Daniela Cappello visited the Asiatic Society and other archives to research manuscripts of Bengali Purāṇa (and of the Śivopaniṣad) as part of her research for the Śivadharma Project. She also visited the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, the society for the study of Bengali language and literature. From both institutions, she managed to retrieve a series of paper manuscripts dating from late 18th to mid-19th century on Bengali verse adaptations of Sanskrit Purāṇas. Another relevant achievement was retrieving two manuscripts (Sanskrit in Bengali scripts) of the Śivopaniṣad, one of the Śivadharmaśāstra texts widely attested in Bengal. Her goal is to assess the role of Purāṇic literature, mainly in Bengali “translation”, in late manuscript and early print culture of Bengal.
Moreover, our publications “A Śaiva Utopia” and “Śivadharmāmṛta” travelled with her and made it to the shelves of the Asiatic Society Library! Our heartful thanks goes to the Curator Keka Banerjee for her welcome and continuous assistance
