The textual heritage of the country is vital heritage of great value. Bhutan is one of the unexplored rich archival hub with textual heritage that shall open new doors in the study of Himalayan and Buddhist studies. We aim to digital document these valuable textual heritages in all forms to create our own archival centre sustainable for generations to access for free.
This is aimed at not only offering access to valuable primary resources to scholars but also is an instrumental in safe guarding these rare heritage through creating digital copies. This is because, as is the case with the bad storage and care-taking of the manuscripts with Sumtrhang Monastic centre, it is same with most of such archival centres in the rural Bhutan and across the Himalayas exposing these valuable materials to rats, moisture, liquid leaks for damage and to the risk of loss for fire and earthquakes.
To begin with we first aim to digitize a collection of about 200 rare manuscript titles found in the monastery associated this foundation, the 13th century founded Sumtrhang Samdrup Choedzong monastery, that has never been digitized.
While we have in position the other manuscripts digitized by other agencies in the past, we indent to also collect and digitize as many textual heritage in the country we can to create digital copies following the foot steps of textual digitization pioneers such as the Genes Smith and his followers.
Our ultimate aim to to create a comprehensive digital platform to offer access of rare manuscripts of Sumtrang’s archive to the world.