Ancient palm-leaf inscriptions digitised in a phased manner

Visakhapatnam : Century-old palm-leaf inscriptions are not just preserved in this library but also get digitised in a phased manner.

Even as Dr. VS Krishna Library of Andhra University has a rare collection of books in various genres that count close to 5,36,000, it does have over 2,660 rare bundles of delicate ancient palm-leaf inscriptions encapsulating the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Vedic discourses, ‘Itihasas’ and astrology, among others, in eight different scripts such as Telugu, Tamil, Sanskrit, Bengali, Devanagari, Pali, Prakrit and Grantha.

Wrapped in a red-tinted cloth, bundles of century-old Talapatras (palm leaf inscriptions) have neatly been stacked on the shelves dotting a section of the library.

The oldest library of Andhra University comprises a vast collection of books along with 9,500 journals.

Serving as a hub for academic engagement, the library incepted in 1927, a year after the university was founded, is known for housing a generous collection of Talapatras too.

A few of the palm-leaf inscriptions date back to the eighth or ninth century. Librarians mention that many of the ancient Talapatras were donated to the university by various Maharajas and other volunteers for preservation.

Of them, Bobbili Raja gave away 220 palm leaf inscriptions, Arsha Grandhalayam representative presented 1368, Imani Venkateswarlu from Tummapala presented 119, Nisthala Ramanaiah from Nandipalli presented 66, Annapoorniah from Gavaravaram presented 40. “Besides, AU officials bought bundles of Talapatras from different places as well. Currently, the library has 2,663 palm-leaf inscription bundles,” shares Prof P Venkateswarlu, chief librarian of Dr. VS Krishna Library, AU.

As part of the first phase of digitising the palm leaf inscriptions, a set of 2,50,000 palm leaves of various Granthas were uploaded to the system.

“The exercise of digitising such manuscripts was carried out with the support of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) funds to the tune of Rs.23 lakh. So far, the university has digitised 1,491 bundles of inscriptions that comprise 2.50 lakh ancient palm leaves.

The second phase of digitisation of palm leaves will be taken up soon,” informs the chief librarian.

Digitising ancient palm leaf manuscripts aids in conserving, preserving the rare collection of inscriptions and saving space as they are in a fragile condition.

In future, the Andhra University’s library is considering measures to develop trans-literature tool through which manuscripts could be made accessible in multiple languages and disciplines.