About the Research
This archive is one of the outcomes of doctoral research in digital humanities at the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur. The research examines how traditional visual heritage — specifically Kerala’s temple mural tradition — can be documented, interpreted, and made accessible through digital methods without reducing it to mere data.
The central question the research asks is not just how to digitise murals, but what a digital archive of living sacred art should do. An archive that treats a temple mural the same way it treats a museum painting misses something essential. These works were made to be experienced within architecture, during ritual, in the presence of devotion. Any digital representation of them carries the obligation to acknowledge that context — not to simulate it, but to make it legible.
Research Scope
The research was conducted across multiple fieldwork visits to temple and palace sites in Kerala, with documentation permissions obtained from the relevant temple authorities and trusts. Sites documented include — but are not limited to — Mattancherry Palace in Kochi, the Kadavil Thrikkovil Temple in Thrippunithura, Thriprayar Srirama Swamy Temple, and Vadakkunnathan Temple.
The methodology combines systematic photographic documentation with iconographic analysis, conservation assessment, site history research, and interview-based fieldwork with custodians and traditional painters where accessible.
Digital Humanities Framework
The archive sits within a broader conversation in digital humanities about how cultural heritage institutions — museums, archives, libraries — can serve communities beyond their immediate geographic and linguistic reach. Kerala’s mural tradition is largely inaccessible to the researchers, students, and communities most invested in it, for reasons of geography, language, and institutional gatekeeping.
This archive attempts to address that inaccessibility directly — through multilingual access, open browse structures, narrative framing that does not assume prior expertise, and a commitment to ongoing documentation rather than a fixed, closed collection.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur. Field documentation was made possible by the cooperation of Archealogical Survey of India (ASI) Thrissur circle, temple authorities and local communities across Kerala, whose custodianship of these murals makes all other engagement with them possible.
This archive is a living document. It will continue to grow as research develops.
