Chirala: Preserving ancient knowledge for future generations

Chirala: The Sanaathan Jeevan Trust here has taken up the Herculean task of digitising the palm leaf manuscripts available now, and making them available for access to common people by translating the script from Sanskrit, Devanagari, Pali and other endangered languages into the languages understood by them.

The Sanaathan Jeevan Trust is already making efforts to educate people on the importance of ancient wisdom and its application in health, food, culture and daily living in the modern day. Apart from healing people with traditional medicines, the trust founder and noted Nadivaidya specialist Gade Sasidhar took the responsibility of preserving the treasure trove, the ancient knowledge for the next generations.

It is estimated that about 5 crore palm leaf manuscripts are available in the country. The Central government introduced National Mission for Manuscripts in February 2007, and digitised more than 42 lakh manuscripts of palm leaves and provided access to 27 lakh of them under Kritisampada, the National Database of Manuscripts project.

In Andhra Pradesh, the Archaeological department has preserved about 6,000 palm leaf manuscripts containing 20 lakhs of pages at their repositories in Rajahmundry and Kakinada. The famous library in Vetapalem, Saraswata Niketanam also houses about 40 palm leaf manuscripts with 4000 and above pages containing versions of Mantra Sastra, Taittariya Brahmanyam, Vaidya Sastra, and other puranas. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam is also a custodian and protector of thousands of palm leaf manuscripts with hundreds of lakhs of pages with them.

The Sanaathan Jeevan Trust has procured a high-resolution open type scanner to digitise the palm leaves and also took the responsibility to clean and prepare for their conservation. They started with the digitisation of manuscripts preserved by individuals and families and now working on digitising the manuscripts at Saraswata Niketanam.

Sasidhar said that Jyothisha, Vaastu, Mantra, Ayurveda sastras and literature are scripted in ancient India. He said that though many of the manuscripts are lost over the time, some of them are still available at various places like the Archaeological department, Sri Venkateswara Vedic University and Vetapalem library along with some personal caretakers.

He said that with the cooperation of the authorities at the Saraswata Niketanam in Vetapalem, they have digitised more than 40 manuscripts with the help of volunteers. He said that books include Vedanta, Jyothisha, Ayurveda, Valmiki Ramayanam with the Padyam and Tatparyam, including the rarest manuscript explaining the Anganyasa and Karanyasa methods before starting the Upasana of Bhagavadgita. He added that they are waiting for the final nod to digitise the palm leaf manuscripts available with the Department of Archaeology and are in discussion with the TTD for the same.

The vice-chairman of the Sanaathan Jeevan Trust, PN Kiran Kumar said that they imported the high-performance scanner with an 800 dpi resolution and output capacity of 10 to 12 MB image size, from France. He said that they are carrying the scanner to the project site and completing the digitisation there, then transporting the manuscripts to their facility. He said that they are also cleaning the manuscripts, fumigating and applying oils to help them survive for more years, carefully without damaging them.

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Scanning the palm leaf manuscripts using high resolution open type scanner

Palm leaf manuscripts at Sarawata Niketanam in Vetapalem