"Only those who have experienced it know how precisely exacting it is. Old palm-leaf manuscripts resemble dried firewood. They are in the danger of breaking apart the moment one touches it. They have to be separated with extraordinary delicateness, care and caution. After this begins the process of reading them. The palm-leaves must first be coated with the juice of leafy greens. It only then that the alphabets will show themselves in black strokes. This is followed by the trouble of unchaining the shackles of the Mōḍi script. This is perhaps the greatest difficulty — it is not easily understood by the people of our era [late 19th century - early or mid 20th century]. Verses written on palm-leaves are not split into neatly ordered feet [Pāda or lines in metrical poetry]. In fact, even different poems are not separated from one another. The whole inscription or poetical work is written like a single sentence from start to finish akin to a chain. Indeed, at the minimum, it takes more than half a day to read just one side of a palm-leaf manuscript... Mere scholarship is insufficient to undertake this kind of work. The person needs extraordinary levels of enthusiasm and a superhuman standards of patience."