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Gujarat has
the largest number of museums in India as
compared to any other State. These are
located at Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat,
Dharampur, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Amreli,
Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Prabhas-Patan, Bhuj
Shamalaji, Vadnagar, Chhotaudepur
and several other places. Of these the
museums at Baroda, Dharampur, Rajkot,
Jamnagar, Junagadh, Prabhas-Patan and Bhuj
are under the administrative control of
the Government whereas those at Ahmedabad,
Amreli, Bhavnagar and Surat receive
grant-in-aid from the Government. There
are, besides, several other museums, which
are under municipalities, trusts or
universities. Prominent among these are
the Municipal Museum, Ahmedabad, the
Maharaja Fatehsingh Museum, Baroda Shoja
Museum Ahmadabad and the
Museum of Antiquities at Vallabh
Vidyanagar.
Taking into
consideration the large number of museums
in Gujarat and their distribution from one
end of the State to the other i.e. from
Bhuj to Chhotaudepur and Shamalaji to
Saputara, the Government of
Gujarat has established a separate
Department of Museums directly under its
own administrative care and control, with
a view to reorganizing and developing them
and popularizing through them a study of
Art, Archaeology and Science, besides
developing a wide aesthetic sense among
students and the lay public. The
administrative centre of this unit is
located at the Museum and Picture Gallery,
Baroda, which is the Principal State
museum and the nucleus from which all
activities emanate.
These
museums of Gujarat are silent educators in
the life of the community-welcoming all
who choose to enter their portals and
share the beauty of their rare treasures,
inviting the great and the small, the
young and the old, the simple and the
sophisticated - a perennial source of
delight and mental stimulation and largely
instrumental in awakening the latent
curiosity of the human mind.
This small
Illustrated Guide introduces the
internationally recognized Museum and
Picture Gallery of Baroda, famous for its
rich and well-organized collections and
increasingly used by research scholars and
students not only of India but also from
several foreign countries. |
