Visva-Bharati University

Visva Bharati University (বিশ্বভারতী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়) is a Central University for research and teaching in India, located in the twin towns of Santiniketan and Sriniketan in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India. In its initial years Tagore expressed his dissatisfaction with the word 'university', since university translates to Vishva-Vidyalaya, which is smaller in scope than Visva Bharati. Until independence it was a college. Soon after independence, in 1951 the institution was given the status of a university, and was renamed Visva Bharati University.

History

The origins of the university date back to 1863 when Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, himself the zamindar of Sialdah in East Bengal, was given a tract of land from Babu Sitikanta Sinha, the zamindar of Raipur,The most famous son of the zamindari family of Raipur was Lord Satyendra Prasanno Sinha, the first Indian governor of Orissa and Bihar (1919-1920). Other well-known members of the same family included his younger brother Major N.P. Sinha, an IMS officer, as well as one his six grandsons, Mohit Sen, a well known communist ideologue and writer of the latter half of twentieth century India. which is a neighbouring village not too far from Bolepur and present day Santiniketan and set up an ashram at the spot that...
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