Visualizing the Lost Script of South Asia Under the Umbrella of the Digital Humanities Tool VisualEye

Ashwin Kumar Kushwaha; Rakhi Kumari; Prof. Ajay Pratap Singh; Dr. Pramod Kumar Singh

doi:10.14429/djlit.43.01.18625

Ashwin Kumar Kushwaha Department of Library and Information Science, University of Jammu, Jammu – 180 006, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8963-8478
Rakhi Kumari Department of Library and Information Science, University of Jammu, Jammu – 180 006, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3712-6227
Prof. Ajay Pratap Singh Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation, Ministry of Culture, Kolkata – 700 064, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1811-6509
Dr. Pramod Kumar Singh Department of Library and Information Science, University of Jammu, Jammu – 180 006, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5249-2567

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.43.01.18625

Keywords: Brahmi script, Data visualization, Digital Humanities, VisualEyes, Open data

Abstract

Brahmi Script - is one of the earliest scripts known to India and South Asia and it is also an ancestral script for all the indigenous scripts present in India. The researchers, historians, laymen, etc. need these sources of information systematically and handily. In the scholarly world, a huge amount of data and information (Digital Humanities based collections) related to Brahmi script is available but all this information is scattered in the form of texts, images, videos, etc. This creates chaos to understand the overall story of the Brahmi script from its inception to till date. With these issues, we felt motivated to present the data and information related to Brahmi Script among their users in a more informative, easily accessible, and comfortably understandable manner. In this paper, we have tried to connect all the dots related to Brahmi Script under one umbrella with the help of the Digital humanities tool – VisualEyes. Further, we have mapped these multimedia formats with each other on the historical timeline, interactive maps and story events to establish and understand the relationship among the various facets of the Brahmi Script. The impact of this research is more appealing as it has presented a new dimension for any other script to make it more accessible and easily understandable worldwide while using an innovative open-source tool.