Manuscripts are handwritten documents which are very old and have significant scientific, historical, or aesthetic value. It can be on paper, bark, cloth, metal, palm leaf, or any other material dating back at least seventy-five years. It must have significant scientific, historical, or aesthetic value. In this post, we are sharing the Indian Government initiative to save Indian Manuscripts. You can search, get manuscripts scanned, preserve it, and more.
Online Database for Indian Manuscripts
In February 2003, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India started the National Mission for Manuscripts. It maintains a record of all manuscripts that are available in different parts of India and available to be seen in places like most museums, district libraries, archives, and Granth Bhandars. Manuscripts are often interesting to people who are doing a study of history, more specifically research on Indian history and culture where it plays an important role.
National Mission for Manuscripts from Government
The biggest challenge was locating and collecting manuscripts from different sources. While those which were in a museum and libraries or temples and mosques, and gurudwara were easy to find. However, there are many which have been passed through generations. The site not only tells one how the manuscripts can be conserved but how it can be digitized and get into publication for public availability.
How to keep your Manuscript Safe and get Scanned?
If you have one, please follow the link first to understand how to keep it safe, and second how to get it to the authority. You can get the Manuscripts documented from the nearest Manuscripts Resource Centre MRC. If you dont get the right treatment, you can always compliant back.
Books based on Manuscripts
While the website doesn’t offer any search function, you can find some of the documented work here. These books are a result of scanning, editing, and authoring to make it as accurate as possible.
While the knowledge from the Manuscripts might not be relevant to our time, but its a history of keeping. Some of the scripts are not even spoken in India, especially not throughout the country. You can make a search for Indian Manuscripts based on criteria of title, author, script, subject, language and material here
Most of the Indian scripts have been used for writing 70% of manuscripts are in the Sanskrit language. Other 30% of manuscripts are in languages like Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Meithei /Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Newari/ Nepal Bhasa, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Chakma, etc.
Indian Manuscripts (Third Party Websites)
Its a third party website which has the largest online collection of Indian Manuscripts & Antique Books. Not only can search for them, but it offers you to view each of the pages by page. If you find the right one, you can also search between the pages if you understand it right. Apart from that, you can also choose to hear it loud. As soon as you click on the audio button, the website will load a separate audio file.
The catalog is huge. You have manuscripts on the following:
- Ayurved
- Constitution of India
- Miniature
- Miscellaneous
- Religious
- Astrological
- History Manuscripts & Ant.Books
- Indian Music & Dance
- Yantra, Mantra, Tantra
- Yoga
- Lakot (Scroll)
- literature writing of Indian Legends
- PURAN
- Jurisprudence
- Language Arms
- and KAAM SHASTRA
You also have Antique Books, Hindu Religious Books, Astrology, Vastu, Architecture and more. Find more details here.