The Uttar Pradesh government has issued directives to all districts to identify and document manuscripts at the district level and present them digitally on a global platform. The initiative was taken under the ambitious national campaign, the ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’, aimed at reviving India’s rich knowledge, tradition and intellectual heritage. For supervision of this initiative, the Chief Development Officer (CDO) of each district has been designated as the nodal officer.
Under the Gyan Bharatam Mission, which focuses on heritage conservation, scientific preservation, digitisation and archiving of manuscripts and rare texts related to India’s knowledge tradition are being carried out in every district.
The objective is to make this invaluable heritage accessible to researchers, students, and the general public. This campaign holds special significance for Uttar Pradesh, as the state is considered a historic centre of ancient knowledge, philosophy, literature and culture.
Yashwant Singh Rathore, Deputy Director of Culture in Gorakhpur, stated that under the Gyan Bharatam Mission, manuscripts and rare documents will be identified, surveyed, catalogued, preserved and digitised.
The manuscripts and rare documents include handwritten texts, palm-leaf and birch-bark manuscripts and other materials available in government and non-government institutions, monasteries, temples, educational institutions, private and public libraries, as well as with individual collectors. Once digitised, these manuscripts will be made easily accessible to the public through the Gyan Bharatam portal.
Special campaigns will be conducted to contact individuals and institutions that have collected manuscripts and to prepare a comprehensive list. This will include handwritten texts that are more than 75 years old. A key feature of this mission is that the manuscripts will remain in the custody and ownership of the respective collectors or institutions, while the government will undertake their digital preservation and global presentation.
