As per the previous Pre-Survey conducted in the year 2006 by Govt. of Tripura, the total no of manuscripts found from different parts of Tripura were 567. Out of 567 manuscripts, Hare Krishna Acharjee of Udaipur, South Tripura (Individual repository) has 250 Nos. Manuscripts lying in his custody.
During the Post-Survey done by the MRC & MCC, TU in the West Tripura, South Tripura, North Tripura, Gomati, Unakoti, Dharmanagar, Khowai, Sabroom & in other parts of Tripura, approximately 500 new manuscripts discovered so far in last year. The post-survey is still in progress.
Vast collection of manuscripts is lying in Shilachari, Manubankul in Sabroom, Kailasahar, Damchara, Kanchanpur, Machmara, Pencharthal in North Tripura and Unakoti, Kamalpur & Khowai which has already been traced out by the MRC & MCC, TU.
Vast collection of Manipuri manuscripts found in the custody of Sri Gobinda Banerjee, Khowai, Sri Ramgopal Sinha, Chechuria and Sri Bijoy Sharma, Bishalgarh.
Vast collection of Mog Manuscripts found in Manu Bankul, Shilachari, Satchand, Shantirbazar in South Tripura District. The MRC & MCC will shortly going to organize one Awareness Programme in Dhamma Dipa, Manu Bankul.
Vast collection of Chakma Manuscripts found from Pencharthal, Damchara, Nalkata, Panisagar, Kanchanpur in Unakoti and North Tripura District during the Awareness Programme.
Rajib Chandra Paul, Research Scholar, Dept. of Bengali from Kamalpur. Dhalai District has a good collection of Manuscripts. L. Leisam Sharma, Research Scholar of Assam University, Silchar from Kailsahar, Unakoti also has a large no. of collection of Manipuri Manuscripts.
The MRC & MCC has taken initiative to preserve the old rare books, documents and manuscripts of the temples and other institutions of Tripura which has currently been assigned under the custody of the District Magistrate & Collector.
The Centre has also taken initiative to preserve the Princely State Documents, manuscripts, rare books, paintings, coins and most specially the letters of Rabindranath Tagore which is under the Custody of Royal family of Tripura. The Royal Family gladly accepts our proposals to preserve these valuable items. In coming times MRC & MCC and the Royal Family of Tripura will jointly organize Exhibition of these Items at Rajbari premises.
Performance of the MRC, Tripura University:
The MRC has taken up the task of documenting the precious documentary heritage of Tripura. The manuscripts found were written mostly in Bengali and Sanskrit scripts.
Recently good number of Mog and Chakma Manuscrpts written in Brahmi and Chakma Scripts were found from Sabroom and Pencharthal area respectively.
Since its inception, the MRC has been very active in survey and documentation work. The MRC has so far Catalogued and Documented massive number of manuscripts.
Cataloguing & Documentation of manuscripts related to different languages e.g. Metiei, Burmeese, Mog and other tribal languages is going to start shortly. Listing of Manuscripts on the Data Sheets supplied by the NMM and also Preparation of accession catalogue.
It is also looking after the Post Survey programme in the entire Tripura State and also preparing a national register for manuscripts. The survey is still in progress in all the 8 Districts of Tripura.
MRC has conducted surveys in Government Museum, State Archives, M.B.B. College, Khumulwng TTAADC Library, private libraries and personal collections like "Ramaprasad Gabeshanagar" & "Rajendra Kirtishala" in Tripura.
MRC has carried out extensive communication programmes in the State. It has worked on disseminating information on the Mission's activities through Workshops, Seminars, Lectures, Awareness Programmes, publicity campaigns.in earmarked areas for educating people about the importance of manuscripts as valuable source of history and culture.
These programmes conducted by the MRC yielded good response among the general public and made it easier for the Surveyors to travel to the interiors for documenting manuscripts hidden in that region.
MRC have already installed E-Granthavali software for documentation of the Manuscripts and Converting this information in electronic formats and submission in the form of CD to database of NMM for larger interests of Manuscripts.
Performance of the MCC, Tripura University:
Tripura University started functioning as an MCC from March, 2011. The MCC is primarily involved in preventive conservation and create a Creating a Conservation nucleus in the state of Tripura. A small conservation laboratory has been set up with basic infrastructure and basic chemicals. They have taken up the work of preventive conservation in 3 institutions such as Tripura Government Museum, Maharaja Bir Bikram College and Tripura State Archives.
MCC has also done the preventive conservation in the "Ramaprasad Gabeshanagar" & "Rajendra Kirtishala"- two privately owned research centre. Except than that The MCC done the preventive and Curative Conservation of Manuscripts in other places also during the Survey where manuscripts exist. MCC has also started to conserve rare collection of books which are more than 100 years old.
This MCC has a 4 member team to look after conservation activities. This MCC has got a very good collection of Paper manuscripts which are in good condition and are stored properly. It has so far taken preventive care of near about 800 manuscripts. The manuscripts are found to be written mostly in Sanskrit, Bengali, Chakma and Mog Scripts. It has documented more than 500 manuscripts in different subjects like Ayurveda , Tantra/Mantra , Jyotisha , Pujavidhi, Drama, Medicine etc, out of which most are found to be written in Medieval Bengali script.
The MCC has taken up the task of documenting the precious documentary heritage of the Tripura, focusing on the areas covering 8 districts, documenting and cataloging of manuscripts on various subjects such as astrology, history, literature and medicine. These are found in scripts such as ancient and medieval Bengali and Sanskrit. Recently we have found the Chakma and Mog scripts. The primary role of MCC is to Create a Conservation nucleus in Tripura State and necessity of preserving this age old valuable Manuscripts.
Awareness, publicity programmes in different areas of the state and advertisements in the media in different districts yielded good response among the general public and made it easier for the Surveyors to travel to the interiors for documenting manuscripts hidden in that region. The Centre has carried out extensive communication programmes in the State. The Centre is going to start Awareness Campaigns in the School level in the entire state.
