ASI begins digitising 750 inscriptions at Tirumala temple under Bharat SHRI

The epigraphy branch of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has begun copying and digitising about 750 inscriptions at the Sri Venkateswara temple in Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh, under the Bharat Shared Repository of Inscriptions (Bharat SHRI) project, according to reports dated Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Work began with nearly 600 inscriptions on the temple's walls, and officials expect the full set to shed light on the temple's political, social, religious, economic and cultural history. The inscriptions have been only partly documented before: 44 were copied from the temple's second enclosure in 1889, 1904, 1912 and 1916, and another 53 from the walls of the sanctum in 2008-09.

Temple inscriptions are among the most important sources of Indian history. Carved into stone walls and pillars, they record gifts of land, gold and jewels, the founding of rituals and festivals, the names of kings, queens, merchants and ordinary devotees, and sometimes disputes and their resolution. For a temple as old and as richly endowed as Tirumala, the inscriptions together form an archive spanning many centuries, showing how rulers and communities supported the shrine and how its rituals developed.

Until now, only a small fraction of the Tirumala inscriptions had been systematically copied, and the earliest records date back more than a century. Stone weathers, walls are renovated, and some surfaces have been covered over time. Earlier accounts describe plans to record inscriptions on the outer walls of the sanctum before they were covered with gold plating, and note that many date from the Vijayanagara period, with some from the Chola, Pandya and Pallava eras. A full digital copy protects that record against further loss.

The Bharat SHRI project aims to build a shared national repository of inscriptions, so that scholars, students and the public can study texts that were previously scattered across old publications or never published at all. Digitised inscriptions can be read, translated and cross-referenced far more easily, and can help historians build a fuller picture of trade, administration, religious life and languages across south India.

For devotees, the work does not affect darshan or rituals; it records what is already on the temple's walls. For historians of Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Sanskrit, it promises a significant new body of material.

Short-term: ASI epigraphists will document the inscriptions on site, beginning with nearly 600, before they are processed for the repository.

Long-term: Once published, the Tirumala inscriptions could become one of the richest digital sources on the history of a single Indian temple, supporting research in history, languages and religious studies for decades.

Who is affected: Historians, epigraphists and students; devotees interested in the temple's history; Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, which administers the temple; and researchers using the Bharat SHRI repository.

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