18th Century Tamil manuscripts found in monastery in Italy

Source: The post is based on the article “18th Century Tamil manuscripts found in monastery in Italy”  published in The Hindu on 7th August 2023.

What is the News?

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

What is Gnanamuyarchi?

Gnanamuyarchi are Tamil manuscripts found in an Armenian monastery in Northern Italy.

The manuscript could be a copy of the first Tamil translation of Spiritual Exercise, written by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century.

The translation was mostly done by Michele Bertoldi, known in Tamil as Gnanaprakasasamy.

The manuscript was initially misclassified as ‘Indian Papyrus Lamulic Language–XIII Century,’ unaware that they were written in Tamil. 

The monastery authorities think the manuscripts might have been brought to Italy by Armenians in Chennai.