Paribhaashaa Prapanchah
Ontology Network of Bharatiya Scientific Literature
A Research Initiative for Sanskrit Universities
Charter
This is an umbrella initiative of multiple projects to develop an authentic ontological network of technical terms across multiple bharatiya shaastras (scientific treatises). Ontology means a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them. Every shaastra comes with its own definitions of technical terms called its paribhaashaa. Lack of contextual knowledge of paribhaashaa leads to misinterpretation of shaastraartha. To enable study of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) by western-educated technical audience, bridging the language and technical gaps is essential. Only samskrit and shaastra scholars can do this job. Siddhanta Knowledge Foundation (SKF) has developed a web-based platform for shaastric annotation of bharatiya texts, called sam-bhashya (click for concept note). Using this platform, Samskrit institutions can launch multiple projects to embellish seminal bharatiya texts in various scientific disciplines with grammar analysis and technical term tagging. Thus, they can contribute to jump-starting IKS research at large scale.
Proposal
- SKF invites Sanskrit Universities to take up paribhasha tagging projects using the Sam-bhashya website hosted and supported technically by SKF.
- Sanskrit university to identify five seminal texts in each shaastra using their resident experts and students for paribhaashaa extraction.
- Vyakarana, nyaaya, mimamsa
- Jyotisha, kalpa, aagama, sthapatya, vaastu
- Ayurveda, natya, artha, kaama, paaka
- Ganita, rasaayana, khagola, krishi
- Each tagging project involves
- Splitting samasas and sandhis.
- Identifying vakyas of four types in the texts: padaartha, nirvachana, uddesha, nirdesha.
- These can be taken up as Bachelors or Masters student projects or internship projects of 6-9 months duration jointly with SKF.
- Any honorarium/stipend to participants needs to be handled by the Sanskrit University.
- SKF will provide requisite training and technical support for the project.
- Sam-bhashya platform provides google content search and paribhaashaa / ontology visualization services to subscribing institutions.
- All content and annotations contributed will be publicly marked in the name of the contributing institution and authors. This will help establish credibility and recognition for future reference.