Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi
सम्पूर्णानन्द संस्कृत विश्वविद्यालय, वाराणसी
- Established
- 1791
- Type
- University
- Location
- Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
About
One of the oldest seats of Sanskrit learning in India. It grew out of the Government Sanskrit College, Benares, founded in 1791, and became a university under the Varanaseya Sanskrit University Act of 1956. It teaches Shastri and Acharya programmes through faculties of Veda-Vedanga, Sahitya-Sanskriti, Darshan and Shramana Vidya, and Sanskrit colleges across Uttar Pradesh are affiliated to it.
Courses & areas of study
- Shastri (undergraduate)
- Acharya (postgraduate)
- Ph.D.
- Veda-Vedanga Faculty: Veda, Dharma Shastra, Jyotisha (Siddhanta, Phalit, Ganit), Vyakarana
- Sahitya-Sanskriti Faculty: Sahitya, Puranetihasa
- Darshan Faculty: Nyaya-Vaisheshika, Vedanta, Mimamsa, Sankhya-Yoga-Tantragama
- Shramana Vidya Faculty: Bauddha Darshana, Jaina Darshana, Prakrit & Jainagama, Pali & Theravada
- Adhunika Gyan-Vigyan Faculty: modern languages, social sciences, education and more
History
The Government Sanskrit College (1791)
The university's own account begins in 1791, when the Government Sanskrit College, Benares was set up on the proposal of Jonathan Duncan, then the East India Company's Resident, with the approval of Governor-General Lord Cornwallis. Pt. Kashinath was its first teacher and Acharya. From the start it taught Veda, Vedanta, Purana, Ayurveda, Sahitya, Jyotish, Mimamsa and Nyaya.
Scholar-principals and the manuscript library
J. Muir became the college's first principal in 1844. Efforts to collect, preserve and publish Sanskrit manuscripts led to the Saraswati Bhavana library. Under Dr. Ganganath Jha (principal 1918–1923) the college began the Saraswati Bhavana Granthamala and Saraswati Bhavana Studies series, and Mahamahopadhyaya Pt. Gopinath Kaviraj (1923–1937) carried forward the translation, publication and cataloguing of manuscripts.
Becoming a university (1956)
Proposals to make the college a university were made in 1904 and again in 1937, but it was the Varanaseya Sanskrit University Act of 1956 that achieved it. Even before then the college worked like a university: it held convocations from 1947 to 1958, and Sanskrit colleges in India and Nepal were affiliated to it — 1,441 in Uttar Pradesh alone. Pt. Kuber Nath Shukla, the college's last principal, became the university's first Registrar.