Ki Nov?
 

Commémoration du cent-cinquantenaire de l'arrivée
des premiers travailleurs indiens
2003 en Martinique - 2004 en Guadeloupe

 
Le chant védique reconnu par l'UNESCO.
 
 
For a hundred autumns may we see,
for a hundred autumns may we live,
for a hundred autumns may we know,
for a hundred autumns may we rise,
for a hundred autumns may we flourish,
for a hundred autumns may we be,
for a hundred autumns may we become,
and even more than a hundred autumns!

Atharva Veda XIX, 67

 

UNESCO Declares Vedic Chanting an Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

PARIS, FRANCE, November 12, 2003: The oral tradition of Vedic chanting has been declared an intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO. In a meeting of jury members on November 7, 2003, at Paris, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, declared the chanting of Vedas in India an outstanding example of heritage and form of cultural expressions. The proclamation says that in the age of globalization and modernization when cultural diversity is under pressure, the preservation of oral tradition of Vedic chanting, a unique cultural heritage, has great significance.

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 has survived for centuries encoding the wisdom contained in the Vedas through an extraordinary effort of memorization and through 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 today.

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 a five-year action plan to safeguard, protect, promote and disseminate the oral tradition of Vedas in terms of their uniqueness and distinctiveness, encourage scholars and practitioners to preserve, revitalize 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.

 
 
 
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