Gita Supersite: IIT Kanpur Creates A Treasure Trove of Ancient Sanatan Wisdom
Over the years Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur has built for itself a formidable reputation for doing path breaking work on scientific innovation and multifaceted technological advancement. A fact underscored by the development of numerous technological wonders under its aegis including the world’s smallest satellite Jugnu which was launched in 2011.
But surprisingly there has been a landmark development at the institute which has not gotten its due share of the spotlight despite being around for more than two decades. We are talking about “Gita Supersite” a labour of love & dedication for Prof TV Prabhakar & his team. Gita Supersite is a shining use case of deploying IT advancements to unlock & make available to the masses, the ancient sanatan wisdom condensed in the Indian scriptures through a user friendly interface.
“Gita Supersite” is one of the hidden treasures of IIT Kanpur and as the name suggests it is a comprehensive online repository of Indian Philosophical texts, with an explicit focus on Srimad Bhagwat Gita. It is a landmark development in the use of technological advancements to propagate the drops of traditional Indian wisdom contained in philosophical scriptures thanks to its language support feature. Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads, Srimad Bhagwat Gita, alternate versions of Gita, Sri Ram Charit Manas, Valmiki Ramayan, Brahma Sutra, Yog Sutras which are originally in Sanskrit have become accessible to the common people, who either are completely devoid of any knowledge of Sanskrit or possess rudimentary knowledge of language at the best, through this initiative. The texts can be viewed in any of the 11 language scripts, including Assamese, Bengali, Devnagari, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Roman, Tamil and Telugu.
Another feature of the website which stands out is its easy to navigate interface, which provides the original Sanskrit shloka alongside its corresponding audio. The website also contains audio of different translations, transliterations and commentaries, making it invaluable resource for those looking to deepen their understanding of Bhagwad Gita and other scriptures.
One of the former students of the PhD program at IIT Kanpur, recalled using this site and reading from it during his PhD days and listed out the amazing features of the website. First, it is multilingual; second, it provides literal meanings with interpretations; third, provides multiple interpretations with their sources, and four, it is user friendly.
It took a viral tweet by Prof. Abhay Karandikar, IITK Director & a WhatsApp message containing details of it to generate common interest in the website, despite it being around for two decades and being famous among the serious students of Gita and other Indian philosophical texts. Prof. Prabhakar, the man behind the initiative, states, “From earlier traffic of 600 users per day, there has been fourfold increase in the daily traffic to the tune of 2000 plus users per day now.” He further stated, “Earlier the site was famous among serious students of Gita and other philosophical texts but now the common man is also accessing it.” While talking about ongoing iterations to the website features he hoped that very soon they should be able to put up the English translations of Sutras as well as Sankara’s commentary.
The project has its genesis in a project at IIT-K in the pre internet era undertaken by Prof. Prabhakar and funded by the Chinmaya Interntional Foundation in 1989. With the rising popularity of the internet, the department of electronics in the Central Government assigned a project on technology development in Indian languages, to the department of computer science and engineering of IIT Kanpur. Prof. Prabhakar along with Dr. Vineet Chaitanya developed Geeta Vatika, precursor to Gita Supersite, to demonstrate the project’s potential. Since then, there have been multiple iterations leading to the current version of the website. The website is a part of the larger efforts to create a series of websites based on Indian philosophical and spiritual texts.
Let us acknowledge the contribution and applaud the sustained efforts of key members of the team behind this fascinating website who generally remain faceless for the general public and also applaud the government institutions (who promptly get the criticism but rarely the praise that they deserve) which supported this initiative. Team comprises of TV Prabhakar (Professor IIT Kanpur, Department of Computer Science & Engineering), T Archana, Harsih C Karnick (Professor IIT Kanpur) & Dr Vineet Chaitanya (Professor IIT Hyderabad). Prof. Prabhakar is the heart of this team. He initiated the development of the website many years ago along with Dr. Vineet Chaitanya and his passion and inspiration kept it going on even in the face of occasional rough patches of fund crunch. T Archana is the subject specialist in the team and directs the content, interface and features of the website. Prof. Harish C Karnick leads the team along with Prof Parabhakr. Dr Vineet Chaitanya initiated the project with Prof Prabhakar in its Geeta Vatika prototype before multiple iterations over the years led to the development of Gita Supersite in its current form and features.
As per the information available on the website, the team works under a project in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Kanpur. The project is funded by the Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.
Such a fantastic website which operates at the cross section of philosophy, spirituality, information technology and maybe, artificial intelligence in its future versions, has been in oblivion for so long in this “Make In India” and “Atmanirbhar Bharat” era is possibly due to inability of the developing team and other institutional stakeholders to fully grasp its impact &relevance for the masses beyond the hallowed realms of scholarly use in academic research of serious nature. Gita Supersite deserves far greater publicity and spotlight to achieve the greater good that it is capable of by unshackling the scriptures from the stranglehold of the Erudite and making it accessible to masses. It also presents an opportunity to showcase the indigenous technical competence that our higher institutions are capable of in contrast to the depressing narratives of unjustified delays, bureaucratic hurdles and incompetence to manage innovation & research that usually gets highlighted. This will go a long way in boosting the nation’s collective confidence in its intellectual capital and capabilities!
