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Tripura varsity to preserve Chakma manuscripts
Agartala, October 15, 2012: The Tripura University has taken initiative to preserve hundreds of valuable manuscripts, bound in animal hides, lying in possession of Chakma tribes. The manuscripts, nearly a century old, deal with diverse subjects like the history of ethnic tribes, their culture, music, herbal medicine practices and Hinayana Buddhism.
The speciality of these manuscripts are that they are all bound in animal hides, which, experts think, was done to withstand the ravages of time. Historian Satyadeo Poddar, who is also the Director of the University's history department and manuscripts centre, said animal hides used to bind the manuscripts were sourced from animals like deer, python, bear and leopard.
The unique manuscripts were recently exhibited at Penchathal, a small town in North Tripura district, organised by the Tripura University and the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council during a seminar. In all 172 such manuscripts were exhibited in the seminar. "Many historians, who work on old manuscripts, were not at all aware that manuscripts could be preserved with animal hides as their covers," Poddar said.
An executive member of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, Sandhya Rani, said the Chakmas had in their possession at least 3,000 such manuscripts of which only 300 were exhibited at the seminar. The tribal council area is the home to the tribals who constitute one-third of the population occupying two-thirds of the state's territory. The tribals originally came from the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh where they constituted 97.5 per cent of the population in the pre-Partition days, but were down to 50 per cent when they migrated to Tripura as per the last Census done in that country.
The Chakmas in Tripura now mostly reside in Dashda, Kanchanpur, Shantipur, Nalkata and Machhmara areas of North Tripura district. Conservator of the Manuscript Resource and Conservation Centre, Nirmalya Kar, said more than 100 manuscripts, mostly on Buddhist scriptures, indigenous medicine, music and culture, were handed over to the university authorities for conservation.
Kar, however, expressed dismay that the Chakmas refused to hand over the other manuscripts to the University for Scientific Preservation. |
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