Education Ministry Approves 5 Centres of Excellence to Preserve India’s Classical Languages

New Delhi, October 5 (APAC Media): In a major push to strengthen India’s linguistic and literary heritage, the Ministry of Education has approved the establishment of five Centres of Excellence (CoEs) dedicated to Classical Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Pali, and Prakrit.

The initiative will create dedicated institutional platforms for advanced research, preservation, digitisation and wider dissemination of knowledge associated with India’s Classical Languages. The approval was conveyed through an Office Memorandum issued by the Department of Higher Education on October 1.

The five Centres will be established across Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha and Gujarat, giving regional universities a larger role in preserving and advancing India’s linguistic and literary traditions.

Five Centres, Five Classical Languages

The Ministry has designated the following institutions:

- Classical Assamese: Tezpur University, Assam

- Classical Bengali: Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal

- Classical Marathi: Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, Maharashtra

- Classical Pali: Central University of Odisha, Odisha

- Classical Prakrit: Central University of Gujarat, Gujarat

These five languages were granted Classical Language status in 2024, taking India’s total number of Classical Languages to 11.

Research, Digitisation at the Core

The Centres of Excellence will provide dedicated platforms for academic research, scholarly work and higher education in their respective languages.

A major focus will be the documentation, preservation and digitisation of linguistic and literary resources. Digitising manuscripts and other textual resources is expected to improve long-term preservation while making historical material more accessible to researchers, students and scholars.

Strengthening India’s Classical Language Ecosystem

The initiative marks a move towards creating a stronger institutional ecosystem around India’s Classical Languages rather than limiting their study to individual academic programmes.

With dedicated Centres spread across five states, the programme is also expected to strengthen regional research networks, academic scholarship and institutional capacity in the field.

The move comes as India expands efforts to preserve its linguistic heritage while positioning higher education institutions as centres for research, digitisation and knowledge creation.

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