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International Seminar on
Colonial note from the
continuity of Culture :
  Emerging Study of
   Manuscriptology
             organized by :

      Department of Bengali
     Assam University
                 Silchar
      1st March, 2012 to 3rd March, 2012
Manuscripts Preserved in
B.C.Gupta Memorial Central
     Library at Silchar
in Barak Valley : A Survey

                  Presented by :



        Jayanti Chakravorty
        Library and Information Assistant
 Central Library, National Institute of Technology
                      Silchar
Definition of Manuscript
The word ‘Manuscript’ is a derivative from the Latin
Phrase, manu scriptum, which means ‘written by hand’.

The Antiquities Art Treasures Act, 1972 defines manuscript as a
Record of scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value and which
has been in existence for not less than 75 years.

So a manuscript can be defined as,

•   a hand written document
•   which has scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value and
•   which is at least 75years old.
Manuscripts treasure of India:
The glorious past of the great Indian culture lies in her
ancient manuscripts.
India possesses an estimate of five million manuscripts,
probably the largest collection in the world.

Since ancient times, the Indians produced high class
painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry. They
wrote learned treaties on various subjects, such as
Grammar, Philology, Logic, Philosophy, Politics,
Astronomy, Medicine and Surgery, Physics and
Chemistry. They left behind sure proof of their amazing
skill in Engineering, Irrigation, Ship-building and in
many other arts and crafts.
It is estimated that out of 5 million Indain
manuscripts, 60 thousand manuscripts are lying
in European Countries and 150 thousand in
Asian and South Asian countries.

A total of 1 million, out of the 5 million
manuscripts have been recorded in catalogues
till now.

Language-wise percentage of manuscripts
being, Sanskrit - 67%,
       Other Indian Languages 25% and
       Arabic, Persian and Tibetan 8%
National Mission for Manuscripts

The Mission set up in 2003, by the Government of India,
endeavours to un-earth and preserve the vast manuscript
wealth of the country lying scattered in various institutions
and private collections.

The Mission alongwith Indira Gandhi National Centre for
the Arts is working with specially identified
Manuscript Resource Centres – MRCs and
Manuscript Conservation Centres - MCCs
all over the country with the objective of locating,
documenting, conserving and disseminating the knowledge
content of India’s manuscripts. B.C. Gupta Memorial
Central Library, Silchar is such a centre for Manuscript
Resource and Conservation in the Barak Valley.
Barak Valley : A brief introduction
Physio-graphically, historically and socio-culturally, the valley
is an extension of undivided Bengal of pre-independent India,
known as Surma Valley, comprising of the Districts of Sylhet and
Cachar in the Assam Province of British India.
With hill tracks on three sides and plain land opening only in the
west the valley demarcates the natural border between the
riverine Bengal and the hilly Northeast – a factor having a major
historical significance on the growth of the valley’s socio-cultural
and educational fabric. In Epical period of Indian history, when
Aryan Civilization marched into Greater Bengal from the North
Western India and a cultural synthesis took place to develop a
great Bengali culture, the same trend, in its east-ward march,
advanced towards the Ganga-Padma Basin and to its extension,
to Surma-Barak Valley. Thus this Valley, surrounded by mighty
hills, remained for a long period, the last outpost of the Aryan
Civilization in the east.
Manuscript Preservation in Barak Valley

The history of Manuscript preservation in institutional
   level
in Barak Valley dates back to 1910 when a Manuscript
Preservation Centre was opened in the Normal School at
Silchar at the initiative of the then School Inspector Late
Aghornath Adhikari with active assistance from other
re-knowned teachres of the school and scholars like Late
Ramesh Chandra Bhattacharjee, Late Abdul Bari, Late
Tarini Charan Das, Late Jagannath Deb and others. The
Centre functioned actively for two decades approximately
and had a preservation of nearly 200 manuscripts, written
mostly in Sansakrit and Bengali and a few in Persian.
B.C.Gupta Memorial Library,G.C.College, Silchar

Established in 1935, this library is the oldest
academic library of this region. It has been serving
the higher education students, teachers, research
scholars and people from other walks of life since
long past, much before the Public Library system
or any sort of library service was set up in this
remote part of the country. This Library has a
holding of nearly 40,000 Print Vol. and 50,000 E-
books. The Library introduced Open Access
System in 2003, E-Library facilities in 2005, &
Digitization initiative in 2010.
The Manuscript Resource and Conservation Centre of
the Library is assigned to operate in 12 Districts of
Assam, 3 of them in Barak Valley and 9 in Brahmaputra
Valley. The Centre, operating since 2005 runs various
programmes in survey, documentation and outreach
events. It has surveyed and documented approximately
10,000 manuscripts in Jorhat, Sivsagar, Golaghat and
North Lakhimpur districts and provided preventive
conservation treatment to approx. 3000 rare Vaishnavait
manuscripts at Majuli island. The centre has surveyed
and documented approx. 2700 manuscripts in Barak
Valley. Conservation activities of the Centre started in
December, 2010 and so far, 91 rare manuscripts have
been preserved and accessed.
SURVEY OF THE PRESERVED MANUSCRIPTS

Labeling : The core of the Library’s Manuscript collection comes from the
donation of 9 individuals and 1 family. All the Donors are inhabitants of
Barak Valley or descendents of scholars hailing from the Surma Valley in
East Bengal. These gifts are reflected on the labels of the manuscripts as
well as in the Accession Register. The Donors and number of Manuscripts
donated are reflected hereunder :

  Shri Amitabha Chakraborty                         35
  Dr. Bidyut Kumar Bhattacharjee                    16
  Shri Shib Sadhan Bhattacharjee                    15
  Shri Mrinmoy Chakraborty                           4
  Shri Rajarshi Chakraborty                          3
  Dr. Usha Ranjan Bhattacharjee                      2
  Shri Shankar Chakraborty                           2
  Shri Umananda Bhattacharjee                        2
  Late Kali Prasanna Bhattacharjee                   1
  Family of Late Mukunda Das Bhattacharjee          11
Types & Contents of the Manuscripts

The manuscript collection of the Library reflects a broad outline of
the kind of books people of this area wrote, compiled or edited
during the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. The
manuscripts include Books on Vedas, Puranas, Smriti, Darshan,
Mantra, Tantra, Jyotish, Ayurveda, Literature and Sanskrit
   Grammar.

No books on Science, History, Geography, Sociology, Fine-arts and
such other subjects have yet been procured. However, the centre has
just started its activities and with the present accession of 91
manuscripts in total, no conclusive assertion can be made.

The quality of the manuscripts are fairly good. The style, the hand-
writing and the layout of the pages bear the testimony of sincerity
and devotion of the authors or the scribes.
Subject-wise Classification of Manuscripts is as under :

Veda                                                1
Purana                                             11
Smriti Shastra                                     35
Darshana - Nyaya Shastra                            1
Dharshana – Shrimad Bhagawad Gita                   3
Mantra                                              6
Tantra                                              4
Jyotish                                             3
Ayurveda                                            5
Literature                                          8
Sanskrit Grammar                                   12
Assorted manuscript of Smriti, Jyotish, Ayurveda    1
Un-classified                                       1
Total                                              91
The only manuscript on Veda relates to Karma
Kanda of Shukla-Yajur Veda.

All the 11 manuscripts on Puranas are from the
Markeyanda Purana, 9 of them are on Chandi, 1
on Ruchi Stava and 1 being a Chandi Shapoddhar
Vidhi. It indicates that there was a prominent
Shakti cult of worship-form prevalent in this area.
The majority of the manuscripts accessed are on
Smriti Shastra, a total of 35 of them. Though
the term Smriti in a broader sense covers all
Hindu Shastras except the Vedas, here the term
refers to the compiled codes or manuals of
Hindu life. Out of the 35 manuscripts on Smriti
Shastra, 17 are on Puja Vidhi, 7 on Shhradhha
Vidhi, 4 on Brata Vidhi, 2 on Dana Vidhi, 2 on
Samskar Vidhi and 3 are of general category.
Bratas are generally observed by the women
and availability of manuscripts on Brata Vidhi
indicates that the women also took equal parts
in performing socio-religious rites in this
region.
One manuscript in the archive is on Dol Yatra Vidhi by
Raghunandan Bhattacharjee, edited by Madhusudan Deva
Sharma. Raghunandan’s Smriti is of a much later age
than Manu’s and it is applicable particularly to the Hindu
society of Bengal. From these findings it can be asserted
that the Surma-Barak valley is, literarily and culturally, a
natural extension of Greater Bengal.

There are 4 manuscripts on Darshan – 1 on Nyaya
Darshan and the rest 3 are on Shri Shrimad Bhagavad
Gita, an appertain from the Mahabharata.
There are in total 6 manuscripts on Mantras –
Gangastakam, Vatuk Stava, Chandika Shapoddhara,
Mahimna Stostram and 2 anthologies of various mantras.

The 4 manuscripts on Tantra are basically guidelines for
certain Kabach preparation – 1 manuscript is on
Bhutadamani Kabach, 1 on Sarva Siddhi Pradayaka
Abhisheka Vidhi and 2 anthologies of Kabachpreparation.

There are in total 8 manuscripts on Jyotish and Ayurveda
and 1 manuscript on assorted subjects. The availability of
these manuscripts show that there were scholars in these
subjects in this area in ancient times.
There are as many as 20 manuscripts on
linguistics – 12 on literature and 8 on Sanskrit
Grammar, a testimony of the fact that the
academic atmosphere of the Barak-Surma
valley was very rich since the earlier times.

Out of the 12 manuscripts on Literature, 3 are
on Epics – the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, 3 on Narrative Literature – the
Mangal Kavyas and Pachalis, 1 on Niti Shloka
and 1 on Kavya.
Language & Script of the Manuscripts and the materials
used for writing

Out of 91 manuscripts, the language of 85 manuscripts is
Sanskrit, 5 are written in Bengali and 1 in both of the languages.

Of the 85 manuscripts in Sanskrit, 84 are written in Archaic
Bengali script and 1 in both Archaic and Modern Bengali
script. Of the 5 manuscripts written in Bengali language, 3 are
written in Archaic script, while 2 are in modern script. The
script of 1 bi-lingual manuscript is Archaic Bengali.

In middle ages, the materials used for writing manuscripts were
tree skins, tree leaves, paper and mainly parchments – made
from the skins of animals. But in our survey not a single
manuscript was found on parchment – they are either on Tree
Skin or Sachi Patra or on Paper.
Time Period of the Manuscripts
The year of writing the manuscripts could be
traced out only in case of 12 manuscripts; the
years range from 1720 AD to 1886 AD which
covers a long period of nearly two centuries. The
oldest manuscript, written in 1720 AD belongs to
Karma Kanda of the Smriti Shastra – a
Shhraddha Vidhi written by Maniram Sharma.
This manuscript points out to the fact that the
wave of Aryanization came to this part of the
country long back, at least in the late part of the
seventeenth century or even earlier to that.
General Observation

Production of a manuscript required intricate and
laborious craftsmanship. Though the details of the
process varied in different regions, the materials and
methods were almost the same, sincerity and devotion
being the yardstick of perfection.

Availability of as many as 20 manuscripts on literature
and grammar brings forth the fact that the academic and
literary pursuits of the area was of a very high order and
as pointed out earlier, this area was always been a part of
the greater Bengal – socially, culturally and emotionally.
Conclusion

The manuscripts in possession of the G.C.College-
M.C.C are unique in their contents and value. They
offer fascinating glimpses into the ancient culture of the
region. A detailed study of these manuscripts will open
up many avenues of exploration into the beliefs and
values of the society in those periods of Indian history.
Proper dissemination of the contents in the manuscripts
would open up new arena of knowledge and variegated
insight in to the socio-religious-educational background
of the entire area.
THANK YOU



   - Jayanti Chakravorty

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Manuscript Heritage of Barak Valley in Assam by Jayanti Chakravorty, Library and Information Science Professional

  • 1. International Seminar on Colonial note from the continuity of Culture : Emerging Study of Manuscriptology organized by : Department of Bengali Assam University Silchar 1st March, 2012 to 3rd March, 2012
  • 2. Manuscripts Preserved in B.C.Gupta Memorial Central Library at Silchar in Barak Valley : A Survey Presented by : Jayanti Chakravorty Library and Information Assistant Central Library, National Institute of Technology Silchar
  • 3. Definition of Manuscript The word ‘Manuscript’ is a derivative from the Latin Phrase, manu scriptum, which means ‘written by hand’. The Antiquities Art Treasures Act, 1972 defines manuscript as a Record of scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value and which has been in existence for not less than 75 years. So a manuscript can be defined as, • a hand written document • which has scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value and • which is at least 75years old.
  • 4. Manuscripts treasure of India: The glorious past of the great Indian culture lies in her ancient manuscripts. India possesses an estimate of five million manuscripts, probably the largest collection in the world. Since ancient times, the Indians produced high class painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry. They wrote learned treaties on various subjects, such as Grammar, Philology, Logic, Philosophy, Politics, Astronomy, Medicine and Surgery, Physics and Chemistry. They left behind sure proof of their amazing skill in Engineering, Irrigation, Ship-building and in many other arts and crafts.
  • 5. It is estimated that out of 5 million Indain manuscripts, 60 thousand manuscripts are lying in European Countries and 150 thousand in Asian and South Asian countries. A total of 1 million, out of the 5 million manuscripts have been recorded in catalogues till now. Language-wise percentage of manuscripts being, Sanskrit - 67%, Other Indian Languages 25% and Arabic, Persian and Tibetan 8%
  • 6. National Mission for Manuscripts The Mission set up in 2003, by the Government of India, endeavours to un-earth and preserve the vast manuscript wealth of the country lying scattered in various institutions and private collections. The Mission alongwith Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts is working with specially identified Manuscript Resource Centres – MRCs and Manuscript Conservation Centres - MCCs all over the country with the objective of locating, documenting, conserving and disseminating the knowledge content of India’s manuscripts. B.C. Gupta Memorial Central Library, Silchar is such a centre for Manuscript Resource and Conservation in the Barak Valley.
  • 7. Barak Valley : A brief introduction Physio-graphically, historically and socio-culturally, the valley is an extension of undivided Bengal of pre-independent India, known as Surma Valley, comprising of the Districts of Sylhet and Cachar in the Assam Province of British India. With hill tracks on three sides and plain land opening only in the west the valley demarcates the natural border between the riverine Bengal and the hilly Northeast – a factor having a major historical significance on the growth of the valley’s socio-cultural and educational fabric. In Epical period of Indian history, when Aryan Civilization marched into Greater Bengal from the North Western India and a cultural synthesis took place to develop a great Bengali culture, the same trend, in its east-ward march, advanced towards the Ganga-Padma Basin and to its extension, to Surma-Barak Valley. Thus this Valley, surrounded by mighty hills, remained for a long period, the last outpost of the Aryan Civilization in the east.
  • 8. Manuscript Preservation in Barak Valley The history of Manuscript preservation in institutional level in Barak Valley dates back to 1910 when a Manuscript Preservation Centre was opened in the Normal School at Silchar at the initiative of the then School Inspector Late Aghornath Adhikari with active assistance from other re-knowned teachres of the school and scholars like Late Ramesh Chandra Bhattacharjee, Late Abdul Bari, Late Tarini Charan Das, Late Jagannath Deb and others. The Centre functioned actively for two decades approximately and had a preservation of nearly 200 manuscripts, written mostly in Sansakrit and Bengali and a few in Persian.
  • 9. B.C.Gupta Memorial Library,G.C.College, Silchar Established in 1935, this library is the oldest academic library of this region. It has been serving the higher education students, teachers, research scholars and people from other walks of life since long past, much before the Public Library system or any sort of library service was set up in this remote part of the country. This Library has a holding of nearly 40,000 Print Vol. and 50,000 E- books. The Library introduced Open Access System in 2003, E-Library facilities in 2005, & Digitization initiative in 2010.
  • 10. The Manuscript Resource and Conservation Centre of the Library is assigned to operate in 12 Districts of Assam, 3 of them in Barak Valley and 9 in Brahmaputra Valley. The Centre, operating since 2005 runs various programmes in survey, documentation and outreach events. It has surveyed and documented approximately 10,000 manuscripts in Jorhat, Sivsagar, Golaghat and North Lakhimpur districts and provided preventive conservation treatment to approx. 3000 rare Vaishnavait manuscripts at Majuli island. The centre has surveyed and documented approx. 2700 manuscripts in Barak Valley. Conservation activities of the Centre started in December, 2010 and so far, 91 rare manuscripts have been preserved and accessed.
  • 11. SURVEY OF THE PRESERVED MANUSCRIPTS Labeling : The core of the Library’s Manuscript collection comes from the donation of 9 individuals and 1 family. All the Donors are inhabitants of Barak Valley or descendents of scholars hailing from the Surma Valley in East Bengal. These gifts are reflected on the labels of the manuscripts as well as in the Accession Register. The Donors and number of Manuscripts donated are reflected hereunder : Shri Amitabha Chakraborty 35 Dr. Bidyut Kumar Bhattacharjee 16 Shri Shib Sadhan Bhattacharjee 15 Shri Mrinmoy Chakraborty 4 Shri Rajarshi Chakraborty 3 Dr. Usha Ranjan Bhattacharjee 2 Shri Shankar Chakraborty 2 Shri Umananda Bhattacharjee 2 Late Kali Prasanna Bhattacharjee 1 Family of Late Mukunda Das Bhattacharjee 11
  • 12. Types & Contents of the Manuscripts The manuscript collection of the Library reflects a broad outline of the kind of books people of this area wrote, compiled or edited during the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. The manuscripts include Books on Vedas, Puranas, Smriti, Darshan, Mantra, Tantra, Jyotish, Ayurveda, Literature and Sanskrit Grammar. No books on Science, History, Geography, Sociology, Fine-arts and such other subjects have yet been procured. However, the centre has just started its activities and with the present accession of 91 manuscripts in total, no conclusive assertion can be made. The quality of the manuscripts are fairly good. The style, the hand- writing and the layout of the pages bear the testimony of sincerity and devotion of the authors or the scribes.
  • 13. Subject-wise Classification of Manuscripts is as under : Veda 1 Purana 11 Smriti Shastra 35 Darshana - Nyaya Shastra 1 Dharshana – Shrimad Bhagawad Gita 3 Mantra 6 Tantra 4 Jyotish 3 Ayurveda 5 Literature 8 Sanskrit Grammar 12 Assorted manuscript of Smriti, Jyotish, Ayurveda 1 Un-classified 1 Total 91
  • 14. The only manuscript on Veda relates to Karma Kanda of Shukla-Yajur Veda. All the 11 manuscripts on Puranas are from the Markeyanda Purana, 9 of them are on Chandi, 1 on Ruchi Stava and 1 being a Chandi Shapoddhar Vidhi. It indicates that there was a prominent Shakti cult of worship-form prevalent in this area.
  • 15. The majority of the manuscripts accessed are on Smriti Shastra, a total of 35 of them. Though the term Smriti in a broader sense covers all Hindu Shastras except the Vedas, here the term refers to the compiled codes or manuals of Hindu life. Out of the 35 manuscripts on Smriti Shastra, 17 are on Puja Vidhi, 7 on Shhradhha Vidhi, 4 on Brata Vidhi, 2 on Dana Vidhi, 2 on Samskar Vidhi and 3 are of general category. Bratas are generally observed by the women and availability of manuscripts on Brata Vidhi indicates that the women also took equal parts in performing socio-religious rites in this region.
  • 16. One manuscript in the archive is on Dol Yatra Vidhi by Raghunandan Bhattacharjee, edited by Madhusudan Deva Sharma. Raghunandan’s Smriti is of a much later age than Manu’s and it is applicable particularly to the Hindu society of Bengal. From these findings it can be asserted that the Surma-Barak valley is, literarily and culturally, a natural extension of Greater Bengal. There are 4 manuscripts on Darshan – 1 on Nyaya Darshan and the rest 3 are on Shri Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, an appertain from the Mahabharata.
  • 17. There are in total 6 manuscripts on Mantras – Gangastakam, Vatuk Stava, Chandika Shapoddhara, Mahimna Stostram and 2 anthologies of various mantras. The 4 manuscripts on Tantra are basically guidelines for certain Kabach preparation – 1 manuscript is on Bhutadamani Kabach, 1 on Sarva Siddhi Pradayaka Abhisheka Vidhi and 2 anthologies of Kabachpreparation. There are in total 8 manuscripts on Jyotish and Ayurveda and 1 manuscript on assorted subjects. The availability of these manuscripts show that there were scholars in these subjects in this area in ancient times.
  • 18. There are as many as 20 manuscripts on linguistics – 12 on literature and 8 on Sanskrit Grammar, a testimony of the fact that the academic atmosphere of the Barak-Surma valley was very rich since the earlier times. Out of the 12 manuscripts on Literature, 3 are on Epics – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, 3 on Narrative Literature – the Mangal Kavyas and Pachalis, 1 on Niti Shloka and 1 on Kavya.
  • 19. Language & Script of the Manuscripts and the materials used for writing Out of 91 manuscripts, the language of 85 manuscripts is Sanskrit, 5 are written in Bengali and 1 in both of the languages. Of the 85 manuscripts in Sanskrit, 84 are written in Archaic Bengali script and 1 in both Archaic and Modern Bengali script. Of the 5 manuscripts written in Bengali language, 3 are written in Archaic script, while 2 are in modern script. The script of 1 bi-lingual manuscript is Archaic Bengali. In middle ages, the materials used for writing manuscripts were tree skins, tree leaves, paper and mainly parchments – made from the skins of animals. But in our survey not a single manuscript was found on parchment – they are either on Tree Skin or Sachi Patra or on Paper.
  • 20. Time Period of the Manuscripts The year of writing the manuscripts could be traced out only in case of 12 manuscripts; the years range from 1720 AD to 1886 AD which covers a long period of nearly two centuries. The oldest manuscript, written in 1720 AD belongs to Karma Kanda of the Smriti Shastra – a Shhraddha Vidhi written by Maniram Sharma. This manuscript points out to the fact that the wave of Aryanization came to this part of the country long back, at least in the late part of the seventeenth century or even earlier to that.
  • 21. General Observation Production of a manuscript required intricate and laborious craftsmanship. Though the details of the process varied in different regions, the materials and methods were almost the same, sincerity and devotion being the yardstick of perfection. Availability of as many as 20 manuscripts on literature and grammar brings forth the fact that the academic and literary pursuits of the area was of a very high order and as pointed out earlier, this area was always been a part of the greater Bengal – socially, culturally and emotionally.
  • 22. Conclusion The manuscripts in possession of the G.C.College- M.C.C are unique in their contents and value. They offer fascinating glimpses into the ancient culture of the region. A detailed study of these manuscripts will open up many avenues of exploration into the beliefs and values of the society in those periods of Indian history. Proper dissemination of the contents in the manuscripts would open up new arena of knowledge and variegated insight in to the socio-religious-educational background of the entire area.
  • 23. THANK YOU - Jayanti Chakravorty