Digitisation of rare manuscripts nearing end

PUDUCHERRY: The digitisation of rare Saivaite manuscripts is nearing completion at the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO), a research institution, under the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The Shivaite Manuscripts of Pondicherry, which is deemed a UNESCO “Memory of the World” collection, is the one of the largest collection of texts of the Saiva Siddhanta. The 1,614 palm-leaf bundles at the Ecole francaise d’Etreme-Orient (EFEO) library were from a single collection in Tirunelveli district. The manuscripts transmit texts of every branch of pre-modern Indian learning and nearly half of it relates to one of the major theistic traditions of India, that are concerned with the worship of God Shiva.The Chennai-based Sanmarga Trust India has taken up the enormous task of digitisation. Nellaiyappan of the Trust said his firm took up the task in December 2008, and completed digitisation of some 8,700 manuscripts at the French Institute of Pondicherry. “Five months ago we took up this project and we would finish it by this month-end,” he said and added that completed portions would be uploaded on the EFEO website.He said that his trust had plans to keep Saiva-Agamas portions separate and would provide simple translations of all the manuscripts in Tamil and English.According to Satyanarayana, a researcher associated with the EFEO, the palm-leaf manuscripts, belonging to the 18th and 19th centuries and most of these codices are written in Grantha script (used for writing Sanskrit), Tamil and Malayalam. The writing is incised in the leaves with a stylus and the ink is then rubbed over, which remains in the incisions.Shanthi, the librarian where the manuscripts are preserved, told Express that the palm leaves are regularly brushed and painted with lemon grass oil to repel the insects and the whole collection is kept in an air-conditioned room.