Epic Mahabharata on Web soon

TTD Executive Officer A.P.V.N. Sarma inaugurates the Rs. 28-lakh project

• Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha takes up the mammoth project
• Website to have multimedia graphics and animation of war

GOING HI-TECH: TTD Executive Officer A.P.V.N. Sarma and Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha Vice-Chancellor Harekrishna Satapathy taking part in a puja to launch the Mahabharata project in Tirupati on Thursday. — Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

TIRUPATI : Mahabharata will soon be made available on the web for the benefit of research scholars and litterateurs, with the Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha taking up a mammoth project to prepare an electronic version of the country's greatest epic.

The మహాభారత పరియోజన (Mahabharata Pariyojana), taken up by the varsity in association with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), aims at preparing an authentic version of Mahabharata with inputs from published works of repute by making available hyperlinks for easy reference.

ఆంధ్ర మహాభారతం (Andhra Mahabharatam), the ancient Telugu version, a Bengali version, besides the publications of Gorakhpur-based Gita Press and Pune-based Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute are being used to prepare the standard version. The website will have multimedia graphics and animation on the Kurukshetra war and other `picture-worthy' episodes.

Advisory panel

The varsity's former Registrar S.S. Murthy has been made the project coordinator and a senior faculty member Rani Sadasiva Murthy as the additional coordinator An advisory committee has also been formed with the Vidyapeetha's Vice-Chancellor Hare Krishna Satapathy as chairman and Registrar A. Gurumurthy, Purana experts Samudrala Lakshmanaiah and R.Ananta Padmanabha Rao as members. Gangadhar Panda of Sampurnananda Sanksrit Vidyalaya, Banaras and Icharam Dwivedi of Lal Bahadur Shastri Sanskrit Vidyalaya, New Delhi, have also been roped in as external experts. The project is to be completed in a year.

Inaugurating the Rs.28 lakh project at the Vidyapeetha's Sansk-NET project premises here on Thursday, the TTD Executive Officer A.P.V.N. Sarma clicked the mouse to display the home page of the portal.

Highlighting the need to preserve and promote the ancient literary treasure trove, he asked the Vidyapeetha to submit proposals for e- version of Ramayana and Bhagavatha also.

Courtesy: The Hindu