National Museum

National Museum, museum in New Delhi devoted to Indian art and archaeology. The museum is spread across three floors and houses more than 20 galleries. Its extensive collection includes artifacts from the Indus civilization, ancient Indian coins and manuscripts, Buddhist art, sculptures, miniature paintings, arms and armor, and pre-Columbian and Western art.

History

The layout for the National Museum was first drafted in 1946. Three years later, in 1949, the National Museum was founded within the premises of the Rashtrapati Bhavan (official residence of the president of India), located at Raisina Hill, New Delhi. The museum’s core collection comprised Indian artworks originally displayed at an exhibition organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, in association with the British and British Indian governments, at Burlington House, London, in 1947–48. The museum subsequently moved to a new facility at Janpath, New Delhi, and its foundation was laid by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. A section of this building was first opened to the public in 1960. Today the museum boasts a collection of more than 200,000 artifacts, of which about 8,000 are exhibited.

National Museum’s collection

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The museum has a diverse array of archaeological sculptures and relics from various ancient Indian empires, such as the Mauryas (c. 321–185 bce), Shungas (c. 185–73 bce), and Guptas (320–510 ce). A robust collection of artifacts from Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, archaeological sites where remains of the Indus civilization (c. 2500–1700 bce) were discovered, is kept in the museum’s care. The bronze sculpture known as Dancing Girl and the steatite Pashupati seal, two of the best-known antiquities recovered from Mohenjo-daro, are a part of the museum’s collection. The museum has about 14,000 illustrated and unillustrated manuscripts spanning from the 7th to the 20th century ce. It also has a comprehensive selection of coins dating to the 6th century bce.

The art of painting is well represented with Indian miniatures of the Mughal, Rajput, Deccani, and Pahari schools. The pre-Columbian and Western art collection comprises a variety of artifacts curated from Mexico and different parts of Central and South America. Other notable items include temple hangings, lavishly brocaded saris, traditional Indian textiles and jewelry, Mughal garments, weapons set with precious stones, and painted pottery. Antiquities from Central Asia recovered by archaeologist Aurel Stein are also in the museum’s collection.

Proposed relocation

In 2019 the Indian government declared its plan to redevelop Delhi’s administrative area, known as the Central Vista. As part of the renovations, the current National Museum building was to be demolished, and its collections were to be transferred to new facilities in the Central Vista’s North and South Blocks. The relocation of the museum’s artifacts and exhibits to a temporary location was scheduled to begin in 2023 but was postponed because of the unavailability of an appropriate facility that could accommodate the vast collection. As of 2025 the status of the proposed relocation was unclear.