Title: Survey of Bengal puthis discovered in Sundarbans, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal
Description: "This pilot project aims to rescue & record Bengali manuscripts, or puthis, in private museums in the Sundarban coastal belt of West Bengal, India. These manuscripts contain literary, political, mythological and historical treatises. Through the centuries, the Bengal delta has been receptive to influences from both northern and northeast India, as well as from the Middle East and Europe. The Hindu and Muslim worlds intersected here, resulting in a profound mingling of religious, intellectual and artistic traditions, and the manuscripts also describe the political and mercantile history of the coastal region. There are more than 70 private museums in Sundarban that contain these invaluable texts. Most of the manuscripts are fragile and are slowly being destroyed by pests and exposure to the humid conditions of tropical weather and coastal environment. A collection of 300 manuscripts held in the Sundarban Ancholik Sangrahasala dating back to the eighteenth century will be digitized. The project will also produce a written survey report of all the documents that are held in the local private archives as well as those held by individual families that would form the basis for a future major digitization project."--Home page.
Places: Sundarbans (Bangladesh and India)