Medical manuscripts form a precious part of India’s cultural heritage. Today only a very small fraction of these manuscripts is accessible to medical practitioners and researchers. A large number of manuscripts are in a precarious state and are in danger of getting irretrievably lost.

These manuscripts are written on palm-leaves, bhurja patra, old hand-made paper and commonly available paper. The languages used for their writings are Sanskrit, including Brahmi, Pali, Burmese, Sinhalese and Tibetan, Hindi and other regional languages of India, including Nepalese and Newari, Urdu, Arabic, Persian and old Granthan Scripts.

Traditional medicine is an area where a large number of manuscripts are still in private hands. Considering that medicine is perhaps the most widespread branch of traditional science, one can conjecture that the order of magnitude of manuscripts in medicine would perhaps run into at least 50,000.

There is a need to develop a nationally-coordinated programme to assist colleges of traditional medicine and other competent institutions in surveying, collecting and computerizing medical manuscripts from different regions in the country and abroad. Copies of digitised manuscripts will be placed in a centrally-located institution and in regional repositories (nodes), which can be used by medical researchers. The central and regional nodes will index, prepare bibliographies, collage and publish these manuscripts and also support research programmes that have contemporary relevance.

It is also important to start a training programme in manuscriptology and to offer long-term fellowships to committed manuscripts scholars. FRLHT has at this stage prepared a white paper on conservation of medical manuscripts. We are trying to raise an endowment to implement a program in this regard.