COINS AND HISTORY WRITING

                   

                                                                                      -BageshwarJha

The Department of Arts, Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs, Jharkhand Govt and the State Museum, Ranchi jointly hosted a three-day (Feb. 19 -21, 2015) national workshop in the Museum auditorium, Hotwar, Ranchi on the topic, “Writing of Indian history on the basis of coins”. Sh. SaileshPandit, Deputy Director, Doordarshan Ranchi was the chief guest. After the inaugural function, the academic session started.

 

The first session was presided over by Dr H.S. Pandey, ex-HOD, History, Ranchi University. It started with the keynote address by DrUmesh Chandra Dwivedi from Patna. He tried to draw the outline of the old coins excavated or privately procured all over the country. His emphasis was on the numismatic discoveries in Bihar. He revealed that the metal coins on a big scale started being issued after the 6^th CBC. However, he lamented that so far only two coins could be recovered in Jharkhand region. He hoped that the state now having its own govt, archaeological activities would pick up momemntum and new artefacts including coins could be unravelled.Dr. I.D. Choudhary, Ex-HOD/History, Ranchi Vaesity argued that when there was a problem in writing history due to the lack of dependable sources, a coin would be of great help. He added that in Indian history, Akbar was the first emperor with a well managedminiting. DrChoudhary also said that there was no impression of a queen on coins till the middle ages. However, the first coins with the impression of Noorjahan was found in Jharkhand.

  DrSaileshRoy,V.C., Vinobabhave University, Hazaribagh touching upon minting in some foreign countries, hoped that the history students of Jharkhand would be greatly benefited by this scholarly workshop. DrChitranjan Prasad Sinha of Patna presented a very good paper on religious aspects revealed by coins. He mentioned  particularly about the Kushana and Gupta period coins which showed as motifs  different deities like Ganesha, Shiva, Kartikeya

etc. In this session some other  scholars like ShAjit Shah of Patna, Dr Sayed Alam of Patna, Amit Pandey of Ranchi and Faiyaz Ahmad of ZarinaKhan Museum, Chitarpur,Jharkhand also presented their papers. In his concluding presidential remarks DrH.S.Pandey (above) emphasized the need of concerted excavations in Jharkhand areas so that history writing could get the desired impetus.

  The academic session on the second day had Dr. I.K. Choudhary in the chair. The first speaker was ShBageshwarJha, Curator, Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, New Delhi who presented his paper entitled, : ‘Coins Can Coin Annals’.ShJha traced the history of coinage since the Days of Harappan Settlements till the 14^th CAD. He mentioned how the Cholas, Pandyas,Satvahnas, Pallvasetc had their pet animals as motifs seeing which no historian would have problems in recognizing and assigning the to the concerned issuing authorities. He said that

previously we knew about only two kings in western India in the post-Alexander aggression period. However, now with the help of coins, in total, 30 of them have been identified. ShJha also said how Mohammad iii bin Tughlaq after the fiasco of Delhi to Daulatabad and back,had to stop issuing silver tankas and resorted to copper tankas. The people not only counterfeited them on large scales but also the foreign traders refused to accept them. So there was a huge heap of such rejected coins in front of his treasury, which is said to have remained there for a hundred years.

Other speakers in this session were Sh. JitendraAnupam of Hazaribagh, Dr Gita Ojha of Ranchi, DrMunmunMondal of Calcutta, Dr Mathura Das of Ranchi, DrSubhash Chandra Yadav of Varanasi, AlakhDeo Srivastava of Ranchi and

DrVishiUpadhyay of Patna. In their papers they threw light on different aspects of coinage and their utility in writing authentic history. In his presidential speech, DrChoudhary briefly touching upon the presentations of different scholars, thanked

 

the organisers for hosting such a useful workshop. He strongly stressed the need of more concerted efforts to bring to light the priceless artefacts underground in Jharkhand.

On Feb.21, the organisers took the delegates to a historical site named Itkhori in Chatra district of Jharkhand. It has a museum containing remnants of temples of Pala period. The main deity known as Bhadrakali was earlier stolen, which was later recovered from Calcutta and installed in a grand temple in 1988. The statue has an inscription naming Mahendrapal who did not belong to the Pala lineage. As a matter of fact Bhadrakali is Tara of Buddhism but has become popular with the Hindus.

MAI'S 70TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

                   

- Bageshwar Jha

Assam State Museum

The three-day (Jan.29 – 31, 2015) annual conference of the Museum’s Association of India was organized in collaboration with the Assam State Museum, Guwahati in its auditorium with Mrs. Bismita Gogoi, MOS, Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs, Govt of Assam as the Chief Guest.The occasion was also important as the year happens to be the Platinum Jubilee of the host museum The

conference was attended by 72 delegates of different museums of the country. After lighting the inaugural lamp by the dignitaries on the dias, Shri Y.S. Winglengton, Director of the host museum welcomed the delegates and hoped that their stay in Guwahati would be comfortable. Since the region was rich in artefacts, he said that the State Museum needed to go tech. He hoped that the Rs three crore donated by the Centre would be properly used to modernize the museum. After that Dr P.K. Sharma, President/MAI gave a brief account of the association in last one year. He said that the Life Time Award to eminent Museologist was started in 2010 which now stood widened to include even museology savants who are no more. Accordingly, it was decided to give this posthumous award to Late Dr G.N. Pant, former Director of the National Museum this year. Since Mrs. Pant was not feeling well, she could not come to receive the award. It would now be given to her in a function in Delhi shortly.

Inaugural Team with Mrs. Gogoi (Centre)

On this occasion, the Chief Guest released the 68^th edition of the Mai Brochure as well as a similar publication of the host museum. Sh. Shantanu Thakur, IAS regretted that the Hindu and Muslim kings of the region documented only their own achievements including their victories, but did not do anything substantial to preserve the heritages and ancient artefacts so that the history of the area could

be constructed. The Chief Guest, going in the history of undivided Assam traced how it figured prominently even during the Mahabharata period. She assured the museum fraternity to extend all possible help from the State Govt. so that the museum movement could not suffer. She also inaugurated the Textile Section of NE Gallery and Exhibition on Gond Ramayana Paintings in the Annexe Building. At the end of the inaugural function, Dr Anand Burdhan, Secretary/MAI proposed the vote of thanks.

Writer making presentation

In the afternoon session of the first day, the keynote address was delivered by Dr A.K. Das, Former Director National Museum Institute. On this occasion Dr R.D. Choudhary, ex-Director General, National Museum was also present. Dr Das, while speaking on regional museums, talked in detail calling for community involvement and establishing of more and more regional museums. He referred to half a dozen of museums, started by non-museum persons and doing yeoman’s service in the field. While giving this list, he referred to the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, founded by Dr Bindeshwar Pathak in 1992. He added that the Prime Minister is talking about

‘Clean India’ now which Dr Pathak has been doing since 1970 through Sulabh Toilets and the said museum. This experiment has come out as an eye opener to the museum world showing how a museum could be instrumental in causes of sanitation and social reforms. In course of his presentation, Dr Das talked to me several times while setting the facts right.

Dr Das added that at present there are some 30,000 museums in the world including 15,000 in Europe alone. He said that India having around 700 museums should give necessary tilts to their performance so that the society at large could be benefited. At theend, the lecture was followed by a lively question-answer session.

In the post-lunch time, the first academic session was held which was presided over by Dr R.D. Choudhary. As many as seven papers were read by scholars including Bageshwar Jha, Curator, Sulabh International Museum of Toilets. His topic, “Next Door Museums" emphasized the need of expanding the outreach of museums not only by diversifying their activities but also by founding regional museums in all distant geographical regions of the country. In this connection he referred to such museums of Singapore, USA, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago and India which were creating the desired appeal in the forgotten communities of those regions. Other speakers in this session were Dr Supreo Chanda of Calcutta, Dr Paras Mani Datta of Calcutta, Shri Prateek Ghosh of Gandhi Memorial Museum, Barrackpore and Ishani Chatterjee from North-East.

On the second day (Jan 30) the pre-lunch academic session was held with Bageshwar Jha in the chair. This marathon session had 13 scholars to give their presentations. These papers were so variegated that hardly any topic on the subject was left untouched. The main presenters were S/Sh Anindita Kundu Saha (West Bengal), Yogendra BS (Mysore), Ramesh Lal (Delhi), Sudesna Das (Natural History Museum), Sayani Ghosh, Falguni Pal, Puspa Das, Mausumi Purkait, Juthika Biswas all from West Bengal, Shruti Das of Chhota Udaipur and Apurva Singh of Baroda.

The afternoon academic session was chaired by Dr A.K. Das. In it seven paper were to be presented. The speakers included S/Sh Dhruv Prasad Soni(Delhi), Mrs. Indrani Bhattacharya(Cal. Varsity), G.N. Indresha (Bhubneswar), Mrs. Enakshi Chattopadhyay (WB), Mrs Amrita Dey Saha, Gaurav/Ashish Singh and Dr Anand Burdhan. Dr Burdhan’s scholarly presentation

	Cultural Programme

 

was well appreciated by the participants.

The concluding partthereafter was the business session. It was the general body meeting of the association with Dr Sharma in Chair. The meeting had no proposal from hosting the next conference. So it was decided to wait and watch. There was a propoisal to revive the old system of associate member so that the students, not monetarily strong, could take part in this prestigious function of the museum world. There was a consensus in favour of this suggestion. The idea of enhancing the Life Membership fee was alsowithdrawn. Sh. Rajasundaram, presenting account urged upon the participants to deposit their institutional membership fees.

Bardowa site museum

On the last day (Jan 31), the morning session was reserved for the annual Motichand Memorial Lecture, which this time was delivered by Sh Kusum Kumar Mahanta, Prachar Sachiv, Axom Satra Mahasabha. He spoke on Mahapurush Srimant Sankardev (1449-1568). The speaker talked in detail about the multi-faceted personality of Sankardev and recalled his contributions in

the field of sainthood, poetry, playwright,socio-religious reforms and a figure of eminence in the cultural field of Assam.

The delegates, thereafter were taken by bus to Alipukuri village in Naugaon district which is the birthplace of Sankardev. The villagers gave a ceremonial reception to the party by presenting a cultural programme, felicitating the senior museologists with Assamese embroidered traditional scarfs and lunch. On theirwayback to Guwahati, the delegates were taken to see the Bardowa site museum. The place is also hallowed as the occasional resting place of Sankardev.