BRIN Digitizes Ancient Batak Manuscripts in Big Data Project
- 19 Agt 2026 08:20 WIB
- Voice of Indonesia
Poin Utama
- BRIN is digitizing hundreds of ancient Batak Pustaha manuscripts to preserve traditional knowledge and create a unified digital database for research.
- The project has digitized 152 of 515 identified collections, incorporating advanced metadata to support AI-based script recognition and future cultural research.
RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta - The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) of Indonesia has launched a major digital digitization project to map, preserve, and catalog hundreds of centuries-old Batak pustaha (manuscripts) scattered across domestic and international institutions into a unified digital big data infrastructure.
Pustaha are traditional bark-cloth manuscripts used by ancient Batak scholars (datu) to record specialized knowledge, including medicine, agriculture, customary law (bisara na godang), astronomy, and rituals, written in an esoteric linguistic register known as Hata Poda.
Funded through joint collaboration between BRIN, the Dutch Research Council (NWO), and the Indonesian Ministry of Culture, the research team has successfully digitized 152 out of 515 identified pustaha collections (29.5 percent) across repositories including the North Sumatra Provincial Museum, Leiden University Library, and Wereldmuseum Amsterdam.
Beyond high-resolution visual preservation, the project integrates advanced metadata spanning codicology, philology, and iconography to build a foundation for AI-driven script recognition, historical research, and cultural preservation.
Archeological researchers and cultural preservationists emphasized that digital restitution of indigenous manuscripts illuminates the deep intellectual continuity and cross-cultural trade networks of ancient Sumatran scholars.
BRIN Researcher at the Research Center for Environmental, Maritime, and Sustainable Cultural Archaeology Lolita Tobing highlighted the global interconnectedness demonstrated by ancient Batak intellectual traditions.
"Many aspects can be extracted from the study of ancient Batak manuscripts. We found many loanwords from Old Malay, Old Javanese, Sanskrit, and even older languages. This is intriguing to explore further to understand the reach and mobility of ancient Batak scholars," Lolita said in Jakarta, as quoted on BRIN's official website.
She noted that the structured transmission of knowledge documented in pustaha reflects academic mechanisms similar to modern citation systems. "In my view, this strong literacy tradition also shares continuity with modern Batak society. This is an interesting link when considering educational data showing a high proportion of Batak people pursuing higher education," Tobing added. ***
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