Slew of courses set to begin at JNU's School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies from 2019

New Delhi: The newly-founded School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies (SSIS) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University is planning to introduce a PG Diploma in Kalp Vedanga and offer courses to train pandits, from across castes and gender, and admit them from the 2019-2010 academic session.

Girish Nath Jha, Dean, SSIS, said, "In the future, we can expect JNU-trained pandits to go to temples and perform rituals. The students will dabble in the Śrautasūtras, based on the śruti, and the Smārtasūtras, rules based on the smriti or traditions to perform rituals, among other traditional texts."

The proposal was made in the first meeting of School Coordination Committee of School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies on February 23.

The school also has proposed a PG Diploma course in Religious Tourism, aimed at promoting the rich tradition of dhams in the country.

Similarly, a PG diploma course in Vaastu Shastra is expected to bring viable options for students to get jobs with the civil engineering companies looking for experts in Vaastu Shastra.

With growing interest in Yoga Kendras, an MA course has been proposed in Yoga, which is expected to give the ancient heritage a push.

A BSc course in Ayurveda has also been proposed to meet the growing demand of Ayurveda practitioners.

In the next phase of additional courses, the administration plans to introduce a Sanskrit journalism course and a programme to train students in classical music.

The School Coordination Committee (SCC) has nine members, including one internal and one external.

One of them, Kapil Kapoor, is a well-known Sanskrit scholar, who was at the forefront of starting the special Sanskrit centre in JNU in 2001.

The SCC meeting also had some special invitees from the School of Sciences and e-learning courses. It approved some new programmes and courses and now, a sub-committee is drafting the additional courses.

They are also adopting an "inter-disciplinary approach to study the Indian past by reading the Sanskrit text".

Once the draft is ready, it will go to the Board of Studies and presented in the next academic council meeting.

If the Academic Council approves the draft, the SSIS intends to start the additional courses from the beginning of the 2019 academic year.