Nomination form
1.
Name of Candidate: National Mission for Manuscripts
Street Address:
Email:
Website:
5 Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road, New Delhi 110 001
director.namami@nic.in
www.namami.nic.in
2.
If the candidate is an:
individual
NA
3.
If the candidate is an
organization
Type of Organization:
Date of Establishment:
Department of Culture, Ministry of Culture,
Government of India
7 February 2003
Brief History and General Information:
The National Mission for Manuscripts was launched in February 2003 by the Department
of Culture, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India with the Indira Gandhi
National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) as the national nodal agency, to safeguard India’s
treasure of hand-written manuscripts. An ambitious five-year project, the Mission seeks
not merely to locate, catalogue and preserve India’s manuscripts but also to enhance
access, spread awareness and encourage their use for educational and research purposes.
India possesses more than an estimated five million manuscripts, making her the largest
repository of manuscript wealth in the world. But this tremendous pool of knowledge is
under threat and manuscripts are disappearing at an alarming rate. They are found on
materials such as birch, palm leaf, handmade paper and cloth that require specialized care
and conservation.
The Mission’s programme includes:
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Surveys, Networking and Communication: The Mission carries out exhaustive
surveys through a network of institutions in India and abroad and communication
campaigns.
National Catalogue of Manuscripts: The Mission has created a new data base
integrating information from the National Register for Manuscripts, the Directory
of Partner Institutions, Directory of Individual Collections and the Directory of
Catalogues.
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Training: Through training workshops, the Mission in affiliation with partner
institutions trains conservators and interested persons in preventive and curative
conservation as well as in different scripts in which manuscripts were written.
Research and Publication: In consultation with our Manuscript Resource
Centres, the Mission publishes rare manuscripts of historical or artistic value. The
Mission will also support new research based on lesser known texts and
manuscripts.
Digitization: Currently, the Mission is conducting a pilot project for digitization
of five separate caches of manuscripts – the Gilgit manuscripts in Jammu and
Kashmir, illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts, manuscripts in the Assam Valley,
Kutiyattam manuscripts in Kerala and Siddha manuscripts in Tamil Nadu.
National Manuscripts Library: With IGNCA as the nodal organization, the
Mission is creating the National Manuscripts Library to be housed at IGNCA
headquarters, Delhi, which will contain digital resources on manuscripts collected
from around the country.
Catalogus Catalogorum: The Mission supports the landmark project initiated by
the University of Madras in 1935 which undertook a comprehensive alphabetical
register of Sanskrit and allied works in Pali and Prakrit. The Mission gave it a
new lease of life and the next ten volumes will be released by 2008.
Publications and materials (CD-ROMs, cassettes, videocassettes) produced by the
candidate relating to the accessibility and preservation of documentary heritage:
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4.
The information leaflet of the National Mission for Manuscripts
Two annual reports
Two guidelines on conservation and digitization of manuscripts
Describe the way in which the work nominated has made a significant
contribution to the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage:
The National Mission for Manuscripts was set up with the following objectives:
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Survey and Locate: The Mission launches survey expeditions around the country
and abroad to locate manuscripts.
Catalogue and Compile: Through descriptive cataloging we create a national
database.
Conserve and Preserve: By networking with the leading conservation agencies
in the country, the Mission conserves damaged or threatened manuscripts.
Promote Access: Through ready availability of our data bases and with
awareness campaigns, we hope to improve access to the treasure of manuscripts.
Promote Scholarship: By documenting and preserving manuscripts, we also seek
to promote their use to increase knowledge and improve learning.
The Mission in the last two years has made considerable headway in the realization of the
objectives for which it was set up. For Survey, the Mission has affiliations with thirty
prominent institutions as Manuscript Resource Centres across the country which are
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major repositories of manuscripts. These institutions have been given the task of
surveying manuscripts in both public and private institutions across their respective local
areas, and the number of manuscripts discovered is steadily increasing. Apart from this,
to give more impetus to survey the Mission has launched a national level survey as a
pilot project in three states (fifty three districts) by employing about three thousand
surveyors and the result has been astounding. In the course of the five-day survey, the
Mission managed to unearth a data of about seven hundred thousand manuscripts! In the
coming year, another national level survey in twelve more states is expected to produce
momentous results.
In Cataloguing, at present, our electronic catalogue or database contains data on about
three hundred thousand (300,000) manuscripts, and the database is steadily increasing
day by day.
In the area of Conservation, the Mission contributes to the preservation of endangered
manuscripts in three ways. At regular intervals, drives are held in the different parts of
the country to carry out basic, preventive conservation of manuscripts. Second, the
Mission organizes preventive conservation workshops to train conservators, librarians
and other interested persons in preventive conservation of manuscripts. Third, through a
network of partner institutions designated as ‘Manuscript Conservation Centres’, the
Mission funds and carries out more elaborate curative conservation of manuscripts under
threat. The Mission has already prepared guidelines and standards for conservation of
manuscripts.
As Indian manuscripts are found in hundreds of different scripts and languages, many of
which are no longer in active use, the Mission conducts three Manuscriptology and
Paleography workshops in different areas to train library, archive and conservation
personnel in reading different scripts and giving them skills in critically editing
manuscripts. The three-week workshop format is very intensive and aims at creating a
body of trained manpower that can then be utilized to read and use manuscripts. This
helps not only in preservation of manuscripts for posterity but in promoting its
accessibility through bringing out translations and critical editions of hitherto
unpublished manuscripts reflecting different aspects of India’s scientific and cultural
tradition.
The Mission has also prepared a ‘standards’ document for its pilot digitization project
being carried out in five areas around the country. The Mission is currently digitally
reproducing over seven hundred and fifty thousand (750,000) folios of valuable
manuscripts in order to preserve them for posterity and make these manuscripts
accessible for scholars.
To promote access to manuscripts and contribute to their dissemination and use by
researchers, students, scholars, doctors, scientists, artists and others, the Mission will
shortly make its database available on the worldwide web. This will help scholars around
the world gain access to India’s intellectual heritage and the tremendous wealth of
knowledge contained in our manuscripts.
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In the coming year, the Mission plans to expand its publications with a newsletter-cummagazine called Kriti Rakshana, as well as by publishing critical editions of the rarest
manuscripts. The Mission has also started a project of commissioning publications on
different aspects of manuscriptology.
The Mission is now venturing into the area of heritage education. In New Delhi, ten
schools have been selected for a pilot drama programme in which a theatre-in-education
expert and his team will conduct workshops with students and teachers and will put up a
small performance based on two extant manuscripts—Baburnama and Mahabharata. In
August, groups of children from these schools will put up small plays based on
manuscripts/texts that they have read. The theatre-in-education groups will also travel to
the areas where we are holding our next round of surveys to work with children in cities
and in towns in a similar vein through the course of the year. In September, the first ever
National Debate for University students will be held on a heritage issue.
Through all of the above programmes, the Mission has sought to contribute to the
preservation and accessibility of India’s enormous manuscript wealth. In the coming
year, the Mission looks to linking preservation and accessibility more strongly with the
following programmes:
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5.
‘Care-and-Conserve’ Camps in ten different locations where people possessing
manuscripts will be invited to attend the camp to learn how to better care for their
manuscripts
National Manuscripts Library at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts
building which will contain books, digital resources on manuscripts and
computers with our electronic database.
Five more Manuscriptology Workshops which link preservation of manuscripts
with knowledge of the scripts in which they are found and critically editing them
for publication.
National Survey in Twelve States in which this time, conservators will be sent
along with the surveyors to not only document manuscripts but also to assess their
conservation status and carry out basic preventive conservation.
Heritage Education in Schools and Colleges
Describe the impact of this contribution to the preservation and accessibility
of documentary heritage, whether at the local, national, regional or
international level.
The force of globalization is forcing communities and governments to adopt strategies for
safeguarding endangered their cultural heritage. To support the preservation of our
cultural heritage the Indian government has initiated several policies and programmes for
the collection, management and preservation of artworks, artifacts and documentary
heritage. This is the objective behind the setting up of the National Manuscripts Mission
by the Department of Culture, Government of India. The National Mission for
Manuscripts is a challenging task. It opens a door to an engagement with the preservation
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of our knowledge and heritage. It is conceived as a Mission as a Mission-mode signals
priority and urgency, facilitates inter-sectoral and collective action, and specifies clear
time frames with milestones. It has become an opportunity for all governments at Central
and Provincial levels, cultural and knowledge institutions in the government and private
sector and all concerned citizens at the national, regional and local levels to come
together to make this Mission realize its objectives.
The Mission has organized several public outreach campaigns around the country in
order to spread awareness about manuscripts as heritage and about India’s intellectual
heritage in general. Between 31 January and 7 February 2005, in Delhi, the Mission
organized Kriti Rakshana: Manuscripts Week which included a seminar and exhibition
on indigenous methods of conservation and a lecture series with eminent personalities
who spoke on various aspects of manuscripts. Our partners, the Manuscript Resource
Centres, organized day-long programmes around the same time, in their respective
cities/towns. In the run-up to surveys around India, a number of local awareness
campaigns are conducted in villages and districts including public meetings, street plays
and small seminars.
In order to give our public outreach a boost and to place manuscripts firmly on the
heritage conservation agenda in India, the Mission invited an Expert Committee to
declare fifty priceless manuscripts as ‘Vijnananidhi: National Treasures’ of India.
Through the project, we seek to pay homage to the landmarks in Indian intellectual
history through pioneering texts that record India’s achievements in disciplines such as
the sciences, philosophy, scripture, history and the arts. It aims to recognize as treasures
such manuscripts that have changed the course of Knowledge in India through pathbreaking insights and discoveries. The Committee is in the final stage of selecting fifty
manuscripts from among over two hundred nominations received. Each of repository in
which each of the selected manuscripts lie will be given a fixed sum of money for
display, conservation and publication of the ‘National Treasure’.
In terms of other tangible impact, the Mission has in the short time of its existence been
able to place the protection and dissemination of India’s manuscripts on a firm footing. I
database is already being used by scholars. The database will be much more widely used
after its worldwide web launch. This database will be much more comprehensive and
accessible than any other catalogue of Indian manuscripts created thus far and access will
be free.
The Mission has created a trained manpower of conservationists and people who can
read a variety of scripts and edit texts. In the two years of activity, over 300 people have
been trained in 19 preventive conservation workshops. About 326 rural and short-term
preventive conservation workshops stretching about 2-3 days for communities to look
after manuscripts in their local areas. The Mission has also conducted 2 trainers; training
workshop to further the skills of conservationists already working in the area of
manuscript conservation. About 140 persons have been trained in different scripts
through Manuscriptology workshops. There have been three Manuscriptology workshops
with five more planned this year and 19 preventive conservation workshops under the
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aegis of the Mission thus far with ten more planned for the coming year (April 2005 –
January 2006).
In terms of the actual number of manuscripts conserved, preventive conservation has
been carried out on 382,340 folios in 88 institutions around India. Curative conservation
has been carried out in 21 manuscript collections thus far.
Through the digitization programme, the Mission is preserving for posterity, the rarest
and most valuable of manuscripts found in India by scanning each folio of precious and
endangered manuscripts around the country (See No. 4).
6.
Has the candidate received previously any award for the same contribution?
No
7.
Explain briefly how the prize money would be used:
The prize money would be linked to the project of Vijnananidhi: National Treasures
(mentioned in No. 5 above). An international recognition through the Jikji Memory of the
World Prize would persuade archivists and collectors that manuscript material has
permanent value, and is expected to encourage greater efforts to preserve the invaluable
knowledge contained in the physical material of the manuscript. Public pride in such
"treasures" inevitably leads to a desire to protect, clean, restore and enhance what the
ancestors have provided us and hand it down for posterity. It would also encourage
scholars to draw on these resources, by studying and making fresh insights into them.
The prize money would be utilized to support the safeguarding of valuable
documents to be declared as Vijnananidhi: National Treasures. It would entail special
protective measures for these manuscripts. To make them both safe and available, the
activities would include
Providing adequate space and infrastructure for their storage: This would include
assigning a special room with such facilities as air-conditioning, storage, etc.
Taking up preventive and curative conservation: Cleaning, dusting and encasing them
in acid-free paper boxes for preventive conservation and restoring them through curative
conservation if necessary
Protecting the knowledge through digitization: Since damage during handling by
scholars cannot be prevented, the originals would be kept intact, and the knowledge
content would be protected through digitization.
Create a publication: The Mission would use part of the prize money to create a
publication on the fifty manuscripts declared as ‘Vijnananidhi: National Treasures’.
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8. Please attach illustration material or indicate website(s) where the
nomination work could be consulted.
Mission leaflet and CD attached
Website: www.namami.nic.in
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