Governor P. Sathasivam said here on Tuesday that universities need to ensure effective academic involvement in regaining the valuable dialects that had met with extinction.
“The death of some dialects is now a reality. Effective academic involvement of universities is required to respond to such losses,” he said at the special convocation held at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, here on Tuesday.
Kathakali maestro Kalamandalam Gopi, critic M.K. Sanoo, and Sanskrit expert N. V. P. Unnithiri were honoured with a D.Litt. by the varsity at the convocation.
Mr. Sathasivam said that a university has the duty of responding effectively to the socio-cultural environment in which it functions. A university that professes to further the growth of a classical language must also respond to how global phenomena like globalisation affect the diversity of our languages, he said.
The Governor said that Sanskrit, which had once influenced populations beyond national boundaries and received contributions even from faraway lands, also deserves to regain its popularity through wider, global interactions.
K.T. Jaleel, Minister for Higher Education, and Dharmaraj Adat, Vice Chancellor of Sanskrit university, attended.
The Governor said that Sanskrit has a documented history that spans over 3, 500 years and its literature encompasses areas ranging from philosophy to science and religion to theatre and so on.
“Besides, the widely noted cultural heritage of our country was handed over to us by our ancestors through the masterful use of this language. The classics of this language have very few parallels in any other language even now,” he said.
