HANSEL: A companion to GRETIL
As I wrote last year, GRETIL last accepted a contribution in October 2020. And if you missed the update over the summer (INDOLOGY list, 21 July 2025), GRETIL is now officially archived, meaning no more updates ever. The public site is still online, Claudius Teodorescu has done some thoughtful work improving its XML/TEI and building a search interface, and I’ve put up an exact mirror (which only took a few hours of work). But for new material, GRETIL as such is now closed for business. The manpower behind the concept and the brand is no more.
However, the concept itself is still solid:
welcome contributions of uneven quality and in any format,
actively help contributors shape their submissions,
perform some basic normalization, and
offer downloads that are already searchable, no extra processing needed.
Nothing has filled that role in the years since. Ambuda is notable as an emerging option, full of features and ambition, but I have not yet seen it resonate for academics and their needs. Nor does SARIT or any other scholarly collection combine genre breadth, usability, and ease of contribution the way GRETIL once did.
That’s why I’ve built HANSEL, a companion to pick up where GRETIL left off.
hansel-library.info
I just figured, why not? I mean, of course, first I asked around to find out whether anyone else was building something similar, but once I didn’t find anything, I started designing and coding right away. Half a year later — and with feedback from a few generous colleagues — it’s finally ready to share.
Visit the link and take a look around. It’s tiny so far, but you’ll see the familiar components:
links to download individual files or the whole set,
an in-browser display for any text, and
thorough metadata for every item.
The focus is on printed editions, and the PDF is always just a link away.
HANSEL landing page
HANSEL reading interface
Most importantly, the basic GRETIL ethos is there as well: Send whatever you have, in whatever condition, and I’m happy to help take it further.
“Oh wow, so you’re going to add all of the GRETIL material!”
To answer this inevitable first question: Actually no, I’m not planning to move all of GRETIL into HANSEL. HANSEL is starting fresh for new material — that’s what I mean by “picking up where GRETIL left off.” If someone wants to help shepherd specific items either from GRETIL or from anywhere else onto the platform, that’s totally welcome and I’ll support it, but a full-scale migration isn’t on the agenda.
Because: Every contribution in HANSEL will get careful attention and meet a clear standard. That takes time, and I’m prepared to put that time in. The better the material is before it reaches me, the smoother things go, but the bar for entry is intentionally low so that no one need hesitate. Some people may only have enough bandwidth to send an imperfect file and call it a day; others may want to stay involved and keep refining. Both are great for me because I learn a lot either way. And the platform is designed to allow for sharing work even at an early stage.
I’ll save the nuts and bolts (formats, features) for another forum. The main point is this: HANSEL is now online to fill the academic gap left by GRETIL’s discontinuation, and I hope you’ll reach out. I’m looking forward to hearing what you’re working on and helping you use the platform! Meanwhile, even if external contributions take time to ramp up, I’ll be steadily doing my own digitization work — bringing over items from my Pramāṇa NLP corpus, digitizing new texts, and adding material as soon as it’s ready. With the infrastructure now stable, it’s a pleasure to return to more focused data work again.
So, the stone soup may simmer quietly at first, but I’ll be in the kitchen. Come by if you’re hungry!
