Over 2.5 lakh pages of Tamil manuscripts digitised in a year 

“Palm-leaf manuscripts convey the knowledge about the land, people, education, medicine, culture and tradition of the previous eras of the state and to preserve them and the content, the state government is undertaking digitisation process. In the last one year, more than 2.5 lakh pages of ancient and rare Tamil literature and manuscripts were digitised for the future use of public,” said G Vijayaragavan, Director, Tamil Development Department.

The state with the intention to develop Tamil and to preserve the existing ancient works has taken various steps such as creation of Tamil digital library where rare documents, books and periodicals are preserved. Tagavalaatruppadai is another initiative to document the archaeological and historical sites with images. Another such project is ‘Tamil Perungkalanjiyam’ was developed with the intention of creating a mega Encyclopaedia. More than 84,000 Tamil articles from the field of agriculture, science and so on were uploaded on the website of Tamil Virtual Academywebsite.

On the lines of digitisation, Tamil Development Department is in the process of collecting and digitising palm leaf manuscripts and ancient literature and uploading them in the website of International Institute of Tamil Studies. “Palm leaf manuscripts are available in Dr UVe Swaminatha Iyer Library, Directorate of Indian Medicines and Homeopathy and the International Institute of Tamil Studies, Taramani. They are scanned and catalogued as part of digitisation work and for the purpose Rs 1.05 crore had been allotted,” said Vijayaragavan. He also said, more than 800 books containing nearly 2 lakh pages were digitised and are available on the website. Though they cannot be downloaded, people can read them online whenever required.

He further said that the Department is in the process of developing a Tamil research portal. “Our government will tie up with all the institutions across the world and will obtain research articles related to Tamil. The research articles will be uploaded on the Tamil Research Portal so that both researchers and public will get to know the area of research done,” he said.