Manuscripts in India: Hard to decipher, harder to preserve

"The quality of preservation in several libraries (in India) varies. However, none, as far as I know, follows international standards of temperature and humidity control... not to speak of insects," Dr Patrick Olivelle, an expert on Asian studies in the University of Texas, said about the state of affairs in numerous manuscript repositories in India.

Manuscripts, inscriptions, and epigraphs are available on myriad surfaces ranging from steel and rock to perishable materials like palm leaf, bark and papyrus.

A leading scanner of these texts for the past 35 years, Olivelle said he was yet to come upon "a single place where manuscripts are kept in a climate controlled environment".

Olivelle and others of his fraternity in India, which is home to over 40 lakh manuscripts on subjects ranging from vedas, religion, architecture, science, astronomy, medicine, have common fears.

Renowned scholar Kapila Vatsyayan said that preservation of manuscripts was a matter of concern, especially those lying with some libraries, religious bodies and individuals.
Considered a pioneer of the 20-year-old movement to bring out Indian manuscripts from different dusty corners of the country and translate, microfilm and digitise them, Vatsyayan explained the state of affairs as "some are kept well, some not", without bluntly naming the institutions that do not maintain them well.

Her brainchild, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), is the mother body for the microfilming and digitisation process nationwide. This two-decade effort has led to over 2.5 lakh rare manuscripts being microfilmed and digitalised for study.

"It is a fact that the manuscripts that are on microfilm and in digital format are safe for the next 500 years. But the same cannot be said for the extremely valuable collection in possession of some of the libraries in the country," IGNCA director Ramesh Gaur said.

Another scholar said some libraries in West Bengal and Kerala have bluntly refused permission to handover manuscripts to experts from IGNCA and National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) for conservation and insist that the process be done in their presence.

"There have been certain issues with some of these private holders. We are trying to convince them into joining us in the process of conservation as they would only ensure longevity of the manuscripts. It's an ongoing process," said Deepti Tripati, Director of New Delhi-based NMM, which is busy publishing never-before published manuscripts.

Looking into these concerns, a national consultative committee on manuscripts and its conservation recently held a meeting at NMM and recommended to the Central government to set up a National Manuscripts Library (NML).

Among the suggestions given by the experts includes facilitating access in the proposed NML to these ancient texts available in different repositories to scholar and researches.
The preservation of manuscripts follows traditional as well as modern methods, which are scientific and preserve documents for further use. In traditional system of preservation, herbals and in case of modern methods suitable chemicals are used.

The NMM's task is not only detecting, preserving and popularising manuscripts but also running courses in paleography and manuscriptology, given that there is a dearth of scholars in the country and that too to understand texts written in ancient languages and dialects.

Ruing the lack of scholars in manuscriptology, Vatsyayan said, "We have about just over 50 scholars who can read inscription and epigraphy. We are not getting a younger generation in this subject. We have more people from abroad who have done work on Indian inscriptions than Indians."

To bridge this gap, the NMM and IGNCA have been conducting nationwide workshops so as to find fresh talent to decode the ancient writings.