The National Mission for Manuscripts was launched in February 2003 by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, to save this most valuable but less visible of our cultural inheritances.

An ambitious five-year project, the Mission seeks not merely to locate, catalogue and preserve India's manuscripts, but also to enhance access, spread awareness and encourage their use for educational purposes. Working with specially identified Manuscript Resource Centres (MRCs) and Manuscript Conservation Centres (MCCs) in states all over the country, the Mission has collected data on manuscripts located in a variety of places, from universities and libraries to temples, mathas, madrasas, monasteries and private collections.


The Mission also brings manuscripts and the knowledge they house to the public through lectures, seminars, publications and specially designed programmes for schoolchildren and university students.