New Delhi: Asserting that manuscripts are “a guiding light for the future”, a major conference of scholars, researchers and other experts on Saturday adopted the New Delhi Declaration to bolster efforts to preserve, digitise and disseminate their knowledge as well as to bring back the original works.
The declaration, adopted at the closing of the three-day ‘Gyan Bharatam’ global conference hosted at the Vigyan Bhawan here, resolved to “acquire and repatriate original manuscripts or secure their digital copies from abroad, ensuring access for research and national pride”.
The New Delhi Declaration read out by a senior official of the Ministry of Culture in the presence of a large gathering of scholars, researchers and other experts, underlined that manuscripts are “living memory of a nation, and foundation of its civilisational identity”.
India has one of the richest collections of ancient manuscripts in the world, with nearly 10 million texts that hold the country’s traditional knowledge and cultural heritage.
“We resolve to preserve, digitise and disseminate this vast treasure. We firmly believe manuscripts are not merely relics of the past, but a guiding light for the future,” it said.
The Declaration was adopted after three days of intense technical sessions categorised as per the eight working groups constituted earlier under the Gyan Bharatam Mission.
“We, the manuscript custodians … script experts… all other people who care for the manuscript heritage of Bharat, assembled here in the international conference on ‘Reclaiming India’s Knowledge Legacy through Manuscript Heritage’, after thorough deliberations and deep realisations resolve to declare that Bharat is the land of world’s richest and the most diverse manuscript heritage, embodying the wisdom of thousands of years across philosophy, science, literature, arts, spirituality and many other subjects,” it reads.
These manuscripts, inscribed on palm leaves, birch barks, cloths, handmade papers and other such material, represent the “living memory of a nation and the foundation of its civilisational identity”.
“In the spirit of Viksit Bharat 2047, we resolve to join the movement of ‘Gyan Bharatam’, to preserve, digitise and disseminate this vast treasure, making it accessible to the citizens and scholars alike, across the world,” the declaration reads.
The government has launched the Gyan Bharatam Mission as a major initiative under the Ministry of Culture. It aims to survey, document, conserve, digitise and make accessible more than one crore manuscripts located at academic institutions, museums, libraries and private collections across India.
“Gyan Bharatam Mission is set to become a proclamation of India’s culture, literature and consciousness,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his address at the conference on Friday.
He had also said that many countries around the world house India’s ancient manuscripts and the country will strive to “unify this shared heritage of humanity” under the Gyan Bharatam Mission.
The conference aims to build an “alliance of all custodians” of old manuscripts in India and eventually create a countrywide ecosystem for their preservation and knowledge dissemination under the aegis of ‘Gyan Bharatam’.
“We firmly believe that manuscripts are not merely relics of the past, they are guiding lights for the future, connecting heritage with innovation, tradition with technologies, and knowledge with development,” the Declaration reads.
It further resolved to “research and reinterpret manuscripts through systematic efforts”; and to “acquire and repatriate original manuscripts or secure their digital copies from abroad, ensuring access for research and national pride”.
Official sources said this is just a vision embedded in the Declaration and will entail a lot of work under legal and other frameworks to achieve the end goal, like getting a digital copy of an inscription housed in a foreign country that may have been taken there several centuries ago.
The New Delhi Declaration says, “We further resolve and pledge that we will all work together to guard and preserve priceless manuscript heritage of Bharat, as a cultural and intellectual cornerstone of Viksit Bharat 2047, yield global initiatives by making Bharat the foremost hub of manuscripts… awaken a people’s movement by the ‘Gyan Bharatam’ into a ‘jan aandolan’ that strengthens cultural identity and knowledge-based growth”.
It also resolved to “nurture every script and language” by caring for manuscripts from all regions, as symbols of unity, diversity, and deepening cultural bonds across communities.
The declaration also exhorts to advocate public awareness campaigns to inspire respect, curiosity and pride in “Bharat’s manuscript traditions”; and mentor future generations to sustain the spirit of Gyan Bharatam, and carry forward the living traditions of India’s written knowledge.”
