Do you have knowledge about anything in your area that possesses heritage value? Does your family follow any ancient custom or have awareness regarding special ayurvedic formulations? The officials of the Centre for Heritage Studies (CHS) will soon knock on your doors to get such information. The visit is part of their ‘village to village heritage survey’, an initiative to take stock of heritage valuables in the state and their current status.
“Our state has invaluable inheritance in the form of buildings, rare ayurvedic medications, festivals and traditional architecture. Some of them have lost their vigour because of lack of care. Certain types of ayurvedic medicines continue to be family secrets. A survey would help us get a complete picture of the current status of our inherited heritage,” says M G S Narayanan, Director General, CHS.
The centre has plans to visually document the remnants of heritage surveyed by them. The first phase of the survey is estimated to cost around `10 lakh.
“The survey will help us identify objects of heritage that are on the verge of extinction. It would also be helpful in locating the lesser known heritage valuables in the State,” he said.
N M Namboothiri, Dean, Academic Affairs, CHS, said the survey will be executed with the help of college students. “The students will be selected on the basis of their awareness of heritage of our state. The students will be given training and the survey will be monitored by a CHS panel, which will dig deep into the findings,” he said.
The project will be launched in Tripunithura and Kuttanad in the first phase.
“Tripunithura was the capital of the erstwhile Cochin kingdom. But, the heritage buildings in the area such as Nalukettu and Ettukettu are vanishing,” Namboothiri said. Kuttanad is home to various agricultural festivals. It also had various types of agricultural equipment and over a hundred varieties of paddy. “The survey will start from these areas and will later be extended to other parts of the state,” Nambhoothiri said.