Gandhinagar:The fourth edition of Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar’sunique semester elective course, Introduction to Indian Knowledge Systems(IKS), offered by the Humanities and Social Sciences discipline, will be conductedfrom January to April 2020. The theme for this year is ‘The Idea of Ancient India’, which will offer a wide-ranging introduction to ancient India’s intellectual, scientific and artistic knowledge traditions, and early Indian society.

Starting on January 09, 2020, eight eminent scholars from various parts of India and abroad will collectively teach the course along with course coordinators Prof Michel Danino and Mana Shah from IIT Gandhinagar. The course on ‘The Idea of Ancient India’ will provide an insider’s perspective on various topics such as Concepts and practices of architecture across India; Foreign travellers’ views of India — or of Indias?; Indian traditions of image worship and safeguarding; Pan-Indian intellectual traditions; Sanskrit Kāvya as history; Traditions of sacred ecology across India; Pan-Indic concepts and practices of governance, political theory, moral instruction and ethics; Pan-Indian traditions of pilgrimage; India’s sacred geography: The mandala landscape and the mandala in built form; and Pan-Indian traditions of science and technology.

The first lecture of the course will be delivered on January 09, 2020,by Prof Srinivas Reddy, Brown University, USA& IIT Gandhinagar, who isan eminent scholar of Sanskrit, classical Telugu, Tamil and Indian music.He will talk about ‘Pan-Indic concepts and practices of governance, political theory, moral instruction and ethics’.

The course is open to students from other institutions in Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar and anyone who is truly interested in studying and understanding Indian knowledge systems. They can join the course for free by filling an onlineregistration form on the website:http://iks.iitgn.ac.in/.Classes will be held on mostof the Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3:30 to 5 pm.