About the Book The National Mission for Manuscripts was established in February 2003 by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India with the purpose of locating, documenting, preserving and disseminating the knowledge content of India’s handwritten manuscripts, said to be the largest collection of handwritten knowledge documents in the world. While looking ahead to reconnect with the knowledge of the past, the Mission is in the process of trying to re-contextualize the knowledge contained in manuscripts for the present and the future generations. The Mission launched a lecture series titled “Tattvabodha” in January 2005. Since then, a monthly lecture series is organized in Delhi and other academic centres all over the country. Tattvabodha has established itself as a forum for intellectual discourse, debate and discussion. Eminent scholars representing different aspects of India’s knowledge systems have addressed and interacted with highly receptive audiences over the course of the past few years. This volume, seventh in the series, consists of twelve papers — eleven in English and one in Hindi — presented by well-known and upcoming scholars in different Tattvabodha lectures organized by the Mission. The volume finds its merit in varied subjects across Indian knowledge system such as Accessing Manuscripts in the Digital Age; Physics in Ancient Indian Knowledge System; Critical and Comparative Review of the Principal Upaniṣads; The Concept of Śiva in Śiva-rahasya; The Rāmacaritam of Ciraman; Editing of Ayurvedic Manuscripts; The Dravyanāmākara Nighaṇṭu; Tribal Heritage and Indigenous Philosophical Wisdom of Odisha; Glimpses of Archival Manuscripts; Gāndhārī: A Key Mother Figure of the Mahābhārata; Depiction of Indian Culture in Sanskrit Inscriptions of Cambodia; Phāsī Kathā-Paramparā aura Ārabyayāminī.

Illustrations: 6 B/W & 3 Colour Illustrations Description: The National Mission for Manuscripts was established as a five-year mission in February 2003 by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India with the purpose of locating, documenting, presenting and disseminating the knowledge content of India s handwritten manuscripts, said to be the largest collection of handwritten knowledge documents anywhere in the world. While looking ahead to reconnect with the knowledge of the past, the Mission is in the process of trying to re-contextualize the knowledge contained in manuscripts for the present and the future generations. The Mission launched a lecture series titled Tattvabodha in January 2005. Since then, a monthly lecture series in Delhi and other centres in the country, Tattvabodha has established itself as a forum for intellectual discourse, debate and discussion. Eminent scholars representing different aspects of India s knowledge systems have addressed and interacted with highly receptive audience over the course of the past year and a half. The present volume comprises the first ten lectures under Tattvabodha. A glance at the list of contributors will reveal that the Mission has had the privilege of hosting the finest exponents of Indian culture and the compilation of their lectures makes for invaluable literature. The contributors are listed in alphabetic order: M. K. Byrski, R. Champakalakshmi, Lokesh Chandra, D. P. Chattopadhyaya, G. N. Devy, Irfan Habib, Sheldon Pollock, Namwar Singh, M. S. Valiathan and Kapila Vatsyayan.