Kathmandu, Nepal – Wearing an orange kurta (free collarless tunic) and an identical Nepali dhaka waistcoat, Lalima Shrestha pulls a brown plastic chair nearer to a makeshift desk constituted 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 reveal the traditional artwork of Ranjana calligraphy. She is a member of Callijatra, certainly one of two native organisations working to protect and promote historic 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 conventional four-piece black and purple ensemble). They’ve come to take part within the annual dhimay jatra – a competition 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 every single place.
“Jwojalapa (welcome),” says Shrestha, 30, in Nepalbhasa, the language of the Newar neighborhood, to the few dozen competition attendees who’ve gathered on the sales space.
Ranjana, which suggests “delightful” 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 jot down in Ranjana Lipi.
Shrestha pays cautious consideration to the peak, curvature and smoothness of every letter. “The strokes should be evenly placed and match in size,” she says. Writing in Ranjana Lipi is therapeutic, “like meditation”, she provides, “that offers peace of mind”.
First, Jayendra Rajbhandari, 62, a member of Nepal Lipi Guthi, writes my identify in purple ink. Inside minutes, he finishes essentially the most creative rendering of my identify I’ve ever seen.
Amongst these watching the demo is Rashmi Chhusyabaga, a Newa (from the Newar neighborhood) who is keen to see her household’s identify within the Ranjana script. “I lack knowledge about Ranjana,” the 22-year-old scholar says.
Most residents are acquainted with 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 learn and write it.
Ranjana Lipi isn’t taught in colleges, and many individuals are unfamiliar with the script. Callijatra is working to alter that.
A optimistic response
Callijatra was began with the aim 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 Okay Maharjan noticed a submit 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 also wanted to learn and write it,” Maharjan explains. He had searched the web and libraries for accessible sources when beginning out his journey with Ranjana, however discovered them “not sufficient”.
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 competition, in Kathmandu.
The response, Maharjan says, “was very positive”, with over 50 members. Greater than 200 names had been written in stay calligraphy. Nobody had carried out a stay demonstration of an Indigenous Nepal script on this scale earlier than, he explains.
After the demo, the group obtained a number of calls and requests to conduct workshops. “Old language experts and Lipi experts were happy and assured that now this script will not die and young people are continuing what they were 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 join hands”, Maharjan says.
These organisations now work collectively to construction studying supplies, and design programs for workshops and coaching programmes, repeatedly conducting over 50 workshops yearly. One module will be taught to 100 folks without delay, 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 compare the scripts to the human body,” labelling the alphabet elements – chhyan (head), nhipyan (tail), lhaa (hand) and mha (spine). Letters in purple lack a head; inexperienced signifies a downward stroke; and blue is “hands 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 historic 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 below the tutelage of Lipi skilled 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 completely different languages: Nepalbhasa, Sanskrit, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Nepali, explains Sarad Kasa, a Nepalbhasa professor at Tribhuvan College in Kathmandu. Their origin just isn’t identified, however Kasa says they might have come from the Brahmi script, an historic 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 historic scripts – resembling Licchavi Lipi, Khema Lipi and Brahmi Lipi – had been prevalent within the Licchavi (350-750 AD) and Malla (1200-1769) durations. 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 id – one which suppressed languages resembling Nepalbhasa and different regional dialects like Hindi and Maithili.
“Learning and writing were banned during the Rana era,” explains Sthapit. Use of Nepal scripts declined when the Rana regime got here into energy, and had been changed by the Devanagari script, which remains to be used in the present day.
“A fine of Nepali rupees 100 ($0.75) was imposed” if folks had been discovered studying, Sthapit provides, noting “Their property was confiscated by the state.” This instilled concern within the folks, “and the tradition of education was lost”, he says.
To forestall books from being seized or burned, many households saved their historic 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 ensure that the knowledge of writing and learning ancient scripts was not completely lost”, Sthapit explains.
As we speak, college students in Kathmandu’s authorities colleges are studying fundamental Ranjana Lipi, and there are plans to incorporate the script and Nepalbhasa in curricula outdoors of Kathmandu, Maharjan says.
Examples in every single place
After the stay 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 realized Ranjana Lipi and Nepal Lipi — and the place Sthapit was his trainer. The room, which has roughly 25 desks, is filled 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 slim alleys that cross 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 top and the bottom script is Ranjana Lipi,” he explains in a comfortable 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 is a mantra written in Kutakshar [a vertical monogram form of Ranjana script, written vertically from top to bottom],” he explains. Kutakshar was used to jot 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 outdoors Nepal. “A mantra related to wellbeing is inscribed on the Great 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 stay demonstrations, workshops and displays.
This yr, Callijatra was recognised by the Endangered Alphabets Undertaking 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 benefit of training people is to create new art and designs,” Maharjan says quietly, with pleasure in his voice. As of late 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 “people can produce texts in Ranjana Lipi in their homes.”
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 stay demonstrations of Ranjana Lipi.
“I was attracted to Nepal’s traditions and cultures from my childhood,” says Tamrakar, who’s now additionally eager on digital promotion of historic scripts. Shyly, and with barely trembling arms, the 30-year-old varieties “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 up to now, additionally options academic 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 preferred attraction on the Jaipur Worldwide Artwork and Calligraphy Competition in Hyderabad, India. “Ranjana script is powerful. When you write it, the script draws attention,” Karna says.
In treks throughout Nepal, he additionally writes mantras on stones and locations them close to shrines and stupas. This, he says, “gets noticed by locals who want me to write mantras in Tibetan or Ranjana Lipi”, that are thought of sacred and beneficial. 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 Okay Prahalad helped Callijatra to collaborate with Ek Kind, a font design studio based mostly in India, to launch Nithya Ranjana, a typeface based mostly on Ranjana script.
“All fonts have their limitations, but the Nithya Ranjana font has more conjuncts and compound letters”, which makes it extra technically superior, Maharjan explains.
Callijatra can be seeking 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 youngsters.
“Research is ongoing,” says Maharjan. In the meantime, he plans to proceed educating college students of the “beautiful” scripts, “to teach others in [an] easy and simplified way”.
