Gita and Natyashastra in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register

News: The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi hailed the inclusion of the Gita and Natyashastra in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register as a global recognition of our timeless wisdom and rich culture. Gita and Natyashastra in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

About the Memory of the World (MOW) Program

• It is a global initiative aimed at preserving, protecting, and enhancing access to documentary heritage, particularly those collections that are rare and at risk.
• Launch: It was launched by UNESCO in 1992.
• Memory of the World (MOW) Register: The Register was launched as a core project under the MOW Program aimed at creating a compendium of documents — manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, and library and archive holdings — which are of world significance and outstanding universal value.

India and MOW Register

• With the inclusion of Gita and Natyashastra, India now has 14 entries in the MOW Register.
• These include the Rig Veda (added in 2005) and the collective works of the Shaivite philosopher Abhinavagupta (added in 2023), the archives of the first summit meeting of the Non Aligned Movement in Belgrade in 1961 (added in 2023) and the archives of the Dutch East India Company (added in 2003).

About Natyashastra

• Traditionally attributed to the sage Bharata, it is an ancient Sanskrit treatise on performing arts.
• The Naṭyashastra embodies a comprehensive set of rules that define natya (drama), abhinaya (performance), rasa (aesthetic experience), bhava (emotion), sangita (music) in 36,000 verses.

About Bhagavad Gita

Traditionally attributed to the sage Vyasa, Bhagavad Gita is a Sanskrit scripture comprising 700 verses that are organised in 18 chapters, embedded in the sixth book (Bhishma Parva) of the epic poem Mahabharata.