The Word is Sacred; Sacred is The Word : The Indian Manuscript Tradition and the exhibition it accompanies set out to demonstrate the wealth and diversity of India's manuscript traditions and to communicate a lasting impression of India as a multifarious and multicultural society that holds knowledge and knowledge systems in high regard. Some one hundred precious manuscripts, books, and related documents introduced in this book span a timescale of almost two millennia of Indian cultural history. Often lavishly illustrated, the works come from the sub-continent's most important public and private collections. The project was a presentation of India as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006. The exhibition had been organized by the National Mission for Manuscripts, New Delhi and the Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt.
The National Mission for Manuscripts has brought the exhibition to India, currently hosted by the National Archives of India.
The National Mission for Manuscripts was set up by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India, in 2003 to document, conserve and provide access to the vast manuscript wealth of India spread in thousands of public and private repositories across the country and abroad.
The National Archives of India is the repository of the non-current records of the Government of India and it holds them in trust for the use of administrators and scholars. It is an Attached Office of the Department of Culture under Ministry of Tourism & Culture. Set up in March 1891 in Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department, it was shifted to its present location in 1926 subsequent to the transfer of the National Capital from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1911.
The National Archives seeks to help in spreading a feeling of national pride in Indian documentary cultural heritage and ensuring its preservation for posterity. Accordingly, it has a vast collection of records and writings. The records holdings alone run into 40 kms of shelf-space area and are in a regular series from the year 1748 onwards though there are stray records of the earlier period as well. |
