A Specimen of Premodern Bangla Prose

A SPECIMEN OF PREMODERN BANGLA PROSE RAMKRISHNA BHATTACHARYA Anandamohan College, Kolkata

It is generally admitted that literary prose in Bangla did not make its appearance before Akshaykumar Datta (1820-1886) and Iswarchandra Vidyasagar (1820-1891). The works of European missionaries and Rammohun Ray (1774-1833) and others thus form an interlude between premodern prose and literary prose. The evidence of premodern prose is found in the court records, legal documents, business correspondence and personal letters of earlier centuries. They have been collected, edited and analysed in recent times. However, one particular item, namely, a diary of a journey written in 1851, has gone unnoticed, although it was printed as far back as 1365 BS (1958 CE). It is the travel diary of one Durg‚d‚s Caººop‚dhy‚ýa* who kept a pecord of his visit to Kashi and Gaya by boat (there was no railway link between Bengal and the Upper Provinces then). The diary offers little of interest to historians but it will be rewarding to study it from a linguistic point of view. Caººop‚dhy‚ýa did not know English, nor did he know Sanskrit. His spelling of well-known and much used tatsama words is erratic and wrong, e.g., ¹ukrab‚r for †-, san„b‚r for †-, bais‚kh for -†-, etc. Barring two (‡‚kattara = Eng. Doctor and ºol, as in toll-gh‚t), there is no other English word in the diary, although many words of Persian and Arabic origin are found (ekr‚r, ekune, kar‚r, jey‚d‚, m‚hi‚n‚, h‚ol‚t). Caººop‚dhy‚ýa seems to have been one of those who had their elementary education from the village schoolmaster in a p‚ºha†‚l‚ and did not study any further. There is no influence of book-learning in the diary. In short, Caººop‚dhy‚ýa was one of those whom Haraprasad Sastri describes as bi¹ay„ lok, a householder plain and simple, connected neither with trade and commerce nor with any useful craft. Apparently he owned some landed property, the income of which enabled him to undertake this pilgrimage. He was a resident of the village Puliý‚, in the district of Nad„ý‚, West Bengal. Some of the linguistic features of the diary are noted below: a) Very few complex or compound sentences are found. b) The simple sentences, however, contain such participles as ‚siý‚, kamile, j‚o‚te (y‚oý‚te), hao‚ý (haoaý‚ý). c) The use of ý in the middle and end of a word is rare: mah‚saer (mah‚†aýer), talao‚r (taloý‚r), j‚o‚te (y‚oý‚te), haen (haýen). d) j is used for y: jatne (yatne), j‚on (y‚on), j‚ý (y‚ý), j‚iben (y‚iben), etc. e) Instead of using double consonants, b (= v) is used: m‚lb‚ (m‚ll‚), mehanbat (= mehannat), curnbi (= cƒr‹‹„). f) The use of r, both as phal‚ and reph, is often misplaced: birddi for b±ddhi, †r‚rddha for †r‚ddha. ± is also replaced by i, as in bind‚ba‹ for b±nd‚ban. It also appears where it has no room: arnb[v]a for anna. g) A case of anaptyxis or vowel insertion is also found: darasan for dar†an. h) Preference for unaspirated in place of aspirates is also noticeable: oºen for oºhen, kupatya for kupathya, c„ºi for ciºhi, m‚ji for m‚jhi. * In this article ý is used for u and ŕ for s .

2

i) Preference for the voiceless in place of voiced, as in bekup„te for bekubite. j) Use of † is rare, s or ¹ occurs in the words bisb[v]an‚th (-†-), giri¹ (-†), mah‚saer (-†-), ¹unil‚m (†-), m‚na¹ (-s), but ‚s‚ŕ for ‚¹‚ŕh. k) Some noun forms ending with n (-an) occur intermittently: kh‚on, j‚on, haon. l) The verb form ending with k‚ (in the past indefinite tense occurs once: p‚rilek. m) No punctuation mark except da‹‡a (suggesting full stop) is used, and that too very rarely. n) The word ‚di suggesting ‘etc.’ is used without any sandhi: khub jatne ‚h‚r ‚di kar‚‹, dak¹i‹‚ ‚di etc. o) Instead of db(v)‚r‚, there is db(v)‚r‚ý. p) For ‚m‚diger, there is ‚m‚rdiger. q) One tadbhava form is interesting to note: ‡a¹ºa a¹ºama for da†‚†vamedha. An extract from the travel diary is quoted below: ...adya 18 bais‚kh budhb‚r phatepurer kuº„r nice r‚tre th‚ki [.] choºa putra kupatya kar‚ý gatoroj haite jb(v)ar kichu birddhi haý [.] da¹mul p ‚˜ can deo‚ jaý [.] ai p ‚˜ can ja¹‡‚r rajcandra m‚jir nouk‚ý nabakum‚r ba¹ur parib‚r diger nikaº th‚k‚te den [.] adya 19 bais‚kh b±ha¹patib‚r sodpurer b‚j‚rer nice r‚tre th‚ki [.] da¹mul p ‚˜ can choºa putrake deo‚ j‚ý [.] adya 20 bais‚kh ¹ukrab‚r choºa putrake da¹mul p ‚˜ can deo‚ j‚y [.] r‚tre beliý‚ mok‚mer ‚ŕp‚r th‚ki [.] 21 bais‚kh san„b‚r choºa putrake ciŕer ma‹‡a deo‚ j‚ý [.] r‚tre kainir pa¹cim caŕ‚ý th‚ki [.] adya 22 bais‚kh rabib‚r deŕ praharer som‚y barun‚ nadir tire pãuchi‚ ‚h‚r ‚di kari‚ baik‚le k‚sidh‚me pãuchil‚m [.] chota putrer beý‚r‚m anek bi†e¹ hao‚te muger d‚iler ju¹ o mehi c‚iler arnb(v)ya pathb(v)ya deo‚ j‚ý [.] choºa putra bh‚lo haon. REFERENCES Caººop‚dhy‚ýa, Durg‚d‚s, 1851. “Nauk‚yoge K‚†„”, in Anandabajar Patrika. Annual Number 1965 BS, pp. 129-34 (The title is most probably given by Apurbamani Datta, who recovered this travel diary from a member of the author’s family). Sastri, Haraprasad, 1288 BS (= 1881 CE). “Ba¥g‚l‚ Bh‚¹‚” in Harapras‚d Racan‚bal„, ed. Sunitikumar Chattopadhyaya and Anilkumar Kanjilal. Klikata: Eastern Trading Company, n. d., pp. 197-202. Acknowledgements: Amitava Bhattacharyya, Siddhartha Datta, Malayendu Dinda and Asok Upadhyay.