Shri Rutger Korten horst
President Kovind presents Padma Shri to Shri Rutger Kortenhorst for Literature and Education. He is a Sanskrit enthusiast, researcher, and teacher in the John Scottus Schools, Dublin. He has been a pioneer in propagating Sanskrit in Ireland.
Who is Shri Rutger Kortenhorst ?
Rutger Kortenhorst is a teacher of Sanskrit atbgt2 John Scottus Senior School in Dublin, Ireland. John Scottus School is a private school that has been teaching Sanskrit as a compulsory subject since its inception in 1986. When he was 21 years old and a student at Trinity College Dublin, Rutger Kortenhorst, who received his education at Trinity College Dublin and St Benildus College, a catholic-only boys’ secondary school in Dublin, Ireland, developed an interest in the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. By reading The Ten Principal Upanishads, an English translation of the ten principal Upanishads written by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and published in 1938, he was introduced to the Advaita Vedanta philosophy.
A little over a year later, he started reading Vedic Mathematics, a 1965 book by Indian monk Bharati Krishna Tirtha. Rutger Kortenhorst became interested in Sanskrit as a result of all of this, and he made repeated trips to India to study the language. He stayed with Dr. Ramachandra Bhat as a guest in the months of June and July in the years 2006 and 2007 at Veda Vijnana Gurukulam in Bangalore.
He then invested the time from June 2008 to August 2009 at the Gurukulam to create a fresh approach to teaching Sanskrit to kids in the West. He also participated in Sanskrit conversation camps throughout India during this time and spent a few fortnights with Dr. Narendra in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Dr. Narendra oversees the Sanskrit Karyalaya, a section of the Aurobindo Ashram that was created to promote and popularise a straightforward variety of Sanskrit.