World Sanskrit Day, also known as International Sanskrit Day/Sanskrit Diwas/ Vishwa Samskrita Dinam, is annually observed on the full moon day of the Hindu calendar month of Shravan or Sawan month. The day aims to promote Sanskrit, one of India’s most ancient languages.
- World Sanskrit Day 2024 was observed on August 19 2024.
- World Sanskrit Day 2023 was observed on 31st August 2023 and World Sanskrit Day 2025 will be observed on 9th August 2025.
Significance:
i.World Sanskrit Day commemorates the birth anniversary of Pānini , a great Sanskrit Scholar and grammarian.
ii.The observance also coincides with the celebration of Raksha Bandhan, the festival of celebrating the bond between brothers and sisters.
Background:
i.In 1969, The Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India (GoI) instructed to celebrate Sanskrit Diwas at the central and state levels across India.
ii.The first World Sanskrit Day was celebrated in 1969.
Events 2024:
As a part of the celebration of World Sanskrit Day 2024, Auro Bharati, Sri Aurobindo Society in the Union Territory (UT) of Puducherry, organises a Week-long Celebration of Sanskrit language under the theme ‘Vedic Heritage and Tradition’ from 19th to 25th August 2024.
About Sanskrit:
i.Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world, which is also considered to be the mother of all languages. It is also known as ‘Language of Gods’.
ii.The term Sanskrit is derived from ‘Sam’-‘samyak’ which indicates ‘entirely’ and ‘krit’ that indicates ‘done’.
iii.Sanskrit is divided into two main literary periods: Vedic and Classical.
- Vedic Sanskrit: It is an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family.
- Classical Sanskrit: It represents a development of one or more such early Old Indo-Aryan dialects.
Key Points:
i.In 2005, the GoI declared Sanskrit as the Classical Language of India. It is also included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution which consists of 22 languages.
ii.In 2010, Uttarakhand became the first state in India to list Sanskrit as one of its official language after Hindi.
iii.The Uttarakhand Government also decided to develop ‘Sanskrit Grams’ across the state to teach people to use Sanskrit regularly.
iv.In 2019, Himachal Pradesh (HP) became the second state to recognise Sanskrit as official language.
