Udupi: Sri Vadiraja Research Foundation has initiated efforts to transliterate ayurveda manuscripts written in Tigalari and Modi Kannada scripts found in coastal Karnataka.Ayurveda-related manuscripts from the coastal region will be selected for transliteration as part of the project. Under the framework of India’s Gyan Bharatam Mission, about one crore manuscripts across the country have already been surveyed.“This program focuses on the transliteration of manuscripts on various subjects written in different languages,” said B Gopalachar, director, Sri Vadiraja Research Foundation.“There are many Tigalari and Modi Kannada manuscripts, which are linked to ayurveda. We selected only 15 manuscripts for training purposes,” he said.The foundation has commenced a two-week transliteration capacity-building workshop for 36 participants, who will work on a larger number of Tigalari and Modi Kannada manuscripts in the future.The workshop is being held at Sri Puthige Narasimha Sabhabhavana in Geetha Mandir, with the blessings of Sri Sugunendra Tirtha, the pontiff of Sri Puthige Mutt, and the junior pontiff, Sri Susreendra Tirtha. It is guided and supported by Central Sanskrit University (CSU), New Delhi, and Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS).Prof Vaidya Rabinarayan Acharya, director-general, CCRAS, said the organisation is among the top research bodies under the ministry of Ayush, conducting scientific research in ayurveda.“Ayurveda is the oldest system of medicine in the world since the vedic era. The knowledge of ayurveda was preserved in the form of manuscripts in regional languages. There is a need for research, as India is the only country with a diverse range of languages. Many ayurveda pharmacopoeia are written in regional languages. The central govt has placed much importance on the Indian knowledge system in the past 10 years. Since the last four years, we have collected more than 3,000 manuscripts,” he explained.He added that workshops across the country aim to collect, transliterate, catalogue and research such manuscripts.
