# The Archive Manifesto > *"Whatever I have spoken, I have spoken. There cannot be any change."* > —Srila Prabhupada --- ## I. The Original Words Are Sacred Srila Prabhupada's books are not ordinary literature. They are the law books for the next ten thousand years. They carry the potency of the disciplic succession. They have already transformed millions of lives. **We do not edit. We do not "improve." We preserve.** Every word matters. Every diacritical mark matters. The placement of a comma, the choice of a synonym, the structure of a sentence—these were chosen by Prabhupada and his editors during his lifetime. Our job is not to second-guess those choices. Our job is to transmit them accurately. When we find an error, we trace it to the source. Is it our transcription error, or was it in the original? If it's ours, we fix it. If it's in the original, we preserve it and document it. We are archivists, not editors. --- ## II. Human Error Is Inevitable—Systems Prevent It Every person makes mistakes. Every organization drifts over time. The only defense against human error is systematic verification that doesn't depend on any individual's judgment. **Our safeguards:** **1. Original Source Verification** We don't trust copies of copies. We work from scans of original publications—the books printed during Prabhupada's presence. When digital text differs from the printed page, the printed page wins. **2. Version Control** Every change is recorded in Git with who made it, when, and why. Nothing is ever truly deleted. Any change can be reviewed, questioned, or reversed. The complete history is preserved forever. **3. Plain Text Storage** No proprietary formats. No databases that can corrupt. No software that can become obsolete. Just text files that any computer can read—today, tomorrow, in a hundred years. **4. Automated Verification** Scripts check for broken links, missing files, formatting errors, and inconsistencies. Computers don't get tired. Computers don't skip steps. What can be automated, is automated. **5. Public Transparency** The archive is open. Anyone can verify our work against original sources. Anyone can check the change history. Errors have nowhere to hide. --- ## III. No Single Point of Failure If this archive depends on one server, one organization, one country, or one person—it will eventually be lost. Everything centralized eventually fails. **The solution is distribution.** ``` One copy can be lost. Ten copies can be lost. A million copies cannot be lost. ``` **Our approach:** **1. The Format Enables Replication** Plain text files in folders. Anyone can copy the entire archive to a USB drive in minutes. No special software required. No permissions needed. No accounts to create. **2. Git Enables Synchronization** Every clone of the repository is a complete backup with full history. The archive exists on GitHub, on personal computers, on backup drives, in cloud storage. Destroy any one—or any hundred—and the rest remain. **3. No Organizational Dependency** This archive doesn't require our organization to exist. The files work without us. The format is documented. Anyone can continue the work. We are stewards, not owners. **4. Open Licensing** The teachings belong to humanity. Our organizational work—the code, the structure, the documentation—is open source. Fork it. Improve it. Spread it. --- ## IV. Technology Serves the Mission We use technology because it helps preservation. The moment technology becomes an obstacle, we abandon it. **Our principles:** - **Simple over clever.** A text file outlasts any app. - **Standard over custom.** Markdown, Git, and Unicode will exist in 50 years. Our proprietary format won't. - **Distributed over centralized.** Many copies in many places beat one perfect server. - **Transparent over convenient.** We choose methods that can be verified over methods that are merely easy. We don't chase new technology. We choose proven technology. Boring is good. Boring lasts. --- ## V. The Standard for Accuracy How do we know if we've done our job correctly? **The test is simple:** *Can a scholar in the year 2525, with only our files and original book scans, verify that every character matches?* If yes, we've succeeded. If no, we've failed. This means: - Every verse must match the original publication exactly - Every diacritical mark must be correct - Every page reference must be traceable - Every change must be documented Perfection is the goal. We will fall short. But the gap between our work and the original should shrink with every correction, never grow. --- ## VI. The Inheritance We Leave We are not building this archive for ourselves. We are building it for: - The devotee who hasn't been born yet - The scholar who will study these texts in 2200 - The civilization that will rebuild after the next collapse - Anyone, anywhere, anytime who sincerely seeks these teachings **Our responsibility is transmission across time.** Digital preservation is hard. Most digital content from the 1990s is already lost. Formats change. Companies disappear. Links rot. The only defense is simplicity and redundancy. We choose: - Formats that don't require special software - Storage that doesn't require special access - Methods that don't require special knowledge - Structures that explain themselves The archive should be usable by someone who has never heard of us, using technology that doesn't exist yet, in a language we don't speak. --- ## VII. The Commitment We commit to: 1. **Never alter Prabhupada's original words** without explicit documentation tracing to source 2. **Maintain complete version history** of every file forever 3. **Use only open, standard formats** that don't require proprietary software 4. **Enable unlimited replication** without permission or payment 5. **Verify against original sources** not derivative copies 6. **Document our methodology** so others can continue the work 7. **Operate transparently** with public access to processes and history This is not a website. This is not a product. This is a preservation project for teachings meant to last ten thousand years. We build for permanence. --- *"I have given you everything. Now it is up to you to preserve it."* --- **How to Help** - **Verify**: Compare digital text to original book scans - **Replicate**: Download and store copies of the archive - **Report**: Identify errors against original sources - **Contribute**: Help with code, documentation, or infrastructure - **Spread**: Share these files widely Every copy is a backup. Every reader is a guardian. --- *The Srila Prabhupada Archive* *[[archive/vision|Our Vision]] · [[archive/roadmap|Roadmap]] · [[archive/support|Support]]*