Exploring Text, Practice and Practitioner

Our collection is organised primarily around occupational practices such as shipbuilding, architecture, astrology, accounting, and related fields.

The section on teaching and learning includes not only texts and artefacts directly connected with schooling, but also materials that circulated more widely among people and were intended for learning or leisure, such as riddles and puzzles.

The measuring instruments collection comprises photographs of instruments from various public museums, particularly in Tamil Nadu, as well as from households in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and from the Tulabhavana, a weights and measures museum established by the private collector Mr. Basavaraj of Davanagere, Karnataka, and now maintained by Sri Taralabalu Jagadguru Brihanmath, Sirigere.

You can browse our collection using the overview provided here or through the search window. You can also explore some of the materials spatially via the Atlas.

The Atlas, in particular, offers a way to understand the use of various measures and measurement systems in medieval and pre-colonial Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as recorded in inscriptions from different parts of these regions. Together, these tools are designed to help you navigate the archive and trace the relationships between knoweldge, text, practice, practioner, schooling, place and so on.