Bid to Restore Illustrated Manuscripts

BY: AJIT PATOWARY

Feb 28, GUWAHATI, ASSAM, INDIA (TRIBUNE) — After about two hundred years, the Natun Kamalabari Sattra of river island Majuli, has launched an effort to revive the tradition of illustrated manuscripts. A glut of socio-political problems made the tradition lost into oblivion. The Sattra is also trying to revive the tradition of the indigenous ink called mahi. The tradition of illustrated manuscripts placed Assam on a high pedestal among the Indian states as far as cultural heritage is concerned.

It was Late Sahityaratna Harinarayan Dutta Baruah, who brought the first of the evidences of this tradition of the State’s people to the notice of the cultural historians with the printed forms of the Chittra Bhagavata in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The manuscript of this work was prepared in 1539 AD. It dealt with the stories of the childhood of Lord Krishna as narrated in the Assamese version of the tenth Skandha of the Bhagavata.

Renowned orientalist the Late Dr Krishna Kanta Handique wrote that Dutta Baruah had made “the first systematic attempt to reproduce the paintings incorporated in one such manuscript, that of a portion of the tenth Skandha of the Assamese Bhagavata composed by Sankardeva.”

Publication of the Hastividyarnava, the Assamese Geetagovinda etc. later on established beyond any doubt that the State has a rich heritage of illustrated manuscripts.

Natun Kamalabari Sattradhikar Narayan Chandra Goswami, a renowned scholar of Sattriya culture, besides being an authority on Brajawali-the language developed by Srimanta Sankardeva to preach his neo-Vaishnavism, has been working on a plan to revive the tradition for about a decade now.

The first product of this venture has come up in the form of Shyamantak Haran. It contains the story from the Kirtana of Srimanta Sankardeva. Natun Kamalabari Sattra artists Satyajit Mahanta and Niranjan Bhuyan have prepared the manuscript. Dr Naren Kalita is editing the work.

It needs mention here that while Satyajit Mahanta is the Deka Sattradhikar of the Sattra, Niranjan Bhuyan is its Bhakat.

The project was undertaken as an experiment. Moreover, the papers used for it are the modern papers, not the barks of the sanchi tree, as was used by the artists in the bygone days for the purpose.

Narayan Chandra Goswami said that now the Sattra could muster the courage to prepare the manuscripts on sanchi barks. “We will start using the sanchi barks now on. In the next work, the text and the illustrations will be based on the first chapter-Chaturbingshati Avatar (the 24 incarnations of Lord Krishna)- of Sankardeva’s Kirtanghosa. Deka Sattradhikar Mahanta and Bhakat Bhuyan will prepare the manuscript,” he said.

Explaining the way they are preparing the ink and the colours for writing the texts and illustrating the manuscripts, the Sattradhikar said that they were using hengul-haital, neel and dhalmati-for preparing colours. These are the ingredients used traditionally in Assam for preparing colours. Gum paste is used to give adhesive quality to the colours, he said.

For the ink, they are using the technique of sinking shilikha in the urine of the black bullock. A little bit of water is added to the chemical thus produced to save the paper from being damaged by the coarse alkaline quality of the bullock urine. The pens are prepared from bamboo jengs (twigs), while the furs obtained from cats are used to prepare the brushes for illustration, said the Sattradhikar.

Mridumousam Bora, a Nagaon-based schoolteacher is preparing another illustrated manuscript using sanchi bark. It will be a voluminous work consisting of all the 12 ankiya bhaonas of Sankardeva and Madhavdeva.

It is expected that both the manuscripts will be ready by the next three months. Other projects to cover the Kirtanghosha and the Vaishnava plays of the post-Sankardeva-Madhavdeva era will follow them, said the Sattradhikar.