By Prashant K. Nanda

Tips on health and astrology, battle strategies and aerodynamics, religion and history... dipping into the deepest recesses of India’s 5,000-year civilisation is a unique Rs.3.5 billion ($80,000) initiative that seeks to preserve ancient manuscripts to bring the past into the present to make it relevant for the future.

Thousands of priceless manuscripts on palm leaves, birch barks, copper plates and handmade paper are getting a facelift under the National Mission for

Manuscripts (NMM), a five-year project of India’s ministry of culture.

Unravelling the mysteries of the past, the manuscripts detail age-old knowledge, which might have been lost forever, on history, astrology, medicine, religion and administration. The wealth of information on how our ancestors lived and worked, their lifestyles, science and medicine is invaluable for the intellectual empowerment of the country and is now getting collected and catalogued by the NMM.

According to researchers, the manuscripts contain the ‘memory of the world’, featuring thousands of themes. Each manuscript embodies India’s rich history.

These records are the only living proof of documented land registration, promissory notes, horoscopes, epics, science and the age-old but priceless medical practices, teachings of various religions and the diaries of various rulers.

While one text reveals secrets of metal casting, another discusses battle strategies. Texts on principles of aerodynamics, herbal cure, astrology and even recipe guides are all there to enrich any country striving to unravel its glorious past.

Estimates suggest that there are five million manuscripts in India lying neglected, mutilated and ignored in institutions, homes, temples and libraries.

The nationwide NMM plan launched three years ago is aimed at identifying and reviving ‘dead text’ documents, protecting and making that written heritage accessible to scholars and researchers.

The process of gathering information is simple; the mission identifies ‘manuscript hunters’ or surveyors, usually scholars, in each area. They go from door to door with questionnaires. Any document that is 75 years old is considered a manuscript.

"We don’t collect the manuscripts from people or institutions but only document them in our library," said Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan, director of the mission.

Gopalakrishnan added that the idea behind the undertaking was to save the most valuable but less visible of our cultural inheritances for future reference.

During its three years of activity, the mission has researched and documented over one million manuscripts from 12 states in India. They are in 366 languages spread over 53 scripts like the forgotten Brahmi, Sarada and Newari as well as Urdu and Persian.

Some of the manuscripts have been identified as national treasures and have been given the status of heritage by the government.

In the north Indian city of Srinagar, for instance, researchers have found a "Vanaspati Kosh", a unique herbal dictionary dating back to ninth century. The dictionary records the names of medicinal herbs, type of soil to cultivate them and even the medicine each herb can produce.

Similarly in the western state of Gujarat, a 10th century text has been unearthed on the ancient philosophy of Charvaka that advocated atheism and rejected afterlife.

Over thousands of years, the written words from ancient India have outlived man, moth and moisture. Among the oldest and rare findings during this survey include verses from the ancient scriptures, the Atharvaveda.

The khanqahs (Sufi centres) in Bihar, which had never been surveyed before, have yielded a plethora of valuable information.

The mission has also been able to document interesting manuscripts like a 10-foot-long Quran, scrolls of Bhagawad Gita in the south, folk writings in Orissa, Jain manuscripts in Gujarat and jewel-studded ones in the Bihar capital Patna.

"Scripts in dire need of conservation have been located," said a jubilant Gopalakrishnan.

"We have also found some Manipuri manuscripts written in the Meitei Mayek script. A lot of them got lost as they were burnt in the 17th and 18th century. We have also unearthed a local Assamese script called Sylhati Nagri. A lot of Tibetan manuscripts originally written in Sanskrit were also deciphered."

The mission is also going global by keeping foreign countries in its list.

"Some Indian manuscripts are preserved in foreign countries, of which we have no documented information. Our target is Southeast Asia where epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were based; they ought to have Indian manuscripts. The British Library and universities and libraries in Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland are some other places where the manuscripts are believed to be sealed," Gopalakrishnan said.

Efforts are on to convert the one million manuscripts to electronic database by February 2007 in order to make them accessible to all students and researchers to carry out any research work and understand our culture.

"The information can be used by research scholars to work on unpublished manuscripts. We are more than eager to provide data about the type and location of the documents and their historical importance to encourage research work on them," said Dilip Kumar Rana, assistant director, NMM.

To begin with, NMM has initiated a school outreach programme to inculcate a sense of heritage conservation among youngsters, especially students.

"Our students do not know much about India’s glorious cultural heritage and the programme is conceived keeping that in mind. In Delhi, we have visited 10 schools to introduce the concept of preserving manuscripts and hope to take it to classrooms across the country," Prerana Prasad, the chief coordinator of the programme, told IANS.

Getting access has not been a cakewalk however.

"In some parts people never allow our researchers to touch their manuscripts as they are sacred. They prefer to immerse them in water rather than handing over to conservators. We think there is a sense of distrust among the people that their holy and prized manuscripts may be misused by the government agency," said Rana.

"Unless people support us, it would be very difficult to restore and preserve our past for the future."