Country Going Through Era of Cultural Renaissance: Culture Minister Shekhawat

India is going through an "era of cultural renaissance", Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said on Thursday as he asserted that the Gyan Bharatam Mission has been envisioned to preserve the country's manuscript heritage.

Under the Gyan Bharatam Mission, 25 clusters, and with each cluster 20 independent centres, and 10 centres of excellence are envisioned to be established in a "hub-and-spoke model" across the country, the minister said at an international conference hosted at the Vigyan Bhawan here.

The mission aims to preserve "our manuscript heritage for the coming generations", Shekhawat said.

He also said that Indians must take pride in their cultural roots, and technology should be used to disseminate the traditional knowledge embedded in India's manuscripts.

The three-day conference -- "Reclaiming India's Knowledge Legacy through Manuscript Heritage" -- helmed by the Ministry of Culture brings together scholars, experts, researchers and various eminent speakers to discuss and deliberate on conservation, preservation, digitisation and other aspects related to manuscript heritage.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a session on day two of the event.

"Our country is going through an era of cultural renaissance," Shekhawat said.

In his address, he also said that technology can help in translating "our manuscript heritage into AI-readable format" for greater dissemination.

The conference aims to build an "alliance of all custodians" of old manuscripts in India and eventually create a country-wide ecosystem for their preservation and knowledge dissemination under the aegis of Gyan Bharatam project.

India has one of the richest collections of ancient manuscripts in the world, with nearly 10 million texts that hold the country's traditional knowledge and cultural heritage.

Shekhawat said after the three-day 'vichar manthan' (extensive deliberations), the 'amrit' (outcome) of this conference will help in contributing to the goals of 'Gyan Bharatam' which is to preserve and promote India's manuscript heritage.

Indian-origin mathematician Manjul Bhargava, recipient of the prestigious 2014 Fields Medal, in his keynote address, said the revival of manuscript heritage could contribute to augmentation of art, culture and language, and enhancement of education and research, cultural diplomacy and soft power, and an "Indian renaissance".

Bhargava, recalled his Indian roots and extolled the legacy of Indian mathematicians of the ancient era, and even shared an illustration on the screen.

He showed an image of the 'magic square' called 'Chautisa Yantra', a 4x4 grid of numbers in ancient numerals, which he said is inscribed on granite in a wall at a temple of the iconic Khajuraho temple complex in Madhya Pradesh.

"We all know about ornate carvings and aesthetic beauty of the Khajuraho temple, but a lesser-know is a mathematical aspect in this temple art, and this Yantra is about 1,000 years old," he said, drawing applause from the audience.

The government has launched the Gyan Bharatam Mission as a major initiative under the Ministry of Culture. It aims to survey, document, conserve, digitise and make accessible more than one crore manuscripts located at academic institutions, museums, libraries and private collections across India.

Over 1,100 participants from across the country are attending the conference. The participants include more than 95 academics, 22 government and private administrators, 179 professionals, 112 research scholars, 230 students, and over 400 individuals from various other fields, the ministry said on Wednesday.

Union Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal said, "We have been looking at our heritage from the perspectives of history, religion, spirituality, and also aesthetic." "But, actually the knowledge that is there in our heritage which is mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, medicine system, these are all our heritage which need to be brought out, particular work that we are starting in our Gyan Bharatam under the vision of the Prime Minister, will make our advancements in science and mathematics that took place (ages ago) on this land, come out and give us," he told PTI on the sidelines of the event.

A special exhibition on manuscripts has also been put up at the venue.

Centuries-old rarest of the rare manuscripts of Kautilya's Arthashashtra and Sundar Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana, both on palm leaves, are part of the display.

"Both manuscripts, about 500 years old, as per our records, are housed at the Oriental Research Institute (ORI), Mysore, and their original versions have been taken out of our safe custody, especially for this occasion," Krishna Nagasampige, research scholar at ORI, told PTI.

Few manuscripts drawn from Oriental Institute, the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and another institution in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, have also been showcased, besides a facsimile version of Gilgit Lotus Sutra manuscripts drawn from the National Archives of India.

The Union culture secretary said the original version of the Gilgit Lotus Sutra manuscripts will also be put on display in the course of the conference.