Manuscripts ~ Messages Timeline Extraction

A correspondent has shared his research into Osho's Manuscripts. Some of Osho's early writings have turned out to be fact-based accounts of his travels, speeches, and the events of the time. We will be presenting these researches in several batches, corresponding to the particular groups of manuscripts where the info was found. There are a few things to be noted with these collections.

First, usually there are no years connected to the dates given. Thus, events and their dates and places will have to be considered with their context and inferences may have to be relied on rather than 100% clear unambiguous facts to arrive at conclusions.

Second, each sheet in a group of manuscripts may be only loosely related to other sheets in the group. Thus, nailing down the year in one sheet may not determine it for the next. Care must be taken in marrying any of the sheets to others without some clear thread connecting them.

Third, all notes are annotated, ie which sheet of the manuscripts they derive from is clearly indicated, so one can also study them for oneself.

This first batch derives from the group at Manuscripts ~ Messages. Others will be added and linked to. Analysis below.

Dates	Event Description and Notes	Wiki Notes, Comments
Sheet No. 1 -- Tour Program (Manuscript : Messages – contains record from 30th Sept to 14th October, It may be this period then it is 1969 if beyond this time or before this time as notebook form was maintained in some period)
30 Sep	(Probably morning) Jeevan Jagrati Kendra, Public Meeting, Jabalpur, Topic: Human. Ethics and future. (Probably at night) Shahid Smarak Bhawan (Jabalpur)
1 Oct Night	Thought exchange at house of Dr Bijlani (Jabalpur)
2 Oct	Lecture at Hall of Dr D L Jain College, (Jabalpur)
4-5 Oct	Dhuliya (Dhulia / Dhule MH)	More on these events in Sheet No. 9R below
7 Oct	Veterinary College (Jabalpur)
9 Oct	Jabalpur -- Huge gathering at Jeevan Jagrati Kendra
10 Oct	Shaheed Smarak Bhawan (Jabalpur)
14 Oct	Thought exchange with workers at Jeevan Jagrati Kendra (Jabalpur)
Sheet No. 9R -- 4 & 5 Oct, Dhulia MH
4 Oct am	Dhulia Public Lecture at Dhulia Government College for teachers and students, total three lectures delivered at Dhulia in 2 days as per press note on 9R. So probably Page 2 and 3 belong to Part of lecture delivered at Lecture Hall of Dr D L Jain College at Jabalpur on 2nd, October	Pages 2 & 3 not otherwise noted, as they contain lecture notes, not Event data
Sheet No. 10 -- Describes Osho’s thought/(response as press note) after news published in newspapers about cancellation of large land (About 6 Acres, ~2.4 Hectares) Gujarat Government decided to donate to Acharya Rajneesh and due to his remarks on Gandhi, government has decided to cancel the said allotment. This press note is about Osho’s statement on cancellation of land allotment, so its date may be known from records and thereafter no any camp at Nargol. (Last camp must be before this time) Since last camp is in Oct, 68 as per Doc_X_(source_document)		This last Nargol camp was Oct 30 - Nov 3 1968. See also Prabhu Ki Pagdandiyan's Talk page re his remarks on Gandhi.
Sheet No. 11 -- Release note for publication of new book, Naye Beej, New Seeds. So year may be 1967+ so 1968-69) if date of Manuscript is correct, otherwise this will also change.		"Naye Beej" not published as such, see below for more.

Analysis

The events in Dhulia connect Sheets 1 and 9R fairly well, so the whole sequence from Sep 30 to Oct 14 looks like a solid package. But what year? And the name ... In Devanagari, Osho is writing it as धुलिया, which "should" transliterate as Dhuliya. Our correspondent's rendering it as Dhulia is not unusual, but searching for it only turns up Dhule, which is probably right. Perhaps a difference between Hindi and Marathi versions.

There are two events / items mentioned in this collection which point semi-precisely to certain years in the late 60s, so it is tempting to link the pile of dates from Sheet 1 and place them there, but there are problems ...

Osho's statement (Sheet 10) concerning the cancellation of the offer of land for an ashram in Gujarat can be solidly placed as Nov 1968 or not much later, but early October already is prohibitively full in the 1968 and 1969 Timelines. This nice-looking series of dates will have to find a home in 1967 or earlier.

The Naye Beej "release note" (Sheet 11) has some possibilities, but it is complicated and in the end inferential and hypothetical. First off, as it was never actually published as such, there is already no firm date. There is a manuscript collection, Manuscripts ~ Naye Beej (नए बीज), but these pages are not forerunners of a Naye Beej book, but bits and pieces of two other books, Path Ke Pradeep (पथ के प्रदीप) and Naye Sanket (नये संकेत), published respectively in 1966 and Oct 1967. There is some small resonance with Oct 1967, but as it is fragmentary and not Naye Beej per se, it will be difficult to rely solidly on any of this.

There is also a possibility that the Naye Beej "release note" refers to a new edition (Apr 1968) of Kranti Beej (क्रांति बीज), as Krantibeej. In this scenario, it would be like a lower-case "n" for Naye, simply meaning "new". Devanagari does not have upper- and lower-case distinctions. This possibility has the merit of being in a specific time frame that is at least in the ballpark of what we are trying to cobble together. But as we can see, it is still highly speculative.

All these possibilities considered, Oct 1967 looks like the best and most likely, but it is hardly ironclad, just the choice if you have to choose something.