Sanskrit scholar App and hardware developer India (भारत)
Vrishvardhan Sharma has stood on the national podium at the Akhil Bharatiya Shastrotsav three years running, and in March 2026 took first place in अष्टाध्यायी Kaṇṭhapāṭha against university students aged eighteen to twenty five. He is homeschooled, he is nine, and he wrote the software and soldered the hardware that now carry these texts to other people.
4,000
sūtras of Pāṇini's अष्टाध्यायी held in memory
Committed by the age of eight
700
verses of the श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता
Committed by the age of five, by self study
11
scripts the Gītā has been handwritten in
Three complete manuscripts, the first at seven
18 to 25
the age of the field at the national final
Sanskrit competition is open, not graded by age
In his own hand
The complete श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, written out by hand in eleven Indian scripts, three separate times, the first finished at seven. He reads and writes thirteen Indian scripts and speaks six languages. The manuscripts are dedicated to एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत, Ek Bhārat Śreṣṭha Bhārat.
Each cell names its own script, in that script. Open any of them for the page he wrote in that hand.
DD News, on the manuscript he intends to present to the Prime Minister.
WatchThe eleven script manuscript, filmed.
WatchTwo to nine
Nothing here is second hand. Where there is a recording, it is linked.
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Recited the capital city of every country in the world, from memory.
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Recited Ramdhari Singh Dinkar's Rashmi Rathi from memory.
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Committed the complete श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता to memory, all seven hundred verses, by self study.
Nobody set him the task. He has since completed more than five hundred full pārāyaṇas of it.
Watchalso
Set out the complete periodic table by hand, and recited the एकात्मता स्तोत्र.
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First in Rajasthan and Karnataka, then second in India, in गीता Kaṇṭhapāṭha.
Gold at both state rounds, then the 61st Akhil Bharatiya Shastrotsav at Ayodhya, in a field of university students.
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Second in India again, at Haridwar, and finished the first of the eleven script manuscripts.
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Committed Pāṇini's अष्टाध्यायी to memory, roughly four thousand sūtras, along with the अमरकोशः.
With the grammar and the meaning, not the sound alone. He also recites Ghana Pāṭha, including Ghanapāṭhī of Śrī Rudram.
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First in India in अष्टाध्यायी Kaṇṭhapāṭha, and shipped four applications and two hardware readers.
The national final at Kanchipuram, March 2026, against a field aged eighteen to twenty five.
WatchRecent recognition
March 2026
63rd Akhil Bharatiya Shastrotsav, अष्टाध्यायी Kaṇṭhapāṭha
Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Viswa Mahavidyalaya, Kanchipuram. His third consecutive year on the national podium, after two silvers at Ayodhya and Haridwar.
First, national
26 July 2026
Kargil Vijay Diwas honour
Recognised for narrating the accounts of Param Vir Chakra recipients in English, Hindi and Sanskrit, so that the stories reach children across language lines.
Honoured
21 June 2026
Felicitated on International Yoga Day, Bengaluru
Felicitated on stage by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Karnataka, for work in both science and scripture. Certificate of Appreciation from Shri S. R. Vishwanath, MLA, Yelahanka constituency, the same day.
Felicitated
March 2024
61st Akhil Bharatiya Shastriya Spardha, भगवद्गीताकण्ठपाठः
Held at Ayodhya by Central Sanskrit University, Delhi. The silver medal, taken at the age of six against a field of university students. Reported by the Sanskrit monthly भारती.
Second, national
January 2024
61st Rajasthan and Karnataka state rounds, भगवद्गीताकण्ठपाठः
Gold at the Central Sanskrit University Jaipur campus, certificate 137, the result that took him to Ayodhya, and gold again at Karnataka Samskrit University, Chamarajpet, Bengaluru. Both at six.
First, state
What he has built
These exist because a nine year old wanted the texts he had memorised to be usable by someone who had not.
Application
The complete Bhagavad Gītā in thirteen Indian languages, with the commentaries of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya and Rāmānujācārya. Every śloka carries an audio recitation in Vrishvardhan's own voice. Fully offline, free, with no advertising and no tracking.
Hardware
A pocket sized, voice activated reader that works with no network at all, built twice over: once with an e-ink screen, once with a touchscreen. A third device is in progress.
Application
Spoken Bengaluru Kannada for people who have just moved there, taught the way a mother tongue is learned: listen, guess, be corrected, say it again. 1,023 vocabulary cards and more than fifty roleplay scenarios. No streaks, no leaderboards, no paywall.
Applications
The same method carried into two more languages, under the same एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत intent: that the language of the place you have moved to should not stay closed to you.
Thousands of years of शास्त्र. A few grams of silicon. A voice that remembers.
The devices
At nine he built the reader himself, and then built it again: one with an e-ink screen, wired by hand around an ESP32 core, a microphone and an amplifier, and one with a touchscreen. Both are complete and fully working. You speak to either and it finds the verse. Neither has a network connection of any kind, by design. A third device is in progress.
Press and institutions
Competition records with issuing bodies and dates, certificates scanned at full resolution, broadcast segments, and a press kit that can be used without asking first.
The press kitPartners and investors
GitaVardhan, the hardware device, and the Kannada, Tamil and Telugu language work, with the roadmap and the ask set out in full.
Partner with this workCovered by
Featured on वार्तावली, the national broadcaster's weekly Sanskrit programme, interviewed in Sanskrit, Hindi and English, and a guest at length on The Pamphlet podcast. Press and media
