75th International Archives Day concludes
Recently, the Minister of State for Culture has inaugurated an exhibition titled “Our Language, Our Heritage” under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to celebrate the 75th International Archives Day at the National Archives in Delhi.
This exhibition is an attempt to remember the valuable heritage of linguistic diversity of India as a nation.
According to an estimate, out of 7,111 languages spoken globally, around 788 languages are spoken in India alone.
Thus, along with Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Nigeria, India is one of the four most linguistically diverse countries in the world.
Gilgit Manuscripts
On the occasion of International Archives Day, the National Archives has made available the Gilgit Manuscripts, the oldest collection of manuscripts in India, written between 5-6 centuries.
The birch bark folio documents, written on pieces of the inner layer of the bark of birch trees in the Kashmir region, include canonical and non-canonical Jain and Buddhist works, which throw light on the development of various religio-philosophical literature.
The Exhibition presents 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 clonial regime, private manuscripts of eminent personalities, as well as from the rich collection of rare books held in the NAI Library.
The exhibition includes the world’s oldest manuscripts-the Gilgit Manuscripts were discovered in three phases at Naupur village (Gilgit region), and were first announced in 1931 by archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein.
National Archives of India
- The National Archives of India was established on 11 March 1891 in Kolkata (Calcutta) as the Imperial Records Department.
- The present building of the National Archives was constructed in 1926, after the capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi in the year 1911. The design of this building was prepared by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
- The transfer of all records from Calcutta to New Delhi was completed in 1937.
- The National Archives is also the nodal agency for the implementation of the Public Records Act, 1993 and the Public Records Rules, 1997.
Source – PIB
