NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Culture is set to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to decipher, digitise and preserve more than one crore ancient manuscripts under its flagship Gyan Bharatam initiative.
The ministry plans to develop a National Digital Repository (NDR) of ancient manuscripts, allowing users to access the preserved documents through text and voice-based queries. The AI-powered platform will feature a ‘Talk-to-Manuscript’ facility, enabling researchers and users to ask questions about individual manuscripts and specific knowledge domains.
Advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technologies will be used to convert manuscripts into searchable digital texts while retaining their original structure, including headings, marginal notes and illustrations.
According to officials, the ministry is in the process of engaging an expert technology firm to develop the platform. It will use AI to transcribe handwritten manuscripts, translate texts and identify their authors. The technology will also help establish the provenance of manuscripts, reconstruct faded texts and identify links between manuscripts held by different institutions and private collections. Every AI-generated response will have to be supported by validated manuscript records and include page-level citations and quotations from the original sources.
Announced in the 2025 Union Budget, Gyan Bharatam aims to survey, preserve, digitise and disseminate the country's manuscript heritage. The Standing Finance Committee (SFC) has sanctioned Rs 491.66 crore for the initiative for the 2025-2031 period.
More than 1.25 crore manuscripts in various languages from across the country have been reported on the Gyan Bharatam portal, launched in September last year. Of these, 11.53 lakh have already been published. The collections, contributed by state archives, universities, trusts and private collectors, range from fragile to well-preserved manuscripts.
The ministry has also proposed setting up new conservation laboratories for palm leaf, birch bark and paper manuscripts. It plans to launch 'Pandulipi Mitras' (manuscript friends), a network of trained grassroots volunteers across around 100 districts, as part of its capacity-building efforts.
Earlier this year, the ministry launched a three-month nationwide survey to identify, document and conserve manuscript heritage. The exercise also aimed to bring previously unrecorded collections into the initiative and strengthen ongoing digitisation efforts.