BHUBANESWAR: The Madala Panji, which chronicles the 12th century Shree Jagannath temple in Puri, will soon be digitised by the shrine’s administration and preserved in a digital library.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has decided to start work on preserving the Madala Panji, temple records, rare and archival records, palm leaf manuscripts, oral traditions, music on Jagannath Culture and setting up a digital library to safeguard the timeless heritage of the shrine, said chief administrator of the temple, Arabinda Padhee.
Researchers, academicians and devotees can get digital access to these priceless documents, either fully or partially as decided by Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb and the temple’s Chhatisha Nijog at a later stage.
Padhee informed that their primary aim is to digitise Madala Panji, which is only in the possession of the shrine. “We had a meeting with the Tadhau Karana, who is in charge of the Madala Panji, and he has agreed to assist in the process,” he added.
While the instrumentation for the digitisation work and library will be done at the new SJTA office, sevayats and their children who have relevant experience in digitisation of records will be roped in for the purpose, Padhee said.
Meanwhile, Law minister Prithiviraj Harichandan recently informed that the upcoming Raghunandan Library will also be digitised. Earlier, the Raghunandan Library which was operational in the Emar Mutt, was demolished to facilitate construction of the Parikrama project. The rare books and palm leaf manuscripts of the library were shifted to another building.