Showing posts with label Hindi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hindi. Show all posts

Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Rig Veda in Hindi










A new and unique translation in Hindi of the ancient Indian Rig Veda (ऋग्वेद) has recently been published - the first volume of a four-part series. This covers the third, fourth and fifth mandalas of the sacred text and is generally dedicated to Agni - the sacred fire. This volume also includes the sacred "Gayatri Mantra".

This translation published by Lokbharti Booksellers and Distributors, Allahabad, is unique in that it is the first time that a translation appears with explanations on literal and spiritual levels, in addition to the original Sanskrit text.

The translation and explanations have been written by Professor Govind Chandra Pandey, a renowned scholar in multiple disciplines. Prof. G. C. Pandey has been the Vice Chancellor of Jaipur and Allahabad Universities, he was the Chairman of Indian Institute of Advance Studies, Simla, the Chairman of Allahabad museum Society and the Chairman of Central Tibetan Society, Sarnath Varanasi.

A book such as this is truly valuable as it makes these ancient sacred texts much more accessible to the general reader and provides deep insight into the foundations of Indian culture. It would be a valuable addition to any library, especially in an institution of higher education that studies Ancient Indian Languages, Archeology, History and /or Culture.

This book has been covered in the blogosphere in these posts as well:

ऋग्वेद
Published by: Lokbharti Book Sellers and Distributors
15-A M.G.Marg,
Allahabad - 211001
Tel: 91-532-3295870/ 2427210
email:
lokbhartibooksellers@gmail.com


Saturday, April 26, 2008

My Brush with Indic Language Support in Blogger

नमस्ते! (Namaste! in Hindi script)

Blogger (and some other Google products) have had Indic language support for a while now, but only today did I, for the very first time, really read a Hindi blog post on the very interesting Hindi blog of Mr. Gyan Dutt Pandey titled GyanDutt Pandey Ki Mansik Halchal.

It all started with an email I received from Mr. Pandey, who blogged about his (blog-worthy) meetings with my father, Dinesh Chandra Grover (of Lokbharti fame), a doyen in the Hindi (print) publishing world in India. (See this and this post of Mr. Pandey's as well).

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that (given my background) this was the first blog post in Hindi that I read, comments and all (and there were many comments - this blog clearly has huge readership!). That said, going through the blog was a huge eye-opener for me...

Like getting a sense for the number of bloggers in India blogging in Indian languages (I'm sure Google has the figures); phrases used for the Search, RSS feed buttons, "Posts by categories" - "इस ब्लॉग पर सर्च का जुगाड़", "कृपया ब्लॉग-फीड सदस्यता लें", "लेखों का वर्गीकरण" respectively; options to read the blog in your favored script- choices were English, Gujarati, Bangla, Oriya, Gurmukhi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam & Hindi (Indic to Indic online transliterations done courtesy girgit.chitthajagat.in, embedded slideshows in hindi (hosted on Zoho) and much much more....

A subsequent gmail exchange with Mr. Pandey (in Hindi script!) revealed that for composing his posts, he is in fact not using Google's online transliteration tool, but Baraha and Microsoft's Indic IME offline tools instead.

I cannot remember the last time a single blog post led to so many 'a-ha's!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

U.S. Wants YOU! (If you're a Hindi teacher, that is)

Hindi is the new Mandarin. Just as Mandarin is being learnt by youngsters all over the world to give them a strategic advantage with the emerging China, Hindi too is being sought after as the language of the other Asian tiger.

Some schools in the US have decided to introduce Hindi as a foreign language with staples like French, Spanish and German.

"We're going to teach our kids how to speak important languages. We will welcome teachers here to help teach our kids how to speak languages," US President George Bush had said during a National Security Language Initiative in New York"


This excerpt from an article titled India Shining: US Headhunts Hindi Teachers.

Hindi is considered a "critical foreign language" in the US, hence this need to hire Hindi teachers and teach Hindi as a foreign language in schools.

Unfortunately the remark above - about Mandarin being learned by children all over the world to prepare them for China - does not apply to India. No school in India that I know of is offering Mandarin as a foreign language. Why do Indians not consider it important to prepare their kids to compete globally in the decades to come? Are we too smug in the knowledge that the world is "preparing itself for India" - like in the series of TV ads being aired these days?

With this kind of thinking and attitude, India won't be "shining" for too long.


[Cross-posted on educatorslog.in]