Dynasties, regions and kings come alive through Akshara Bhandara software

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru Inscriptions 3D Digital Conservation Project team at the Mythic Society has launched Akshara Bhandara, a platform designed to make the ancient Kannada script accessible to everyone.

This first-of-its-kind software transforms the script from an academic relic into a living repository of Karnataka's rich heritage.

Akshara Bhandara, meaning "Treasure of Letters", offers users an interactive gateway to explore over 30,000 ancient Kannada characters alongside a wealth of historical metadata detailing dynasties, regions, kings and more.

The platform's bilingual interface aims to help students and researchers across the globe access the large database of inscriptions and scripts.

Akshara Bhandara features include tools to practise characters, words and sentences to learn the ancient Kannada script, 200 full-text inscriptions with summaries along with over 1,000 contextual images, interactive maps of historical landscapes showcasing over 1,500 inscriptions in Bengaluru, and advanced metadata search to find specific characters with robust filtering options.

Honorary director of the project Udaya Kumar P L, told DH that this platform is the perfect blend of technology and history. "Often we see that technology and history don't blend, but being in Bengaluru there was no lack of technical expertise and the Mythic Society is an extraordinary institution when it comes to history," he remarked.

Kumar acknowledged that the project was a cumulative effort of a lot of people including around 15 students who interned with the Mythic Society and other history enthusiasts who volunteered their time.

Karthik Aditya, the volunteer software engineer who built the website, told DH that he got associated with Mythic Society in January 2022 after seeing their poster at Lalbagh, calling for volunteers. "I have been working with them for the past two years on this project. I feel very proud to have contributed to the expansion of knowledge on ancient Kannada script through my expertise as a software developer," he added.

Kumar said that the next evolution of the software is to use machine learning to scan inscriptions not present on our website. "You point the camera at an inscription that you want to read and it reads it for you. We hope to achieve this in the future," he added.

Akshara Bhandara team plans to incorporate additional scripts like Brahmi, Tamil and Devanagari, expand its repository to include thousands more inscriptions and hundreds of thousands of characters and create the world's most comprehensive digital database of Indian epigraphy.

The digital repository can be accessed at mythicsociety.github.io/ AksharaBhandara/