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Note:

This appeared recently on the mailing list of http://www.dvaita.org
-I am sure Prof P R Mukund's works should be useful to all other
sampradaya-s

---
http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=24885


By Arun Kumar, Washington, Sep 21: 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. 
-----


                
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