Page 197 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

194 ART AND CRAFTS

graphic design. As we can see, although areas of printing industry and digital media
are related to graphic design, it used to exist in Bangladesh just like any other
countries of the world from ancient times.
In this early phase, another splendid example of graphic design is puthi chitra
(manuscript painting), especially Pala manuscripts (fig. 4.1). It is believed to have
originated in the middle of eighth century BC, although the earliest example of a
manuscript is found from the latter half of tenth century BC. The paintings in the
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Pala manuscript are not directly related to the story, rather it is assumed that these
paintings have been included in order to show devotion and to receive the blessings
of divine powers. The subject matter of these Pala manuscripts is of course Buddhism
and especially the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita. The Pala manuscripts are
precious as the earliest examples of books, in their arrangement of letters, graphic
quality and covers.
British Colonial Era: Origin and Evolution of Print Industry
It is believed in general that in Bangladesh graphic design started in the hands of the
East India Company in the latter half of the 18th century. This statement is accepted
from the point of view of the print industry.
The credit for discovering paper and the art of the printing industry goes to the
Chinese. The first printed book in the history of humankind, Diamond Sutra, a
Chinese translation of a Buddhist religious text, was published in 868 AD. The
name of the printer is Wang Chieh. The size of the book is amazing – 16 ft. long
and 1 ft. wide. Similar to the elongated pata painting of our country, this book
consisted of six pages, 2 ft. long and 1 ft. wide each. The first page features a
wonderful woodcut print. 2
The modern printing press was born much later, around 15th century in Germany,
much to the credit of Johannes Gutenberg. After the publication of Gutenberg’s Bible,
the use of the printing press spread rapidly throughout Europe. The printing press
arrived in India through the Portuguese in Goa in 1556, about one hundred years after
the publication of the Bible of Gutenberg. It is surprisingly true that it took about
222(?) years for the printing press to arrive in Bangladesh from Goa. There is
controversy about the first printing press of undivided Bengal. According to many, the
press in Hooghly which published Nathaniel Brassey Halhed’s A Grammar of the
Bengal Language (1778) is the first printing press in undivided Bengal. The name and
founding year of this press is unknown except that it was popularly known as Mr.
Andrew’s press. 3
However, many believe that the first printing press was established in 1777 by James
Augustus Hickey (1739?-1802) in Kolkata, not Hooghly. The supporters of this claim
mention a calendar, Calendar for the Year of Our Lord MDCCLXXVIII published in
1778 from Kolkata. According to them, since the calendar is for the year 1778 it must
have been printed before that year. In that case, Hickey’s Press is the first printing
press in Bengal. In the former East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), the printing
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