A small village Mattur in the southern state of Karnataka, where most of residents speak in Sanskrit. Today, 150 of the 400 students in the local Sri Sharada Vilas School study Sanskrit as their first language. Most people in village Mattur speak in Sanskrit.
Mattur is a quaint village in Karnataka, located on the banks of River Tunga and is at a distance of about 8 km from Shimoga (Shivamogga). Mattur is famous as the ‘Sanskrit village’ of India. This is the only village in India where most of the residents speaks in Sanskrit to communication. It is a unique accomplishment that the residents of Mattur have managed to keep alive the ancient language through their day-to-day communication in Sanskrit even though the official and native language of the state is Kannada. Their daily way of life revolves around Sanskrit language.
Mattur being a small village has no such tourist sites, except a shrine of Rama, a mini temple of Rama, Lord Shiva and his family’s Someshwara temple and Lakshmikeshava temple. The Sankethis, a community of Brahmins that migrated from Kerala, have been living together and leading an insular way of life for the last 600 years. Mattur is known for Sanskrit Speaking Village of India. Their native language is Sankethi. Sankethi language is a mixture of Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Sanskrit is the main language of a majority of the 5,000 residents of this village and is a required subject in schools.
In 1981, Sanskrit Bharati, an organization set up to promote Sanskrit, organized a 10-day workshop at Mattur, which was attended by many prominent personalities, including saints from the Pejavar Math in neighboring Udupi. When these sages saw the enthusiasm of the villagers in Mattur to preserve Sanskrit, they immediately presented the idea of a Sanskrit village, which was accepted wholeheartedly by the local people.
Mattur has a village pathashala (the traditional school) where students are given rigorous training by their Sanskrit gurus and where they start learning the Vedas at the age of 10. Mattur is an agricultural village cultivating paddy and betel nut. In this village you will find everyone speaking Sanskrit like an expert, and even the local wall posters are written in the ancient Indian sanskrit language.
Mattur’s twin village, Hosahalli, shares almost all the qualities of Mattur. Hosahalli is situated across the bank of the Tunga River. These two villages are almost always referred to together. Mattur and Hosahalli are known for their efforts to support Gamaka art, which is a unique form of singing and storytelling in Karnataka. Just like Mattur, the residents of Hosahalli live, eat and breathe Sanskrit.
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