French researchers chronicling 3000 years of Indian literature

Seventy French scholars and researchers have taken up a project to chronicle the journey of Indian literature for the last 3,000 years, two Indologists from France said here.

The French government is funding the project undertaken by two leading French institutes where Indology studies are undertaken, Nicholas Dejenne and Claudine Le Blanc, the academicians from France, said.

Dejenne and Blanc spoke about the project while delivering the annual Ashok Kumar Sarkar Memorial Lecture at the 42nd International Kolkata Book Fair here yesterday.

"We have undertaken a big task of preparing a dictionary of representative classics ranging from Kalidas' Shakuntala to the writings of Bibhutibhusan to Amitava Ghosh.

From Rabindranath Tagore to modern Bengali poets which will have the defining works across different genres," Dejenne said.

It will be titles 'Dictionary Encyclopedia Indian Literature (DELI)' and the researchers are aiming to complete the first phase by the end of 2019, Blanc said.

One of the objectives of the project would be to collate and disseminate defining literary works across ages and present them to French readers, she said.

"We will also like to act as a bridge between ancient and recent Indian literature in different languages including Bengali," she said.

Dejenne and Blanc are Indologists at the Sorbonne Nouvelle of Paris.