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 constructed from a desk tennis board. Above, there’s a banner for “Nepal Lipi Guthi” (Institute of Nepal Epigraphy) in a calligraphic script referred to 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 reveal 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 crimson ensemble). They’ve come to take part within the annual dhimay jatra – a pageant celebrating the dhimay, an ethnic drum of the Newar neighborhood, 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 neighborhood, to the few dozen pageant attendees who’ve gathered on the sales space.
Ranjana, which suggests “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 put in writing 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 measurement,” she says. Writing in Ranjana Lipi is therapeutic, “like meditation”, she provides, “that provides peace of thoughts”.
First, Jayendra Rajbhandari, 62, a member of Nepal Lipi Guthi, writes my title in crimson ink. Inside minutes, he finishes essentially the most creative rendering of my title I’ve ever seen.
Amongst these watching the demo is Rashmi Chhusyabaga, a Newa (from the Newar neighborhood) who is raring to see her household’s title within the Ranjana script. “I lack data about Ranjana,” the 22-year-old scholar says.
Most residents are accustomed to the script that abounds in Kathmandu – it seems on indicators in public squares, stupas (Buddhist shrines), mahaviharas (Buddhist research centres and residences) and temples – however admit to not realizing find out how 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 purpose of preserving two of the 9 Nepal scripts: Ranjana Lipi and Nepal Lipi (Prachalit).
The seeds of the organisation had been planted in 2017, after font designer Ananda Ok Maharjan noticed a publish 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 be taught and write it,” Maharjan explains. He had searched the web and libraries for out there sources when beginning out his journey with Ranjana, however discovered them “not ample”.
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 members. Greater than 200 names had 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. “Outdated language specialists and Lipi specialists had been joyful and warranted that now this script is not going to die and younger persons are persevering with what they had 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 palms”, Maharjan says.
These organisations now work collectively to construction studying supplies, and design programs for workshops and coaching programmes, commonly conducting over 50 workshops yearly. One module might be taught to 100 individuals directly, says Anil Sthapit, the president of Nepal Lipi Guthi, situated 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 elements – chhyan (head), nhipyan (tail), lhaa (hand) and mha (spine). Letters in crimson lack a head; inexperienced signifies a downward stroke; and blue is “palms up” or upward stroke.
When Callijatra started collaborating with Nepal Lipi Guthi, the latter organisation was a number of many years previous. In 1974, a bunch of scholars who had realized Nepal Lipi started educating Indigenous scripts to protect historical data. 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 realized it underneath the tutelage of Lipi professional Shankar Man Rajbanshi, and commenced educating it to extra college students, serving to to unfold the data across the metropolis.
Decline of Nepal scripts
The “Nepal scripts” had 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 – similar to Licchavi Lipi, Khema Lipi and Brahmi Lipi – had been prevalent within the Licchavi (350-750 AD) and Malla (1200-1769) intervals. Nevertheless, their use fell into decline in the course of the Rana dynasty (1846–1951), which embraced a “one nation-one language” coverage meant to advertise a robust nationwide identification – one which suppressed languages similar to Nepalbhasa and different regional dialects like Hindi and Maithili.
“Studying and writing had been banned in the course of the Rana period,” explains Sthapit. Use of Nepal scripts declined when the Rana regime got here into energy, and had been changed by the Devanagari script, which continues to be used as we speak.
“A tremendous of Nepali rupees 100 ($0.75) was imposed” if individuals had been discovered studying, Sthapit provides, noting “Their property was confiscated by the state.” This instilled concern within the individuals, “and the custom of training was misplaced”, he says.
To stop 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 clergymen. Nepali students went to India and printed books in hiding “to make sure that the data of writing and studying historical scripts was not fully misplaced”, Sthapit explains.
Immediately, college students in Kathmandu’s authorities faculties are studying primary Ranjana Lipi, and there are plans to incorporate the script and Nepalbhasa in curricula outdoors 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 flooring of Nepal Lipi Guthi. We stroll forward into the sea-green classroom the place he first realized Ranjana Lipi and Nepal Lipi — and the place Sthapit was his instructor. 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 offers a tour of the charming old-world Thahiti neighbourhood, not removed from the Nepal Lipi Guthi constructing, wandering down slender alleys that go by conventional wood buildings, on the lookout for 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 automobiles 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 put in writing 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 outdoors 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 high 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 displays.
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 advantage of coaching individuals is to create new artwork and designs,” Maharjan says quietly, with pleasure in his voice. Today 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 “individuals can produce texts in Ranjana Lipi of their properties.”
There’s additionally an IOS app known as “Nepal Lipi-Ranjana Lipi”, created by Suyogya Ratna Tamrakar, one of many founding Callijatra members, who usually offers 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 palms, 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 academic movies and blogs.
Highway forward
Ranjana Lipi can also 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 preferred attraction on the Jaipur Worldwide Artwork and Calligraphy Pageant 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 put in writing mantras in Tibetan or Ranjana Lipi”, that are thought-about sacred and invaluable. In April, Karna carried out a week-long course on Ranjana Lipi and Devanagari Lipi for a bunch of United States college students.
Just lately, 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 also be seeking to educate extra 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] straightforward and simplified method”.
