New short film seriesWritten Artefacts of Nepal

22 July 2022

Photo: Bidur Bhattarai

A new series of short videos by Bidur Bhattarai offers a brief and accessible introduction to Nepalese written artefacts. The first two episodes are now available.

Nepal is home to exceptionally diverse manuscript collections, both in terms of scripts and languages as well as materials used. Since 2018, CSMC has been engaged in safeguarding these valuable collections. The project entitled 'Preserving the Written Cultural Heritage of Nepal' is generously supported by the German Foreign Office and the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

A new series of short films, 'Written Artefacts of Nepal – Preservation and Documentation', offers a brief and accessible introduction to Nepalese written artefacts, exploring their diversity and uniqueness in terms of writing, supports, materials, forms, and texts. All episodes are available in Nepalese with English subtitles. Non-English terms are transliterated as faithfully as possible and presented as they appear in the original document, so that their original spelling can be appreciated. The series is initiated and produced by Bidur Bhattarai, Coordinator of the project in Nepal. 

The first two videos of the series are now available. The first episode provides a general overview of preservation work carried out at the Tribhuvan University Central Library. In the second episode, Bidur Bhattarai introduces a rolled palm-leaf document with a raw clay seal. Produced in 1741 during the reign of King Jayaprakāśamalla (Jaya Prakash Malla) of Kathmandu, this document is a ‘land-grant’, a kind of document whose material, production, form, and choice of medium are unique to Nepal.

The remaining episodes will be released over the course of the summer.