction and in his right hand he held the drum of creation – damaru. He swung the drum from side to side, measuring the rhythm of the dance. From the pulse of that small drum came forth the Sanskrit alphabet and from those sounds came forth all forms. The alphabet was heard by the sage Panini. He recorded the cognition in fourteen short verses, called the Shiva Sutras. Sage Panini placed these sutras in the beginning of his ...

Correspondence course in communicative Sanskrit at M S University of Baroda is in association with Sanskrit-Bharati, an organization actively working at national and international levels to promote Sanskrit.  Times of India reports   The department of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit of MSU's faculty of arts has designed the course with the support of Sanskrit-Bharati, an organization actively working at national and international levels to promote Sanskrit.  It has designed four different levels of this correspondence course named 'pravesh', 'parichaya', 'shiksha' and 'kovida'. At present, the department will offer the elementary 'pravesh' level.   After completion the students will know the basics of Sanskrit grammar which is enough to converse in simple Sanskrit and start understanding many words in 'shlokas'.  "This course will help to enrich vocabulary significantly and the students will be able to express themselves fre...

Punyakoti, which explores man-animal conflicts, will be the first crowd-sourced animation movie in Sanskrit. Produced by Puppetica Media, an India based media house, Punyakoti will be the world's first full length animated movie in Sanskrit. The movie will be crowdfunded and crowd animated by studios/schools across the world. The movie will also feature a unique musical experiment by the legendary music composer Sri Ilaiyaraaja. The movie is based on a Kannada folk song that narrates the story of a confrontation between a cow and a tiger.

New technology is breathing life into Sanskrti, one of the world’s oldest languages, with the publication of a Sanskrit electronic textbook by the Australian National University . The e–Text is titled ‘Joy of Sanskrit’ operates across both Apple and Android platforms on mobile phones, tablets and other devices. Australian National University reports The e-text was developed by Grazia Scotellaro in the  ANU College of Asia and the Pacific’s Digital Learning Project and Sanskrit lecturer Dr McComas Taylor.  Scotellaro says the e-text gives students unprecedented access to their teachers. “I call the e-text ‘professor in my pocket’ – the idea being that students have access to their professor all the time,” she says. “One of the biggest problems with online and digital learning is the anonymity of learning – you don’t see the person who is teaching you. But, with this you see your teacher every day.  “The students also have access to the material...

An article in the Hindustan Times titled ‘Sanskrit - a powerful binding force’ written by Dr Satyamurti attempts to understand the linguistic unity in Europe and Asia . And Sanskrit is the key to understanding the linguistic unity. ‘Sanskrit - a powerful binding force’  The history of the development of various languages of Asia and Europe reveals an interesting fact. Nearly 4000-5000 years ago, the ancestors of the majority of people in Asia and Europe had been living together for hundreds of years at one place and our forefathers, whom we call arya, used to speak one language. The original language of the aryans has been termed as Proto Indo-European language -- called PIE in short. While studying the family tree of Indo-European languages, the similarity among languages becomes very visible. It has been established that Sanskrit is more similar to classical languages like Greek, Latin, Avestan and Gothic than the modern languages like English, German and French that hav...

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and the University of Pune are two the most important universities in India dedicated to Sanskrit Education. Banaras Hindu University is only university in India where both the traditional and modern systems of Sanskrit education exist. The Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit in the University of Pune is country’s oldest UGC centre of advanced study in Sanskrit.  Hindustan Times reports   The Faculty of Sanskrit Vidya Dharma Vijnan (Faculty of SVDV) that grants the title of Shastri (equivalent to a BA), Acharya (equivalent to an MA) and Vidyavaridhi (equivalent to a PhD) is the traditional wing of Sanskrit Education in the Benares Hindu University   Department of Sanskrit in the Faculty of Arts which grants the routine BA, MA and PhD degrees is the modern wing of this university.   The Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit in the University of Pune also has a pronounced emphasis on a system of research that integrates ...

There are several English Sanskrit dictionaries online. However, most of them do not function properly and are poorly uploaded. Here is a one of the best English Sanskrit dictionary. It is the Practical Sanskrit English dictionary published by V S Apte from Poona in the year 1957 – 59. University of Chicago is offering the dictionary online for free. It is not a pdf version but you can search all the important terms and find its meanings and other details. Link - English Sanskrit Dictionary Online

Mathur Village in Karnataka had garnered national attention when it declared Sanskrit as its official language. Mathur and Hosahalli near Shimoga in Karnataka are also famous for promoting Vedic way of life.  Trichur. S. Viswanathan writes about Mathur and Hosahalli in The Hindu  The Brahmins of Mathur and Hosahalli lead a Vedic lifestyle, chant the Vedas and keep Sanskrit alive.  Mathur is one of the two villages in India where Sanskrit is the official language. The villagers speak a dialect called Sanketi, which is a mixture of Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada. It has no written script. They read only in Devanagari script and some in Kannada.  The entire village is a square, like a typical Mada street, with a temple. This area is called Brahmanaru Mane. Great respect is shown by the rest to these Brahmins. There is a village pathshala, which teaches chanting of Vedas in the traditional way, especially Krishna Yajur Veda along with other ritualistic rites fro...

Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute attached to the Sanskrit College in Mylapore is struggling like majority of Sanskrit related institutions and publications. Government apathy and lack of interest among Hindus in preserving the ancient language and Sanskrit texts are the main reason for the institute’s struggle. Times of India writes The institute, one of the three involved in Sanskrit research in the country , has been surviving on private donations . With not enough resources , the management is unable to pay the faculty the benefits of the sixth pay commission. Institute director V Kameswari said the Union government stopped its financial support in 1995, after which it has been solely dependent on donations . “The institute has a trove of rare palm leaf manuscripts and books not just about Sanskrit literature but also on architecture , fine arts , geography, history and astronomy in Sanskrit ,” says Kameswari. The institute was started as a private non-profit organisat...

Sanskrit­ – Hindi Machine Translation system launched during the World Sanskrit Conference claims to be the first software to translate Sanskrit texts into Hindi with complete accuracy. The software will also be made available soon. The project involves collaboration amongst University of Hyderabad , IIIT Hyderabad, Jawaharlal Nehru University , Sanskrit Academy , Hyderabad , Purna Prajna Vidyapeeth, Bangalore , Tirupati Vidyapeeth and Jagadguru Ramananandacharya Rajasthan Sanskrit University , Jaipur. Deccan Herald reports The ‘Sanskrit­ Hindi Machine Translation system', first ever developed in India, was launched on the first day of the week-long World Sanskrit Conference, inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Thursday.  The Sanskrit-Hindi translation software has simple tool for transliteration of Sanskrit into Hindi. It also has a morphological generator that extensively shows the ‘Subantas’ and ‘Tingantas’ (inflectional forms of a noun or a ...

Nearly 2,000 rare manuscripts and books in Ahmedabad's Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology, dating back around 1,200 years, are available in a digitized format. Ancient books on religion including Hinduism, language, culture, history, maths, astrology and astronomy are part of the E-library. You can learn more about Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology here at the official website . Times of India reports "We are the first institute in the country to digitize such rare books and manuscripts on a large scale,'' said Jitendra Shah, director of the institute, adding that their aim was to reach out to the maximum number of scholars and researchers across the globe. Nearly 150 foreign scholars from countries such as the US , Japan , China and Germany visit every year.  The Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology is also a treasure trove of manuscripts relating to Jainism. In all, there are about 45,000 printed books along with 75,000 manuscripts, out of which...

2,000 rare Sanskrit manuscripts which belong to Cambridge University Library’s South Asian manuscript collection will be studied individually and digitised and put on the library’s new online service. The Sanskrit manuscripts detailing momentous political and economic events across south Asia are written on fragile birch bark, palm leaf and paper. The Hindu writes The university said the collection included “the oldest dated and illustrated Sanskrit manuscript known worldwide”. Dr Vincenzo Vergiani of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, who along with his colleague Dr Eivind Kahrs will study the manuscripts, described them as “an invaluable and untapped source for understanding the pre-colonial past of South Asia, and therefore its present”. More than half of the library’s collection of south Asian manuscripts was in Sanskrit which dominated the literary culture of pre-modern South Asia for almost three millennia. “The word Sanskrit means refined or perfected. Fro...

Started in 1970, Sudharma is the longest continuing Sanskrit newspaper in the world today. But it is facing severe financial crisis with no advertisement and no financial help from government. If you are a Sanskrit lover and have ideas to make Sudharma profitable, it would help in the survival of the unique Sanskrit daily and a heritage. Donations and one time financial help will not solve the real issue. What Sudharma needs is sponsors, increase in circulation and advertisements. Sudharma was started by Sanskrit scholar Kalale Nadadur Varadaraja Iyengar in 1970. K.V. Sampath Kumar, son of Mr. Iyengar, is the present editor of the daily. Sudharma also has an e-paper edition.  Daily Pioneer reports   K.V. Sampath Kumar said, “This two pages Demy A3 (tabloid) size which was born out of a philosophy to spread Sanskrit to all, which used to be monopoly of a few, is now facing a great financial crunch. We need more than Rs 60,000 per month to run our paper which has a global circ...

Sanskrit, an ancient language with a rich literary tradition, also has its own collection of nursery rhymes and stories that have been passed down through generations. Here are a few examples: " गजः " (Gajah) - The Elephant: This is a simple nursery rhyme that describes various characteristics and activities of an elephant. It's often used to teach children about animals and their traits. " शुकशारिका " (Shuka Shaarika) - The Parrot and the Myna Bird: This is a popular story that teaches children about friendship and cooperation. It revolves around the adventures of a parrot and a myna bird who become friends despite their differences. " पञ्चतन्त्र " (Panchatantra) - The Five Principles: The Panchatantra is a collection of ancient Indian fables written in Sanskrit. These stories, attributed to Vishnu Sharma, teach moral lessons through the adventures of animals. " कथासरित्सागर " (Kathasaritsagara) - The Ocean of Stories: This is ano...

Chinmaya International Foundation is offering a postal Sanskrit course for beginners. The study material for the Sanskrit course will be mailed through post and is primarily meant to help those who are interested in learning the basics of Sanskrit. This is not a free course – the fees for Indian Citizens is ../- and for foreigners it is /-. On successful completion of the course, students will be awarded a course completion certificate. The course comprises 40 lessons to be covered at the rate of two lessons a month. A total duration of 20 months is required for the completion of the course. However, depending on the entry-level capability and aptitude of a student, the course plan can be modified to suit specific skill sets. You can find more details about Postal Sanskrit Course from Chinmaya International Foundation here.