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| Official move to preserve rare ancient manuscripts | | | NEW DELHI, FEB. 16:
A rare move to preserve rare and priceless ancient manuscripts: India has formally launched an online database of one million documents. There are an estimated five million such known documents in the country, including Jammu and Kashmir State.
It has been found that rare and priceless ancient manuscripts are lying forgoten in temples and museums across India. Ambika Soni, Minister for Tourism, launched the online database www.namami.org. In reply to a question by EARLY TIMES, Ambika Soni proclaimed 45 selected manuscripts--Vijnananidhi--as the manuscript treasures of India.
The National Electronic Catalogue of Manuscripts, called Kritisampada, provides information on individual and collections of documents, and printed catalogues, which will be available in Hindi and English. The manuscripts can be accessed on the basis of title, author, script, language, subject and material online. These manuscripts, according to the Ministry of Culture, contain insights and discoveries and have at different times broken new ground in India's knowledge systems.
Among the 45 are 17-centuries-old--one of the oldest manuscripts in the world-- Gilgit manuscripts (kept in the National Archives of India, New Delhi, and the Sri Pratap Singh Museum, Jammu and Kashmir), Chitra Bhagavat (illustrated Hindu holy book in the Krishna Kanta Handiqui Library, Guwahati), Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (the biography of Mughal emperor Jahangir in the National Museum, New Delhi), Sharadatilaka (the essence of tantras kept in the Oriental Institute of Mysore) and Ramayana (in the Rampur Raza Library).
Activities of the Ministry of Culture range from conducting nationwide surveys to unearthing each manuscript, the documentation and cataloguing of manuscripts and their conservation, training personnel in manuscript studies, publishing important research on manuscripts to organising lectures, seminars, debates for students and workshops for children.
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