BHUBANESWAR: The Tradition division has landed in an argument over manuscripts that are allegedly lacking from the Odisha State Museum. To an RTI question by one Laxminarayan Kanungo over the variety of manuscripts and antiquities current within the museum, the State Museum has knowledgeable that there are round 20,000 palm leaf manuscripts and 50,000 antiquities within the facility. The museum, other than conserving and preserving the manuscripts, has digitised them.
The reply, nevertheless, contradicts the quantity offered within the e-pothi programme (on-line cataloging of manuscripts) which was launched by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in 2014. In line with e-pothi, there are round 40,000 manuscripts preserved within the museum and categorised below 27 classes like vedas, tantra, faith, scriptures, ayurveda, music, maths, astrology, amongst different topics. Moreover, the museum journal through the tenure of former museum superintendent CB Patel had recorded 37,273 manuscripts.
When requested concerning the lacking manuscripts, current Superintendent of Odisha State Museum Bhagyalipi Malla mentioned in 2002, as per route of the Tradition division, an audit of palm leaf manuscripts was carried out within the museum and round 19,132 manuscripts had been recorded then.
“For the reason that museum retains shopping for and gathering manuscripts, we will need to have added one other 4,000 to five,000 manuscripts to our assortment in all these years. There isn’t a contradiction in numbers as a result of we have now at all times been citing the manuscript audit report within the State Meeting at any time when a query is raised,” she mentioned. Malla defined that every bundle of manuscript preserved within the museum is counted as one unit but it surely has round eight to 10 manuscripts on numerous topics. In the meantime, Director of the division Ranjan Das refused to touch upon the problem.
