Mahabharata, Arthashastra and Rajatarangini manuscripts added to UNESCO register
The three works have been inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register following a session in Indonesia.
Manuscripts of the Mahabharata, Kautilya's Arthashastra, and Kalhana's 12th-century historical chronicle Rajatarangini have been inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register, officials said on Thursday.
According to The New Indian Express, the decision was made during the 11th Session of the Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) stated that it played an important role in preparing the nomination dossiers for the three works.
Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat described the inscriptions as a landmark recognition of India's documentary and civilisational heritage.
The Mahabharata entry is a roughly 400-year-old birch-bark manuscript housed at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. The Arthashastra entry is a palm-leaf manuscript on governance and statecraft held at the Oriental Research Institute in Mysuru.
The Rajatarangini manuscript, a 12th-century chronicle of Kashmir, is preserved at the Oriental Research Library in the Sri Pratap Singh Library Complex, Srinagar. This brings India's total number of inscriptions in the Regional Register to six, following the 2024 inclusion of the Ramcharitamanas, Panchatantra, and Sahrdayaloka-Locana.