INTRODUCTION Haraprasad Shastri (6 December 1853 17 November 1931) is an inseparable name in the field of Bengali language and literature. He is most known for discovering the Charyapada, the earliest known examples of Bengali literature. As an Indologist he earned fame from home and abroad. He was one of the best products of the renaissance in Bengal. Accepting the impressions of the renaissance, Haraprasad became one of the enlightened persons of Bengal. He preferred the path followed by the great sons of Bengal, like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rajendralal Mitra, Bankim Chandra Chattopaddhay and so on who accepted the renaissance in Bengal positively and wanted to reform the society with the best fruits of the cultures of India and Europe. With other qualities, patriotism is reflected in the life and works of Haraprasad Shastri. Haraprasad Shastri also studied Sanskrit, but not in Tol or Chatuspathi. He studied Sanskrit in Sanskrit College, and other subjects like English in Presidency College in Calcutta. This was very significant for him and it was one of the reasons to mould up his concepts about the modern views. He never tried for any administrative job like other scholars of his time. Rather he joined Hair School as a Head Pandit and translation master. After that he joined the Sanskrit College as a lecturer in Sanskrit literature in 1883. He was appointed the Librarian of the Bengal Library, in the year of 1886. In 1895 he joined Presidency College as a lecturer and Head of the Department of Sanskrit. He became the Principal of the same College in 1900. He took over the charge of the Registrar of Sanskrit Examinations in Bengal in same year. In November 1908, he retired from the post of Principal of the Sanskrit College and the very next day he was given the charge of Beuro of Information for the Benefit of Civil Officers in Bengal, in History, Religion, Customs and folk lore of Bengal. He served there tirelessly till his death.
Later, in 1921, he honoured the post of the Head of the Department of Bengali and Sanskrit in Dhaka University. He was there for three years. Apart from these jobs, Haraprasad Shastri served the Government of India and some other organizations selflessly for the benefit of India and her people. He collected 7000 Sanskrit manuscripts including some rare puthis of the Veda and arranged to send it to the Maxmuller Memorial Centre of the Oxford University and Bodleon Library. He helped Rajendralal Mitra in the Asiatic Society in a project of the Notices of Sanskrit Manuscripts. At the same time he was given charge of the Bibliotheca Indica Books series as a member of the Linguistics Committee. After the demise of Rajendralal Mitra, Haraprasad was promoted to the post of the Director of the Operation in search of Sanskrit Manuscripts. He roamed all over India and Nepal in search of the puthis. He visited different parts of Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. He visited the Library of the Royal Court of Nepal for four times. Each time he successfully collected some invaluable puthis. He collected the Charyapada and Ramcharita from the said library. These two books were edited by him, which constrained the historians to re-write the history of Bengal and the history of the Bengali literature. Haraprasad Shastri, besides his discoveries and edited works, wrote two novels Kanchanmala and Bener Meye. He wrote two short stories, namely Bamuner Durgotsab and Pa(n)ch Chheler Galpo. He wrote many essays on Sanskrit literary works in Bengali. Haraprasad was fond of Kalidasa. He showed his inclination to Kalidasa in various essays. Especially Meghadoot Byakhya bears the profundity of Haraprasad in classical Indian literature and the new style of literary criticism in Bengali at the same time. 9
Haraprasad wrote various essays on the rise, development and decline of Buddhism in India. Haraprasad, while commenting on the reminiscent of Buddhism in Bengal, said that Bengal is Buddhist in disguise. For which he deserves a special mention. We observed that the thoughts of Haraprasad expressed in various articles and speeches on Bengali language. There we have seen that Haraprasad does not like the Sanskrit or the Tatsama words to use unreasonably. He has repeatedly said in different occasions to avoid Sanskrit words or other cliché usage if there are words available in our colloquial Bengali. Even he suggests for the words from folk origin frequently used in day to day life. Besides, the foreign words which are being used in Bengali recurrently should be used without hesitation. He had no fastidiousness in using any folk-originated or informal words if the new word for any new expression is arranged. A few works have been done in a scattered way on this extra-ordinary author and researcher. A list is given below showing the works done on Haraprasad Shastri so far: 1. Harimohan Mukhopaddhay: Bangla Bhasar Lekhak (1904) 2. Ganapati Sarkar: Haraprasad Jibani (1936) 3. Binoytosh Bhattacharya: Our Ancestry (1943) 4. Manju Gopal Bhattacharya: (Naihatir Bhattacharya Bangsha (1945) 5. Brajendranath Bandyopaddhay and Sajanikanta Das: Sahitya Sadhak Charitamala, (Haraprasad Shastri Volume), 1949. 6. Pramathanath Bishi: Banglar Lekhak (1950) 7. Amulyachandra Sen: Haraprasad Shastri (1971) 8. Satyajit Choudhury & Others: Haraprasad Shastri Smarak Grantha (1978) 9. Haraprasad Sambardhana Lekhamala (1931) 10. Shipra Rakshit Dastidar: Haraprasad Shastrir Sahityakarma (1992) 10
11. Satyajit Choudhury and Bijli Sarkar, 1 st ed. : Nirbachita Haraprasad Shastri Sahitya o Sanskriti-Chinta (2002) 12. Satyajit Choudhury: Haraprasad Shastri: (2005) 13. Nikhileshwar Sengupta: Haraprasad Shastrir Itihas Chinta (2006) But his contribution to Bengali literature as a whole has not yet been discussed systematically. Therefore, we, in this dissertation, tried to evaluate his contribution to Bengali literature. For this, all of his works (Haraprasad Shastri Rachana Sangraha five volumes of his complete works, published by Pashchimbanga Rajya Pustak Parshad, edited by Dr. Satyajit Choudhury & others; Haraprasad Rachanabali edited by Suniti Kumar Chattopaddhay and Anil Kumar Kanjilal, published by Eastern Trading Company) have been scrutinized and all the related and relevant references have been seen in original. Besides these, articles on him published in various journals have been compared. The title of our research work is as follows: HARAPRASAD SHASTRI AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO BENGALI LITERATURE For proper treatment of the topic it was desired that the same might be discussed in the following chapters : Chapter-I: Life and Works of Haraprasad Shastri A short Bio-data of Haraprasad Shastri has been added to reflect his literary and his socio-cultural surroundings. The influences of the cultural heritage of India, the Indian renaissance, the western education, Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rajendralal Mitra, Bankim Chandra and other on him have been duly considered. His general qualities as writer, chiefly as essayist as well as literary critic have been determined. Where necessary, he has been compared with 11
his eminent colleagues in Bengali literature. Chapter-II: Literary Works: A Critical Study In this chapter literary value as well as the creative excellence of his works such as i) Novels ii) Short stories and iii) Upakhyans have been analysed and discussed. His contribution has been aptly measured. Chapter-III: Writings on Indology and on Indian Folk-lore: An Assessment His Bengali writings on ancient Indian history are a great part of his work. In this chapter his contribution towards Indology, specially his writings on the socio-economic as well as the anthropological observations based on history have been critically reviewed, which have focused on the past glory of India and have intend to discover a new face of Indian history and culture. Chapter-IV: Writings on Buddhism In this chapter we have reviewed the essays written by Haraprasad Shastri on Buddhism. We have examined the essays and other related publications of Haraprasad regarding the rise, development and the decline of Buddhism in India. We have discussed the thoughts of Haraprasad on the reminiscences of Buddhism in Bengal. Chapter-V: Research and Edited Works In this chapter we have taken an account of the books he edited and published as well as the research works he carried out, which ultimately enriched the Bengali literature in a great way. His edited and research works like Hajar Bachharer Puran Bangla Bhasay Bouddha Gan O Doha, Kirtilata, Kasiram Daser Mahabharata Adiparva etc. have been examined thoroughly to evaluate his contribution to the Bengali literature. 12
Chapter-VI: Criticism of Sanskrit literary works in Bengali: An Evaluation In this chapter, the criticism of Sanskrit literary works which he wrote in Bengali have been reviewed. He has been judged as a critic. His use of words, use of parameters, personal opinions, his overall achievements have been taken in consideration. Chapter-VII: Thoughts on the Language and Prose Style of Haraprasad Shastri Haraprasad expressed some important thoughts on Bengali language and Bengali grammar. He also spoke on Bengali prose style in various essays and speeches. In this chapter a discussion of the writers Prose-Style, his narrative power, his skill in the use of words, his skill in creating an inseparable combination of word and meaning have been considered. Apart from this, we have discussed Haraprasads language in relation to his thoughts, analytical mode and moods, set in the comparative context of Bengali Prose-literature. Chapter-VIII: Conclusion The whole study has been re-capitulated comprehensively to present a fitting and précised conclusion regarding the outstanding contribution of Haraprasad Shastri to Bengali literature. This research work has been carried out under the guidance and supervision of Professor and Head of the Department of Bengali, Gauhati University, Dr. Amalendu Chakraborty. The quotations from other languages have been kept intact with its original spelling. The gists of the Bengali quotations, translated by me, have been given immediately after the quotations are placed within a [-] bracket. Some times when the quotations are very small, we have given the gist just before the quotations are placed. 13
A detailed bibliography is being given at end of this dissertation. For avoiding repetition in the NOTES given at the end of each chapter, we have mentioned the name of the author and the name of the book only. The number of edition and the year of publication, the publisher and the place from where it is published have been mentioned in the bibliography. We searched through some internet pages and were able to download few important pages relevant to Haraprasad Shastri, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The other websites we searched have been mentioned in the bibliography. We could not find out the name of the editor of some of the journals we have used, because the pages were torn. Hence, we could not mention it in the bibliography. We followed the Bengali pronunciation of the names of the Bengali books for Roman transcription. Certain terminological words, for which no appropriate English synonyms were found, are kept without changing the language. Regarding the extracts taken from Haraprasad Shastri s Rachana Sangraha or Haraprasad Rachanabali, we have only mentioned the page number and the volume number in the back notes his name has not been mentioned separately as the writer. In writing this dissertation we have taken help from the works of various scholars, accordingly we have recorded our indebt to them in the bibliography. An annexure (annexure-i, the genealogy of Haraprasad Shastri has been given. In annexure-ii, we have given short notes on some of the scholars we have mentioned in the paper) has been attached for some more information related to some of the contents of the paper. 14