In a major boost to conservation, the Oriental Research Institute, the premier organisation for preserving manuscripts and such other historically important documents, has obtained 12 rare palm-leaf manuscripts which are over 600 years old, from Nuggehalli village of Channarayapattana taluk in Hassan district.
Of the 12 manuscripts procured from the private collection of K V Janakamma Sampath Iyengar by ORI Senior Researchers K V Ramapriya and Bharatraj, three are “highly significant” both in terms of their rarity and content.
Most importantly, all the manuscripts are in Granthalipi, a form of the Devnagari script which went out of use long ago. “Rahasyathraya Sara”, authored by Vedanthadeshikar, a scholar who succeeded Ramanujacharya, deals with the Vishishtadvaitha philosophy. It also contains commentary by the author.
Another is a work in the form of loose palm leaf sheets which provides a rare traditional explanation to the science of logic. A third work, an allegorical play, “Prabhoda Chandrodaya” has philosophical themes where characters also represent human traits.
It’s a 19th century work of Krishna Mishra, explains ORI Director Dr H P Devaki. The manuscripts are of great significance to research scholars. Incidentally, the ORI has recently got access to a host of other rare manuscripts, she added.
ORI Deputy Director Dr C N Basavaraju pointed out that the institute had collected as many as 27 palm-leaf manuscripts from the Venugopalaswamy temple on Thyagaraja Road here.
These include important works like Brahmasuthra, said to be written by Badarayana in the first century, ‘Kuvalayananda’, ‘Yogaparijatha’, ‘Samudrika Lakshana’, certain key Upanishads, ‘Sri Bhagavatha Teeka’, ‘Smrithi Sangraha’ and ‘Sri Ramayanathathva Deepika’.
Senior Researcher Dr T V Sathyanarayana stated that C Sambamurthy and N V Chandramouli of Mysore have donated to ORI ‘Vratharaja’, written by Vishwanatha Daivajna around 1,500 years ago and not available anywhere. ORI researchers have been looking for a long time for this work, which details several vrathas (ritual fasts and such).
