In a major initiative aimed at breathing new life into India’s vast linguistic heritage, the Department of Higher Education has approved the establishment of five specialized Centres of Excellence (CoEs). These dedicated institutions will focus on Classical Assamese, Classical Bengali, Classical Marathi, Classical Pali, and Classical Prakrit, serving as national powerhouses that combine traditional scholarship with cutting-edge technology.
To ensure deep academic integration, these centers will be hosted at premier higher educational institutions across five states. Classical Assamese will be based at Tezpur University in Assam, while Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal will host Classical Bengali. The Centre of Excellence for Classical Marathi will be established at Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute in Pune, Maharashtra. Meanwhile, Classical Pali and Classical Prakrit will find their academic homes at the Central University of Odisha and the Central University of Gujarat, respectively.
The primary mandate of these centers encompasses four key pillars designed to revitalize India’s textual legacy. Beyond fostering high-impact academic research and scholarly engagement, the centers will lead massive preservation and digitization drives to protect rare manuscripts, historical inscriptions, and textual archives against decay. Additionally, the initiative focuses on democratizing access by translating and disseminating these works globally, while simultaneously strengthening regional higher education ecosystems across Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Gujarat.
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