The huge collection of 1.55 lakh paper manuscripts of Mughal era preserved in the A.P. State Archives gave a hint of the adept administration, justice, equality and harmony during that time, said Dr. Zareena Parveen, director, A.P. State Archives.
She was presiding at the five-day workshop on the ‘Preventive conservation of manuscript’ being jointly organised by the A.P. State Archives and Research Institute and National Mission for Manuscript.
Dr. Parveen said a large number of manuscripts written in ‘Shikista script’ (old cursive style) were acquired from Aurangabad, the headquarter of the Mughals in south India. Another 669 rare manuscripts from early medieval age till the merger of Hyderabad in Indian Union were present in State Archives. These Persian manuscripts recounted the authentic events, she said.
Dr. Usha Suresh, former director of Karnataka Archives wanted historic records to be made more accessible and a congenial atmosphere must be created in the record rooms so that the new generation didn’t run away from searching the main source. Most of the scholars now relied on cut and paste job, she regretted.
The workshop is being attended by resource persons from Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Lucknow.
