INDIA TODAY    |  HOME

Cover Story | Nation | Columns | Newsnotes | From the Editor in Chief | Editorials | Eyecatchers
   Sports | Voices | Investigation | Diplomacy | Books | Cyberspace | Offtrack | Centrestage  
Issue Contents

A Sanskrit college, the only one run by Christians, faces closure

By M.G.Radhakrishnan

Is Sanskrit the exclusive preserve of upper caste Hindus? There may be people who wish it were, and they certainly wouldn't like to hear of Pavaratty village in Thrissur, Kerala. This predominantly Roman Catholic areas association with the language dates back almost a century, to when T.P. Kuriackose Master, a Sanskrit scholar from a conservative Catholic family with a deep love for the language, set up a Sanskrit school in 1903. The Sahityadeepika Sanskritha Vidyapeeth is the sole such college in the country founded and run by Christians. But this abiding Kerala symbol now faces uncertainty.

By the 1930s the Vidyapeeth was affiliated to the then University of Madras, and it grew in stature over the years, producing many well known scholars. However, after it was taken over by the Central government in 1976 and made the sixth national Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, there have been allegations of attempts to erase its unique Christian roots. The Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (RSS), which functions under the Union hrd Ministry and oversees the Vidyapeeth, shifted the institution to Puranattukara, 7 km away in 1983 and renamed it the Guruvayoor Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth (GKSV). It felt the Vidyapeeth was better located in a city than in a village.

The RSS recently proposed the Pavaratty complex's sale and the utilisation of the proceeds to build an auditorium in Kuriackose's memory. Though the idea has since been shelved, thanks to vehement local protests, many scholars believe the Vidyapeeth is living on borrowed time. "My father's dream of the Vidyapeeth always resonant with Sanskrit recitation is being steadily undermined. The sale will be its final burial," says P.T. Jose Master, Kuriackose's son and a former Vidyapeeth teacher.

Just a few days before his death in 1973 Kuriackose, or Kuriacku Master as he was known, handed over the institution and the property to a people's committee, which in 1976 donated it to the Central government. Lack of space and a growing numbers of students led the Delhi-based RSS, which runs all six national Sanskrit colleges, to shift the main campus, leaving the Pavaratty campus with only a Siksha Sastry (Bachelor of Education) course. By the mid-'80s even this course was discontinued. The Pavaratty Vidyapeeth functioned as a hostel for a while before being shut down due to its distance from the main campus and has lain neglected since. "They should have returned the property to us then as my father had donated it on condition it would remain a Sanskrit centre," says Jose Master.

The sale proposal in January this year caused a furore among Sanskrit scholars. Says K.P. Narayana Pisharody, a well-known retired Sanskrit teacher: "One has no right to sell this property, only to use it for Sanskrit education". In February the RSS authorities had second thoughts about the sale. But some feel the decision not to sell is merely postponing the demise of the institution. Earlier decisions to implement various development programmes have remained only on paper. In 1996 the then RSS director K.K.Mishra promised to shift various courses to Pavaratty and allocate money for the building's maintenance, none of which was implemented. The locals also talk of interference by the Union HRD Ministry.

Scholars recommend the Vidyapeeth be turned into a research centre or manuscript library, or a centre for Sanskrit courses related to the state -- like Kerala ayurveda and Kerala vastu sastra."A national centre cannot give these subjects priority and hence can be taken up at the Pavaratty centre," feels K.G. Poulose, a prominent Christian Sanskrit scholar and registrar at the Sri Sankaracharya Sanskrit University, the only Sanskrit university in the state. "If Kuriacku Master's memory is erased and the Vidyapeeth made an appendage of the GKSV, it would be reduced to the level of any ordinary Sanskrit school," he cautions. That would be a pity, for the it would mean the diminishing of one man's grand vision.

Back | Next

© Living Media India Ltd