Seminar on Manuscripts: Knowledge Traditions, Preservation, and Contemporary Approaches [In-person]

The event commenced with an introductory and welcome address by Prof. Ashwin Kumar, Head and In-Charge of the Centre for the Study of Indian Languages (CSIL), Chanakya University. This was followed by the formal signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing an academic and technical partnership between Chanakya University and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).

The MoU was signed by Prof. Sushant Joshi, Registrar, Chanakya University, and Dr. Ramesh C. Gaur, Dean (Administration), IGNCA, along with Sri Mahendra D (Bangalore Regional Head, IGNCA), in the august presence of Prof. Subrahmanya, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Chanakya University. The partnership aims to foster long-term collaboration in academic, archival, and digital initiatives related to Indian knowledge systems and manuscript traditions.

The seminar series formally began with an inaugural address by Dr. Ramesh C. Gaur, who took the audience on an immersive and historically grounded exploration of the importance of manuscript preservation. He outlined why manuscripts constitute irreplaceable repositories of civilizational knowledge and discussed the contemporary challenges involved in their conservation. Dr. Gaur traced the institutional history of IGNCA and highlighted its significant contributions to manuscript preservation in India, ranging from early pioneering efforts in microfilming, through optical character recognition (OCR) initiatives, to current large-scale digitization projects.

While acknowledging the critical role played by national initiatives such as the National Mission for Manuscripts and Gyan Bharatam, Dr. Gaur drew attention to the fragmented nature of preservation efforts, often dispersed across multiple institutions, platforms, and standards. He cautioned against common misconceptions surrounding digital preservation, clarifying that digitization alone does not guarantee long-term preservation unless accompanied by robust archival practices, redundancy, and systematic backup strategies, including the creation of reliable digital analogues.

A key distinction emphasized in his address was between the preservation of metadata and the preservation of the actual manuscript content. Dr. Gaur noted that while several widely used scripts have been rapidly digitized, there remain numerous lesser-known or regional scripts for which Unicode standards or stable typesetting systems do not yet exist, posing serious challenges for inclusive digitization. He concluded by stressing the urgent need for a centralized, publicly accessible hosting platform that can integrate diverse preservation efforts and make manuscript resources widely available to scholars and the public alike.

This was followed by a lecture by Prof. K. Ramasubramaniam, from IIT Bombay, who spoke on Chandaḥśāstra in a highly interactive and engaging session. He guided the audience through the recognition of structural patterns in Indian textual traditions that distinguish between prose and poetry, and that, in many cases, determine the explanatory force and meaningfulness of specific textual passages.
Drawing on his extensive scholarly engagement with classical works such as Līlāvatī and Bṛhatsaṃhitā, Prof. Ramasubramaniam demonstrated how metrical structure is not ornamental but epistemically significant—shaping how arguments are presented, remembered, and transmitted. In these works, he noted, metre often functions as a crucial aid to comprehension, pedagogy, and textual integrity, rather than merely as a poetic device.

He emphasized that without sustained manual training, disciplined transmission practices, and rigorous proofreading, contemporary digitization efforts risk being reduced to the mere preservation of images of texts, rather than the preservation of living knowledge systems. Prof. Ramasubramaniam underscored that the effective transmission of human knowledge must remain central to the mission of any research centre or cultural institution, and that technological tools and digitization initiatives must be integrated with—rather than substituted for—human scholarly engagement.

The morning session concluded with a presentation by Dr. Buddha Chandrasekhar, CEO of Anuvadini AI and Chief Coordinating officer of AICTE, who spoke immediately following Prof. Ramasubramaniam’s session. Dr. Chandrasekhar took the audience through the technical, linguistic, and conceptual challenges involved in developing AI models for manuscript processing and for Indian languages more broadly.
He reiterated the Government of India’s and the Prime Minister’s emphasis on building sovereign foundational AI models, while simultaneously highlighting the distinctive difficulties posed by Asian—and especially Indian—linguistic diversity. Unlike relatively homogeneous linguistic traditions such as Latin, Indian languages exhibit complex grammatical structures, script diversity, and deep regional variation, all of which present significant challenges for large-scale AI training and deployment.

Drawing on Anuvadini’s first-hand experience, Dr. Chandrasekhar shared insights from their work on textbook translation projects and the development of Indian-language, voice-based audiobooks across multiple academic disciplines. The session generated a lively discussion, with participants raising questions ranging from practical translation workflows to deeper conceptual issues in cross-linguistic translation.
A particularly significant point emphasized by Dr. Chandrasekhar was the centrality of visual memory in Indian knowledge traditions and cultural transmission. While visuality plays a crucial role in pedagogy, ritual, and textual practices in India, he noted that it also constitutes one of the most formidable challenges for contemporary AI systems, especially in the processing, interpretation, and contextualization of manuscript images and other visual cultural artifacts.

The post-lunch session commenced with a presentation by Dr. Dharmendrakumar N. Bhatt, from the L D Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, who introduced the origin, historical development, and writing practices of the Śāradā script. Drawing on his extensive experience in manuscript studies and palaeography, Dr. Bhatt highlighted the distinctive features of the script and emphasized the importance of manual practice for developing scriptal competence. He encouraged students to engage directly with writing exercises, underscoring that embodied familiarity with scripts is indispensable for serious manuscript scholarship.

This was followed by a presentation delivered by Smt Pooja Porwal the CEO of Manuscripts and Inscriptions Digitisation Foundation, who provided an overview of the scale, diversity, and multi-level nature of manuscript initiatives currently underway across India. She highlighted the Foundation’s enthusiasm for contributing to the development of a unified national hosting platform in collaboration with the Gyan Bharati Mission, aimed at integrating dispersed preservation and digitisation efforts.

The session also featured an experiential account by Sri Ravi Teja from Vishvena Tech Solutions, a Gyan Sethu Awardee and emerging deep-tech professional, who spoke about his startup journey and the application of AI technologies to manuscript studies. A central concern raised during his presentation was the pressing issue of intellectual property rights and data sovereignty in relation to manuscripts. He pointed out a significant lacuna: when advanced technological solutions developed using Indian manuscript data enter the public domain without adequate safeguards, they are often rapidly productized and patented by external actors, particularly in Western markets.

Mr. Teja argued for a strategic shift in perspective—urging that manuscripts be treated not only as carriers of cultural and civilizational knowledge for public welfare, but also as potentially patentable knowledge assets in an era marked by capital-intensive, technology-driven markets, especially in sectors such as health, disease, and therapeutic research.

The session concluded with closing remarks, followed by the exchange of books and tokens of gratitude between the host Centre for the Study of Indian Languages (CSIL) and the participants. The event ended with a high tea, providing an informal setting for continued discussion and the exploration of future ideas and collaborative possibilities.