Digitizing the Raja of Mahmudabad Palace Library Manuscript Collection
By PMI on March 15, 2017
At the invitation of the Mahmudabad family, Persian Manuscript Initiative (PMI) PI Matthew Thomas Miller traveled to India in January of this year to do a preliminary assessment of the Raja of Mahmudabad Palace Library manuscript collection. We are pleased report that this week work officially began on the Raja of Mahmudabad Manuscript Digitization Project, under the leadership of the Raja, Dr. Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan, and his eldest son, Dr. M.A.A. Khan.
Dr. Miller’s trip was part of a larger multi-institutional effort involving experts and funding from the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme, Hill Manuscript Museum and Library (HMML), and PMI (itself a project of The Roshan Initiative in Persian Digital Humanities of the University of Maryland, College Park) Park and The School of Information of Kent State University) that is aimed at preserving and expanding access to the Mahmudabad collection. The project is currently in the initial stages, but the digital images of the Mahmudabad manuscripts will eventually be made freely available via the vHMML Reading Room—the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library’s new, state-of-the-art manuscript portal.
The Raja of Mahmudabad Palace Library collection contains approximately 2,000 Persian and Arabic manuscripts and it is considered to be one of the most important privately held manuscript collections in India. It is a well-rounded collection with manuscripts from all major genres of premodern Islamic thought and sciences.
While in India, Dr. Miller also met with a series of important manuscript scholars and curators in Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai, which have yielded some exciting new potential projects and collaborations. More information on these will be released in the coming year.