Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) building in Pune. (Image: Wikipedia)PUNE-BASED Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) is all set to launch an online learning platform for Indology and offer courses on Indic languages, art, culture, science and philosophy.
The first-of-its-kind learning platform for Indology, or simply South Asian studies, the platform will be called Bharat Vidya. It will allow learners to take a course at their own pace very much like the existing popular platforms.
Set up in 1917, BORI owns one of the largest collections of rare books and manuscripts. Its library has over 1.25 lakh books and over 28,000 manuscripts collected over a period of 90 years. Books on all major aspects of Orientology are available here, most of them now in digital form. Books in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Indian regional languages, Classical, Asean and European languages are part of BORI’s collection. Initially, Bharat Vidya will offer ten courses, including topics like the Vedas, Mahabharata and Sanskrit. “There will be both free and paid courses. Some of them will be credit-based courses for which we are tying up with colleges and universities in India and abroad. We hope to create upto 100 hours of content by December this year and expand it further to 500 hours in the next year,” said Bhupal Patwardhan, executive chairman, BORI.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, BORI has conducted 11 to 12 online courses, among the most popular being Mahabharata and Maratha history. “The pandemic gave us an opportunity to develop this digital platform. A beta-version has been developed in about five months,” said Chinmay Bhandari of Nyansa, a Pune-based company working on digitising heritage content.
The two years of knowledge dissemination during the pandemic gave BORI officials the confidence to offer its expertise to a wider audience. Bharat Vidya, the BORI officials noted, will have an option for learners to opt for lifetime membership and avail courses and access to materials anytime.
During the last two years , five batches of 300 participants each took the Mahabharata course on popular platforms. But the need for having their own learning platform was felt throughout.
“Learners were expected to be available on Zoom or similar platforms at the time when the course was being conducted live. This was posing a challenge for participants living in other time zones. There were limitations in permitting a certain number of participants on such platforms in comparison to the actual demand,” said Bhandari.
“Now, learners can take courses at their convenience. For courses on Bharat Vidya, learners will be provided with study resources which can be downloaded,” Bhandari said.