The Kerala Manuscripts on CD-ROM: A Joint Indian-French-Hungarian Mission

Our research group, consisting of Alain Desreumaux, Françoise BriquelChatonnet, Andrew Palmer, István Perczel and Jacob Thekeparampil, with the financial support of the Central European University, Budapest, the Saint Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, Kottayam (SEERI), the Laboratoire des études sémitiques anciennes (C.N.R.S.-Collège de France, Paris IV), France, and the Centre d’études des religions du Livre (C.N.R.S.E.P.H.E), France, has initiated a joint Indian-French-Hungarian mission for exploring, making accessible and preserving the Syriac manuscript archives in Kerala, India. In the Kerala libraries, which mostly belong to the country’s traditional Syrian Church institutions, as well as to some private owners, over one thousand precious Syriac manuscripts are preserved. Previous research (by E.R. Hambye, J.P.M. van der Ploeg, Mar Aprem, Dn. P.M. Cheriyan, D. McConaughy, H. Kaufhold, F. Briquel-Chatonnet, A. Desreumaux and J. Thekeparampil) has provided preliminary information about these collections.