Remarks:
One can avail audio guides in various languages; One can also avail voluntary guides (either students or historians) Tuesday to Friday- 10.30 AM and 2.30 PM Saturday and Sunday- 10:30 AM, 11:30 AM, 2:30 PM and 3:00 PM
Description:
One of the largest and also one of the best museums in India, the national museum of Delhi building stands royally near to the India Gate premises on the Jan path. On August 15, 1949, the National Museum, New Delhi, was inaugurated in the Rashtrapati Bhawan by Shri R.C. Rajagopalachari, the Governor-General of India. The foundation of the present building was laid by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, on May 12, 1955. The first phase of the National Museumbuilding was formally inaugurated by Dr. SarvepalliRadhakrishnan, the Vice President of India, on December 18, 1960. The second phase of the building was completed in 1989.
The museum has some of the finest collections in India. The collections of the National Museum cover nearly everything. It represents almost all disciplines of art: Archaeology (Sculptures in Stone, Bronze & Terracota), Arms, Armour, Decorative Arts, Jewellery, Manuscripts, Miniatures and Tanjore Paintings, Textiles, Numismatics, Epigraphy, Central Asian Antiquities, Anthropology, Pre-Columbian American and Western Art Collections.
The Museum has in its possession over 200,000 works of art, of both Indian and foreign origin, covering more than 5,000 years of the rich cultural heritage of different parts of the world. Its rich holdings of various creative traditions and disciplines which represents a unity amidst diversity, an unmatched blend of the past with the present and strong perspective for the future, brings history to life.
Some of the priced possessions are the "dancing girl" from the Mohenjo Daro; Buddha's relics, from a stupa built by Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE; Shiva dancing Nataraja, Chola 12th century CE, made in bronze, some finest miniature paintings and old scriptures and the beautiful jewelry exhibition as well.
