Written by Parvez Sultan for The New Indian Express
The Culture Ministry has set itself a mammoth task: locating, preserving, and decoding India’s vast manuscript wealth, scattered across states and written on everything from palm leaves and birch bark to copper plates and cloth.
At the Gyan Bharatam international conference held recently in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi put the number at a staggering one crore manuscripts in multiple languages including Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian and Malayalam.
To tackle this, the ministry is drawing up separate standard operating procedures (SoPs) ancient text recorded on a wide variety of materials.
The plan is to establish a national repository in Delhi and regional hubs wherever manuscripts are plentiful like Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) or Uttar Pradesh.
“Given the varied nature of manuscripts on different objects, we will develop separate standard operating procedures (SoPs) for each type of document, like text on a copper plate or banana leaf. We will also encourage custodians (private individuals or institutions) of manuscripts to handover the article to the Government for better upkeep. The plan is to develop a national repository or hub in Delhi,” Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Vivek Aggarwal.
The ministry has planned to develop ‘Gyan Bhartam’ as an institution with headquarters in Delhi on the lines of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is entrusted with the responsibility of conservation and safeguarding 3,697 heritage sites in the country.
The proposed institutions under Gyan Bharatam will have regional centres in states or union territories (UTs) depending on the manuscripts collection there like Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has a huge number of texts.
“Uttar Pradesh would have many manuscripts there; we will not be able to access only one centre. So, it will be as per the requirement and the number that we have in a particular area. In the northeast and east, we may have more such centres,” added Aggarwal.
If required, the ministry will keep expanding the hubs as per the requirement, he added.
Speaking about the importance of having separate SoPs for manuscripts on different materials, Dean of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) Professor Ramesh Chandra Gaur said that approaches to conservation are broadly of two types: preventive and curative, and both largely depend on the base material.
“The materials upon which Indian manuscripts and inscriptions are written or engraved vary widely, and each responds differently to weathering and the passage of time. These include palm leaves, birch bark, handmade paper, textiles, copper plates, stone, wood, ivory, and even walls or murals. Each medium requires specific methods of care and conservation. Therefore, distinct SOPs are essential for their effective conservation. This initiative was long overdue and will significantly enhance the quality of preservation.”
Besides conservation of manuscripts, translation, digitisation, and deciphering will run alongside, with a nudge to scholars and PhD students. “Preservation, conservation is one, and digitisation and use of technology is second. But linguistics, translation, decipherment, and decoding are also one of the pillars. So, once we start doing the work, all the pillars will be working simultaneously. We may encourage young students to take PhDs on these manuscripts,” said Aggarwal.