Tuesday29 May 01:58 PM
Palm Leaves To Bits - Google To Digitize Mysore Library
Written in both papers and palm leaves, there are around 100,000 manuscripts in our library, some dating back to the eighth century. The effort is to restore and preserve this cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge...
J Shashidhara Prasad, Vice Chancellor, University of Mysore
At least 800,000 books and manuscripts, including India’s first political treaties the “Arthasastra” written in the 4th century BC by Kautilya... will be digitized by Google, the world’s leading Internet search engine... Depending upon the exclusivity of the materials, we will patent them before making them available on public domain
J Shashidhara Prasad, Vice Chancellor, University of Mysore
S. Prasad's cryptic mention of patenting is frightening. Hopefully this is merely a preventative countermeasure against the granting of further copyrights from traditional knowledge.
Nonetheless, palm leaves are decaying in the musty anals of India's libraries. Ants may be eating some of the world's oldest written texts. Personally, I applaud this as great news. Not everyone agrees, however— check out Can We Trust Google with the Artha Shastra?
(Maybe Google too, is secretly searching for the Yoga Korunta). Link.
Many manuscripts on ayurveda, mathematics, medicine, science, astrology and economy including ‘Arthasastra’ and several paper manuscripts of the Wodeyar dynasty of Mysore will be digitized first.
J Shashidhara Prasad, Vice Chancellor, University of Mysore
Image: Kamat's Potpourri: Palm-leaf Manuscripts, allegedly from an astrological text, but no details or foootnotes are given. Link. (via)
Add Remarks
Please be nice.
