The manuscripts- collection and preservation
There is a collection of 15100 manuscrips on twenty-six different subjects in the library of the Institute which are collected by its founder, by travelling all over the India during that time. The number of their pages is above ten lakhs. The manuscript 'Jyotisharatnamala' is the oldest one written in 1449 A.D. It is extremely necessary to protect these from insects and white ants. In the earlier period the powder of Acorus Calamus (Vekhanda) used to be spread between the pages and then those were tied in cloth. Then these were classified into various subjects and kept in steel cupboards. Presently each and every page is first cleaned by a brush to remove the dust from it and then is preserved in acid free paper cover. While packing, powder of pepper, Vekhanda, Cuminam Cyminum (Kadu Jire), clove is spread between the pages. Then the manuscript is again packed in thick acid free paper and is bound in red cloth. These are now kept upright like files.
However, this was not sufficient and hence with the help of ‘National Mission for Manuscripts’ of New Delhi, in 2012, 80% of these manuscripts were digitalized and the remaining were digitalized by the institute with its own funds. In this way the complete collection of 15,100 manuscript is saved in the form of subject wise DVDs and hard disks.
The students and researches visit the Institute from all over India and from the foreign countries also. We then provide them the manuscripts of the relevant research subjects. If they require copies they are provided the required copies at nominal charges according to the size of the Manuscripts. We are further exploring possibilities to invest in a project to improve on the indexing, search & referencing techniques with the help of modern technology.
