Digital facsimiles, palm-leaf book preservation, e-ternals.com, Pillai Lokacharya

[Gunthard Mueller]

Dear indologists,
we would like to draw your attention to our new first edition ever of a
palm-leaf manuscript containing Pillai Lokacharya's Tatta-viveka
(Vaisnava text, 13th century, language is Sanskrit, in Tamil Grantha
script).
This particular manuscript has not been on the record for a very long
time, possibly hundreds of years.
The only other manuscripts of this text are the ones in the Adhyar
Library (1 manuscript) and in the Government Oriental Manuscript Library

(1 full and 1 incomplete manuscript), Chennai, both unpublished.

Pillai Lokacharya's Tattva-viveka has never been published in any form
before, so this is actually an international first edition.

We are digitizing and publishing endangered original manuscripts,
including Indian palm-leaf books.
We publish the manuscripts as multimedia CD-ROMs using zoomable
ultra-clear software technology, very attractive and easy to use, and
with a scholarly preface.
Every physical detail of the palm-leaf books is visible, and the
palm-leaves  can be enlarged and moved on the screen, you can browse
from page to page just as if you were having it on your desk.
The CD-ROM has a convenient auto-run feature and is compatible with
Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4/2000, and with Power Macintosh.
The data themselves are also included fully as individual files, so that

the palm-leaves can be read also with other software packages.
So far, printed facsimile was the only alternative, and it was much too
expensive.
With our e-ternals.com CD-ROMs, every scholar world-wide has instant and

affordable access to original texts! They can now be made available to
scholars and e-text projects world-wide.

Cost of the CD-ROM :
Individuals: only US$ 10,-- plus US$ 10,-- international shipping and
handling. (Not much for an international first edition...)
Institute license (free usage on unlimited number of institute-owned
computers): US$ 100,--, shipping and handling included.

We are now publishing many more such manuscripts. The next one to come
is another so far unpublished palm-leaf book, containing an interesting
Nampillai text.

Once digitized, the material can be copied forever to whatever new disks

and media mankind will invent.
Digital copies are the first PERFECT copies that mankind can do. All
previous technologies create at best approximations. Digital copies are
absolutely perfect binary reproductions.

According to informed sources, most Indian palm-leaf books will decay
over the next 50 to 100 years. Already, the loss is horrendous.
By supporting our digitization initiative, you can help save some of the

world's most interesting heritage documents.

We would like to invite all of you to consider partnering with us in our

effort to protect the Indian heritage and to publish it at affordable
prices.

-- You may already have digitized material that may be worth publishing.

We might be able to partner with you in publishing the material. (We
also pay royalties from the proceeds, by the way, as goes without
saying, both to owners of material and to scholars who contribute
texts.)

-- You may be able to get sponsorship for a digitization project. We can

bring in the technology or teach you to do it, then create e-ternals.com

CD-ROMs from it.

-- Where good slides are available, we can also help with digitizing and

publishing them.

-- We are active all over the world, at the moment mainly in India,
Germany, and in the UK.
We work actively with scholars in Cologne, Berlin, Heidelberg, Chennai,
and many others.

We also use the Internet to publish the materials, but so far the data
sizes are mostly too big for actual downloading. It's cheaper to get it
on CD-ROM. Our shipping department is very quick.

We are in the process of finishing an Internet catalog from which
CD-ROMs can be selected.
Please check out our e-ternals.com web site.

I would like to invite all of you to come in and help us as member
organisations, individuals, or sponsors.

With kind regards,
sincerely,
Gunthard Mueller
e-ternals.com
Unter den Linden 15
D-72762 Reutlingen
Germany
gm at e-ternals.com
Tel.: +49 7121 370411
Fax: +49 7121 336988