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The Rig Veda, oldest of the four Vedas, is among the 38 items of documentary heritage of exceptional value which have been added to the prestigious World Register, bringing the total number of inscriptions since 1997 to 158.
UNESCO Director General Koïchiro Matsuura has accepted the recommendation of the International Advisory
Committee, which met in Pretoria (South Africa) from June 11 to 15 to inscribe these documents in the Memory of the World Register.
The programme for the Memory of the World was started in UNESCO fifteen years back to honour
significant landmarks in the documentary heritage and record them in its 'Memory of the World Register' as world's inheritance. The Memory of the World programme seeks to guard against collective amnesia, calling upon the preservation of the valuable archival holdings and library collections all over the world, ensuring their wide dissemination.
The National Mission for Manuscripts of the Culture Ministry had submitted the nomination on behalf of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. The documentary heritage reflects the diversity of languages, peoples and cultures.
The Vedas are the first literary documents in the history of humankind, and they transcend far beyond their identity as scriptures.
The Rig Veda, oldest among the four Vedas and a collection of 1028 hymns of
exceptional literay qualities eulogising the Vedic deities, is the fountain source of the Aryan culture in all its manifestations that spread beyond the Indian subcontinent to large parts of South and South East Asia as well as parts of Central Asia.
Out of the total number of 28,000 Manuscripts housed at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, the 30 manuscripts of the Rig Veda form a valuable part of the collection. Besides the Rig Veda, the list of 38 items of documentary heritage includes Unpublished Papers of Christopher
Okigbo, considered one of the most renowned African poets of the 20th century, killed during the civil war in Nigeria.
BORI’s M G Dadhphale said: “These were the very manuscripts referred to by
German scholar Max Mueller, who first translated the Vedas into English. These
manuscripts link our oldest text with the modern world.”
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