Sanskrit Wikipedia ( sa, संस्कृत विकिपीडिया; IAST: Saṃskṛta Vikipīḍiyā) (also known as sawiki) is the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

edition of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

, a free,

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, collaborative,

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...

. Its five thousand articles have been written collaboratively by

volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

around the world, with major concentration of contributors in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

. Founded in December 2003, it reached five thousand articles by August 2011. The Sanskrit Wikipedia

Community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

also participated in a project named Tell us about your Wikipedia, and Community news from Sanskrit Wikipedia also came on WikiPatrika, a community-written and community-edited newspaper, covering stories, events and reports related to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation sister projects in India. As of , it has articles and is the largest version of Wikipedia. ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

'' considered that "Sanskrit was making a comeback, thanks to Wikipedia community" ''

Mother India ''Mother India'' is a 1957 Indian epic drama film, directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar and Raaj Kumar. A remake of Khan's earlier film '' Aurat'' (1940), it is the story of a poverty-stricken village wom ...

'' considered the Sanskrit Wikipedia as a "wonderful learning tool"

Early history

One of the earliest snapshots of the home page, dated 1 June 2004, can be seen at the earlier archives of Sanskrit Wikipedia. The earliest article still available on Sanskrit Wikipedia's site is apparently Damana dīva, dated July 9, 2004, however the first article was made on March 21, 2004. The number of articles dropped from the 1,000-article mark to only 600 in August 2005 after nearly half were deleted; many of the deletions were due to the articles being in English. The Sanskrit Wikipedia reached 9,405 articles as of December 12, 2013.

Collaboration with Samskrita Bharati

Sanskrit Wikipedia has a collaboration with Samskrita Bharati, a

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

working to revive Sanskrit. The collaboration efforts started in the Wikipedia Academy organized in

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

on Jan 23, 2010. That Wikipedia Academy was also the first in India. There were 11 Sanskrita Bharathi participants at the Academy. They were introduced to Wikipedia and contributing to Wikipedia content and were helped in this by a team of roughly 3

Wikipedians The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an '' Oxford Dictio ...

. Later the first Sanskrit Wiki workshop was held in Sanskrit Bharati's office at Bangalore for an audience of 20 participants. The presentation was intended to give a basic working knowledge of Wikipedia and its interface. A second workshop was held at the same location on March 26, 2011 for another 15 participants from software companies and the ''Om Shantidham Gurukulam''.

Other collaborations

Through an initiative by

Gujarat University The Gujarat University is a public state university located at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The university is an affiliating university at the under-graduate level and a teaching university at the postgraduate level. It is accredited B++ by NA ...

's Department of Sanskrit, around 150 Sanskrit teachers from different colleges in Gujarat gathered in July 2012 to add materials to the Sanskrit Wikipedia through a two-day-long workshop held titled ''Sanskrit Wikipedia — Introduction and Expectations''.DNA India - Sanskrit Wikipedia in the offing: Gujarat teachers planning details
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Referenced

External links

*
Sanskrit Wikipedia
*
Sanskrit Wikipedia mobile

Wikipedia.org multilingual portal

Wikimedia Foundation
{{Wikipedias Internet properties established in 2004 Sanskrit encyclopedias Wikipedias by language 21st-century Indian books Sanskrit revival Wikipedia in India