India, Nov. 10 -- A rare 16th-century birch-bark manuscript of the Mahabharata, recently recognised by UNESCO, travelled from Kashmir to Pune before becoming part of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute's (BORI) collection in 1970.

German-born Indologist and Sanskrit scholar Georg Buhler brought the manuscript to scholarly attention in 1875, documenting it during his research on ancient Indian manuscripts. Written in the ancient Sharada script across 358 pages of birch bark, traditionally known as bhurjapatra, it is among the rarest surviving records of the Kashmiri recension of the epic.

Its inclusion in UNESCO's Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register has drawn international attention to the manuscript and BORI's cont...