Faculty
Dr. Shrinivasa Varakhedi, M.A. Ph.D. Director
Dr. Shrinivasa Varakhedi, Director, Sanskrit Academy, Osmania University, Hyd a formerly faculty of Shabdabodha and Language Technology in Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati, is one of the promising young scholars, who is making efforts in development of Interdisciplinary field viz., Sanskrit and Computational linguistics for bridging gaps between Traditional Shastras and modernity. Dr Varakhedi has two master degrees in his credit - one in General Sanskrit and another in Darshanas and has also got a traditional P.G. Degree in Nyaya. He has had golden opportunity of being trained in Computational Linguistics under able guidance of Prof. Vineet Chaitanya, Prof. Rajiva Sangal, Prof. K.V.Ramakrishnamacharyulu and Prof. Amba Kulkarni in IIIT Hyd. He got opportunity to study Western Logic with Prof. P.M.Rege of Pune. Later he got his Ph.D in the same subject for his thesis titled “Knowledge Representation schemes of Navya Nyaya and other western systems” from Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Deemed University, New Dehli and the thesis received great appreciation from the experts in the academic field.
Dr. Varakhedi has received his instruction in Nyaya and Vedanta Shastra in traditional Gurukula system in the renowned Sanskrit educational Institution – Poornaprajna Vidyaeeptha, Bangalore and studied under the holy feet of H.H.Sri Pejawar Swamiji. He had opportunities to study Nyaya Shastra with several scholars of national fame like Prof. Prahlada Char, Prof. Puranik and Prof. Haridasa Bhat. After completion of his education, he served as lecturer in his mother institution, where later he was appointed as Asst. Professor in Nyaya Shastra Department in Poornaprajna Sanskrit College. In 2002 he joined R.S.Vidyapeetha as Asstt. Controller of Examinations and served for two years. In 2004 when the UGC sanctioned a new innovative P.G program to the Vidyapeetha, Dr.Varakhedi has been appointed as lecturer for this course. In addition to that he has been entrusted with the responsibilities of various computer related research projects of the Vidyapeetha namely Sanskritnet, Ramayana Project, Machine Translation and NLP course under Center of Excellence scheme. With the guidance and help by Prof. K.V.Ramakrishnamacharyulu, Prof. Vineeth Chaitanya, Prof. Amba Kulkanrni, Dr.R.J.Ramasree and others, working on various research projects Dr.Varakhedi has gained a vast experience of research in NLP as well as Sanskrit Computational Linguistics. He also organized a national symposium on “English Grammar in Paninian perspective” that was not only attended by a number of reputed scholars ; but also received a good attention of scholars in national level.
Sri Shrinivasa Varakhedi has done intensive studies in various subjects like Nyaya, Western Logic, Philosophy and Technology and excelled in many ways. With that background he has contributed significantly for promoting interdisciplinary studies involving contribution of Sanskrit through cross-culturing method.
- Designed and developed course structure and study materials for a new interdisciplinary P.G. course in Shabdabodha and Language Technology being a member of core research team of Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati.
- Has developed a novel scheme for Knowledge Representation synthesizing the ideas from Nyaya Technical Language and symbolic Logic (First Order Predicate Calculus and Boolean algebra) as part of his doctoral research.
- Has developed a new method for studies of Nyaya Technical language in general.
Details of Publications:
Dr.Varakhedi has been working on several publications and some of them are published ; some are others are in pipeline. “VimarshaH”, “NyayasudhaprakashaH”, “Kaarakavada”, “tarkanavaneetham” etc., are a few Sanskrit works among them. He has also edited a collection of papers “English Grammar from Paninian Perspective” published by R.S.Vidyapeetha. He has translated three Sanskrit works – Nyayasudha, Chandrika and Vishnutatvanirnaya into Kannada and they are published by different institutions. (details are given separately)
Other contribution for development of Sanskrit:
Apart from all above, Dr. varakhedi’s contributions include: 1.CD-ROM of Vachaspatya kosha developed by Sanskritnet Center, R.S.Vidyapeetha, Tirupati. 2. Corpus of electronic Sanskrit works under Sanskrit-net Project. 3. `Valmiki Ramayana on Internet’ under Valmiki Ramayana Project. 4. `Machine Translation systems’ under Anusaaraka Project, where Paninian theories are used.
Visiting Professor
He has visited many universities like Jadavpur university, iiit, hyd as visiting professor or fellow.
