ICHR to come up with historical encyclopedia of villages,towns

New Delhi, Aug 17 (PTI) Scholars from the Indian Councilof Historical Research (ICHR) will soon be scanning throughSanskrit texts like "puranas" and "folk ballads" to prepare ahistorical encyclopedia of villages and towns in the country. According to the ICHR, an autonomous body of the HRDministry, the encyclopedia will form basis for research anddevelopment of architectural designs. "The religious, spiritual, social, historical andcultural significance of a kshetra or sthala are recorded aspuranas. The life and works of a great saint/king/devotee arealso available to us in puranas or folk ballads. We should notignore the responsibility to collect, preserve and transmitthis knowledge of history for generations to come," ICHR ChiefYellapragada Sudershan Rao told reporters today. "Every inch of place in India is said to have its ownremarkable place either in history or spirituality. Therefore,Indians hold every piece of land in the country in a very highesteem. The project endeavours to give peoples’ true historyto them without disturbing their cultural ethos," he added. The project was launched after the Council approved adetailed proposal and budget estimates during its 82nd meetingin March. The project is intended to collect the information ofeach village and town so that their profiles could be placedon web-based encyclopedia for reference. "As this is a massive nation-wide endeavor, the studentsof history will be taken as apprentices as ‘bare-foothistorians’ and will be encouraged to collect information ofthe villages or khsetras around them and write their briefreports. "They will be paid some remuneration so that they canearn while learning. These reports will be perused and editedby the subject experts and put up to a uniform pattern for webpublication," said Rao, who is also a member of the AkhilBharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana, the RSS’s history wing. Other new projects being undertaken by the ICHR, are onvaried subjects including ‘Translation of foreign languagesources of India’, ‘Environmental history of India’, ‘Historyof Indian Science and Technology’ and ‘Project on ModernIndia: Politics and Demography’. The ICHR in its last meeting also approved setting up oftwo regional centres in Kashi and Jammu. "Earlier we intended to set up the Kashmir centre inSrinagar but we did not hear anything from Kashmir University.After the central university in Jammu expressed its interestin the proposal we decided to set up the centre in Jammu," Raosaid. PTI GJS RCJ ZMNRCJ