New Delhi Feb. 9. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) today became the proud owner of ``one of the greatest treasures of Indian civilisation _ the Kashmiri Paippalada Recension of the Atharvaveda'' after it received a digital copy from Germany.

The manuscript in CD-ROM was presented to the IGNCA President, L.M. Singhvi, by the German Ambassador to India, Hiemo Richter, here.

The manuscript is in the possession of the University of Tubingen, Germany. This is the first time it is reaching India in the form of CD-ROM, made possible by a software company e-ternals.com, which has evolved a method of digitising manuscripts and ancient artefacts without damaging them, IGNCA said in a press release.

The Founder-Director of this initiative, Gunthard Mueller, wanted to present the CD-ROM version of the manuscript to India, where it belonged, and IGNCA was chosen as the recipient of the gift.

Narrating the journey of this Kashmiri manuscript reaching Germany dating back to the early 19th Century, Mr. Mueller said this manuscript was the first Sharda script to reach Germany in 1870s and many scholars have learnt the script from it. It was obtained from the original custodian, Maharaja of Kashmir, by German indologist, Rudolf von Roth, who upon his death gave it to the Library of the Tubingen University. This is one of the only two surviving recensions of the nine known recensions of Atharvaveda, the other being Shaunaka recension. _ PTI