As a part of Kashi Tamil Sangamam, the University of Hyderabad organized a seminar on February 25, 2025 on Sage Agastya. Prof. L Ramamoorthy, former Professor and Head of the Department of Linguistics, Central University of Kerala, was the chief Guest. He spoke on ‘Sage Agasthiyar: A symbol of Indian Wisdom’.
This seminar was organized to make the students aware about the wealth of knowledge available in Tamil language, one of the oldest languages in the world. Sage Agasthya’s contribution to the Indian Knowledge systems is admirable. In his talk, Prof Ramamoorthy touched upon various contributions of Sage Agasthyar such as — the first grammarian of Tamil languages, founder of the Siddha system of Indian Medicine, founder of the martial art of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, author of more than 1000 books, and many more.
Prof Ramamoorthy also talked about various stories associated with the Sage Agastya. The dialogue between Agasthya and his wife Lopamudraa glorifies the domestic life and family and demonstrates the incompleteness of a life based solely on asceticism.
Through various other stories from the epics such as Mahabharata and Ramayana, he demonstrated how Sage Agastya is admired not only all over India but also in the South East Asian countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, etc.
He concluded his talk highlighting Agastya as a symbol of Indian wisdom – a cultural hero. The Vice Chancellor Prof B J Rao chaired the session, Registrar Dr Devesh Nigam welcomed the guest while Prof. Amba Kulkarni, Head, Department of Sanskrit Studies, introduced the theme of the seminar, and Prof. Arul Mozi, Head Center for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies gave vote of thanks.
The seminar was attended by students and the faculty from various disciplines.