Nalanda (Bihar), Dec 21 (PTI) Bihar Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Sunday said that the continuity of Indian civilisation is a result of the relentless pursuit of knowledge.
He was addressing the inaugural session of the maiden Nalanda Literature Festival 2025 as its chief guest.
“India has always been regarded as a knowledge civilisation. We are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. Nalanda Literature Festival is an event that epitomises this pursuit,” Khan said.
The event, conducted by several organisations in collaboration with Nalanda University, will conclude on December 25. Vice President C P Radhakrishnan virtually inaugurated the event.
“Literature and science spring from the same human impulse — curiosity. At the heart of this festival is a bold belief that literature does not need to stand apart from science and technology but can walk together,” the vice president said in a video message.
He said NLF explores how AI reshapes storytelling, how ethics must guide technology, and how science communication can awaken public curiosity.
“I hope this literature festival serves as a launchpad for ideas,” he said.
Radhakrishnan hailed the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in reviving Nalanda as a site of knowledge.
He emphasised that as the nation moves into the future towards becoming ‘Viksit Bharat’, Nalanda should not be seen as a “memory of the past but as a laboratory of ideas”.
Khan said there are two types of knowledge – ‘apara vidya’ and ‘para vidya’. While the former pertains to the texts written in books and scriptures, the latter is “experience of the supreme”.
“Everybody is an extension of their own self, without exception, culminating into God,” he said.
Quoting Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, he said, “I love India, not because I cultivate the idolatry of geography, not because I have had the chance to be born in her soil, but because she has saved through tumultuous ages the living words that have issued from the illuminating consciousness of its children.” Writer and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who was also present, said that the festival reminds people that literature has never flourished in isolation.
Noting that the festival invited voices from all directions, he said, “Literature flourishes when ideas are offered generously and without boundaries.” NLF seeks to revive and reimagine the illuminating inheritance of Nalanda, he added.
“Let this festival serve as a catalyst for the regional, national, and global literary stage by bringing together literary luminaries,” Tharoor said.
He emphasised that festivals like this matter because they “democratise the popular experience” and take literature out of isolation to place it back into conversation.
“By creating spaces where writers and readers mix, ideas are exchanged and consumed, a festival like this renews the social life of literature and renews its relevance,” he added.
Tharoor highlighted the historical significance of Nalanda and its contribution to preservation and transmission of knowledge.
“Knowledge here was never passive; it was questioned, contested, refined, and transmitted. At the heart of the central enterprise lay literature in its widest sense — scriptures, philosophical and scientific writings, and linguistic productions that together formed the basis of scholarly life,” he said.
A total of 36 sessions will be conducted over a span of four days. PTI SUK ACD
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