From the workshop report
A nine-day Sanskrit Sambhashan workshop was held at the Mumukshu Ashram in Kota under the auspices of the Samyakgyan Prachar-Prasar Trust. Its purpose was threefold: to build in the participants an affection for the Sanskrit language, to make them fluent in speaking it, and to give them the linguistic grounding that the study of Jain Darshan and the Agama literature requires.
At the inaugural session the scholars and guests spoke on the importance of Sanskrit and Prakrit, observing that a serious reading of the Jain canon is not possible without them. From the first day participants were encouraged to speak only in Sanskrit, so that the practice would become natural rather than exceptional.
Through the camp several scholars taught Sanskrit at both the practical and the classical level. Participants practised daily conversation, grammar, word-formation and composition alongside the study of Jain Agama and philosophical texts. Sanskrit games, group activities, presentations and vakyartha sabhas — assemblies for parsing the sense of a sentence — produced a marked gain in language skill, confidence and expression.
At the closing session the participants presented their experiences in Sanskrit. The discourse given on that occasion set out the founding principles of Jain philosophy — ahimsa, compassion, restraint, renunciation, equanimity, and the doctrines of naya and pramana. The camp closed with “Jayatu Samskritam, jaya jayatu Bharatam.”