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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00132 Sep 2006

 
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SRI:
Already posted by SRi Malolan Cadambi today
Regards
Namo narayana
dAsan Madhavakkannan
***************

Dear all,
  Please read the article below, an interesting one for those who want to 
preserve old-plalm-leaf manuscripts of our Saampradaayam.
  adiyen,
  Dr.K
  ==========================================================
    

  Indian American scientist restoring 700-year-old sacred Hindu text
Friday September 22 2006 00:00 IST 
  IANS
  WASHINGTON: An Indian American scientist is leading a project to digitally 
restore a 700-year-old palm leaf manuscript containing the essence of Hindu 
philosophy by using modern imaging technologies. 

P.R. Mukund and Roger Easton, professors at Rochester Institute of Technology, 
are working on the project to digitally preserve the original Hindu writings, 
known as the Sarvamoola granthas attributed to scholar Shri Madvacharya 
(1238-1317).

The collection of 36 works contains commentaries written in Sanskrit on sacred 
Hindu scriptures and conveys the scholar's Dvaita philosophy of the meaning of 
life and the role of God.

The document is difficult to handle and to read, the result of centuries of 
inappropriate storage techniques, botched preservation efforts and degradation 
due to improper handling.

Each leaf of the manuscript measures 26 inches long and two inches wide, and is 
bound together with braided cord threaded through two holes. Heavy wooden 
covers sandwich the 340 palm leaves, cracked and chipped at the edges. Time and 
a misguided application of oil have aged the palm leaves dark brown, obscuring 
the Sanskrit writings.

"It is literally crumbling to dust," says Mukund, the Gleason Professor of 
Electrical Engineering at RIT.

According to Mukund, 15 percent of the manuscript is missing.

"The book will never be opened again unless there is a compelling reason to do 
so," Mukund says. "Because every time they do, they lose some. After this, 
there won't be a need to open the book." 

Mukund first became involved with the project when his spiritual teacher in 
India brought the problem to his attention and urged him to find a solution. 

This became a personal goal for Mukund, who studies and teaches Hindu 
philosophy or "our way of life" and understood the importance of preserving the 
document for future scholars. The accuracy of existing printed copies of the 
Sarvamoola granthas is unknown.

Mukund sought the expertise of RIT colleague Easton, who imaged the Dead Sea 
Scrolls and is currently working on the Archimedes Palimpsest. Easton, a 
professor at RIT's Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, brought in 
Keith Knox, an imaging senior scientist at Boeing LTS, as a consultant. Mukund 
added Ajay Pasupuleti, a doctoral candidate in microsystems at RIT, and the 
team was formed.

The scientists travelled to India in December 2005 to assess the document 
stored at a monastery-like mathas in Udupi, India. Sponsored by a grant from 
RIT, the team returned to the monastery in June and spent six days imaging the 
document using a scientific digital camera and an infrared filter to enhance 
the contrast between the ink and the palm leaf.

Images of each palm leaf, back and front, were captured in eight to 10 
sections, processed and digitally stitched together. The scientists ran the 
7,900 total images through various image-processing algorithms using Adobe 
Photoshop and Knox's own custom software.

"This is a very significant application of the same types of tools that we have 
used on the Archimedes Palimpsest," Easton says. "Not incidentally, this also 
has been one of the most enjoyable projects in my career, since the results 
will be of great interest to a large number of people in India."

The processed images of the Sarvamoola granthas will be stored in a variety of 
media formats, including electronically, in published books and on silicon 
wafers for long-term preservation.

Etching the sacred writings on silicon wafers was the idea of Mukund's student 
Pasupuleti. The process, called aluminum metallization, transfers an image to a 
wafer by creating a negative of the image and depositing metal on the silicon 
surface.

According to Pasupuleti, each wafer can hold the image of three leaves. More 
than 100 wafers will be needed to store the entire manuscript. As an archival 
material, silicon wafers are both fire- and waterproof, and readable with the 
use of a magnifying glass.

Mukund and Pasupuleti will return to India at the end of November to give 
printed and electronic versions of the Sarvamoola granthas to the monastery in 
Udupi in a public ceremony in Bangalore, the largest city in the Karnataka 
region.

"We feel we were blessed to have this opportunity to do this," Mukund says. "It 
was a fantastic and profoundly spiritual experience. And we all came away 
cleansed."

Based on the success of this project, Mukund is seeking funding to image other 
Dvaita manuscripts in the Udupi region written since the time of Shri 
Madvacharya. He estimates the existence of approximately 800 palm leaf 
manuscripts, some of which are in private collections.
  ====================================================

"Sudarsan Parthasarathy.S." <sudarsanp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  
Sri RAmajayam
SrimathE GopAla DEsika MahA DEsikAya Namaha

Dear Sri.Venkat Swami,
DanyOsmi Swamin. This reprint
of UtthamUr Swami's work is in Sanskrit, where many of
us do not have parichayam, but certainly of relevance
to scholars/Upanyasakars/DinAcharyas. 





 
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