Experimenting with Digital Palaeography: The First Application of the Handwriting Software Tool (HAT 3.5) to Indian Scripts

HAT (Handwriting Analysis Tool) is a software tool developed by Hussein Adnan Mohammed at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (Universität Hamburg) that analyses and compares handwriting styles provided as input in the form of digital reproductions of handwritten texts. Thanks to some innovative features of the method on which it is based, HAT is easy to use autonomously, even by those with no particular digital expertise, and it is not tied to a specific script or a particular script typology. This paper presents the results of the first attempt at applying HAT to two Indian scripts, namely the Tamil and the Tamilian Grantha scripts, in the form in which they are attested in palm-leaf manuscripts from Tamil Nadu. Six tests were carried out, different in mode and objective from one another. The first four tests are aimed at verifying the ability of HAT to assess the similarity between writing styles and to use such an ability to establish or verify the identity of a particular scribe. The last two tests explore the possibility of exploiting HAT’s potential for studying the diachronic development of the two scripts in question.