It was a phone call that made Ashvin Kumar the proud owner of a 250-year-old palm leaf manuscript of the Ramayana that was possibly sold as junk in Kanyakumari district. “I have a person who lets me know when he comes across these pieces because he is aware of my interest in such works. So the moment, I got to know about it, I rushed to get it from him,” says Ashwin.
Kindle and print versions of the Ramayana might have elbowed out palm leaf manuscripts of yore. But before the advent of print, many prosperous households and temples in Kerala and Tamil Nadu had their own treasured palm leaf manuscripts of the epics and religious works. As time went by and printed Ramayanas found a place in bookshelves, the manuscripts gathered dust or turned to dust. Many families discarded the manuscripts as it was difficult to preserve them and many could not read the old script.
However, collectors who know the value of these precious manuscripts rescue the discarded ones before they are trashed. One such collector in the city is Ashvin who has not only three palm leaf manuscripts of the Ramayana, but also a few more on various aspects of Hindu philosophy and verses in praise of gods of the Hindu pantheon.
Showing you his prized collection of palm leaf manuscripts, Ashvin says that he has collected those from different places in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The TLC he bestows on his collection is evident in the way he gently lifts them from the glass case in his drawing room and carefully puts them on newspapers spread on a table in his living room.
“I got the Killipattu Ramayanam from my father-in-law, C.R.V. Menon, and the rest were collected by me. My father-in-law’s predecessors were working for the government of erstwhile Travancore and so the wooden flap bears the conch insignia of the royal family of Travancore. Each is a piece of painstaking work and art that were done by skilled artisans and scholars of a different century. Each polished dark brown leaves of the manuscripts were made with dexterity and dedication,” explains Ashvin, general manager, The Leela, Kovalam.
With infinite care, he cautiously unfurls a sheaf and spreads them out, the leaves filled with writing that looks like vattezhuthu . “No, it is not vattezhuthu. These manuscripts are written in Malayalam, Tamil and Granthalipi. When the writers were using the Tamil script to write ancient texts, many of which were in Sanskrit, they used the Grantha script for words in Sanskrit that could not be written correctly in Tamil,” he explains.
The leaves were bound with a length of thread that was knotted to hold the manuscripts in place between two wooden flaps.
Although Ashvin cannot read the manuscripts, he says he values them for the workmanship. Of the three Ramayanas in his possession, one is a rare 250-year-old one of the Sundarakandam, another is the Adhyatma Ramayanam written in 1835 and the Killipattu Ramayanam written in 1882.
Some of the other manuscripts are on the Bhagavatham, Vishnu Sahasranamam Vyakhyanam, Vendantham, Megha Mahathmyam from the Padma Puranam and Upanishad Vyakhyanam.
“The Vedantham in Tamil is really tiny. I wonder how the writer managed to write in such a miniscule hand and that too with a stylus. One needs a magnifying lens to read it. It is that small and fine,” he says.
To preserve his prized possessions, Ashvin took the manuscripts to the Oriental Research Institute and Manuscript Library under the University of Kerala, which has the largest collection of palm leaf manuscripts in the country. “Manuscript expert Shaji showed me how to preserve the manuscripts from insects and fungus. Age makes the leaves more fragile and brittle than paper and so they have to be handled with care. Lemon oil is applied on the leaves and that too only in one direction. Then the letters on the leaves become clear,” says Ashvin.
