Sanskrit Wikipedia (;

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...

: Saṃskṛta Vikipīḍiyā) (also known as sawiki) is the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

edition of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

, a free, web-based,

collaborative Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The f ...

, multilingual

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

project supported by the non-profit

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

. Its five thousand articles have been written collaboratively by

volunteers Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergenc ...

around the world, with major concentration of contributors in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

. 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 people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

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'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'' considered that "Sanskrit was making a comeback, thanks to Wikipedia community" '' Mother India'' 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 21 March 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 12 December 2013.

Collaboration with Samskrita Bharati

Sanskrit Wikipedia has a collaboration with Samskrita Bharati, a

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

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

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

on 23 January 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 and individually known as Wikipedians, is an online community of volunteers who create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Wikipedians may or may not consider themselves part of the Wikimedia ...

. 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 26 March 2011 for another 15 participants from software companies and the ''Om Shantidham Gurukulam''.

Other collaborations

Through an initiative by Gujarat University'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

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Sanskrit Wikipedia
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Sanskrit Wikipedia mobile

Wikipedia.org multilingual portal

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