A timeless language

Science and technology may be able to do what the arts could not for Sanskrit

On December 24, a days-long event billed as the “world’s first Samskritam hackathon” kicked off online, organised by IIT-Roorkee along with Samskrit Promotion Foun­dation and Samskrita Bharati’s Canada and US chapters. TA-RG-ET Samskritam aims to combine technology and the Sanskrit language to develop web and mobile-based teaching aids (TA), recreational games (RG) and educational tools (ET). Nearly a thousand participants from various countries registered to take part, according to Harsh Thakkar, who heads Samskrita Bharati Canada.

For too long, Sanskrit has been dismissed as an exotic or fossilised language, fit only for religious ceremonies, even though ancient Indian scientific and mathematical