Kathmandu, November 9
The Nepal Heritage Documentation Project (NHDP) has collected detailed information on more than 2,000 historical monuments, over 2,500 inscriptions and more than 8,000 archaeological objects in Nepal over the past eight years.
Launched in 2018, the project has also produced documentaries and records on various jatras, festivals and forms of intangible cultural heritage. The collected information has been incorporated into the Department of Archaeology’s National Heritage List and the project’s digital database.
The project was carried out in collaboration with the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Nepal’s Saraf Foundation for Himalayan Traditions and Culture, and the Department of Archaeology. The Arcadia Fund of the United Kingdom provided the principal financial support for the project.
Other collaborating institutions included Heidelberg University Library, Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust (KVPT), UNESCO Nepal, the Centre for Art and Design at Kathmandu University, and the Kathmandu office of Heidelberg University’s South Asia Institute. i3 Mainz, Germany, was also involved in the initial phase.
With the completion of the project, the Saraf Foundation will take responsibility for operating, maintaining and managing the digital database through the Nepal Architecture Archive. Project head Professor Christiane Brosius said the digital repository would provide a resource for researchers, students and heritage enthusiasts for study and conservation. She said the completion of the project should be viewed as the beginning of a new phase in heritage preservation.
Saraf Foundation Chairperson Arun Saraf said the foundation was committed to preserving the collected knowledge and data in Nepal and ensuring easy access to them. He said the foundation would continue managing the database and making information available to researchers and experts working in the heritage sector.
Brosius said the project had also prepared detailed records of historical buildings and cultural heritage sites in Nuwakot. She said the documentation would be useful for reconstructing and conserving structures damaged or washed away by floods in their original forms.
More than 800 historical Nepali manuscripts and documents from the collection of Joseph Peter Rindfleisch have also been handed over to the National Archives. The materials, brought back to Nepal from Germany, include palm-leaf manuscripts, lal mohar (royal seals and orders), court records, Sanskrit texts and travel memoirs dating from the 13th to the 20th centuries.
In accordance with the wishes of the late collector Rindfleisch, the materials were entrusted to Professor Axel Michaels of Heidelberg University in 2018. After their preservation, digitisation and cataloguing were completed in Germany, the materials were brought back to Nepal and handed over to the National Archives.
—RSS
