Kerala, which is known for many firsts, is all set to be the first in the country to have museum exclusively for palm manuscripts. The museum slated to be the largest in Asia, will have a mammoth collection of manuscripts of the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom.
One crore-palm leaf manuscripts
The palm leaf manuscripts record the history of administration, boundary disputes, rules, orders and court orders.
Records dating back to 14th century documented
The palm leaf museum will come up in another place of historic importance. It is set up in the building of Travancore’s first jail at Fort in Thiruvananthapuram. This building later converted to ‘Husoor Central Vernacular Records’ in 1887. The building is under the State Archives Department.
Manuscripts rolled in 10,000 bundles
Officials said that the State Archives Department has a collection of over one crore palm-leaf manuscripts. This includes administrative records dating back to 14th century. The palm leaf manuscripts are rolled into more than 10,000-odd bundles and preserved with grass oil.
Kerala Museum, who are the nodal agency of museums in Kerala, designed the palm leaf museum. The officials maintained that the palm leaf museum would also have visual effects to give an added interest.
60 percent of transliteration of old scripts completed
The officials also noted that work was going in the transliteration of the ancient scripts such as Vattezhuthu, Malayanma, Kolezhuthu, Tamil and Grantha to Malayalam language. They said that 60 percent of the transliteration was complete.
