National Mission for Manuscripts

The National Mission for Manuscripts works to identify, document, preserve and make accessible India's handwritten textual heritage. Launched in 2003 by the Ministry of Culture, its mandate combines the physical protection of manuscripts with the recovery and dissemination of the knowledge they contain.

Identification and documentation

The Mission seeks to locate manuscripts held by institutions and private custodians across India, including collections that have not been adequately recorded.

• It undertakes surveys and documentation to establish where manuscripts are held and record information about them.
• It develops a national manuscript database to help researchers discover material dispersed across different collections.
• Its scope covers manuscripts in diverse languages and scripts, reflecting India's varied intellectual and cultural traditions.

Conservation and capacity building

Preservation requires both protecting manuscripts from further deterioration and treating damaged material. The Mission supports these tasks through specialised centres and trained personnel.

• It promotes preventive and curative conservation, including appropriate handling, storage and treatment of manuscripts.
• It supports training in manuscript conservation so that custodians and conservation personnel can safeguard collections.
• It works through a network of manuscript resource and conservation centres rather than relying only on a single repository.

Access, research and dissemination

The mandate extends beyond safeguarding objects: it also seeks to make their contents available for study and wider public appreciation.

• It promotes digitisation to support access while reducing the need to handle fragile originals.
• It encourages research and publication, including the study of unpublished manuscripts.
• It undertakes outreach to increase awareness of the value of manuscript heritage and the need to preserve it.