The tradition of commissioning ambitious and lavishly illustrated manuscripts and series in the Indian subcontinent dates back to the ninth century, possibly earlier. Originally conceived as unified works of art and literature, a large number of these objects were dismantled during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Today, their folios are widely dispersed across public and private collections around the world.
Re-Bound is a new project aiming to digitally reunite folios held across collections worldwide, and to restore these manuscripts and series to the coherence originally intended by their makers, enabling them to be studied and appreciated in their entirety.
The project will make these fragile and often inaccessible materials freely available to the public on a dedicated online platform, featuring high-resolution reproductions, introductory essays, and contextual information—serving scholars, researchers, students, and general audiences. In doing so, Re-Bound strives to encourage deeper engagement with art and visual histories from the Indian subcontinent. The project constitutes a significant contribution to global digital humanities initiatives through the virtual reconstruction of dispersed cultural heritage objects.
