India International Centre · Ministry of External Affairs · IIC-IRD
SAMHiTA
South Asian Manuscript Histories and Textual Archive
सं + हिता · collection · bringing together
3,219+
Published manuscripts
58+
Public collections
4+
Exhibitions
3+
Events and workshops
Digital archive
public scholarship
research access
public scholarship
research access
About the Project
Read the Full Story
Reuniting a Scattered Heritage
SAMHiTA is an initiative to create a relational database and digital archive of Indian and broadly South Asian manuscripts housed in libraries, archives and repositories outside India — through collaboration with institutional partners worldwide.
India's learned inheritance spans medicine, mathematics, architecture, philosophy, aesthetics, and literature. Its continuous transmission from ancient times was through hand-written texts in languages such as Sanskrit, Tamil, Odia, and Bengali — in scripts like Nagari, Grantha, Sharda, and Newari — written on copper plate, birch bark, parchment, and palm leaf.
From around the 2nd–3rd centuries CE, texts fanned outwards to regions like Balkh, Xinjiang, Tibet, Japan, Thailand, and Bhutan. Today, Indic manuscripts are scattered across Asia, Europe, and North America. SAMHiTA is the first attempt to bring together repositories on a common platform, sharing all collected information on PANDiT: Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts and Records.
From the Archive
Featured Manuscripts from the Archive
Why SAMHiTA
A Project of National Knowledge Heritage
Digital Archive & Database
Creating a relational database and open digital archive of Indic manuscripts held in repositories outside India.
Global Collaboration
Partnering with the British Library, Bodleian Oxford, BnF Paris, University of Tokyo, University of Pennsylvania and more.
PANDiT Integration
All collected information is shared on PANDiT — the Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts and Records.
Cultural Heritage Recovery
Recovering, preserving and making accessible centuries of Indian knowledge in medicine, mathematics, philosophy and the arts.
Open Access for Scholars
Consolidating dispersed manuscript information on an online platform accessible to researchers, students and curious minds.
Lecture Series & Education
The Kriti-SAMHiTA lecture series and master classes show how manuscripts unfold centuries-old knowledge traditions.
Leadership Voices
The People Behind SAMHiTA
The history of our manuscripts is intertwined with a very long history of movement of peoples, of ideas, of cultures and even scripts, across the entire space of Asia — Central Asia, West Asia, as well as Southeast Asia. This is a very exciting cultural journey in which I invite all of you to participate.
Shyam Saran
India International Centre
South Asia's manuscript heritage is what connects us with our intellectual and imaginative inheritance. What we do not have is an international collaborative effort to streamline individual efforts so as to achieve greater impact. SAMHiTA will fill this gap.
K.N. Shrivastava
India International Centre
There is an urgent need to retrieve this knowledge and put it back together, so that the world can access it for purposes of research and deeper learning. SAMHiTA works with PANDiT to put together a relational database and open digital library for manuscripts abroad.
Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan
Project Director, SAMHiTA
Collaborative Network
Our Global Collaborators
Collaborator
Wellcome Collection
London, United Kingdom
A major repository partner for cataloguing and digitisation of South Asian manuscript holdings.
Collaborator
Bodleian Libraries, Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom
One of Europe's important repositories for South Asian scholarly texts and manuscript histories.
Collaborator
University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan
A repository for Buddhist manuscript histories that reflect centuries of cultural exchange between South and East Asia.
Collaborator
PANDiT Project
Auroville, India
SAMHiTA's primary knowledge partner for reliable linked data on texts, people, places, and manuscripts.
Collaborator
Cambridge University Library
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Preserving important South Asian manuscript, archival, linguistic, and scholarly collections for international research.
Public Engagement
Exhibitions & Cultural Events
Main Art Gallery, IIC
The Mathematical Sciences
An exhibition tracing India’s contribution to global mathematics.
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United Nations Headquarters, New York
From Shunya to Ananta
The Indian Civilisation’s Contribution to Mathematics, inaugurated at the United Nations Headquarters, New York.
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SAMHiTA Online Exhibition
Evam Vadati Pustakam
An online exhibition capturing the stories of South Asian manuscripts.
View Exhibition
Press & Coverage
SAMHiTA in the News
India This Week
May 12, 2025
EAM Jaishankar Inaugurates 'From Shunya to Ananta' Exhibition at UN HQ
External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar inaugurated "From Shunya to Ananta (Zero to Infinity)" at United Nations headquarters in New York, highlighting India's civilisational contributions to global mathematics.
Read Article
Organiser
May 12, 2025
'From Shunya to Ananta': EAM Jaishankar inaugurates exhibition on India's mathematical heritage at UNHQ
"The idea of zero came from yoga — to achieve 'shunyata'. So the ideas of mathematics came from social science, philosophy." EAM Jaishankar inaugurates landmark exhibition showcasing India's mathematical heritage at the United Nations.
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The Print
Mar 03, 2025
Ancient India's ideas travelled across cosmopolitan Asia. Manuscripts exhibition shows
The SAMHiTA exhibition at IIC reveals how Indian narratives have influenced cultures across Asia — "we were struck by the beauty that emerged from cultural differences, from plurality and interactions," said curator Niharika Gupta.
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Kriti-SAMHiTA Lecture Series
Featured Talks & Events
IIC's ongoing lecture series demonstrates how manuscripts unfold centuries-old knowledge traditions and their diffusion across regions — and glimpses of everyday life in the past.
Kriti-SAMHiTA
The Catalan and Spanish Sanskrit Dictionaries: Updating Sanskrit Lexicography
Òscar Pujol — Director, Instituto Cervantes
26 Apr 2023
Kriti-SAMHiTA
May I Speak to Professor Panini, Please? Discovering the Algorithm for Rule Conflict Resolution in the Aṣṭādhyāyī
Rishi Rajpopat — University of St Andrews, Scotland
31 Jan 2023
Kriti-SAMHiTA
Malayalam Digital Archives: The Gundert Portal and Granthappura
Heike Oberlin & Shiju Alex — Tübingen University / Indic Digital Archive Foundation
25 Nov 2022
Across Borders
International Collections of Indic Manuscripts
In partnership with the Sanskrit Research Institute, Auroville, SAMHiTA is mapping repositories across the world with holdings of Indic manuscripts — collating data to build a list of collections organized by institution, country, size and languages.
Institutional Mandate
Ministry of External Affairs Mandate
The Development Administration Partnership (DPA IV) of the Ministry of External Affairs is the nodal point for India's heritage restoration projects globally — contributing to the restoration of cultural heritage from Sri Lanka to Myanmar to Vietnam to Bhutan. Through SAMHiTA, the MEA extends this mission to scripture preservation and digitization of manuscripts — promoting the revival of Intangible Cultural Heritage including language, rituals, practices, and performing arts in an institutional manner, strengthening India's cultural and heritage linkages with partner nations.
49+Heritage Projects Completed
20+Countries Across the Globe
2020DPA IV Established
Master Class Programme
Master Class Programme
SAMHiTA organises specialised master classes on manuscript studies, palaeography, and South Asian textual traditions, open to scholars, students, and anyone with a passion for this living heritage.
Sessions bring together experts from India and the world to share practical knowledge on reading, cataloguing, preserving, and interpreting manuscripts.
Entry is free and open to all. Please register in advance as seating is limited.
View Workshop Details
Partners & Collaborators