‘Modern science? Our manuscripts have it’

In these times of information technology, two youngsters are digging into the past to bring out the fact that all that is being looked upon as modern science or new knowledge is in fact professed in the age-old Indian manuscripts. And, for this, they are making an effort to find handwritten scripts and preserve them.

The idea occurred to Anita Joshi and Dinesh Vaidya when they were perturbed find that the patent for the Indian Haldi (turmeric) was taken by the US. Anita, then a student of Sanskrit, came to know about a project undertaken by her lecturer Dr Nirupama Kulkarni about conservation of ‘pothis’, the religious scriptures. She got herself involved in the project initiated by the central cultural ministry under the National Mission for Manuscripts through the Bhandarkar Institute. The project is now run by the Indira Gandhi Research Centre.

After the HPT college library, Anita took on the task of preserving the manuscripts in the Nashik public library.

“This work is very important and needs to be done with lot of care,” said Anita. Many households have such manuscripts which are more than 300 to 400- years old. The scriptures are written in Sanskrit, Modi, Devnagri or Prakrit scripts. The paper used to write is hand-made, the ink also seems to be special as even after so many years, neither the paper nor the ink has damaged. Earlier, these manuscripts were preserved in red coloured cloth which was naturally processed with turmeric to protect it from mites and other damages. Weather or water has had no effect on these writings. In many manuscripts the writing is very fine. Some have pictures, and one, about 400 years old, had the cover painted in gold! These manuscripts, handle varied subjects like geometry, maths, ayurved, religion, grammar, philosophy, architecture, saint literature and kirtan (discourse) on social issues,” said Anita.

“These manuscripts have immense knowledge and science in them. The western world today claims to have done most of inventions and discoveries but if we study our manuscripts, we will realise that all this science has been written about ages ago in our own land by our own people. It is just our ignorance that we discard what we have and run behind what appears to be new,” argues Dinesh, who is a management graduate and practises yadniki (a pandit’s profession).

Both Anita and Dinesh recognise the need for digitalisation of these manuscripts. The project had started with that aim but due to lack of funds presently, digitalisation is on hold. Anita and Dinesh spend on their own to continue their work. “What we can contribute is very meagre and hence the quantum work is less. But we intend to continue. We hope some way will come through,” said Dinesh.

Nashik itself has about 1.5 lakh manuscripts. Most of these are with families whose ancestors have written them. Only a very few of them recognise the importance of this treasure, many feel they only occupy space in the house and ignore them. Worst still, some have thrown the manuscripts into the river.

The two youngsters are trying hard to preserve the age-old store of knowledge. Till date, they have preserved more than 5,000 manuscripts by the method of curative conservation. Some of these have been with families and some at libraries. They make a record of every manuscript in a data sheet which records the details of the writer, the date of writing, subject, content, number of pages, scripts, etc. “Our idea is not to take away any of the manuscripts from anyone. If a family is willing to treasure them, we gladly help them preserve in the scientific manner so that they do not get damaged. Even if the manuscripts are given to any library or institute, the idea is still the same,” explains Anita.

“All this is important so that we reserve the claim to our own knowledge creation. Theories like Big Bang, scientific management are all mentioned in our manuscripts. It is only that we do not know. And our effort is to bring this to the world’s notice,” adds Dinesh.