Orissa is a land of dichotomy. Tucked at the coast with mostly unspoiled landscape, it has developed a rich culture by retaining an old language base which has helped sprout independent forms of literature, arts, music and dance. It became a land of plenty and both land and sea trade flourished. Fiercely independent, the land developed a belief system which contained the animism of the Vedas but rejected polytheism. Empirically determining that the origin of life was in the sea and through wood, a wooden deity has been worshiped as a symbol from the ancient times. Orissa became a land of art through temple building and associated development of textiles and ornamentation. Oriyas (oDiA in native language) as the people are called, did settle in the lands that I am visiting. I do find similarity, but no historian has researched the full story.
In the early centuries of the first millennium, open metaphysical inquiry of life and traditions emerged in the land. As India was open to the settlers, Orissa was open to the ideas. Oriya literature built on the tenets of Jainistic, Buddhist, Vedic, tantrik and the native animistic thoughts. The poet Sarala Das created a version of Mahabharata mapped with the local scenes and characters. This was in fifteenth century AD. His massive creation is the first of its kind produced outside of Sanskrit. The relationship of Sanskrit to Oriya is ambiguous. The grammars and the sentence structure do not look the same. Oriya remains as a spoken language as might have been the case thousands of years ago. Oriya script has influenced Thai and Cambodian scripts. The British avoided Orissa for good reason. The process helped to protect the culture but the land was squeezed to poverty through taxation and trade regulations. Famines and starvation demoralized people. The recovery has been weak, the scare of oppression can be read from the faces. In olden days, people translated prosperity to faith and customs. Currently, the faith lives, it fails to bring prosperity. Artisans and men of insight work as manual labors to feed their family. The productivity of the land has suffered through neglect. The native pride is subdued. The language itself is malnourished by improper patronage and ignorant leadership. I grew up in Orissa and love Oriya. It was delightful to meet various scholars who speak the language. I did expect a few, but we were more than a dozen. Some of us met at lunch and but had planned a group meeting at the end of the day. Among us were Dr Radhamadhab Dash, from Utkal University, a prolific scholar, who had just retired. There was Dr Siniruddha Das, a person of humility and scholarship who had retired from the University of Madras. Dr Prafulla Chandra Mishra, who currently served as a vice-chancellor in one of the universities in Orissa, was there The younger Dr Godabarisha MIshra was in the faculty of University of Madras. Dr Suryamani Ratha, another young scholar, came from the Orissa Education Service.
Still younger and dynamic, Dr Narayan Dash lived in Calcutta and worked with the Sanskrit college associated with the Ramakrishna Mission. Dr Sampadananda Mishra, a diligent innovative educationist, was the Director of Sanskrit efforts at the SriAurobindo Society in Pondicherry There were three lady scholars in the meeting. Dr Anita Karan Patra taught the high school students in Bhubaneswar, Miss Nibedita Pati taught at the women's college in Cuttack. Finally we had Dr Saraju Rath, formally a sister to me through our ancestral villages, who visited from Leiden, Netherlands.
Each of us spoke a few lines about our work and shared thoughts about various projects that we worked on. There were a good number of cataloging and manuscript restoration projects,which are strongly required in the Indian context. I narrated my Story of Sanskrit project, an educational project to bring out the beauty and the grandeur of the language to the modern youth. Everybody committed each other to help and promote the work. We would stay in touch even though we are scattered in the world.
The local Indian Embassy in Thailand was hosting the famous Sanskrit play "Karnabharam" of Bhasa, the oldest dramatist of India of second century BC. The play was produced in Benares and live musicians were flown in along with the set and the actors. While it was nice to see a Sanskrit play enacted in full, I was concerned by the lack of preparation by the actors with the language delivery and diction. The story of Karna is a powerful episode that champions personality and principles in Mahabharata. I have loved the character. I enjoyed the act, though the depiction appeared weak.
We were bused back to our hotels. There was confusion with the transport. It appeared that the Embassy officials lacked organization. It was a small reflection on Indian bureaucracy. We had supper in an Indian restaurant next to our hotel. The food was of good quality. The waiter was from Burma and of Punjabi origin. The cooks have lived in Thailand for most of their adult life. I particularly liked the fresh sauces. After a satisfying meal, Pram Nagar and I trekked back to our room.
