Digital font of endangered 'pahari' script ‘Pabuchi Lipi’ developed

Abhinav Vashisht

Kullu, December 15

Linguistic scholar and researcher Biswajit Mandal, who is 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 local research scholar.

Biswajit says that 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 says it is a historic decision 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 will open a new scope to understand and preserve the ‘Sancha Granth’.

Yatin says mostly individuals and private organisations are trying to revive the endangered scripts but there is no support from the government. The endangered script ‘Takri’ was digitised in 2016.

He says old scriptures can be digitised and preserved using these fonts in a simple language, for the reference of future generations. A research in ancient scripts will reveal various facts about the history and it is necessary that the government shows keen interest and do the needful.

Yatin says that a large number of ‘pandu lipis’ are available with the HP Academy of Arts, Culture and Languages but these are not easily accessible to research scholars, leave aside other individuals.

He adds the academy should make more efforts to digitise the ‘pandu lipis’ and make these available to the scholars for further research.

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