Cultural HeritageFirst Manuscript Collection Digitised in the DiPiKA Project

17 May 2024

The cataloguing and digitisation of the first private manuscript collection within the framework of ‘DiPiKA – Digitisation and Preservation of Kerala Archives’, our latest cultural heritage project taking place in Thrissur, Kerala (India), are about to be completed.

The collection, which is owned by Mr. Damodaran from Pantal Mana, Rappal (Central Kerala), contains 45 palm-leaf and 35 paper manuscripts. With his permission, the manuscripts were first carefully packed and safely transported to the newly created Kerala Manuscript Preservation Centre in Thrissur (KMPC). At the KMPC, each of the written artefacts has undergone basic conservational treatment and has been thoroughly catalogued and digitised by the professionally trained team members.

Mr. Pantal Damodaran belongs to the Vaidikan family, whose members are renowned experts in the Vedic rituals’ procedure. It bears mentioning that there are only six families of the Vaidikans in Kerala. The digitised manuscript collection comprises mostly works pertaining to the subject of Vedic ritualism. As the conducted survey shows, these written artefacts appear to be unique and are not to be found anywhere else, since they record the sacrificial tradition particular to this Vaidikan lineage.

While working on the collection, the team made a surprising discovery: two of the palm-leaf manuscripts had a Dutch East India Company coin attached to them, which are dated to 1751 and 1790, respectively. These coins have a hole in the middle. They are fixed at the end of the string, which serves to bind the bundles.

The Digitisation and Preservation of Kerala Archives project (DiPiKA) aims at preserving the rich and highly endangered written cultural heritage of Kerala. It surveys and digitises palm-leaf and paper manuscripts kept in private collections across the state. The digitised collections will be fed into a digital repository, thus forming an online archive of Kerala manuscripts that will be openly accessible. This will facilitate its use by scholars and private owners, thereby also fostering further local initiatives to safeguard historical written artefacts.