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MoT goes back to the roots with manuscript tourism

Jyoti Koul - New Delhi

In order to conserve our ancient manuscripts and showcasing them to national and international travellers, the ministry of culture and tourism is working on promoting manuscript tourism in the country. The ministry is working on aspects like marketing, budget, etc to promote manuscripts as a niche tourism product and will also be participating in a seminar and book fair to be held in Germany later this year.

Since this would also promote educational tourism, the three-year old National Mission for Manuscripts set up by the ministry is seeking to enhance access, spread awareness and encourage the use of manuscripts for educational purposes. Many tour operators like Orient Travels & Tours are gearing up to sell these products.

Anand Katti, has made a documentary on the subject, feels that manuscripts are a very niche tourism product. "When a travel major like TCI is selling Da Vinci Code as a package, why can't tour operators sell manuscript tourism? There is a lot of interest among countries like Germany for this product, which is likely to generate a lot of high-end tourists."

According to an official from the ministry of culture, "The world is losing one language every two weeks. Given India's immense linguistic diversity, our major challenge is the dwindling number of scholars who can read and interpret the manuscripts. Therefore, Manuscriptology and Paleography courses of two-three weeks are being organised in all parts of the country."

Indian manuscripts have been written on various subjects including ayurveda, yoga, astrology, astronomy, art, architecture, general administration, finance, etc and are currently housed in a number of museums across India.