Digital Technology & puskola (පුස්කොල පොත)

 Sri Lanka carries a rich history of knowledge management in the history with written management of knowledge over 2500 years. Primarily, inscriptions on rocks & inscriptions of ‘Puskola’ (පුස්කොල) (tempered Palmira leaves) have been used as a method of written management of knowledge. In addition, It verbal tradition has been a popular and appealing method to the general public in which word of mouth has been the medium. ‘Puskola’ was mainly used to inscribe the knowledge of local medicine, Buddhist writings, Astrology & Occult knowledge. Inscribing in the puskola is a living system, still practised remotely but diminishing rapidly. The process of preparation of the leaves to use as a writing surface on the Puskola is a tedious and time-consuming exercise. It requires a great deal of dedication, patience, skills and knowledge of the herbs. 

Inscriptions on rocks (සෙල් ලිපි)

The rock inscriptions can still be seen in the rock caves, which demands knowledge of the alphabet of the ancient language. Scholars in contemporary society consider the book published in 1970, Inscription of Ceylon by Professor Senerath Paranavithrana to be the masterpiece of Sri Lankan Epigraphy. The book consists of one thousand two hundred thirty-four (1234) inscriptions and is used as the basis for subsequent critical evaluations and discussions. 

 Tempered Palmira leaves (පුස්කොල)

Similar to rock inscriptions,reading ‘Puskola’ is a subtle art which requires in-depth language proficiency combined with three languages Pali, Sanskrit and Sinhala. The language used to inscribe the ‘Puskola’ is called ‘Pelabasa’ where words are not separated but continuous to encode the meaning of the sentence. The reader should be able to decode the meaning by separating the words appropriately. In the language of ‘pelabasa’, meaning has been encoded for every character and the words developed from the combination of characters. A ‘password’ has been inserted (as shown in the red circle in the below image) to keep the inscribed knowledge more secure. The tradition was to verbally pass the ‘password’ to the next successor who demonstrates a promising character who doesn’t use the learned knowledge for evil purposes. The following figure depicts the picture of  'Puskola’ taken by the author.

Analyses in the objective of future research interest

The language used in ‘Puskola’ is seen as an analogy for an analogue signal which is written as a continuous sentence without breaking into words. Similar to sampling in the method of pulse code modulation (PCM) in contemporary digital technology, words are used to decode and encode the meaning of the message in the 'Puskola'. PCM is a form of digital-to-analogue conversion, in which digitizing the analogue waveforms in which amplitude samples are taken at frequent, regular intervals can accurately represent continuously varying signals as binary digital numbers (Whalen, Wiley, Rubin, P.E, & Cooper, 1990).

The above figure shows the digitizing of an analogue to digital format using two sample ratios.  Higher the sample rate, the higher the resolution of a digital signal. A similar analogy is in words and characters of Pelabasa language used in Puskola. As the words are separated into more fine portions, the deeper the meaning gets enhanced and the message becomes more descriptive.  

Creative thinking could develop research topics out of this phenomenon which intern could lead to innovations in digital technology for the future. 

An investigative analysis to inspire research and innovations.

By

The Analyst                                                        

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