Ms Meenakashi Lekhi to inaugurate exhibition Hamari Bhasha, Hamari Virasat tomorrow at National Archives of India on occasion of International Archives Day
National Archives of India is celebrating International Archives Day on 9 June 2023 and on this occasion, an exhibition under the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM) entitled “Hamari Bhasha, Hamari Virasat will be organised.
Ms Meenakashi Lekhi, Minister of State for Culture, Government of India, will inaugurate the exhibition on 9 June 2023 at 11:00 am.
The Exhibition will present a selection of original manuscripts drawn from the annals of the archival repository (such as the birch-bark Gilgit manuscripts, Tattvartha Sutra, Ramayana, and Srimad Bhagwad Gita, among others), official files of the government, proscribed literature under the colonial regime, private manuscripts of eminent personalities, as well as from the rich collection of rare books held in the NAI Library.
The Exhibition would include among the most ancient in the world – the Gilgit Manuscripts, the oldest surviving manuscript collection in India. The birch bark folios (documents written on pieces of inner layer of the bark of birch trees; birch bark is known for its resistance to decay and decomposition) contain both canonical (sacred) and non-canonical Buddhist works that throw light on the evolution of Sanskrit, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian, Machu and Tibetan religious-philosophical literature.
According to consensus, they were written between the 5th -6th centuries CE. The Gilgit Manuscripts were discovered in three stages in the Naupur village (Gilgit region), and first announced by archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein in the year 1931. The exhibition further sheds light on the vast corpus of archival records pertaining to variegated languages spoken across the length and breadth of the nation.
This exhibition is an endeavour to commemorate the treasured heritage of India’s linguistic diversity as a Nation. India is blessed with extraordinary language diversity. According to an estimate’, out of 7,111 languages spoken globally, about 788 languages are spoken in India alone. India is thus one of the four most linguistically diversified countries in the world, along with Papa New Guinea, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
The exhibition will remain open for public viewing till 08 July 2023 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on each day including Saturday, Sunday and National Holidays.
