SAMHiTA: 100 Gangaramaya Manuscripts in Colombo Being Digitised

A manuscript archive broader than one religious collection

SAMHiTA stands for South Asian Manuscript Histories and Textual Archive. It is an initiative of the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi, working through its International Research Division and institutional partners. The project focuses on Indian and broadly South Asian manuscripts held in repositories outside India. Its own description explains the Sanskrit name as a collection or compilation. The objective is to connect dispersed information, rather than gather every physical manuscript into one building.

The Colombo work highlights Buddhist heritage, but SAMHiTA's wider subject range is not limited to Buddhist scripture. The IIC lists medicine, mathematics, architecture, philosophy, aesthetics and literature among the knowledge traditions represented in manuscripts. It also distinguishes languages from scripts and identifies a variety of writing materials. A manuscript's subject, language, writing system and physical medium are separate features. Grouping every item under a broad religious or national label would conceal much of what makes the archive valuable.

The Colombo work builds on several earlier stages

The IIC's 2021–22 annual report records a SAMHiTA scoping meeting on 19 July 2021. Its 2023–24 annual report then records the launch of the website and repository in October 2023. That report describes a pilot supported by the Ministry of External Affairs under a March 2022 memorandum of understanding. These dates matter because a new partnership or local launch should not be presented as the beginning of the entire programme.

The 2023–24 report says the pilot produced descriptions and images of 1,100 manuscripts. It involved libraries in Denmark, France, Nepal and the United Kingdom. That is a dated pilot result, not a new count of the Colombo collection or the current total archive. DD News describes Gangaramaya as the programme's first Sri Lankan institutional partner. That is an attributed statement about this initiative, not a claim that no Sri Lankan manuscript had previously been digitised by anyone.

A text, a manuscript and a catalogue record are different things

A text is the intellectual work; a manuscript is a particular handwritten witness to it. Several manuscripts can preserve the same text, while a physical volume may contain more than one work. Their dates also need to be distinguished. An old composition can survive in a much later copy. SAMHiTA's own featured material makes this concrete: it describes a foundational Buddhist text preserved in a comparatively recent exercise book.

A catalogue record describes an item so that it can be identified and found. It is not the item itself, and it is not necessarily a complete digital copy. The British Library's catalogue illustrates the distinction by separately identifying digitised content and warning that some records or links remain incomplete. It also notes that converting older printed catalogues can introduce errors. Discovery therefore depends on checking the description as well as making the record searchable.

A relational database makes connections visible

SAMHiTA says its information is shared with PANDiT, the Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts and Records. The PANDiT project describes its aim as curating reliable information about works, people, places, institutions and manuscripts across premodern South Asia. Prosopography studies people through connected biographical information. Linking a person to a work, place or manuscript can make an intellectual network easier to investigate. It offers more than a list of isolated titles.

Consider a research question about how a particular work circulated. The reader may need to connect different copies, repositories and associated people rather than search for one title spelling. That is the value of a relational database: records can refer to one another. The connection remains a scholarly claim that needs evidence. A shared name does not automatically establish that two authors were the same person, or that two similarly titled manuscripts preserve an identical text.

A page image is not automatically a searchable or translated text

The PANDiT description of SAMHiTA distinguishes bibliographic records, searchable electronic texts and selected digital images. These are complementary outputs. An image lets a reader examine the appearance of a folio. A transcription represents the writing as text that can be searched or edited. A translation expresses meaning in another language. Creating one does not automatically complete the others. That distinction is especially important where handwriting, script variation or damage makes reading difficult.

The temple partnership should therefore be judged against its actual announced work, not an assumption that every manuscript will immediately receive all these outputs. DD News reports digitisation in progress and an expected completion date. It does not establish that all 100 manuscripts are already online, fully transcribed or translated. The separate Sri Lankan report describes a progress review and observation of the digitisation process. Those are signs of ongoing work, not a completed scholarly edition of every text.

Common viewing standards can connect collections without moving them

The IIC's pilot report discusses using the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). IIIF provides open standards for delivering and presenting digital objects through compatible viewers. Its own guide explains functions such as zooming, comparison, annotation and maintaining the order of pages. For manuscript research, page order is not a minor interface detail. Images become more useful when readers can understand the structure of the object to which they belong.

IIIF also separates image delivery from information used to present an object. A manifest brings together structural information and basic descriptive details, including rights information. This can support comparison across institutions without requiring every image to be stored in one central location. The standard creates a way for systems to work together. It does not itself read a script, establish a manuscript's date or confirm that an uncertain catalogue attribution is correct.

Digital access complements, rather than replaces, physical preservation

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) treats documentary preservation as an ongoing responsibility covering both physical and digital objects. Its 17 November 2015 recommendation says originals should be retained when they continue to have value as authentic objects or information carriers. A digital image can preserve visible information, but the material object may hold other evidence. Digitisation is therefore not a reason to neglect the folios after their photographs have been taken.

Access and custody also need to be distinguished. UNESCO's recommendation states that exchanging copies has no implications for ownership of the originals. Its access principles balance wider use with legitimate rights and clearly defined restrictions. The Colombo partnership should not be described as transferring the temple's collection to India merely because digital information is shared. Cultural cooperation can widen access while leaving the original institution's role visible and respecting the conditions governing particular material.

A useful archive needs reliable descriptions, not just a growing image count

The British Library's current catalogue offers a practical reminder: an online record can exist even when its associated digitised content is unavailable. Descriptions drawn from older catalogues can also need correction. These are not reasons to abandon digital access. They show why maintenance, clear identification and honest information about availability are essential. An impressive collection count cannot tell a researcher whether the right item can be found, opened and understood.

For SAMHiTA, the opportunity is to connect the Colombo collection with a broader world of South Asian textual study. The original temple context should remain part of that record, not disappear behind a generic online label. Useful access means that readers can distinguish the physical object, its description, its images and later scholarly interpretation. The value of the partnership will grow as those layers become more reliable and easier to follow.

Conclusion

SAMHiTA's Colombo partnership links heritage cooperation with the practical work of documenting manuscripts. Its promise is not merely to put old pages on a screen. It connects objects, texts and institutions in ways that support careful study. The announced 100-manuscript digitisation effort remains work in progress. Its long-term success will depend on accurate records, usable digital material, care for originals and respect for the collection's context—not the announcement alone.