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Heritage will be just a click away: The Indian Express
Srinagar, May 24: Next time you want to take a look at an ancient Indian manuscript stored at The Royal Library, Copenhagen, or for that matter in a faraway museum in Kashmir, all you have to do is visit the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts in New Delhi and the manuscript will be just a click away, thanks to Mission Manuscript.
Srinagar, May 24: Next time you want to take a look at an ancient Indian manuscript stored at The Royal Library, Copenhagen, or for that matter in a faraway museum in Kashmir, all you have to do is visit the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts in New Delhi and the manuscript will be just a click away, thanks to Mission Manuscript.
Coming as a boon for historians all over the globe, the Union Department of Culture, New Delhi, has embarked on this ambitious programme to digitalise all Indian manuscripts that are available in India and around the world.
‘‘There was a meeting a month back in New Delhi that was attended by representatives of governments from all Indian states after which Mission Manuscript was launched,’’ says M H Makhdoomi, Director, Archives, Archaeology and Museums, J&K, who represented his state in the capital.
With its vast collection of ancient manuscripts, J&K has been appointed as the nodal state for the Mission while Makhdoomi is a member of the national empowered committee and the executive committee. His state alone has at least one lakh such manuscripts, he said.
The exercise is quite simple. All that the various centres have to do is to inform the Mission Director, specially appointed for this task, and a team would be sent over from New Delhi to digitalise and save the manuscript.
As identified by a survey that was conducted by the Mission, there are 50 lakh such manuscripts all over India while Europe has 60,000 and South Asia 150,000 such manuscripts. Sixty seven per cent of these are in Sanskrit and 25 per cent in other Indian languages.
‘‘Imagine the ease with which a historian can study all these manuscripts, some dating as far back as the sixth century, just sitting in a room in New Delhi,’’ says Makhdoomi, who has himself played a major role in excavations in the state. Incidentally, one of the oldest available manuscripts in the country is now in Kashmir — a Bhojpatra on Brij bark that dates back to 6th century.
‘‘There was a meeting a month back in New Delhi that was attended by representatives of governments from all Indian states after which Mission Manuscript was launched,’’ says M H Makhdoomi, Director, Archives, Archaeology and Museums, J&K, who represented his state in the capital.
With its vast collection of ancient manuscripts, J&K has been appointed as the nodal state for the Mission while Makhdoomi is a member of the national empowered committee and the executive committee. His state alone has at least one lakh such manuscripts, he said.
The exercise is quite simple. All that the various centres have to do is to inform the Mission Director, specially appointed for this task, and a team would be sent over from New Delhi to digitalise and save the manuscript.
As identified by a survey that was conducted by the Mission, there are 50 lakh such manuscripts all over India while Europe has 60,000 and South Asia 150,000 such manuscripts. Sixty seven per cent of these are in Sanskrit and 25 per cent in other Indian languages.
‘‘Imagine the ease with which a historian can study all these manuscripts, some dating as far back as the sixth century, just sitting in a room in New Delhi,’’ says Makhdoomi, who has himself played a major role in excavations in the state. Incidentally, one of the oldest available manuscripts in the country is now in Kashmir — a Bhojpatra on Brij bark that dates back to 6th century.