Author: Arun Kumar
Publication: NewKerala.com
Date: September 21, 2006
URL: http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=24885
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.
--- IANS
