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Selection of the works exhibited has been strict, for the exhibition had to be limited in size and it had to be representative in all possible ways. Therefore, from the many manuscripts proposed by potential lenders, the oldest or rarest or otherwise most notable of those in each category were invited. This selection is based in the first instance on reports of their rarer holdings, sent by a large majority of the libraries and museums with manuscript collections, in response to a general questionnaire sent out by Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, Joint Secretary of the Organizing Committee, in June, 1963. Previously, a preliminary study of manuscript resources in the country and suggestions from the expert advisers on the Committee had supplied a basic list of manuscripts that they knew and considered indispensable for the exhibition. In some cases, the replies to the questionnaire of June were delayed until the organization of the exhibition had progressed to a point where the suggestions could no longer be acted upon. In a few cases no reply at all was received. These circumstances explain several omissions in the lenders' list which are greatly to be regretted. This first stage of selection was followed by a second, to which the expert advisers on the Organizing Committee of the Congress, the specialists in all parts of India who generously responded to requests for advice, for information and for help in securing loans, and the staff members of the National Museum, competent in the various languages and scripts and in the field of manuscript studies, contributed significantly and appropriately.
Special thanks should be expressed to these two expert advisers of the Organizing Committee, Dr. M. Nizamuddin of Hyderabad, and Dr. V. Raghavan of Madras, who guided the project from its beginnings. In addition, gratitude must be recorded to the numerous scholars throughout India who made suggestions and gave advice on specific manuscripts required to make the exhibition as representative and as complete as possible and indicated likely sources from which to secure them. It would have been impossible to present this exhibition without their generous help, for many important manuscripts did not come to attention as a result of the first general inquiry nor even after the several subsequent ones. Special mention should be made here of Dr. Moti Chandra and Shri Pramod Chandra of the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, Bombay, of Dr. Z.A. Desai, Superintendent for Persian and Arabic
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