Education Ministry approves five classical language centres of excellence

The Union Ministry of Education has approved the creation of five new Centres of Excellence to study, digitise, and preserve Indian classical languages.

These hubs will focus on five languages that have deep historical significance: Assamese, Bengali, Pali, Marathi, and Prakrit. According to ministry officials, the main goal of the initiative is to strengthen academic research, preserve ancient texts through digitisation, and promote India's diverse linguistic heritage.

Each language has been assigned to a specific university with historical or regional ties to its study. Tezpur University in Assam will host the centre for Assamese, while Visva Bharati University in West Bengal will take charge of Bengali. The Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute in Pune has been selected for Marathi, and the Central University of Gujarat will house the centre for Prakrit.

Preserving ancient scripts

The study of Pali, an ancient language closely tied to early Buddhist scriptures and historical South Asian philosophy, will be based at the Central University of Odisha.

The decision has been welcomed by regional leaders. Mohan Charan Majhi, the Chief Minister of Odisha, described the announcement as a proud moment for his state and a major step forward for India's linguistic heritage.

"The Ministry of Education's approval of a Centre of Excellence for Classical Pali at the Central University of Odisha will strengthen the study, preservation, and promotion of Pali, a language deeply connected with India's intellectual, spiritual, and cultural traditions," Majhi wrote in a post on X. He added that the centre would help cement Odisha's contribution to preserving historical civilisational knowledge.

Boosting academic research

The move comes amid a broader push by the Indian government to elevate regional and classical languages in higher education. By setting up these specialised hubs, the government aims to create dedicated spaces for scholars to translate historical manuscripts, build digital archives, and encourage a new generation of researchers to engage with texts that are often left out of mainstream academic curricula.

For languages like Prakrit and Pali, which do not have a large base of modern native speakers but hold vast treasuries of historical literature, the centres could prevent vital records from being lost to time. In the case of Marathi, Bengali, and Assamese, the initiative will provide formal academic structures to investigate their linguistic evolution and historical literature.