Digitisation of Sanskrit Manuscripts and Books in the State of Jammu and Kashmir (EAP886)

This project intends to digitise two collections of manuscripts and books in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The team will carry out work in both the Kashmir Research Institute, Srinagar (Mansour Daikoo collection) and also at the Raghunath Temple Library, Jammu. The focus will be to digitise material relating to Sanskritism, Hinduism, Kashmir Shaivism (a Tantric school of Mysticism indigenous to Kashmir), Tantra and Mysticism.

The archive at the Kashmir Research Institute is thought to be one of the most important collections of Hinduism and Kashmir Shaivism in the world. At present it is mostly uncatalogued and is in a poor state of preservation. The Raghunath Temple Library has around 6000 manuscripts, of which around 2000 have already been digitised by the project holder and his team. It also houses ten to twenty thousand books including many rarities, most of which are uncatalogued. The collections are particularly vulnerable to pests and other environmental conditions, but also to the political instability in the region especially given that the Raghunath Temple has been targeted by two separate suicide attacks in the past.