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6:00 PM - 7:00 PM (UTC+5.5)
Sanskrit Education and Literature in Ancient and Medieval Tamil Nadu
SPEAKERS
INDICA’s Center for Bharatiya Languages presents a conversation with historian Dr Chithra Madhavan on the 3rd of December at IST 1800 hrs. The title of this conversation is a part of the title of the book Sanskrit Education and Literature in Ancient and Medieval Tamil Nadu: An Epigraphical Study written by Dr Madhavan and published in 2013 by DK Printworld as part of a series titled Reconstructing Indian History and Culture. Education, especially Vedic and Vedāntic, along with allied subjects was, as the text on the back of the book brings to the fore, a prime focus of the rulers of the Tamil kingdoms. Dr Madhavan’s book highlights the educational initiatives during the reigns of the Pallava, Pāṇḍya, Coḷa, Vijayanagara, Nāyaka and other kings. Join us for what promises to be, amongst other things, an empirically sound conversation at the fascinating intersection of two classical Indian languages: Tamil and Sanskrit.
Speakers
Dr Chithra Madhavan
Historian
Chithra Madhavan has an M.A. and an M.Phil. in Indian History from the University of Madaras and a Ph.D. in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of Mysore. She is the recipient of two Post-Doctoral Fellowships from the Dept. of Culture, Government of India and from the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. Chithra has authored nine books - History and Culture of Tamil Nadu (in two volumes), Vishnu Temples of South India (in five volumes) and Sanskrit Education and Literature in Ancient and Medieval Tamil Nadu – An Epigraphical Study and Temples of Kanchipuram. She has written the text for a coffee-table book Snapshots Of A Bygone Era- A Century of Images which contains about a 100 photographs of monuments of India. She has also co-edited a book South India Heritage which contains 500 articles on various aspects of South India’s heritage and culture and has edited a book on sculpture for Kalakshetra Foundation which contains twenty articles on iconography by well-known authors on this subject. She is also the editor for three books on the Ranganatha Swami temple, Srirangam, the Varadaraja Perumal temple, Kanchipuram and the temples in Srivilliputtur. Chithra is guest faculty at Kalakshetra Foundation, the Asian College of Journalism and DakshinaChitra. She frequently conducts heritage tours to places of historical and archaeological interest in India and abroad.
Megh Kalyanasundaram
Host, Director – Special Projects, INDICA
Megh Kalyanasundaram is an Indian citizen with close to nine years of lived experience in China, an alumnus of ISB and is currently Director Special Projects at INDICA. His post-graduate specialization in Strategy, Leadership and Marketing included a study of research methods. His professional experience includes stints as a Market Leader at a Global Fortune 50 firm, as Head of Business Development at a leading Indian talent development multinational and he has served a term on the Board of a Shanghai-based not-for-profit. His academic research interests and 20+ papers span some aspects of ancient Indian chronology, Indian Knowledge Systems, Landscape in Indic texts, Ancient Indian Jurisprudence, Ideas of India and Philosophy. For his creative contribution to the first edition of the International Day of Yoga, he was invited by the Permanent Mission of India in the United Nations to attend the inaugural event at the UN. Other professional and pro-bono pursuits have included building differentiated digital platforms for Indic texts targeted at specific learning and research needs and music. His research-based compositional Sanskrit album 'Bhārata and her Kāśmīra' has been listed by the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) while his subsequent album 'Indian Knowledge Systems and Yāskācārya's Nirukta' has recently been accepted for listing by the Vedic Heritage Portal. In 2022, Megh was invited by the National Museum Institute (NMI) to contribute content for multiple projects currently underway at NMI, including ones on Jammu Kashmir & Ladakh and Kedarnath.