Hastividyarnava

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One of the major objectives of the Publication Board, Assam, is the collection and publication of rare and valuable manuscripts which serve as monuments to our past cultural heritage. The need for preserving these manuscripts appears more urgent when we remember that these rare and valuable manuscripts are constantly facing the danger of being either damaged or even lost for ever. The fact that many of our extant manuscripts, which we have inherited from the past, are either partly damaged or incomplete in the sense that some of the original folios are missing, is a pointer to such danger. We may note here that the present illustrated manuscript of Hastividyārņava is said to have contained 193 folios in its original form, but the number of existing folios is only 135. This very fact underlines the supreme necessity for preserving these manuscripts in time by utilising the benefits of modern printing technology so that these become part of our permanent treasure of knowledge and culture.

Assam can justly be proud of her cultural antiquity. Her red rivers and blue hills, her wealth of flora and fauna, have turned her into land of a varied natural beauty. She is also the meeting-ground of various races who have contributed towards her variegated cultural heritage. We have, so far, only partly discovered this rich cultural heritage through historical study and sacological explorations. Much more still remains to be revealed by generations of scholars.

The present volume is one of the valuable cultural documents which had been lying unpublished Many other manus- cripts, either illustrated or not, are lying in the possession of either some organisations or some private persons. It should be our bounden duty to locate and bring such manuscripts to light so that further researches can be done into Assam's historical and cultural past. We may note here that the Publication Board, Assam, pro- poses to follow up the present publication by undertaking to publish five other illustrated, rare manuscripts which are expected to throw further light on Assam's glorious past.

The manuscript copy of the treatise Hastividyārnava was in the custody of the late Mohidhar Burhagohain, grandson of the historic Prime Minister of Assam, Purnananda Burhagohain (A.D. 178311817). It was recovered by the late Pandit H.C. Goswami as early as 1912 from the late Lokeswar Burhagohain, father of the late S.N. Burhagohain, who was for some time the Deputy Minister in the Union Council of Ministers. Subsequently the copy, which was lying for some time in the library of the Commissioner, was handed over to the Department of Historical & Antiquarian Studies, Gauhati, Assam.

The existing folios, numbering 135, (the original manuscript had 193 folios), are of the measurement of 58 x 16cm. Up to folio 163 it deals with the types of elephants and from 164 to the end with their ailments and treatment. It was, as known from the colophon, com- posed in Sáka 1656 (A.D. 1734) under orders of the Ahom King Śiva Sinha and his queen Ambikā Devī.

The said references are quite in keeping with a very old tradition of the special privilege in which an elephant, the vahana of Indra, was placed among the pre-Ahom royal families of Assam. The elephant royal seal, attached to every copper plate inscription of these families signifies two facts: and elephant is a symbol of royalty and sovereignty, of intellectual attainments and of supreme valour, being the vahana of the said lord of the Devas, and it represents as well Ganesa, the ddestroyer of all kinds of troubles, the Deity to whom oblations are offered in almost all kinds of sacrificial ceremonies. The important position which the animal held as one of the four-fold divisions of the army during the pre-Ahom days, continued during the long period of Ahom history (early thirteenth to the early nine- teenth), so much so that an officer or officers had to be appointed to look after the maintenance and welfare of a herd of elephants, stationed at the capital and kept ready at other strategic places for defence purposes. The Ahom ruler Pratap Sinha (A.D. 1603-1641) wanted to assume the epithet of Gajapati by being the owner of one thousand elephants. Though he could not do so, he succeeded at least in establishing a town where his elephants were stationed, called Gajpur (near Jorhat). Elephant catching, a ing, a very old practice in Assam, was not merely a pastime, but was intended for enhancing the prosperity and strength of the rulers and their kingdom as well as for ivory-works from their tusks, a fine art of Assam showing excellent workmanship, evolved from very early times, the tradition of which is still lively, developing into a decorative art, the products of which are prized commodities in foreign countries. (Donald: Ivory Carving in Assam, 1900).

**Contents and Sample Pages**