Since its inception, over the course of twelve years, the School has been able to create a vast repository of resources. Synopses and catalogues of selected collections are available below.
A digital archive of early Bengali drama, using the valuable private collection of the noted scholar of Bengali theatre, Dr. Devajit Bandyopadhyay. Consists of 112,174 images comprising 304 printed volumes, 78 volumes of 7 journal titles and 3 manuscript volumes. Read more about this project at
http://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_project.a4d?projID=EAP261;r=41
(Download catalogue)
The Digital Archive of North Indian Classical Music was initiated in 2004 as part of the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. About 6,000 hours of playing-time have already been recorded, and a further 1,500 hours obtained or firmly pledged. This includes a great deal of rare material from private collections, often recorded at private concerts and soirées and never commercially circulated. A representative segment may be sought at http://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_project.a4d?projID=EAP132;r=41 and http://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_project.a4d?projID=EAP274;r=41. Many meetings and events have been organized under the auspices of the Music Archive, which has established its presence among India’s musical and musicological community. This project aims to create an extensive database of recorded North Indian Classical Music, from the earliest phonographs onward, in cleaned and digitised versions. A special collection of early gramophone records, primarily of Bengali songs, has been added in recent years. Courses in music history have been organized by the Archive of North Indian Classical Music.
Visit the Archive’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ANICM.SCTR.JU
Collection of recent political ephemera from West Bengal covering all major and some minor political parties, as well as front organisations and associated public bodies. Comprises some 500 items, chiefly of electoral campaign material but also other public notices, posters, manifestos, and leaflets.
Collection of ‘street literature’ or chapbooks for popular circulation – books sold in markets and fairs, or peddled on streets, trains and buses. Some 700 volumes have so far been acquired, including a collection from the 1950s and some specimens of Islamic kissa literature. Covers material acquired by the few private collectors in the field, some early 20th-century material, and some unique material at the interfaceof Bengali and Oriya culture.
Read more about this project at:
http://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_project.a4d?projID=EAP127;r=41
(Download catalogue)
Collection of over 100 Bengali texts in the now obsolete Sylheti-Nagri script which, down to the mid-20th-century or even later, was a rich medium of composition and social exchange in the Sylhet-Cachar region. Read more about this project at http://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_item.a4d?catId=10100;r=4827
(Download catalogue)
All extant manuscripts of the late poet Arun Kumar Sarkar, including drafts of many poems, as well as letters and miscellaneous papers
(Download catalogue)
Contains personal and official letters of the Indian freedom fighter and social activist Ashoka Gupta. Also contains official documents on the Jamnalal Bajaj Award and the Kasturba Gandhi Memorial Trust, Ashoka Gupta’s memoirs on refugee camps, and notes and papers on the riot in Noakhali (1946).
(Download catalogue)
Contains a large selection of his manuscripts and other papers, which include manuscripts of plays such as Tringsha Shatabdi and Bara Pishima, alternative versions of plays for radio and other productions, Hindi translations of plays, manuscripts of essays and radio talks in Bengali and English, clippings from newspapers and journals, cast lists and set designs, and miscellaneous correspondence.
(Download catalogue)
Consists of all of the English and Bengali manuscripts of the twentieth century poet and writer, comprising 91 volumes. Includes a great many unpublished texts, including his own English translations of his Bengali works, as well as significant variant versions of published works
(Download catalogue)
This is the first Post-Graduate Diploma Course in Digital Humanities and Cultural Informatics in India. It has been running since 2013. For more details, please visit https://sctrdhci.wordpress.com
Student projects
2016-17: Tilottoma Sambhaba Kabya (as part of the ‘Advanced Text Technologies’ module)
Contains the correspondence received by the late Sagarmay Ghosh, the legendary editor of the Bengali magazine Desh and includes items from nearly all major Bengali writers across generations, and a great quantity of other material
All surviving scripts and related papers of the films directed or produced by Dinen Gupta, along with tapes of many musical settings composed and directed by him.
The Collection has the greater part of the literary manuscripts, letters and other documents of the early twentieth-century writer Jyotirmoyee Debi; also many rare journals where her work was published. Also contains the personal papers of the late Saibal Gupta, valuable records of his work on urban development and refugee rehabilitation, as well as his literary and cultural interests.
(Download catalogue)
Working papers and manuscripts of the eminent historian Ramesh Majumdar.
Includes early versions of works by many major Indian writers in English, and illustrate the masterly editing of complex manuscripts for which Dayal achieved a legendary reputation.
Accompanied by a set of all volumes published under the imprint of Ravi Dayal Publisher, kindly presented by their distributor, Orient Longman.
Published and unpublished articles written by the Indian sculptor and artist Sankho Chaudhuri, private correspondence, official correspondence, drawings and other artworks, reports of various organisations such as the Lalit Kala Akademi and the Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, newspaper reports and articles, both by and on Sankho Chaudhuri.
Volumes of poetry manuscripts of the twentieth century poet along with ancillary records and documents.
(Download catalogue)
Contains manuscripts, typescripts, offprints, sketchbooks and other miscellaneous paper items of the legendary singer.
(Download catalogue)
Manuscripts and papers of the poet SudhindranathDatta and the singer and musicologist RajeshwariDatta.
(Download catalogue)
Includes the shooting scripts of 20 films, sometimes in more than one version, plus a great deal of correspondence and records of the Indian filmmaker Tapan Sinha.
(Download catalogue)
The Bichitra Tagore Online Variorum Project was sanctioned by the Government of India as part of its programme for the celebration of Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary. It has been fully funded by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
The project has been executed by the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Most of the material was sourced from Rabindra-Bhavana, Santiniketan. The digital images were prepared by C-DAC. Other project partners who have contributed material include the Bangiya Sahitya Parishat; the Central Library, Calcutta University; the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the Indian National Library; the Central Library, Jadavpur University; and private collectors.
Bichitra is the biggest integrated knowledge site devoted to any author in any language to date. It comprises most versions of nearly all Rabindranath’s works in Bengali and English. It excludes most letters, speeches, textbooks and translations, except Tagore’s translations from his own Bengali. It includes:
The project was co-ordinated by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Professor Emeritus, Jadavpur University, with Sankha Ghosh, poet and former Professor of Bengali, Jadavpur University, as adviser. A team of 30 project staff worked for two years to process the material and create the website, alongside many other consultants, advisers and contributors.
Link to the Bichitrawebsite : http://bichitra.jdvu.ac.in/index.php
A representative collection of comic books in five languages, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and English, as well as a database of their creators incorporating interviews as well as biographical information. All the material to be put on the website (www.comicbookindia.com)
Contains recorded video interviews with personalities from the film and theatre world.
Astracharcha. A compilation of Lathikhela o asisiksha and other unpublished manuscripts on training with the long-stick, knife and dagger, archery, and free-hand self-defence (jujutsu) by Pulin Behari Das. Edited by Deeptanil Ray and Nikhilesh Bhattacharya, Jadavpur University Press, Kolkata, 2015.
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Project Description:
This project is aimed at recovering the history of physical cultures of Bengal, during the colonial as well as the pre-colonial period. It is well-known that various genres of physical cultures received an unprecedented impetus during the nationalist phase in Indian history, dating from roughly the end of the 19th century till the third decade of the 20th. During this time, a kind of muscular nationalism gained ground in Bengal. Fed up of being stigmatized as a ‘frail and effeminate’ race, Bengalis—both men and women—began to participate in various kinds of physical cultures, ranging from martial arts to gymnastics, trapeze acts to hot-air ballooning, wresting to body-building. While there were plenty of accounts in the contemporary periodical press about the new forms of bodily activity, there is no reliable body of data from which one might construct a history of the same.
The aim of the project is threefold: first, to bring to in one electronic platform all the sources that are available on the subject. This would include books, articles, and most importantly, papers of the institutions (such as clubs, akhadas, circuses) which were associated with physical cultures. Second, to create a biographical database of all the practitioners of the genre; and third, to write a history based on the data made available from the first two strands of investigation.
The following physical cultures (not limited to) will be covered under the project:
The Physical Cultures of Bengal Project facebook page has over 500 subscribed members and is constantly updated with historical events from the worlds of wrestling, indigenous martial arts traditions and contemporary performances revolving around the body. Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/Physical-Cultures-of-Bengal-School-of-Cultural-Texts-and-Records-264933537182453/
Online link: Please subscribe here, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQGe4RlNAhq-jH56XygfXGg
The school regularly organizes talks and seminars on different aspects of culture and history. The last two speakers were veteran journalist John Zubrzycki, who spoke on Magic in India and Prof. Carey Watt on Strongman Eugene Sandow in India.
The project is funded by the University Grants Commission, under the rubric of UPE, PHASE II and is based out of the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University.
Team:
The Principal investigator of the Project is Professor. Abhijit Gupta, Head, Jadavpur University English Department.
Research Fellows: Sujaan Mukherjee, Nikhilesh Bhattacharya, Sarbajit Mitra, Deeptanil Ray, Anirban Ghosh.
The Physical cultures project is also enthusiastically helped by fellows from other projects of the University.
Brief encounters and introductions.
These excerpts from different archives seek to introduce some of the major actors of the physical cultures world of the 19th century. These people came from various socio-cultural sections of Bengal and left a lasting imprint on different cultural traditions which involved the usage of the body as the primary mode of performance.
Suresh Biswas:
A man on a mission, a figure permanently etched within annals of Bengali adventure and escape stories, Suresh Biswas is a striking character. His exploits ranged from being a stowaway in a British ship (and then starting his career as a circus wrestler in Kent) to being the Royal zookeeper of Brazil. Suresh Biswas was born into a relatively wealthy family in Bengal and was sent to Calcutta in the 1870s to learn English under the Jesuit Missionaries, He excelled in gymnastics and acrobatics instead.
The Era in 1881 reports: "among the beasts are three lions, which leap and perform other acts at the bidding of their keeper, Suresh Biswas, who enters their cage. This exhibition, which takes place frequently, attracts great attention, and this daring young Hindoo master of the king of beasts is loudly applauded for his display of temerity".
Sushila Sundari
The Hindu reports around 1919,
"The show of the night ended with the usual burial of Sushila. Such a feat is, of course, not unheard of to any Indian as skilled Hathayogis have done this feat over the ages and are still doing it. but Sushila was no yogi; as far as i know, she was just a common woman, but strong of body and very courageous, for, she tamed and played with Bengal tigers, which show, like her burial, used to be her principal acts in the circus. She was also a horsewoman of great ability".
One of the first famous female performer in Indian Circus was Sushila Sundari of Great Bengal Circus, Sushila Sundari came from a similar background to theatre actresses of late 19th century and was said to be a distant cousin of Golapbala. There is very little known about Sushila’s early life before her circus career. Mentored by Professor Priyanath Bose of Great Bengal Circus, Sushila went on to become one of the greatest circus artists of her time.
Krishnalal Basak,
Professor Priyanath Bose of the Great Bengal Circus also mentored a very famous gymnast called Krishnalal Basak. A product of S. O Abel's (Abel was an European gymnast and animal trainer working in India around the late 19th century) training and a person who had performed and earned fame in the Paris expositions he sought to create a circus group called the Hippodrome Circus around early 1900s. Following the touring traditions, this successful company toured diverse parts of south Asia, namely Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaccan peninsula, Java, Sumatra, China and Japan. It was in Japan that Krishnalal Basak faced all sorts of adventures. He wrote an enduring travel memoir known as Bichitro Vraman.
Shyamakanto
A curious case of an acrobat turned hermit, Shyamakanto was a gymnast and a magician performing in different circus companies in Bengal. Apart from his usual acts, he was also a ringmaster and is said to have mastered the art of 'calming and hypnotising' Royal Bengal tigers. Shyamakanto was known for his double bar, single handstand and the 'flying babu' act. Shyamakanto became a hermit later in his life but occasionally taught hathayoga to his disciples.
Gobor Goho
'Gobor' Goho was born Jatindra Charan Goho in 1892, to a family who had been wrestlers for three generations.He had been overweight from childhood which had earned him the nickname 'Gobor' (literally 'cow-dung'). Under his uncle’s watchful eye, however, the boy Gobor began a regimen of physical training. By the age of 15, his physique was sufficiently developed, and Rahman, the pehlwan from Amritsar, was engaged to train Gobor, along with his father and his associate Nrityalal Roy. Goho went on to win the receive the title of 'British Empire Heavyweight Wrestling Champion' in 1913 as one of the first Indians. (Excerpted from: Abhijit Gupta (2012) Cultures of the Body in Colonial Bengal: The Career of Gobor Goho, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29:12, 1687-1700, DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2012.714931 (online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.714931)
Link to the documentary by the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, on legendary Bengali wrestler Gobor Goho:
Fighting Bodies: Gobor Goho and his legacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryse-qE6R_U
Mrinmoyee
Sushila Sundari's contemporary in Great Bengal Circus, Mrinmoyee was a brilliant bare back rider and a knife thrower. The circus show, however, coded her with a nationalist image and publicized her shows as ' the ‘mother who is no longer in chains but the free ‘Mother India’ controlling beasts as her destiny and power has ordained her'. She was known to ride, fight and play with two of her tigers, Lakshmi and Saraswati. One of her major acts was the leap back and forth across the two tigers, with their mouths wide open.
Pulin Bihari Das
Pulin Behari Das was one of the founders of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti (1906), and the first on the Indian subcontinent to research the use of weapons. His vast illustrated account of and manual on the use of weapons is singular in the history of armed martial practice in India, and possibly the world. Das was largely responsible for the development and dissemination of an indigenous and synthesized tradition of armed martial practice. (Excerpted from https://jupress.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/astracharcha-pulin-behari-das-rachanasamgraha/). Copies of this brilliant book are available at Jadavpur University Press, 2nd Floor, Raja S C Mullick Road, Kolkata-32
Damoo Dhotre
Damoo Dhotre, a wrestler and an animal trainer had a lasting impact on the circus industry. After his brief stint in India with his uncle's company he traveled to North America to perform with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum/Bailey Circus companies. He also acted as a stuntman for early cinema in Hollywood. Here is an excerpt from his biography.
'The band played and we waltzed and I felt that oneness with an animal that a trainer, if he is lucky, sometimes experiences once in his entire life. I had that wonderful dream come true. This was the night I had dreamed of all my life, and, as the audiences’ frenzied applause burst in on the music, I wondered whether any man could be happier'-
Damoo Dhotre (as told to Richard taplinger), Wild Animal Man: Internationally famous trainer of wild animals (Boston & Toronto: Little Brown & Company, 196.1) (http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL…)
Lachman Murti
Lakshman Murti was a Punjabi who travelled far from his hometown in Sri Lanka to Calcutta and became a strongman and a sideshow marvel. His repertoire included walking on burning coal and lifting stones, elephants, stopping cars, snapping iron chains and breaking glass with his teeth.
The Hindu in 1911 reports " A zinc trough about twenty feet long containing almost to the brim a merry charcoal fire was brought into the arena by the circus attendants and we were informed that Lachman Murti would not only walk on the fire but take in his company any one from the spectators desirous for a merry walk in the trough. In almost every show I attended I always counted myself in the first group of volunteers to help in the teats (sic) but I recoiled in this as playing with fire did not suit either my temperament or my stock of courage. Lachman Murti appeared in the arena and discarding his wooden sandals strolled about leisurely on the fire as if he was taking a constitutional walk in an attractive park"
Raibenshe Performers
To see the Raibenshe performers of Charkol-gram, Birbhum, putting on their best show for the Physical Cultures of Bengal team who stayed with them while working on a documentary click on the following youtube links:
Fighting Bodies: Raybneshe warriors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vSM8n4JKfM
To View Physical Cultures of Bengal Photo Gallery, Please Click Here.
STC-2 (1868-1914)
STC-2/ Short Title Catalogue (STC) of Early Bengali Books of the Catalogue Era (1868-1914)
This is a continuation of the earlier work on the STC of early Bengali books published after the Press and Registration Act of 1867.
This project is supervised by Dr. Abhijit Gupta, Professor of English, Jadavpur University. The project is supported by the 'University with Potential for Excellence-Phase II' scheme of the University Grants Commission, India.
Along with providing full bibliographical descriptions and title-page transcriptions, the bibliography is also a location register of Bengali holdings in the following libraries (the library abbreviations are indicated in the parentheses):
List of all books under STC-2 (1868-1914): EARLY BENGALI BOOKS
Detailed listing of STC-2 (1868-1914):
https://granthsouthasia.wordpress.com/stc-2-1868-1914/