Some 1,500 precious talapatrams (palm leaf manuscripts) illegally sent to US. "the palm leaves bundle is being taken over as per the directions of the then executive officer, TTD (Ajeya Kallam)

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TIMES OF INDIA Front Page News on 22-4-2005 Hyd Edition

 

Rare manuscripts sent to US illegally

 

By K Sreedhar Rao & K R Raghavan/TNN

 

Hyderabad/Tirupati: Some 1,500 precious talapatrams (palm leaf manuscripts)

containing some of the compositions of 15th century Telugu poet-saint Tallapaka

Annamacharya have gone missing from the Tirumala temple since they were

illegally sent to the US, apparently to have them digitised.

 

The manuscripts were in the custody of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD),

which administers the temple. Ostensibly to store them in a more permanent

format, the TTD's central library was told to hand over a bundle of about 1,500

talapatrams to one 'Sriram of Sanfransisco' (sic) in January 2004.

 

Documents available with The Times of India show that the librarian handed over

the bundle on Jan 17, 2004 after taking an acknowledgement, which reads "the

palm leaves bundle is being taken over as per the directions of the executive

officer, TTD (Ajeya Kallam) during the national conference on digital library

held at Bangalore on January 15, 2004." The manuscripts have not been returned

since, and there is no trace of them. TTD officials are now clueless about the

exact number of manuscripts given to 'Sriram of Sanfransisco'. Sources said the

TTD authorities chose to send the talapatrams to the US without seeking the

approval of the TTD board of trustees or the Union government. According to

Section 2(A)(1) (iii) and (iv) of the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972,

talapatrams are antiquities. Export of such antiquities without the permission

of the central government or an authorised agency is prohibited under provision

3 of the law. The talapatrams contain some compositions by Annamacharya and his

commentaries on the Puranas and the Vedas. During his lifetime, the composer

penned more than 32,000 songs in praise of Lord Venkateswara, the presiding

deity of the Tirumala temple. While many of them have been lost, some 12,000

have been found and preserved, some in the form of copper plate inscriptions

commissioned by contemporary kings. Apart from the songs of devotion, the

compositions contain rich information about contemporary society.

 

Some of the manuscripts now lost in the US had been discovered during

excavations in and around Madanapalle in Chittoor district and contained

information pertaining to the reign of the Vijayanagar king Sri Krishnadevaraya.

The government has conducted an inquiry into the episode but the report is yet

to be submitted. Endowments minister M Satyanarayana Rao was not available for

his reaction to this episode. Principal secretary (revenue) J P Murthy who deals

with the subject was reluctant to say anything on the issue. When contacted,

Ajeya Kallam, the then TTD executive officer, told The Times of India that the

talapatrams were being digitised and a search was on for suitable equipment to

scan them. "They are not very valuable. The talapatrams will be restored to the

TTD,'' he said.