Writting after ages. mostly lethargy. I do have a lot of news. And a prominent news is my Bill for just June 2020 : 4 Lakh 80 Thousand Rs for just 1 Month.
Reason for High expenses in June 2020 explained.Basically I got a tip from a Scanning Engineer Wasim, that there is a new Scanner in the Market called Czur ET 16 Plus which has a productivity three times my regular 6+ year usage Fujitsu Scan Snap SV 600 Scanner. particularly because there is no post-processing/cropping involved. We experimented and witnessed the tremendous productivity rise. 4000-5000 pages in an 8-Hour Shift and no manual cropping. Click and the image is ready. Higher RAM also made a difference. Therefore, I went on a scanner and laptop revamp-drive – and also inverter purchase for each staff for Work from Home – and got my staff 3 new Czur scanners and also 3 HP Laptops (15.6 inch Screen/8GB RAM/i3-8th Gen Processor/SSD/Sata hybrid Hard Drive) – Higher processor speed/RAM are crucial for high output therefore the Laptop purchases. Similar expenses expected in coming months.
Thanks to Lockdown, Puneet Jyotishi ji was finally available after a pursuit of more than 2 years. We got to digitize lots of Sharada Manuscripts and Panchangs a testimony of the Jyotishi Family’s antiquity:
Books in Urdu on Hinduism I have started a new Account which will host Dharma Books in Urdu. These we all got from Srinagar from various people. Notable are 6 Translations of Upanishads from Lahore https://archive.org/details/@dharma_books_urdu
Two Special Antique Books ( one is 1878, second must be around that time also ) Commissioned by His Highness Maharaja Ranbir Singh. Seems Srinagar had a Printing Press called Antar Yantralaya and they were printing Devanagari Books in those days. Kudos to His Excellency Maharaja Family and Enterpreneurs of Kashmir
I have stumbed upon a digital copy of Lokesh Chandra’s 9 Volume Sanskrit Texts from Kashmir Series prepared by Buddhist Digital Resource Center on archive.org.
What is invaluable is that 8 of the 9 Volumes are fascisimile printing of Original Sharada Manuscripts.
Source of the Manuscripts : Prof. Lokesh Chandra Personal Collection. Acquired from Dinanath Yaksh, Srinagar Dinanath Yaksh Library was eventually torched in the Ethnic Cleansing of Srinagar. So these from his libraries made it out intact. Kudos to the Enterprise of Lokesh Chandra in acquiring them. I also came to know the Dinanath Yaksh had refused to supply a copy of his Catalog of Manuscripts to Lokesh Chandra ji.
Sanskrit Texts from Kashmir Vol 1 Sharada Fascisimile List Included
§ 27 Lokesh Chandra, Sanskrit texts from Kashmir, Śatapiṭaka Series, vol. 5 (Śāradā mss.), and vol. 7 (Devanāgarī mss.); see Rosenfield 2004: 23 sqq. (called L5kb) with revised list of contents for vol.5. Verbatim copy, without correcting L. Chandra’s text, except for the section in Rosenfield 2004: 24 L5kb.p. 5:
<< missing index in L.Ch., continued only on p. 443 >> p.8: Manuscript (pages 443-554) Ṛju-Viṣṇu-sūktaṃ (ṛ vi kā sū 444, iti …444.14, 445.16) Yaju-Viṣṇu-sūktaṃ (ya kā vi sū 450, iti … 451.9, 453.30 Ṛju-brahma-sūktaṃ (ṛ kā bra sū 450, iti …451.9, 455.3) Yaju-brahma-sūktaṃ (ya kā bra sū 454, iti … 454.14) Ṛju-śiva-sūktaṃ (ṛ kā śi sū 456, iti … 456.7, iti Śiva-sūktaṃ 457.16) Yaju-Śiva-sūktam (ya kā śi 458, iti … 459.4, 461.5) Ṛju-yama-sūktaṃ (ṛ kā ya 462, iti 463.4, 17, 466.8, 4698.3) Yaju-yama-sūktaṃ (ya kā ya sū 468, iti … 469.14) Pitṛ-sūktaṃ (atha … 469.15, ṛ pi sū 470, iti … 417.7, 17, 472.15, 474.4, 475.17) Yaju-pitṛ-sūktaṃ (ya pi sū 474)
This space will use as scrap notes of my r&d and search of an Industrial Scale Automatic Book Scanner over the next few days.
Guiding Principles:
Fully-Automated
Reasonably Priced ( under 5 Lakh INR )
Atleast 500 pages/hour
Low Maintenance
Low Expertise Requirement
Smaller Physical Dimensions
Smaller Weight ( under 20 kg )
Zero Post-Processing ( no or negligible post processing such as cropping )
Scan Quality ( Readable with ease, 300 DPI, nothing over-fancy)
For now Mango Linear Scan fits the bill. But so unfortunately, the CEO Mr. Paul informed me that their Bar Scanner Manufacturer is no longer making those, which means Mango may not be available for purchase.
I contacted the CEO. He informed me that the parts supplier for the Scanning is no longer manufacturing those, therefore sales are halted indefinitely.
My Srinagar Center keeps getting valuable tips from there neighborhood of households with old manuscripts. We are very lucky most families very kindly allow us the digitizations. Here are the few we could get hold of in between Feb-April 2020.
It is sad that even though this is the second time, we are scanning the same book, it too list the last one is partial and ends ager pg 66 – eight more pages than the last one which can be seen below:
Shri R.L. Bhat Sahib is a noted Scholar of Persian Language based out of Jammu. We were very lucky to get in touch with him. Shri R.L. Bhat Sahib has very kindly let us scan a Sharada Manuscript from his Collection which is below:
My 32nd Newsletter after ages. A few things have happened.
My British Library grant came to an end. A very generous system that helped me digitize with greater financial clout. Thanks British Library Endangered Archives Program and Arcadia Fund for aiding Universal Work. Thanks to Prof Jim Mallinson and Prof Torella for writing recommendation letters on my behalf that singularly made the difference.
I have moved back to Singapore after two years in India and that also means my financial abilities have increased further almost by triple!! not just because Singapore we have a low tax regime.
Digitizations at Panjab University Library, Chandigarh244 Manuscripts have been digitized in this Phase. Technically, all Devanagari manuscripts till Almira 11 have been digitized. Only Almira 12 is remaining now. Once Almira 12 is complete, we will start digitizing remaining Gurumukhi and Persian Items and also missed out Devanagari manuscripts – which I realized when I did an manual check with the Hand Written registerOne of the most surprising manuscripts we found was a Sanskrit Tika on the Japuji Sahib of Guru Nanak Dev Maharaj.
