Patna: The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, would like to digitise documents written in Kaithi script in Bihar and make it available to the public if the state government helps.

"The CIIL and the Bihar government could work toge-ther to digitise the documents written in Kaithi. Most documents written in this script are with the government, but the script is itself vanishing. We would like to convert it into other scripts so that the public can easily access it," CIIL assistant director Narayan Choudhary said.

Choudhary was speaking on the sidelines of the first-ever workshop to assess the "Present condition of knowledge in Kaithi script", which the CIIL had organised at Patna Museum.

Several scholars took part in it and their unanimous opinion was that a concerted effort by the central and state governments as well as institutions interested in languages and scripts could save Kaithi, which is on the verge of extinction. Kaithi was once the medium for all land- and revenue-related documents among the masses in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

"The Kaithi script was widely prevalent among the masses in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand prior to 1940. Old land- and revenue-related documents are still in this script, but people who know it are in very few numbers. This makes it very difficult for courts, survey and revenue departments if they have to refer to old documents," Choudhary said.

Bhairab Lal Das, who coordinated the workshop, said its aim was to sensitise the government and the people about the possibility of the extinction of Kaithi and motivate them to conserve and protect it.

"The script originated after the 10th century AD and was used to write various languages like Bhojpuri, Maithili, Magahi, Angika, Vajjika and Surjapuri. Stone inscriptions, copper plate inscriptions, temple edicts, seals and manuscripts are found in it since that time. The revenue board in Bihar has lakhs of documents in this script," Das said.

Das, who is a project officer at the Bihar Legislative Council, said Kaithi got a royal place during Sher Shah Suri (1473 -1545), who made it a court script and also created two cadres of karkun or clerks, one knowing Persian and another versed in Kaithi.

The decline of the script happened during the British period, when its used was removed from the schools and later from the courts.

Bihar Research Society chief Shiv Kumar Mishra, former director of museums U.C. Dwivedi and several others were present at the workshop.