About Brihattar Bharat
Understanding India's cultural connections across Asia and beyond as a history of circulation, encounter, adaptation and mutual transformation.
Not a boundary.
A civilizational conversation.
Brihattar Bharat refers to the wider civilizational sphere shaped by the transmission, adaptation and interaction of Indian cultural, philosophical, artistic, linguistic and religious traditions across Asia and beyond.
It is approached here not as a political or imperial construct, but as a long historical process of intercultural exchange through maritime trade, pilgrimage, monastic scholarship, diplomacy, migration, mercantile networks, intellectual contact and reciprocal influence.
The people who built these connections – monks, traders, scholars, artists, pilgrims, rulers and ordinary travellers – were agents of a living civilizational dialogue that shaped the cultures of South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, West Asia and beyond.
1926 – 2026
The conference marks one hundred years since the founding of the Greater India Society and reopens its questions for contemporary scholarship.
Greater India Society
Established in Calcutta with the objective of giving systematic scholarly attention to India's wider civilizational interactions – monks, merchants, travellers and scholars as agents of exchange across Asia.
Journal of the Greater India Society
Eighteen volumes of the journal documented research into the cultural and historical connections of India with regions beyond the subcontinent – a significant body of scholarly work.
Centenary Conference
IGNCA convenes a new international, interdisciplinary platform for Brihattar Bharat studies, connecting historical scholarship with contemporary research and new methodological perspectives.
Why this conference?
Explore civilizational and cultural linkages between India and regions across Asia and Europe, and identify the centres, sites, and traditions through which this connection is materially and textually manifested.
Recognize and research the monks, traders, travellers, and scholars — from Xuanzang and Faxian to Chola merchants and Sufi wanderers — who carried and disseminated Indian culture across the world.
Identify and document India's art traditions — architectural, sculptural, and performative — beyond the subcontinent, tracing their transmission, transformation, and living continuity.
Identify modern resource centres, archives, and untapped repositories in these regions that hold material relevant to the study of India's civilizational presence and make them accessible to researchers.
Invite international scholars across disciplines to bring forward new approaches, experimental methodologies, and fresh critical perspectives on the subject.
Identify the work of explorers and archaeologists — Mark Aurel Stein's expeditions, the archaeological surveys of Taxila and Nalanda, and comparable endeavours — and place their findings on an accessible scholarly portal.
Honour the scholars of the Greater India Society (Brihattar Bharat Parishad) and their intellectual legacy and make their publications accessible to a new generation of researchers.
Creating scholarship on the subject and including it as part of the curriculum.
2026–2031 Initiative.
A long-term academic and cultural programme under the Global Engagement Scheme of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, administered through IGNCA. The Scheme received in-principle approval in September 2022.
Research & Documentation
Support scholarship, source discovery, field documentation and identification of archives and repositories relevant to India's civilizational connections.
Publication & Preservation
Bring research and historical scholarship into accessible publication and preservation programmes for long-term scholarly utility.
Digitization & Digital Archiving
Create durable digital resources that broaden access to manuscripts, archaeological evidence, art records and scholarly literature.
International Partnerships
Develop sustained academic and institutional relationships across regions connected to India's civilizational history.
Promotion & Public Engagement
Communicate the significance of India's cultural connections through exhibitions, lectures and public programming.
Curriculum Development
Support the development of Brihattar Bharat studies as a recognised interdisciplinary academic field in India and internationally.
Join the conversation.
Register to attend the conference or explore the ten academic themes.