The Ministry of Education has approved the establishment of five Centres of Excellence (CoEs) dedicated to the study, research and preservation of Classical Languages, marking a move to strengthen institutional support for India’s linguistic and literary heritage.
The Department of Higher Education has selected five higher educational institutions across Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha and Gujarat to host the centres. The initiative will focus on advancing academic research, preserving linguistic and literary resources, digitising historical materials and expanding access to knowledge associated with the classical language traditions.
The Centre of Excellence for Classical Assamese will be established at Tezpur University, Assam, while Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal, will host the centre for Classical Bengali.
For Classical Marathi, the designated institution is the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute (Deemed to be University), Pune. The Central University of Odisha will host the Centre of Excellence for Classical Pali, while the Central University of Gujarat will establish the centre for Classical Prakrit.
According to the Ministry, the centres will serve as dedicated institutional platforms for advanced scholarship and academic engagement in their respective languages. They are expected to support researchers working on linguistic, literary and historical materials while creating greater opportunities for specialised study.
A major component of the initiative will be the preservation and digitisation of linguistic and literary resources. The centres will document and conserve textual materials and help make India’s linguistic heritage available in digital formats, supporting long-term preservation and further research.
The initiative will also seek to promote the wider dissemination of knowledge connected to Classical Languages. This includes making linguistic, literary and knowledge traditions more accessible to students, researchers and the broader academic community.
With the five centres spread across different regions, the Ministry said the initiative would also strengthen regional academic ecosystems for higher education and research in Classical Languages.
The establishment of the centres comes as part of efforts to build stronger institutional frameworks around India’s classical linguistic traditions, linking preservation of heritage with contemporary academic research and digital scholarship.
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