Celebrating 100 years of "Charyapada" discovery

The body is like the finest tree, with five branches.
Why does one meditate?
Surely one dies of happiness or unhappiness.

--- Luipada, Raga Patamanjuri, Charyapada

Goethe-Institut, Bangladesh held a literary evening, titled Charyapada: The Beginning of Bangla Poetry on September 4, to mark 100 years of discovery of Charyapada, the ancient manuscript bearing early examples of Bangla, Assamese and Oriya languages. The manuscript was discovered by Haraprasad Shastri in 1907. The evening included discussion and reading from Bangla, German and English translations of Charyapada.
Dr. Malama Meleisea, director and representative, UNESCO in Bangladesh; Sven Ostberg, counsellor, Embassy of Sweden; Professor Syed Mohammed Shahed, director deneral of Bangla Academy; Rajiv Chaudhury, first secretary of Indian High Commission and Professor Khaled Hossain, Bangla Department, Jahangirnagar University attended the programme as guests.
Young Poet Anisur Rahman presented his paper “Charyapada: The Beginning of Bangla Poetry” while Torsten Oertel of Goethe-Institut inaugurated the programme.
“There was a debate whether Charyapada was the literary rudiment of Bangla or other languages. The debate was dismissed eventually,” Anisur Rahman said in his paper.
Professor Khaled Hossain thanked Goethe-Institut to arrange the programme. He also regretted saying that the initiative should have come from Bengalis because Charyapada is the first ever literary piece that says something about the everyday people, nature and social aspects of this delta.
“Ever since Haraprasad Shastri's discovery, no one bothered again to research further. It is quite possible that more manuscripts are hidden in Nepal, Tibet and the adjacent areas,” Syed Mohammed Shahed stated in his speech.
Sven Osteberg said that there is an astonishing similarity of thoughts between the poems from Charyapada and the Swedish tradition of oral poetry of that period. He welcomed the interaction of different cultures and heritages.
Poet Aslam Sani, Arin Parvin, Mizanur Rahman and Muriel Schaefer recited from Bangla, English and German translations of Charyapada.