E-Kantipur

MAR 20 - Nearly a 100 years before Freud tried to interpret the meaning of dreams, a manuscript in Nepal Bhasa tried to explain what it meant if one dreamt of an ox, or a crow, or of fire. The manuscript, ambiguously titled Swapna Parikshya Lakshan, today sits in a massive collection of nearly 8,000 manuscripts, 1,132 palm leaf documents, and another equally-massive collection of Nepal Bhasa journals and literature in a small, old Newari three-floor building hidden inside the deepest alleys of Thamel.

The Asa Archives is an ambitious project, and its unassuming exteriors are certain to surprise those who know that the archive has the largest collection of Nepal Bhasa documents and manuscripts in the country, in addition to documents in Sanskrit. It possesses architectural plans for a chaitya, a Buddhist text from the 9th century, texts extolling the virtues of Ayurveda, songs written by Malla kings, land records with the King as a witness, and a board game that seems to be the precursor of Snakes and Ladders. It seems to be a rich treasure of the Newari identity, yet, unlike many similar archives and cultural treasures, it receives no support from the government in any way.

So, the new, Bhaktapur-brick adorned building that has been constructed behind the decrepit front comes as another surprise. The building has been made possible with the support of Japanese individuals, and more importantly, the Toyota Foundation—the charity wing of Toyota Motors, the world’s largest carmakers. Even more surprising is the care with which Japanese volunteers have crafted the wooden shelves for the manuscripts—wood soaks up the moisture that could corrode the documents. Overall, it certainly seems to be better maintained than the government archives.

What the Asa Archives aims to achieve is preserving a culture and a language older than the city itself. “It is not a tourist spot,” says Sharad Kasa, the assistant librarian and also a lecturer at Patan Campus. Kasa calls it an “educational institution” that aims to conserve the culture.

Nepal Bhasa is the language of the Newars, an ethnic group within the Valley. Dr. Kamal Malla, currently a visiting scholar at the University of Smyrna, US, says recent publications have established that the Newar genetic make-up is very mixed. “Thirty-one percent genes are from South Asia while 42 percent from North-East Asia.” And with this genetic mishmash comes a language that has “22 percent words common to the Tibetan language, 15 percent to the Tamang language, and 28 percent to the Chepang language.”

Yet, co-opting of the Valley’s dominant Newar culture by the invasive Shah rulers meant that Nepal Bhasa lost out as a court language, and thus, lost the political patronage necessary for the development of any language. Further, Chandra Shumsher’s 1912 declaration nullified the legality of a document written in any other language than Gorkha-Bhasa (Nepali), and “effectively killed both the script and languages of other literate communities”, according to Malla.

The effects of yesteryears’ political moves can be felt today. Nearly 33 percent of the 1.24 million Newars do not speak the language, according to the 2001 census. Further, there is an increasing trend of a “language shift” among the Newars, which means children move away from the language of their parents.

This is where an institution like the Asa Archives is effective, for it not only preserves documents in a language that is no longer taught in mainstream schools, but also creates a platform for linguistic scholars. Kasa says all the documents in the Archives have been donated, with a majority of those coming from the private collection of Prem Bahadur Kansakar, a political activist in the 1950 democracy movement. There is an ongoing project that is digitalising all the archives, with 7,000 manuscripts and all of the palm-leaf documents already on microfilm.

But with a collection like this, the first question that comes to anyone’s mind is whether the security is adequate. For example, in 2003, a 17th century manuscript was stolen from the Patan Museum, and statues and sculptures from temples are regularly stolen. At the Asa Archives, a six-inch thick steel safe seems to be the only deterrent, with only one peon at night who is responsible for the security. “The government has stopped giving us any grants,” says Kasa.

Like the Archives, there is a very real danger that the language may end up becoming only a spoken one unless political patronage is provided, and a sense of community ownership can be revived. Nepal Bhasa is no longer taught in schools, and though a few publications, including a newspaper, are brought out every year, there are few who can read them. Malla says the language movement of the 1980s played an important part in bringing the focus back on the language, yet, the role of the state and local bodies has remained “ambiguous and negligible”. Kasa agrees, saying political conservation is needed for any language to survive. There are more signs of despair, with Malla quoting a study by the Department of Linguistics at Tribhuvan University which found a greater rate of language loss among the higher socio-economic levels of a social group. As Malla says, “It’s as if, in a market economy, upward social mobility is restricted by the use of one’s language.”

Posted on: 2010-03-20 12:00

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