Manuscripts, Machines and Living Knowledge
On 4th February 2026, the Centre for the Study of Indian Languages hosted a seminar on preserving India’s manuscript heritage in the digital age. The event opened with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Chanakya University and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, aimed at advancing academic, archival and digital collaboration around Indian knowledge traditions.
Dr. Ramesh C. Gaur of IGNCA gave the inaugural address. His central point was precise: digitisation is not the same as preservation.
Prof. K. Ramasubramaniam of IIT Bombay addressed Chandahshastra, the metrical structure of Indian textual traditions. His point was that metre is not decorative; it shapes how arguments are formed, remembered and transmitted. Dr. Buddha Chandrasekhar of Anuvadini AI spoke on the challenges of building AI tools for Indian language manuscript processing: India’s script diversity and grammatical complexity are formidable obstacles to automation.
The afternoon included Dr. Dharmendrakumar Bhatt on the Sharada script, Smt. Pooja Porwal on national digitisation initiatives, and Sri Ravi Teja on data sovereignty.
