Fresh initiative for digitisation of palm leaf manuscripts

Mysore/Mysuru: The digitisation of manuscripts at the Oriental Research Institute (ORI) has gained traction with the University of Mysore  (UoM) signing an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Bengaluru’s Mythic Society on Friday.

Speaking after signing the MoU at Vignana Bhavan in Manasagangothri campus, UoM Vice-Chancellor Prof. G. Hemantha Kumar said that the UoM is taking fresh initiatives for digitisation of manuscripts.

He pointed out that the ORI, which was established 130 years ago, is a repository of about 70,000 manuscripts apart from 41,000 rare printed and other types of manuscripts.

Noting that the only and fully extant volume of Kautilya’s Arthashastra was discovered at ORI in 1905 by scholar Rudrapatna Shamashastry, who published it, Prof. Hemantha Kumar said that till then, its existence was known only by references in other ancient works. Arthashastra throws light on the polity and statecraft in ancient India, he added.

Maintaining that though the project has a time-frame of 2 years, the completion of digitisation could take up to six years, the VC said that depending on the progress, the tenure of the project can be extended.

As per the MoU, the ORI palm-leaf manuscripts  will be cleaned and a regular process for cleaning and preserving them will be put in place while the catalogue of titles that include palm leaf manuscripts, handwritten works and collection of printed works  will be made available to public.

Also, all the palm leaf works and books will be image-scanned and preserved in a safe place, while the images will be put for crowd sourced text digitisation.

This apart, the 17-volumes of published catalogues will also be digitised for searchable options along with the new and yet to be published volumes. UoM Registrar Prof. R. Shivappa, Mythic Society Managing Committee members M.R. Prasanna and Jayasimha, UoM Planning Monitoring & Evaluation Board (PMEB) Director Prof. N. K. Lokanath, Oriental Research Institute Director Dr. K.V. Ramapriya, faculty Rohita Eshwar and others were present.