A bill was passed in West Bengal Assembly today in a bid to create a nodal center in learning of Sanskrit.
To enable complete up-gradation of the 191 year-old Sanskrit College along with its properties and liabilities, Sanskrit College and University, West Bengal Bill 2015 is issued.
A nodal center of study will be created in the field of Sanskrit language, various other Indian languages, Indology, Indian philosophy, comparative literature, humanities and cognitive science. Also, including study in various foreign languages which have close association with Sanskrit. This is the primary objective of the University.
It was during the British regime that the foundation of Sanskrit College was laid on a recommendation by James Prinsep and Thomas Babington Macaulay. In 1824, a scholar of oracular knowledge, John Paskal Larkins laid the foundation stone of the college, seven years after Presidency College adjacent to the city's famed College Street, known as the Oxford of the East.
The principal of Sanskrit College was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a polymatch and a key figure in Bengal Renaissance. It had its alumni the illustrious artist of Bengal School of Painting Rabindranath Tagore. .