Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has become the country's first university to include "Hindu dharma" as part of its regular curriculum. According to university officials, the university has begun offering a postgraduate programme in Hindu studies, which they claim is the country's first.
The course will be taught by BHU's faculty of arts in partnership with the departments of philosophy and religion, Sanskrit, and ancient Indian history, culture, and archaeology at Bharat Adhyayan Kendra, a facility created in the university's centennial year. Professor Sadashiv Kumar Dwivedi, the coordinator of the Bharat Adhyayan Kendra, stated the inaugural batch of this two-year programme has 45 students, one of them being a foreigner. The course is divided into four semesters and has a total of sixteen papers. "After the institution was founded in 1914, it took more than a century to start such a degree," Dwivedi added.
“The course is an interdisciplinary programme, which is in line with the New Education Policy 2020,” Shukla further said.
Professor VK Shukla, the rector, officially opened the programme on Tuesday.
Vijay Shankar Shukla, director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, spoke at the event and emphasized the importance of such Hindu studies courses.
“The idea behind this goes back to the 18th-century scholar Pt Ganganath Jha and travels through time to Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya. However, the link was broken for some reason. But with this course, the goal appears to have been achieved.”
Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi, Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, and centenary chair professor at Bharat Adhyayan Kendra, who presided the event, emphasized the Hindu dharma's essential ideals and mantra of togetherness. He went on to say that Hindu dharma and being continually logical and scientific are inextricably linked.
Speakers at the event urged intellectuals to step forward and protect the ‘Sanatana parampara.' According to them, the course is crucial for instilling ‘Sanatana life values’. They also discussed what they considered to be the Gayatri Mantra's scientific element.
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