Annamayya works go from plates to Net

A.D. Rangarajan

Special camera from US to capture impressions on copper

PATH TO PRESERVATION: Copper plates bearing Annamayya sankirtans, that will be digitised soon.

Once again, technology has come to the rescue of our priceless literature. Plans are afoot to preserve the `sankirtans' of Annamacharya in digital format and make them available on the Net.

The saint-poet had composed over 32,000 songs in praise of Lord Venkateswara and His consorts on palm leaves, which were replicated on copper plates during the reign of Saluva Narasimharaya of Vijayanagara dynasty. However, copper plates containing only 12,000 songs could be salvaged.

Three dimensions

The TTD management preserves these plates at its archaeological museum, near Govindarajaswamy temple here.

The plates are of three dimensions -- some as big as a marble slab, some larger than the face of a brick, while some are wafer-thin palm leaf-shaped sheets. The compositions of Annamayya, his son Peda Tirumalacharya and grandson, China Tirumalacharya, figure on these plates.

The rare works include `laghu kritis', `srungara kirtans', `adhyatmika kirtans', `dwipadams' and `srungara manjari'.

The Universal Digital Library (UDL) of the US, founded by Raj Reddy, a professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, has been working in association with the TTD's Sri Venkateswara Digital Library (SVDL) in scanning ancient texts and scriptures. In the latest move, these copper plates are planned to be digitised.

The SVDL director, Bhuman Subramanyam Reddy, says, "Since regular scanners cannot be used to capture impressions on copper plates, we procured a special digital camera from the UDL".

Once preserved in digital format, the content will be uploaded to the World Wide Web to be made available to the literature lovers all over the world.

Courtesy: The Hindu