Rig Veda is now a World Inheritance..

The oldest living document in human-kind of such exceptional quality finally gets its due….UNESCO has now included the Oldest Veda in the Memory of World Register.

The medieval Indian manuscripts including the Rig Veda –restricted only to its practitioners till now – have now been selected for inscription in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, 2007.

While the Rig Veda has been selected from Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, other Indian nominations include the IAS Tamil Medic Manuscript Collection (1997), Archives of the Dutch East India Company (2003), a Dutch nomination, and the Saiva Manuscripts in Pondicherry (2005).

The Vedas are the first literary documents in the history of humankind, and they transcend far beyond their identity as scriptures.

The Rig Veda, oldest of the four Vedas, is among the 38 items of documentary heritage of exceptional value which have been added to the prestigious register, bringing the total number of inscriptions since 1997 to 158.

It is a collection of 1028 hymns of exceptional literary qualities eulogising the Vedic deities and is said to be the source of the Aryan culture.

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