Context: Recently, the Ministry of Culture has taken up the project of reprinting 108 volumes of Mongolian Kanjur by March 2022 under the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM).
About Mongolian Kanjur

• Mongolian Kanjur, the Buddhist canonical text in 108 volumes is considered to be the most important religious text in Mongolia.
• In the Mongolian language ‘Kanjur’ means ‘Concise Orders’- the words of Lord Buddha in particular.
• It is held in high esteem by the Mongolian Buddhists and they worship the Kanjur at temples and recite the lines of Kanjur in daily life as a sacred ritual.
• The Kanjur are kept almost in every monastery in Mongolia.
• Mongolian Kanjur has been translated from Tibetan.
• The language of the Kanjur is Classical Mongolian.
• The Mongolian Kanjur is a source of providing a cultural identity to Mongolia.

India and Mongolia

• Historical interaction between India and Mongolia goes back centuries. 
• Buddhism was carried to Mongolia by Indian cultural and religious ambassadors  during the early Christian era. 
• As a result, today, Buddhists form the single largest religious denomination in Mongolia. India established formal diplomatic relations with Mongolia in 1955.
• Since then, the overwhelming relationship between both the countries has now reached a new height. 
• The publication of Mongolian Kanjur by the Government of India for the Government of Mongolia will act as a symbol of cultural symphony between India and Mongolia and will contribute to furtherance of bilateral relations during the coming years.

About National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM)

• It was established in February 2003, by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
• It is a unique project in its programme and mandate which seeks to unearth and preserve the vast manuscript wealth of India.
• The Mission has the mandate of identifying, documenting, conserving and making accessible the manuscript heritage of India.
• It is working towards fulfilling its motto i.e. ‘conserving the past for the future.
• One of the objectives of the mission is to publish rare and unpublished manuscripts so that  the knowledge enshrined in them is spread to researchers, scholars and general public at large.

Objectives of NMM

• Locate manuscripts through national-level surveys.
• Document each and every manuscript and manuscript repository for a National Electronic Database that currently contains information on four million manuscripts, making this the largest database on Indian manuscripts in the world.
• Conserve manuscripts incorporating both modern and indigenous methods of conservation and training a new generation of manuscript conservators.
• To train the next generation of scholars in various aspects of Manuscript Studies like languages, scripts and critical editing and cataloguing of texts and conservation of manuscripts.
• To promote access to manuscripts by digitizing the rarest and most endangered manuscripts.
• To promote access to manuscripts through the publication of critical editions of unpublished manuscripts and catalogues.
• To facilitate the public’s engagement with manuscripts through lectures, seminars, publications and other outreach programmes.