Murty Trust, the family foundation of Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murthy, has announced a grant of ₹7.5 crore to the over-a-century-old Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune.
The grant will be used to build The Murty Centre for Indic Studies at the institute. It will work to ‘preserve and promote research on rare books and manuscripts in Sanskrit and Prakrit’. The project includes an 18,000 sqft heritage-style academic and research building with a 200-seat classroom, a state-of-the art auditorium for lectures, and an audio-visual studio to digitise ancient books and manuscripts.
The institute has 28,000 manuscripts and old books. The new building will provide a conservation laboratory to support the upkeep of these books.
Sudha Murthy recently laid the foundation stone for the proposed building.
“BORI is a 105-year-old institution and a key pillar of India’s cultural heritage. It has produced a plethora of intellectual research papers and books. Every professor at BORI is a great scholar. As times have changed, audiences want online classes to learn more about our culture and would like to interact with the staff. Hence, the Murty Trust has decided to support BORI with a new and modern building that will be dedicated to celebrating India’s cultural heritage,” she said.
Bhupal Patwardhan, Chairman, Executive Board of BORI, said the upcoming Murty Centre of Indic Studies can accommodate more than 60 scholars, in addition to the 40 scholars who are working on different academic subjects ranging from Indian philosophy, kathak and ayurveda to astronomy.
The institute has now entered into education as well. The classrooms can accommodate up to 200 students for different courses. As the Murty Centre shall have a studio, the institute expects to generate good online content, which will be offered on its platform ‘Bharat Vidya’.
