The Palm-Leaf Manuscript Profiling Initiative

Photo: CSMC

Lucas Voges (right) with Dr S. Udayakumar, Madan Sunderraj, and Thamam Mubarish.

To clarify the provenance of historical Indian palm-leaf manuscripts, researchers from the Palm-Leaf Manuscript Profiling Initiative are working together with the National Institute for Advanced Studies in Bangalore. The collaboration involves training NIAS members in the equipment of the Mobile Lab

In November 2024, three researchers from Bangalore – Dr S. Udayakumar and Madan Sunderraj from NIAS, and Thamam Mubarish from IISc – came to Hamburg to meet members of the PLMPI team and the Mobile Lab. One key aspect of their one-week stay was to receive training from Sebastian Bosch, Grzegorz Nehring, and Lucas Voges to conduct experiments with an XRF scanner and FTIR spectrometer, both of which were shipped to India in January 2025 to carry out measurements on site. These instruments will remain there permanently. The Indian colleagues’ visit to Hamburg was an opportunity to get to know the equipment they will be housing in Bangalore on a long-term basis – to be used both in the context of PLMPI and for their own research projects at NIAS. The training also included a handling session in which the researcher together discussed best practices when working with palm-leaf manuscripts with Davidson MacLaren.