MP Pratap Simha visits ORI with Mukund  of Tara Prakashana e-publishing house

Mysuru/Mysore  With University of Mysore (UoM) intending to digitise the invaluable palm scripts at Oriental Research Institute (ORI), MP Pratap Simha took along Bengaluru’s Tara Prakashana Founder Mukund to ORI this morning to enable him (Mukund) to have a look at the palm scripts there. UoM Registrar Dr. R. Shivappa, ORI Director Dr. S. Shivarajappa and UoM Vice-Chancellor’s Personal Assistant Dr. Chetan were also present.

Speaking on the occasion,  Mukund said that Tara Prakashana, a pioneer in e-publishing had digitised over 3,000 palm scripts pertaining to ancient medicine. He opined that traditional preservation of palm scripts was very difficult especially to prevent fungus growth. He hence suggested total digitisation to make the contents easily readable and pass on for the next generation.

Dr. Shivappa disclosed that ORI has about 70,000 palm scripts and added that  a committee has been constituted by ORI which will meet soon and take a decision on digitisation which would be forwarded to the Vice-Chancellor.

Dr. Shivarudrappa maintained that Kautilya’s Arthashastra in palm script was an invaluable treasure at ORI which when digitised would be a boon to today’s economists.

Pratap Simha recalled that he had met Mukund in Bengaluru and had spoken about digitisation of palm scripts and added that Mukund has given confidence in digitising the ancient scripts. He opined that ORI is a knowledge treasure and assured to get the palm scripts digitised. He added that he would discuss the matter with the Chief Minister and the Union Government for the needed help.