Pantal Vaidikan Dāmodaran Nampūtiri, a private collection belonging to Mr. Damodaran from Pantal Mana in Rappal in Kerala, India, has been digitized and fully catalogued under the DiPiKA Project (Digital Preservation of Kerala Archives) and is now available in HMML Reading Room. The collection includes 45 palm-leaf manuscripts and 47 paper manuscripts, most featuring either Malayalam or Sanskrit written in the Malayalam alphabet.

Mr. Pantal Damodaran belongs to the Vaidikan family of the Iriññālakkuṭa grāma, whose members are renowned experts in the procedure of Vedic rituals. Notably, there are only six families of Vaidikans in Kerala, making this lineage particularly significant. The collection is largely composed of texts on Vedic ritual practice, many of which – based on recent survey findings – are not known to exist in other archives. These manuscripts preserve a distinctive sacrificial tradition specific to this family line, offering valuable insight into a rare and localized Vedic heritage. The collection comprises, among other things, such unique works on the subject of Vedic ritualism as Yāgakriyā (DKA 003 00033), Agniṣṭomavidhi (DKA 003 00019), Yogiyāruṭe kārikā (DKA 003 00058), and Loṣṭacitiprakāra (DKA 003 00010).

The palm-leaf manuscripts in this collection are part of the ancestral holdings of the Pantal Mana. Some of the paper manuscripts contain notes written by the current owner's father, reflecting his scholarly engagement with Vedic tradition. The remaining paper manuscripts were acquired by him from various other families engaged in the practice of Vedic śrauta ritual. These include Taikkāṭṭŭ Mana, Kiṭaṅṅaśśēri Mana, Kapliṅṅāṭṭŭ Mana, Kōtamaṅgalam Mana, Kāpra Mana, and Tōṭṭam Mana.

While working on the collection, the team made a surprising discovery noting that two of the palm-leaf manuscripts had attached to them Dutch East India Company coins dated to the year 1751 (DKA 003 00022) and 1790 (DKA 003 00005). The coins have a hole in the middle and are affixed at the end of the string that serves to bind the bundles. View now