History of Tripura: As Reflected in the Manuscripts The National Mission for Manuscripts was established in February 2003 by the Ministry of Culture. Its purpose is to locate, document, preserve and disseminate the knowledge content of Indian manuscripts. While looking ahead to reconnect with the knowledge of the past, the Mission is in the process of trying to re-contextualize the knowledge contained in manuscripts for the present and the future generations. The Mission organizes seminars on various subjects related to Indian knowledge in different locations of India. The papers presented in the seminar are collected and published under the Samiksika series. This Samiksika series brings forth the papers presented at the seminar ìHistory of Tripura: As reflected in the Manuscriptsî. The Seminar was organised in collaboration with Tripura University and Prof Satya Deo Poddar was the Coordinator of the seminar. The book aims at exploring the resources for the reconstruction of the history of Tripura utilizing manuscripts as a source materials. While going through the contents of papers, there emerged a fresh look about the history of Chakma and Mogs in Tripura. The social practices, rituals and traditions of Tripura have been comprehensively described in this book. Sam∂k¶ikå Series No. 10 General Editor VEENA JOSHI The Sam∂k¶ikå Series is aimed at compiling the papers pre- sented by the various scholars during the seminars organized by the National Mission for Manuscripts. The seminars pro- vide an interactive forum for scholars to present to a large audience, ideas related to the knowledge contained in Indiaís textual heritage. In keeping with the title, the Sam∂k¶ikå (research) Series is concerned with research papers of distinguished scholars and specialists in different intellectual disciplines of India. History of Tripura: As Reflected in the Manuscripts Editor Satyadeo Poddar National Mission for Manuscripts Dev Publishers & Distributors Published by: National Mission for Manuscripts Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts 11 Man Singh Road New Delhi 110 001 Phone: 91 11 2307 3387 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.namami.nic.in and Co-published by: Dev Publishers & Distributors 2nd Floor, Prakash Deep, 22, Delhi Medical Association Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110 002 Phone: 011 43572647 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.devbooks.co.in ISBN 81ñ904029ñ6ñX (Series) ISBN 978ñ93ñ80829ñ39ñ5 (Vol. 10) First published 2016 © 2016, National Mission for Manuscripts All rights reserved including those of translation into other languages. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Price : ` 450 CONTENTS Foreword ix Introduction xi Key to Transliteration xvi 1. Manuscripts and HistoryóI. Sarkar 1 2. Tales of History from the Manuscripts of Tripuraó 11 Juthika Basu Bhowmik 3. Tripura: A Peep into the PastóBikach Chaudhuri 19 4. Bhairava Worship in Tripura and Varanasi-Some 33 SimilaritiesóChiranjivi Chaubey 5. Social History as Revealed in the Manuscripts of 39 TripuraóRabindranath Das Shastri 6. Digital Preservation of Manuscripts, Counterfeiting 53 of Intellectual Property and its DigitóMicrophoto RemediesóAshok Kumar Nath 7. Border Management and Border Fencing in 61 TripuraóBihari Jha 8. Collection and Preservation of Manuscripts in 69 Bangladesh: A StudyóKalpana Halder Bhowmik vi Contents 9. The Kokborok ManuscriptóNaresh Ch. Dev Varma 83 10 Tripura on the Path of Progress: A Study on 87 Social and Religious ReformsóNeeru Wahal 11. Takhen (Tripura) As Reflected in the Manu- 103 scripts of Manipur (Former Kangleipak)ó Ng. Kangiia Mangang 12. Incantation, Superstition and Medical 109 Treatmentóa case study of Tripura on the Light of ManuscriptóNirmal Bhadra 13. The Historical Perspective of Tripura Sundari 117 TempleóPradeep Kumar Deepak 14. Wedged Between Tui-vai and Kholongma? 127 Reconstructing Tippera migration to Tripuraó Rupak Debnath 15, History of Tripura: Its Role in Literary life of 135 Rabindranath TagoreóSanjukta Mandal 16. Manuscripts as Historical Sources: Traces of 156 Tripura in Tagoreís WritingsóSoma Basu 17. Sanskritic Culture in the Princely State of 165 TripuraóChandan Kumar Chakraborty 18. In Search of Identity: Exploring the history of 173 the Mogs of TripuraóSatyadeo Poddar and Nirmalya Karmakar 19. The History of Tripura (Ancient & Medieval 187 Period) as reflected in the Manuscripts: A birds eye-viewóSitanath Dey 20. øS¬Û≈¬ı˛±¬ı˛ õ∂±‰¬œÚ ¬Û±G≈ø˘ø¬Û ‹øÓ¬À˝√√… ˆ¬¬ı±ÚœÚ±ÀÔ¬ı˛ ¬ı˛±˜±˚˛Ì– 195 ¸˜œé¬±Rfl¡ ø¬ıÀù≠¯∏Ìó¬ı˛±Ê√œ¬ı‰¬f ¬Û±˘ Contents vii 21. øS¬Û≈¬ı˛±¬ı˛ ˝◊√√øÓ¬˝√√±À¸¬ı˛ ά◊¬Û±√±ÀÚ ø¬ıøˆ¬iß ¬Û≈“øÔó.Ê√˝√√¬ı˛ ’±‰¬±Ê√π 199 22. õ∂±‰¬œÚ øS¬Û≈¬ı˛±¬ı˛ ¬Û≈“øÔ-ø˘‡ÀÚ ¬ı˛±Ê√±Ú≈fl”¡˘… › ¸—¶‘®øÓ¬-¸—¬ıÒ«Úó 205 ¸—ø˝√√Ó¬± √±¸ 23. õ∂±‰¬œÚ ø˘‡ÀÚ õ∂øÓ¬Ù¬ø˘Ó¬ ÿÚÀfl¡±øȬ - ’¸•Û”Ì«Ó¬± › 213 ¸•Û”¬ı˛Ì õ∂˚˛±¸ó øõ∂˚˛Ç≈ ‰¬Sê¬ıÓ¬π 24. ¬Û±G≈ø˘ø¬Û ’±|À˚˛ ’Ó¬œÓ¬ øS¬Û≈¬ı˛±¬ı˛ ¸g±Ú ¤¬ı— fl¡¬ı˛Ìœ˚˛ó 221 ˝√√À¬ı˛fl‘¡¯û ’±‰¬±˚« Contributors 233 Foreword One of the major objectives of the National Mission for Muniscripts (NMM) is to provide ready access to the manuscripts or related informations through publication. Scholars specializing in various fields are invited to present research papers in the seminars which are eventually published by the Mission under its title Samkshika series. The Mision had organized one such seminar on ëHistory of Tripura as Reflected in the Manuscriptsí in collaboration with Tripura Unniversity. Tripura has a treasure of more than two thousand unique manuscripts of various communities spread out all over the state. The manuscripts were written mostly in Bengali and Sanskrit. Recently a good number of Mog and Chakma manuscripts written in Brahmi and Chakma scripts are found from Sabroom and Pencharthal areas respectively. The manuscripts deal with the history of ethnic tribes, their culture, music and herbal medicine practices. Research papers in the seminar are presented by the eminent scholars and academicians. Most of them have come from different states of India, but there are contributions from Bengladesh as well. Large number of participants including the Research Scholars of various departments of Tripura University attended the seminar. The Research-articles in this volume contain varied aspects of the history of the region as emerged from the available manuscripts along with the interpretation of the scholars. x Foreword Our special thanks are due to Prof. Satyadeo Poddar for taking an active role in organizinig the Seminar in Tripura University. But for his wholehearted support and involvement we would not have been able to publish this volume. I do hope this publication will with facilitate a deeper study of the manuscripts of Tripura. VEENA JOSHI Director and Joint-Secretary Introduction North East India stands in near oblivion in the cultural contour of India because we do not have any written records. Identification, documentation and editing of manuscripts can help the scholars for reconstructing the cultural mapping of the region. Cultural mapping of India will remain incomplete without Tripura in particular. Ancient and Medieval history of Tripura is bleak in terms of source materials and modem history of the state is also based on chronicles and mostly on English sources. Rajmala is the only written chronicle where the idea of monarchial structure can be deciphered. We do not have the social, cultural and economic contour of ancient and medieval Tripura in absence of ready reference. We construct some history from Persian source materials during the time of Samser Gazi but that too is not sufficient. The study of history is a continuous process and the continuity of medieval history of India has been lost in the land of Tripura. We do not have ample information of the history of Chakma and Mog tribes. More than two thousand Chakma and Mog Manuscripts have been identified so far and around a thousand manuscripts are left with non-tribal communities, say Manipuri and Bengalee of Tripura. It is expected from the scholars that the study of the region be analyzed in tune with the contemporary source materials. While dealing with the ancient and medieval history of North East India in general and Tripura in xii Introduction particular, we find lots of problem to link the history of the region, with the rest of India due to dearth of archival and other source materials.Manuscripts are spread in both private and public custody. The main objective of the current volume is to explore the manuscripts of the region and depict various aspects of social, economic, political, religion, medicine, technology, environment, etc as reflected in those manuscripts. Sincere efforts have been made to identify the manuscripts that are related to the topic and accordingly it has been incorporated in the presentation. While exercising such effort, there is enough possibility of the interpretation of the content on the basis of known source materials. The connotation of manuscripts of other region has also been utilized in order to understand the continuity and change of history of the region. So the present volume aims at establishing and strengthening the missing link between ancient, medieval and modem history of Tripura and its relation with the neighboring states and countries as reflected in various manuscripts. Prof. I. Sarkar in his keynote address made an attempt to portray a fact that there are various documents and manuscripts on Tripura, which have already been studied or are being handled by the scholars, but there is a need to look at these documents afresh or to find out new manuscripts in order to trace the ìmissing linkî of the history of this region. Dr. Juthika Basu Bhowmik in her paper brings to the fore some important tales of history based on the manuscripts of Tripura.