Imagine your desk top virtually turning into a time machine, able to take you at the click of the mouse miles away and centuries back to the 1010 AD Tanjavur's Brhadisvara temple and letting you explore it in its totality, complete with the contemporary political and economic set up in which it had been built!
Thanks to a series of multi-media DVDs, developed by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (INGCA), following a two-decade long research and use of ultra modern scientific tool and techniques, the imagination has turned into a virtual reality.
Developed by INGCA in a unique endeavour and use of information and communication tools, the DVDs have revived and rejuvenated the Raja Raja Chola-built, 11th century temple, also forming part of the Unesco World Heritage Site 'Great Living Chola Temples,' in its full glory and grandeur.
Having captured and encased the majestic temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, the DVDs have sought to bring the treasure trove of India's rich cultural heritage not only closer to the present masses but has also succeeded in preserving it for the posterity.
The interactive DVDs capture the wonders of the temple in their totality. They have encased not merely the synergy among the architecture, sculptures, paintings, bronze images and the idols of the temple, but have gone to the extent of incorporating information on many other aspect of the period, including those on politics, economics and judicial system.
The multi-media documentation of this temple has been done by the cultural Informatics Laboratory (CIL), a multimedia Research Centre established in IGNCA with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) aid. The DVDs were made under a project titled "Strengthening National Facility for Interactive Multimedia Documentation of Cultural Resources."
"This magnificent monument had not been given due attention till now. We, however, have sought to bring the temple closer to masses by capturing its wonders and majesty using ultra-modern scientific tools to have its measured drawings with the help of computer and audio-visual techniques to present it in its totality," says R Nagaswamy, the subject expert and project co-coordinator.
Nagaswamy explains the seven DVDs, made by INGCA, detail various aspects of the temple ranging from its floor plan to iconography to rituals and festivals.
"For the first time, we have used scientific tools which have come into existence in modern times like measured drawings and audio-visual techniques. All these things are co-related for the first time to know the totality of the temple not just as a structure or a sculpture. The meaning of the structure on the whole has been co-related with the aid of multimedia technology and it is user-friendly," he added.
