The four-day long International Conference on the ‘History and Archaeology of South Asia’ commenced here at State Rural Development Institute, Nimora on Saturday that would conclude on February 18 at Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur.
Minister, Culture and Archaeology, Ajay Chandrakar inaugurated the conference, in which by 150 delegates from India and other countries like Iran, China, Nepal, Japan, Afghanistan, South Korea and United States also took part. In all 22 research papers were presented during various sessions of day-1. The in-house journal of Culture department ‘Koshal’ was also released on the occasion.
The conference is being organised, to mark the 5th Convention of the Society for South Asian Archaeology (SOSAA), jointly by State Culture Department and Pt Ravishankar Shukla University.
Addressing the gathering, Minister Chandrakar said that it is a matter of pride for Chhattisgarh that such a big conference on History and Archaeology is being organised in Chhattisgarh. The Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai lama during his recent visit to state had also expressed his wish to visit Sirpur every year, he said adding cave paintings in Ramgarh and Singhanpur have brought new recognition to the State.
Minister also extended his greeting to the delegates attending the conference and hoped that their findings would throw new light to history and archaeology of South Asian countries.
AK Sharma, Archaeological Advisor to the State Government, in his address said Sirpur has the archaeological remains of world’s biggest markets where traders from Arabian countries also used to come.
Eminent archaeologist Dr KK Chakravarty said, “People earlier used to wonder what relevance Chhattisgarh State could have with the South Asian countries but the findings in Sirpur, Titurghaat has proved all the predictions wrong. Much of the archaeology is still lies hidden in Forest,” he said.