A UNESCO World heritage site. Shantiniketan means the abode of peace – long before it became the name of a place, was the name of the guest house Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, father of poet Rabindranath Tagore had built. It is believed that Rabindranath’s father had chanced upon an uninhabited land with red soil and paddy fields while on a boat ride and took the decision to purchase the land.
Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of setting up a school along the lines of the previously existing system of gurukul - a residential school where students lived with their teacher/guru – was the foundation stone of Visva-Bharati. To actualise this vision, the ashram set up by his father was converted into an open air school. When Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize and went on to utilise the funds received further expand the school and rename it from Visva-Vidyalay to Visva-Bharati – meaning communion of the world with India. It was recognised as a central university in 1951.