SAMSKRIT Bharati conducted the Shalaka Pariksha in Ahmedabad on January 3. A total of 19 students from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu appeared for the exam. Six students appeared for Vyakaran shastra (grammar) and 13 appeared for Nyaya shastra (judiciary). Eleven students (three for grammar and 8 for judiciary) were declared passed at the end of the exam. All the winners were presented citation and cash prize of Rs 5000 each. All other students who appeared in the exam were presented Rs 1000 each.
Shalaka Pariksha is Indian traditional method of examination and majority of the countrymen are not aware of it today. It is a very transparent system of examination in which the whole textbook has to be learnt by the student for appearing in the exam. It is believed that the knowledge which is in the books is not useful at the time of need and the knowledge which has been learnt is useful when one needs. That is why there has been concentration on learning the whole textbook in this exam. It is a very transparent system of examination as the whole exam is conducted in open.
There is a head examiner for the exam assisted by two other examiners who are basically the scholars of the subject in which the exam is conducted. The examiners have a pointed stick in their hands which is called shalaka. The book in which the exam has to be conducted is declared in advance and is kept at the table of the examiners. One side of the examiners sits the student and in front of them the people sit. The exam is conducted in three rounds—learning, lecture and question-answer session. Under the first round, the examiner pushes the stick in any page of the book and reads out the first line of that page. The remaining portion of the chapter has to be narrated by the student before all. When the first examiner is satisfied, then the other examiners too repeat the same procedure. The similar procedure is repeated in the second and third rounds.
This year’s exam was inaugurated by Shri P Jani, Vice Chancellor of Shri Somanth Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Veraval, Gujarat. The chief guest at the concluding ceremony was Secretary of Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs, Gujarat, Shri Bhagyesh Jha. The awards were given away by Shri Bhagyesh Jha and Gurumaa Samanand Saraswati. Samskrit Bharati general secretary Shri CM Krishna Shastri declared books for the next year’s examination and this exam would be conducted in Bengaluru on January 9, 2011.
Prominent among those who were present as examiner at the examination included Shri Dorbal Prabhakar Sharma from Andhra Pradesh, Dr PN Shastri from Bhopal, Shri Bharat Sheelu from Ahmedabad, Dr Krishnaprasad Nirola from Nadiyad (Gujarat) and Dr Vachaspati Mishra from Ahmedabad.
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