Tamil Heritage Foundation is formed as a non-profit, non-political, non-governmental organization to serve Tamils around the world. We engage in the digital preservation of Indian Heritage Materials. We evolved over the years the technical know-how for preserving heritage materials such as ancient palm leaf manuscripts and old books in electronic forms that are easily readable in the web and mobile devices. This provides not only the freedom of information but assures democracy as well. By web enabling our ancient scripts and antiquities that were mostly read and understood by particular section of Tamil Society, we make it available to all sections of Tamil society, International students of Tamil language and culture and to scholars in general.
We aim to digitize millions of palm leaf manuscripts still unpublished from various Governmental and private libraries, museums and private collections. This includes manuscripts dealing with indigenous medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, engineering (ship building etc.,) architecture, literature, music and arts. We plan to bring forth the forgotten scientific, medical traditions, evaluate them in the light of modern science and encourage new discoveries and patents. In the long run we plan to bring in a paradigm shift in the Indian (Tamil) psyche from a heavily conditioned colonial mindset to a self-confident, vibrant Tamil mindset.
THF acquires state-of-the-art technologies from Germany and India and engage Tamil IT professionals, Technical College/University students for developing the IT skills that are needed for this task.
Tamil Heritage Foundation is a global initiative to preserve and understand Tamil heritage in a proper scientific way so that our history, our science, our technology is understood correctly. THF will try to bring back the much-needed Tamil pride for a sustainable future for Tamils living around the world.
We aim to digitize millions of palm leaf manuscripts still unpublished from various Governmental and private libraries, museums and private collections. This includes manuscripts dealing with indigenous medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, engineering (ship building etc.,) architecture, literature, music and arts. We plan to bring forth the forgotten scientific, medical traditions, evaluate them in the light of modern science and encourage new discoveries and patents. In the long run we plan to bring in a paradigm shift in the Indian (Tamil) psyche from a heavily conditioned colonial mindset to a self-confident, vibrant Indian mindset.
We plan to undertake several projects in the coming years. Among them are:
- Digital cataloguing of various manuscript catalogues that are currently available in print form and bring-in new entries as well.
- Acquisition of the manuscripts for digitization, digital preservation, critical reading and editing; publishing (electronic and print versions).
- Developing methods of electronic discussion across borders on Tamil heritage and generate worldwide interest that stimulate new discoveries.
- Audio-video documentation of Tamil culture and heritage.
Vision
Tamil Heritage Foundation is a global initiative to preserve and understand Tamil heritage in a proper scientific way so that its history, science and technology are understood properly. THF will try to bring back the much needed Tamil pride and a sustainable future for Tamils living around the world.
Activities
- Tamil Heritage Awareness workshops
- Tamil Heritage Podcast, Audio and Video Collections
- Student Heritage Center
- Collecting and digitizing rare Tamil Manuscripts
- Conducting digitization workshops
Releases
- Quarterly “Mintamil Medai“ Journal
- Digitization of early 20th Cent Tamil Magazine – Tamil Pozhil, Oru Paisa Thamizhan (early 20th century magazine), Nadar Kula Mithran ,
- Heritage Videos, E-books and Audio Collections
THF Digital Collections:
- Denmark Copenhagen rare Tamil palm leaves and paper Manuscript
- France National Library rare Tamil palm leaves and paper Manuscript
- Audio Collections of Classical Tamil Literature
- Videos of Chozha Period Temple Architecture
- Videos of Stone Inscriptions from various parts of Tamil Nadu
- Tamil folk’s Anthropological studies
- Tamil Village arts, folks music and dance
- Heritage Reference Library
Projects:
- Digitization of rare Tamil Book collections from British Library
- Digitization of rare Tamil Palm Leaf Manuscripts collections from Royal Library of Copenhagen
- Digitization of rare Tamil Palm Leaf Manuscripts collections from National Library of France
- Tamil Palm leaf Manuscripts collection in collaboration with Tamil University
- Collection and digitization of Temple Stories
- Annual Conferences
- Collecting and displaying heritage artifacts at schools and colleges
- Honoring Tamil scholars annually
- School and college Heritage Museum