During my childhood,I had seen many foreigners coming to our remote villages and purchasing ancient manuscripts preferably those written on Bhojpatra.
But today,I find no exact mention about the Ancient Indian manuscripts preserved by different countries.
Is there any information about the number of manuscripts and about their accessabilty
I'm sorry I don't have the answer to your question, Ramesh, but I can direct your attention to a fabulous collection of manuscripts from all over the world, including around 300 Indic documents, at the Firestone Library, Princeton University. Here is a link to a page with general information about the Robert Garrett collection:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/789523
On this page is the following entry:
"Indic (approx. 300 volumes, including 166 in Sanskrit, as well as a smaller number of Batak, Pali, Siamese, Singhalese, Tibetan, and other languages of South Asia)."
Garrett's story is interesting. He was not a scholar, but a collector who was fascinated with diverse forms of writing from around the world, and he wanted to make his collection accesible to scholars, so he donated it to his alma mater. For a biographical sketch, please see the article I coauthored with Teresa Basler when she was working at Princeton, cataloging the Mesoamerican manuscripts in this collection:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235949170
If you are interested in studying these manuscripts, the Friends of the Princeton University Library offer research grants to fund short-term visits:
https://rbsc.princeton.edu/friends-princeton-university-library-research-grants
In addition to the manuscript collection, the Firestone Library holds resources that would be useful in constructing a more precise answer to your question. While researching Mesoamerican manuscripts there in 2002, I found a wealth of catalogs (private, sales and library) that allowed me to trace the movement of these documents through time and space.
A quick search of the Princeton University Library catalog produced these pages with sources on Indic manuscripts:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/browse/subjects?q=Manuscripts%2C+Indic%E2%80%94India%E2%80%94Ara%E2%80%94Catalogs
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/SCSB-6835570
May your search be fruitful!
Thank you Dr David for providing extremely valuable information.I am grateful to you.
Can your share your e mail ID with me.I will have to be in touch with you.
With most cordial and warm regards
Sincerely yours
RCSrivastava
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Asia
- India