Mysuru: The Annual C.N. Sanjay Birth Anniversary celebrations was conducted at Dhvanyaloka, Mysuru, on Nov. 8 with a highly erudite and scholarly talk by Prof. Mallepuram G. Venkatesh, former Vice-Chancellor, Karnataka Sanskrit University. Author of over 60 books, he has the distinction of receiving Kannada Sahitya Akademi Award twice.

Speaking on two very important encyclopaedias in Sanskrit dating to 11th and 17th centuries, Manasollasa and Shivatathva-rathnakara, Prof. Venkatesh expatiated on the nature and achievement of these two extraordinary works that dealt with every aspect of life: art, history, religion, literature, music, sports, yoga and so on.

What made these two Sanskrit works unique in his opinion was that no other Indian language could boast of such a feat. They were invaluable both because of the wealth of information they offered relating to various sources of knowledge and also practical wisdom concerning myriad aspects of day-to-day life making them supremely relevant even today.

Prof. C.N. Srinath, Director, Dhvanyaloka, expressed his gratitude to Prof. Venkatesh for speaking on such rare and less known works. An important feature of the occasion was the release of two of Prof. Srinath’s works, one a collection of poems titled Resonance of Silence and the other a translation of some of T.S. Eliot’s poems besides The Literary  Criterion, a Dhvanyaloka Quarterly, now 72 years old.