HMML is actively pursuing projects in India and throughout South Asia. Work in India began in 2008 with colleagues from CEU, establishing ties with the ancient Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala in southwest coastal India, who trace their origins back to the earliest Christian era. Their tradition, rooted in the Syriac Christianity of Mesopotamia and incorporating elements of local culture, survived the arrival of Portuguese missionaries in the late 15th century. Archivist Reverend Father Ignatius Payyappilly of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly, Kerala, led the field work beginning in 2008 to digitize paper and palm-leaf manuscripts written in Syriac, the local language of Malayalam, and Malayalam Garshuni (Malayalam written with Syriac alphabet). In 2018, HMML began working in northern India with the library of the Raja of Mahmudabad in Lucknow—a collection of over 2,000 Persian manuscripts still held by the family. These collections in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh illustrate the blending of imported religious and literary culture fused with local traditions.

In 2023, HMML began work with DiPiKA to digitize and catalog endangered, largely-Hindu manuscripts written in Sanskrit, Malayalam, and Manipravalam languages. These collections are kept in private households and religious institutions of the two southernmost states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The manuscripts are the only traces left of specific intellectual, religious, and literary traditions peculiar to that part of the Indian subcontinent. The project, which expands a differentiated and multilingual history of these regions, is a collaboration with EFEO, CSMC, and the Vadakke Madham Brahmaswam.

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