Walter Rindfleisch collection Culturally Significant Private Collection Handed Over to Nepali Government
27 April 2026
Palm-leaf scrolls and other historical documents were conserved, digitized and scientifically analyzed at Heidelberg University
A collection of over 800 items including historical documents from Nepal was handed over to the Nepali state: Sagar Phuyal, chargé d’affaires of the embassy of Nepal in Berlin, accepted them on behalf of the Nepali government. An agreement to that effect was signed at a ceremony on 24 April 2026 at the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies of Heidelberg University. The documents from the 13th to the 20th century had been left by a private collector to the Indologist and religious studies scholar Prof. Dr Axel Michaels, senior professor at Ruperto Carola’s South Asia Institute. Subsequently, the culturally significant stocks – including 460 palm-leaf scrolls – were expertly conserved, digitized by Heidelberg University Library, and scientifically cataloged.
During the event to hand over the objects, Dr Manik Bajracharya and Dr Rajan Khatiwoda provided an insight into the collection using selected documents. The two researchers from the South Asia Institute are involved in the research project “Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal” headed by Prof. Michaels, which is based at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Prof. Dr Christiane Brosius, a researcher at the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, presented the Nepal Heritage Documentation Project, which systematically documents and digitizes endangered Nepali cultural heritage – such as temples, monasteries, palaces and inscriptions. Greetings were brought, among others, by Prof. Dr Marc-Philippe Weller, Vice-Rector for International Affairs and Diversity, and Prof. Dr Hans Harder of the South Asia Institute.
Known as the Walter Rindfleisch collection, the items comprise 460 palm-leaf scrolls, including specimens from the 13th century. The collection’s stock is supplemented by royal documents, court records, Sanskrit manuscripts as well as personal testimonials from several centuries, including diaries and travel books of Nepali rulers. When the collection reached Axel Michaels, there was hardly any reliable information available about how the documents had been acquired and taken out of the country. Before the manuscripts could be returned to Nepal, which had also been the wish of the collector, the priority was to ensure the conservation of the partially fragile material. Many items in the collection were acutely endangered due to their age alone.