A puthi (, Perso-Arab: پوتھی) is a

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

or writing of poetic

fairy tales A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the Folklore, folklore genre. Such stories typically feature Magic (supernatural), magic, Incantation, e ...

and religious stories of

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

and present-day

East India East India is a region consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The states of Bihar and West Bengal lie on the Indo-Gangetic plain. Jharkhan ...

, which were read by a senior "educated" person while others would listen. This was used as a medium for

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

and constructive

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

Terminology

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Geschrift op lontarblad TMnr 1534-8b

''Puthis'' were

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s written in the Bengali or Odia languages, utilising scripts such as the Odia,

Sylheti Nagri Sylheti Nagri or Sylheti Nāgarī (, , ), known in classical manuscripts as Sylhet Nagri () as well as by #Etymology and names, many other names, is an Indic script. The script was historically used in the regions of Bengal and Assam, that were ...

, Bengali and

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left script, right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with four additional letters: (the sounds 'g', 'zh', ' ...

. They were mostly used in

Arakan Arakan ( or ; , ), formerly anglicised as Aracan, is the historical geographical name for the northeastern coastal region of the Bay of Bengal, covering present-day Bangladesh and Myanmar. The region was called "Arakan" for centuries. It is ...

and

. ''Puthi'' (پوتھی, /po:t̪ʰi:/) is a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

originated feminine noun which means

. The pages of puthis could be

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning (leather), tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffal ...

, sheets of

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

, or barks. This was common before the invention of paper. Usually, they were written on one side and bound with a piece of string. This made it resistant to insects as well, allowing it to survive for a long time. Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad collected more than 2,000 puthis. More than 1,000 of them were written by

Bengali Muslims Bengali Muslims (; ) 'Mussalman'' also used in this work.are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising over 70% of the global Bengali population, they are the second-largest et ...

. No other person or organization has collected this number of puthis before.

Script and language

Majority of puthis were written in the

Bengali script The Bengali script or Bangla alphabet (, Romanization of Bengali, romanized: ''Bāṅlā bôrṇômālā'') is the standard writing system used to write the Bengali language, and has historically been used to write Sanskrit within Bengal. ...

. There have also been puthis written using the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

. The register used in these puthis was predominantly '' Dobhashi Bengali'', a variety of Bengali which lacked the

tatsamas Tatsama ( , lit. 'same as that') are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indo-Aryan languages like Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Hindi, Gujarati, and Sinhala and in Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. They generally ...

present in modern Bengali and used heavily

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

and Persian vocabulary.

References

Culture of Bangladesh Asian fairy tales Bengali-language literature {{Bangladesh-lit-stub

Terminology

Script and language

See also

References