Indian Culture Repository: Access India's Heritage Through UMANG

The portal is also accessible through UMANG, allowing users to explore thousands of e-books, rare books, paintings, manuscripts, and archival documents related to India's cultural heritage. The portal is accessible in English and Hindi and gives open access to India’s cultural knowledge resources for users across local, national and worldwide audiences.

Core Participating Institutions

The portal consolidates digitised content from the following key institutions under the Ministry of Culture and its affiliated bodies.

What Does the Repository Contain?

The Indian Culture portal hosts 46 curated cultural categories with resources spanning multiple formats, sourced from affiliated museums, libraries, and archives across India.

• Books and Written Archives: Includes Rare Books, E-Books, Manuscripts in Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu, and regional languages; Gazettes and Gazetteers; and the Indian National Bibliography; Union Catalogues; and archival records sourced from national libraries and IGNCA.

• Visual Arts and Imagery: Covers Paintings, Photo Essays, Photo Archives, Museum Collections, and general cultural Images drawn from affiliated national museums and state archives.

• Cultural Heritage: Features Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO-recognised traditions, Forts of India, Ajanta Caves documentation, Textiles and Fabrics of India, and Food and Culture resources, Musical Instruments of India, oral traditions, social practices, rituals, and festivals.

• Media and Stories: Comprises Videos, Audios, Folk Stories, Snippets, and Research Papers covering performances, oral traditions, and academic work on Indian culture.

How to Access the Indian Culture Repository?

The portal is accessible through a UMANG web application and via the UMANG app, both free of cost with no mandatory registration for basic browsing.

Via Indian Culture Website:

The website is available for open browsing without login. Registration is optional and allows for personalised bookmarking.

• Visit indianculture.gov.in

• Browse by category or use the global search bar to find specific content

• Use metadata filters to narrow results by type, language, region, or institution

• For audiovisual archives, navigate to the NCAA section within the portal

Via UMANG App or Web Portal:

The Indian Culture Portal is listed as a service on the UMANG app (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance). To get access, an individual can use the official app from the Play Store or the Apple App Store.

• Download the UMANG app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store

• Log in using your mobile number and MPIN, or register if you are a new user.

• Search for "Indian Culture" in the UMANG search bar

• Access the portal's services directly from within the app

Via the web portal:

• Visit the Official site https://web.umang.gov.in/landing/

• In the search section, given on the top right corner, type “Indian Culture Repository.”

• Click on “Indian Culture” and the official page will appear.

Wrapping up!

The Indian Culture Portal was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and supported by the Ministry of Culture. The portal serves as a centralised digital platform for India's cultural resources, covering rare manuscripts, digitised artworks, and virtual documentation of heritage sites.