Looking into the unique encyclopaedia to search ancestors

Satish Shukla with the Namavali records at his home (Pic by Aditya Waikul)

 

Diptesh Bajoria came all the way from Surat along with his family members at Nashik’s Ram Kund to pay homage to his ancestors by performing ‘Shraddha’ ritual. He was amazed to know that Jagat Narayan, father of his great grandfather had performed the same ritual at the same place some 120 years ago. His grandfather too had been there some 45 years ago, and his father had visited the place some 20 years ago when Diptesh was a toddler. The records of Bajoria family were kept meticulously by Pt Suresh Shukla, one of the hundreds of priests at Ram Kund who inherit the ancient treasure of the genealogy registers of visitors preserved from 300 plus years by the generations. ‘Namavali’ or ‘Chopdi’ in local terms – these records are one of the exclusive features of Nashik.

“Our house is full of genealogy registers, and you could find names of ancestors of many well-known families from Marwad, Kathiyawad and other parts of North Gujarat and Rajasthan with us,” said Shukla. According to him, books preserved by his generations possess records of thousands of families mainly in Marwad and Rajasthan as his family was traditionally assigned to keep records of people from this region. Nashik has hundreds of families of Brahmin priests assigned to keep genealogy registers of families from Sindh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and other places respectively. All one has to give is the name of native village and surname, and the priest can bring out all the family history records archived with him, provided one of the ancestors must have registered the information with the priest in the past.

“There is separate priest family allocated based on caste and village. Even I don’t remember the exact number of families. There are thousands of dictionaries, and you will find unlimited names in them,” he said showing one of the books, made of a specially manufactured handmade paper.

“This paper is called Junnari paper as it is manufactured in Junnar near Pune. It remains intact for years together,” Shukla added. His ancestors used to make the ink from Bajra seeds to write on these papers, but the present generation uses gel pens. “The process of making ink from seeds is lengthy and full of hardships. Instead, the gel pens are very handy. The ink stays for long enough,” Shukla quipped.

The priests do not ask for money to find out the records but accept the amount given by the people as per their will. “Finding out ancient connection is an emotional issue for the people. We never fall short of money,” Gupta added.

Suresh Shukla at Nashik's Godavari Ghat busy in searching one of the records.

GenNext goes digital with Namavali

Vaibhav Shingne and Upendra Parashar from Trimbakeshwar are two young generation priests who are using innovative computer technologies to preserve Genealogy information. They keep the digitised records in their laptops and take regular back-up.

Mahendra Parashar, an engineer from Parashar family developed software to store this information. “The software is in its initial stage and we require more research and work on it. As most of us are busy in our jobs, we find less time to update the software,” he said.

Yogesh Shulka, a software engineer from Shukla family stays in Silicon Valley and aspires to develop comprehensive software to serve the purpose. “But the difficulty is to convince every priest family to use the one software. They have their own reservations to accept the modern way of registering,” he said. His cousin Pratik Shukla is an MBA and works for an MNC. Still, he donated three hours of his morning schedule to the traditional work of his family daily.

How the Namavali system originated

There is no specific reason or timeframe available in the history about the exact period when this unique record system of the family history must have started in Nashik. However, historian Dr Dinesh Vaidya, who has preserved and digitized more than 1 lakh manuscripts, has authentic information about the origin of this tradition.

“The tradition of keeping records of family history started in 3rd century in India. Before the invention of a writing paper, Bhoorjapatra - a leaf of a tree named Bhoorja was used for writing. Later, the paper made out of bamboo was used. This paper lasts for years. With invention of handmade paper and ink, the tradition of keeping archives started in 9th century. We could find the records of family trees up to ninth century with priests in Nashik and Trimabkeshwar,” he said.

Families in Old Nashik area like the Gaidhanis, and the Dixits have records going back up to 14th century in readable format. The old records are in Modi script, while the recent books are in Devnagari. The records are bound in leather covers.

What the Namavali contains

The priests of Nashik and Trimbakeshwar were experts in performing various rites and rituals. They used to be called as ‘Kshetropadhyay’. The priests performing the rites used to ask the pilgrims about their family tree, the names of their relatives, and their forefathers, their next generation, their address, occupation, the deity they worshipped etc. and used to keep record of this information. The pilgrims used to sign this record. The record book where this information was stored was called as ‘Namavali’

Namavali includes names of men in the family. Daughters’ names are also written. However, the married daughters’ family names are not included in this record. Names of the new born babies and the daughter-in-laws in the family are recorded. Change of address, immigration to different place, change of occupation etc. are also recorded.

  Even Courts considered it authentic

Maintaining Namavali used to be the life time occupation of Brahmins and it used to earn them bread and butter. This record was so valuable that money lenders used to accept them as pledge and lend money against them.

“Even in modern age, there are instances when the courts have accepted the records in Namavalis as authentic,” said Shukla who shared two instances in 1990s when the conflict of adopted heir and property were solved through the Namavali records.

“We pass the records used on to the next generation as a valuable property, with a specific mention in the will. If the priest’s family had no offspring to pass on the record to, the records go to the nearest family of priests with a responsibility to look after the family of the donor priest,” Gupta added.

Interesting facts about Namavalis

• · Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s handwriting is preserved in the records held by his family’s Teerthopadhyay Dherge Guruji in Trimbakeshwar. This record is presently in the custody of the Archeology Department of Government of Maharashtra.
• · Handwriting of Sant Tukaram Maharaj’s son are available with the Gupta family in Nashik
• · Dixit family known as nepali Lal Mohaniya Panda have the handwriting and signatures and detailed history of the members of Royal Family of Nepal. They are still in touch with Nepal’s Royal family.
• · Handwritings of the eminent personalities like Shrimant Bajirao Peshwe, Mahatma Gandhi, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Lokmanya Tilak, Aacharya Vinoba Bhave, Vasudev Balwant Phadke, famous industrialist Birla, Jagatguru Shankaracharya are also preserved in Namavalis with different priests in Nashik.
• · During British Raj, these records were considered as legal proof in disputes of family relations, heirs and property. Even today these records are held as admissible proof in such disputes.