E-Paper
New lease of life for rare manuscripts
RARE MANUSCRIPTS placed at Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (Deemed University), Ganganath Jha Institute campus, will finally get a new lease of life. In a bid to save more than 60,000 manuscripts, the National Manuscript Mission, New Delhi has taken the initiative of cataloguing and documentation without incurring any financial burden over the institute.
RARE MANUSCRIPTS placed at Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (Deemed University), Ganganath Jha Institute campus, will finally get a new lease of life.
In a bid to save more than 60,000 manuscripts, the National Manuscript Mission, New Delhi has taken the initiative of cataloguing and documentation without incurring any financial burden over the institute.
"The step was long overdue and we are much relieved that every process is being undertaken systematically," said Dr Gopa Raju Ram, principal of the institute. A 20-member team is working from morning till late evening hours to complete the task within three months. "We are able to work on at least 150 manuscripts each day. Cataloguing requires the entry of each and every minute detail regarding the particular manuscript such as text name, author, commentary, commentator, language used, script, date of manuscript, scribe, subject, size, material, illustrations, whether complete or incomplete, missing portion and source of catalogue, etc," he said.
The entries are also being made pertaining to the retrieval of the manuscript.
"This will help in their easy retrieval, as and when required.
Earlier, they were kept in an underground library where it was time consuming to trace a particular manuscript," said the principal.
"We are also working on conservation of the manuscripts for which Sanjay Kumar Pandey, an expert in preventive conservation from INTACH has been invited from Lucknow," added Dr Ram.
"Preventive conservation basically deals with saving the manuscripts from any kind of damage. This involves dust cleaning, minor repairing, spirit cleaning, mounting it on asset free board, wrapping it with blotting sheet, and finally placing it securely in a red coloured cloth," said Sanjay Kumar Pandey.
"For the manuscripts placed in the institute, we are using A and B level of conversation which works for 400 years," added Pandey.
However, Dr Ram complained about the time limit fixed for the entire proceedings which according to him is less. "We need at least six months but we have been asked to work within the limit of three months," he added.
