GNANAMUYARCHI (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 - Art & Culture)

Context: Palm manuscripts from the 18th Century titled Gnanamuyarchi have been discovered in an Armenian monastery in Northern Italy. 

Key Points

• A doctoral scholar of the Special Centre for Tamil Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was allowed access to the manuscripts.
• According to a professor, it could be a copy of the first translation of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercise in Tamil.
• This translation is most likely by Michele Bertoldi, known in Tamil as Gnanaprakasasamy. 
• This is a prose text from the early 18th Century (likely the 1720s) and has been printed several times in the 19th Century by the Mission Press in Puducherry.
• The library had categorised the manuscripts as ‘Indian Papyrus Lamulic Language–XIII Century’, and the authorities were not aware that it had been written in Tamil. 
• Those in charge of the monastery are of the opinion that the Armenians in Chennai could have brought the manuscripts to Italy.