Published Catalogs and Lists
Given that many of the present libraries were
founded during the British colonial period, many are called “oriental,” for
example, the Khuda Bakhsh
Oriental Public Library. To date I am unaware of a union catalog of manuscripts
available in various libraries in India. Individual
libraries have published their catalogs.
Oddly, most catalogs for Arabic script manuscripts have been published
and continue to be published in English transliteration, not in Arabic,
Persian, Turkish, and Urdu. Given that
each library and cataloger has used a different scheme of transliteration,
there is bound to be endless confusion, unless the catalogs are issued in the
language of the manuscript. A critical examination of these issues is by Nasim Fatima, Urdu Makhtutat ki Catalag sazi
aur Miyar Bandi, (Karachi: Library Promotion Bureau, 2000) and Sharif Husayn Qasimi,
“Hindustan main Fihrist-i Mushtarik
Nuskhaha-yi Khatti Farsi ki Zururat aur
Chand Tajawiz,” Journal
of the Arabic and Persian Research Institute 8 ((1989-90): 111-116 For possibilities of cooperative efforts
among manuscript libraries see the article by Abid Riza Bidar, “Regional Planning
for Unearthing Knowledge Buried in Oriental Manuscript Libraries,” pp. 621-72,
in Third Congress of Muslim Librarians, (Ankara: Department of Libraries
and Publications, Ministry of Culture, 1989). In February 2000, India’s central government initiated a nationwide project
to “prepare a comprehensive list of the manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Turkish
and Urdu that are with the government, public institutions and individuals.”
The project, called National Mission for Preservation of Manuscripts has
divided the task of a union catalog preparation between three institutions as
far as Arabic script manuscripts are concerned.
Thus the Salar Jang Museum Library will work
on the collections in southern Indian states and Maharashtra, whereas the Raza Library
in Rampur, U.P. will concentrate on northern states, while the Khuda Bakhsh Library will focus
on the eastern states. In addition to
the libraries, the project will include listing of manuscripts in the dargahs, Islamic shrines, mosques and madrasas,
religious schools. It is hoped that this will constitute the first
major step in a national inventory of the manuscripts, leading to preservation
and publication. Like libraries
elsewhere, the Indian manuscript collections are in a poor state of preservation,
compounded by inclement, humid weather extremely injurious to paper. An overview of issues faced by Arabic
manuscript libraries in India is the subject of an article by a former director
of the Khuda Bakhsh
Library, Habib al-Rahman Chighani,
“Mashriqi kitab khanah: masayil wa mustaqbal,” Kitab Numa (October 2000): 3-9, as also Khuda Bakhsh Regional
Seminar on Significant Manuscripts: A Brief Report, (Patna:
The Library, 1992). An example of particular issues of manuscripts in India is found in Shuaib Azami’s article, “Makhtutat ke Ikhtitamiye aur Un ke Katib,”
Burhan (Delhi) (April 1979): 37-47.