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Magazine
Treasure trove of traditions
SUDHA GOPALAKRISHNAN
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While India is scripting a new chapter in the knowledge economy, we need new initiatives to preserve the countless manuscripts that contain our intellectual heritage.
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Narratives from another era: Pages of manuscripts from Diwan-i-Hafiz in Patna
Forty-five manuscripts, considered as India’s “treasures”, were identified by the National Mission for Manuscripts in February this year as “Vijnananidhi” based on an evaluation by scholars, and their custodians were honoured for preserving them. These are only some “gems” among the one million manuscripts placed in the public domain on www.namami.org
by the Mission through its work in the last four years.
Manuscripts hold the key to unlocking India’s intellectual tradition and are “India’s civilisational treasures” that President Abdul Kalam urged Parliamentarians to act to preserve in his farewell address to the Parliament. The neglect of treasures like our manuscripts and what their inheritance means for an India now scripting its pre-eminence in the knowledge economy of the 21st century can never be overemphasised. There could not be a better time to consider a revival of the centres that hold some of these treasures in India. Their locations, their content and their early preservers all are testimony to our plural heritage and our eclectic traditions. From the Gilgit Manuscripts in 570 folios written in birch-bark, now preserved at the National Archives of India and the Sir Pratap Singh Museum in Srinagar and the Dhul Wa (Vinaya Pitaka) housed in Kargon Gompa in Ladakh to the Arthasastra and Natya Sastra manuscripts, both on palm leaf, in the Oriental Research Institute in Mysore to the Kitab-al-Hashaish and Kitab-al-Tasrif in Khuda Baksh Oriental Public Library in Patna to the Bhagavata Purana, Chikitsasarasangraha, Mahabhashya and the Rigvedasamhita in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Library in Pune, this treasure trove of knowledge is every Indian’s proud possession.
Early efforts
The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, established on January 15, 1784, which began operating out of the homes of its members, tells the story of our early efforts at preservation as well as the opening up of this intellectual wealth to the world at large. In 1805, on the basis of a request from the Serampore Mission to publish classical Sanskrit works with their English translations, the Sanskrit epic of Ramayana was chosen to be translated. Sir Charles Wilkins who translated the Bhagavad Gita into English in 1785 also deciphered a number of Sanskrit inscriptions and published a translation of the Hitopadesa (1787). Sir William Jones translated Kalidasa’s Abhijnana Sakuntala (1789), Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda (1789) and a Persian work titled Laila Majnu. Today, the Asiatic Library has over 47,000 manuscripts in 26 languages. Among its treasures are Kalachakravatara, written on palm leaf on the mystical philosophy of cosmology, Kubjikamata, a manuscript of 7th century on Tantrik Buddhism, and Maitreyavyakarana on the prediction of the future.
Rare texts
The Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, rightly paid a belated but much deserving tribute to the ancient knowledge painstakingly preserved in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune, by allocating it a grant of Rs. five crores in the budget for the fiscal year 2007-2008. Founded in 1917, in commemoration of Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, the institute houses over 20,000 manuscripts. These cover a wide variety of subjects like religion, Vedic literature, grammar, music, puranas, strotra literature, tantras, medicine and philosophy. The institute contains a variety of manuscripts ranging from a Farsi translation of the Gita and the Yogavasishtha prepared by Dara Shikoh over 340 years ago to a copy of the Vishnu Purana translated into Persian by a Kashmiri Pandit and a manuscript relating to horse-breeding written by Qazi Hasan Iftekhan 390 years ago.
The Bhagavata Purana in Pune
Among the other important manuscripts at BORI is the Bhagavata Purana written in 1648 by Jaswant Bhatttaraka and having more than a 100 paintings illustrated by a painter named Shahabuddin. BORI also has in its collection Chikitsasarasangraha, composed by Vangadatta, one of the largest compilations of medical knowledge in ancient history which updated medical knowledge up to the 12th century and was written shortly thereafter by a scribe Jalasuta Ranasimha of Bijapur in 1320 A.D making it the oldest paper manuscript. Similarly, the monumental linguistic treatise Mahabhashya by Patanjali containing commentaries on the technical aspects of Panini’s grammar and Katyayana’s critical annotations of Panini’s Sutras in BORI’s collection was acquired by Prof. Kielhorn during his treks across Bombay Presidency in search of manuscripts in the 1880s. The manuscript of Rigvedasamhita, considered the oldest literary document in the world, composed perhaps 3,000 years ago and orally transmitted, is the most precious possession of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. The scribe of this manuscript was Bhatta Bhimaswami. George Buhler, Professor of Sanskrit at Elphinstone College, Bombay, and the first major surveyor of India’s manuscripts, had procured it during his trip to Kashmir. On the basis of a proposal jointly made by the India’s National Mission for Manuscripts and BORI, the UNESCO has inscribed Rigvedasamhita in the “Memory of the World” Register this year. This manuscript, written on birch-bark, is composed in Sanskrit in the Sharada script. It was this manuscript that was used by Max Muller for his first critical essay on the Rigveda, complete with a translation of its most famous commentary by Sayana.
Wide range
The Calcutta University, established in 1857, has a collection of over 42,000 manuscripts including 20,000 Sanskrit manuscripts and several in Persian, Arabic, as well as Tibetan, Bangla, Oriya, Maithili, Gaudi, Newari and Malayalam. Some of these are wrought in gold and silver lettering. Ashtasahasrikaprajnaparamita, the most important text of Mahayana Buddhism dating to the 15th century, is at this institution. The Bengali Ramayana, popularly known as Krittivasaramayana after its translator-poet Krittivilas Ojha, is believed to have been translated into languages like Assamese, Tamil, Malayalam and Brijbhasha. This is acknowledged as a significant literary work in its own right, contributing to the development of the Bengali language. Composed in medieval Bengali and written in medieval Bengali script, this manuscript is in three volumes on hand-made paper in the Calcutta University.
The Orissa State Museum, set up in 1932 by two historians, Prof. N.C. Banerjee and Prof. Ghanashyam Dash of Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, has over 37,000 titles with manuscripts in palm-leaf, bamboo-leaf, hand-made paper, ivory, birch bark and kumbhi bark. It has rare garland-shaped, fan-shaped, fish-shaped, sword-shaped, rat and parrot-shaped varieties of manuscripts which wowed the world at the first-ever exhibition of Indian manuscripts held in 2006 in Frankfurt as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Chikitsamanjari, describing the preparation and use of Ayurvedic medicine for both humans and cattle, is a rare possession of the Orissa State Museum. Its masterpiece remains Gitagovinda of Jayadeva, one of the most popular and enduring texts inspiring an astounding range of artistic endeavour.
(To be concluded)
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