The proposed digitisation of manuscripts at the Oriental Research Institute (ORI) in Mysuru has gained traction with the University of Mysore taking fresh initiatives in this regard.
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The varsity entered into an MoU with Mythic Society, Bengaluru on February 18. The outcome will lead to digitisation of manuscripts in which a slice of the intellectual heritage of ancient and medieval India are preserved by way of literary works and treatise on various subjects.
The ORI is a repository of about 70,000 manuscripts apart from 41,000 rare printed and other type of manuscripts. The only and fully extant volume of Kautilya’s Arthashastra was discovered at ORI in 1905 by scholar Rudrapatna Shamashastry who published it in 1909. Till then, its existence was known only by references in other ancient works. Arthashastra throws light on the polity and statecraft in ancient India.
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Prof. G. Hemantha Kumar, Vice Chancellor, University of Mysore, said that the project has a time frame of two years, but the completion of digitisation could take up to 6 years. Depending on the progress, the tenure of the project can be extended, he added.
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, hand-written works and collection of printed works, will be made available to the public.
All the palm leaf works and books will be image-scanned and preserved in a safe place while the images will be put for crowdsourced text digitisation. All important palm leaf works will be identified and their unicode digitsation will be undertaken with the help of manuscript readers. Besides, ORI will have an independent portal providing all information about the collection apart from sharing its content as well.
The urgency of digitising the texts stems from the imperatives of preserving the knowledge-base for posterity as the manuscripts are not only old, but have become so brittle and fragile that they turn into powder when opened. The 17 volumes of published catalogues will also be digitised for searchable options along with the new and yet-to-be-published volumes, as per the MoU.
There will be a detailed manpower and resource planning exercise to cover the whole operation at ORI from cleaning and treating the manuscripts to digitisation of the catalogues. As per the MoU, the Mythic Society will hire experienced professionals for the work. Besides, other staff would be recruited or trained for undertaking various tasks at the ORI. All the staff will be paid by the Mythic Society.