archive: Vedic venture
Vedic venture
Geeta Ramanujam
The Week
June 27, 1999
Title: Vedic venture
Author: Geeta Ramanujam
Publication: The Week
Date: June 27, 1999
Everything about them was delightfully childlike. Except that all the
26 school kids on a Sun-day bus-ride to the city were chanting vedic
hymns when other kids their age would have been clapping to the beats
of the latest Bollywood hit. But they're different. As students of
the Om Shantidhama, a residential school on the Kanakapura Road 120 km
from Bangalore, they eat, drink and dream the Vedas.
Aged between 8 and 12, the boys and girls are taught Sanskrit and the
Vedas besides science, maths, martial arts and astronomy in the five
years they spend at the school. And all for free.
The aim is to equip the child to become a "good and truthful human
being", according to Satyavrata, secretary and trustee of the school.
"The society looks after the child and so it is the child's duty to
repay the debt." Satyavrata, whose children study here, was one of
the brains behind the school which was set up in 1992 under the Om
Shantidhama Trust.
At a summer camp on yoga and meditation in 1988 Satyavrata, then an
engineer at the New Government Electric factory in Bangalore, and a
few others hit upon the idea of starting a gurukula. According to
Satyavrata, one of the participants, Anant G. Arya, an NRI from
Nigeria donated Rs 20 lakh and 100 acres near Bangalore. Arya is now
the president of the trust. In the next three years they planted
trees, and built classrooms, small kuteers, a bhojansala (dining hall)
and a cattle shed.
Today the Shantidhama trust is also involved in a research project on
the effect of vedic chanting on the brain. The two-year programme is
being monitored by Dr Pradhan of the NIMHANS's psycho pharmacology
department.
One of the school management's fund-raising ventures is a stress
management course-Integrated Modular Practice for Excessive
Tension-for the corporate sector. The money from the course conducted
by Sreedhar Deshmukh, a visiting teacher of Bangalore's Indian
Institute of Management, is used to run the gurukul.
The school has a faculty of eight teachers, two of whom are women.
Most of the teachers are well-versed in almost all subjects including
Sanskrit. Anil Kulkarni, for instance, teaches Maths, Science,
Karate, Sanskrit verses and the basics of Astronomy. Pracheta, one of
the two engineering graduates on the faculty, teaches Sanskrit texts.
Amar Vedanand, who teaches English, is a member of the International
Society for Krishna Consciousness and was in Guyana before he joined
Shantidhama. Krishna Bhatt Ganapadi is a Sanskrit scholar and teaches
the Rig Veda.
Before being taken in both girls and boys go through a sacred thread
ceremony. The boys are called brahmacharis and wear white dhotis
while the girls are called kanyas and wear white salwar kameez. And
it is discipline all the way.
Up by 4 a.m., they wash and milk the cows, and bathe in the river near
by with their teachers whom they call acharyas. They then chant the
Gayatri mantra and perform the sacred fire ceremony.
Classrooms are often under trees. The morning session is set aside
for the Upanishads and the Vedas. Lunch and a brief rest later, it is
time for science and maths, which the students grasp quickly thanks,
the teachers claim, to the rigorous mental exercise involved in
memorising at least 6,000 verses. One of Shantidhama's claims to fame
is its student Anupam who got into the Limca Book of Records for
chanting from memory 4,000 Sanskrit sutras of Panini, and that too in
reverse. After the brainstorming sessions, there is still time to
play games like kabaddi and kho-kho.
Life is tough for the students at Shantidhama which is in a forest
area where there was no electricity till two years ago. The tough
life has made the students confident and fearless, feel the parents.
For Murali, who comes from a Vedic family in Bangalore and knew only
Vedic hymns, Shantidhama was the ideal choice. "At Shantidhama he can
learn the sciences and continue his Vedic chanting too," said his
father Subramanya Bhatt.
Being students of a residential school does not restrict their
interaction with the outside world. Parents can come visiting their
kids or even stay there for some time. Summer camps and yoga and
meditation classes for children and adults ensure that the students
get to know their counter-parts in other schools.
Besides, the school compound also has Grahastaashrama kuteer, small
dwellings for families, and Vaanaprasta and Sanyasa kuteers for those
who prefer seclusion. All the residents, however, are expected to
participate in the gurukula by interacting with the kids.
So do not be surprised if you see a professional who can also recite
the Rig Veda. Could be a Shantidhama product.
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