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The Varma Archive Chaudhary Multan Singh Varma Archive

Archive

The archive

Everything the collection holds is listed here — what has been transcribed and what is so far only a photograph. The statements on the other pages rest on the transcribed pages alone; the rest of the material is catalogued, not quoted.

Holdings

2
catalogued sources
21
booklet page photographs — 3 identified, 18 outstanding
4
monument photographs — transcribed
1
source independent of the booklet
01

Catalogued sources

Shri Multan Singh Varma ji ki Sankshipt Jeevani

MSV-ARCH-PUB-001
Author
Om Prakash Gandhi — a colleague within the institution and a contemporary
Composition
By its preface, written from Varma’s own telling and from facts gathered second-hand — partly direct testimony, partly compiled hearsay, mixed in one text and not distinguished
Classification
Later publication (tier 3), written within the subject’s lifetime and from inside the institution. Because its basis is the subject’s own account, it carries some tier 2 value as well.
Transcribed
Pages 2, 3 and 4–31
Outstanding
Page 1 — title page and imprint
Known fault
The subtotals in the page 18 donation table do not reconcile; the figures are recorded as printed. Table

Full record, including the author’s own statement that he did not consider the text free of factual inconsistency, on the References page.

Statue and inscriptions, Gochar Mahavidyalaya

MSV-ARCH-MON-001
Location
Gochar Mahavidyalaya, Rampur Maniharan — a white statue on a plinth facing the building, carrying three marble plaques
Unveiled
2 April 1984, by Swami Kalyan Dev, chaired by Chaudhary Narayan Singh, former Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
Classification
Institutional monument record (tier 1) — wholly independent of the booklet and carved by the institution after his death. The deciding source for the dates of birth and death: in any conflict the inscribed text is taken as final.
Transcribed
All three plaques, from close photographs taken 5 September 2026
Spelling
The inscription carves the name “Multan” with a different Devanagari spelling from the booklet’s. Both forms recorded; this archive follows the booklet.

The verbatim text of all three plaques is on the References page. The middle plaque repeats 13 June 1943 and 1 November 1943 independently of the booklet — the only place in this archive where two sources meet on a date.

02

Facsimiles

The collection currently holds 21 photographs of booklet pages and four of the statue — 25 items, of which seven have been identified. Page numbers are not legible on all of the booklet photographs, so a complete ordered list cannot yet be given.

Booklet page 18 — the donation table

MSV-ARCH-IMG-018

Page 18 — the managing committee meeting of 10 August 1943 and resolution no. 9; the chaupal meeting of 12 September 1943; the donation table for mauza Rampur and mauza Kishan Kheri; the registry of 21 September 1943; and the account of the first subscription deputation.

This page resolved the previously illegible row and allowed the table to be completed.

Booklet page 2 — the preface

MSV-ARCH-IMG-002

Page 2 — the preface. The author’s full name, Om Prakash Gandhi; place Rampur Maniharan (Saharanpur), Uttar Pradesh; dated 15 May 1982. It carries both the booklet’s method of composition and the author’s own statement of its limits.

This page also establishes that in 1982 the institution was named Gochar Krishi Inter College, and that Varma is described as its former founder-principal.

Booklet page 3 — the invocation

MSV-ARCH-IMG-003

Page 3 — the invocation. A Yajurveda shanti-path with its Hindi gloss, closing with the author’s line that he begins the writing of this life-account with an invocation.

The page carries no biographical fact. Its archival value is that it establishes the booklet’s Arya Samaj vocabulary and its stated purpose — a life-account written in devotion, not an investigation.

The statue — MON-001

The statue in the college grounds
MON-001 · full view
The statue, with the college building behind and the three plaques on the plinth
Lower plaque — dates of birth and death
MON-001-C
Lower plaque — born 12 August 1900, died 16 January 1983
Middle and upper plaques
MON-001-B
Middle plaque — both 1943 dates, and the phrase “to degree level”
Upper plaque — the unveiling
MON-001-A
Upper plaque — the unveiling, 2 April 1984

The remaining 18 photographs are not yet indexed — page numbers and contents still to be recorded. A clear photograph of page 1 is sought, to complete the title page and imprint.

03

Cataloguing method

  1. Every physical item is given an identifier — PUB for publications, IMG for photographs, GOV for government records, MON for monuments and inscriptions, ORL for oral testimony.
  2. A source is classified by its distance from the event: contemporary document, eyewitness account, later publication, or memory. That classification is shown with every citation.
  3. Text is transcribed as it stands. Dates, figures and names are not corrected; any inconsistency is recorded separately as a note.
  4. Illegible text is not guessed at. The row on page 18 stood marked “illegible” for months, and was filled in only when a clear photograph arrived.
  5. Where two sources conflict, both are kept — the older is not removed, and the point of conflict is stated.
  6. On the dates of birth and death the institution’s inscription (MON-001) is treated as deciding; if a publication or a memory conflicts with it, the inscribed date stands and the conflict is recorded as a note.

Sources

The complete record of both catalogued sources, the list of discrepancies and the eight classes of source still being sought are on the References page. How to send material is set out on the About page, or write directly to vinayverma5@gmail.com.