Observations placeholder

I dedicate to-day this Institute – not merely a Laboratory but a Temple…

The advance of science is the principal object of this Institute and also diffusion of knowledge. We are here in the largest of all the many chambers of this House of Knowledge – its Lecture Room. In adding this feature, and on a scale hitherto unusual in a Research Institute, I have sought permanently to associate the advancement of knowledge with the widest possible civic and public diffusion of it; and this without any academic limitations, henceforth to all races and languages, to both men and women alike, and for all time coming.

The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand knowledge. They will announce, to an audience of some fifteen hundred people, the discoveries made here, which will be demonstrated for thefirst time before the public. We shall thus maintain continuously the highest aim of a great seat of learning by taking active part in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge.

Through the regular publication of the Transactions of the Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the whole world. The discoveries made will thus become public property. Besides the regular staff there will be selected number of scholars, who by their work have shown special aptitude, and who would devote their whole life to the pursuit of research. They will require personal training and their number must necessarily be limited. But it is not the quantity but quality that is of essential importance.

It is my further wish that, as far as the limited accommodation would permit, the facilities of this Institute should be available to workers from all countries. In this I am attempting to carry out the tradition of my country, which, so far back as twenty-five centuries ago welcomed all scholars from different parts of the world within the precincts of its ancient seats of learning at Nalanda and at Taxila…