Meru Foundation And MIT Samskritam Presents Sanskrit And Tamil Language And Literature

02/20/2007

Two Lectures on: Sanskrit and Tamil Language and Literature â€“ Feb 24 and March 3

Meru Education Foundation and MIT Samskritam present two Lectures by Dr. Rajalakshmi Srinivasan on Sanskrit and Tamil Language and Literature. Dr. Rajalakshmi Srinivasan is an accomplished scholar of Sanskrit and Tamil languages and their literature. She has spent a lifetime studying and researching texts from both Tamil and Sanskrit. She has translated a famous historical Tamil novel Ponniyin Selvan as well as short stories of Subramania Bharatiar and Kalki Krishnamurthy into Sanskrit. Currently, she is the chairperson of Poorna Pragya Samshodhana Mandiram a Sanskrit Research Institute in Bangalore, India. She is also editing and publishing an Advaita commentary on the Brahma-sutra titled Vaiyasika Ratnamala. She was a Sanskrit Professor at Madras University. She has received several awards and honors for her translations of Tamil and Sanskrit literature.

The first lecture will explore the grammars of these two languages in their respective contexts - Paniniâ€™s Ashtadhyayi in Sanskrit and Tolkappiarâ€™s Tolkappiam in Tamil. This lecture will take us on a journey of these two ancient languages of India. It will trace the relationship between their grammars, which subsequently paved the way for a phenomenal development in human thought. The lecture will highlight the aesthetic delight that these two languages have brought over the millennia in the form of literature and poetry. This lecture will take place on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at MIT, Room 4-237 in Cambridge in the afternoon at 2:30 pm.

The second lecture will be on the Valmiki and Kamban Ramayana. In this lecture the two Ramayana, one written by Valmiki in Sanskrit and the other by Kamban in Tamil. The context and content of the two texts will be presented with illustrations that portray their respective narratives and style. This lecture will take place on Saturday, March 3, 2007 at the Boxborough Public Library at 2:30 pm.

Both the lectures are free and open to the public.

For more information on the two lectures please check the Lokvani calendar or http://www.merufoundation.org

For further information please contact:
Vanita Shastri, 781 862-9648 or vanita@merufoundation.org
Raju Duggirala (617) 843-1050 or duggirala_raju@yahoo.com

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