VEDIC CHANTING

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VEDIC CHANTING DECLARED INTANGIBLE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY BY UNESCO

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2003/rnov2003/11112003/r1111200311.html

MINISTRY OF TOURISM

The oral tradition of vedic chanting has been declared intangible heritage of

humanity by UNESCO. In a meeting of jury members on 7th November, 2003 at

Paris, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, declared the chanting

of vedas in India outstanding example of heritage and the form of cultural

expressions. The proclamation says in the age of globalisation and

modernisation when the cultural diversity is under pressure, the preservation

of oral tradition of vedic chanting, a unique cultural heritage has great

significance. Total 80 entries were received for this purpose from all over the

world and the jury members included Dr. Richard Kurin, Director of the Center

for Folklore and Cultural Heritage of the Smithsonian Institution (United

Nations), Mr. Juan Goytisolo Writer (Spain), Mr. Yoshikazu Hasegawa (Japan),

Ms. Olive W.M. Lewin. Pianist, ethnomusicologist, Director of the Jamaica

Orchestra for Youth (Jamaica).

The UNESCO declaration will bring international recognition to the excellence of

the vedic chanting tradition of India, which have survived for centuries

encoding the wisdom contained in the Vedas through an extraordinary effort of

memorisation and through an elaborately worked out mnemonic methods. The purity

and fail-safe technique devised for Vedic chanting in the olden days led to

access to one of the ancient literatures of humanity in its entirety.

The Department of Culture, Ministry of Tourism and Culture took the initiative

to put up the candidature of the vedic chanting to UNESCO. A presentation was

prepared by Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. The Department has also

prepared five year action plan to safeguard, protect, promote and disseminate

oral tradition of vedic tradition in terms of their uniqueness and

distinctiveness, encourage scholars and practitioners to preserve, revitalise

and promote their own branch of vedic recitation as the custodians of their own

traditions and direct the efforts primarily to making the tradition survive in

its own context.