Documentation of Cultural Heritage in Ancient and Modern Libraries in India

Abstract

Documentation is a set of documents provided on paper, or online, or on digital or analog media, such as audio tape or CDs. Documentation is distributed via websites, software products, and other on-line applications. Cultural Heritage is an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values. Libraries are the cultural institutions of a country and have long been related with the physical aspects of their collections. The magnificent past of Indian culture lies in the ancient manuscripts and rare books in Ancient Indian libraries which were open to all irrespective of caste, creed or religion. Historically libraries were part of Indus-valley civilization. Those libraries are called as “Pustakalayas”. According to the Archaeological research department, evidence of ancient Indian libraries are available from 2500-1500BC. Learning and teaching was traditional works done in India since ancient times. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two great epics which prove that point. As rightly pointed out by Dr.Sarvepally Radhakrisnan- “In the olden days teachers of India were themselves librarians and they were held in higher esteem”. So, they are also known as “mobile libraries’ and “memory libraries”. There are many ancient libraries in India which tell how Indian’s teaching and learning skills use to be there and how their knowledge was rooted into their minds. There exist three kinds of libraries in India, Takshila, Nalanda Kasi, etc- Universities and centers of learning, King’s palaces and temples in India. The author is making an effort to refer to some of the renowned libraries in India which have manuscripts on different subjects and rare cultural books and how these were protecting and preserving the cultural heritage of India in electronic environment.