Kathmandu, Nepal – Wearing an orange kurta (unfastened collarless tunic) and an identical Nepali dhaka waistcoat, Lalima Shrestha pulls a brown plastic chair nearer to a makeshift desk comprised of a desk tennis board. Above, there’s a banner for “Nepal Lipi Guthi” (Institute of Nepal Epigraphy) in a calligraphic script often known as Ranjana Lipi, and a poster of the Ranjana alphabet.
Shrestha is right here on the open-air Narayani Sq. in Dhulikhel, a municipality 30km (18 miles) southwest of Nepal’s capital metropolis, Kathmandu, to exhibit the traditional artwork of Ranjana calligraphy. She is a member of Callijatra, certainly one of two native organisations working to protect and promote historical scripts of Nepal – earlier than they’re forgotten.
It’s a heat morning in February and the crowded sq. is abuzz with the chimes of temple bells and noisy chatter of a whole lot of scholars and adults, largely wearing haku patasi (a standard four-piece black and purple ensemble). They’ve come to take part within the annual dhimay jatra – a pageant celebrating the dhimay, an ethnic drum of the Newar group, certainly one of Nepal’s Indigenous peoples, with performances and competitions. Deep rhythmic sounds reverberate in all places.
“Jwojalapa (welcome),” says Shrestha, 30, in Nepalbhasa, the language of the Newar group, to the few dozen pageant attendees who’ve gathered on the sales space.
Ranjana, which implies “pleasant” in Sanskrit, “is a joyous script”, Shrestha says, her mouth widening into a smile. She dips her chosa, a bamboo pen, into the earthy brown ink and prepares to write down in Ranjana Lipi.
Shrestha pays cautious consideration to the peak, curvature and smoothness of every letter. “The strokes needs to be evenly positioned and match in dimension,” she says. Writing in Ranjana Lipi is therapeutic, “like meditation”, she provides, “that gives peace of thoughts”.
First, Jayendra Rajbhandari, 62, a member of Nepal Lipi Guthi, writes my identify in purple ink. Inside minutes, he finishes essentially the most inventive rendering of my identify I’ve ever seen.
Amongst these watching the demo is Rashmi Chhusyabaga, a Newa (from the Newar group) who is keen to see her household’s identify within the Ranjana script. “I lack information about Ranjana,” the 22-year-old pupil says.
Most residents are conversant in the script that abounds in Kathmandu – it seems on indicators in public squares, stupas (Buddhist shrines), mahaviharas (Buddhist examine centres and residences) and temples – however admit to not realizing methods to learn and write it.
Ranjana Lipi isn’t taught in faculties, and many individuals are unfamiliar with the script. Callijatra is working to vary that.
A optimistic response
Callijatra was began with the objective of preserving two of the 9 Nepal scripts: Ranjana Lipi and Nepal Lipi (Prachalit).
The seeds of the organisation have been planted in 2017, after font designer Ananda Ok Maharjan noticed a put up on Fb and registered for a 45-day course on Indigenous scripts at Nepal Lipi Guthi, which teaches and promotes Ranjana Lipi and Nepal Lipi.
“Being a Newar, I additionally needed to study and write it,” Maharjan explains. He had searched the web and libraries for obtainable sources when beginning out his journey with Ranjana, however discovered them “not enough”.
After taking the course, he was hooked.
Pushed by a new-found need to create extra visibility of Ranjana, Maharjan and three different class attendees – Suyogya Ratna Tamrakar, Bikash Shakya and Sunita Dangol – then organised a calligraphy workshop and demonstration on the Itum Bahal pageant, in Kathmandu.
The response, Maharjan says, “was very optimistic”, with over 50 individuals. Greater than 200 names have been written in reside calligraphy. Nobody had carried out a reside demonstration of an Indigenous Nepal script on this scale earlier than, he explains.
After the demo, the group acquired a number of calls and requests to conduct workshops. “Previous language specialists and Lipi specialists have been pleased and guaranteed that now this script won’t die and younger persons are persevering with what they have been doing,” Maharjan says.
In 2017, Callijatra was born, with Maharjan as founder and Dangol because the co-founder. The academics at Nepal Lipi Guthi then “approached Callijatra to hitch fingers”, Maharjan says.
These organisations now work collectively to construction studying supplies, and design programs for workshops and coaching programmes, recurrently conducting over 50 workshops yearly. One module could be taught to 100 folks directly, says Anil Sthapit, the president of Nepal Lipi Guthi, positioned in Kathmandu’s Asan neighbourhood.
Sthapit, who additionally teaches on the institute, factors to a colour-coded Ranjana alphabet sheet: “We examine the scripts to the human physique,” labelling the alphabet parts – chhyan (head), nhipyan (tail), lhaa (hand) and mha (spine). Letters in purple lack a head; inexperienced signifies a downward stroke; and blue is “fingers up” or upward stroke.
When Callijatra started collaborating with Nepal Lipi Guthi, the latter organisation was a number of many years outdated. In 1974, a bunch of scholars who had discovered Nepal Lipi started educating Indigenous scripts to protect historical information. In 1980, Nepal Lipi Guthi was created to protect and promote Nepal scripts, literature, tradition and artwork.
Then in 1981, a member introduced a manuscript written in Ranjana script to the group. They discovered it below the tutelage of Lipi knowledgeable Shankar Man Rajbanshi, and started educating it to extra college students, serving to to unfold the information across the metropolis.
Decline of Nepal scripts
The “Nepal scripts” have been used to specific totally different languages: Nepalbhasa, Sanskrit, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Nepali, explains Sarad Kasa, a Nepalbhasa professor at Tribhuvan College in Kathmandu. Their origin is just not identified, however Kasa says they might have come from the Brahmi script, an historical Indian writing system, including that examples of Ranjana Lipi in Tibet exist from the seventh century.
The oldest Ranjana manuscript on the Asa Archives is “a palm leaf from the 14th century”, with a Buddhist sutra (principle or aphorism), Kasa provides.
Books and manuscripts at Kathmandu’s Asa Archives and Nationwide Archives of Nepal present that many different historical scripts – equivalent to Licchavi Lipi, Khema Lipi and Brahmi Lipi – have been prevalent within the Licchavi (350-750 AD) and Malla (1200-1769) intervals. Nevertheless, their use fell into decline throughout the Rana dynasty (1846–1951), which embraced a “one nation-one language” coverage supposed to advertise a powerful nationwide identification – one which suppressed languages equivalent to Nepalbhasa and different regional dialects like Hindi and Maithili.
“Studying and writing have been banned throughout the Rana period,” explains Sthapit. Use of Nepal scripts declined when the Rana regime got here into energy, and have been changed by the Devanagari script, which continues to be used right this moment.
“A nice of Nepali rupees 100 ($0.75) was imposed” if folks have been discovered studying, Sthapit provides, noting “Their property was confiscated by the state.” This instilled concern within the folks, “and the custom of training was misplaced”, he says.
To forestall books from being seized or burned, many households saved their historical texts hidden in dhukus (grain storage containers) and puja (worship) rooms the place entry was restricted to family members and monks. Nepali students went to India and printed books in hiding “to make sure that the information of writing and studying historical scripts was not utterly misplaced”, Sthapit explains.
At present, college students in Kathmandu’s authorities faculties are studying fundamental Ranjana Lipi, and there are plans to incorporate the script and Nepalbhasa in curricula exterior of Kathmandu, Maharjan says.
Examples in all places
After the reside demonstration on the Callijatra sales space in Dhulikhel, Maharjan meets me on the bottom ground of Nepal Lipi Guthi. We stroll forward into the sea-green classroom the place he first discovered Ranjana Lipi and Nepal Lipi — and the place Sthapit was his trainer. The room, which has roughly 25 desks, is stuffed with charts, chalk, chosas and empty ink bottles. The desk chairs are coated in layers of chalk mud.
Then Maharjan provides a tour of the charming old-world Thahiti neighbourhood, not removed from the Nepal Lipi Guthi constructing, wandering down slim alleys that go by conventional picket buildings, in search of indicators of the traditional scripts.
At one level he gestures to lettering on the copper-coloured prayer wheels inside a stupa. “The highest and the underside script is Ranjana Lipi,” he explains in a gentle voice barely audible amidst honking autos on the street.
Throughout from the stupa, Maharjan spots letters on a temple’s distinctive golden brass pole. “This can be a mantra written in Kutakshar [a vertical monogram form of Ranjana script, written vertically from top to bottom],” he explains. Kutakshar was used to write down secret mantras and messages, understood solely by the author, he provides.
Examples of Ranjana Lipi have additionally been present in museum artefacts and heritage websites exterior Nepal. “A mantra associated to wellbeing is inscribed on the Nice Wall of China [Juyongguan section],” explains Sthapit, and in Tibet the script is written on prime of entrance gates of homes. A ceremonial helmet from the mid-18th century, displayed at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, options the Buddhist mantra “om mani padme hum” engraved in Ranjana Lipi (Lantsa characters).
Coaching new learners
Each Nepal Lipi Guthi and Callijatra work collectively to show Nepal’s Indigenous scripts by way of a whole lot of reside demonstrations, workshops and shows.
This yr, Callijatra was recognised by the Endangered Alphabets Mission on World Endangered Writing Day (January 23) for his or her revival efforts in coaching academics, architects, monks and artists, and creating tutorial movies to help learners.
“The good thing about coaching folks is to create new artwork and designs,” Maharjan says quietly, with pleasure in his voice. Nowadays the script is getting used extra in marriage ceremony invites, posters, pottery, jewelry, merchandise and artwork and extra. He credit the revival efforts of Callijatra and Nepal Lipi Guthi in addition to “youth involvement”.
Sthapit provides that social media has helped promote the scripts worldwide now that “folks can produce texts in Ranjana Lipi of their houses.”
There’s additionally an IOS app referred to as “Nepal Lipi-Ranjana Lipi”, created by Suyogya Ratna Tamrakar, one of many founding Callijatra members, who usually provides reside demonstrations of Ranjana Lipi.
“I used to be interested in Nepal’s traditions and cultures from my childhood,” says Tamrakar, who’s now additionally eager on digital promotion of historical scripts. Shyly, and with barely trembling fingers, the 30-year-old sorts “Dhulikhel” in Devanagari script within the app and receives a translation in each Nepal Lipi and Ranjana Lipi. The app, which has greater than 100,000 downloads to this point, additionally options instructional movies and blogs.
Highway forward
Ranjana Lipi can be gaining prominence throughout Nepal’s borders, due to artists and different passionate promoters of the script.
In February, paintings by Nepali calligrapher Ratan Anand Karna was a well-liked attraction on the Jaipur Worldwide Artwork and Calligraphy Competition in Hyderabad, India. “Ranjana script is highly effective. Whenever you write it, the script attracts consideration,” Karna says.
In treks throughout Nepal, he additionally writes mantras on stones and locations them close to shrines and stupas. This, he says, “will get observed by locals who need me to write down mantras in Tibetan or Ranjana Lipi”, that are thought-about sacred and priceless. In April, Karna carried out a week-long course on Ranjana Lipi and Devanagari Lipi for a bunch of United States college students.
Not too long ago, a donation from US-based entrepreneur Murali Ok Prahalad helped Callijatra to collaborate with Ek Kind, a font design studio primarily based in India, to launch Nithya Ranjana, a typeface primarily based on Ranjana script.
“All fonts have their limitations, however the Nithya Ranjana font has extra conjuncts and compound letters”, which makes it extra technically superior, Maharjan explains.
Callijatra can be trying to train further scripts – Bhujimol Lipi, Kirat Lipi, Khema Lipi, Tirhuta [Maithili Lipi] and Licchavi Lipi – by way of animated programs, video games and puzzles for kids.
“Analysis is ongoing,” says Maharjan. In the meantime, he plans to proceed educating college students of the “stunning” scripts, “to show others in [an] simple and simplified manner”.
