HENB | Kolkata | Dec 17, 2015::In a bid to create a nodal center in learning of Sanskrit, a bill was passed in West Bengal Assembly today for upgrading Sanskrit College in a statute of an University.
Sanskrit College and University, West Bengal Bill 2015 will enable complete up-gradation of the 191 year-old Sanskrit College along with its properties and liabilities.
Though the opposition in the WB Assembly Congress and BJP wanted a motion to discuss about the establishment of a New Sanskrit University maintaining the separate and special entity of Sanskrit College, the Education Minister Partho Chattopadhya restrained the discussion by saying that would be a wastage of time as the bill was introduced after pros and cons for the development od sanskrit College as well as the establishment of the University alongside. Leader of opposition Dr Manas Bhunia of Congress and lone BJP MLA Samik Bhattacharya wanted a discussion on the matter. Another MLA of Congress Asit Mitra unsuccessfully demanded to send the Bill to select committee before passing the bill.
The primary objective of the University will be to create a nodal center of study in the field of Sanskrit language, various other Indian languages, Indology, Indian philosophy, comparative literature, humanities and cognitive science, including study in various foreign languages which have close association with Sanskrit.
The foundation of Sanskrit College was laid during the British regime on a recommendation by James Prinsep and Thomas Babington Macaulay. John Paskal Larkins, a scholar of oracular knowledge laid the foundation stone of the college in 1824, seven years after Presidency College adjacent to the city’s famed College Street, known as the Oxford of the East.
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a polymatch and a key figure in Bengal Renaissance had served as the principal of Sanskrit College, which had as its alumni the illustrious artist of Bengal School of Painting Abanindranath Tagore, Haraprasad Shastri and Bijoykrishna Goswami and other Sanskrit luminaries.
Source: PTI.
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