Digital font of pahari script developed

Blurb – It will open new scope to understand ‘Sancha Granth’

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Abhinav Vashisht

KULLU, DECEMBER 10

Linguistic scholar and researcher Biswajit Mandal, associated with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, has developed a digital font of the endangered pahari script ‘Pabuchi Lipi’ with the assistance of Yatin Pandit, a research scholar of Kullu.

Biswajit said he was able to accomplish the task within one month. He wanted to create digital fonts for endangered scripts Pandvani, Bhattakshari and Chandvani as well.

Yatin said it was a historic move to preserve the ancient ‘Pabuchi Lipi’. The script was used in ‘Sancha’ to perform ‘tantra’, ‘mantra’, ‘vaastu’ and ‘jyotish’ and used by Pabuch Brahmins in Sirmaur and Chaupal areas of Himachal. The digital font would open new scope to understand and preserve the ‘Sancha Granth’.

Yatin said mostly individuals and private organisations were trying to revive the endangered scripts and there was no support from the government. The endangered script ‘Takri’ had been digitised in 2016. He said old scriptures could be digitised and preserved using these fonts for reference to future generations in a simple language. A research in ancient scripts would reveal various facts about the history and it was necessary that the government showed keen interest in these and do the needful.

Yatin said a large number of ‘pandu lipis’ were available with the HP Academy of Arts, Culture and Languages but these were not easily accessible to research scholars, leave aside other individuals interested in the subject. He said the academy should make more efforts to digitise the ‘pandu lipis’ and make these available to the scholars for further research.

Yatin said, “It is our responsibility to preserve the rich cultural heritage bestowed upon us by our ancestors.”

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Photo: The alphabets of endangered pahari script ‘Pabuchi Lipi’ in digital font.