Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata has put on display one of its oldest manuscripts, a handwritten 18th-century copy of Gita Govinda, to mark the International Mother Language Day on 21 February.

Facts:

• Gita Govinda, an important text of the Bhakti Movement, depicts the relationship between Lord Krishna and his consort Radha.
• Jayadeva (12 century A.D.) is the last great name in Sanskrit poetry, who wrote the lyric poetry Gitagovinda to describe every phase of love between Krishna and Radha – longing, jealousy, hope, disappointment, anger, reconciliation and fruition – in picturesque lyrical language.
• The songs describe the beauty of nature, which plays a prominent part in the description of human love.
• Like many medieval texts, Gita Govinda was translated for centuries. These manuscripts were copied by hand in beautiful handwriting much before the advent of the printing press.
• The form of imagery in the illustrated texts is very similar to the Bengal Pat Paintings and the Bengal School of Art, which evolved a century after the manuscripts were written.

International Mother Language Day :

• International Mother Language Day has been observed every year on 21 February since 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
• The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh. It was approved at the 1999 UNESCO General Conference and has been observed throughout the world since 2000.
• International Mother Language day 2019 theme is: “Indigenous languages matter for development, peacebuilding, and reconciliation”.
• The UNESCO states that at least 43 percent of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken in the world are endangered.
• It recognizes any language that is spoken by less than 10,000 people is potentially endangered.