india

Updated: Aug 11, 2019 11:38 IST

Don’t be surprised if you visit a tourist destination in Madhya Pradesh in the near future and find guides chanting mantras to greet you and inform you about the place with excerpts from the vedas.

That is likely to become a reality in six months after the Maharshi Panini Panini Sanskrit University has introduced a course - ‘MP darshan ‘ - in 18 affiliated colleges of Madhya Pradesh for Sanskrit students to make them employable.

The idea behind the course is also to make people aware of Indian history as was written in vedas and puranas in Sanskrit.

The students will be taught about MP in four regions of the state - Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand, Malwa and Madhya-Chambal. They will also be taught about other historic places of the country.

“This course will be available for undergraduate, post graduate and diploma students. The university academic council passed it. Many a time people feel that other than teaching, Sanskrit has no other career options so the university is opening new avenues for the students who are keen to learn it. That will save both our culture and language,” said Sankalp Mishra, a professor at Maharshi Panini Panini Sanskrit University.

“The course has been designed in a way that will be more of interesting nature than teaching. The students will also be taught about other languages so that they could translate Sanskrit mantras effectively to guide the tourists in their respective languages. The students will also be taught as to how to arouse interest of people in the language and to get them to look into the past and start enjoying our pure history,” said Mishra.

The course begins this month and the first batch of diploma holders is expected to be pass out of the university in January 2020.

Authorities claim this is for the first time in India that such a concept has been introduced.

The university’s subject committee chairman Manmohan Updhyaya said, “India’s rich cultural history was written in Sanskrit in Vedas and tourist guides learn the different languages of other states and countries like Mandarin, French and German to inform and impress the visitors but they hardly pay any attention to learning Sanskrit. We are trying to make Sanskrit as important as other languages for those who are seeking jobs in the tourism industry.”

“Many of the tourist guides provide half-truth and superficial information about any historical place in India. In MP, Khajuraho is the best example of it. Instead of giving such information as written in puranas the tourists are told certain different stories about the temples. We have also realised that many of guides don’t have enough knowledge. Our great poets and writers like Kalidas, Valmiki, Tulsidas and Amir Khusro have written so much about famous places of India in Sanskrit and we will teach the students about it,” he added.

Sanskrit promoter and also a director of the MP government’s Sanskrit board PR Tiwari said, “Definitely it will improve the quality of knowledge of our students and also promote our culture in a better way.”