Rare Manuscripts, Artefacts Go Mysteriously Missing From Odisha State Museum

Bhubaneswar: The State Museum of Odisha in Bhubaneswar, which once took great pride in housing the greatest collection of palm leaf manuscripts in the world, has reportedly lost almost half of its priceless possessions in the past four years.

According to startling details that an RTI request revealed, the Odisha State Museum has lost almost 20,000 palm leaf manuscripts.

As per reports, while responding to a query that asked about the number of manuscripts and antiquities stored in the museum, the officials stated that the museum now has around 20,000 palm leaf manuscripts cutting down from the 40,000 it initially had.

The State Museum’s manuscript holdings have been divided into 27 categories, including Vedas, Puranas, Kavyas, Tantra, Religious, Scriptures, Philosophy, Astrology, Ayurveda, Grammar, Lexicon, Music, and Mathematics, among others.

While the National Pothi Mission was initiated in other regions of India in 2003, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of Odisha introduced the e-Pothi program for the first time on September 29, 2014.