On 3 August 2026, H.E. Mr. Arun Goel, Ambassador of India to Croatia, delivered the opening address at the 11th Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas (DICSEP 11), held this year jointly with the ICCR’s Regional Conference on “Promoting Indian Culture and Civilization and Indian Knowledge Systems,” at the Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik. In his opening address, the Ambassador reflected on how ancient civilizations sought permanence — Egypt through pyramids and hieroglyphs, Mesopotamia through ziggurats and clay tablets — while Bharatvarsh chose a different path: preserving its traditions not in stone, but in disciplined human memory, through the extraordinary oral transmission systems of the Vedic reciters and the grammatical precision of Pāṇini. He noted the fitting coincidence of the conference taking place within Dubrovnik’s own walls of stone and centuries of survival by treaty and diplomacy — a civilization that chose an entirely different, and no less enduring, answer to the same question of what lasts. The Ambassador thanked the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the University of Zagreb for sustaining this gathering for eleventh time since 1999, and wished the scholars gathered from Europe, Asia, and North America a rich week of discussion.