Tezpur University has been designated as the Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Assamese by the Ministry of Education, the university said in a press release issued on October 3.
The Ministry has approved five such Centres of Excellence for Classical Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Pali and Prakrit. The approval was conveyed through an Office Memorandum issued by the Language Division of the Department of Higher Education on October 1.
Tezpur University will host the centre for Classical Assamese, while Visva-Bharati University will host the centre for Classical Bengali. Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, has been selected for Classical Marathi, the Central University of Odisha for Classical Pali and the Central University of Gujarat for Classical Prakrit.
The centres have been established to strengthen academic research, digitisation, preservation and dissemination of the heritage of the respective classical languages.
The new centre at Tezpur University builds on more than a decade of work by the institution in Assamese language, literature and culture.
Its Centre for Assamese Studies, established in 2011, undertook a project to digitise around 4,000 old Assamese manuscripts and printed books, including rare sanchi-paat manuscripts, early editions of Assamese literary works, personal diaries and handwritten manuscripts of prominent literary and cultural figures.
The university’s Department of Assamese, established in 2019, subsequently incorporated the existing facilities of the Centre for Assamese Studies. The new Centre of Excellence is expected to build on these academic strengths and expand research into the classical dimensions of Assamese language and literature.
Its work will include areas such as manuscript studies, textual criticism, digitisation, archival preservation, research, translation and dissemination.
Assamese was granted Classical Language status by the Government of India in October 2024, with the Union Cabinet approving the status on October 3 that year. The establishment of the centre at Tezpur University comes two years after the recognition and is aimed at further strengthening scholarship on Assamese and preserving its textual and cultural heritage for future generations.
Tezpur University Pro Vice-Chancellor Prof Amarendra Kr Das congratulated the university community on the development and thanked the Ministry of Education for selecting the university as the Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Assamese.
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