For nearly 3 weeks, work has been on-going on the Anugraha Bhashanam(s)’ module. As of this writing, almost all of the work has been completed and a sizeable portion of the content has been incorporated.
The Anugraha Bhashanams module which was more or less dormant in the previous version has been ramped up and super-charged with features which makes it unique.
The vision is to build a comprehensive archive of the Anugraha Bhashanams of the Jagadgurus so as to benefit bhaktas and be a goto resource with regards to Sanatana Dharma for one and all.
New Features
Metadata
All Anugraha Bhashanams now have metadata of language, location and Jagadguru to classify them and help viewers of the website to retreive Anugraha Bhashams based on the aforementioned metadata.
Language
For example, a person whose mother tongue is Tamil may choose to view Anugraha Bhashanams only in Tamil. Similarly the case for other languages as well. Not available in the interface, but possible with intelligent query-parameters, one can choose to view Anugraha Bhashanams in a combination of two or more languages as well. Should the requirement arise, this can be implemented in the user interface as well.
Location
Similarly one can view Anugraha Bhashanams delivered in a particular state, district or location as well. For now only statewise filtering is enabled in the UI.
Jagadguru
One can also view Anugraha Bhashanams delivered by a particular Jagadguru. As to whether this is a useful feature or not is not certain for now.
Chronology
All Anugraha Bhashanams are listed chronologically and are true to the date on which the Anugraha Bhashanam was delivered. In instances where the date is not available, an intrinsic date is used which represents the date closest to when the Anugraha Bhashanam was delivered.
Format
Also in the metadata is the format of the Anugraha Bhashanam viz. Video, Audio or Text. This metadata is currently not filterable since I cannot see any practical use for this feature.
Series
When an Anugraha Bhasham is delivered as a part of a series of Anugraha Bhashanam, this data is also recorded which enables the user to peruse all Anugraha Bhashanams in the series. A classic example of this would be the 2012 Vedanta Anugraha Bhashanam series delivered during the Chaturmasya Vrata of Jagadguru Mahasannidhanam in 2012.
Content
Existing content from the website has been fully migrated and integrated into the Anugraha Bhashanam module. Redundant (duplicates, incomplete) content has been deleted after due perusal and deeming them to be of no value.
All of the Anugraha Bhashanam videos from Youtube have been incorporated into the new site. This primarily includes the 2012 Vijaya Yatra Anugraha Bhashanam videos.
Experimental Audio has been fully tested and made available for Anugraha Bhashanams that may be only audio recordings. As of this writing audio-only Anugraha Bhashanams are hosted on Audiomack which is a website similar to soundcloud or in other words, similar to Youtube, but only for audio.
Ongoing work
I found a set of four books entitled “Jagadguru Vani”, being a compendium of English translations of the Anugraha Bhashanams delivered by Jagadguru Mahasannidhanam during the 1992 Yatra. Volume 1 has been scanned, OCR’ed and proof-read by volunteers, while the other three are in pipeline. In the coming weeks this content will also be integrated into the Anugraha Bhashanam archive.
Proposed Enhancements
Topic / Subject metadata
A few bhaktas have suggested adding topic or subject (or both) of a given anugraha bhashanam to be included in the meta-data. This requires careful perusal and more importantly rules for defining the taxonomy; else badly designed and implemented taxonomy could easily turn out useless.
This features is definitely worth exploring and needs time to be implemented. Given that in most cases a given Anugraha Bhashanam may have more than one topic, adding relevant metadata will be a time consuming process, best left to dedicated volunteers; final review can be done by someone here – as time permits.
Changes to the presentation of the Anugraha Bhashanam Videos
While the existing design is quite satisfactory, in order to further enhance user interaction and usability on the website, I am thinking of slightly modifying the presentation of anugraha bhashanam videos on the website to mimic Youtube’s presentation; especially the large-format distraction free video.
As of now no changes have been made, for lack of time.