CM to inaugurate renovated Manjusha Museum today

Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari D Veerendra Heggade said that Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy will inaugurate the renovated Manjusha Museum in Dharmasthala on Wednesday.

Heggade’s private collection of five decades of thousands of priceless artefacts will be shifted to the new location in Dharmasthala. The estimated cost of the project was Rs 3.5 crore – including the building, which was worth Rs 2 crore.

“The new Manjusha Museum will be open for public from November 15. The entrance fee will be Rs 10, while it will be free for children below 12 years of age,” Heggade informed.

“The Manjusha collection not only gladdens the hearts of the visitors, but also educates them to a great extent. The sight of objects like domestic vessels, items used in rituals, toys, and games, and even manuscripts which are very familiar to them arouses curiosity among visitors. They get motivated and make up them minds to donate antique objects in their possession to Manjusha Museum for posterity,” he explained.

The museum is a brain child of Heggade, who started collecting artefacts of different kinds from all over the world and showcased them at a museum in Dharmasthala. The number of such artefacts has swelled to a record 8,000 pieces. The newly constructed complex spreads over an area of 1.04 lakh sq ft and has state-of-the-art facilities needed to preserve the delicate artefacts.

The museum has a gallery with pre-historic stone objects from Germany and sea shells collected from Africa.

There are galleries on puja items, metal idols of Shaiva, Jain and Vaishnava sects, stone sculptures meticulously placed on the lines of chronology. In addition, the museum has a decorative shankha with a lion handle which is widely used in temples, miniature palanquin, palm manuscripts of Kumaravyasa, paper manuscripts and lithoprint newspapers.

In addition, a separate gallery highlights musical instruments, both Western and Indian. The evolution of gramophones has been highlighted with different kinds of gramophones in the museum. Varieties of radios and evolution of projectors too have been highlighted in the museum in a separate gallery. A chariot belonging to the 18th century from Srirangapatna is another highlight at the museum.

Heggade said SKDRDP will launch a group insurance for self-help groups in association with the LIC of India. Union Defence Minister Nirmala Seetharaman will launch the insurance at Dharmasthala on October 29.

Elaborating on the scheme, Heggade said that SHG finance had become a very important alternative channel for poor people to avail credit. But the members are vulnerable to tragedies including death, which results in defaulting on repayment of loan borrowed by the members.

“In order to protect the members against death and debt, SKDRDP has introduced a comprehensive loan cum insurance policy for the entire SHG community in Karnataka. During a tragedy, the member’s loan will be paid by the insurance company and the balance amount of sum assured to the nominee,” said Heggade.

“For the current year, the SKDRDP has entered into an agreement with LIC of India to cover lives of all the 4.2 million members of the SHGs in Karnataka, besides covering their spouses leading to an insured number of 7.2 million lives,” Heggade said