“e-POTHI - ONLINE CATALOGUING SYSTEM" OF PALM LEAF MANUSCRIPTS OF ODISHA STATE MUSEUM,BHUBANESWAR (www.odishamuseum.nic.in), is launched by Hon'ble Chief Minister of Odisha Shri Naveen Patnaik on 29.09.2014 in the Conference Hall of Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar.
In the function organized for launching of e-Pothi programme, the Hon’ble Chief Minister graced the occasion, expressing his happiness for the accessibility of the rare manuscripts to the entire world. He is hopeful that Odisha will establish a special identity of its own through this programme.
Hon'ble Minister, Sri Ashok Chandra Panda said that the Palm leaf Manuscript of Odisha not only has received a national heritage status, but also UNESCO is thinking of world heritage tag to it. This On-line Cataloguing System of the Manuscripts would be of immense help to the researchers of the world over and in process would bring laurels to the State Periodic Seminar and Symposium would be organized on this aspect to highlight the intrinsic strength and value of the Odisha Culture.
The palm leaf Manuscripts of Odisha State Museum have become the centre of attraction and interest of whole world. Around 40,000 palm leaf manuscripts have been preserved in Odisha State Museum. It is strange but true that Odisha enjoys the pride of place having the largest collection of manuscripts in the entire world. The collections of manuscripts in the State Museum categorized into 27 sections consisting of Vedas, Tantra, Religious, Scriptures, Philosophy, Astrology, Ayurveda, Grammar, Lexicon, Music, Puranas, Kavyas, and Mathematics etc. A laudable step has been initiated by e-Cataloguing of the Manuscripts with the help of N.I.C to make it accessible to all the stakeholders throughout the world. Messages have been received from renowned Universities and reputed institutions wishing the success of this programme.
The e-Pothi is developed using open source technologies PHP, PgSql and Drupal as CMS by Dr R N Behera, STD as Team Leader, Sri Ajit Kr. Pattanayak, PSA, Ms. Namita Senapati, PSA as team members under the guidance of Sri S.K.Panda, DDG & SIO, NIC, Odisha.
