Who Loves the Mudrārākṣasa ?

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http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/press/CSL_TLSReview_200906.php

International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS)

The team of Indologists in the University of Oxford is organizing the International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS).

"Do you want to open up a shop of Manuscripts?"

For some time now I am aware that there are two Sarada and a Devanagari Ms of the Tantraloka in the Akhil Bharatiya Sanskrit Parisad in Lucknow. I went to Lucknow in the second week for May 2009 and spoke to the secretary Dr Ashok Kaliya about it. He first encouraged me to see the printed catalogues of the Mss kept in the Mss library of the institute and then make a list of the Mss I need for my work. I was indeed very happy. I spent some four hours searching out each page of the five volumes catalogue and made a list of some twenty-one Mss. These of course included the Tantraloka Mss, besides many one or two folio Mss of the philosophical hymns of Abhinavagupta. I offered this list of the Mss along with my application to the secretary allowing me to procure the photostat copies of the Mss after accepting all the prescribed terms and conditions which included that I should also pay for making double copies of Mss - one copy will be given to me and the other will be kept in the library. As soon as Dr Ashok Kaliya had a look at the list he said. “Why do you want the copies of so many manuscripts? Do you want to open up a shop of Manuscripts? I mean you should ask for the Mss of a single text, but you are asking for so many of them. You work on a single text at a time and not on so many different texts.” When I said that I am working on three projects simultaneously the great scholar replied back saying, “But you cannot do that. You are asking for the Mss as if you want to open up a shop of Mss. See some time back a scholar came with a list of sixty manuscripts, and I had to allow because he was a very influential man. But I cannot allow twenty one Mss for you.”

In fact they did not allow me even to see the Mss. “They are in a different hall and it is not possible to see them” said the clerk. Never mind. I still curse that Kashmiri pandit man Vidyeshwarnath Razdan (Kaccha Chabutara, Chowpatiya Road, Cowk, Lucknow) who donated his complete collection of the Sarada Mss in about two-three thousand volumes to the Akhil Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad. This man must have taken al the trouble to carry these Mss all the way from Kashmir to Lucknow, but now a Kashmiri like myself cannot even have a look at them. This is how the donor of the collection is being honoured.

I tried to be very polite throughout our conversation. I suggested that I can get him in touch with the IGNCA in New Delhi and they also offered help to the Ms repositories in India to be digitalized completely. I said it is just a matter of getting in touch with them and making an application through proper channel. To my surprise Dr Kaliya was very much unaware of the possibilities of how the situations could be improved in the Mss library. The IGNCA in New Delhi told me earlier that they have approached all the manuscript repositories in India and very few were willing to take the trouble of getting the Ms libraries digitalized. That is all I could have done. After all I am not the minister of culture in the Indian government.

Kashmiri Pandits performing their Ritual for Sacred Thread Ceremony

Dr Trilokinath Ganjoo's Śāradā Expertise

1400 years old idol found in Bijbehara (Kashmir)

Greater Kashmir News (April 11, 2009)

Bijbehara, Apr 11: A rare idol of Hindu goddess of wealth, Laxmi, believed to be 1400 years old was found on Friday by some farmers in Waghama village of Anantnag district, deputy director of Archives and Archeology, Peerzada Muhammad Ashraf said. Ashraf said the farmers stumbled upon the idol when they were digging a field in Waghama, Bijbehara. “They took the idol with them but some villagers tipped the local police who recovered the idol and handed it over to us after legal formalities,” Ashraf said, adding, the experts are studying the idol. One of the experts, wishing anonymity, said the granite idol of Hindu goddess Laxmi is one and a half foot in height and one foot wide. “It is a rare idol that depicts the goddess riding a Lion while a crocodile rests at her feet,” he said. Experts say there has been great influence of Greek culture in areas in and around Bijbehara. Noted historian, Muhammad Yousuf Taing said that Mehra Kul, a Hindu King, had donated a huge chunk of land in Bijbehara to Brahmins of Devgarh. “It is pertinent to mention that a big temple devoted to Vishnu existed till 19th century in Bijbehara. Bijbehra should be declared as a heritage zone with a museum to preserve its rich artifacts given its tremendous historical significance,” they said. While talking to Greater Kashmir several historians criticized the Archeology Survey of India which shifted its operations to Jammu under the pretext of militancy in early 1990. “Our archeological wealth is in ruins due to the neglect by the ASI. Government must take steps to handover the archeological sites to State Archeology department,” said a historian.

Incredible India - II

Dear XYZ,

                    I must appreciate your efforts. At the same time I must also admit that I may not have much time to devote to this cause, but I will try my best. Let me start with answering your questions; I would certainly like to join, but I may not be able to pay my full services owing to my overwhelming academic involvement. The idea of setting up a website for collecting all sort of complaints from scholars facing problems in having access to Sanskrit manuscripts in different repositories in India is a very prudent one. I expect other scholars to volunteer and set up a website. They will have my full support. I strongly believe that the scholar community should put forth their complaints and suggestions in one way or the other to the Government of India. I am aware that it will certainly not make much a difference, but I expect that might improve the situation a bit.

XYZ, my experience  of searching and procuring copies of Sanskrit manuscripts in India is terrible. The only place where the system is somewhat perfect is Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune (Since I never required any Mss from the French Institute of Pondicherry so I do not know about their system, but as I have visited the institute I have an impression that the situation is better than even BORI, Pune). I know they provide the copies of the manuscripts after a pretty long time, but looking at the situation of the other research bodies in India, I would say that they are much better because they at least provide copies. And of course BORI is not a complete government body.

I think the major problem lies with the government bodies. You know what I have been wondering about? Forget about the rest of India. Let us just see New Delhi, the capital city of India with a "glorious past". For last sixty-two years (since 1947 when India claims to have freed herself from the British regime) the Ministry of Culture in the Government of India has not even been able to compile a catalogue of the manuscripts kept in the National Museum or the National Archives located in New Delhi. I mean is it not disgusting? Come, let us see where the manuscripts are? Go to the National Archives of India and they keep the manuscripts in such a safe custody that it takes them 4-5 hours to bring those records down in the research room. They report the healthy manuscripts as "brittle" and avoid research scholars. The most funny thing is that they usually do not allow photocopies of the manuscripts and if at all they do (for which you need the permission of the almighty God himself - and it depends on his absolute autonomous Will)  then you are only allowed to have one-third of the manuscript photocopied. If you ask them why are they not digitizing the manuscripts - "that is very difficult, although we have initiated the process", comes the reply.

XYZ, I have no hopes that the situation will improve. I do not think that Mr V.V. Mohan or even the Hungarian ambassador or even the prime minister of India himself could make the situation any better by reporting it to the Ministry of Culture in India. I have approached all of them, but Indians simply do not want trouble. They want easy money for no work. The secretary of the Ministry of Culture in Government of India Mr Jawar Sircar just forwarded all my letters to the concerned research bodies and nothing happened. No body wants to take a personal initiative because they are not interested. The joint secretary Mr Lov Verma in the Ministry of Culture (GOI) does not know what is happening in his National Archives. I reported to the Ministry that one of the most important manuscripts kept in National Archives is eighty percent damaged. This manuscript is so important, rather the only one of its kind in almost 800 folios. The ink of one folio in this manuscript is spread over the other folio thus making 80% of the manuscript illegible. We have lost this manuscript for ever, but don't you think it could have been saved had it been digitalized! Dr Kapila Vatsyayan herself seems so helpless when I talked to her about such issues. I do not understand why is it so.

Lets see the National Museum. When asked why the manuscripts are not organized and why they do not have the catalogue of the manuscripts made, the answer was be - "The manuscripts were being evaluated and it takes some time you know". Yes, I know and who knows it better than I do. It takes 60 years to evaluate manuscripts. When I asked them to show me a particular manuscript, it took them a week to search that out. They did not know where it was located. I have nothing more to say about it.

Let us go to some other regions. My one month long fight with the authorities of the Sampurnananda Sanskrit University in Varanasi brought some hope to me when I visited them in January 2008. You know after one and a half month long struggle, my letter seeking permission for allowing me to have copies of the manuscripts needed serious conservation. The letter was broken into pieces while traveling from one office to the other for signatures and counter signatures. When I asked the librarian that since microfilms of all the manuscripts were available in IGNCA in New Delhi, why couldn't they issue me a permission letter so that I could have copies from the IGNCA itself, the librarian told me, "Do you think we are fools? If we allow doing that, then all the foreigners will travel only to New Delhi, take the Ms copies from IGNCA and return back to their countries. Then our Varanasi based Saraswati Bhawan Library will have no value". Finally, the vice-chancellor signed my letter after I made some of my professors talk to him over the phone.

The Banaras Hindu University was even worst. After struggling with the chief librarian for almost more than three weeks, I was still being avoided saying - " We do not allow issuing copies of the manuscripts since we hold its copy right. Earlier also we had some instances that students took the manuscripts and produced them as their thesis." When I made my purpose clear that I am just working on a critical edition of a text and I need these manuscripts for that purpose and also providing him with a bibliography of the earlier printed editions of the same text, he replied "You see the text you are looking for is already in the market, so why don't you buy it from there? You see we are an autonomous organization established by an Act of Parliament of Government of India which has its own privileges and rights and we have decided not to give away manuscript copies". They say politeness pays, but surely not in this case. I had to meet the vice-chancellor and made him understand why I required the desired manuscripts placing all critical editions from Pondicherry on his table. He was convinced and talked to the librarian and then my problem was solved.

Lets check the famous Kameshwar Singh Dharbhanga Sanskrit University at Dharbhanga in Bihar. I have been trying to call up the vice-chancellor for last five months. Most of the times no one picks up the phone. A couple of time some one did and he spoke to me very rudely - imagine a Sanskrit university. After trying repeatedly I got to speak to another rude man (this time I also tried rudely) and I was asked to speak to the PA of the vice chancellor. He told me that a good number of manuscripts were recently stolen from the manuscripts library and now all the manuscripts are under the custody of Central Bureau of Investigation and no one can see them and of course there is no question of the copies. I must also tell you that when I was in the University of Lucknow, I was told that the personal manuscript collection of Professor Kanti Chandra Pandey was stolen from the university some time back.

I blame the Ministry of Culture, Government of India for all this. In last 62 years they have disastrously failed even to impose all the manuscript repositories to follow a uniform policy. I mean most of these research institutes have no policies established for issuing the copies of the manuscripts to research scholars. So you can only be regarded a "true scholar" if you know some influential person who can get it done for you, but if you do not then you remain a duffer. I hope you understand what I mean. What more can I say?

Yours sincerely,

Mrinal Kaul

Three Steps Down the Generation - Kashmiris in Dialogue, but not in Kashmiri

        Look at the grand old lady in her traditional Kashmiri dress. Her little grandson is trying to understand her psyche. They are both living in exile in Jammu and experiencing a troublesome life. 

The naughty grandson is annoyed with her granny complaining that he does not understand what all she is saying. 

The granny is speaking "Kashmiri" and the little lad does not understand it. Now the only language the granny and her grandson can speak in is the language of emotions. The "mother tongue" will die with granny.