The Hindu : Scheme to document Indian manuscripts

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Sunday, Feb 09, 2003

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Scheme to document Indian manuscripts

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI FEB. 8. A Rs. 35 crore endeavour to document Indian manuscripts scattered across the globe began here on Friday with the launch of the National Mission for Manuscripts by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who said the project would be "immensely helpful in nation-building''.

Launching the project — that will be undertaken by the Department of Culture — Mr. Vajpayee said that while the benefits of this mission were not tangible like those of other missions, it was of great significance because it would "heighten our knowledge of our spiritual, artistic, intellectual and scientific heritage and bring new proof of our national unity''.

Also, according to the Prime Minister, this mission — which he had announced in his last year's Independence Day speech — would help the nation cement its claims to intellectual greatness in the past. "We have been making many claims about the progress made by us in ancient times in diverse fields of science and technology, in health sciences, in agriculture.... There is much truth in these claims. Our vast treasure of manuscripts will provide the evidence.''

Later, briefing the media about the mission, the Culture Minister, Jagmohan, said its mandate was not just to locate and catalogue Indian manuscripts but to enhance their access, improve awareness about cultural inheritance and encourage their use for educational and research purposes.

While the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) has been picked up to be the nodal agency to oversee the mission, several institutions across the country would be identified to collect, identify, preserve and catalogue the manuscripts.

As per a `guesstimate'', there are about 5 million manuscripts in India, 1.5 lakh in South Asia and Asian countries, and 60,000 in Europe.

Of these, an estimated one million have been catalogued; leaving nearly 75 per cent of India's intellectual heritage "unknown, inaccessible and fragmented''.

While people holding manuscripts will be encouraged to come forward and present their documents for broadening the national database, the Ministry has opted not to force them to part with these prized possessions. Officials in the Ministry said this was a conscious decision as forcing people to part with their manuscripts could well defeat the entire purpose of the mission.

"Should they want to hand it over to us, we will accept it if we find them authentic. Should they want to sell it, we are willing to negotiate a price. And should they want to keep the manuscripts, we will allow them to do so and help preserve/conserve them; provided they are not public documents,'' Mr. Jagmohan said.

Hopeful as the Ministry is of the mission being successful in tracking down a large number of manuscripts, a provision has been made for setting up a National Manuscripts Library in IGNCA with a large programme for microfilming and digitisation of manuscripts.

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