THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Chattambi Swami Digital Archive (CDSA) being set up under the aegis of the Centre for South Indian Studies (CSIS) will be inaugurated by Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, the head of the Travancore royal family, at a function to be held at Thiruvananthapuram Press Club at 4 pm on Monday. Finance Minister Thomas Isaac will release the ‘Comprehensive Biography of Chattambi Swamikal in English’ at the function, CSIS vice-president G Sreekumar, secretary C S Sathikumar, Kumbalathu Santhakumariamma and biographers Dr R Raman Nair and Sulochanadevi told a news conference here on Saturday.
The ‘Biography’ has 482 pages. They said the release of the manuscript of the second part of the ‘Pracheena Malayalam’ written by Chattambi Swami will also be held at the function. Vaikom Vivekanandan had retrieved the manuscript from the Vettukattil house of Koodalmanikyam Thachudaya Kaimal. ‘Pracheena Malayalam’ is a work that discusses the social development and transformations of Kerala based on historical documents.
The archive aims to save the academic contributions of Swamikal, his various notes, historical documents and to make available the same through Internet for future research.
Around 5,000 pages have been included in the archive so far. It has been estimated that there will be 20,000 more pages.
The archive will also include information on Swami’s life, contacts, visits, friendships, meetings, discussions etc recollected by the present generation of his friends and disciples. The project will also undertake the publication of comparative and edited authentic versions of Swami’s works as well as biographies of Swami and his disciples in English and other Indian languages. CDSA will be an online open archive accessible worldwide.
Besides being a mystic, Chattambi Swami was a pioneer in creating the platform for the social struggle against ‘Chathurvarna’ (caste system). The Malayalam translation of ‘Communist Manifesto’ being published for the first time under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (Copy Left) will also be released at the function.
Higher Education Council chairman K N Panikkar, MG University Vice Chancellor Rajan Gurukkal, National Law University Vice Chancellor Dr N K Jayakumar, B Hridayakumari, Dr K Maheswaran Nair, P Govindapillai and Dr T P Sankarankutty Nair will speak.
The CSIS, registered as a charitable society for conducting studies in the social, cultural, economic and political sectors, had earlier brought out works like the ‘Manual of historical research methodology’ and the Malayalam translations of Hermann Hesse’s and Khalil Gibran’s works.
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