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The 11th World Sanskrit Conference took place in Torino, Italy, from 3rd to 8th April, 2000. It was attended by around 300 scholars from 25 countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the United States). The conference was organised by CESMEO (Professor Oscar Botto and his staff). The actual conference venue was the congress centre Villa Gualino, perched on the hills above the city of Turin itself. The Inaugural Ceremony was held in the congress centre Torino Incontra in the centre of Torino, when the participants were welcomed by representatives of the Piedmont Region, the city of Torino and others, Professor Botto (President, CESMEO) gave an opening address, Professor Ram Karan Sharma (President of the I.A.S.S.) gave a plenary lecture, and Professor V. Venkatachalam (Chairman, Indian Council of Philosophical Research) made an auspicious address in Sanskrit.
The subject areas of the conference itself were divided into four general sessions and nine workshops. The four general sessions comprised
In addition, each evening there was a special presentation -- Tagore songs in Sanskrit, a CD-ROM on the Muktesvara temple at Caudanapura, a CD-ROM of the BORI Critical Edition of the Mahabharata, a film and slides on Kutiyattam, and a digital archive of the manuscripts in the French Institute at Pondichery -- and a Sanskrit Parishad was held at midday on 7th. During the conference, volume XXIII-XXIV of Indologica Taurinensia (Professor Gregory M. Bongard-Levin Felicitation Volume) was officially released.
During the conference, the Board of the I.A.S.S. held two meetings and the General Meeting was held. At the latter meeting the retirement of Professors Colette Caillat and Siegfried Lienhard from the posts of Treasurer and Secretary General was formally announced and they were both warmly thanked for all that they had done for the Association over very many years. Professors Bruno Dagens and John Brockington were elected to succeed them.
During the conference, Dr Shivamurti Swamiji demonstrated his program Ganakakaumudi, which provides a way of using and understanding the grammatical rules of Panini and his commentators.
The final session on the morning of 8th April commenced with lectures by Professor Biswanath Banerjee and by Professor Ram Karan Sharma and Dr Gautam Patel, followed by the presentation of part of a Sanskrit drama recently written by Professor M. G. Dhadphale. The closing session proper was opened by Professor Lienhard with various announcements, which included the confirmation of the venue of the XIIth World Sanskrit Conference in July 2003 as Helsinki, Finland, at the invitation of Professor Asko Parpola, and an offer to publish the proceedings of the present conference by CESMEO; then valedictory addresses -- with expressions of thanks to the outgoing officers of the Association, to all the CESMEO staff (including the young ladies who had so ably facilitated the running of the various academic sessions) and in particular to Professor Botto -- were given by Professors John Brockington, Narayan Samtani and Ananda Guruge.