(Audrey) Last week, while in Gujarat, I went to the Oriental Institute of Baroda. The Oriental Institute is a decades old institution known for both serious scholarship as well as an extensive collection of Sanskrit manuscripts. I went with two manuscripts in mind of which I wanted copies. My first impression walking into the Institute was incredibly favorable.
I met with the director instantly and within 5 minutes was introduced to the head manuscript lady. Two great things here—first, a lady, which is so refreshing in my overly male-dominated slice of India, and second, she was so incredibly nice. I’m working on Sanskrit and Persian—how wonderful! I wanted to see manuscripts— no problem. I didn’t even have to bring up the issue of obtaining copies of the manuscripts since she offered it first. All smiles and help, but then, “are you aware of our fees?” she asked me before bringing out the manuscripts. “No”, I replied, “please tell me.”
The fees were as follows—
150 rupees (3 USD) handling charge per manuscript to see it.
200 rupees (4 USD) per exposure to obtain digital copies
2,000 rupees (45 USD) flat fee per day to photograph with your own camera.
The money adds up fast here—3 bucks per manuscript to look. Think about if you had to shell out 3 shiny bills every time you picked a library book off the shelf. 4 bucks per page for digital images. I needed a 44 page manuscripts copied—that’s nearly 200 USD. Imagine if you wanted a 200-page work. 45 bucks to use my own camera for the day? Luckily, they were willing to do the digital photographing for me with their camera, so I saved that fee at least. All in all, I walked out having dropped around 150 USD, far more than I’ve spent at any other archive in India.
Are manuscripts, i.e. pre-print books, commodities or India’s heritage? Answer: they’re both. Manuscripts are certainly property, and they can of course be valued accordingly. But manuscripts also contain and constitute many of the rich literary, historical, philosophical, etc. traditions of India. Can you put a price on your heritage? Sure you can, but what if that price is too high, so high that people won’t pay it? Does India want to price its past at the cost of making it inaccessible to scholars? Fitting India’s premodern past into the capitalist present is never easy, but I must say that I think the Baroda Oriental Institute has some work to do in adjusting the compromise.
Tags: Baroda, books, commodities, copies, fees, heritage, history, literature, manuscript, money, oriental institute, past, price, property, research, scholars, Vadodara
June 8, 2010 at 12:08 pm |
[...] Moreover, they are charging reasonable rates (5 rupees per page = 10 cents. For a comparison see here). But think about it—I have come from America, I have actually bothered to learn [...]