Museums in Orissa
Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneshwar
The Orissa State Museum began as a subsidiary of Ravenshaw College's Department
of Histoiy. However, over the years it has become one of the premier institutions
of the state with a wide range of antiquities representing the region's rich
cultural heritage. The galleries cover archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics,
armoury, mining and geology, painting, anthropology and manuscripts.
The manuscript gallery here is significant as it contains some rare palm leaf
manuscripts. The 50,000 manuscripts, some of which are beautifully illustrated,
cover subjects as diverse as religion, philosophy, astronomy,astrology, poetry,
science, medicine, mathematics, warfare and the crafts. The oldest manuscript
dates to the 15th century though evidence reveals that this art existed as far
back as the 6th century AD.
Palm leaves were dried and the Oriya script was incised into the leaf with a
stylus.The manuscripts are incredibly rich in exquisite penmanship and are a
repository of artistic expressions of that time. The costumes, jewellery, hairstyle
and facial features are very similar to the Orissa temple sculpture. The scenery
depicted is highly stylised and symbolic. The earliest palm leaf manuscript
i the Abhinava Gita Govinda b-Chandra Das Dibakar Mishra by Sridhar Sharma,
dated 1496.
A 1690 illustrated manuscript of Gita Govinda written by the 12th century poetjayadeva
has 80 folios It displays the advanced writing technology of its time in its
drawings on both sides of palm leaves, in rich primary colours undiminished
bv time.
Rare epigraphic records are preserved in the Epigraphy Gallery. Stone inscriptions
copper plate grants and a number of plaster cast impressions of originals depict
earlier patterns of writings, following different dialects and languages. The
most coveted acquisition is the Bhadrakali inscription in Prakrit dating to
the 3rd century AD.
Orissa State Museum
Gautam Nagar
Opp Hotel Kalinga Ashok
Bhubaneswar 751 014
Timings: 10.00 am to 4.00 pm
Closed on Mondays and government holidays.
