BHUBANESWAR: The Culture department has landed in a controversy over manuscripts which are allegedly missing from the Odisha State Museum. To an RTI query by one Laxminarayan Kanungo over the number of manuscripts and antiquities present in the museum, the State Museum has informed that there are around 20,000 palm leaf manuscripts and 50,000 antiquities in the facility. The museum, apart from conserving and preserving the manuscripts, has digitised them.
The answer, however, contradicts the number provided in the e-pothi programme (online cataloging of manuscripts) which was launched by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in 2014. According to e-pothi, there are around 40,000 manuscripts preserved in the museum and categorised under 27 categories like vedas, tantra, religion, scriptures, ayurveda, music, maths, astrology, among other subjects. Besides, the museum journal during the tenure of former museum superintendent CB Patel had recorded 37,273 manuscripts.
When asked about the missing manuscripts, present Superintendent of Odisha State Museum Bhagyalipi Malla said in 2002, as per direction of the Culture department, an audit of palm leaf manuscripts was carried out in the museum and around 19,132 manuscripts were recorded then.
“Since the museum keeps buying and collecting manuscripts, we must have added another 4,000 to 5,000 manuscripts to our collection in all these years. There is no contradiction in numbers because we have always been citing the manuscript audit report in the State Assembly whenever a question is raised,” she said. Malla explained that each bundle of manuscript preserved in the museum is counted as one unit but it has around eight to 10 manuscripts on various subjects. Meanwhile, Director of the department Ranjan Das refused to comment on the issue.