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Tamil heritage on cyber space
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The main aim of digitising the information in ancient palm leafs and old books is to make them easily readable and available for Tamil lovers the world over.
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Are you one of those language enthusiasts? Ever thought of clicking the mouse and having access to all the great and rare Tamil literary works of the past? A group of people with varied backgrounds and in different corners of the world is now attempting to create on the World Wide Web, a database of all those works that have been relegated to library shelves across the world. Leading them is N. Kannan of Korea Ocean Research Development Institute, primarily a lover of Tamil. In Chennai recently, he talks to K. Manikandan about his pet project.
In a land quite removed, physically and culturally, from his home, Dr. Kannan developed a passion for his mother tongue Tamil. It was from his base in Boeblingen, Germany, that he conceived and implemented his dream project. The Tamil Heritage Foundation is an online platform for digitising and archiving centuries-old heritage materials in text, speech and visuals from all the areas where the language is spoken.
Dr. Kannan and some of his friends, who share the twin interests of love for Tamil and the Internet, set up the Foundation (www.tamil-heritage.org) .
It scans all the Tamil-speaking areas in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and other parts of the world for valuable material to host on the site.
The professed intention is to "start a global Tamil movement so the wealth of information in rare and old Tamil works can be saved for the future".
This initiative will digitise archived materials already available in various national and international museums, libraries and from private sources.
The initial funding for this venture was provided by Dato S. Samy Vellu, Minister for Works, Government of Malaysia and the president of Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) during the Tamil Internet 2001 Conference held at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
"It is certainly not a chauvinistic approach. We want to collect Tamil heritage materials that are available in other Indian languages also."
The Foundation also wants to upload several books and works related to Tamil heritage available in Europe's libraries.
`Help students'
The main aim of digitising the information in ancient palm leafs and old books is to make them easily readable and available for Tamil lovers the world over. This would be of help to students of the language, teachers, libraries and research organisations also.
According to Dr. Kannan, the manuscripts provide a wealth of knowledge. Several works on palm leaves talk about Astronomy, Mathematics, shipbuilding and even rocket technology. For instance, a book called `Bookola Bakola Vishayam,' published in Srirangam in 1883, talks about extra-terrestrial life forms.
The Foundation has also collected gems from the past on social issues. One such is `Kaadhala Kadamaya' by a woman — Siddi Zuneida Begam — in the early 20th century. The Tamil literary giant, U.Ve.Swaminatha Iyer wrote the foreword, Dr. Kannan notes with delight.
The Foundation also plans to acquire rare manuscripts from individuals who would like to donate them.
"If people would still like to retain their collections, their works could be scanned and converted into machine-readable text and uploaded on the net," he says.
At present, the bi-lingual site uses `Murasu' for the Tamil font. It features photo archives of Tamil culture, audio archive of dialects, folklore, religious and literary discourses, video archive of traditions, festivals, dance, drama, temples, theatres, art galleries and historical monuments.
It also provides details about the evolution of the Tamil script.
Dr. Kannan says, since it is a dynamic project, contributions are welcome. Not just monetary, but also in terms of providing rare or ancient scrolls and manuscripts that can then be digitised and uploaded, interesting information on the language or its evolution and details about activities happening in any part of the world.
The Foundation also wants to present this proposal to the State government and work with other non-governmental organisations that share the same passion, Dr. Kannan adds.
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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