Rutger Kortenhorst

Rutger Kortenhorst is a teacher of Sanskrit in John Scottus Senior School in Dublin, Ireland. John Scottus School is a private school which has been teaching Sanskrit as a compulsory subject since its inception in 1986. In 2022, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Shri award for his dedicated work to propagate the Sanskrit language in Ireland. About a year later, he began to read Vedic Mathematics a book written by the Indian monk Bharati Krishna Tirtha first published in 1965. All these kindled an interest in the Sanskrit language in Rutger Kortenhorst and he visited India several times to learn the Sanskrit language. He stayed as a guest of Dr Ramachandra Bhat in Veda Vijnana Gurukulam, Bangalore in the months of June and July in the years 2006 and 2007. Subsequently, he spent the period from June 2008 to August 2009 in the Gurukulam to develop a new method of teaching Sanskrit to children in the Western world. During this period, he also attended Sanskrit conversation camps at several places in India and spent a few fortnights with Dr Narendra in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.

Since 2016, Rutger Kortenhorst is running a Junior Certificate Course on Wellbeing targeted at 12-15 years old children. The course is based on the principles of Ayurveda, an alternative medicine system developed in the Indian subcontinent, and of Yoga. The award is in recognition of his service as an "Irish Sanskrit Scholar promoting Ayurveda, Sanskrit and Yoga globally."

Other prizes and recognitions In the year 2020, Rutger Kortenhorst was awarded The World Sanskrit Prize by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, paid tribute to Rutger Kortenhorst in the episode of the Mann Ki Baat programme broadcast on 29 August 2021.