Sri Chamu Krishna Shastry
Sri Chamu Krishna Shastry is the Trustee Secretary of Samskrit Promotion Foundation, a leading institution in developing Samskrit Tutorials for students and in producing various new course material for “Samskrit for Special Purposes” He is one of the founding members of Samskrita Bharati, a pioneer organization in popularizing Samskrit as a spoken language and in working for the rejuvenation of the Indian Knowledge Tradition. Now he is spearheading a movement to teach “Samskrit Through Samskrit”
Born on 23rd January 1956, Sri Chamu, an ‘Educationist’ by mission, has modernized the Sanskrit Pedagogy through his three decades of consistent efforts and has brought Sanskrit back to everyday life as a vibrant communicative language. His strategies and programs employed in popularizing Samskrit are unique in the history of any language. He has built a network of Samskrit Volunteers across the globe, projecting Indian soft-power abroad.
Sri Chamu, along with his friends, launched “Speak Samskrit Movement” in 1981 through a simple 2 hours a day 10-Days’ Samskrita Sambhashana Shibiram program and a few million people have benefited from this program. He has been a full time dedicated volunteer of Samskrita Bharati since 1981 and has inspired thousands of youth to take Samskrit as their life mission. Sri Chamu was All India Organizing Secretary and All India General Secretary of Samskrita Bharati, an organization which heralded a new era in the field of Samskrit Education.
Sri Chamu developed a new method to teach Samskrit called “Sarala Sambhashana Paddhati” and has trained thousands of teachers. He has conducted “Speak Samskrit Class” in Parliament House exclusively for MPs in 1983. Sri Chamu has authored fourteen books and hundreds of articles on contemporary issues. He started Samskrit Correspondence Course through the medium of 10 Indian languages and contributed to SAFL course (Sanskrit As Foreign Language) successfully in USA. He was the principal organizer of World Samskrit Book Fair at Bangalore. He launched “Sarasvati Seva Yojana” to publish books in Sanskrit on contemporary subjects.
Sri Chamu not only believes that Samskrit belongs to all irrespective of caste, gender, region or religion but has also worked for social harmony by conducting Samskrita Sambhashana Shibiram in slums and colonies exclusively for the neglected sections of the society who were deprived of learning Samskrit for long.
Sri Chamu has rendered his service as Senior Consultant Languages in MHRD. He has also served as member of various committees of Central Sanskrit Board, National Manuscript Mission, NCERT, CBSE, UGC etc. He was instrumental in celebrating Year 2000-2001 as ‘Sanskrit Year’, a program of MHRD which gave momentum to Samskrit popularization activities. He immensely contributed to “Vision and Road Map for the Development of Samskrit, Ten Year Perspective Plan” in MHRD. He has also worked with various State Governments for the promotion of Samskrit and quality improvement in Samskrit Education.