A building of the Department of Human Consciousness and Yogic Sciences in the Mangalore University was inaugurated on Wednesday by Minister for Higher Education V.S. Acharya.
Around 23 donors mostly from temples in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts donated Rs. 8 lakh for the building. The University Grants Commission had sanctioned funds for the building.
Head of the Department Krishna Bhat said during the inauguration that it had taken a long time to convince the Government to sanction funds for the peetha.
He said yoga was not limited to asanas but that asanas were only one of eight components of the Yoga. The philosophy of yoga must be put in the public domain through mass contact programmes.
Mr. Acharya said the “rich temples” could donate certain amount of their earnings for educational purposes.
He said society needed to get back to its roots. “It was our responsibility to convey the knowledge of the past to future generations and that Mangalore University was doing its bit towards this end.” Bangalore University former Vice-Chancellor K. Siddappa said the yoga peetha could get funds under the Special Assistance Programme of the UGC.
Mr. Acharya said the State Government planned to bifurcate Bangalore University as the workload was more. He said the university was finding it difficult to sort out the results of 654 colleges that were affiliated to it.