Priests with ancient paper trail help trace family tree

Nashik: Surat resident Diptesh Bajoria's recent trip to Nashik threw open the family's ancentory for him within minutes. After paying homage to his ancestors at the Ramkund in Nashik, he was amazed to know that his great great grandfather had performed the same ritual at the same spot 120 year ago.
Bajoria's family records show the details of his grandfather, who had visited Nashik 45 years ago, and his father's visit 20 years ago.Interestingly, his father had informed the priest of Bajoria's birth during his visit and it was duly recorded in the geneoalogy register.
The century-old records of the family history, including the noting made by his grandfather and father, have been meticulously maintained by Pt Suresh Shukla. The priest has inherited the treasure of the genealogy registers of visitors, known as 'Namavali' or 'Chopdi' in local terms, preserved for more than 300 years. The priests do not charge the visitors for the records.
"Our house is full of genealogy registers. You can find names of ancestors of many well-known families from Marwad, Kathiyawad and other parts of north Gujarat and Rajasthan with us," said Shukla.
The geneoalogy books preserved for generations possess records of thousands of families from Marwad and Rajasthan as his family was traditionally assigned to keep records of people from this region.
"Visitors have to just give is the name of their native village, surname and we can bring out all the family history records archived with the priests. One of the ancestors must have registered the information with the priest in the past," he said.
Nashik has hundreds of families of Brahmin priests assigned to keep genealogy registers of families from Sindh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat. "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 registers and you will find unlimited names in them," he said.
The records were originally kept in specially-manufactured handmade paper books. "This paper is called Junnari as it is manufactured in Junnar near Pune. It remains intact for years together," Shukla added.
His ancestors would use 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 difficult. Instead, the gel pens are very handy. The ink stays for long enough," he said.
Origins of the Namavali system
Historian Dr Dinesh Vaidya, who has preserved and digitized more than 1 lakh manuscripts, said that the tradition of keeping records of family history started in 3rd Century. 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 the invention of handmade paper and ink, the tradition of keeping archives started in 9th Century. We can find the records of family trees up to 9th Century with priests in Nashik and Trimbakeshwar," 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.
Even courts considered practice authentic
In the past, maintaining the namavali used to be the life-time occupation of Brahmins. It would earn them their bread and butter. Historians said that the 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 dispute over inherited property between heirs was solved through the namavali records.
"We pass the records to the next generation as a valuable property if there is a specific mention in the will. If the priest's family had no offspring to carry forward the legacy, the records would be handed over to the nearest family of priests with a responsibility to look after the family of the donor priest," Gupta added.
GenNext goes digital
Vaibhav Shingne and Upendra Parashar from Trimbakeshwar are two young generation priests, who are using innovative computer technologies to preserve the genealogy registers. They have digitised their records in their laptops and take regular back-up.
Mahendra Parashar, an engineer from the Parashar family, is developing a software to store the information available with them. "The software is in its initial stage and we need to do more work. Since we are busy with our jobs, we have little time to update the software," he said.
A software engineer from the Shukla family living in the Silicon Valley, Yogesh Shulka, aspires to develop a comprehensive software to serve the purpose. His cousin, Pratik Shukla, is an MBA degree holder and works for an MNC. He devotes three hours every morning to the traditional work of his family.
"The difficulty lies in convincing all the priests to use one software to keep the records. They have their own reservations to accept the modern way of registering," he said.
The individual efforts to preserve the records in the modern way would go a long way to save the tradition.