Modi Documents

Thanjavur was ruled by the Cholas, Vijayanagara kings, Nayaks and Marathas. The Marathas ruled Thanjavur from A.D. 1675 to 1855. Quite Number of literatures was flourished by the Court Poets in respective periods. During Maratha Period mostly they used Devanagari scripts for writing on paper and Telugu and Tamil scripts for writing on Palm leaves. They were used another script called “Modi”. Modi scripts were used for recording official documents and day to day records. Modi means broke, Modi scripts are broken from the Devanagari scripts. Otherwise it may be called shorten form of Devanagari scripts. This scripts was used for writing on stone, metal sheets and paper. The documents written with this script are Modi documents. These documents give the history of Maratha kings, their contributions to temples, and social status of the people such as agriculture, music, education, business and other works done by the people.

In 1918, when the Sarasvati Mahal Library was made as Public Library, It has approximately 1500 bundles. To bring the importance of the documents in 1929-30, R.S.Shelvankar, a research scholar of Madras University has undertaken research on the Modi documents. He selected 27 bundles and submitted a descriptive report. The earliest record he mentions is a document relating to the death of Pratapa Simha in 1763 A.D. and the latest being a return of Mokasa estates in 1887. The documents dealt with the Judicial, Military, Civil and Financial administrative systems and also deal with miscellaneous subjects like the Raja’s death, marriage of royal household, Serfoji II’s pilgrimage to Benares, the Sarasvati Mahal Library and accounts relating to the Construction of drains in Thanjavur.

In 1946, the Indian Historical Records Commission recommended to preserve the Modi documents also mentioned as “Tanjore Raj Records” and to bring the contents to light. Accordingly in 1952, Major N.B.Katre, a Modi script expert was appointed to classify the documents. He went through all the bundles and classified them as “A”, “B” and “C” groups.  The A - group contains documents related to British administrators and other important deeds, which were sent to Tamilnadu Archives for preservation. Now these documents were brought to Tamil University, Thanjavur. Most of these documents were conserved and digitized. The B –group documents dealt with district information and other official records were kept in Thanjavur Collector Office and now they are preserved in Sarasvati Mahal Library.  The C-group has more than 900 bundles dealt with temples and Palace administrations, which were kept in the Sarasvati Mahal Library.

Only after 1965 the Government sanction funds for preservation of manuscripts and documents. A  Modi training course was conducted to do the translation work.  Only two trained peoples were engaged to translate the Modi documents in the Library. They have done the translation work under the guidance and supervision of the regular Modi Pandit of the Library. They translated the Modi documents to Marathi and then Tamil language. The Tamil translation was written in 50 note books from 1970 to 1978. From this translation many articles were published in the Sarasvati Mahal Library Journal under the title “Modi Palakani”.

From the copies of the translated note books, the Tamil University has published books under the title “Thanjai Marathiya Mannar kaala Arasiyalum samuthaya vaazhkkaiyum”. The Tamil translation throws the socio, economic and History of Thanjavur region during Maratha Period. If the remaining volumes would translate, it will give more information about the History of Thanjavur in 18^th and 19^th Century. It is our duty to preserve the documents and to bring the contents to light for the future generation.

                                                                                                Dr.P.Perumal,
Former Conservator,
Sarasvati Mahal Library,
Thanjavur.

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