In presenting this volume entitled "An Alphabetical Catalogue of Oriya and other Manuscripts", published by the Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar, I deem it my duty to give a short review about the search and collection of the manuscripts carried in the State since the beginning of the last century.
Though the introduction of the printing press gave a serious blow to the writing of books and records on the palm-leaf, handmade paper, Bhürja bark, Kumbhi bark and others, this method continued in decreasing manner throughout the past years. But gradually it has been given up in recent years. Now-a-days both the educated people and the country folk are unable to read manuscripts written on palm-leaf and other materials, as a result of which many valuable works written by the scholars of the past are totally lost to posterity.
But thanks to the efforts of some European scholars, the value and importance of the manuscripts were realised from the beginning of the last century. The pioneer in this field is Sir William Jones of revered memory, the first President of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, established in 1784, who focussed the attention of the world of scholars, by writing the first article on Hindu music by making the first translation of the Gitagovinda and by publishing a learned paper on Hindu Mathematics, He utilised a number of manuscripts for writing these valuable papers. Lord Cornwallis (1786-1793 A.D) who was an able administrator got a Law book written with the help of Hindu pandits, which formed the foundation of the British administration in India The first European scholar who devoted a lot of his time and energy in the search and collection of manuscripts in the Madras Presidency is Colonel Macenzi, whose valuable collection is now stored and preserved in the Govt Oriental Manuscripts Library Madras. Following his example a large number of Manuscripts written in Oriya characters were collected from the present Ganjam and Koraput districts which were in the Madras Presidency till 1936. These manuscripts are now found in the Govt. Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, Adyar Manuscripts Library, Madras and Sarasvati Mahal Library, Tanjore.
The credit of studying the Oriya Manuscripts very carefully goes to John Beams, the Collector of Balasore, who wrote the fint brilliant article on 'Rasa Kallola' which was published in the "Indian Antiquary Volume-I in 1871 It was he who saved the Oriya language from imminent danger of disappearance by his scholarly treatment of the antiquity and importance of the Oriya language which was based on the study of manuscripts It was he who first of all prepared a list of manuscripts discovered in Orissa which finds place in Hunter's Orissa Volume-II as, Appendix IX.
After Beams comes Raja Rajendralal Mitra, a noted antiquarian of the last century, who did very valuable work by publishing volumes entitled "Notices of Manuscripts preserved in the Asiatic Society, Bengal" in which there is reference to a lot of manuscripts collected from Orissa, It was Manamohan Chakravarty, a reputed scholar of the last century, who first of all published in JA.S,B. 1898 (pp 332-386) a systematic history of the Oriya language and literature on the basis of his study of Oriya manuscripts available at that age. Next in the field came Mahimahopadhyāya Haraprasad Sastry who made a thorough search of manuscripts especially in the Puri district with the help of Mahamahopadhyaya Sadasiva Misra, one of the founders of the S S. Sanskrit College, Puri. Malhamahopadhyaya Sastry has thrown a flood of new light on the importance of the manuscripts in "The Descriptive Catalogues of Sanskrit Manuscripts" compiled and published under his able guidance Regarding the notices of manuscripts, he has mentioned about the huge stock of manuscripts that were found in the town of Puri and adjoining Brahmin Sasanas which will be evident from the quotation given below (J. BOR. S., Vol. 19).
In the district of Puri there are thirtytwo Sasanas or Villages granted to Brahmins in perpetuity by the Hindu Räjäs of Orissa. In 1908, I went there with Prof. Mc Donell and we calculated that the number of palm-leaf manuscripts in these Sasanas is nearly two lakhs, The Gopavardhana Matha alone contains more than two thousand manuscripts in various characters".
After the establishment of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society with the help and co-operation of eminent scholars like late K. P. Jayswal, A P. Benerjee Sastry, systematic attempts were made for search of manuscripts in Bihar and Orissa,
After the creation of the province of Orissa in 1996 a large number of Pandits were engaged for search of manuscripts found in different parts of Orissa and the feudetory states adjoining it. They noticed nearly fifteen thousand manuscripts out of which notices of about twelve thousand manuscripts are carefully preserved in the Manuscripts Gallery of the Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar.
In the Ravenshaw College Museum at Cuttack established in 1932 which was later on converted in to the Orissa Provincial Museum, through the strenuous efforts of late Prof. N. C. Benerjee and late Prof. G. S. Dish, collection of manuscripts became one of the important activities of the Museum. They collected about three hundred manuscripts and brought copies of many manuscripts from the Govt, Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras.
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