THE tradition OF MANUSCRIPT WRITING in Assam

Nearly every civilisation and country has managed to save some part of its past in one way or the other, be it through its architecture, its culture or tradition and most importantly through its literature. We usually reconstruct the past based largely on the contemporary literature available for the period under study. In the days when paper was a luxury or a rarity and printing a long way from being developed, writing of most literature or records was carried out by hand. These writings are still available to us till the present and serve as primary sources for our study of the past. These hand written documents are known as manuscripts. Etymological origins of the word manuscript have been derived from the Latin word Manus which means hand and Scribe which means to write. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a manuscript is a very old book or document that was written by hand before printing facility was invented. In modern times libraries define manuscripts as any hand written document present in their collection. Manuscripts were written on a variety of materials like bark of trees, cured skin of animals, papyrus or paper, leaves of palm trees, clay tablets, brass, copper and even ivory sheets etc. Nearly every country with a rich civilisation in the past has its own tradition of manuscript writing. So manuscripts of different places and regions differ depending upon the materials available, language, script and form.

Manuscripts were written in the form of pages or layers and were put together in the form of books with metal rings or leather thongs or kept separately and also in the form of scrolls. Manuscripts were basically of two kinds- those which consisted only of script and those which consisted of paintings which were known as illustrated or illuminated manuscripts. Some countries which have a rich tradition of manuscript writing are Egypt, Rome, most countries of Europe and last but not the least India. Manuscript writing was a very lengthy, intricate and painstaking process and involved many stages from the preparation of the material to the writing of the calligraphy. The preservation of these manuscripts was also a critical issue because the materials on which they were written if not preserved properly could be damaged and perish very easily. Moreover since these documents were hand written therefore the

chance of making mistakes was also very high. Updating of information in these manuscripts also posed a big problem. Due to these reasons the entire process of manuscript writing was carried out by expert professionals trained specifically for the purpose. The content or subjects of these manuscripts varied.They could be religious texts as is the case with most Indian manuscripts, biographies of kings

or saints, government or land records and grants, general literature upon society and polity etc.

In India most of the epics like the Mahabharat and the Ramayan and other religious texts like the Vedas and

art of miniature paintings which the Mughal artists specialised in.

Upanishads were found in the form of manuscripts. Though manuscript writing was practiced in Ancient India but it was during the medeival period or under Mughal patronage that the art was truly developed. Almost all the Mughal rulers were patrons of literature and art and so writing and painting flourished during the period. The manuscripts of that time were truly remarkable and were enriched by the Assam too with its diverse culture and rich history had it own tradition of manuscript writing. Though a number of these treasures are lost due to various reasons but a large number are still preserved by museums, satras and even in private collections. By and large these manuscripts are attributed to the medieval period of Assam history and are the fruits of the Neo-vaishnavite movement which was led by Shankardev, his pupil Madhavdev and a host of Vaishnav pontiffs after them. The Neo-Vaishnavite movement enriched Assamese society and culture in many ways. Not only did it provide the state with an umbrella religion but its major institution i.e. the Satra became a centre for development of a variety of arts and crafts. A plethora of valuable literature in the form of hagiographies,

poems and verses, dedicative songs (gits) and dramas (nats) were produced by the Vaishnav gurus and scholars. It is largely on the basis of this literature that we can reconstruct the history of Assam. Most of this literature was written and copied painstakingly by hand on a various kinds of material but most commonly on the plaques prepared from the bark and wood of the Sanchi tree. These manuscripts were doubly important because not only were they records of the past but also served as the vehicle for propagationa of the tenets and ideals of this religio-cultural movement.

In

Assam manuscripts

are

generally

process has been well described by Prof. Edward Gait in his book A History of Assam( Appendix- D). The process for preparing the manuscripts has been

referred to as sanchi- pat puthis. These sanchi puthis or manuscripts were

prepared from a variety of materials but wood or bark of the Sanchi tree was most commonly used hence it is so called. Apart from sanchi, tulapat or writing material prepared from wood pulp and cotton, talpat or palm leaves and other materials like muga or mulberry silk were used. Tulapat though a strong material were usually used for inferior documents or for everyday use. However the process of preparing manuscripts from sanchi wood was the most lengthy and complex. The

divided into several stages- curing the wood, seasoning it, polishing the raw slices and finally writing of the

calligraphy.

The Sanchi tree also known as Agar or Aquillaria Agalocha from which the manuscript is to be prepared is first selected. Preferably a tree of 15 - 20 years age is selected with a width of 30-35 inches. The bark is removed in strips which are then dried in the sun. The scaly surface of the bark is removed and it is cut into suitable sized pieces. After soaking in water and smoothing with a knife, the strips are again dried in the sun. Next the strips are rubbed with a piece of burnt brick. They are then seasoned with a paste made of the black variety of pulse known locally as matimah which is rubbed into the bark and then dyed with yellow arsenic. Dried in the sun for a final time and polished to give a smooth finish, the strips are now ready to be written on. The materials used to write the calligraphy are a pen or styllus made from reeds or feathers known as the Kap, ink known as Mahi and prepared from silikha fruit, cow urine etc, Asmari or scale and Bindhana or borer for making holes etc. The

ink was of a very special kind which was not only water proof but also did smudge on the slippery surface of the prepared bark. It also did not fade with time. Tulapat is essentially a paper made from wood pulp and/or cotton. Three kinds of trees were normally selected for the purpose. White tulapat was made from the 'maihai' tree, the dark brown variety from the 'yamon' and the red variety from a tree the name of which has not been found. The barks of the above mentioned trees were cut up in convenient sizes and beaten thoroughly. This broke the fibres and separated and loosened them. Then these were boiled till they melted and formed into a fine pulp and became cleared of all impurities. The pulp was next poured over water kept in rectangular ditches of required sizes and it floated on the water's surface. It was then evenly spread all over with a scraper to the shape of the watery surface. Then it was left to cool. When cool, the film of pulp lying on the surface of the water gave a sheet of strong and tough paper.Usually, a tulapat folio was made by stitching two single sheets together or by folding a longer sheet in two and then stitching the same. This was done to give strength to the folios. As in Mughal India, in Assam too manuscript writing was closely allied with the art of painting and many illuminated/illustrated manuscripts are have been found here the most famous being the Hasti- Vidyarnava which is the work of two Mughal artists Dilbar and Dosai. The stories of the Bhagavata, the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the epics were generally illustrated. When pictures could not be inserted, illuminated margins occasionally made up the deficiency. Manuscripts with illustrated borders were known as lat-kat puthi or manuscripts with scrolls and running motifs along the borders. All combinations of colors were used. The prominent ones are yellow and green. Apart from these colours indigo, yellow ochre, haital, hengul and lamp black were also used. These materials could easily give the basic colors and even a few composite ones. The use of a crude variety of chalk (dhal) sometimes in the preparation of the painting surface in many cases accounts for the decay of the color of, and sometimes the paintings themselves. Pictures of Sankaradeva sitting in a siksha-mudra posture and surrounded by his apostles are met with occasionally in his biographies eg, in the Vanamlidevar Carita and on the obverse of the first folio of the Guru Carit Kath, collected by the famous scholar Bani Kanta Kakati and deposited in the manuscript section of the Gauhati University. Rajatananda Dasgupta of the Benares Hindu University gives an appraisal of this picture as a great leap forward in portrait painting.

Primarily due to the emergence of Sankaradeva's religion which made the use of manuscripts universal in Assam, a vibrant cottage industry came into being and there were distinct communities like the khanikars, the likhaks and the patuas whose means of livelihood was the transcription and illustration of manuscripts. The Satras used to patronize and support their own khanikars to work with their penmanship. Many bibliophiles also came forward to support the khanikars for their penmanship. The local kings also did not lag behind in this respect. The skilled and artistic penmanship of the scribes was so much on demand that one scribe usually specialized in the copying of one particular book instead of becoming a freelancer in his profession. The skill of a painter was generally requisitioned to decorate the labors of penmanship. The scribe was sometimes a painter himself and, if not, a regular painter supplemented the work of the transcribers by sketches on spaces left vacant for that purpose. Working under the guidance of the Vaisnava preachers, these artists inaugurated the Assam School of Painting. At least one hundred manuscripts belonging to the Assam School, which are painting in its real sense, have been discovered so far, each manuscript containing, on an average, forty such polychrome paintings. Manuscripts are open to threat chiefly by dust, light and mites. In the past, manuscripts were kept in wooden boxes placed over the fire-side or in wooden/bamboo ceilings, believing that fire, smoke and heat kept them unaffected by ants and mites. Many manuscripts are preserved in the Satras of Majuli have been lost due to continual floods and also due to the moist and humid climate. Lately many organisations and the government are taking steps to bring about proper preservation of and to bring to light many unknown manuscripts. There are also efforts to digitize manuscripts so as to save them permanently and also make them available for the people to see and use. The manuscripts are a valuable treasure of the past and all efforts should be made to try and conserve them. Moreover people is possession of such manuscripts should allow these to be catalogued or give them into possession of the government so that history maybe contributed to and people may use these treaures for research and scholarly purposes.