Cotton University digitises 11 sanchipat manuscripts of Jania Satra

The Assamese department of Cotton University has finished digitising all 11 sanchipat manuscripts kept at the historic Jania Satra in Barpeta district, The Sentinel reported on Saturday.

Sanchipat manuscripts are written on specially prepared bark of the sanchi (agar) tree, the traditional writing material of medieval Assam.

A satra linked to Sankardeva's family

Jania Satra lies about 10 km west of Barpeta town. It was founded in 1598 by Purushottam Thakur, a grandson of the Vaishnavite saint-reformer Srimanta Sankardeva.

Its collection includes the Namghosha, Na-Ghosha, Bhakti Ratnavali, Kirtan Ghosha, Rajasuya Kavya and Prahlada Charita, as well as the First, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Cantos of the Bhagavata. The satra holds two copies of the Eleventh Canto.

Several of these works are central to Assamese Vaishnavism. The Kirtan Ghosha was composed by Sankardeva, while the Namghosha is the work of his chief disciple Madhavdeva. Both are recited daily in namghars across the state, and handwritten sanchipat copies are prized by the satras that keep them.

Barpeta, home to the Barpeta Satra associated with Madhavdeva, is one of the main centres of the tradition, with many smaller satras in the surrounding villages.

Two phases of work

Cotton University adopted Jania Satra as part of its adopted-village programme in 2025 and began a project to preserve the manuscripts digitally. Six were digitised in the first phase on January 23, 2025. The remaining five were completed on Thursday.

The satra's management committee held a meeting to mark the completion, chaired by committee president Raben Das.

Dr Maheswar Kalita, head of Cotton University's Assamese department, said digitisation would preserve the texts permanently and let researchers and scholars anywhere in the world study them, while protecting the fragile originals for future generations.

Why it matters

Bark manuscripts are vulnerable to humidity, insects and repeated handling, and many satras across Assam hold collections that have never been fully catalogued or copied. Digital copies allow scholars to read the texts without disturbing the originals, which are often also objects of worship in the satras.

The Jania Satra project adds to wider efforts in the state to document the neo-Vaishnavite literary heritage of the Sankardeva tradition.