Nalbari, May 22: Northeast's first and the country's 15th Sanskrit university, Kumar Bhaskar Varma Sanskrit & Ancient Studies University, at lower Assam's Nalbari district will not only confine itself to teaching Sanskrit and ancient studies but also courses on popular subjects.
The university hinted at its academic road map when it introduced a Masters course in education along with two others courses - MA in Sanskrit and five-year integrated MA in Sanskrit - when it began its journey.
The university was set up with a notification issued by the Assam government in 2011. However, its academic sessions began only in 2013. Now it has 180 students in all the three courses.
"As against popular conception the university will not only offer courses on Sanskrit. It will surely have courses like Sanskrit, manuscript studies, yoga practice and Ayurvedic text. But there will be courses that are popular among students," said Dipak Kumar Sharma, vice-chancellor of the university.
"For instance, we introduced a Masters course on education from the first academic session. From the next academic session we will introduce Masters in Assamese, political science and philosophy along with Sanskrit Vedic studies. Besides, we have plans of opening research-oriented centres on language and culture studies so that scholars can explore about the languages and culture of the Northeast," Sharma said.
The university now operates from a building in Nalbari College. Sharma said they would shift to the 100- bigha permanent campus of the university at Namati village, 3.3km off National Highway 31. It now has six teaching and 16 non-teaching posts. It has submitted a proposal to the state government to fill up 84 more teaching and 32 non-teaching posts to help it open more courses and fulfil the required criteria of the UGC to receive grants from it.
Other institutions that offer Masters in Sanskrit in the state are Assam University, Gauhati University and Cotton College. Around 50 colleges in the state offer undergraduate courses in Sanskrit.
The university has proposed the state government to upgrade the Nalbari Sanskrit College, which follows a traditional method of teaching, to upgrade it so that it can get recognition from the UGC and the university can accept it as its constituent college. No progress has been made so far.
