Mayong was known to many as a place of witchcraft and black magic, but it has also been a melting pot of civilisations, both tantric and Vaishnavite. A group of experts, led by Prof Shiela Bora, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), has carried out research on the ancient civilisation in this region which has been isolated for centuries. The project involved the documentation of monuments, archaeological sites and temples as well as the restoration, digitisation and cataloguing of manuscripts written on tree bark. The building of the Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre, in which the results of the research were to be displayed, turned out to be in an inadequate state due to frequent flooding of the nearby river so that a new building had to be constructed.
Concurrent to the materials conservation project, the Gerda Henkel Foundation supports an initiative to document and preserve Mayong’s mythical power and integration with magic as a way of life. This is the first ever attempt to comprehensively record the socio-cultural narrative of this centre of magic. Both projects have been supported by the Foundation in its Funding Initiative Patrimonies.
In a video documentary, the project participants present their work and the results: