An AI-assisted project specializing in the decipherment of degraded manuscripts has identified a lost series of texts within the Konkan Historical Archive. These 7th-century fragments, written in a rare early form of the Nandinagari script, detail theoretical principles of tribology—the study of friction, wear, and lubrication—applied to the engineering of heavy-duty temple chariots and water-lifting mechanisms.
The treatises describe the systematic classification of organic lubricants derived from specific plant resins and animal fats, categorized by their viscosity and thermal stability. This discovery provides the first documented evidence of a formalized scientific approach to mechanical friction management in ancient India, showcasing the intersection of theoretical physics and practical engineering in the early medieval period.