Dnyaneshwari and Other Ancient Marathi Hand Written Manuscripts Now Available Online

Around 2,200 ancient Marathi hand-written manuscripts including rare copies of Dnyaneshwari will be available online at the website of South Asian Studies Centre of the Deccan College, established by the Chicago University. The old and rare Marathi manuscripts range from 14th century to 19th century. V L Manjul, a former librarian of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), is responsible for making these rare manuscripts available for people all over the world.

Times of India reports

The manuscripts range from the writings of different saints, biographies, purana granthas and translations from Sanskrit to Marathi by prominent writers like Vaman Pandit and Mukteshwar.

It took almost six years for Manjul to locate these manuscripts, a collection which also includes about 100 copies of the Dnyaneshwari,' the oldest being a copy made in 1630.

The descriptive catalogue will also be published in four parts soon under the title Union Catalogue of Marathi Manuscripts'. "Pune has about 5,000 Marathi manuscripts with many more spread all over the state. I have already started looking for the remaining, since I want to get all of them uploaded on the internet for everyone to see and read," V L Manjul adds.

"These manuscripts are assets of different institutes like the BORI, Deccan College, Pune Marathi Granthalaya and from various parts of the state such as Pune, Mumbai, Satara, Kolhapur, Karad and so on. The collection includes about 250 manuscripts which are currently in the possession of the Marathi Manuscripts Centre," says Manjul.

The work of uploading the material has already started and should be completed within the next couple of months.