Author: Premendra Agrawal

Knowledge of the past is necessary for the betterment of the present. Palm leaf manuscripts that preserve our traditions, historical heritage and glorious past are prominent in this. The writings on palm leaves contain valuable information about India’s past.

Turning the pages of history, it is known that kings and emperors used to write about their times on stone pieces, pillars and palm leaves. Like the kings of the Chola dynasty.

Palm leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE and possibly much earlier. Their use began in South Asia and spread elsewhere: in the form of texts on dried palm leaves.

One of the oldest surviving palm-leaf manuscripts of a complete text is a 9th-century Sanskrit Shaivism text, discovered in Nepal, now preserved in the Cambridge University Library. The Spitzer Manuscript is a collection of palm leaf fragments found in the Kizil Caves, China. They date to approximately the 2nd century CE and are the oldest known philosophical manuscripts in Sanskrit.

History

Palm leaves up to one meter long and ten centimeters wide are durable for a long time, so they were used for writing books and painting. Firstly these palm leaves were dried, boiled or soaked and then dried again. In palm-leaf manuscripts, the text was rectangularly cut and the letters were scratched with a knife-tip iron pen, also called a shalaka, right on the palm-leaf sheet. By cutting them in the desired shape and then applying kajal on them, these letters turned black and became readable.

The dyes were then applied to the surface and the ink was wiped away leaving incised grooves. Each sheet usually had a hole through which a string could pass, and these were tied together with a string to bind the sheets together like a book.

The entire manuscript was pierced by inserting pieces of bamboo about four centimeters or so from each end i.e. binding in today’s language by attaching heavy wooden covers at the front and back and then tying with braided cords. Among the thousands of manuscripts written on palm leaves, there are some such, for which gold has been used to write.

The manuscript of Mahabharata on palm leaves and the manuscript of Gita written with golden letters, flower-leaves juice have been preserved for almost four hundred years in Gitapress of Gorakhpur.

A palm leaf made in this way typically lasts between a few decades and about 600 years before decaying due to moisture, insect activity, mold, and fragility. Thus the document had to be copied onto a new set of dry palm leaves. The oldest surviving palm leaf Indian manuscripts have been found in cool, dry climates in Nepal, Tibet, and parts of Central Asia, the source of 1st millennium CE manuscripts.

preparation And protection

Palm leaves are first cooked and dried. The writer then uses the pen to write the letter. Natural dyes are applied to the surface so that the ink sticks to the grooves. The process is similar to intaglio printing. Afterwards, a clean cloth is used to wipe off the excess ink and the leaf manuscript is prepared.

The individual sheets of palm leaves were called patra or parna in Sanskrit (Pali/Prakrit: panna), and the prepared medium for writing was called tada-patra (or tala-patra, tali, toddy). . Sugar discovered in Turkestan bower The famous 5th-century Indian manuscript, called the Manuscript, was written on sheets of treated birch-bark the size of palm leaves.

Hindu temples often served as centers where ancient manuscripts were regularly used for learning and where texts were copied when they became worn out. In South India, the oldest surviving palm leaves in temples and associated monasteries served these functions, and large numbers of manuscripts on Hindu philosophy, poetry, grammar and other subjects were written, multiplied and preserved inside the temples.

Archaeological and epigraphical evidence indicates the existence of libraries called Saraswati-Bhandara, which probably date back to the early 12th century and employed librarians attached to Hindu temples. Palm-leaf manuscripts were also preserved in Jain temples and Buddhist monasteries.

The library of Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, built in 1914, also known as Saraswati Bhavan, has three lakh books, oriental texts, rare manuscripts under one roof. 16,500 rare manuscripts brought from different parts of the country have been preserved here. A team of experts has been engaged to fix thousands of manuscripts written on palm leaves using scientific methods. This work is being done with the initiative of Infosys Foundation. These would traditionally be wrapped in red colored ‘Kharwa’ cloth. Kharwa is a special type of cotton cloth on which books are wrapped by applying chemicals. It provides protection to books from insects and moisture. The library of Tamil Nadu has a world of more than 70,000 manuscripts. There is also a manuscript on palm leaf which is kept in the display section so that one can understand this obscure language.

With the spread of Indian culture to Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines, these nations also became home to large collections. Palm-leaf manuscripts in dedicated stone libraries called lontar have been discovered by archaeologists in Hindu temples in Bali, Indonesia, and in 10th-century Cambodian temples such as Angkor Wat and Banteay Srei.

The Paramesvaratantra, one of the oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscripts on palm leaves, is a Shaiva canon text of Hinduism. It dates from the 9th century, and dates to around 828 CE. The discovered palm-leaf collection also includes parts of another text, the Jnanarsva Mahatantra, currently held by the University of Cambridge. Many governments are making efforts to save their palm leaf documents.

writing systems Of Design Of With Relation,

The rounded and curved design of the letters in many South Indian and Southeast Asian scripts, such as Devanagari, Nandinagari, Telugu, Lontara, Javanese, Balinese, Odia, Burmese, Tamil, Khmer, and so forth, may have been an adaptation to the use of cursive writing. of palm leaves, as the angular letters could tear the leaves.

regional Variations

Rajasthan From a Jain palm leaf manuscript. In Jaisalmer’s Granth Bhandar, some ancient manuscripts of palm leaves are kept as treasures.

Odisha

The palm leaf manuscripts of Odisha include scriptures, images of devadasis and various postures of the Kamasutra. Some of the earliest di
scoveries of Odia palm-leaf manuscripts include writings in both Odia and Sanskrit such as the Smarakadipika, Ratimanjari, Panchasayaka and Anangaranga. The State Museum of Odisha in Bhubaneswar houses 40,000 palm leaf manuscripts. Most of them are written in the Odia script, although the language is Sanskrit. The oldest manuscript here dates back to the 14th century but the text may date back to the 2nd century.

Tamil Nadu

16th century Christian prayer in Tamil, palm leaf manuscripts In 1997 the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection as part of the Memory of the World Register. A very good example of the use of palm leaf manuscripts to store history is the Tolkappiyam, a Tamil grammar book written around the 3rd century BCE. A global digitization project led by the Tamil Heritage Foundation collects, preserves, digitizes and makes available ancient palm-leaf manuscript documents to users via the Internet.

Java And Bali

palm leaf manuscript in indonesia lontar It is called The modern form of the Indonesian word is Old Javanese. rontal , It is composed of two old Javanese words, namely Ron “Leaf” and rythm , Borassus flabellifer , Palmyra Palm”. Due to the shape of the palm leaves, which spread like a fan, these trees are also known as “fan trees”. The leaves of the rontal tree have always been used for many purposes, such as for making pleated mats, palm sugar wrappers, water scoops, jewelry, ritual tools, and writing materials. Today, in the art of writing rontal Still survives in Bali, rewriting Hindu texts as a sacred duty performed by Balinese Brahmins.

kakawin arjun marriage Balinese palm-leaf manuscript of.

Many older manuscripts, dated from ancient Java, Indonesia, were written on palm-leaf manuscripts. Manuscripts dated from the 14th to the 15th century during the Majapahit period. anything found as before Arjunawiwaha , Smaradahana , Nagarakretagama And kakwin sutsom , of which were discovered on the neighboring islands of Bali and Lombok. This suggests that the tradition of preserving, copying and rewriting palm-leaf manuscripts has continued for centuries. Other palm leaf manuscripts include Sundanese language : works Carita Parahyangan , Sanghyang Siksakandang Karesian And Bujangga ruby ,

Uthiramerur, 30 km from Kanchipuram is 1250 years old.

The village named Uthiramerur, 30 km from the famous Kanchipuram of Tamil Nadu, is about 1250 years old. The village had a model electoral system and a written constitution prescribing the manner of election. It is one of the oldest temples of democracy.

Vaikuntha Perumal Temple is located in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu.

On the platform wall of the Vaikuntha Perumal (Vishnu) temple here, state edicts of the Chola dynasty are recorded during the year 920 AD. Many of these provisions are also in the existing Model Election Code. It was inscribed on the walls of the gram sabha, a rectangular structure made of granite slabs.

Another example of the strength of democracy at the local level in Indian history is written on the walls of Utthiramerur in Kancheepuram district, the constitution of the gram sabha system prevalent in the middle of the seventh century, in it the qualifications required to contest elections, the method of election, the candidates selected. There is also a discussion of the term of office, the conditions for the disqualification of the candidates and the people’s authority under which the people could recall their people’s representatives. If these public representatives did not discharge their responsibilities properly.

The Pallava dynasty sculptures of Vaikuntha Perumal temple and several inscriptions have helped the historians of South India to write about all the events of the ancient Pallava history and fix the chronology of this dynasty.

About 25 inscriptions, spanning the reign of the Pallava kings, have been found at Uthiramerur. The Uttaramerur inscription of Parantaka I of 921 AD has been obtained from a place called Uttaramerur located in Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu state of India. The Uttaramerur inscription of Parantaka I gives information about local self-government during the time of the ruler of the Chola dynasty.

According to the Uttaramerur inscription, during the reign of the Chola dynasty, grants of land were given to Brahmins in India whose administrative responsibilities were discharged by the village itself.

During the reign of the Chola dynasty, villages in India were divided into 30 wards.

This committee of 30 wards or members was called sabha or ur in India during the reign of Chola dynasty.

During the rule of the Chola dynasty, some qualifications were necessary to become a member of the committee in India, such as-

* To become a member, it was necessary to have at least 1½ acres of land.

* To become a member, it was necessary to have one’s own house.

* To become a member it was necessary to have knowledge of Vedas.

* The one who wanted to become a member himself and his family and none of his friends should be of criminal nature.

* The age limit for becoming a member was from 35 years to 70 years.

* A person could become a member only once.

* Used to get the children selected by lottery to become members.

Candidates are selected by kudavoloi (literally, palm leaves [टिकट] pots of [का]) was done through the system:

Names of eligible candidates were written on palm leaf tickets

Stamps are put into a pot and shuffled

A young boy was asked to draw as many tickets as there were positions

The name on the ticket was read by all the priests

The candidate whose name is read out is selected

The tenure of a member of the committee was 360 days. Anyone found guilty of a crime was immediately removed from office.

The one who got the most votes was elected a member of the Gram Sabha. Not only this, the person who commits family adultery or rape used to be disqualified from participating in elections for 7 generations.

One of the best poems of Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji, “Bharat Zameen Ka Tukda Nahi” does not see India as just a piece of land but expresses it as a complete nation. This poem gives the best expression of patriotism. While expressing, it expresses the sense of dedication of whole life towards the nation.

India is not a piece of land,

He is a living national man.

Himalaya is the head, Kashmir is the crown,

Punjab and Bengal are two huge shoulders.

The Eastern and the Western Ghats are two huge mountains.

‘Kanyakumari is its feet, the ocean washes its feet.

This is the land of sandalwood, the land of greetings,

This is the land of sacrifice, this is the land of offering.

Its pebble is Shankar,

Its point-point is the water of the Ganges.

we will live for this

Will die for this.

-Atal Bihari Vajpayee

March 3, 2020 – In the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting, PM Modi, without naming former PM Manmohan Singh, said that saying ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ to the former prime minister also stinks. At the time of independence, some people in this Congress were against singing Vande Mataram. Now he is also facing difficulty in saying ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

It is worth mentioning here that on 22 February 2020 former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that nationalism and Bharat Mata Ki Jai slogans are being misused. This slogan is wrongly being used to project a “fiery and purely emotional image of India” which alienates millions of citizens.

It is worth mentioning here that on January 26, 2020, at the Indian Consulates in New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta and San Francisco, and the Indian Embassy in Washington, protesters chanted “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh” in demonstrations against the citizenship law. Christians raised slogans, all brothers among themselves.

The recently formed Coalition to Stop Genocide organized protests in about 30 US cities. This includes organizations such as the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Equality Labs, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Hindus for Human Rights (HFHR). There was a lot of debate in the Parliament regarding the 1962 war. In those days, the opposition had created a ruckus about Aksai Chin being taken over by China. Jawaharlal Nehru made a statement in the Parliament that even a straw of grass does not grow in Aksai Chin, it is a barren area. In a packed parliament, Mahavir Tyagi showed his bald head to Nehru and said – Nothing grows here too, so should I get it cut or give it to someone else. Think what would have happened to Nehru after hearing the answer of his own cabinet member Mahavir Tyagi?

Nehru ji was also allergic to the word Bharat Mata but not Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1936, Shiv Prasad Gupta built the temple of Bharat Mata in Banaras. It was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi.

Pandit Nehru used to say that India means that piece of land – if you raise the slogan of Bharat Mata Ki Jai, then you are hailing our natural resources.

Friedrich Max Müller (German: 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born linguist and Orientalist who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indian Studies and Religious Studies (‘Science of Religion’, German: Religionswissenschaft). Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology.

In his sixties and seventies, Müller gave a series of lectures which reflected a more nuanced approach in favor of Hinduism and the ancient literature of India. His “What Can India Teach Us?” Lecture at the University of Cambridge, he championed ancient Sanskrit literature and India as follows:

If I were to look around the world and find a country most affluent in all the wealth, power and beauty that nature has to offer – a very paradise on earth in some parts – then I should point to India. If I were to be asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has pondered most deeply upon life’s greatest problems, and found solutions to some of them which even Worth noting are those who have studied Plato and Kant—I must point to India. And if I ask myself, to what literature are we in Europe, we who have been nourished almost exclusively on the ideas of the Greeks and Romans, and a Semitic race, the Jews, can draw that reformer which is most in order is more desired to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, indeed more truly human, a life,

, Max Müller(1883)

He also speculates that the introduction of Islam in India in the 11th century had a profound effect on the psyche and behavior of Hindus in another discourse, “The True Character of the Hindus”:

Other epics too,Mahabharata, is full of episodes showing deep respect for truth. (…) If I must quote from all the law-books, and still from later works, everywhere you will hear the same key-tone of truthfulness pulsating through them all. (…) I say once again that I do not want to represent the people of India as two hundred and thirty three million angels, but I want it to be understood and accepted as a fact, that the harmful ancient The allegation of untruth leveled against the people is completely baseless. This is not only not true, but the exact opposite of the truth. As far as the modern period is concerned, and I date them after about 1000 AD, I can only say that after reading the accounts of the horrors and horrors of the Muslim rule, My wonder is that native virtues and truthfulness should abound so much. Got saved

— Max Müller, (1884)

Swami Vivekananda, who was a chief disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, met Müller over lunch on 28 May 1896. Swami later wrote about Müller and his wife:

This trip was truly a revelation for me. That little white house, set in a beautiful garden, that silver-haired sage, with his face calm and gentle, and his forehead as smooth as a child’s in spite of seventy winters, and every line on that face spoke of a deep mine. Spirituality has been somewhere behind; That pious wife, through her long and arduous work of life’s helpers, opposition and contempt, and finally creating respect for the ideas of the sages of ancient India – trees, flowers, peace, and clear sky – all of which Sent me back to the imagination of the glorious days of ancient India, the days of our brahmarshis and rajarshis, the days of the great vanaprasthas, the days of Arundhati and Vashishtha. It was neither linguist nor scholar that I saw,

In his career, Müller expressed the view several times that there needed to be a “reformation” within Hinduism, comparable to the Christian reformation. ^[24] In his view, “If there is one thing to which the comparative study of religions puts into the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed … Whenever we can trace a religion to its first beginnings, we free from the many defects which afflicted it in later states”.

He encouraged such reforms on the lines of Ram Mohan Roy. Brahmo Samaj used his relations with Müller believed that the Brahmos would give rise to an Indian form of Christianity and that they were in practice “Christian, Roman Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran”. In the Lutheran tradition, he hoped that “superstition” and idolatry, which he believed characterized modern popular Hinduism, would disappear. ^[26]

Müller wrote:

Its after Veda will tell a great deal about the fate of India and the development of millions of souls in that country. This is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I am sure, is the only way to uproot whatever has arisen from it during the last 3,000 years… One must rise up and do that What he can do is God’s work.

Müller hoped that increased funding for education in India would promote a new form of literature combining Western and Indian traditions. In 1868 he appointed the newly appointed secretary of state George Campbell wrote to :

India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest must be conquered by education. Of late much has been done for education, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, it would hardly be enough (…) to encourage, as part of their education, the study of their own ancient literature By doing this, a sense of national pride and self-respect would be rekindled in those who influence large masses of people. A new national literature may emerge, imbued with Western ideas, yet retaining its original spirit and character (…) A new national literature will bring with it a new national life and a new moral enthusiasm. As for Dharma, it will take care of itself. Missionaries have done much more than they themselves know, nay, most of the work that is theirs, they will probably decline. Our nineteenth century Christianity will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the ancient religion of India is doomed – and if Christianity doesn’t step in, whose fault will it be?

— Max Müller, (1868)

Sanskrit study

In 1844, oxford Before beginning his academic career in Berlin, Müller studied with Friedrich Schelling. He began translating the Upanishads for Schelling, and continued to research Sanskrit under Franz Bopp, the first systematic scholar of Indo-European languages ​​(IE). Schelling inspired Müller to link the history of language with the history of religion. At this time, Müller published his first book, a German translation of Hitopadesa, a collection of Indian fables. , [

In 1845, Müller moved to Paris to study Sanskrit under Eugène Burnouf. Barnouf encouraged him to publish the entire Rigveda, using the manuscripts available in England. He went to England in 1846 to study Sanskrit texts in the collection of the East India Company. He supported himself at first with creative writing, his novel German Love being popular in his time.

Müller’s connections with the East India Company and culturalists at the University of Oxford led to a career in Britain
, where he eventually became a leading intellectual commentator on the culture of India. At that time, Britain controlled the region as part of its empire. This led to a complex exchange between Indian and British intellectual culture, particularly through Müller’s links with the Brahmo Samaj.

Müller’s Sanskrit study occurred at a time when scholars were beginning to look at the development of language in relation to cultural development. The recent discovery of the Indo-European language group has begun to give rise to much speculation about the relationship between Greco-Roman cultures and more ancient ones. The Vedic culture of India in particular was considered the ancestor of European classical cultures. Scholars compare genetically related European and Asian languages ​​to reconstruct the earliest form of the root language. The Vedic language, Sanskrit, was believed to be the oldest of the IE languages.

Müller devoted himself to the study of this language and became one of the leading Sanskrit scholars of his time. He believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied to provide a key to the development of pagan European religions and religious belief in general. To this end, Müller sought to understand the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedic scriptures. Müller translated the book Rigveda Samhita written by the 14th century Sanskrit scholar Sayanacharya from Sanskrit to English. Müller was deeply influenced by his contemporary and proponent of Vedantic philosophy, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, and wrote several essays and books about him.

Thousands start thinking because of each drop of ink. So we don’t have just one supreme text as others have. We have Ramayana, Mahabharata, Gita, Vedas and so many more and all are supreme. If all these books were not there then what would happen to you Kaliya? German-origin linguist and orientalist Friedrich Max Müller was jubilant by placing the Gita on his head…