NEW DELHI: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has taken up a total of 67,461 estampages of Indian epigraphs for digitisation under the Bharat Shared Repository of Inscriptions (BharatSHRI) programme. According to culture minister G Kishan Reddy, 29,260 estampages have been digitised so far.
In her budget speech last year, finance minister Nirmala Sitharama had announced about setting up the repository, a digital epigraphy museum, and the digitisation of one lakh ancient inscriptions in the first phase.
Estampage or stamping is a commonly used term in epigraphy to obtain the exact replica of an inscription that cannot be transported.
During the process, inscriptions are collected from different parts of the country via meticulous village-to-village surveys undertaken by a team of epigraphists. The estampages of the inscriptions are then studied and preserved in various epigraphy branches. The information is disseminated through publications such as the Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy, brochures, and booklets like ‘Indian Archaeology: A Review’ every year.
Replying to a question pertaining to the status of the project in Rajya Sabha during the recently concluded session, Reddy said, “No separate budget has been allocated for the project, and the expenditure is incurred through the allocated funds to ASI. The Survey of India, being the custodian of the epigraphic wealth of the nation, has taken up the project by itself.”
Out of the total outlay for the annual budget, `1,102.83 crore was allocated to the ASI last year for the protection, preservation and conservation of Centrally Protected Monuments or sites and excavations of monuments and archaeological sites.
In the recent past, the ASI has discovered significant inscriptions in states including Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Telangana.
One of them was recovered around November 2021 from Shiva temple, Sengalipalayam village in Karur district, on the southern bank of Amaravati river. It was written in Tamil and Grantha scripts of the 9th century CE. Another inscription found on a slab in a cultivated land at Hanagi in Sirivata taluk of Karnataka’s Raichur district, is written in Kannada language. It dates to Chalukya Vikrama year 17 (1093 CE).
Conservation of epigraphs
Inscriptions are collected from different parts of the country through meticulous village-to-village surveys undertaken by a team of epigraphists. The estampages of the inscriptions are then studied and preserved in various epigraphy branches. The information is disseminated through various publications.