Summer School on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics 2026

Overview

The First Summer School on Sanskrit Computational Linguistics is being organised by Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE-Bengaluru) in association with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, from 22nd June 2026, as a six-day intensive academic programme.

This summer school targets research scholars and faculty members interested in research and development activities in Sanskrit Computational Linguistics. Bringing together traditional scholars and technology-oriented researchers, the summer school aims to foster collaborative learning and promote innovative approaches to language technologies rooted in the Indian intellectual tradition.

This summer school introduces participants to the emerging interdisciplinary domain that integrates Indian grammatical theories with modern computational techniques. The major focus of the summer school is to initiate participants in building prototypes or small modules to solve contemporary, relevant problems in the field of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics. There will be lectures by eminent scholars and researchers in the field, providing sufficient background on the Indian Grammatical Tradition relevant to computational linguistics, an introduction to Python, and modern AI tools to carry out the projects.

Key Information

Venue: MAHE, Bengaluru
Duration: 6 Days Intensive
Capacity: Limited to 60 participants
Last date to apply: May 25th
Inclusions: Accommodation and meals provided for selected candidates
Environment: Immersive & collaborative learning environment

Objectives

To introduce interdisciplinary research methods combining Sanskrit studies with Natural Language Processing and computational linguistics.
To provide technical training in Python programming, deep learning, and Large Language Models for Sanskrit and Indic language research.
To promote collaborative research in Sanskrit, Indian Knowledge Systems, and language technologies.

Outcomes

Participants will gain practical skills in computational analysis and digital processing of Sanskrit texts.
The programme will strengthen interdisciplinary research collaborations and academic networks.
The summer school will encourage the development of digital tools and research initiatives in Sanskrit Computational Linguistics.

Tentative Event Schedule

Date	Activity & Sessions
22 June 2026	Introduction to Sanskrit Computational Linguistics: Tasks, Datasets, Tools (3 hours) Hands-on with the Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Tools (1.5 hours) Introduction to Python (1.5 hours)
23 June 2026	Introduction to Computational Linguistics: Basic Tasks and Classical Methods -- Tokenization, NER, Text Classification, Compound Type Identification, Dependency Parsing (3 hours) Hands-on for the basic tasks for various languages, including Sanskrit (1.5 hours) Writing Python code for tokenization and classification (1.5 hours)
24 June 2026	Deep Learning for NLP: Word Vectors, Transformer encoders, Pretraining (3 hours) Hands-on with mBERT and XLM-R for Sanskrit NLP tasks (1.5 hours) Writing Python code for Sanskrit tasks such as meter identification (1.5 hours)
25 June 2026	Large Language Models: Transformer Decoders, Decoding Methods, Instruction Fine-tuning, Prompting (3 hours) Hands-on with NLLB model for translation, poetry generation (1.5 hours) Prompting open source models for Sanskrit tasks (1.5 hours)
26 June 2026	Shallow and Dense Retrieval, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): 3 hours Hands-on for search for Sanskrit documents, RAG for QA (1.5 hours) Brainstorming session for challenging problems in Sanskrit Computational Processing
27 June 2026	Participants will form teams of 3-4 members each, come up with a specific challenge and brainstorm on how that will be solved (3 hours) Each team makes a 5-minute presentation and 5 minutes of feedback (3 hours)

Resource People(Tentative)

Prof Pawan Goyal

IIT-Kharagpur (Organiser)

Prof Amba Kulkarni

IIT-Hyderabad

Dr Arjuna S R

MAHE-Bengaluru (Co-organiser)

Dr Hrishikesh Terdalkar

BITS-Hyderabad

Dr Sriram Krishnan

IIIT-Hyderabad

Mr Manoj Balaji Jagadeeshan

PhD student, IIT-Kharagpur

Mr Kunal Kingkar Das

MS student, IIT-Kharagpur

Mr Prasanna Venkatesh

PhD student, Madras University

First Summer School on
Sanskrit Computational Linguistics

Overview

Key Information

Objectives

Outcomes

Target Audience

Tentative Event Schedule

Express Interest

Registration Costs

Resource People(Tentative)

Organizers

Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Bengaluru

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur