In 2007, the Rigveda manuscripts preserved at the Institute were included in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

Among the several scholars referring to the works at BORI, the most well-known person arguably is the Bharat Ratna awardee, Pt.

[4] A long-term project under the auspices of BORI, started on 1 April 1919, was the preparation of a critical edition of the Mahabharata.

Sukthankar was appointed general editor of the project on 1 August 1925 and he continued until his death on 21 January 1943.

To widespread acclaim, the completion for publication was announced on 22 September 1966, by Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, then president of India, at a special function held at the institute.

The project of preparing a critical edition of the Harivamsa was inaugurated by the president of India, Rajendra Prasad, on 19 November 1954.

A formal request was made to the seventh nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, who granted Rs.1000 /- per year for a period of 11 years and offered Rs 50,000 for construction of the guest house[6] which is called "Nizam Guest House".

[9] The institute was vandalized on 5 January 2004 by a mob composed of members of an extremist self-styled Maratha youth squad, calling themselves the Sambhaji Brigade, named after the elder son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

The incident provoked widespread reaction and led historian Gajanan Mehendale to destroy parts of his in-progress biography of Shivaji.

[11] Oxford University Press, publisher of James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, withdrew the book after protests from historian Ninad Bedekar and other right-wing politicians due to what they claimed to be 'objectionable' statements about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.