South indian incised mss

[GRUENENDAHL]

Francois.Voegeli at orient.unil.ch wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Feb 1996 10:08:25 +0000 I received the following message from an
> anonymous sender (I think it was posted to the Indology forum but as the
> return address was "???@???" and there was nothing else in the header I
> can't be sure):
> 
> >How do you handle *incised* south Indian palm leaf mss.?
> 
> >They can be a real problem, especially if the writing does not
> >come out because they have not be treated with lemon grass oil etc.
> 
> This subject interests me very much also. I know south indian mss were
> incised first and inked afterwards, but I have never heard they were
> treated with "lemon grass oil" and I don't know what's under the "etc.".
> If anybody has any precisions or comments about this I'll be delighted to
> read them.
> Thank you in advance.
> 
> 
> Francois Voegeli
> Fac. des lettres
> Section de langues et civilisations orientales
> Universite de Lausanne
> BFSH 2
> CH-1015
> 
> Tel.: (41.21) 692-2721
> Fax.: (41.21) 692-3045
> E-mail: Francois.Voegeli at orient.unil.ch
> 
> 
> 

Dear colleague,
I don't know whether all members of the list received my message from
*anonymus*. If so, please let me know. I have not experienced that 
problem before.

As to lemon grass oil, it is the most common - and perhaps the most
adequate - way of *inking* South Indian palm leaf mss. If you 
enter the well-maintained ms-collections of the south, you 
immediately recognized its pleasant smell. 

There is at least one other, cheaper concoction around - I forgot
what exactly it consists of - the smell of which I would associate
with a garage rather than a library. Read mss. treated like that for
a couple of hours, and you will probably feel the intensive wish of
being somewhere else.

In terms of readability, I cannot see a lot of difference between 
lemon grass oil and the other stuff. As to microfilming, I'm not sure.

This leads me back to my question: Does anyone have suggestions for 
microfilming this type of material? Can the often poor result be 
enhanced by filters, special light or other tricks of the trade?



Regards

Reinhold Gruenendahl
Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek
37070 Goettingen
Germany
Phone: 0551/395283

GRUENEN at mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de