Few things touch a nerve in Sri Lanka like the idea of our heritage quietly leaving the country, and few neighbours draw as much suspicion as India. So, when an Indian-funded project to preserve and digitize the historic palm-leaf manuscripts at Colombo’s Gangaramaya Temple was launched on October 23, 2026, social media filled the gaps fast. Some posts warned that the manuscripts could be lost or destroyed. Others said Sri Lanka’s palm-leaf books and their “secret” knowledge were being shipped off to India, and some asked who would own the digital copies. Here are the posts that carried the claim.
Social Media Posts:
In the comments, users asked questions such as “Is there a risk of historical information being destroyed through this?” and “Why can’t this be done here in Sri Lanka?”
The same graphic appeared on the official Facebook page of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) on October 26, 2026, with the caption, “Let’s destroy history completely and confirm that we are a province of India.” Another post on October 28 turned it into a political attack, framing the project as the current President surrendering to India.
Yet another post on October 28 raised questions about “the commercial use of Hela wedakama (traditional Sinhala medicine), treasure and archaeological information, and the agreement between Gangaramaya Temple and the IIC.”
Claim examined: Gangaramaya Temple’s palm-leaf manuscripts and their knowledge are being secretly sent to India through the SAMHiTA project, and Sri Lanka will lose them as a result.
We looked at what the project is, what it involves, whether the work is done in Sri Lanka and by whom, whether the manuscripts are kept safe, how similar projects were handled in the past, and who owns the digital copies.
Fact-Check:
The SAMHiTA (South Asian Manuscript Histories and Textual Archive) project, funded by the Government of India to preserve and digitize the historic palm-leaf manuscripts at Gangaramaya Temple, was officially launched at the temple on Friday, October 23, 2026. Mainstream media covered the launch here and here.
According to those reports, the project is jointly run by Gangaramaya Temple and the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi. Its main aim is to use digital technology to preserve the religious, philosophical, linguistic, and cultural knowledge in South Asia’s ancient palm-leaf manuscripts and pass it on to future generations. Newswire reported that the digitization work was expected to finish by the end of November 2026.
A Sri Lankan Team Is Doing the Work, in Sri Lanka
The same reports said a team of Sri Lankan specialists was carrying out the work, guided by project advisor Professor Gamini Ranasinghe. Their footage showed exactly how it is done: a local team examining the manuscripts and digitizing them on the spot, at Gangaramaya Temple.
The High Commission of India in Sri Lanka also issued a statement on the project. It said Gangaramaya Temple signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in July 2026, becoming the first Sri Lankan institution to join the programme, which aims to safeguard South Asia’s ancient intellectual and cultural heritage. The statement said the project is organized by the IIC and Gangaramaya Temple with funding from the Government of India, that the preservation and digitization take place at the temple itself, and that the hands-on work is done by a Sri Lankan expert team led by project advisor Prof. Gamini Ranasinghe. The statement is here.
The photographs released with the statement tell the same story: a local team of scholars handling the manuscripts and digitizing their contents, right here in Sri Lanka.
SAMHiTA Documents South Asian Manuscripts Held Outside India
SAMHiTA stands for South Asian Manuscript Histories and Textual Archive. In Sanskrit, “samhita” means a collection or compilation. The project aims to physically preserve ancient manuscripts and palm-leaf books scattered across South Asia outside India, digitize them through high-resolution photography, and build a database of their contents. In short, it is a global effort to bring South Asian and Indic manuscripts held around the world into one central digital system. Every manuscript catalogued is added to PANDiT (Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts and Records), an open-access global platform on South Asian intellectual history. More details are here and here.
According to the IIC, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) supports the project, and its goal is to survey, document and open up access to manuscripts in international collections outside India. More details are here.
No Manuscript Leaves the Country, Says Project Advisor
Speaking to us, project advisor Prof. Gamini Ranasinghe said that although the SAMHiTA project at Gangaramaya is funded by the Indian High Commission, it runs under the full supervision of a team of Sri Lankan scholars, including himself.
He explained that Gangaramaya holds around 1,500 palm-leaf manuscripts, and more than 1,100 of them have already been conserved. About 500 are at risk of being destroyed, and around 250 of those are already completely ruined. Digitizing a single manuscript is expensive, so the team approached officials at the Indian High Commission, which was running a regional digitization programme. The High Commission agreed to fund 100 manuscripts. With that support, a team of scholars including Ven. Dr. Kirinde Assaji Thero decided which 100 to digitize.
Prof. Ranasinghe stressed that only about 100 manuscripts were chosen, all containing Sutta and Abhidhamma texts tied to Buddhist philosophy, a heritage shared by the whole world. No indigenous knowledge, traditional medicine, yantra-mantra (charms and occult practices), or any other local scholarly texts were included.
He added that no Indian representatives take part in the digitization. The work happens entirely inside the temple grounds. Each manuscript is taken out of its special cabinet one at a time, scanned and put back under police protection and camera surveillance. Because of this, he said, there is no question of any manuscript being taken abroad or lost. He also said any party or journalist is welcome to visit the temple, watch the process, and take photos or videos.
Gangaramaya Confirms the Originals Stay at the Temple
Gangaramaya Temple confirmed to us that manuscripts of religious and literary value, chosen from the collection the temple has looked after for many years, are being scanned and digitized. Not a single manuscript leaves the temple, and the whole process runs under the temple’s full supervision with experts, including specialists in archaeology. The temple’s representative added that the temple holds a complete list of every manuscript being digitized, and that there are plans to put the digitized content online so anyone who needs it can use it.
In an official statement on its Facebook page on October 29, 2026, Gangaramaya Temple said the digitization was under its control and supervision and covered close to 100 manuscripts containing the Buddha’s words and teachings. It said “texts containing Hela wedakama, medicinal recipes, yantra-mantra or any other secret ancestral knowledge” were not included, and that the original manuscripts would remain safely in the temple’s custody. The statement is here.
However, neither that statement nor the official SAMHiTA website said where the digital copies would be stored, who would own them, or what conditions would apply to their use. We look at that below.
SAMHiTA’s First Phase Covered 1,100 Manuscripts in Four Countries
Sri Lanka is not the only country involved. According to the IIC, SAMHiTA’s first phase (2022 to 2023) collected images and descriptions of 1,100 manuscripts with archives in Denmark, France, Nepal, and the United Kingdom. The second phase (2025 to 2026) aims to add another 3,000 manuscripts from South Asia, Europe, and the Americas (here). The partner institutions listed on the SAMHiTA website are shown below (here).
| Country | Partner institution listed on the SAMHiTA website | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Nepal | Aksheswara Mahabihar and Tribhuvan University Central Library, Kathmandu | Plans to document more collections with the Nepal Art Council |
| United Kingdom | Wellcome Collection, London | Listed as a partner institution |
| Denmark | Kenneth G. Zysk Indological Manuscript Collection, Copenhagen | Listed as a partner institution |
| France | Bibliothèque nationale de France | Listed as a partner institution |
The Nepal Art Council appears only as a planned collaboration (here). Harvard Art Museums, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Tokyo, and Cambridge University Library were not on the SAMHiTA partner list as of October 29, 2026.
Information gathered from all these international institutions is fed into PANDiT, the open global database on South Asian intellectual history. Gangaramaya Temple is the first Sri Lankan institution to officially join this international network. More details are here and here.
Earlier Digitisation Projects Also Kept the Originals in Sri Lanka
Foreign-funded digitization of Sri Lankan palm-leaf manuscripts is nothing new. With funding from the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), the Noolaham Foundation digitized 135 manuscripts (29,458 images) from 21 private collections in northern Sri Lanka in 2017 (here), and in 2019 it began another project to digitize and catalogue Sri Lankan Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts (here).
Under EAP rules, original documents do not leave their home country except in exceptional circumstances, and a set of digital copies must be deposited with an institution in that country. Copyright stays with the owners (here).
At home, the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Kelaniya used its own funds to digitize more than 100,000 palm-leaf pages from 40 temples and five private collections, according to a paper presented at an IFLA conference (here). In 2017, the Whiting Foundation and the Prince Claus Fund also gave €27,105 to conserve the palm-leaf manuscripts at the Menikhinna SSPV Temple (here).
Manuscripts Did Leave Sri Lanka During the Colonial Era
Public suspicion about manuscripts going abroad is not baseless. More than 2,000 Sinhala palm-leaf manuscripts collected by Hugh Nevill, who served in Sri Lanka under British rule, are now held by the British Library (here). A record for one book in that collection shows it was bought from Ralph Nevill on April 4, 1903 (here). Several of the 31 Sinhala manuscripts at the Royal Asiatic Society in London were donated by Sir A. Johnston in 1827 and 1828 (here), and McGill University in Canada holds around 120 Sri Lankan palm-leaf books collected in the 1920s and 1930s, most of them on medicine (here).
In 2020, the Central Province Governor said that palm-leaf books on indigenous Ayurveda had been taken out of the country during British rule and were held in several UK museums, and that steps would be taken to obtain copies (here). Even so, we found no evidence that manuscripts were taken away “by the shipload” or secretly sent to India. The records show collections that went abroad through individual collectors.
Taking Original Manuscripts Abroad Needs a Legal Permit
Under the Antiquities Ordinance, objects dating from before March 2, 1815 are treated as antiquities, and no antiquity can be exported from Sri Lanka without a permit from the Director-General of Archaeology. More details are here. Under the National Archives Law No. 48 of 1973, exporting any manuscript (palm-leaf manuscripts included) that is more than 50 years old and of historical, cultural, or literary value also needs a permit from the Director of National Archives. More details are here. Scanning the books inside the temple does not involve exporting the originals at all.
Gangaramaya Keeps Full Ownership of the Digital Copies, Says Project Coordinator
We asked where the digital copies would be stored, who would own them, and what the conditions of use would be. Mahesh Bandara, coordinator of the SAMHiTA project at Gangaramaya Temple, said that 100 manuscripts, chosen by a panel of scholars and the chief incumbent and containing only the Buddha’s teachings, were being digitized under an MoU with the Indian-funded SAMHiTA project.
He explained that the digitized data would go onto an open platform, PANDiT, so anyone could read and study it. Under a legally binding agreement, however, Gangaramaya Temple keeps full ownership of the data, the publications, the digital media, and the palm-leaf manuscripts themselves. Anyone may consult the data freely, he said, but copying it, passing it on to a third party, or using it for any other purpose is not allowed. He also stressed that none of the manuscripts being digitized contain traditional Hela wedakama, Ayurveda, mantras, or verses about hidden treasure.
This Is Neither a Government Deal Nor a New Project
Some posts framed the project as the current government giving in to India. However, the reports show that the MoU was signed between Gangaramaya Temple and the IIC, and SAMHiTA’s first phase began back in 2022 (here). India also announced a US$ 15 million grant to promote Buddhist ties in September 2020 (here), but we found no evidence linking that grant to this project.
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Conclusion:
Posts claiming that digitizing Gangaramaya Temple’s palm-leaf manuscripts under the Indian-funded SAMHiTA project would secretly send the books or their knowledge to India, and cost Sri Lanka its heritage, left out essential context. Gangaramaya Temple and project advisor Prof. Gamini Ranasinghe confirmed that the originals stay at the temple, that a Sri Lankan expert team scans them on the temple premises, and that only about 100 Buddhist religious texts were chosen, with no books on Hela wedakama or yantra-mantra. Under Sri Lankan law, taking original manuscripts out of the country also needs a permit.
The digitized data will be placed on an open-access platform where anyone can read and study it, while Gangaramaya Temple keeps full ownership of the data, the publications, the digital media, and the manuscripts. Anyone can consult the data freely, but copying it, passing it to a third party, or using it for any other purpose is not permitted.
