BHAKTIVEDANTA RESEARCH CENTRE
A project of ISKCON Mayapur
110A Motilal Nehru Road,
Kolkata 700 029, WB India
PH: 91 33 4065 / 2475 5216

QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
ISSUE #2, January – March 2011

Mission for Manuscripts

Welcome to the second BRC quarterly newsletter. It marks an exciting new phase of our program the search for ancient manuscripts and rare books, particularly on Gaudiya Vaisnavism.

It has been our ambition from the BRC's inception to go out in the field and see what works can be salvaged, preserved, and disseminated for the edification of the world at large. Our aim is to get manuscripts donated, or at least be given access to digitally capture them.

Cultural Ecocide
The rapid loss of India's great storehouse of wisdom, passed down for thousands of years via carefully copied manuscripts, is of great concern, both within India and abroad.

In January 2011 at the Jaipur Literary Festival, noted Prof. Sheldon Pollock, a renowned scholar of Sanskrit and Indian literary history and general editor of Harvard’s Murty Classical Library,

warned that in literary terms, India is on the verge of what he termed a potentially cataclysmic cultural ecocide.

Giving the keynote address he said, It is now entirely legitimate to ask, if within two generations there will be anyone in India who will have the capacity of reading Indian literature produced before 1800. I have a feeling that that number is slowly approaching a statistical zero.’

Of India’s ancient languages, it is only classic Sanskrit that is not endangered. Prof. Pollock’s concern is over the loss of the treasury of literature that already exists and has been preserved over thousands of years. The scholar, who teaches at Columbia University, says he has become gravely concerned over 40 years of coming and going from India.

Over the 35 or 40 years coming to India…it’s been the same in classical Assamese, it’s the same in Bangla, it’s the same in Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and all the way down the long list,’ he said.

Srila Prabhupada expressed the same sentiments in 1972 when he instructed his disciples to go to Birnagar, the birthplace of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, and photograph the original writings of the Thakura.

Srila Prabhupada with Lalita Prasada Thakura, Guru dasa, Shyamasundara in Bir Nagar in 1972

[To: Acyutananda-12 June, 1972]

I have asked Yadubara to come there to Birnagar from Bombay for photographing all of the manuscripts in the possession of Lalita Prashad Thakura page by page very completely before it is too late. The pages are in very decrepit condition, so best thing is to request Lalita Prashad if we may take care of them by treating them against insects and storing them in a tight, dry storage place where they may be preserved for future generations of Vaisnavas to see the actual handwriting and words of such great saintly persons.
Treat this matter very seriously and thoroughly, and take all precautions to protect this wonderful boon of literatures forever. Yadubara may photograph every page, never mind Bengali or English or any other language, and later we shall see where to send the copies to different places.

These statements have provided our inspiration to try our humble best to protect our Vaisnava heritage for future generations.

Until now funding has not been sufficient for us to launch the program. However by the grace of ISKCON Mayapur administration, particularly Naru-gopal prabhu, the Mayaypur CEO, we have been given the use of a vehicle for a three months pilot program.

We also received generous donations from HG Srutadeva prabhu (playing harmonium)

HG Nrsimhadeva prabhu (Australia)

and from many congregational devotees in Dubai- Revathi, Snehal, Jyoti, Hema, Vishaka, Rekha, Suguna, Rajan, Jagadeesh and Narayanan via HG Vinoda Kumar prabhu

to buy a semi-professional camera, a Canon Powershot G12 with which to record the manuscripts. Its not possible to travel with a scanner but the digital cameras available nowadays are easily up to the task and more suitable in many ways because they are less intrusive on the manuscripts.

Types of manuscripts

There are three main types:

1) tree bark, like this one at our BRC library in Kolkata

2) palm or tal leaf, which is usually the oldest and rarest kind. This one was donated recently

It was part of a batch of 20 that were found floating around in the big Mayapur flood of 2000 and were rescued by a local man. Most were ruined but a few survived and we recorded them for posterity.

3) a variety of different types of paper, such as this cotton based sheet at Halisahar Caitanya Doba mandira

February 2011 ‘Mission for Manscripts' begins

Our research team consists of Smt. Bharati Roy and her assistant Ashish.

Janakaraja, Bharati and Ashish at Caitanya Doba, Halisahar

Bharati began working with ISKCON scholars in the early 1980s, doing extensive research for the Institute for Vaisnava Studies (IVS) headed by Garuda dasa (Dr. Graham Schweig) in Bengal and Jaipur, and also translation work for various individual scholars. She has worked for the last year as the BRC librarian but field research is where her heart is. As she told us at the inception of the manuscript program, I am boiling with enthusiasm!

They began their work in their home town of Halisahar, which happens to be the birthplace of Srila Isvara Puri, the spiritual master of Lord Caitanya. The temple of Caitanya Doba is said to be the actual site of his appearance.

The mahant of the temple is Sri Kishori Baba. He was friendly and only too happy to give us access to his small but precious collection of manuscripts. Bharati and Ashish photographed 16 different works over two visits. You read about this visit on my second last posting of February 18 2011 on this blog.

From there, in 17 days they visited another ten places and photographed almost 112 manuscripts, shooting nearly 7,000 images. They visited libraries, sripats, mathas and private owners.

As well as photographing the manuscripts they also filled out an information sheet on each place recording Deities, custodians, number of mss, and other relevant information for the use of students and scholars in the future.

Here's a few of the places visited so far:

Krishnanagara

This is Smt. Manasi Raya, widow of late Ashimananda Raya of Krishnanagara and descendent of the royal family there.

She is holding a palm leaf tal mss of the Markandeya Purana.

This is the only mss remaining from a large collection, since her predecessors thought their old collections to be useless and thus threw them in the Ganga. This one was preserved as a family heirloom. Such occurances are becoming increasingly common and that’s why we are acting now as Srila Prabhupada said before it is too late.
Manasi mataji also had a very old printed Srimad Bhagavatam with some nice illustrations in it which we estimate to be at least 150 yrs. old. You can see the damage caused by insects on the left cover.

Sripata of Srila Vrndavana dasa Thakura, Denuda in Bardaman

On the altar is a wood and glass box containing a mss that is said to be the original Caitanya Bhagavat by Srila Vrndavana dasa Thakura.

With it there is a thin strip with what the owners claim is the handwriting of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself.

We were allowed to photograph these from the outside of the box because, following an attempt to steal it by a young man disguised as a Hindu sadhu, the box was sealed and even the current pujari can't open it.

Gauranga Tal Mandira, Navadwip

This temple also has a glass box on its altar

and within is a mss of the Srimad Bhagavatam written on tree bark by Srila Gadadhara Pandit.

With it is another tal said to be comments written by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself (hence the name of the temple).

Haribol Kutir Navadwip

While not exactly mss, these original printer's bloc maps are important artefacts nonetheless.

Gauramanadalabhumi

Lord Caitanya’s travels around Bharat varsa

They were created and used by Haridasa Dasa the scholar who discovered the mss of Sri Krsna Lila Stava by Srila Sanatan Goswami after it had been missing for approx. 300 years. These maps were printed in Haridasa Dasa's book Gaudiya Vaisnava Abhidhana in the 1940s. They depict the travels of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu around India, and also all the important holy places in Gauramandalabhumi.

Our researchers found them lying on a heap of garbage when they visited the matha. Now because of their intervention they are being kept carefully in the temple. We were allowed to photograph many mss. here also.

Srikhanda Chittaranjan, Pathagar

Some places do value their heritage and here's an example of some well kept manuscripts that we were allowed to photograph. Here’s Sri Uttam Sengupta, the librarian of Srikhanda Chittaranjan Pathagar, Bardhaman where the trust of Narahari Sarkar Thakura’s Sripata has donated these mss.

Sripata of Srinivasa Acarya, Yajigram

Likewise in Yajigram, where the ISKCON administered Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust has done renovation work
we found some well preserved mss for our records.

Santipur Sahitya Parishad, Santipur

This is Sri Susanta Matt the Secretary of the Sahitya Parishad Santipur.

He was happy to allow us to photograph many of their mss. Of course not all the mss are of Gaudiya Vaisnava works, there are many on various other methods of worship, nyaya etc. and here we found some copies of various works by Sripad Sankaracarya.

We photographed some because Srila Prabhupada said in Juhu Bombay in 1976 that we should establish a library of all the works of the acaryas, including Sankaracarya. When I expressed surprise because Lord Caitanya warns in Chaitanya Caritmrita that anyone who reads Shankara’s bhasya is doomed, he told me, “No, we can read to know what is their arguments, to defeat them.”

The above are just a few of the places visited.

After this intensive work Bharati and Ashish, under careful guidance of our new head librarian Acyuta prabhu, spent the month of March at the BRC library in Kolkata building up a catalogue of the materials. All the information gathered will be entered into our new website and library software in the coming months. Thus everything will be made available for researchers to take advantage of.
The mss program has recommenced on April 1 for one month and the results of that will be reported in our mid-year newsletter.

Gaura Purnima festival in Mayapur

The festival this year drew over 5,000 ISKCON devotees just for the Navadvipa parikramas, who went out in four separate parties-English speaking, Russian, Hindi and Bengali.

As well as this, at least a million pilgrims came to Mayapur for the main festivities.

The BRC had a booth set up in the temple courtyard through the three weeks of GBC meetings and festivities. On March 18 evening a new powerpoint presentation was shown on the main stage to approx. 1,000 devotees. Several devotees were inspired to immediately give cash donations for the project. We would like to thank them for their support:
Bhusaya dasa Australia
Haresh Mumbai
Radha Radhya dasa – Germany
Ajamila dasa – Malaysia
Chandan Bhatia India
Girish M. – Bangalore

Nitya Sevaks membership WE NEED TWENTY GOOD SOULS

Join us on this great adventure!
During the festival we launched our new membership program Nitya Sevaks. This is designed to provide the Rs. 70,000 we need every month to keep our operations going. Twenty good souls regularly donating small amounts will ensure the BRC can continue its work. Here’s the scheme:

11 donors giving $1 a day-$31 per month

5 donors giving $2 per day - $62 pm

2 donors giving $5 per day - $155.00 pm

2 donors giving $10 per day – $310 pm

So far three Nitya Sevaks have signed up. WE NEED SEVENTEEN MORE.

Would you like to be one of them? If so, please contact us by email:

hari.sauri.acbsp@pamho.net
janakaraja.acbsp@pamho.net
iskconbrc@gmail.com

Gita Bhavan Guest House

Don’t forget, when you are in Kolkata you are invited to stay in our guest house which adjoins the library. We have clean, modern amenities with air conditioning and wifi and your support will help further the library’s progress,

That’s the news for the first quarter of 2011. Thanks for your time and thanks for your support.

Hare Krishna
Hari-sauri dasa – Director/Editor