New Delhi: A two-day seminar on the Thirukkural began today at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. An exhibition on the Thirukkural also opened alongside it.
Visva-Bharati University was founded in 1921 by Rabindranath Tagore, the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize. Located in Santiniketan in West Bengal, it is one of the central universities. This world-renowned university also has a Tamil department. Students from various states study Tamil here up to the doctoral level.
At the Language, Literature & Culture Institute of Visva-Bharati University, the two-day national seminar titled ‘Thirukkural: Global Wisdom, Ethics and Contemporary Relevance’ began today. Along with it, an exhibition on Thirukkural also opened. The Central Institute of Classical Tamil, based in Chennai, has provided full financial support for both the seminar and the exhibition.
More than two hundred professors, researchers, and students from various parts of the country are participating in this event. Most of them are enthusiasts of the Tamil and Marathi languages. This seminar has been jointly organized by Visva-Bharati’s Department of Tamil and Department of Marathi. It is a national-level seminar.
It particularly highlights the timeless relevance and importance of the Tirukkural among those who do not have Tamil as their mother tongue. In addition, it aims to explore the contribution of the Tirukkural in the contemporary social and cultural context.
One of the key objectives of this event is also to foster broad-based scholarly engagement with the Thirukkural through translation, comparative literary studies, and cultural exchange. The Thirukkural exhibition, which forms an important part of the seminar, was inaugurated this morning at 10.30 a.m. by Dr. Bikash Mukhopadhyay, Registrar of Visva-Bharati University.
This was followed by the inaugural ceremony of the seminar. Special guests including Dr. T. Jagadeesan, Professor Srikanth Gaikwad, and Professor Mrinal Kanti Mandal participated in the inaugural ceremony and the exhibition.
The exhibition has been organized to highlight the literary, philosophical, and cultural significance of the Thirukkural. It showcases Thiruvalluvar’s profound contribution to the global intellectual landscape. In addition, the exhibition also illustrates the universal ethical principles, humanistic ideas, and social values embodied in the Thirukkural.
University students, teachers, and staff visited the exhibition in large numbers and viewed it. CICD has been actively working to bring Thiruvalluvar’s universal ethical thought to a wider audience. It continues to emphasize the enduring relevance and importance of the Thirukkural even in the 21st century. For this purpose, it has been translating and publishing the Thirukkural not only in Indian languages but also in various languages around the world.
Recently, when Russian President Putin visited India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented him with a Russian-language edition of the Tirukkural as a gift. This book was translated and published by CICD. This national seminar by Visva Bharati has been organized as an important academic initiative undertaken by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil Studies.
