Chapter 3. William Carey and his Literary Creations

Transcription

1 Mallick 109 Chapter 3 William Carey and his Literary Creations India is indebted to William Carey for his contribution in several spheres such as science, education, literary, social reforms, and to the development of the culture and religion. The Bengalis respect and admiration towards him and his contribution for the development of the Bengali language is well expressed through the Sanskrit couplet Hare Colvin Palmarascha Carey Marshmanastatha / Pancha gorah smarennityam mahapatakanashanam ( William Carey and Bengali Grammar 1). Though the Indian writers in the nineteenth-century discovered the potentiality and the possibilities of prose as an effective instrument of communication literary and non-literary, the initial impulse was ushered in by the foreigners, Christian missionaries and the officials of the East India Company (A History of Indian Literature 70). The motivations were totally unitarian as the primary motive of the Christian missionaries was to spread the Word and the principles of Christianity; the interest of the East India Company was to ensure efficiency in administration proceedings. The measures for development initiated by William Carey for the temporal and spiritual well-being of the people of India were initially under the evangelical commitment and belief; he followed his endeavours with his sense of obligation to God. Roger E. Hedlund stated that not the ideals of the so called Enlightenment, but his faith in Jesus Christ motivated [him] to expect and attempt great things through every possible means for the liberation and redemption of the peoples of the world beginning in Bengal. No mere theorist, Carey tested his beliefs in the arena of practical involvement ( William Carey s Universal 96). It can never be denied that William Carey came to India as an evangelist of the Christian Gospel and incidentally became a propagandist of the Indian languages by proving that the true genius of the language can only be realized by keeping closer to the speech of the people (The Bible in India 22). Dinesh Chandra Sen is of the opinion that Carey was impelled by no other motive than a great love for all human beings irrespective of creed and colour leading him to exert his utmost power in the cause of Vernacular literature (Bengali Prose Style 67). Through An Enquiry Carey established the necessity to spread the Word among the human beings outside the purview of the Christian nations. His persistent efforts to see the scriptures,

2 Mallick 110 religious tracts and other prose works composed in the Indian vernacular languages and printed in their own characters for the ultimate purpose of evangelism form a significant landmark in the history of Indian printing and literature (Ross 40). During his stay at Moulton he had already prepared a map of the world marking upon it the non-christian nations and wanted to convert his compassion for their degenerated life-style in to action by undertaking benevolent measures of improvement (Bangla Gadya Sahityer 80). At Moulton while he was learning Dutch, Italian and the French languages, he had translated a book from the Dutch language to the English language, making the translation, though unpublished, his first creative composition (Ibid.). George Smith stated, in it [translations] Carey came as near to the New Testament ideal of all Christians acting in an aggressive missionary Church as was possible (The Life of William 13). Besides their humanitarian activities and the mission to spread the Word among the masses, Carey and his associates felt the need for the development and improvement of all the popular Indian languages and took to the literary path for the spread of Christianity among the masses (Sen, History of Bengali Literature 179). Observing that the masses had a great liking for the devotional narratives and songs, Carey and his associates took up with an utmost interest the endeavour to translate the Bible and spread the Word in the local languages of the masses which eventually made it necessary for them to learn these languages. They also expressed their desire to spread in education, commerce, administration and cultural activities. This was perhaps the first singular attempt taken on the Indian soil by a non-native, who was initially an instrument of Christian propaganda ( William Carey and Bengali Grammar 1), but with the passage of time became acculturated and endeavoured all the necessary measures for promoting the cause of the vernacular and culture of India. It was a time when the missionary publishing led to little perceptible development of the indigenous literature, as religious and denominational publishing had very little impact upon the general public, many Bengali people lacked education and the social organisation necessary to realise the potential benefit of printing in their language and literature and the presence of an atmosphere of futility and negation seemed to affect the Bengali literary climate ( The Early History of Bengali Printing 53). Numerous Indian languages and scripts previously neglected by the Honourable Company s Press and other presses attained printed form for the first time at the hands of the Missionaries, especially during the years the Serampore Mission Press unwittingly determined the standard of typography for many Indian scripts which left an indelible impression in the history of human civilization and blossomed the cause of the

3 Mallick 111 Renaissance in nineteenth-century Bengal (Ross 40). J. C. Marshman is of the opinion that such an endeavour was fostered due to the strengthening of the bond between the Europeans and the educated Bengalis towards the end of eighteenth-century by virtue of Lord (Marquis) Wellesley s first administrative reform (Carey, William Carey 204) through the establishment of the College of Fort William on May 4, 1800 for educating young civilians of the East India Company in courses of two or three years (Carey, William Carey 205), whose standard of education were very poor and whose moral values were deplorably low (The Life and Times 1: 145). This was the first academic institution in India where both British and Indian scholars worked together initiating new direction towards the civil service and philological researches in various Indian languages (A History of Indian Literature 70) by pioneering experiments in the writing of the prose in Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and Marathi. Primarily the College of Fort William attempted to train youths in Indian languages, like Arabic, Persian and Hindoosthani [Hindi] for the office of Judge or Register of any Court of Justice, Bengali for the Office of Collector of Revenue or of Customs or Commercial Resident or Salt Agent in the provinces of Bengal or Orissa ( Bangla Gadyer Protham Yug 59), culture to ensure a relative development through liberal education (Early Bengali Prose 23) and meet the increasing demands of a fast developing civil administrative machinery (Kripalani 25) through lessons on oriental languages, oriental laws and ethics, government regulations, European studies and science. In his letter to Dr Sutcliff written on December 4, 1800 Carey mentioned of the College of Fort William for the first time (Memoir 432). Lord Wellesley, the patron of Learning and Science (Sungskrit Language Dedication), wanted the College of Fort William to be a University [Oxford of the East] and in order to attain the aim he initiated principles and measures for perfection as echoed in his resolution [bearing the date to be December 21, 1798] circulated by the Public Department on January 3, 1799 where it was stated from and after the 1 st January 1801, no servant will be deemed eligible to any of the offices hereinafter mentioned, unless he shall have passed an examination (the nature of which will be hereafter determined), in the laws and regulations and in the languages, a knowledge of which is hereby declared to be an indispensable qualification (Martin 340). Lord Wellesley s Minute 1 presented on August 18, 1800 before the authorities was perhaps a blue-print of his plan. The establishment of the printing press by the Baptist Mission at Serampore in the same year and the publication of William Carey s New Testament (Dharma

4 Mallick 112 Pustak) of the Bible in the Bengali language enabled Lord Wellesley to discover the linguistic genius in William Carey. Though Wellesley was not interested in the evangelical work undertaken by the Missionaries but as he tolerated their work privately (The Christian Missionaries 49) he instructed David Brown, the provost of the College of Fort William to invite Carey (British Orientalism 51) to become Bengalee Professor in the New College at Fort William (Missionary Journal April 8, ). Wellesley needed Serampore because of the linguistic ability of Carey and the printing ability of Ward while the latter needed money for the progress of their work (British Orientalism 74). Carey, an inspiring and tireless pioneer (Kripalani 27) was appointed on May 1, 1801 and he joined the college on May 4, 1801 (Das, William Carey 25) after a thorough discussion with his fellow Missionaries (Early Bengali Prose 23) and remained there as a faculty of Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi languages (William Carey and Serampore 10) till 1830, a long fruitful period of thirty years initiating a coordination between the College of Fort William and the Serampore Mission Press (Carey Yug 43). This appointment of Carey was viewed by his fellow Missionaries as an important means to funds their missionary enterprises (Ross 48) whose roots were based on the idea of spreading the true religion [ Word ] throughout the East for which Carey along with Marshman and Ward undertook the translation of the Bible into the Indian languages (Klopfenstein 12). The missionary zeal and versatility of the indefatigable (Kripalani 25) William Carey and the literary dynamism of the College of Fort William [foreign scholars and pundits and munshis] complemented and supplemented each other in ushering a linguistic, literary and a cultural Renaissance in nineteenth-century Bengal by exploiting the wealth of the Oriental [Indian] literature and facilitated the study of the popular dialects of India (Sungskrit Language Dedication). The appointment of Carey who came to be known to the posterity as the most illustrious (Sahibs and Munshis 14) faculty member at the College of Fort William created new possibilities and avenues for him to usher in the spirit of the awakening in the spheres of social, cultural, linguistic, scientific education and ensured an important contribution towards the development of the Bengali language and literature which he believed if properly cultivated, it would be deserving a place among those [languages] which are accounted the most elegant and expressive (A Grammar of Bengalee iv). Till the advent of Carey all the developments and writings on the Bengali language were concentrated only to the spoken dialect. As many scholars have argued that there were writers of the prose in Bengali before Carey arrived ( William Carey O Bangla Gadya 8) but through his literary endeavours he aimed to reassure in the life of the people of

5 Mallick 113 Bengal a new sense of dignity about their language especially the prose and culture and this could not be propitious for the main work of either the Christian mission or the Imperial College ( William Carey and Bengali Grammar 2). Though argued by scholars, but we cannot deny the role of the English [missionaries], towards the development of the prose in Bengali. They not only stimulated the intellectual awakening in the various sections of knowledge but also became one of the pioneers in promoting the development of the prose of the Bengali language by exhibiting it through their writings in Bengali on different subjects (Bengali Prose Style 9). However simultaneously the charge of impurity due to the presence of Persianised Bengali, Sanskritised Bengali and Anglicised Bengali from these European pioneers of printed prose in the Bengali language ( Purity and Print 198) can never be denied. Shri Ram Comul Sen acknowledged William Carey s great assistance (Kejariwal 181) and liberality towards the revival of the Bengalee language, its improvement, and in fact the establishing it as a language (A Dictionary in English and Bengalee Languages 14). Prior to Carey s arrival to Bengal there were only two Testaments of the Bible available in Tamil the work of Ziegenbalg, Schultze and Fabricius the New Testament and Psalter in Hindustani by Schultze 2 and the New Testament and Pentateuch in Sinhalese by Philipsz (Carey, William Carey 385). It was William Carey who through the use of local languages to translate the Bible lit God s lamps through India s length and breadth (Ibid.). He sowed the seeds of a linguistic renaissance by contributing towards the development of the vernaculars of India through the process of translating the Word in these vernaculars and facilitating its easy availability for the masses. Though he started learning Bengali on his way to India; after reaching Serampore, Carey began to master the language with the help of the local pundits and within a short span of time he and his associates at Serampore through their several linguistic activities of unparalleled audacity (The Bible In India 15), began to sow the seeds of a cultural renaissance, which in due time constructively contributed towards the development of the Indian vernaculars. Carey started to learn Bengali from Thomas while he was on board (Arangaden 176) and after reaching Calcutta, he met Ram Ram Basu whom he at once appointed as his munshi (William Carey and Serampore 9) for twenty rupees every month. In this association we discover the foreshadow of the future cultural and literary network connecting the Orientalists of the Asiatic Society, the Serampore Missionaries, the College of Fort William and the learned natives (Awakening 74). With the development of the missionary centre at Serampore, a colonial town under the Danes on the western bank of the Hughli (Europe and the Hugli 39) in 1800 under the Danish colony Carey and his friends

6 Mallick 114 (William Carey and Serampore 9) started printing of the translated work and in August 1800, with the joint effort of John Thomas, Ram Ram Basu and William Carey the Gospel of St. Mathew was printed, bound and distributed along with two tracts i.e. Harkara and Gyanodoy, which in verse form described the inferiority of Hinduism and eulogized Christianity, written in Bengali by Ram Ram Basu (Ibid. 187). The Gospel of St. Mathew is considered by some as the first instance when Bengali prose literature was published (Dewanji 28). Immediately Carey set to translate Samuel Pearce s A Letter to the Lascars in the Bengali Language and it was supposed to be the first booklet written by Carey (Das, William Carey 28). Besides, Carey had also written other booklets which are mentioned by John Murdoch in his list. As the name of the booklets in the Bengali language has not been discovered so we are referring to the name of the booklets in the English language which are translation of Ward s The Missionaries Address to the Hindus, A Short Summary of the Gospel, The Best Gift; On Repentance ( Bānglā Gādye r Prothom Yug 125). After Carey s appointment as a professor of Sanskrit at the College of Fort William, Lord Wellesley in a letter emphasized the necessity and importance of Sanskrit and wrote to the Directors of the East India Company in 1802 stating it to be the source and root of the principal vernacular dialects of India (Bāngālā Sāhitye 258). Sunil Kumar Chatterjee pointed that Carey was of the opinion that the College of Fort William would serve the same end as the Serampore Missionaries pledged to serve in spite of several constraints ( William Carey and the Fort William College 230, 231). Though the college was established for the efficiency of the British civilians but the venture of the Serampore Missionaries were completely of a different perspective, as they dedicated their linguistic activities for the cultural enrichment of the Indians as well as the foreigners. On one hand they ushered in the translation of the Bible in to thirty-four Indian languages [erroneously referred to as twenty-six in IOR The Inspired Cobbler ] to spread the Word of the Lord among the non-christians, while on the other hand they actively devoted their time to translate the Indian classical texts in English in order to make them available to the non-natives as well as to the learned in West. Such an endeavour brought about an intermingling of cultures which bridged 3 the distance between the masses and the Christian missionaries. Though complete on February 7, 1801 the Bible [Dharma Pustak], sponsored by Thomas, Basu, Carey, Fountain and edited and translated by Carey in Bengali, was published in February 12, 1801 (Bangla Gadya Sahityer 122) and it created a record which no other

7 Mallick 115 nominee could match (Missionary Journal April 8, ). After the publication of Carey s New Testament [Dharma Pustak] and his appointment at the College of Fort William, he concentrated out of obligation in the task of printing and publication of books for the students at the college as he keenly felt the paucity of teaching aids, for any grammars and vocabularies which were published earlier but was difficult to obtain (Ross 48). A note dated April 23, 1789 from several natives was published in the Calcutta Gazette stated that they humbly beseech[ed] any gentlemen [who] will be so good to us as to take the trouble of making a Bengal [English] Grammar and Dictionary, in which we hope to find all the common Bengal country words made into English. By this means we shall be enabled to recommend ourselves to the English Government and understand their orders; this favour will be gratefully remembered by us and our posterity for ever (Seton-Karr 2: 497). Addressing the insuperable problem of text-books and the astounding vacuum in the Bengali language ( William Carey and the Serampore Books 234), Carey at once set into work and prepared, published books which would not only be helpful for the students but also for the natives. Describing such a situation, Carey wrote to Dr. Ryland on June 15, 1801 stating When the appointment was made, I saw that I had a very important charge committed to me, and no books or helps of any kind to assist me. I therefore set about compiling a grammar, which is now half printed. I got Ram Boshu to compose a history of one of their kings, the first prose book ever written in the Bengali language; which we are also printing. Our pundit has also nearly translated the Sanskrit fables, one or two of which brother Thomas sent you, which are also going to publish. These, with Mr Forster s vocabulary, will prepare the way to reading their poetical books; so that I hope this difficulty will be gotten through (Memoir 453, 454). The situation and the progress is hinted through Carey s letter to Sutcliffe written on March 17, 1802 from Calcutta where he had stated I have, it is true, been obliged to publish several things and I can say that nothing but necessity could have induced me to do it (Angus Box IN 13 1 of 2). Carey s typographic achievements provided some justification for him to appropriate Charles Wilkins s epithet of India s Caxton (Ross 40). From an obituary published in the January April 1835 issue of The Asiatic Journal we come to know that Carey was an extremely humble person who with his meekness and singleness of purpose, was able to be diffident for a long period to avail himself with the distinction as a Professor, preferring the humbler

8 Mallick 116 denomination of Teacher ; he was also sincere to decline the acceptance of the full allowance assigned to the rank of a professor and donated the enlarged income in the common fund for the support of the cause of the Baptist Mission at Serampore (54). On the other hand S. P. Carey stated that in order to do away with the fact that Carey, a Nonconformist being a professor in a Government college, it was suggested that he should be named tutor (William Carey 205, 206). It may be for these reasons we observe in the initial part of his literary career in India that the books which were published with his name had his designation as teacher instead of professor of oriental languages at the College of Fort William. He had edited two books for the students at the college after the immediate publication of the New Testament. Carey was apt in his plan to solve the problem of supplying texts books for the students at the College through popularizing scientific, historical, literary and such other studies among the native people by coordinating with the native scholars towards a comprehensive development of the Bengali language owing to the use of simple, colloquial prose style instead of the classical style of Olympian heights. This enables us to determine that he was already working on the grammar for the Europeans to understand the rich language of Bengal as well as to initiate measures to develop a language accordingly, moving ahead of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed s study of the Bengali language in his A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778). It is indeed very significant to observe that the history of the grammar emerged as a specific discipline of letters, in November 11, 1793 when Carey landed in Calcutta, when the European Enlightenment was at its height for social change, intellectual progress and its manifestation in the study of languages got expressed in lexicography and grammar. Though it is not mentioned in the letter [June 15, 1801] that the book of grammar is on the Bengali language but the date of the Preface to the first edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language (1801) enables us to conclude it to be so and reflect the new urge for a scientific study of living languages which was an aspect of the great intellectual movement ( William Carey and Bengali Grammar 2) known as Enlightenment. The Preface to the first edition of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language is dated April 22, 1801 (A Critical Study 135). 4 Therefore S. K. Das stated that after Carey s appointment as a professor at the College of Fort William he encountered the necessity of providing text books for the students and as a result initiated the entire process of production of text books (Early Bengali Prose 23) and it was an attempt to develop and fashion the prose for modern religious and secular discourse, a printed prose that could communicate and control, without seriously upsetting pre-modern social privilege and privations ( Purity and

9 Mallick 117 Print 215). The problem was intensified when not a single prose work was found to exist when he [Carey] delivered his first lecture in May, 1801 (The Life and Times 1: 159). Sukumar Sen and Ramkrishna Bhattacharya are of the opinion that the prose in the Bengali language existed before Carey arrived, so it may be observed that he was not aware of it or not able to secure it or be familiar with it. It will not be fair to consider on this aspect that Carey did not possess a comprehensive mind as in the respective Preface of all his works he has duly acknowledged the people to whom he was indebted for inspiring the creation of his creative works and those who have tirelessly assisted him. Carey therefore had to encounter three problems to solve: how to write text books, how to develop a prose style which could be used to write the text books and how to rekindle the love in the hearts of the natives for the Bengali language (Early Bengali Prose 23). Carey and his group therefore solved them by being one of the pioneers to initiate measures for the development of the Bengali language by enhancing a prose style which could easily be accepted by all. Besides developing the prose, he also took the initiative to develop the grammar and the stock of words in the native language(s) (Ibid. 24). Such an activity by a foreigner for a local language is worth remembering and cherishing, a living inspiration to literary creation (Ibid.). 5 Sajanikanta Das is of the opinion that Carey was in a dilemma for a few years between Sanskrit and the chalit simplified version of the Bengali language (William Carey 15). Though he was in need of a grammar and a dictionary in Bengali but was unable to secure any and therefore with a Sanskrit bent of mind started working on his grammar as well as on his dictionary. Henry Pitts Forster s Dictionary was yet to be published and Carey was yet to receive the only available edition on the grammar and dictionary of the Bengali language i.e. Halhed s A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778) (Ibid.) and A. Upjhon s Ingraji Bengali Bokebilari: An Extensive Vocabulary Bengalese and English, very useful to Teach the Natives English and to assist Beginners in Learning the Bengal Language printed in the Chronicle Press at Calcutta in Halhed s A Grammar of the Bengal Language is important for two specific reasons i.e. this was the first attempt at printing a full-sized tome in the Bengali language ( William Carey and the Serampore Books 246) where the alphabets of the language were used in the print form to produce a bilingual work, a manual intended for Englishmen, with copious examples in the Bengali language (Ibid.) and this book also addressed the problem of corruption and impurity due to the influence of several other languages upon the Bengali language at length ( Purity and

10 Mallick 118 Print 198) and emphasized the need to revise, amend and restructure the Bengali language. It was a full-sized work using copious extracts from the main Bengali books then extant ( The Early History of Bengali Printing 57). With his skill and zeal Charles Wilkins was the first person to cut and develop the Bengali types to print the letters of the language for printing it in this book in 1778 and not in 1783 as erroneously stated by George Smith in The Life of William Carey, in the press of a Mr Andrews at Hooghly along with Panchanan Karmakar, the local black smith (Kripalani 28), rekindling the lost spark of the Bengali language, literature and culture. This tremendous typographical achievement was made possible by the strenuous and unremitting pioneering efforts of Charles Wilkins, who was dubbed as the Caxton of Bengal ( The Early History of Bengali Printing 56). Halhed s aim was to remove the European prejudice that Hindi and Persian were the languages used in Bengal, so his A Grammar of the Bengal Language presents the Bengal language merely as derived from its parent the Shanscrit (Halhed xxi), nevertheless the many political revolutions it has sustained, have greatly impaired the simplicity of its language (Ibid. xx). Halhed attempted to establish a clarified, purified, amended form of Bengali (Ibid. xix) primarily for the British rulers ruling in India so that it was easy for the foreigners to know and learn the language necessary for administration. Though some of the principles lacked scientific validity yet they were curious and were well to study the spirit with which foreigners approach our language (History of Bengali Literature , 86). Halhed s contribution for the development of the Bengali language was genuinely fostered in the nineteenth-century by William Carey through the several editions of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language and the other books with the assistance of native typographers like Gangakishore Bhattacharya and Panchanan Karmakar. Though Gangakishore Bhattacharya joined the Serampore Mission Press as a compositor yet we do not get the reference to his name in the documents of the Missionaries. He was the first Bengali business man dealing with print types, books besides being a publisher and a librarian. Being independent in spirit he fell out over the ideas of the Missionaries and left for Calcutta to establish his own press (Unish Shatoker 30), which may be the cause of the absence of his name from the missionary documents. Panchanan Karmakar was an experienced typographer whose expertise in preparing type casts was known to all. He was then under the employment of Colebrooke when Carey was very eager to have him at the Mission Press (Ibid.). When several requests to Colebrooke to loan Panchanan Karmakar s service fell on deaf ears, it is said that Carey resorted to a rather unworthy stratagem by secretly persuading Karmakar to join the Serampore Mission Press at

11 Mallick 119 a higher salary and then asked Colebrooke to release the type-cutter-cum-founder for two or three days work at Serampore, undertaking to see that Panchanan returned to Colebrooke after which he never returned to him and remained at Serampore 6 till his death in 1803 ( William Carey and the Serampore Books 249; Bengal Past and Present XIII, I: 140). It may appear surprising but it is true that both Halhed and Carey faced the poverty of the prose literature in the Bengali language, as till the beginning of the nineteenth-century prose was not the favoured literary form in India (A History of Indian Literature 70). It was therefore an age of verse where the main metrical form used was a fourteen-syllable meter called payar (The Argumentative Indian 23) while prose in the Bengali language survived only in letters and legal documents (Awakening 82, 83) so it virtually had no presence in literature. Such a situation created a dilemma for William Carey as in spite of all the poetic riches of the Bengali language it was not useful for the students of the College of Fort William who needed a practical knowledge of the language rather than an appreciation of its poetic richness and glory. As a result Carey developed text books for the young civilians to learn the grammar of the Indian languages and dictionaries to increase their vocabulary in that language sowing the seeds for the development of a literary, academic and cultural relationship between the Serampore Mission Press and the College of Fort William (The Bengal Renaissance 65). It served as a catalyst for the birth, evolution and revitalization of the prose literature in Bengali along with grammatical works, translations of prose and verse. Though the first edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was published in 1801, however from his letter written on October 2, 1795 to Mr S. Pearce, we can understand that Carey had begun his work to formulate a grammar of the Bengali language during his stay at Mudnabutty (Memoir 247). On December 31, 1795, Carey wrote, I have been trying to compose a compendious grammar of the language (Memoir 250, 251; Das, William Carey 15; Bangla Gadya Sahityer 88, 89). It was in 1801 after joining the College of Fort William as a faculty that his unfinished plan of compiling and composing a grammar book got completed; besides there was also a need to supply text books to the students of the college. Carey s responsibility to complete his pending task of compiling a grammar, which was then half printed, for his students was well expressed through his letter (number XI) to Ryland on June 15, 1801 (Memoir 453, 454). The title page [see Appendix III a] of the first edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language available at the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, read as A / GRAMMAR / OF

12 Mallick 120 THE / BENGALEE LANGUAGE / BY W. CAREY. / PRINTED AT THE MISSION PRESS, SERAMPORE / It has VI pages and the size of the script was big. In the introductory pages Carey stated outright that his text is a guide book written in the English language for learning the Bengali language. In his letter to Ryland [mentioned above] we observe an important evidence of the manner in which Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was produced i.e. a process of compilation from Halhed s A Grammar of Bengal Language which was abridged in the process of incorporation and his translation of Mugdhabodha. Carey also incorporated several grammatical notes which he had compiled along with some observations by Henry Pitts Forster. S. K. Das stated that Halhed s was a pioneering good work yet there were certain drawbacks (Early Bengali Prose 24, 25). It is well evident from Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language that he had adopted Halhed s list of the most common contractions of letters (Halhed 33, 34) and subscribed to the latter s concept of the term phalā, born out by the method of composing conjuncts with this fount (Ross 45). While Halhed s A Grammar of Bengal Language concentrated on the theme of analyzing and describing pure Bengali i.e. the language which is derived from Sanskrit, which can be considered as the Sanskritisation of Bengali in the sphere of grammatical analysis, Carey attempted a process dealing with a concise teaching of grammar and not a treatise on the relation of Bengali to Sanskrit. Though both Halhed and Carey s processes of learning Bengali were similar (A Critical Study 135) yet Carey differed with Halhed on several grounds. Carey asserted in the Preface of the 1801 edition of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language that a multitude of words, originally Persian or Arabic, are constantly employed in common conversation, which perhaps ought to be considered as enriching rather than corrupting the language (iii). Halhed considered the Perso-Arabic vocabulary as corrupting and Carey was totally opposed to this view of Halhed as he believed that a language was distinguished in its formation not in the source from which words are derived (Ibid.) signifying that the language may differ in their formation and development i.e. the morphological and syntactical perspectives (A Critical Study 136) if not from the perspective of etymology. Carey stated in the Preface to the 1801 edition that most of the words in Bengali and Hindi originated from the same source i.e. Sanskrit which along with Persian and Arabic loans perhaps ought to be considered as enriching rather than corrupting the language (A Grammar iii) and the formation and genius of the two languages (Ibid. iv) differed. Carey had also stated in his

13 Mallick 121 Preface of the 1801 edition of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language that he had studiously avoided all disquisitions which merely relate to it as a science and laid down the rules in as concise a manner as possible (A Grammar iii) as Halhed s aim in his A Grammar of Bengal Language was to instruct or convince the curious and the intelligent (Halhed xix). In short, Carey was out to produce a concise methodology of teaching grammar and not a treatise on the relation of Bengali to Sanskrit (A Critical Study 136). Apart from Carey s association with Halhed s linguistic theories, he had also incorporated sections from Mughdhabodha after having translated them. Dr Muhammad Abdul Qayyum is of the opinion that though Carey did not believe in the process of Sanskritisation as a doctrine as Halhed did, he nevertheless contributed to it (A Critical Study 137). It was a method initiated by the European missionaries, scholars and their native collaborators as a conscious attempt to replace the dominant influence in Bengali of Arabic and Persian as is evident in the less proportion of the use of Arabic and Persian legal terms in the late eighteenth-century legal texts translated into Bengali by Henry Forster and Jonathan Duncan which coincided with the Orientalist project of philological scholars who were eager to establish links between Sanskrit and the classical languages of Europe ( Purity and Print 201) establishing Bengali language as a descendant from Sanskrit. Though Carey anxiously continued to search the presence of any universally accepted standard of the language in Bengal yet he changed his observation stated in the Preface to the first edition of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language (1801) on the presence and effect of Persian and Arabic loan words on Bengali and instead commented in the Preface to the second edition of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language (1805) that the Bengalee may be considered as more nearly allied to the Sungskrit than any of the other languages of India, for though it contains many words of Persian and Arabic origin, yet the far greater number are pure Sungskrit (vi). Carey s first fundamental work A Grammar of the Bengalee Language intended to provide a complete description and restructuring of the language with the aim of not only to go beyond Halhed s description but also to raise the degenerated status of the language of the land. A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was his first attempt to begin a linguistic and a literary tradition. But the first edition (1801) of this book reflected the failure to discover 7 any accepted standard of the language (A Critical Study 137, 138) as it was a relatively basic textbook, giving the rules briefly and simply, without the comparisons and digressions that

14 Mallick 122 distinguish Halhed s work (Brockington 85). However in spite of the non-fulfillment of the objective in the first edition published in 1801, the further four editions of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language published in 1805, 1815, 1818 and posthumously in 1843 (A Critical Study 140) prove its usefulness and acceptance (Dusho Bacharer Purano 1) and justify that though his grammar was based on Halhed s book yet he undertook a considerable improvement in his own grammar especially in the declension of nouns and conjugation of verbs. Most of the sentences used in this text, as examples to elaborate an idea was obtained directly or collected from the texts prescribed in the curriculum of the College of Fort William and the compositions of Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar for easy comprehension by the students. Though Halhed s Introduction in his A Grammar of Bengal Language is as important to Carey s Preface in his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language yet Carey goes beyond Halhed especially on the declension of Nouns and Verbs and the use of particles (A Grammar v). This resulted to the development of a prose bereft not only of Arabic and Persian loan words but also of purely native particles as ti, ta and of tadbhava [phonetically modified words but are traceable to the Sanskrit language] words in order to create a grounding in Sanskrit useful to the Company administrators for commercial and political reasons ( Purity and Print 202) as Halhed s statement in his A Grammar of Bengal Language (1778) emphasized that Sanskrit was the grand source of Indian Literature, the parent of almost every dialect from the Persian Gulph to the China Seas (iii). The title page [see Appendix III b] of the second edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language published in 1805 preserved at the rare-book section in the NL reads, A / GRAMMAR / OF THE / BENGALEE LANGUAGE. / THE SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. / BY W. CAREY. / TEACHER OF THE SUNGSKRIT, BENGALEE, AND MAHRATTA / LANGUAGES, IN THE COLLEGE OF FORT WILLIAM. / SERAMPORE, / Printed at the Mission Press / The second edition of the text was a more original effort (Brockington 85), modified, enlarged and improved version of the first edition containing 192 pages. This edition covers the Bengali alphabet and the combination of the letters, the declension of the substantives and the formation of the derivative nouns, the inflection of adjectives and pronouns and the verbal conjugations, besides the list in detail of the indeclinable verbs, adverbs and prepositions followed by a note on the treatment of the syntax. The additions in the second edition also continued to be present in the next three

15 Mallick 123 editions. The work for printing the second edition of this text started in the year 1803 and it was clearly mentioned in the Preface (1805) that since the first edition of this work was published, the writer has had an opportunity of obtaining a more accurate knowledge of this language. The result of his application to it he has endeavoured to give in the following pages, which, [on account of the variations from the former edition,] may be esteemed a new work (vi, vii). Carey s letter written to Sutcliff on September 21, 1803 stated, I am reprinting my Bengali grammar, with many alterations and additions (Memoir 466, 467) and in August 22, 1805 stated about the new edition of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language, I have written and printed a second edition of my Bengali grammar, wholly new worked over, and greatly enlarged (Ibid. 474). The third edition of the text which is almost a reprint of the second edition was published in 1815 where there was a slight change in the Preface and the text along with an additional chapter Of the Junction of Letters. There is also a page bearing the images of the alphabets of the Bengali language. However this edition has not been referred to by H. H. Wilson or G. E. Grierson, it is even not mentioned in the catalogue of the I.O.R. at the BL at London. Sajanikanta Das stated that the first edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language is mentioned over page number 395 in the catalogue (Vol. I published in 1888) of collected books written in the English language at the library of the India House at London (William Carey 29) which is presently archived at the BL. Wilson, Grierson and others believed that the second edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was published in 1805, but in the second volume of Primitae Orientales (1803) we observe from the list of books [from page XLVI to page LIV of PO] published from the College of Fort William that the name of the book present in serial number 30 is Grammar of the Bengali Language; 2nd edition, with large additions. Therefore in accordance to Primitae Orientalis the second edition of William Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was published in the year 1803 while the title page of the second edition bore the year of publication as 1805 ( Bānglā Gādye r Prothom Yug 128; Bangla Gadya 126). The third edition (1815) of the book is available at the rare book section of the NL of India. The fourth edition of the text which is available at the BSP is a complete reprint of the third edition was published in It had pages. Though it is written Preface to the Third Edition but the place and the date mentioned after the Preface of the fourth edition of the text [with additions] is Serampore, March, The fourth edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was published along with the third edition of his Dialogues

16 Mallick 124 (Kathopokathan). The fifth edition of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language was published posthumously in 1843 after his death using small type casts. It had pages. The year of publication is mentioned incorrectly as 1845 in the list of IOR [now at the BL] and even Grierson made the same mistake of considering it as 1845 instead of 1843 ( Bānglā Gādye r Prothom Yug 129). The first, second, fourth and the fifth editions of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language are preserved at the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; the second, third and the fourth editions of the text are also available at the NL of India; the third edition is present at CLRC; the fifth edition is present at the BSP. In his Preface to the second and fourth editions of A Grammar of the Bengalee Language (1805 and 1818 respectively) Carey expressed his aim to compose, publish grammars and the necessity of the Europeans to learn the Bengali language. He stated that Bengal, as the seat of the British government in India, and the centre of a great part of the commerce of the East, must be viewed as a country of very great importance. Its soil is fertile, its population great, and the necessary intercourse subsisting between its inhabitants and those of other countries who visit its ports, is rapidly increasing. A knowledge of the language of the country must therefore be a desirable object. The pleasure which a person feels in being able to converse upon any subject with those who have occasion to visit him, is very great. Many of the natives of this country, who are conversant with Europeans, are men of great respectability, well informed upon a variety of subjects both commercial and literary, and able to mix in conversation with pleasure and advantage. Indeed, husbandmen, labourers and people in the lowest stations, are often able to give that information on local affairs which every friend of science would be proud to obtain. To this may be added, that to be able to transact any kind of business without the intervention of an interpreter will of itself amply repay any one for the labour of learning a language. This applies with peculiar force in the important concerns of administering justice, collecting the revenues, preventing impositions and misunderstandings in commercial affairs, & c. & c. A benevolent man feels much pleasure in making enquiries into, and relieving the distresses of others. But in a foreign country he must be unable to do this, to his own satisfaction, unless he have obtained the language; for should he attempt to do it through the medium of servants he will be liable to innumerable impositions The advantages of being able to communicate useful knowledge to heathens with whom we have a daily intercourse and to impress upon them sentiments of morality and religion are confessedly very important (A Grammar of the Bengalee iii, iv, v).

17 Mallick 125 The purpose of composing A Grammar of the Bengalee Language is well evident from the sentences quoted above substantiating not only the necessity for the Europeans residing in Bengal to learn the language but also to exhibit before the West the vibrant dynamism of the most expressive and elegant languages of the East (Ibid. vi) i.e. Bengali. Carey s endeavour through the various editions of his A Grammar of the Bengalee Language, provided a sort of an example for the educated people of Bengal to execute the project and initiate in the process and methodology of the purification of the Bengali language and literature; it was furthered by the Serampore Missionaries through their various books, newspapers and periodicals, which regularized the dignified use of the language among the lower sections of the people (Translation Reconsidered 81). Sobita Chattopadhyay (Bāngālā Sāhitye 223) stated that in 1846 to meet the demands of the students of Bengal, John Robinson published Bangya Bhashar Byakaron, a translation of Carey s A Grammar of the Bengalee Language in Bengali, along with some minor additions and alterations as to simplify the sentences by the use of such terms as appeared most intelligible to the generality of natives (Memoir 467). Apart from A Grammar of the Bengalee Language, Carey also concentrated in the creation and production of books on the grammars of Sanskrit, Marathi, Punjabee (Punjabi) and Telinga (Telegu). In his letter written to Ryland from Serampore on June 15, 1801 Carey stated I am also appointed teacher of the Sungscrit language, and though no students have yet entered in that class, yet I must prepare for it. I am, therefore, writing a grammar of that language, which I must also print (Ibid. 452). The letter confirmed Carey s personal interest to write and develop a book on the Sanskrit language along with a dictionary of Sanskrit words. In this venture he was assisted by Sanskrit scholars like Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar and Ramanath Vachaspati of the College of Fort William and Carey s Preface to his A Grammar of the Sungskrit Language bears the testimony of their help, zeal and abilities (v). H. H. Wilson considered his grammar as the most serviceable illustration and interpretation of the brief and technical compilation of the Indian philologist (Memoir 592). The title page [see Appendix IV] of the grammar of the Sanskrit reads, A Grammar / of the Sungskrit Language / composed / from the works of the most esteemed grammarians./ To which are added,/ Examples for the exercise of the student,/ and / a complete list of the Dhatoos, or Roots./By W. Carey./ Teacher of the Sungskrit, Bengalee, Mahratta languages, in the College of Fort William./ Serampore,/ Printed at the

18 Mallick 126 Mission Press./ The pages of this book are divided into Introduction (VII) [An Appendix containing a list of Dhatoos or Roots] + 24 [Index] + 9 [Errata]. It was dedicated to Lord Wellesley and was published in five divisions namely, Of the Letters and of their Euphonic Combinations, Of Declension, Of Conjugation, Of the Formation of Derivative Nouns, Of Syntax. Besides these sections, translation of the first three chapters of St Matthew s Gospel, Isa Upanishad and Srimad Bhagawad Gita have also been included in the Syntax section of the book along with An Appendix, a 108 page long list of elements [dhatoos or roots] in Sanskrit arranged in an alphabetical order proving that Carey had undertaken measures before 1806 along with the pundits assistance to spread the message of the Upanishads among the people of Bengal ( Bānglā Gādye r Protham Yug 140), as they have been always ready to contribute to this work, and to whose zeal and abilities he was happy to bear this testimony (Preface v) along with the assistance of Marshman, Carey s highly esteemed colleague. This book was a pioneering achievement, being perhaps the first grammar book which was written in the authentic Devanagri script (British Orientalism 91) of the Sanskrit language, whose first three sections were published in 1804 while the complete text was published in 1806, a work praised as a singular monument of industrious application (Rost 262, 263). It was the first complete version to be printed (Brockington 87) and according to the Supreme Council of Bengal the merits of the work validate its patronage (Ingham 101) which was even established by Henry Thomas Colebrooke in his A Grammar of the Sanscrit Language Volume I (1805). H. H. Wilson at the first meeting of the British Philological Society regretted that no one had heard of the existence of Carey s Sanskrit Grammar. In the preface to his excellent edition and translation of the Sakuntala he has described, in an animated and interesting tone, the wretched means and unremitting application by which he acquired his first knowledge of Sanskrit, and the delight with which he welcomed the bulky volume of Carey, and the more elegant and available grammar of Wilkins which had been published in London at the end of 1808 (Rost 272, 273). Besides Sanskrit, the Marathi language also gained Carey s attention during his days at the College of Fort William. Maharashtra was then an important political centre of the British East India Company, therefore to know the place and its people learning the language was very essential for the people undertaking administrative responsibilities in that region. Carey s Preface 8 to his A Grammar of the Mahratta Language (1805) [see Appendix V] begins with such a note on the British acquiring an important province where Marathi is spoken which as a result has ushered the need of the language and its grammar to be taught to