Friday, November 30, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
ऐरावत-प्रमुख-दिग्गजगण्डसान्द्र-
सिन्दुरसुन्दररसातिमनोहरश्रि।
स्वर्गापगाकनककोकनदाभिरूपं
भूयः पदद्वयमहः प्रणमामि विष्णोः॥
–
महामहोपाध्याय-श्रीमन्मनुदेवभट्टाचार्यप्रणीत-वैष्णववैभवमहाकाव्यत
उद्धृतम्
I adore again and again those
feet of Vişņu (or
the ever-expanding One), (bearing) the radiance of the exuberant aesthetic
pleasure exuded from the cheeks of the heavenly elephants like Airāvata, etc, saturated with the
colour of vermillion; (and) pleasing like the golden lotuses, fallen from
heaven. (My
translation of the above verse)
Thursday, October 4, 2012
शिखरिणीछन्दसा मद्रचितोऽयं श्लोकः
नवेन्दुस्निग्धभाधृतनवनलिन्यै
त्विह तस्यै
नितरां प्रीत्या
प्रेमविगलितमत्या च लिखितः।
समर्प्यते वै ग्रन्थ एष
लसितार्णवत इतः
चिरात्प्रेमोडुपेन
विहरणमोदाय हि तस्याः॥
(शिखरिणी)
शार्दूलविक्रीडितच्छन्दसा मद्रचिता श्रीनिगमानन्दस्तुतिः
लीलालब्धललामलाभलसितालीलायितालम्बनं
नानासाधनतोऽर्जितारुणगताशेषप्रभाधारकम् ।
चिरं चर्चितशिष्यमङ्गलविधानक्षमपादाब्जकं
वन्दे देशिकलोकवन्द्यनिगमानन्दं महायोगिनम् ॥
(शार्दूलविक्रीडितच्छन्दः)
Thursday, September 20, 2012
हिन्द्वादिशब्दार्थपुनर्विचारः
पक्ष-चन्द्र-शून्य-पादमिते खृष्टवर्षे सेप्टेम्बरमासगते द्वादशदिनाङ्के
कलिकातस्थैशियाटिकसोसाइटीत्याख्यसंस्थानेनायोजिते तत्रस्थविद्यासागरसभागृहे
स्वामिप्रणवानन्दस्मृतिवक्तृताप्रदानावसरे काशीतः समागतानां महामहोपाध्यायानां शास्त्रभूषणशास्त्रार्थमहारथाद्युपाधिविभूषितानां
पण्डितमार्तण्डश्रीमनुदेवभट्टाचार्यमहाभागानां सुरगिरा प्रदत्तं भाषणं श्रुत्वा महाहर्षो
मे अजायत । तत्र भाषणावसरे खलु आलोचिताः केचित् कौतुहलोद्दीपकविषयाः समासतोऽत्र
विदुषां लोचनालोकप्राप्तये अधः प्रदत्ताः –
प्रथमतो, बहुव्यवहृतौ मानवभारतीयशब्दौ न गोष्ठीनिरपेक्षं
धर्मनिरपेक्षं वा अर्थं प्रकाशयतः। अपि तु, एतौ गोष्ठीसापेक्षार्थप्रकाशकावेव स्तः ।
द्वितीयतो, भारतीय इत्युक्ते पुरा प्रसिद्धभरतनामकनृपतिशासितप्रजस्त्तच्छासितराष्ट्रञ्चैव
संबुध्यन्ते ।
तृतीयतो, मानव इत्युक्ते मनोरपत्यं मनूक्तनियमाद्यनुवर्ती चैव
संलक्ष्यते । अत्र तुलनामूलकभाषाविदां मानवशब्द
इन्दौरोपीयभाषागोष्ठीगताङ्ग्लभाषागतस्य Man इति शब्दस्य पर्यायशब्द इत्येवं मतं
न तु प्रमाणप्रमितमिति तैर्विद्वत्प्रवरैर्ध्वनितम् ।
चतुर्थतो, यतो भरतो वर्णाश्रमवादी भगवन्मनुर्वर्णाश्रमवादप्रवक्ता च, ततो भारतीयमानवशब्दौ न कदापि
विश्वतोमुखार्थप्रकाशकौ भवितुमर्हतः । अपि तु, आभ्यां सर्वदा
सर्वथैव सङ्कीर्णार्थः प्रकाश्यते ।
पञ्चमतो, हिन्दु इति शब्देन केवलं कश्चिद्भौगोलिकावधिः
सूच्यते । विषयेऽस्मिन् ऋग्वेदीयबार्हस्पत्यसंहितागतो “हिमालयं
समारभ्य यावदिन्दुसरोवरं तं देवनिर्मितं देशं हिन्दुस्थानं प्रचक्षते” इत्येव श्लोकः प्रमाणतया
महामहोपाध्यायश्रीमनुदेवभट्टाचार्यमहाशयैरुद्धृतः । अत्र श्लोकस्थस्य
हिमालयशब्दस्य हीत्यक्षरमिन्दुशब्दगतन्द्वित्यक्षरेण सह मिलित्वैव हिन्दुशब्दं
निष्पादयतीति तैरभ्युपगमितम् । यथा शतक्रतुशब्दगताभ्यां शक्रेत्यक्षराभ्यां शक्र
इति वैदिकदेवताया इन्द्रस्य नाम सम्पाद्यते, तथैवात्र । एतेन
लाघवात् तुलनामूलकभाषातत्त्वविदामारबदेशनिवासिनां सिन्धुशब्दस्य भ्रमितोच्चारणाद्धिन्दुशब्दस्योत्पत्तिरित्येवं
मतं गौरवेण परिहारयोग्यम् ।
अन्ततो, महामहोपाध्यायपण्डितमार्तण्डश्रीमनुदेवभट्टाचार्यैः सम्प्रदाय
इति शब्दस्य नवीनमेकं व्याख्यानं प्रदत्तम् । सम्यक् प्रकर्षश्च यो दायः स
सम्प्रदाय इति व्युत्पत्त्या सम्प्रदायशब्दस्यार्थोऽविनाशी वितरणाद्वृद्धियोग्यं
श्रेष्ठधनस्वरूपं विद्याधनमेवेति । प्रसङ्गेऽस्मिन् भट्टाचार्यपादैः “अपूर्वः कोऽपि कोशोऽयं विद्यते तव भारती व्ययतो
वृद्धिमायाति क्षयमायाति सञ्चयात्” इति “व्यये कृते वर्धत एव नित्यं विद्याधनं सर्वधनप्रधानम्” इति च वचनद्वयमुद्धृतम् । जीमूतवाहनकृते दायभागाख्ये स्मार्तग्रन्थे यो
दायशब्दो वर्तते, तस्यार्थः पितृसम्पत्तिरिति । एषा
सम्पत्तिर्दानेन विभाजनेन वा क्षयं प्राप्नोति । किन्तु एतद्विपरीतस्थितः
सम्प्रदायो, यस्य वृद्धिर्व्ययत एव । एवं सम्प्रदायो नाम
सर्वधनप्रधानविद्याधनमस्ति यस्य स एव साम्प्रदायिको, न तु कोऽपि
सङ्कीर्णतादोषदुष्ट एकदेशदर्शीति दिक् ।
Reconsiderations of the term 'Hindu'
It was a pleasure to be a witness to the event of the
revered Mahāmahopādhyāya Paņditamārtaņda Manudeva Bhattacharya of Varanasi
delivering the Swami Pranavananada Memorial lectures in Sanskrit at the
invitation of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta on 12th September,
2012. The Vidyasagar Hall of the Asiatic
Society imbued with the gracious presence of monks from the Bharata Sevasrama
Sangha, and many other scholars of note.
Some of the most striking points that the learned doctor made in course
of his lectures are summarised as follows:
1 The Sanskrit words, ‘mānava’ and ‘bhāratīya’ are held
to be expressive of sectarian meanings, instead of their much-adored secular
outlook.
2 Bhāratīya, Manudeva Bhattacharya holds, means people
ruled by and owing allegiance to Bharata, a king of mythological fame and
antiquity. Thus bhāratah is
bharataśāsitarāşţram.
3 Similarly, the word, mānava, which is generally taken
to be a very close Sanskrit parallel of the English word, ‘man’, is shown by
the learned doctor, who resorts to Sanskrit grammatical exegesis in this
regard, to mean the descendants and followers of Manu, the celebrated author of
the Manu Samhitā.
4 While Bharata was a staunch adherent and upholder of
the varņāśrama or caste system, it was Manu who actually promulgated the same. Thus, in no way, can Bhāratīya and Mānava, as
shown before, mean something else than sectarian.
5 Next comes the word ‘Hindu’. Here the learned professor quotes the
following verse from the Bārhaspatya Samhitā of the Ŗgveda:
Himālayam samārabhya yāvadindusarovaram .
Tam
devanirmitam deśam hindusthānam pracakşate ..
(Tr. The divine land stretching from the Himalayas to
Lake Indu is called Hindusthan.)
Evidently, Hindu has merely a geographical connotation
here. This is also what Manudev
Bhattacharya has to say. He also made an
interesting observation that the ‘hi’ of Himālaya and the ‘ndu’ of Indu (the
lake of that name mentioned in the above Sanskrit verse) together make the
word, ‘Hindu’. This is an extremely
strong antithesis directed against the comparative philologists, who opine that
it is a mispronunciation of the word ‘Sindhu’ by the Arabs that led to the
origin of the word, ‘Hindu’. There are
also backup materials in support of the present contention of Manudev
Bhattacharya. For example, from the word śata-kratu (lit. one who has performed
a hundred sacrifices), an epithet applied to the Vedic deity, Indra, the
initials, ‘śa’ of śata and ‘kra’ of kratu, unite to form the word ‘śakra’, an
acronym by which Indra is widely known. So Hindusthan should be understood as
follows: Hindūnām Himālayat samārabhya Indusarovaraparyantam yo deśo vartate tadadhivāsinām
sthānam hindusthānam iti. Such an
interpretation discounts the parsimony connected with the philological view of
the origin of the word, Hindu, stated above.
So Hindu is only the name of a place, and it has nothing to do with race
or religion. In the same vein
Mahāmahopādhyāya Manudeva Bhattacharya suggests that so far as secularism is
concerned, the use of the word ‘Hindu’ is preferable to that of ‘bhāratīya’ and
‘mānava’.
6 Last but not the least, Prof. Bhattacharya suggested
that the commonly used word for communal, ‘sāmpradāyika’, actually means ‘wise’. Etymologically the word sampradāya can be
analysed as follows: sam + pra + dāya.
In this connection, he made a reference to the famous Sanskrit law-text,
Dāyabhāga of Jīmūtavāhana, which is still used by the Indian judiciary in the
matter of succession disputes. Dāya, he says, means paternal property and
dāyada successor. In Sanskrit, upasargas
or prefixes play a very role in the determination of the meaning of a
word. For example, the word ‘gacchati’
means ‘he goes’, but when this same word ‘gacchati’ follows the prefix ‘ā’ and
becomes ‘āgacchati’, it conveys a diametrically opposite meaning in the form of
‘He comes’. So sampradāya means “samyak ca prakarşaśca yo dāyah sa
sampradāyah”, i.e. highest wealth of knowledge, eternal and divine in nature, which
develops day by day, but never wanes, and contributes to the purification of the
soul.
Postscript:
Generally speaking, dāya, as mentioned in the law-texts, means such paternal property as reduces on division and share. In contradistinction to this, sampradāya is that kind of property which multiplies on division, and it can only be knowledge, which can multiply on getting shared with others, and herein constitutes its eternality and divinity. In this respect, Mahāmahopādhyāya Paņditamārtaņda Manudeva Bhattacharya also quoted a Sanskrit adage which runs as follows: "apūrvah ko’pi kośo’yam vidyate tava bhāratī / vyāyato vŗddhimāyāti kşayamāyāti sañcayāt//" (Tr. Incredible is your wealth, O Goddess of learning, which increases on getting spent and decreases on being reserved). He adds, “vyāye kŗte vardhata eva nityam vidyādhanam sarvadhanapradhānam” (Tr. If the wealth of knowledge, the best among treasures, is spent [i.e., distributed and shared] it certainly increases all the time.) Thus “Dāya and Sampradāya are completely opposite in meaning.” Dāya, being qualified by the prefixes, sam and pra, means the wealth of knowledge stated above. It is the aforesaid prefixes which bring in the semantic mutation of the root word, dāya. And one who has such knowledge (i.e., one who shares and divides his knowledge with others and contributes to the multiplication of it) is verily a sāmpradāyika.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
A Note on the Use of Language in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Novels
 |
| Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) |
Any good novel is always full of a pace which contributes to the liveliness of both the character and the story itself. Bankim Chandra’s greatest tool in achieving this pace was his language. Generally speaking, his novels are written in the standard or literary Bengali, known as the sadhubhasa. And this sadhubhasa is characterised by the unmistakable presence of the words of Sanskrit origin, lengthy compound-words in the Sanskrit fashion, lengthy syntax, etc. True, Bankim’s language shows these symptoms of a ‘standard’ Bengali indubitably, but this is not the end. He uses words of Arabic and Persian origin to a great extent (if not equally). Often he does not even hesitate to use words, phrases and expressions which are altogether colloquial. All these have a motley effect on the reader’s mind. Normally when we read a piece written in Sanskritised Bengali we hardly expect to become one with the theme or the characters. This is because of the deep chasm lying between the language of reality – the language we speak and the language of fiction – the language we write. In his novels, often the beauty of nature or a nostalgic and romantic episode or description is expressed by Bankim in this grandiose sadhubhasa. But when the author wants his readers to take a trip to the world of conflicts that sway the characters or the story itself both within and without his sentences become often shorter in length, more direct, closer to the colloquial pattern. However, even in such sentences the verb-form is always retained in the sadhu, which lends a musical and poetic effect to these apparently banal constructions. Many of Bankim’s novels have quite a simple or thin storyline or plot, but its mirth is not marred because of the extremely powerful and balanced language in which it is embedded. Again in such works as Radharani, it is the movement of the language which alone contributes to the characters’ being on the move. The conflicting, unseemly character of the Babu class in Bishabriksha (The Poison Tree) is underlined by the mixed language, and such English expressions as ‘Hurrah! Three Cheers for Heera!’ The keynote of political tension in Anandamath is brought out by the contrasting use of ‘Hare Murare’ cry of the Santans and ‘Hurrah’ of the English soldiers and the blow of their cannons. The latter is expressed by the author with the help of the onomatopoeia – ‘gudum, gudum, gudum’. Bankim’s naming of the individual chapters of his novels is also noted for their linguistic originality and they are often derived from Sanskrit philosophical literature (as in Bishbriksha, Mrinalini, etc.) or everyday speech. Their often perfunctory appearance helps realise the immediacy of the theme better. So it is the dialectics of words-as-sound and such innovative linguistic ‘deviations’ in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novels which underlines, reinforces and sustains the dialectics of thought and ideas. And this ultimately endorses Bankim’s literary craftsmanship of the highest order.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
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