Santal Hul: 170th anniv to be celebrated with exhibition of rare Santhali manuscripts
Kolkata: The School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University (JU) is all set to commemorate the 170th year of Santal Hul (1855-1857) through an exhibition which will showcase a plethora of rare manuscripts and documents in Santhali language in connection with one of its recent project carried out through financial assistance from the British Library as well as Santhali manuscripts and cultural heritage collection from National Library of Oslo, Norway.
“There are many communities around us in the city itself but we hardly get any scope to know about their lifestyle and culture. School of Cultural Texts and Records has completed the challenging task of digitisation and preservation of some 5000 odd manuscripts and rare documents in Santhali in its project ‘Locating and digitising early Santhali periodicals published between 1890 and 1975 in Eastern India (EAP 1300)’. It can be accessed easily by typing EAP project in search engines. However, this will be the first public engagement of the work that has been done in the EAP project. The visitors will get a chance to behold such rare documents right infront of them and will be acquainted with the rich literary history and cultural heritage of the Santals,” said Rahi Soren, Assistant Professor at The School of Oceanographic Studies of JU, who has curated the exhibition.
Rahi has recently visited the National Library of Oslo, Norway that houses the biggest archive related with Santhali manuscripts and has managed to procure some rare collections from there to be displayed in the exhibition.
This includes an agreement of 1905 which showed how Santhali language was written, the earliest hand written documents of Sona Murmu and Sagram Murmu, writings by Norwegian missionaries Lars Olsen Skrefsurd and Paul Olaf Bodding in Norwegian, Danish and Santali to name a few.
Various collections of Dr. Dablu Soren of Berhampore, Murshidabad and Mahadeb Hansda of Bandwan in Purulia that have been digitised will be a major attraction of the exhibition. It will also shed light on the works of Late Pandit Raghunath Murmu, Late Sadhu Ramchand Murmu illustrating their immense contribution to Santali literature.
Four of the five scripts of Santhali namely Devnagari, Bangla, Roman with diacritics, Ol Chiki will be showcased.
The exhibition will be held from June 30 to July 6 at Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre at Lake Terrace in south Kolkata from 12 noon to 6 pm daily. Guided walk through the exhibition will be available twice daily at 2 pm and 5 pm.
