Manuscripts illustrate multiple aspects of a nation's identity - its history, its thought, its imagination and, not least, its will to preserve these things for posterity. The manuscripts which appear in this book come from all corners of India from the most important public and private collections and span a period of almost two millennia of Indian cultural history. A range of theoretical systems, scripts, languages, materials used in the creation of manuscripts, as well as their exquisite calligraphies, illuminations and illustrations are all explored in such a way as to produce a lasting impression of India as a multicultural society that holds knowledge and knowledge systems in high regard.The book was originally commissioned to accompany an exhibition of manuscripts put together for the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst and displayed as part of the India Guest of Honour programme at the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 2006, and many of those manuscripts are reproduced here in colour.