Sanskrit et cetera [Bhopal research]

The curious fact is that, in terms of internet research on various topics, a handy place to park the results is here on my blog. (Accessible, searchable, not lost on some or other storage device I might or might not have at hand . . .) Following this logic of handiness, here is some preliminary research into institutions of language instruction in Bhopal. As I'm contemplating making that city my basecamp -- perhaps for extended periods -- and as I'm eager to dive into study of several Indian languages (first being Sanskrit and Hindi, followed by Urdu and perhaps others), getting the possible lay of the academic land seems useful (though possible routes for such studies hardly need be restricted to academies per se, but it's one place to start). So --

Thumbnail sketch of Madhya Pradesh (various basic facts and statistics) here.

Main cities: Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Raipur [though the latter is technically no longer classed under M.P., being now a province all its own].

Ujjain (where the Gundecha Bros. were born) is of special interest due to its association with Kalidasa.

A Bhopal Tourism blurb.

This chart shows distances of various cities from Bhopal:
Indore -- 108 miles
Nagpur -- 183 miles
Jaipur -- 268 miles
Agra -- 268 miles
Lucknow -- 326 miles
Varanasi -- 376 miles
Pune -- 400 miles
Hyderabad -- 412 miles
Mumbai -- 420 miles
Delhi -- 370 miles
Kolkata -- 700 miles
Bangalore -- 700 miles
Chennai -- 726 miles
Kunming -- 1595 miles
Another, bigger distance chart (but in km units only).

And here's a more comprehensive (Indian cities) distance chart. It lists Ujjain as 188 km from Bhopal (~4 hours)

There was a Sanskrit Festival in Bhopal, Jan. 29-31 2005.

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This site lists several Madhya Pradesh academies (plus governmental cultural departments).
Among them, the Madhya Pradesh Sanskrit Academy is in Bhopal.

This site lists myriads of colleges in M.P.

Search tool for language schools, teachers, tutors in Bhopal (but with nothing relevant at present).

(Actually, my conclusion from this attempted research is -- internet research isn't very effective here. Direct local inquiry is what's needed.)

Ah, but the Wikipedia entry for Bhopal does have a decenet listing of colleges and universities.

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More Madhya Pradesh cultural stuff -- including Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal. (Museum & performing arts.)

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The Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan has a Bhopal Campus. The library in Bhopal is said to have 10,000 books. Their campuses evidently also offer study of Sanskrit via extension courses.

This institution also offers a correspondence course (application due by end of December, for course beginning in January) employing written materials plus CDs (40 15-min lessons per term).


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Stumbled on in passing: the future of traditional Sanskrit learning (considered in a Western academic context) -- pdf document.

Also, unrelatedly (this about English rather than Sanskrit) -- How the Past Affects the Future: The Story of the Apostrophe (pdf document).

A tanpura program download.