Global Conference on India’s Manuscript Heritage Begins at Vigyan Bhawan
PM Modi to Lead Global Effort to Preserve India’s Manuscripts.
A landmark three-day international conference, “Reclaiming India’s Knowledge Legacy through Manuscript Heritage,” begins on September 11 at Vigyan Bhawan, aiming to unite custodians of India’s estimated 10 million ancient manuscripts under the Gyan Bharatam Mission. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend and deliver an address on September 12, while Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will inaugurate the event, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah will preside over the valedictory session on September 13.
The conference, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, seeks to create a nationwide ecosystem for the preservation, digitization, and dissemination of India’s manuscript heritage. Union Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal emphasized building an “alliance of all custodians,” including academic institutions, museums, libraries, and private collectors, to be formalized through the New Delhi Declaration on Manuscript Heritage. The event will establish expert working groups on decipherment, conservation, translation, digital archiving, and institutional collaboration, involving experts from the Archaeological Survey of India, IIT-BHU, and INTACH.
Sachchidanand Joshi, Member Secretary of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), highlighted presentations on digitalization, AI, and machine learning applications for manuscript decoding to be showcased before the Prime Minister. Over 1,100 participants, including academics, professionals, and students, will attend, alongside winners of the Gyan Setu competition for young AI and machine learning entrepreneurs. The Gyan Bharatam Mission envisions a hub-and-spoke model, with New Delhi as the central hub and regional centers in every state, leveraging existing institutions to avoid bureaucratic overlap.
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Commemorating Swami Vivekananda’s 1893 address at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the conference underscores India’s commitment to preserving its intellectual and cultural legacy for global knowledge-sharing.
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