Vrishvardhan Sharma वृषवर्धनः शर्मा

Hardware Two devices, fully working

Where शास्त्र meets silicon.

A pocket sized Bhagavad Gītā that works with no network at all. You speak to it, it finds the verse. He has built it twice over, once with an e-ink screen and once with a touchscreen, and a third device is in progress. Designed, wired and programmed alone, by a nine year old.

Watch the demo The GitaVardhan app
The touchscreen GitaVardhan device held close, its screen showing the GitaVardhan mark mid load, with the e-ink device visible on the table below it.
The touch reader in hand, the e-ink reader on the table beneath it.

What it does

Speak. It listens. It remembers.

The command recognition runs on each device itself. Nothing is sent anywhere, because there is nowhere to send it: neither device has a network connection of any kind, by design. Each works in a room with no signal, on a train, in a temple.

Beyond the Gītā, a Learning Mode carries Pāṇini's अष्टाध्यायी and the अमरकोश, the two texts a student of Sanskrit spends years committing to memory.

Both are complete, working devices, built and photographed here as they actually are. A third is in progress.

The e-ink device resting on printed cloth, its screen reading Om Sri Paramatmane Namah with the note, full chant in progress.
Mid recitation, on the e-ink reader. The case is inscribed ॐ श्री परमात्मने नमः.

The first device

The e-ink reader. Eight dollars of parts, held in one hand.

Core
ESP32
Microphone
INMP441
Amplifier
MAX98357
Display
E-ink, paper like, readable in daylight
Voice
Command recognition on the device itself
Network
None. No internet, no cloud, no account
Written in
C and Python, line by line, by him
Texts
Bhagavad Gītā, plus a Learning Mode covering अष्टाध्यायी and अमरकोश
Cost
Built around a chip costing roughly eight dollars
Status
Built and fully working

Watch the original build

Watch it answer a spoken command

The e-ink GitaVardhan device held in an open palm, its screen showing Bhagavad Gita 18.66 in Devanagari.
Showing भगवद्गीता 18.66, the carama śloka.
A phone running the GitaVardhan app held above the e-ink device, both showing the same mark.
The same work in two forms: the app on a phone, and the device that needs no phone at all.

The second device

The touch reader. Same texts, a colour screen.

A second build of the same idea, this time with a touchscreen in place of e-ink: a Listen mode and a Learn mode, and the same three texts, the Gītā, the अष्टाध्यायी and the अमरकोश, selectable by hand or by voice.

The touchscreen GitaVardhan device resting in an open palm, its screen reading GitaVardhan, offline, voice ready, and Listening.
Offline, voice ready, listening.
The touchscreen device showing a menu: Mode, Listen or Learn, and Item, Gita, Ashtadhyayi or Amarakosha, with Listening shown at the bottom.
Listen or Learn, by text, on screen.

Watch the touch reader, demonstrated

How it got here

Four years, five steps. A sixth under way.

  1. Age five

    Memorised the Bhagavad Gītā

    By self study

  2. Age six

    State and national medals in recitation

    Competing upward

  3. Age eight

    Shipped the applications

    GitaVardhan on the App Store and Google Play.

    Published

  4. Age nine

    Built the e-ink reader

    Designed, wired and coded alone.

    Working

  5. Age nine

    Built the touch reader

    A second device, a second build of the same idea.

    Working

  6. In progress

    A third device

    Coming soon

Thousands of years of शास्त्र. A few grams of silicon. A voice that remembers.

On film

The devices, working.