Shahin Bepari Lambe
Panaji
Around 30,000 manuscripts have been identified across Goa as part of an ongoing survey under the Gyan Bharatam Mission, a programme of the Ministry of Culture aimed at preserving the country’s manuscript heritage, said Balaji Shenoy, director of the Archives Department.
The survey covers manuscripts housed in government repositories as well as private collections across the state.
“The survey is intended to identify and map locations where manuscripts are available and does not involve government acquisition of the material,” said Shenoy. The Goa Department of Archives, he said, is among the departments implementing the mission and the exercise is still underway as data from some institutions is yet to be received.
To implement the programme, the department has established the Goa State Mission for Manuscripts, an autonomous body that will undertake activities including surveys, conservation, digitisation, translation and capacity building.
“Most of the manuscripts identified so far are in Sanskrit and Modi script, while a smaller number are in Persian. The collection includes religious texts, ayurveda manuscripts, mathematical works and documents related to other traditional knowledge systems,” said Shenoy.
The next stage will focus on conserving manuscripts that have suffered damage due to age, insects or storage conditions and manuscripts will subsequently be digitised to preserve their contents.
The department also plans to organise a Modi script workshop in July to train students in reading historical documents written in the script. The trained students will assist the department in reading and interpreting manuscripts.
Shenoy appealed to people possessing manuscripts, scriptures or handwritten documents that are more than 100 years
old to register them under the mission.
