New Delhi: Schools in Saudi Arabia are teaching students about Indian scriptures including Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gautam Buddha as part of the social science syllabus. These changes are reportedly part of the latest policy adopted by the middle east nation called Saudi Vision 2030 in which the Arab nation is trying to diversify its economy and develop public service sectors including health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism.
As part of the Vision 2030 of the Saudi Prince, other significant elements of Indian culture like yoga and Ayurveda apart from the Ramayana and Mahabharata will also be included in the school curriculum, according to media reports.
Padma Shri Awardee Nouf Almarwaai, the first certified Yoga Instructor in Saudi Arabia took to Twitter to talk about the development. She wrote “Saudi Arabia’s new #vision2030 & curriculum will help to create coexistent, moderate & tolerant generation. Screenshots of my son’s school exam today in Social Studies included concepts & history of Hinduism, Buddhism, Ramayana, Karma, Mahabharata & Dharma. I enjoyed helping him study”.
Several Indian institutes had turned to the religious scriptures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the Jawaharlal Nehru University organized leadership lessons from Ramayana and a webinar on “Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita during the COVID-19 crisis”. When Anna University introduced philosophy for undergraduate engineering students in 2019, it added some topics from, Hinduism including Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Vedas. At both these incidents, however, controversies erupted.
Banaras Hindu University and Sir Sundar Lal Hospital, (IMS-BHU) had come up with a ‘garbh sanskara therapy that aims at inculcating a “cultured, vigorous, virtuous, healthy, beautiful child with a divine soul and high IQ”.