Nizam’s Rare Manuscripts Digitised

Hyderabad: From Ramayana and Bhagavata Mahapurana in Persian to Quran verses on gold-coated papers, a large collection of ancient documents belonging to the Nizam are being conserved and converted into digital formats at the Telangana heritage department.The scripts of the Adil Shahi, Bahmani and Qutub Shahi dynasties, which were personal possessions of the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, along with the Hyderabad Museum collection and a Quran written by Aurangzeb, are taking digital form.The collection includes several Qurans on gold-coated papers and Sufi saint scripts. One such important manuscript is Deewan-e-Hafiz by Khwaja Muhammad Hafiz Shirazi, the Iranian poet who penned Sufi poetry in Persian.The Bhagavata Mahapurana, an 18th-century poetic work on the life of Krishna with traditional Indian-style paintings, is undergoing preservation. In addition, a rare 10.5-metre-long royal scroll of Maharaja Itidad Akhwan, which contains a collection of letters, has already been digitised. The texts were written in Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Sanskrit.The papers in several of these books had become brittle, as they were stored in a locker, leading to termite damage. Some books have missing pages while others lost their original order. To restore the pages, the team is using herbal technology, which enhances the lifespan of the documents beyond 200 years.The Noor International Microfilm Centre from the Iran Culture House, New Delhi, is undertaking the work under the guidance of Dr Mehdi Khajeh Piri, founder of the centre, with funding from the Iran government to save the culture.Digitisation in-charge Habeeb Ashraf said they found the collection to be much larger than expected. “Some books take up to a month to restore and rearrange properly. These works will be useful for researchers as they provide insights into rulers and their administrations, grants and architecture,” he said.Heritage department director Prof. K. Arjun Rao said the department has valuable antiquities preserved by the Nizam. “The conservation is aimed at preserving the ancient and valuable documents, which will be useful for future generations,” he said.



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