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Rigveda, BORI, Pune

Preserving India's documentary heritage

Manuscripts form an invaluable part of India's documentary heritage. They capture our thoughts, achievements, experience and lessons learnt from history; in other words, they constitute our ‘memory.' The National Mission for Manuscripts has taken the initiative to nominate Indian manuscripts for inclusion in UNESCO's Memory of the World register. Under this programme, UNESCO provides recognition to the most valuable documentary heritage of the world and facilitates its preservation and universal access to it. Moreover, efforts are made to increase awareness of the significance of these records.

The Shaiva manuscripts in Pondicherry were awarded the status of UNESCO's Memory of the World in 2005 in an application jointly submitted by the French Institute of Pondicherry, Centre for Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Oriente (EFEO) and the National Mission for Manuscripts.

This year, the Mission has submitted 2 nominations to UNESCO:

	Collection of Rigveda manuscripts at Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune
	Gilgit manuscripts at the National Archives of India, New Delhi and the Department of
	Archaeology, Archives and Museums, Jammu and Kashmir

Rigveda manuscripts declared “Memory of the World”

The Rig Veda manuscripts from Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, have been nominated for inscription in UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” Register 2007. The programme for the Memory of the World was started in UNESCO fifteen years back to honour significant landmarks in the documentary heritage and record them in its “Memory of the World Register” as world’s inheritance. The Memory of the World programme seeks to guard against collective amnesia, calling upon the preservation of the valuable archival holdings and library collections all over the world, ensuring their wide dissemination.

On behalf of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, the National Mission for Manuscripts submitted the nomination of the Rigveda manuscripts to the Memory of the World programme.

So far, India has had three other nominations inscribed on the Register

The I.A.S. Tamil Medic Manuscript Collection (1997)
Archives of the Dutch East India Company (2003) - Dutch nomination
Saiva Manuscripts in Pondicherry (2005)

The Vedas are the first literary documents in the history of humankind. Initially passed down through generations down over centuries as oral tradition, this valuable treasure of the ancient world has been preserved in the form of manuscripts in different parts of India.

Out of the total number of 28,000 manuscripts housed at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, the 30 manuscripts of the Rigveda form a valuable part of the collection. These manuscripts evince several unique features in terms of scripts, accentuation marks and support material used, among others. Even the pioneering Indologist, Prof. F. Max Müller, has referred to one of these Rigveda manuscripts currently at the Institute. The material in this collection of Rigveda manuscripts was also used to prepare the well known Critical Edition of the Rigveda by the Vaidika Samshodhana Mandala, a premier institute in Pune for Vedic Studies. These manuscripts are of a high value as unique examples of the intellectual and cultural heritage not only of India, but of the world.

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