CHENNAI: It’s the dawn of a new era at Madras Sanskrit College in Mylapore. The 111-year-old institution is finally going digital in a bid to get on with the times. On Tuesday, courses will go online, classrooms will go global and Sanskrit books will turn ‘live’.
The campus will take on a virtual avatar -50,000 palm leaf manuscripts will be digitised and webcasts made possible with Sanskrit scholars around the world. “We want to engage with Sanskrit lovers of all ages and levels of knowledge,” says trustee Ramesh Mahalingam. “It’s what we call a total website for people at any level of Sanskrit, whether beginner or advance.”
The Madras Sanskrit College, started on February 1, 1906, owes its origin to the philanthropy of V Krishnaswami Iyer, a judge in the Madras high court. In 1907, the college was recognized by the director of public instruction and placed in the list of aided institutions with a grant of Rs 1,000.