Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library | |
---|---|
Location | Patna, Bihar, India, India |
Type | National library |
Established | 29 October 1891 [1] |
Collection | |
Items collected | Manuscripts, books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints and drawings etc |
Size | 2,082,904 (printed books) 21,136 (manuscripts) (5,000,000 total items) |
Legal deposit | Yes, Institution of National Importance by Act of Parliament, 26 December 1969 |
Access and use | |
Access requirements | Open to anyone with a genuine need to use the collection |
Other information | |
Director | Shayesta Bedar, (since January, 2019) |
Website | http://kblibrary.bih.nic.in/ |
Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library is one of the national libraries of India, [2] located in Patna, Bihar. [3] It was opened to public on 29 October 1891 by Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh with 4,000 manuscripts, of which he inherited 1,400 from his father Maulvi Mohammed Bakhsh. It is an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and is governed by a Board with the Governor of Bihar as its ex officio Chairman, and is known for its rare collection of Persian and Arabic manuscripts. It also hosts paintings made during the Rajput and Mughal eras of India.
It is also a designated 'Manuscript Conservation Centre' (MCC) under the National Mission for Manuscripts. [4]
In 1895, he was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Nizam's Kingdom. After staying there for almost 3 years, he returned to Patna again and started practicing. But soon he was suffering from paralysis and he limited his activity to the library only. Due to his illness, he could not complete his activities. Rs.8000 to pay debt and library secretary and Rs. 200 were sanctioned as pension. He could not recover from paralysis and died on August 3, 1908.
The library finds its origin in private collection of a bibliophile Mohammad Bakhsh and expanded by his son Khuda Bakhsh, who inherited 1,400 manuscripts and continued to add to the collection and eventually converted it into a private library by 1880. The library was opened to public upon its inauguration by Sir Charles Alfred Elliott, Governor of Bengal on 5 October 1891. After partition in 1947, Dr. S.V. Sohoni played a key role in ensuring that the collections were retained in India. [5] In 1969 through a Federal Legislation, an Act of Parliament, namely 'Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library Act' (1969), the Government of India declared Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library a centre of national importance and government took over the funding, maintenance and development of the library. Today it continues to attract scholars from all over the world. [6]
Past directors of the library have been Dr. Abid Reza Bedar, who after remaining with the Raza Library, came as Director to the institution in 1972, and did some important work towards reviving the library along with his successor Habibur Rehman Chighani, at present the Director of the library is the Dr. Shayesta Bedar, since April, 2019. It is on its way to become the country's first library to computerize its hand written collection for universal dissemination., [7]
In 2021, the demolition of parts of the historic library building was proposed as part of a project to construct a flyover. [8] This has sparked controversy and several activists and organisations including INTACH have appealed against the demolition. [9]
Some of the notable manuscripts are Timur Nama (Khandan--Timuria), Shah Nama, Padshah Nama , Diwan-e-Hafiz and Safinatul Auliya, carrying the autograph of Mughal Emperors and princes and the book of Military Accounts of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Apart from it the library also has specimens of Mughal paintings, calligraphy and book decoration and Arabic and Urdu manuscripts, including a page of Quran written on deer skin. [6] [10]
There are 21,136 manuscripts in the library of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish and Pashto languages. [11]
The library also has a manuscript of Sahih al-Bukhari hand-transcribed by Shaykh Muhammad ibn Yazdan Bakhsh Bengali in Ekdala, eastern Bengal. The manuscript was a gift to the Sultan of Bengal Alauddin Husain Shah. [12]
Makhdoom Yahiya Maneri was an Indian Sufi saint of the 13th century. His tomb in courtyard of a mosque, located in Maner, 29 km from Patna, Bihar, India.
Gazipur is a district in central Bangladesh, that is part of the Dhaka Division. It has an area of 1806.36 km2. It is the home district of Tajuddin Ahmad, the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh and has been a prominent centre of battles and movements throughout history. Gazipur is home to the Bishwa Ijtema, the second-largest annual Muslim gathering in the world with over 5 million attendees. The district is home to numerous universities, colleges, the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park, Bhawal National Park as well as the country's only business park - the Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City.
Padshahnama or Badshah Nama is a group of works written as the official history of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan I. Unillustrated texts are known as Shahjahannama, with Padshahnama used for the illustrated manuscript versions. These works are among the major sources of information about Shah Jahan's reign. Lavishly illustrated copies were produced in the imperial workshops, with many Mughal miniatures. Although military campaigns are given the most prominence, the illustrations and paintings in the manuscripts of these works illuminate life in the imperial court, depicting weddings and other activities.
Kapasia is an upazila (sub-district) of Gazipur District in central Bangladesh, part of the Dhaka Division. It is located at 24.1000°N 90.5708°E, and is best known as the home upazila of Tajuddin Ahmad, the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh. The modern-day upazila was a part of the historic Bhawal Estate and falls within its boundary.
The national language and official language of Bangladesh is Bangla according to the third article of the Constitution of Bangladesh. Almost 99% of Bangladeshis speak Bengali as their first language. Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 made it mandatory to use Bengali in all government affairs except in the cases of foreign relations. According to a 2022 census, Bengali is predominantly spoken by 99% of the country's population and it also serves as the national language of the nation. The indigenous people of northern and southeastern Bangladesh speak a variety of native languages. According to the Ethnologue, there are 36 indigenous living languages, which include 17 Tibeto-Burman, 10 Indo-Aryan, 7 Austroasiatic and 2 Dravidian languages in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has 44 indigenous languages according to Professor Shameem Reza.
The National Mission for Manuscripts (NAMAMI) is an autonomous organisation under Ministry of Culture, Government of India, established to survey, locate and conserve Indian manuscripts, with an aim to create national resource base for manuscripts, for enhancing their access, awareness and use for educational purposes. The Mission was initiated in February 2003, by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts is the nodal agency for the execution of this project. It creates bibliographic databases of Indian manuscripts and is involved in the conservation and preservation of the manuscripts.
Bankipur is a neighbourhood and residential area in Patna, in the Indian state of Bihar. It is located on the bank of the river Ganges. The prime attraction is the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library built by Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh in 1891 and Golghar granary that was built by Captain John Garstin in 1786. Patna Dental College and Hospital is also located here.
Patna College is a constituent state aided College of Patna University which was established in 1863 during the British Raj. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in science, arts and commerce as well as some vocational courses like BBA, BMC and BCA. The college is affiliated to Patna University. It is also considered to be the oldest institution of higher education in Bihar.
Ziauddin Abdul Hayy Desai was an Indian epigraphist associated with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). He was also a noted architectural historian and a literary scholar of the Indo-Persianate world as evidenced in his writings.
Bismil Azimabadi was an Indian freedom fighter, landlord, and an Urdu poet from Patna, the capital of Bihar.
Majid Ali Jaunpuri was an Indian Sunni Islamic scholar and a rationalist thinker. He was mainly known for his work in the subjects of logic and hadith. He was an alumnus of the Darul Uloom Deoband and is reported to have written a marginalia to Sunan Abu Dawud and Jami` at-Tirmidhi.
Syed Hasan Askari was an Indian writer and historian. His literary work was focused on medieval Sufism, the regional history of Bihar, and aspects of cultural history of medieval India. He was recognized by the Government of India. He authored, edited and translated more than 250 articles, research papers, forewords, prefaces, and book reviews, which have been awarded by the Government of India multiple journals, books and proceedings.
Hafizur Rahman Wasif Dehlavi was an Indian Muslim scholar, jurist, literary critic, and a poet of the Urdu language, who served as the rector of Madrasa Aminia from 1955 to 1979. He participated in the Indian freedom struggle movement and authored books such as Adabī bhūl bhulayyān̲, Urdū Masdar Nāmā and Taz̲kirah-yi Sā'il. He compiled the religious edicts of his father Kifayatullah Dehlawi as Kifāyat al-Mufti in nine volumes.
Islamic manuscripts had a variety of functions ranging from Qur'anic recitation to Scientific notation. These manuscripts were produced in many different ways depending on their use and time period. Parchment (vellum) was a common way to produce manuscripts. Manuscript creators eventually transitioned to using paper in later centuries with the diffusion of paper making in the Islamic empire. When Muslims encountered paper in Central Asia, its use and production spread to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa during the 8th century.
Sir Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh OIE FRAS was an Indian advocate, judge, philosopher, revolutionary freedom fighter, scholar and historian from Patna, Bihar. He was the founder of Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library and Chief Justice of Nizam's Supreme Court of Hyderabad from 1895 to 1898. Khuda Bakhsh maintains a strong legacy across the Islamic World for his contributions to Literature and History.
Shāh Nūrī Bengālī was an 18th-century Bengali Islamic scholar and author from Dhaka. He is best known for his magnum opus, Kibrīt-e-Aḥmar, which was written in the Persian language.
Dr. Shayesta Bedar is an Indian historian, academician and scholar who is currently serving as the Director of Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna. Before joining the National library, she has served as an Assistant librarian in Maulana Azad Library AMU, Aligarh from as in-charge of the Manuscript section of the library where she established a library museum in Maulana Azad Library. She has authored numerous research papers based on Persian and Urdu literature. Additionally, she has edited and compile work for a variety of books related to Persian, Hindi and Urdu literature.
Tarikh e Khandan e Timuriyah also known as "Chronicle of the Descendants of Timur" is a 16th-century manuscript commissioned by Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1577–1578. It describes the descendants of the 14th-century leader Timur in Iran and India This volume was crafted for the emperor's personal use, thus securing a place in his personal library. This volume, inscribed on the finest paper, boasts a collection of 133 paintings, collaboratively crafted by 51 prominent artists like Daswant, Miskin, Madho Mukund, Haidar Kashmiri, Miskeen, Manohar and Basawan. These intricately detailed and refined paintings have been described as exemplifying the pinnacle of Mughal artistic expression. The written text has calligraphy that matches the standards set by the artwork.
Taqi Rahim was an Indian freedom fighter, writer and historian who worked to propagate Urdu at the national level. He was a member of the Communist Party of India. He had written and translated Tahreek-e-Aazadi Mein Bihar Ke Musalmano Ka Hissa, Zikr-e-Yunus,Jinnah Aur Gandhi, Bihar Ke Muslim Khwas, Islam Aur HIndustani Saqafat. He was president of Inquilabi Muslim Conference and also a member of the Central Control Commission elected by the Sixth Congress of Communist Party of India. He was a member of the Bihar State Janvadi Adhikar Suraksha Samiti.
Syed Muhammad Jamaluddin Madari popularly known as Janeman Jannati was a disciple of Shah Badiuddin Qutbul Madar and a Sufi saint of Madariyya order of Sufism. He is known as the nephew of Abdul Qadir Jilani and one of four main Khalifa of Shah Badiuddin Qutbul Madar. He was the founder the Dewangan sub-order of Madariyya, who followers use 'Malang' as their surname.