The Bhaktivedanta Research Center is a Kolkata-based academic and research center that specializes in preserving, digitizing, and researching ancient knowledge found in rare manuscripts and books related to Indian heritage and culture’s history, philosophy, literature, arts, and religion. The center was founded in December 2009 after Ferdinando Sardella, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, purchased Shri Sundarananda Vidyavinode’s personal library collection. Vidyavinode served as the secretary and editor of the renowned Gaudiya Vaishnava Acharya Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. The collection included 3,000 books, periodicals, and papers written in Bengali, English, Sanskrit, and Hindi and spanning the years 1850–1940. As a consequence of a final collaboration with HH Bodhayan Swami, the collection was received.

The co-directors of the center, Dennis Harrison (Hari Sauri) and Dr. Ferdinando Sardella, Associate Professor, at Stockholm University and Research Fellow, at Oxford Center for Hindu Studies, initiated the digitization of the books to preserve them for future generations. In cooperation with the Kolkata Asiatic Society, rare journals were laminated. The center is located in Gita Bhavan, Manoharpukur Road, Kolkata.

With chapters in Mumbai, Pune, Puri, and New York in addition to Kolkata, the organization is now working on the preservation and digitization of manuscripts and rare books collected and lost in various regions of the country.  A display at the Rath Yatra Mela that ISKCON hosted on Park Street in Kolkata emphasized the activities of the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre.  Numerous thousands of people came to attend this show every day.  These priceless Indian books and manuscripts, according to Balaram Leela Das, Dean of Development and Administration of Bhaktivedanta Research Center, are the carriers of Indian culture.  More than one crore of these manuscripts, which are dispersed throughout India, the pride of the nation, are on the verge of extinction.  Their primary objective is to protect this for the future generation.

A noble initiative indeed!!

Video link of the event- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-F2nwSrO2g

Priyanka Dutta