Gyan Bharatam Mission and Manuscript Heritage Conference

The Union Culture Ministry has launched Gyan Bharatam – India’s Manuscript Preservation Mission in 2025, and coinciding with this, it organized the Gyan Bharatam International Conference (11–13 Sept 2025) in New Delhi. The initiative aims to safeguard India’s vast manuscript heritage (an estimated 40+ million folios in Sanskrit, regional and ancient scripts) by digitizing, cataloging and disseminating these works. The conference brought together scholars, librarians, Indology institutions and tech experts from India and abroad.

Key features of the Gyan Bharatam programme and conference include:

• Preservation & Digitization: Utilizing advanced technologies like High-Volume Scanning and Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR), sacred and secular manuscripts (palm-leaf, birch bark, paper, etc.) will be digitized. This creates a global repository of India’s knowledge traditions. More than a hundred universities, libraries and archives are expected to participate, contributing their collections to the digital archive.

• International Scholarship: The conference hosted experts from the UK, USA, Singapore, and other countries. Seminars covered topics like South Asian studies, manuscript conservation techniques, and translation methodologies. The event coincided with the 130th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s Chicago address, underlining India’s role as a transmitter of ancient learning.

• Capacity Building: Workshops trained young historians and computer scientists in cataloging techniques and language software. Students of library science and heritage management learned about metadata standards, linguistic software, and digital access platforms.

• Global Collaboration: Representatives from UNESCO, the British Library, and major American universities expressed interest in joint projects. For example, there are plans for cloud-based digital libraries and mobile apps to browse the manuscripts.

• Cultural Outreach: Beyond academics, the mission includes public programs – exhibitions of digitized manuscripts, competitions to translate old texts, and cultural performances (e.g. Vedic chanting from preserved manuscripts).

The government argues that Gyan Bharatam is crucial for preserving India’s civilizational memory and “discovering lost treasures” of literature and science. By unlocking the knowledge in these manuscripts, scholars hope to foster interdisciplinary research (history, linguistics, astronomy, Ayurveda, etc.). In practical terms, a national digital archive will make rare texts accessible to students and researchers globally, preventing damage from physical decay. The mission also supports Make-in-India R&D: Indian tech firms are developing optical character recognition for Brahmi and other scripts.

Observers note that this effort could also strengthen diplomatic ties, as partner countries engage in India’s intangible heritage. For UPSC/IAS aspirants, Gyan Bharatam highlights the intersection of culture and technology – showcasing how modern policy leverages international collaboration to revive traditional knowledge systems.