20K Palm Leaf Manuscripts Missing From Odisha State Museum

Bhubaneswar: The State Museum of Odisha in Bhubaneswar has lost almost half of its precious assets in four years due to which the Culture Department has landed in a controversy.

Following an RTI query by one Laxminarayan Kanungo over the number of manuscripts and antiquities present in the museum, it was learnt 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.

However, it contradicted the number provided in the e-pothi programme (online cataloguing of manuscripts), which was launched by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in 2014, which stated that 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 Chandrabhanu Patel had recorded 37,273 manuscripts.

“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,” TNIE reported  Superintendent of Odisha State Museum Bhagyalipi Malla as saying.

Malla explained that each bundle of manuscripts preserved in the museum is counted as one unit but it has around eight to 10 manuscripts on various subjects.

Meanwhile, the Director of the department Ranjan Das is yet to comment on the issue.