The History of the Book in South Asia [1 ed.] 1409437841, 9781409437840

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The History of the Book in South Asia

T he H istory of the Book in the E ast Series Editor: Peter Kornicki Titles in the Series:

The H istory of the B ook in E ast Asia Cynthia Brokaw and Peter Kornicki The H istory of the B ook in South Asia Francesca Orsini The H istory of the B ook in the M iddle E ast Geoffrey Roper

The History of the Book in South Asia

Edited by

Francesca Orsini SOAS, University o f London, UK

Ö Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X 14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Francesca Orsini 2013. For copyright of individual articles please refer to the Acknowledgements. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photo­ copying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: 2013930482 ISBN 13: 978-1-4094-3784-0 (hbk)

Contents A cknowl edgem ents Series Preface Introduction PART I

W R IT IN G , O R A L IT Y AND T H E M A N U SC R IPT B O O K

1 Sheldon Pollock (2007), ‘Literary Culture and Manuscript Culture in Precolonial India’, in Simon Eliot, Andrew Nash and Ian W illison (eds), Literary Cultures and the M aterial Book, London: British Library, pp. 77-94. 2 Jeremiah P. Losty (1982), ‘Early Manuscript Illumination’, in The A rt o f the Book in India, London: British Library, pp. 18-36; Plates I-V II 3 Jeremiah P. Losty (1982), ‘The Imperial Library o f the Great M ogul’, in The Art o f the Book in India, London: British Library, pp. 74-85. 4 John E. Cort (1995), ‘The Jain Knowledge Warehouses: Traditional Libraries in India’, Journal o f the American Oriental Society, 115, pp. 77-87. 5 Christian Lee Novetzke (2008), ‘Orality and Literacy/Performance and Permanence’, in Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History o f Saint Namdev in India, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 99-131; 263-5. PART II

vii ix xi

3

21 43 55

67

T E C H N O L O G Y AND PR A C T IC E S

6 Stuart Blackburn (2006), ‘Early Books and New Literary Practices, 1556-1800’, in Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 26-72, 198-204. 7 Graham Shaw (1998), ‘Calcutta: Birthplace o f the Indian Lithographed B ook’, Journal o f the Printing Historical Society, 27, pp. 89-111. 8 Ulrike Stark (2007), ‘The Coming o f the Book in Hindi and U rdu’, in An Empire o f Books, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 29-83; 536-9. 9 Ulrike Stark (2007), ‘An Indian Success Story: The House of Naval Kishore’, in An Empire o f Books, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 164-224. 10 A.R. Venkatachalapathy (2012), ‘Readers, Reading Practices, Modes o f Reading’, in The Province o f the Book. Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 208^12.

105 159 183 241

305

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PART III

The History o f the Book in South Asia

THE CULTURES OF THE BOOK IN COLONIAL INDIA

11 Anindita Ghosh (2006), ‘The Battala Book M arket’, in Power in Print: Popular Publishing and the Politics o f Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778-1905, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 107-51. 12 Rochelle Pinto (2007), ‘The Domain o f K onkani’, in Between Empires: Print and Politics in Goa, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 223-59. 13 Priya Joshi (2003), ‘Reading in the Public Eye: The Circulation o f Fiction in Indian Libraries, c. 1835-1901’, in Stuart Blackburn and Vasudha Dalmia (eds), India ’s Literary History: Essays on the Nineteenth Century, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 280-326. 14 Rimi Chatterjee (2006), “ ‘Petrifactions o f Bygone Ages” : The Sacred Books o f the E ast’, in Empires o f the Mind: A History o f the Oxford University Press in India under the R aj, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 183-203, 435-36. 15 Francesca Orsini (2002), ‘Journals, Publishing, and the Literary System’, in The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 51-80.

PART IV

343 389

427

475 499

POST-COLONIAL HISTORIES

16 Rita Kothari (2006), ‘Publishers’ Perspective’, in Translating India, Manchester: St. Jerome, pp. 58-68. 531 17 A.R. Venkatachalapathy (2012), ‘Epilogue: Exaggerated Obituaries?’, in The Province o f the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 243-53. 543 18 Laura M. Aheam (2001), ‘The Practices o f Reading and W riting’, in Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, & Social Change in N epal, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 191-211; 272-3. 555 Name Index

579

Acknowledgements Ashgate would like to thank our researchers and the contributing authors who provided copies, along with the following for their permission to reprint copyright material. American Oriental Society for the essay: John E. Cort (1995), ‘The Jain Knowledge Warehouses: Traditional Libraries in India’, Journal o f the American Oriental Society, 115, pp. 77-87. British Library for the essays: Sheldon Pollock (2007), ‘Literary Culture and Manuscript Culture in Precolonial India’, in Simon Eliot, Andrew Nash and Ian Willison (eds), Literary Cultures and the M aterial Book, London: British Library, pp. 77-94. Copyright © 2007 Sheldon Pollock; Jeremiah P. Losty (1982), ‘Early Manuscript Illumination’, in The A rt o f the Book in India, London: British Library, pp. 18-36. Copyright © 1982 The British Library; Jeremiah P. Losty (1982), ‘The Imperial Library o f the Great M ogul’, in The A rt o f the Book in India, London: British Library, pp. 74-85. Copyright © 1982 The British Library. Columbia University Press for the essay: Christian Lee Novetzke (2008), ‘Orality and Literacy/Performance and Perm anence’, in Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History o f Saint Namdev in India, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 99-131. Copyright © 2008 Columbia University Press. Oxford University Press India for the essays: Anindita Ghosh (2006), ‘The Battala Book M arket’, in Power in P rint: Popular Publishing and the Politics o f Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778-1905, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 107-51; Rochelle Pinto (2007), ‘The Domain o f K onkani’, in Between Empires: Print and Politics in Goa, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 223-59. Copyright © 2007 Oxford University Press; Rimi Chatterjee (2006), “ ‘Petrifactions o f Bygone Ages” : The Sacred Books o f the East’, in Empires o f the Mind: A History o f the Oxford University Press in India under the Raj, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 183-204, 435-36. Copyright © 2006 Oxford University Press; Francesca Orsini (2002), ‘Journals, Publishing, and the Literary System’, in The H indi Public Sphere 1920-1940, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 51-80. Copyright © 2002 Oxford University Press. Permanent Black for the essays: Stuart Blackburn (2006), ‘Early Books and New Literary Practices, 1556-1800’, in Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 26-72, 198-204. Copyright © 2006 Stuart Blackburn; Ulrike Stark (2007), ‘The Coming o f the Book in Hindi and U rdu’, in An Empire o f Books, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 29-83. Copyright © 2007 Ulrike Stark; Ulrike Stark (2007), ‘An Indian Success Story: The House o f Naval K ishore’, in An Empire o f Books, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 164-224. Copyright © 2007 Ulrike Stark; A.R. Venkatachalapathy (2012), ‘Readers, Reading Practices, Modes o f Reading’, in The Province o f the Book.

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Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 208^12. Copyright © 2012 A.R. Venkatachalapathy; Priya Joshi (2003), ‘Reading in the Public Eye: The Circulation o f Fiction in Indian Libraries, c. 1835-1901’, in Stuart Blackburn and Vasudha Dalmia (eds), India 's Literary History: Essays on the Nineteenth Century, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 280-326. Copyright © 2003 Priya Joshi; A.R. Venkatachalapathy (2012), ‘Epilogue: Exaggerated Obituaries?’, in The Province o f the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 243-53. Copyright © 2012 A.R. Venkatachalapathy. Printing Historical Society for the essay: Graham Shaw (1998), ‘Calcutta: Birthplace of the Indian Lithographed Book’, Journal o f the Printing Historical Society, 27, pp. 89-111. Copyright © 1998 Printing Historical Society and Graham Shaw. St. Jerome Publishing for the essay: Rita Kothari (2006), ‘Publishers’ Perspective’, in Translating India, Manchester: St. Jerome, pp. 58-68. Copyright © 2006 Rita Kothari. University o f Michigan Press for the essay: Laura M. Aheam (2001), ‘The Practices of Reading and W riting’, in Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, & Social Change in N epal, Ann Arbor: University o f Michigan Press, pp. 191-211. Copyright © 2001 by the University o f Michigan Press. Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

P u b lish e r’s Note The material in this volume has been reproduced using the facsimile method. This means we can retain the original pagination to facilitate easy and correct citation o f the original essays. It also explains the variety o f typefaces, page layouts and numbering.

Series Preface This series on the history o f the book in East focuses attention on three areas o f the world which for a long time have been undeservedly left on the margins of the global history o f the book: the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia. The importance of these three regions of the world lies not only in the sheer antiquity o f printing in East Asia, where both movable type and wood blocks were used centuries before Gutenberg’s invention changed the face of book production in Europe, but also in the manuscript traditions and very different responses to printing technology in the Middle East and South Asia. This series forms an important counterbalance to the Eurocentrism o f the history o f the book as practised in the West. The three volumes are edited by renowned experts in the field and each includes an introduction which provides an overview o f research in the field. This series offers a significant benefit to students, lecturers and libraries as it brings together leading articles in the field from disparate journals which are often difficult to locate and of limited access. Students are thus able to study leading articles side by side for comparison whilst lecturers are provided with an invaluable ‘one-stop’ teaching resource. PETER KORNICKI Series Editor University o f Cambridge, UK

Introduction From Nepal to Sri Lanka, and from Pakistan to Bangladesh, South Asia comprises a multitude o f languages and scripts and has done so for more than two millennia. So it is unsurprising that we do not yet have a history o f the book in South Asia. While the essays in this volume show that for the colonial period the history o f books, technologies and reading practices is fairly advanced and sophisticated, with several regional studies, when we move to the pre­ colonial period and the world o f manuscripts, and also when we come to the post-colonial nation-states, we enter m uch more tentative and patchy ground.1 For manuscripts, apart from a few areas and specific texts, what we have are mostly descriptive catalogues ordered by language and individual archive that provide uneven coverage depending on individual or institutional efforts at collecting and archiving. Apart from the systematic activities o f Jain libraries and scholars (see John Cort, Chapter 4 in this volume) much o f the effort in this area was concentrated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.2 For the post-colonial states, the annual bibliographies produced by government departments or private publishers,3 and the personal memories o f post-independence publishers, have yet to be mined for oral or documentary evidence for the histories o f publishing.4 Thanks to the various companions to global book history that have appeared in the last ten years, there are now several concise factual accounts o f the history o f the book in India/ South Asia written by scholars like Graham Shaw (2007) and Abhijit Gupta (2012).5 Instead 1 Even the three volumes Abhijit Gupta and Swapan Chakravorty have brought out of Jadavpur University - Print Areas: Book History in India (2004), Movable Type (2008) and New Word Order: Transnational Themes in Book History (2011) - deal overwhelmingly with the colonial period. 2 For manuscript collecting of Sanskrit and Bengali books in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Sanyal (2011, ch. 3); the unofficial search for Hindi manuscripts conducted by the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras is documented in King (1974). In Chapter 4 of this volume John Cort provides details of Georg Bühler’s expedition to Jain libraries in Ahmedadad (pp. 57-58). 3 See Malhotra (1973, 1998) or the annual Indian National Bibliography issued since 1957 by the Central Reference Library in Calcutta, and the Books from Pakistan published by the National Book Council of Pakistan in Karachi and the Pakistan National Bibliography brought out by the Directorate of Archives and Libraries, also in Karachi. There is also a Nepalese National Bibliography compiled by Tribhuvan University Central Library and Nepal Research Centre, a Bämlädesa jätlya granthapahji (Bangladesh National Bibliography) published by the Bangladesh Archives and Publications in Dhaka, and the Sri Lanka National Bibliography brought out in English and Sinhala by the Government Archivist in Nuwara Eliya. 4 But see Rashmi Sadana’s recent English Heart, Hindi Heartland (2012) for an ethnography of three publishers in New Delhi. Details about Dalit book and pamphlet publishing can be found in Wilkerson (2006) and in Narayan and Misra (2004). 5 While South Asia in the title of this volume refers to the current moniker for the area, until 1947 it was of course India and Ceylon. The indo-centric bias of the essays, particularly for the colonial and post-colonial period, is due to the limited availability of studies on other South Asian societies. Wherever possible, I have referred to comparable phenomena in other parts of South Asia.

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o f producing a similar account, this introduction reflects on the state of the field with regard to the various phases o f book history, situates the essays selected and refers to other important works that could not be included.

W riting, O rality and the M an u scrip t Book The history o f the book in South Asia is, for sheer length, variety and vastness, mostly a history o f the manuscript book. Manuscript holdings in South Asia are both vast and dispersed: estimates range from between five and thirty million manuscripts held in libraries, religious institutions such as temples, monasteries and madrasas, and private collections (Shaw, 2007, p. 127). Despite these vast and dispersed holdings - or perhaps because they are so vast and dispersed - there have been very few sustained analyses of manuscript culture in the subcontinent, as Sheldon Pollock points out in Chapter 1, even for individual regions. Accounts typically selectively mention the first (Buddhist) fragments and manuscripts found - birch-bark scrolls recovered from what is now eastern Afghanistan from the first century c e and written in a Gandhari language using the Kharoshti script, and other texts written in the Brahmi and other scripts on birch bark, vellum, palm leaves and copper found in caves near Bamiyan in Afghanistan and dating from the first century c e onwards (Salomon, 1999; Braarvig, 2000-2006; Allon, 2008).6 They then turn to the technologies of writing: the range o f materials used for manuscripts (birch bark, vellum, talipat and later palmyra palm leaves, for which a flourishing N orth-South trade existed), the techniques used for writing and the evidence for ‘w riting’ and scribes in textual sources (Falk, 1993; Shaw, 2007). In the North the next stage in the account comes with the importation of paper through the Islamic world, as North India became first an eastern frontier and then integral part o f the eastern Islamic world,7the appearance o f illustrated manuscripts (with a few antecedents in Bengal and among Jains in Gujarat) and codexes, and the great rise in vernacular manuscript production on paper even for ‘ordinary’ texts from the fifteenth century c e onwards. In the South, palm leaves continued to be used. Everywhere manuscript and scribal culture remained impermeable to print, which was brought to India by Christian missionaries, first in Tranquebar in 1554 and then in Goa in 1556 (see Stuart Blackburn, Chapter 6 in this volume). Apart from these general points, almost two thousand years o f manuscript production and manuscript culture in the subcontinent become subsumed in the history o f individual texts, o f disciplines of knowledge and o f literary genealogies. And apart from a few documented cases such as those mentioned by Sheldon Pollock in Chapter 1, we know next to nothing about the ordinary circulation o f texts and manuscript books, a circulation that in cases such as that o f Kashmiri texts in South India in the eleventh century was astoundingly quick (see Sanderson, 2001, pp. 35-38, quoted in Cox, 2011, p. 195).

6 The Gilgit manuscripts, found in 1931 in what is now northern Pakistan, are only slightly less old (Schopen, 2009). 7 John Cort notes in Chapter 4 that among the Jain dated palm-leaf manuscripts in the libraries in Patan, ‘about a dozen are from the twelfth century, about one hundred from the thirteenth century, and the latest is dated 1441 c .e . The oldest paper manuscript, on the other hand, dates from 1300-1301 c .e .’ (P- 57).

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In Chapter 1 Pollock addresses three o f the key themes in Indian manuscript culture: the materiality o f manuscript culture, the interplay between the oral and the written, and what he calls ‘script-mercantilism’ (p. 4) or the economy o f manuscript production. He pursues the theme o f materiality largely from the point o f view o f script and orthography, but it can also be pursued in another direction - that o f the materiality of texts. Here we should also refer to the wave o f archivization and digitalization o f manuscripts that is currently taking place, after the first wave in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dealing either with holdings that still lay uncatalogued in Western libraries or with holdings in South Asia through collaborative projects. Several research groups are focusing particularly on early Buddhist materials or on the early Sanskrit manuscripts found in Nepal (see Shaw, 2007, p. 127).8 This important work o f material analysis and digital preservation and dissemination is training a new generation o f manuscript/textual scholars who bring questions of intellectual culture, of the circulation o f material and intellectual objects, and o f reading networks and practices to their work, and who work across languages and scripts. Thus manuscript editing no longer consists of constructing a reliable text out o f variants, but involves questions about the material form o f each individual manuscript, its choice o f script, its historical and social location, and so on.9As Christian Novetzke shows in Chapter 5, asking questions about the material form of a manuscript book and the internal organization o f a text leads us to its social uses: a pothi is a compilation that enshrines oral verses into writing and is meant for preservation, while a bada is a notebook that serves as a perform er’s aid, a case in which writing is subservient to oral perform ance.10 The second crucial point about manuscript culture in a multilingual environment like that o f the Indian subcontinent concerns language and script. Pollock’s own important conceptualization o f cosmopolitan and vernacular languages (1998a, 1998b) has been extremely fruitful in raising questions o f language ideology and the pragmatics of language use that are crucial to understanding manuscript culture over this longue duree\ instead of the old single-language scholarship that assumed an intrinsic correlation between language and script, we now think o f multilingual archives, o f geographical proximities and of transmission over script and language as a fundamental feature o f circulation within Indian

8 For a list of archival projects, see http://sanskrit.lib.cam.ac.uk/related-projects-and-blogs (accessed 7 December 2012). 9 For a comparative study of Sanskrit and Tamil epigraphy and literature, see Pollock (2006, Introduction and ch. 3). That the work on manuscripts is running in parallel with other extensive projects on epigraphy (for example in South India) is also promising, for literary texts (and literarization of language) can be set against non-literary language uses and historical and social contexts can be delineated more precisely, and textual philology can be enriched by socio-economic and cultural history. 10 A similar distinction can be made, on the basis o f Winand Callewaert’s pioneering work, between a musician’s notebooks and Dadupanthi Pähcväni anthologies o f the poetry o f Kabir and other Sants (see Callewaert and Lath, 1989; Callewaert, 1991). Sanyal makes a case for differentiating in Bengali between the terms pandulipi and punthi, in that pandulipi refers more appropriately to an author’s final draft of a text, the stage prior to its appearance in the final form o f a ‘published’ book, while punthi represents a finished product that has been deemed a ‘book’ by both its producer and consumers. She also notes that ‘many scribes in pre-colonial Bengal describing the work that they had copied not as a pandulipi but as a pustaka, a term for book derived from the Sanskrit pustika’ (Sanyal, 2011, p. 78).

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manuscript culture. And while Pollock has given us a grand narrative of vemacularization and the rise o f regional polities in the second millennium c e , what is equally important is that his conceptualization o f cosmopolitan and vernacular forces us to ask questions o f every m anuscript we encounter: why was this text produced, copied or transmitted in this particular (cosmopolitan or vernacular) language, what other possible choices were discarded? What sociotextual community did the author or copyist affiliate themselves to by choosing a particular language or script? How did the roles and value o f cosmopolitan languages such as Tamil, Sanskrit, Pali, Apabhramsha and Persian shift over time and space? W hat do we make o f the various forms o f bi- and multilingualism that we encounter in manuscripts, either as quotations, as parallel texts or as marginalia?11 Both Pollock’s and Christian N ovetzke’s essays tackle the relationship between writing and orality. Pollock makes some important general points: the much touted orality of Vedic and post-Vedic knowledge (the Upanisads, Panini’s grammar) is true enough, but it has too often been taken as emblematic o f a general putative Indian indifference to writing. While the cultural premium on memorized knowledge (,kanthästa, or held in the throat, as Pollock reminds us) ‘left clear traces in secular written culture’ (p. 5), ‘from the moment writing was invented the literary culture that resulted, the culture ofkavya, became indissolubly connected with manuscript culture, so much so that the history of the one becomes unintelligible without taking into account the history o f the other’ (p. 7). The same argument is echoed for South India by Stuart Blackburn, who notes that even the early Sangam corpus o f Tamil poetry (third century c e , but edited and anthologized only in the eighth century) valorizes both orality and writing: ‘Many o f the poems are presented as if spoken or sung by bards, while, on the other hand, many give prominence to the role o f the poet-scholar (pulavarf (2006, p. 20). V. Narayana Rao (date?, p. 000) has coined the very useful term ‘oral-literate’ to describe pandits, poets and storytellers who operate within a culture that is both orally transmitted and literate at the same time, and the same can be said about many genres, from tales to songpoems to sermons, to the mixed kirtankara performances that Novetzke writes about and the theatrical chapbooks that were one o f the most popular genres of commercial publishing in the nineteenth century.12 Indeed, the mere physical presence of a book during a performance, even if it was not consulted, has been seen to work symbolically as an authorizing gesture (see, for example, Widdess, forthcoming). Jains have been India’s great amanuenses, and in their catholic copying practices they have preserved valuable Brahmanical and Buddhist texts that would otherwise have been lost. John C ort’s essay on Jain libraries (Chapter 4) gives us a glimpse o f the extraordinary amount of m anuscript production Jains sponsored, and o f the institutional and ritual mechanisms by which texts were preserved - although not necessarily read. The essay deals by extension with Jain attitudes towards manuscripts, which Cort summarizes as being o f great and ritual respect but also o f ambivalence towards ‘the powerful, salvific knowledge (jhän) contained therein’ (p. 65). He explains: This knowledge is something to be preserved in libraries and worshipped in the abstract in rituals, but not necessarily something with which they expect people to have frequent contact. Manuscripts 11 See, for example, Shantanu Phukan (2000) for the (unusual) interlingual manuscript of Jaisi’s Hindavi Padmävat and its Persian translation by Aqil Khan Razi. 12 For a comparable example, see Monika Horstmann’s study of Dadupanthi book sermons (2009).

The History o f the Book in South Asia not only contain jnän, they also contain vidyä, a multivalent term that covers both the Western categories of science and magic - in other words, powerful and efficacious knowledge. This holy power contained in the physical presence of the manuscripts accounts for the many references over the past century to the inaccessibility of Jain libraries, (p. 65)

Cort also points to the ironic phenomenon by which, while scholarly attention towards Jain manuscripts has grown, ‘their utility within the Jain community itself has drastically declined, as handwritten manuscripts have been replaced by printed books for both ritual and pedagogical purposes’ (p. 55). Given the substantial financial and philanthropic capabilities of many Jain patrons, manuscripts ‘are better cared for than ever’ but ‘they have been relegated to a marginal status within the Jain community’ (p. 55), so that ‘warehouse’ (the literal translation o f bhandära) is a more accurate term to describe these libraries. An offshoot o f the continuous preservation efforts o f Jain libraries is that systematic bibliographic works have been possible, such as a two-volume compilation o f colophons from Jain texts which offers a unique insight into the authorship and sponsorship o f texts (Shastri, 1954-63). Cort’s essay also leads us to consider the role that religious institutions have played in manuscript production and copying - although not necessarily for dissemination. It is well known that the great efflorescence o f devotional poetry in North India from the fifteenth century was not always accompanied by institutionalized religious organization. The songpoems and verses o f the great poets circulated widely and quickly across northern India, but they were first preserved in writing by institutionalized religious groups such as the Sikhs and the Dadu-panthis, often after a considerable period o f exclusively oral circulation.13 We come back to oral-literate transmission: while the gurus composed their theology in the form o f songs and other orally transmitted genres such as couplets, the book of these compositions acquired great symbolic significance for the authorization o f the group and in the group. With respect to the history o f the Ä di Granth, Gurinder S. Mann has argued that ‘both the text o f the Sikh scripture and the authority accompanying it began to take shape during Guru N anak’s lifetime’ (2001, p. 12). Guru Nanak is believed to have compiled a pothi o f his song-poems and entrusted it to his chosen successor, Guru Angad, as part o f the ceremony of investiture. Not only did subsequent gurus up to Guru Gobind Singh enlarge and modify the book, but counter-claimants acquired their ow npothis as authorizing symbols, too.14 The use o f a codified pothi for religious control is evidenced in what is perhaps the most extraordinary story o f pre-print standardized and mass manuscript production in South Asia, the story of the production and dissemination o f the Caitänyacaritämrta, which Tony Stewart (2010) has told in great detail and Sheldon Pollock summarizes in Chapter 1. ‘The expansion o f Persianate culture in India from 1000 c e onward added remarkable new resources but did not introduce any morphologically new dimension to literary culture’, notes Pollock in passing (p. 4). But the coming o f the Persian and Persianate book (that is, following Persian conventions but in Indian languages) did bring two significant innovations in manuscript culture - the form o f the codex and the illustrated book as a luxury object and

13 Very famous poets like Mira bai who were not included in these compilations survived in oral transmission for a much longer period (see Hawley, 2005). 14 ‘Starting with the Bhallas, the possession of early manuscripts by families who wereindirect competition with the Sikh gurus is a historical fact’ (Mann, 2001, p. 49).

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the attendant arts o f illumination and illustration, as Jeremy Losty shows in Chapter 2 .15 Once again, the material form of the book, as well as the script of the text or captions, helps us trace cultural changes - such as when illustrations in non-Persianate books began to illustrate the text rather than Jaina or Buddhist deities, as with Jain Kalpasütra manuscripts in the mid-fourteenth century, and when we see a stylistic convergence between Jain and Persian and Persianate manuscripts in the fifteenth century (see also Goswami, 1998; Brae de la Perriere, 2008).16 While literature on the ‘art o f the book’ in India has long been substantial and sophisticated, from the point o f view o f book history it suffers from two drawbacks. First, it overwhelmingly focuses on the art to the detriment o f every other aspect o f the manuscript book, to the point that reproductions generally leave out if they can the textual part o f a folio and sometimes do not even specify which script or language the manuscript is in.17 While extraordinarily sophisticated attention is paid to details o f style and hand, questions about the relationship between textual choices and visuals, the cultural orientation o f the book’s patron and the relationship between the illustrated books and contiguous forms o f cultural production are swiftly brushed aside as unanswerable or irrelevant. The other drawback is that, with a few exceptions, historians o f the Indo-Persian book have concentrated on the imperial productions,18 the most sophisticated and sumptuously illustrated texts, and have been quick to dismiss other books as ‘provincial’ or ‘bazaar’ productions. While from the point o f view o f artistic quality the judgem ent may be sound, from the point o f view o f cultural history it is frustrating because the cultural historian cannot equate production and taste at the imperial court with the whole o f cultural production; other levels and avenues o f production and circulation are equally interesting and necessary for a more complete and balanced picture. The result is that thanks to Persian chronicles and other sources we know a lot about the M ughal emperors’ personal tastes in books, the manuscripts in the imperial library (see Chapter 3 by Jeremiah Losty) and even the regular checks and occasional valuation o f the manuscripts in it, as John Seyller details in his essay on ‘The Inspection and Valuation o f Manuscripts in the Imperial Mughal Library’ (1997), a fascinating example o f Indo-Persian book history that could not be included because of its length. But anyone who has been in a Persian m anuscript library knows that the great majority of Persian manuscripts are not sumptuously illustrated or carefully calligraphed, and it is the spatial, temporal and social distribution and circulation o f ordinary Persian manuscript books that still awaits mapping.19 For example, we have now a much more nuanced, variegated and lively 15 He notes ‘a considerable number of illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts and covers of Buddhist texts from eastern India under the Päla dynasty and from Nepal in a closely related style, whence come also a few Hindu ones, and a much smaller number of Jaina examples from Gujarat and Rajasthan ... Are they merely the accidental survivals of a much more widespread tradition, with many centuries of development behind them? Or are they the earliest survivals of a tradition that only began at about the same time?’ (p. 22). 16 The adoption of the codex format for non-Persianate books and generally the geographical and social distribution of codex/Indic manuscript formats is one of the questions that only general surveys can begin to answer. 17 For example, the Mirigävatl in the Bharat Kala Bhavan in Banaras (Khandalavala, 1971, p. 32). 18 For two wonderful examples of art historical attention to books produced at the Mughal court, see Stronge (2002) and Welch and Schimmel (1983). 19 Sanjay Subrahmaniam made this point in his talk at the conference on ‘Munshis, Pandits and Record-keepers: Scribal Communities and Historical Change in India, c. 1500-1800’, St. Antony’s

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picture o f the many scribal communities in South Asia, their curricula, skills and cultural and religious orientation,20 and we would expect them to be crucial actors in manuscript book culture, but we know next to nothing about their book-related practices - what manuscript books did they keep, did they buy or sell manuscripts or participate in some form o f manuscript trade or exchange?

Technology and P ractices Perhaps nothing exemplifies better than the case o f the Indian subcontinent the fact that technologies need to be socialized before they actually spread and make an impact. As all historical accounts show, printing presses and type fonts for some Indian languages and scripts were prepared in South India barely a century after Gutenberg, but it was only in the late eighteenth century in Madras (now Chennai) and Calcutta (now Kolkata), and in the nineteenth century in all other regions, that print was effectively socialized and engendered a publishing industry and print culture.21 Tamil was the first Indian language to appear in print, as Stuart Blackburn (Chapter 6) and A.R. Venkatachalapathy (Chapter 10) show us, and the early story of Tamil book publishing is a riveting one o f competition between Jesuit and Lutheran missionaries, exemplified by the contrast between the colourful and inventive Giovanni Beschi and the efficient Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg in the eighteenth century. Blackburn’s essay is not only concerned with printing technology and textual production, but also with the linguistic and literary innovations that the interaction between Christian missionaries and Tamils produced: ‘if translation stimulated thinking about “which Tamil” to use, it also demonstrated new possibilities for prose’ (p. 143); and the prose folktales written by missionaries like Beschi marked the beginning o f prose fiction in Tamil. The crucial role missionaries played everywhere in India in the establishment o f printing presses and the creation o f fonts for Indian languages and scripts, in early prose writing, Bible translations and textbooks, and in fostering a religious print culture through their large production and distribution o f polemical tracts is undisputed (see Jones, 1992; Ghosh, 2006). W hat some scholars have questioned is the impact of, and readership for, ‘missionary H indi’ (or Bamla) and missionary tracts.22 In other words, what is argued is that only when Tamils, Bengalis, North Indians and so forth took publishing into their own hands were print and print languages properly socialized.

College, Oxford, 13-14 June 2008. 20 See the special issue of Indian Economic and Social History Review, brought out by Rosalind O ’Hanlon and David Washbrook (2010), which includes some of the papers presented at the Oxford conference. 21 Though European paintings and engravings the Jesuits brought on their missions made a strong impact at the Mughal court, the same was not true for print technology (see Pollock’s explanation, what he calls ‘script-mercantilism’ (p. 4); see also Bailey, 1999, ch. 5). With printed books - socialized or not socialized - we are immediately on firmer bibliographic ground, thanks to the fundamental work of Graham Shaw (1987). 22 p or ridicuie piied Up0n missionary Hindi, see, for example, Dalmia (1997, pp. 169ffi); see Ghosh (2006, pp. 166-67) for questions about eager readership for Bengali missionary tracts.

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In Chapter 7 Graham Shaw deals with the other important technological innovation for the history o f the book in South Asia. While lithography, invented in 1798 by Aloys Senefelder, remained marginal to the history o f printing in Europe and was used mainly for reproducing music and art, it was the technology that allowed the spread o f printing and publishing in North India, as well as in Egypt and other Muslim societies. Shaw’s essay also contributes to the growing scholarship on technological innovations in the colonies, which questions underlying assumptions about centre-periphery flows. The success o f lithography, I have argued elsewhere, can be attributed to three factors (Orsini, 2009, pp. lOff). First, it was a cheap technology in comparison to printing with movable type, and required low initial investment and low running costs - this must have been a factor behind the shift to private Indian ownership o f printing presses in the 1830s (another was the more liberal legal framework o f the Metcalfe Minute o f 1835 which abolished the licensing o f printing presses). Second, lithography was a flexible technology that easily accommodated local needs for printing in multiple languages and scripts. Most if not all printing presses in North India published books in more than one script; multiscript printing was possible with movable type also, but it was much cheaper when done by hand and then transferred onto the lithographic stone. Third, lithography made printed books look familiar to Indian audiences, even when the material shape o f the book was that o f a codex and not a palm -leaf manuscript. In the case o f some religious texts, even printed books maintained the shape o f traditional manuscripts, and do so to the present day (see Sanyal, 2011, ch. 4).23 Lithographed books thus maintained the appearance of traditional manuscripts, and some o f their aesthetic value with their ornamental frames, woodblock illustrations and, in the case o f Urdu and Persian books, the peculiar arrangement of the text on the page. Calligraphers thus found new employment as copyists, and Ulrike Stark’s essay on the Naval Kishore Press (Chapter 9) details the special care devoted to calligraphy in their books. Chapter 8, also by Ulrike Stark, complements Shaw’s on lithography but also provides the most detailed account we have so far o f the socialization and commercialization o f print technology in North India, after its beginnings in Calcutta, in terms o f geographical distribution, local entrepreneurship and the growth o f a local paper industry that brought book prices down, and the social background o f publishers and printers. Chapter 9 is perhaps the only study we have so far o f a single publisher, perhaps the most successful Indian publisher of the nineteenth century, Munshi Naval Kishore. This is all the more remarkable given the absence o f the publisher’s archive. The chapter traces Naval K ishore’s initial establishment in Lucknow in 1858 thanks to colonial support (as the lone Hindu non-local publisher after the Revolt o f 1857) and the extraordinary expansion o f its publishing activities and distribution - by 1872-73 production had reached a total o f 104,025 printed volumes, Stark notes. We get a sense o f the range of its publications in the various languages through the Catalogue o f 1879, and of the reach of its distribution through its sales network. Stark follows a few significant cases o f interaction with important literary figures (the poet Ghalib and the early novelist and educationist Nazir Ahmed) and ends with the decline o f the family business in the early twentieth century, although the reasons for it are unclear. Chapter 8 also touches upon the question o f colonial control and censorship: copyright was offered mostly as an incentive for registration rather than as protection against piracy (which 23 Ritual booklets for vrata stories still adopt that format.

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was widely practised and seems to have gone unchecked when it did not concern British titles) (see Bently, 2007). Until the height o f the nationalist period in the early twentieth century government censorship was definitely more concerned with pictures and theatrical productions than with printed books, no doubt because the government felt less threatened by them because o f limited literacy.24 The final theme o f this section, that o f reading and the readership for printed books, is best posed as a question, since apart from the vitality o f manuscript culture, the other big challenge to the expansion and socialization o f print culture in the subcontinent was low literacy and the fact that forms o f entertainment were traditionally embodied in storytellers, singers, mimes, dancers, actors and so on, as I have argued elsewhere (Orsini, 2009, p. 9). How did publishers manage to win over to printed books a society largely used to oral and visual entertainment? The genres o f commercial publishing everywhere show a preponderance o f ‘oral-literate’ genres such as songs, ballads, tales and theatrical or dialogic narratives, whether on traditional or contemporary topics.25 Chapter 10, on reading practices, taken from A.R. Venkatachalapathy’s important monograph on Tamil book culture, The Province o f the Book (2012), tackles the various issues related to reading, such as pre-print reading practices, and post-print practices o f recitation and silent reading, with a wealth o f examples that simultaneously chart the penetration o f newspapers and books into rural areas and trace different patterns according to specific genres - ballads, novels, newspapers. From technology to production, distribution and consumption, the ‘communications circuit’ for colonial print culture is thus complete.26

The C ultures of the B ook in Colonial In d ia One o f the most productive aspects o f the studies o f book/print culture in colonial India so far has been the way in which their regional focus has revealed significant regional variations despite what appear to be common phenomena, such as print technology, missionary activity, colonial School Book societies and the market for textbooks, the impact of English, the 24 The history of the court case against Dinabandhu Mitra’s Neel Darpan is a case in point: as long as the play was circulated as a book in Bengali, the Anglo-Indian community of Calcutta did not object; only when it was performed and translated into English was there an outcry and a court case against its Bengali publisher (later dropped) and English missionary translator, Reverend James Long. As Tanika Sarkar notes, ‘Oddly, the texts of the suspicious plays were never prohibited, and even the text of [Neel Darpan] was allowed to circulate, but a specific scene was excised from its enactment’ (2009, p. 159). For a list of censored books, see Shaw and Lloyd (1985) and Venkatachalapathy (2012, ch. 6). The Registration of Books Act 1867 provides book history scholars with its most comprehensive bibliographic resource, the provincial Quarterly Lists o f Publications, held in the British Library. 25 See Orsini (2009) for Hindi/Urdu North India; Ghosh (2006) and here (Chapter 11) for the farces of Battala popular publishing; for Tamil popular genres in print and for ballads and chapbooks, see Venkatachalapathy (2012, ch. 5), and Blackburn (2006) for folktales; for Punjabi qissas and other genres of popular publishing, see Farina M ir’s important book The Social Space o f Language (2010). 26 ‘Communications circuit’ is Robert Darnton’s influential formulation (1990) for the circuit that runs from the author through the publisher, printer and the reader, and back to the author. In the case of colonial India, in many cases the publisher-printer seems to have stood at the beginning of the circuit, rather than the author.

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rise o f print activism, the solidification o f language identities and the emergence of literary associations, with their search for tradition and distaste for popular genres and ideas of patriotism and nationalism. While all these studies draw upon Benedict Anderson’s argument about ‘print capitalism ’ (1991, p. 18), the obvious regional variations and general comparative framework have helped dispel any suggestion o f a uniform or necessary development. Regional studies have shown that factors such as the social, intellectual and religious composition o f local elites and literate groups, their degree of Anglicization and/or command o f other Indian languages, their entrepreneurship and support for printing activities, local caste dynamics, the greater or lesser activism o f missionaries and Indian Christians, and so on, produced significantly different print cultures in Tamil, Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Konkani, Punjabi and Sinhala, to name but a few (for Sinhala, see Dharmadasa, 1992). In her study o f Marathi print culture, Language Politics, Elites, and the Public Sphere (2001), Veena Naregal has highlighted its upper-caste dominance and exclusivity, and shown that its virulent anti-lower-caste discourse was all the sharper because o f the assertion of lower-caste voices in Western India, so much earlier than in other areas of the subcontinent. As a result, she argues, ‘by the late 1870s, when modem Marathi found its literary voice, lower-caste groups did not identify with the public defined by upper-caste intellectuals’; they formed ‘a distinct counter-public’ and used ‘popular expressive form s’ such as povada and abhang for mobilization (Naregal, 2001, p. 269)27 Bengali book culture was similarly shaped by the distance between elite forms o f cultural production by the famed bhadralok and the commercial energies o f the Battala book quarter, as Anindita Ghosh’s study (Chapter 11) shows. Yet it was taste rather than caste that divided them (see also Bhattacharya, 2005).28 An extreme case is that o f Konkani, the subject of Rochelle Pinto’s Between Empires: Print and Politics in Goa (2007), a chapter o f which is included here as Chapter 12. The presence o f a ‘split elite’ o f Christians and Hindus in non-British Goa, each with their linguistic orientation (towards Portuguese or English and towards Marathi) meant that, despite the early production o f (romanized) Konkani materials as early as 1556, by the late seventeenth century the Portuguese Viceroy had prohibited the use o f Konkani and printing was formally banned from 1754 to 1821 (Pinto, 2007, pp. 84-85), and in the nineteenth century there was no public support within Goa for Konkani in education. As Chapter 12 shows, it was in Bombay (now Mumbai), among non-elite Goan migrants, that Konkani began to be used for printing purposes. Through a study o f Konkani print production, consisting o f club-books of rules, primers, guides to letter-writing and to money-management, practical dictionaries and so on, Pinto argues that ‘Konkani print was one o f the mechanisms through which migrant Goans made their acquaintance with elements o f urban modernity in Bom bay’, together with the peculiar institution o f the club that eased ‘the assimilation o f migrants from scarcely 27 Naregal’s chapter 5 (2001) also has a particular focus on bi-lingual Marathi-English publications. 28 Subhadra Sanyal (2011, ch. 2) notes the indirect impact of Orientalist associations and activities on the elite domain of Bengali book production: when the Asiatic Society of Bengal (founded in 1784) undertook in the 1840s to publish critical editions of classical Indian texts, the Bibliotheca Indica (see also Chatterjee, Chapter 14 in this volume), it focused exclusively on works in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Pali and Burmese and not in Bengali. Its model of scholarship, however, was taken up by Bengali voluntary associations, which undertook similar activities for Bengali, including the search for manuscripts, publication of critical editions of ‘classics’ and the establishment of a scholarly library, from the 1840s onwards.

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monetized villages in Goa ... and prepared them to appear as salaried and wage labour in Bom bay’s offices, restaurants, and dockyards’ (p. 395).29 A similar diasporic trajectory is visible in the development o f Nepali print culture, although in this case because o f strict censorship in Nepal. Perhaps because o f the earlier agency attributed to missionaries, Orientalists, colonial administrators and Indian intellectuals in the making o f print culture, many recent studies have emphasized other, more popular domains o f print.30 In fact, it is useful to envisage print culture in colonial India as constituted o f distinct, although at times overlapping, domains: the Anglo-Indian, particularly the Anglo-Indian press of Calcutta (see Mukhopadhyay, 1988); courtly book production, essentially an extension o f earlier forms o f patronage;31 educational publishing, one o f the early domains o f mass print culture, in which missionary, government and private Indian enterprises competed; the high literate domain of elite Indian intellectuals like Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay or Bharatendu Harishchandra with their journals and, in the case o f Bankim, their novels; and the commercial book market that has already been mentioned. Finally, religion in the nineteenth century also became deeply intertwined with print: missionary, Indian reformist and traditionalist religious groups and actors all competed with each other in the religious print market with devotional books, polemic and apologetic tracts, ‘oral-literate’ prayer books and religious songbooks, printed editions and translations o f earlier religious texts, religious journals and so on.32 The impact of English on Indian intellectuals, on ideas of culture and - from our perspective here - on book culture has been o f course much debated. Moving away from earlier arguments about English literature as a ‘mask o f conquest’ and Indian intellectuals ‘crushed by English poetry’, on the whole book histories have shown that the influence of English was more limited. Two essays in this collection deal directly with English books: Chapter 13, Priya Joshi’s pioneering study o f the circulation o f English books in libraries in Bengal, has shown a different canon o f English literature from that propounded in schools and colleges, with a marked preference for the thrilling novels o f G.W. Reynolds. Methodologically, her chapter shows the benefits o f a quantitative approach to the study o f literary history. Chapter 14, by Rimi Chatterjee, taken from her monograph on Oxford University Press in India (2006), shows that book history in India cannot be confined to India alone. Readers interested in other aspects o f the book trade between England and India, for example in ‘colonial editions’, should consult her book. Similarly, Isobel H ofineyr’s work on the transnational trajectory of Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress (2004) or the transnational circulation of news, magazines and books from one colony to the other o f the British Empire is highly relevant to book history in the subcontinent (see also Hofineyr, 2013). 29 See Chalmers (2003); only one chapter of this important study has appeared in print, ‘Pandits and Pulp Fiction: Popular Publishing and the Birth of Nepali Print Capitalism in Banaras’ (Chalmers, 2002). 30 For other genres that were successful in print, see Pritchett (1991, pp. 1-36) and Hansen (2001). 31 For Lucknow, see Sprenger (1854); for Banaras see Orsini (2004); for Madras see Venkatachalapathy (2012, ch. 1). Stuart Blackburn’s essay in this collection (Chapter 6) mentions the eighteenth-century court of Serfoji in Thanjavur. 32 The scholarship is vast and includes Jones (1976, 1992); Young (1981); Metcalf (1982); Kopf (1988); Horstmann (1995); and Dalmia (1997, ch. 4). See Blackburn (2006, ch. 2) for missionary printing in South India.

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While education and reading publics spread further, and elite and non-elite publics were linked by the nationalist movement in the early decades o f the twentieth century, Indian publishers could prosper only if they combined journals and book publishing with publishing textbooks (see Chapter 15 in this volume). In fact, an astute publisher like the Indian Press of Allahabad (run by a Bengali, and publisher o f the prominent Calcutta journals Modern Review and Prabasi as well as Rabindranath Tagore’s early Bengali books) consolidated activities by using editors to write books, and by anthologizing journal essays, poems and short stories in its textbooks and school readers.

Post-colonial H istories A fter the richness and variety o f scholarship on colonial book culture, the paucity o f writing on books, publishing and reading in the post-colonial states o f India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is both arresting and disconcerting. Particularly in the absence of the meticulous and comprehensive bibliographic resources of the colonial archive, how will post-colonial histories o f the book be w ritten?33 The essays in the last section o f this book focus on particular aspects o f book culture literary translations from Indian languages into English (Chapter 16), practices o f reading and writing in a village in Nepal (Chapter 18), and a general overview of Tamil publishing since 1947 (Chapter 17). Some o f the points A.R. Venkatachalapathy makes about Tamil in Chapter 17 can help us draw a general outline o f what book history for the post-independence period could look like. One phenomenon that did not affect the South but affected North India was the migration of publishers, editors and writers at Partition, which turned Delhi into the new capital o f Indian publishing - Raj Pal & Sons and Motilal Banarsidass are just two of the prominent names. Similarly, Urdu journals that had flourished in Delhi before 1947 moved to Pakistan (for example, SaqT\ see Farooqi, 2012, pp. 6-7). In post-independence India, at least, the state emerged as a major player in the book market. Not only did the Indian state set up a national academy o f letters (Sahitya Akademi, 1954) with Prime M inister Nehru as its first chairman, and its own publication and translation division, a journal in English and Hindi, a reference library and annual prizes for the best books in Indian languages.34 Equally significantly, the state began to virtually subsidize book publishing through its bulk acquisitions for public libraries, as well as school and college 33 Arguably, the flurry of studies of regional print cultures in the colonial period was occasioned by the revived scholarly interest among historians and English literature scholars in India in colonial society together with a ‘cultural turn’ in historiography. Perhaps the growing interest in post-independence histories will eventually result in book histories for the post-colonial period. 34 Translations have been plentiful, especially into Hindi, though of varying quality. Books are priced cheaply and are found mostly in libraries; the Akademi has its own bookshop-cum-distribution centre in Delhi and branches in the various Indian states. The National Book Trust of India (NBT, est. 1957) is another autonomous organization under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, with the aim of ‘working towards the promotion of books and developing reading habit among the masses’; it publishes books in eighteen major Indian languages, including Asamiya, Bangla, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Manipuri, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali, Odiya, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, though it has also published books in Bhojpuri, Himachali, Kokborok, Khasi, Garo, Lepcha, Bhutia, Mising Limboo, Mizo, Newari and Bodo. The NBT also translates across Indian

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libraries.35 The education market was already the bedrock of publishing in India, as we have seen.36 But state acquisition o f textbooks and library books arguably discouraged investment in private distribution networks. As Venkatachalapathy pithily puts it, Once again, with their characteristic myopia, publishers looked to the state without exploring ways and means to expand and reach out to a market. The outcome was the establishment of the Local Library Authority (now the Directorate of Public Libraries) which, almost as a matter of routine, bought a certain number of copies - as much as 50 per cent of actual print run ... Even if this ensured bread and butter for publishers, it effectively killed creativity and innovation, (p. 545)

‘A giant in slumbers’ is D.N. M alhotra’s definition o f Indian book publishing in a commemorative volume (1998, p. 10). It also means that unless books are prescribed in syllabi, it is unlikely that their literary authors will receive royalties, although paperback series (for example Hind Pocket Books, Rajkamal Paperbacks) seem to find long-term readership. Another outcome o f the state subsidy o f book publishing has been the phenomenon of the publisher-distributor-bookshop. In the capital o f Hindi book publishing, New Delhi, in order to buy a Hindi book you need to go either to the distributor-cum-publisher Hind Book Centre on A asaf Ali Road or to the individual publishers, with the only advantage being a discount on the cover price.37 The only Hindi bookshops that currently exist in Delhi are located near or inside the universities, and the same is more or less true for the cities that were once the centres o f Hindi book culture, Banaras and Allahabad.38 Railway book-stalls remain significant avenues o f book and magazine distribution, although the choice is skewed towards paperbacks in English and the regional Indian language. Conversely, book fairs witness a massive confluence o f people, suggesting that the demand for books actually exists and the problem is one o f distribution and marketing. The annual Kolkata Book Fair is the largest in the world in terms o f attendance, while in Dhaka the Ekushey Boi Mela (‘Book Fair of the 21st’) is the national book fair o f Bangladesh, and the Jaipur Literary Festival has become the largest book festival in Asia and a highly publicized global event. Crossword, a multi-purpose store selling books, music and DVDs, has now eighty bookstores in twenty-four Indian cities, with as many as sixteen in Pune, thirteen in Bangalore (now Bengaluru) and fourteen in Mumbai, and runs an annual book award now sponsored by The Economist?9 Evidence about reading is also contradictory. On the one hand NGOs seem to struggle to create and foster a reading habit among schoolchildren that is not exclusively geared towards academic achievement (Varma, 2005). On the other hand pulp fiction and paperbacks languages and publishes fiction and non-fiction general books, particularly for children; it has played an important role in training editors and illustrators (see Varma, 2005). 35 For a survey of central and state policies and initiatives regarding libraries in India, see Ngurtinkhuma (2010). 36 Law book publishing appears to be another perennial. 37 Contributor after contributor to 50 Years o f Indian Publishing (Malhotra, 1998) speaks of the peculiar challenges of distributing books in rural areas, but this reader’s experience has been the difficulty of finding shops selling books in urban areas. 38 Sadana’s recent ethnography of Hindi literature in Delhi (2012) deals with publishers and the Sahitya Akademi but not with bookshops and distributions; some discussion relating to schoolbooks and other books for children can be found in Varma (2005). 39 See http://www.crossword.in/stores (accessed on 8 December 2012).

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in Indian languages suggest a habit o f reading for pleasure; and compared to a couple of decades ago the booming and increasingly diversified market for Indian English books, both at the more literary end and in genre publishing such as chick lit, self-help books and the like, suggests a growing reading habit among the English-educated, with authors like Chetan Bhagat achieving celebrity status.40 In somewhat sharp contrast, in Chapter 18 Laura Aheam maps spatially as well as historically the spaces of literacy (including what she calls ‘visual literacy’ (p. 572)) in rural and small-town Nepal in the 1980s and 1990s, spaces that included the local social club and tea-shops. In the book from which this essay is taken Aheam (2001) traces the impact o f state and NGO development discourse on practically all forms o f literacy available to villagers, whether textbooks, magazines, novels, films or other materials. ‘While the various genres differ somewhat, they are all examples o f a development discourse that became ubiquitous in the village during this period’, and this influenced identities as well as writing practices, so much so that when young women and men in the village wrote love letters to each other they, they associated romantic love with economic success and development and ‘proposed a new conception o f individual agency that attributes responsibility for events to individuals rather than to fate’ (Aheam, 2001, pp. 246,247). ‘Yes, Sarita’, writes Bir, ‘because o f love the world looks bright ... We are students. Because our main vocation is to study, in order to reflect more, it is necessary to study. Yes, we love more tmly. The union cannot possibly be broken up. Therefore, let’s put more effort into studying. This is the path toward progress’ (Aheam, 2001, p. 235). One positive outcome o f the large (and growing) size of India’s educational book market has been the surfeit o f quality academic publishers,41 the emergence o f innovative and crossdisciplinary feminist publishers (Kali for Women, Zubaan), the circulation o f excellent book review journals (Biblio, Indian Review o f Books) and - as Rita Kothari shows in Chapter 16 the appearance o f a dedicated group o f literary publishers who took advantage o f the ‘cultural’ and ‘literary turn’ o f Indian historians and English Literature academics and complemented, or rather virtually supplanted, the official programme of literary translations.42 This translation

40 For seminar papers and interview transcripts related to this growing phenomenon, see the project ‘Contemporary Indian Literature in English and the Indian Market’ at the Open University, UK, accessible at http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/indian-lit/documents/index.html (accessed on 8 December 2012). 41 In conversation with Rashmi Sadana, the late Ravi Dayal, who started out with Oxford University Press in Bombay in the 1950s working under the British head Roy Hawkins, then moved to Madras and Delhi, and became the first Indian general manager of OUP in 1971, said: ‘Immediately you know when you come back to India [after Oxford] the place is bubbling a bit, new frameworks are being worked out. In history, Irfan Habib’s changing the face of modern India, Amartya Sen is working on something. Because you belong roughly to that period, you can follow the importance. The earlier lot of people at OUP were out of touch - they did not know the nature of the debate. They had fine editors, even when I joined, but they really weren’t following what was happening in post-independence India, even though they were quite sympathetic to independence. This happens in publishing; a publisher cannot lose touch with ideas’ (Sadana, 2012, p. 62). 42 For translations into Odiya, see St-Pierre (2010, pp. 187-98). His bibliography of translations into Oriya from 1807 (the first Oriya book) to 1995, which lists more than 3,100 titles, is currently being prepared for publication, and will provide a unique systematic insight into translation trends in one region.

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effort, only partly commercial, has paved the way for important comparative work and for a more nuanced understanding o f Indian literature as a composite field. Although Indian branches o f British academic and educational publishers like Oxford University Press and Macmillan43 have long been part of the publishing scene (Macmillan since 1892), the post-liberalization period has witnessed the aggressive entry into India of more multinational publishers such as HarperCollins, with recent ventures also into Indian languages. Venkatachalapathy, in Chapter 17, the epilogue of his The Province o f the Book (2012), writes o f the growth o f huge conglomerates in Tamil publishing and o f the entry of major media companies into ‘quasi book publishing’ (p. 552). In the case o f newspapers, India has indeed witnessed a ‘newspaper revolution’ fuelled by a range o f factors including the new digital technologies, an accelerated growth o f literacy, more diffuse political involvement that has created a hunger for news, and new capitalist investment from a young generation o f newspaper owners who have invested in marketing and advertising through an aggressive strategy o f localization (see Jeffrey, 2000; Ninan, 2007).44 While some o f these factors apply to book publishing and reading as well, at least in terms of distribution and localization there is no ‘book revolution’ yet.45 The Indian book scene therefore includes at present an impressively varied range of actors and entrepreneurial energies: state publishers, state-subsidized trade publishers, local branches or divisions o f multinational corporations, Indian and international educational publishers, academic publishers and, last but not least, activist publishers (feminist, Dalit, NGOs).46 While there is a growing body o f scholarship on media and television in the other nation-states o f South Asia, the same cannot be said for scholarship on national book cultures, hence the limited scope o f this survey.

References Ahearn, Laura (2001), Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, & Social Change in Nepal, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Allon, Mark (2008), ‘Recent Discoveries of Buddhist Manuscripts from Afghanistan and Pakistan and their Significance’, in Ken Parry (ed.), Art, Architecture and Religion on the Silk Roads, Silk Road Studies 12, Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 153-78. Anderson, Benedict (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism, London: Verso, rev. ed. Bailey, Gauvin A. (1999), Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America: 1542-1773, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

43 By contrast, Penguin India is a separate division of Penguin Books. 44 There does not seem to be a similar newspaper revolution in Pakistan or Nepal, though all countries are experiencing a news-channel revolution. 45 Venkatachalapathy notes in Chapter 17 that pc and desktop publishing have changed the physical aspect of the Tamil book, and that the ‘perceived if not actual expansion in the book market’ (p. 550) means that there is much greater investment in Tamil book publishing. 46 Several literary, activist or NGO publishers have an established international reputation: Seagull in Kolkata is one of the most respected (international) publishers of books on the theatre; Tara Books in Chennai publishes children’s books in English and Indian languages (involving an impressive network of illustrators) but also art books for the international market.

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Bently, Lionel (2007), ‘Copyright, Translations, and Relations between Britain and India in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, Chicago-Kent Law Review, 82, 3, pp. 1181-242. Bhattacharya, Tithi (2005), The Sentinels o f Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal (1848-85), New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Blackburn, S. (2006), Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India, New Delhi: Permanent Black. Braarvig, Jens (ed.) (2000-2006), Buddhist Manuscripts, vols 1-3, Oslo: Hermes. Brae de la Perriere, Eloi'se (2008), L \Art du livre dans I Tnde des sultanats, Paris: Presses de TUniversite Paris-Sorbonne. Callewaert, W. (1991), Nirgunabhakti Sägara: Devotional Hindi Literature. A Critical Edition o f the Pahc-väni or Five Works o f Dädü, Käbir, Nämdev, Raidäs, Hardäs with the Hindi Songs o f Gorakhnäth and Sundardäs, New Delhi: Manohar. Callewaert, W. and Lath, Mukund (1989), ‘Musicians and Scribes’, in H in d i Songs o f N am dev, Leuven: Departement Orientalistiek. Chalmers, Rhoderick (2002), ‘Pandits and Pulp Fiction: Popular Publishing and the Birth of Nepali Print Capitalism in Banaras’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 1, 1, pp. 35-97. Chalmers, Rhoderick (2003), “‘We Nepalis” : Language, Literature and the Formation of a Nepali Public Sphere in India 1914-1940’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London. Chatterjee, Rimi (2006), Empires o f the Mind: A History o f the Oxford University Press in India under the Raj, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Cox, Whitney (2011), ‘Saffron in the Rasam’, in Y. Bronner, W. Cox and L. McCrea (eds), South Asian Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies. Dalmia, Vasudha (1997), The Nationalization o f Hindu Traditions: Bhäratendu Harischandra and Nineteenth-century Banaras, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Darnton, Robert (1990), The Kiss o f Lamourette: Reflections on Cultural History, New York: Norton. Dharmadasa, K.N. (1992), Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth o f Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press. Falk, Harry (1993), Schrift im alten Indien: ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen, Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Farooqi, Mehr A. (2012), Urdu Literary Culture: Vernacular Modernity in the Writing o f Muhammad Hasan Askari, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. Ghosh, Anindita (2006), The Power o f Print: Popular Publishing and the Politics o f Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778-1905, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Goswami, B.N. (1988), A Jainesque Sultanate Shahnama and the Context o f Pre-Mughal Painting in India, Zurich: Museum Rietberg. Gupta, Abhijit (2012), ‘The History of the Book in the Indian Subcontinent’, in M.F. Suarez and H.R. Woudhuysen (eds), The Oxford Companion to the Book, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 34052. Gupta, Abhijit and Chakravorty, Swapan (eds) (2004), Print Areas: Book History in India, New Delhi: Permanent Black. Gupta, Abhijit and Chakravorty, Swapan (eds) (2008), Movable Type, New Delhi: Permanent Black. Gupta, Abhijit and Chakravorty, Swapan (eds) (2011), New Word Order: Transnational Themes in Book History, New Delhi: Permanent Black. Hansen, Kathryn (2001), ‘The Indar Sabha Phenomenon: Public Theatre and Consumption in Greater India (1853-1956)’, in R. Dwyer and C. Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation: The History and Politics o f Public Culture in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 76-114. Hawley, J.S. (2005), Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir in their Times and Ours, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Hofmeyr, Isabel (2004), The Portable Bunyan: A Transnational History o f The Pilgrim s Progress, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hofmeyr, Isabel (2013), Gandhis Printing Press, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Horstmann, Monika (1995), ‘Towards a Universal Dharma: Kalyän and the Tracts of the Gita Press’, in V. Dalmia and H. von Stietencron (eds), Representing Hinduism: The Construction o f Religious Traditions and National Identity, New Delhi: Sage, pp. 294-305. Horstmann, Monika (2009), ‘Texts and What to do with Them: DädüpanthI Compilations’, in Gerard Colas and Gerdi Gerschheimer (eds), Ecrire et transmettre en Inde classique, Paris: Ecole fran£aise d’Extreme-Orient, pp. 27-42. Jeffrey, Robin (2000), India s Newspaper Revolution, London: Hurst. Jones, Kenneth (1976), Arya Dharma: Hindu Consciousness in 19th Century Punjab, Berkeley: University of California Press. Jones, Kenneth (ed.) (1992), Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages, Albany: State University of New York Press. Khandalavala, K. (1971), ‘The Mrigävat of Bharat Kala Bhavan: As a Social Document and its Date and Provenance’, in A. Krishna (ed.), Chhavi: Golden Jubilee Volume, Banaras: Bharat Kala Bhavan, pp. 19-36. King, C.R. (1974), ‘The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of the Nagari Script and Language) of Benares, 1893-1914: A Study in the Social and Political History of the Hindi Language’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin. Kopf, David (1988), The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping o f the Modern Indian Mind, New Delhi: Archives Publishers. Malhotra, D.N. (1973), Indian Books 1972-73: An Annual Bibliography, Delhi: Researchco. Malhotra, D.N. (1998), 50 Years o f Book Publishing in India since Independence, New Delhi: Federation of Indian Publishers. Mann, Gurinder S. (2001), The Making o f the Sikh Scriptures, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Metcalf, Barbara (1982), Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mir, Farina (2010), The Social Space o f Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab, Berkeley: University of California Press. Mukhopadhyay, Tarun K. (1988), H icky’s Bengal Gazette: Contemporary Life and Events,

Calcutta: Subamarekha. Narayan, Badri and Misra, A.R. (2004), Multiple Marginalities: An Anthology o f Identified Dalit Writings, New Delhi: Manohar. Naregal, Veena (2001), Language Politics, Elites, and the Public Sphere: Western India under Colonialism, New Delhi: Permanent Black. Ngurtinkhuma, R.K. (2010), ‘Public Library Scenario in India’, unpublished PhD thesis, available at http://14.139.116.29/bitstream/10603/1204/9/09_chapter%202.pdf (accessed on 8 December 2012). Ninan, Sevanti (2007), Headlines from the Heartland: Reinventing the Hindi Public Sphere, New Delhi: Sage. O ’Hanlon, Rosalind and Washbrook, David (eds) (2010), ‘Munshis, Pandits and Record Keepers: Scribal Communities and Historical Change in India’, Special Issue of Indian Social and Economic History Review, 47, 4, October-December. Orsini, F. (2004), ‘Pandits, Printers and Others’, in A. Gupta and S. Chakravorty (eds), Print Areas: Book History in India, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 103-38. Orsini, F. (2009), Print and Pleasure: Popular Literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India, Ranikhet: Permanent Black. Phukan, Shantanu (2000), ‘Through a Persian Prism: Hindi and Padmavat in the Mughal Imagination’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Chicago.

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Pinto, Rochelle (2007), Between Empires: Print and Politics in Goa, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pollock, S. (1998a), ‘The Cosmopolitan Vernacular’, Journal o f Asian Studies, 57, pp. 6-37. Pollock, S. (1998b), ‘India in the Vernacular Millennium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000-1500’, Daedalus, 127, 3, pp. 41-74. Pollock, S. (2006), The Language o f the Gods: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pritchett, Frances (1991), The Romance Tradition in Urdu: Adventures from the Dastan o f Amir Hamzah, New York: Columbia University Press. Sadana, Rashmi (2012), English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life o f Literature in India, Berkeley: University of California Press. St-Pierre, Paul (2010), ‘Translation in Orissa: Trends in Cultural Interaction’, in J.P. Rao and J. Peeters (eds), Socio-cultural Approaches to Translation: Indian and European Perspectives, New Delhi: Excel India. Salomon, Richard (with contributions by F. Raymond Allchin and Mark Bernard) (1999), Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: The British Library Khar oshthT Fragments, London: British Library. Sanderson, Alexis (2001), ‘History Through Textual Criticism in the Study of Saivism, the Päncarätra, and the Buddhist Yoginltantras’, in F. Grimal (ed.), Les Sources et les Temps, Pondicherry: Institut Fransais de Pondichery, pp. 1-47. Sanyal, Subhadra (2011), ‘The Book in Culture and the Culture of the Book: The Changing Dynamics between Bengali Manuscript and Print, 1800-1920’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London. Sarkar, Tanika (2009), ‘Performing Power and Troublesome Plays: The Early Public Theatre of Colonial Bengal’, in Rebels, Wives, Saints: Designing Selves and Nations in Colonial Times, New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 153-91. Schopen, Gregory (2009), ‘On the Absence of Urtexts and Otiose Äcäryas: Buildings, Books, and Lay Buddhist Ritual at Gilgit’, in Gerard Colas and Gerdi Gerschheimer (eds), Ecrire et transmettre en Inde classique, Paris: Ecole fransaise d’Extreme-Orient, pp. 189-219. Seyller, John (1997), ‘The Inspection and Valuation of Manuscripts in the Imperial Mughal Library’, Artibus Asiae, 57, 3/4 pp. 243-349. Shaw, Graham (1987), The South Asia and Burma Retrospective Bibliography, Stage E 1556-1800, London: British Library. Shaw, Graham (2007), ‘South Asia’, in S. Eliot and G. Rose (eds), A Companion to the History o f the Book, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 126-37. Shaw, Graham and Lloyd, Mary (1985), Publications Proscribed by the Government o f India, London: British Library. Shastri, P.J. (ed.) (1954-63), Jain granthprasasti sangrah, 2 vols, Delhi: Vir Sewa Mandir Society. Sprenger, Aloys (1854), A Catalogue o f the Arabic, Persian and Hindus tany Manuscripts o f the Libraries o f the King o f Oudh, Calcutta: Printed by J. Thomas. Stewart, Tony K. (2010), The Final Word: The Caitanya caritämrta and the grammar o f religious tradition, New York: Oxford University Press. Stronge, Susan (2002), Painting fo r the Mughal Emperor: The Art o f the Book, 1560-1660, London: V&A Publications. Varma, Rashmi (2005), ‘The Championing of a Contested Space for Children’s Books by Innovating Publishers in India’, unpublished MPhil dissertation, University of Cambridge. Venkatachalapathy, A.R. (2012), The Province o f the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu, New Delhi: Permanent Black. Welch, Stuart Carey and Schimmel, Annemarie (1983), Anvari s Divan: A Pocket Book fo r Akbar, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Widdess, Richard (forthcoming), ‘Text, Orality and Performance in Newar Devotional Music’, in F. Orsini and K. Schofield (eds), Tellings and Texts: Singing, Story-telling and Performance in North India. Wilkerson, Sarah Beth (2006), ‘Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge. Young, Richard Fox (1981), Resistant Hinduism: Sanskrit Sources on Anti-Christian Apologetics in Early Nineteenth-century India, Vienna: Publications of the De Nobili Research Library.

Part I Writing, Orality and the Manuscript Book

[1] LITERARY CULTURE AND M AN USCRIPT CULTURE IN PRECOLONIAL INDIA S heldon P ollock

I h a v e b e e n a s k e d to provide a grand view of the world of literary culture in south Asia. It is a vast and complicated world, most probably the longest-lived continuous multi-language literary culture we have, and one whose materialities are only now beginning to be explored.1 T h e task is a challenging one, then, but it is a critical challenge, since a num ber of the generalizations about the world we are prone to accept on the basis of a rather thin slice of human experience in the West are likely to be unsettled or at least complicated. In the last several decades scholarship on the invention, diffusion and eventual trium ph of print culture has had a considerable impact on the writing of literary, social and even political history. Even scholars like me who do not concern them ­ selves with the study of m odernity except in so far as it requires a counter­ narrative of the pre-m odern, cannot have escaped the arguments of Benedict Anderson, Roger Chartier, Elizabeth Eisenstein and the rest. Today the question is no longer whether or to what degree print changed the world; it is only how it did so, how ‘increased circulation of printed m atter transform ed] forms of sociability, p e rm itte d ] new modes of thought, and change[d] people’s relation­ ship with power’ - with the clear implication that such relationships, modes and forms had never changed before, or at least never so profoundly.2 M y problem with this literature is not just that, for a region like India, the obsession with print falls victim to the tiresome colonialism-invented-everything syndrome, whereby all that has been consequential in the last two centuries - the idea of vernacular language, or caste, or supralocal political sentiment - is supposed to have resulted from the confrontation with colonial modernity. M ore worrisome is that in looking for phenomena familiar from elsewhere we not only inevitably find what we are looking for but in the process often fail to see what is actually there. An alternative case could certainly be argued, that the event which was truly historic for literary cultures in India and defined them in the peculiar contours they often still bear, was the invention, diffusion and eventual conquest of manuscript culture, in its specific symbiotic relationship with the antecedent oral culture. T he epistemic revolution of literacy, the production of manuscript books (over thirty million m anuscripts are still extant), their dissemination in often massively reproduced and relatively stable form and, perhaps most im portant, their oral performance before large audiences over long periods of time, have had an effect

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on shaping imagination, sociality and power that is arguably deeper and more extensive than any attributable to print, middle-class book consum ption (stun­ ningly low in India), or the culture of private reading reinforced by print (though hardly generated by it). T h e case could be argued, I say, but has never been. It has astonished me to realize, as I have come to realize during the course of research on science and scholarship in India 1500- 1800, how few sustained analyses are available of the core dimensions of manuscript culture in the subcontinent, aside from old-style text criticism .3 Almost no detailed work has been done on the tim e-space matrix of text diffusion, that is, how quickly, how far and along what routes a text was circulated, and what relationship the resultant spatio-temporal map bears to the genre in question and its language. It is not that we don’t have data to get some answers to these questions; rather, the questions have simply not been raised. W hat I aim to do in this short essay is to outline what I see as key developments and try to formulate good questions to ask of them .4 Prior to the arrival of printing with missionary and colonial expansion, the history of literary culture in south Asia was shaped by two momentous events: (1 ) the invention of the Indian writing system in the third century b c e , setting the stage for the creation of the Sanskrit cosmopolitan culture-power formation, and (2) the vernacular revolution of the early centuries of the second m illennium c e , associated with the newly consolidated regional kingdoms. (The expansion of Persianate culture in India from about 1000 c e onward added remarkable new resources but did not introduce any morphologically new dimension to literary culture.) T hese two events are more closely related than m ight be assumed. T h e vernacular revolution, as I have tried to make sense of it, consisted in the breakthrough to literary writing in what were called the ‘languages of Place’ (desa-bhasa), which, self-evidently, only the earlier event could have made possible. At the same time, the practices of orality, which elsewhere in the world have typically been threatened if not eradicated by the inauguration of writing, have maintained themselves in India as both fact and ideal; the continuing valorization and cultivation of oral performance would inflect literary culture in uniquely Indian ways into the m odern period. T h at said, literary culture in south Asia was actually constituted by a manuscript culture that, in its material and economic aspect, was also specific to the subcontinent. These themes - the interplay o f the oral and the written; the materiality of manuscript culture; what m ight be called script-m ercantilism - along with the peculiar mix, discernible throughout, of a dynamism that was measured and considered, and a stasis that may have been less a sign of deficiency than a sort of cultural strategy, form the arm ature of the following survey. I. T H E O R A L A N D T H E W R I T T E N

T he inaugural m om ent of writing in south Asia and its impact on Sanskrit literary culture are crucial to understanding long-term developments, and there78

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L iterary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India fore m erit at least brief notice. Scholars have long debated the origins of writing in India, but a new consensus has recently emerged locating the invention in the chancery of the M aurya king Asoka around 260 b c e (a late invention, viewed from the N ear East or China). T h e purpose of the invention of the script, now known as brahm i,5 was to promulgate the royal edicts of the king, partly in imitation of the imperial model known from the Achaemenids, rulers of the Persian empire that extended into present-day northern Pakistan. T he dis­ tribution of Asoka’s edicts around the subcontinent, from northern Afghanistan to southern Karnataka, ensured that brahm i would become the foundation of every script in south Asia and of most scripts where south Asians travelled, including inner Asia (e.g. Tibetan), and south-east Asia from Burm a to Champa and as far as Java6- further evidence of the monogenetic rather than polygenetic character of Indian literacy: it was invented in one place and diffused from there throughout the sphere of Indie cultural influence. T he new consensus on the invention of w riting carries two implications per­ tinent to the concerns of this essay, one concerning old forms of memory, the other concerning new forms of literary culture. T h e first implication is that all textual traditions of pre-Asoka India were completely oral, and thus that the feats of Indian memory, of which earlier scholars were so often incredulous, were real and consequential. T h e vast corpus o f liturgical texts known as the Veda, and even portions of its exegetical tradition, were transm itted without the use of writing and in exceptionally stable form, deriving largely from the belief that the texts were metaphysically efficacious only if exactly reproduced. T he mnemonic proclivities involved here marked many areas o f non-liturgical culture, too, such as the stable oral performance of w ritten literary texts. It has also become clearer that Vedic communities knew about writing but chose to ignore it. Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian of the fourth or fifth century b c e who lived in Taxila in today’s northern Pakistan within the power-ambit of the late Achaemenids, was certainly aware of writing (in Aramaic), but chose to make no use of it. Here is the first of a num ber of what appear to be conscious refusals of technology marking the history o f literary and manuscript culture in India, in this case due to characteristic satisfaction with suitably sophisticated oral practices. T h e cultivation of memory that was central to the Vedic tradition (and imitated, as much was imitated, by other religious traditions, including Theravada Buddhists and Jains) would continue to be valued as a core cultural attainm ent in both the performance and the ideology of textual culture long after that culture had been completely perm eated by literacy. T hus in the seventh century c e the pre-em inent scholar of Vedic herm eneutics reasserted, in writing, o f course, that learning the Veda from a concrete text-artefact - ‘by means contrary to reason, such as from a w ritten text’ - could never achieve the efficacy o f the Veda learned in the authorized way, ‘by repeating precisely what has been pronounced in the m outh of the teacher’. Such a valorization of memory left clear traces in secular written culture. A story instructive about such memory as well as its peculiar relation to writing is told of the early-eleventh-century poet 79

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Dhanapala: enraged that his patron, King Bhoja, demanded to be made the hero of his new romance narrative, the Tilaka-manjari, Dhanapala destroyed the work by burning its single manuscript before Bhoja’s eyes - an act that makes sense of course only if the text had come to be seen as identical with the written textartefact. But the poet’s daughter had committed the entire work to memory (its m odern edition runs to 250 closely printed pages), and so could reconstruct it in toto. In addition to the continuing valorization of memory far into the age of literacy, the oral performance of literature, typically on the basis of a memorized text or, more often, of a physically present manuscript-book, would characterize Indian literary culture into the m odern period.7 T he second implication of the new consensus is that what Indians called ‘literature’, kavya (as it was named first in the Sanskrit tradition, spreading thence to all southern Asian languages, e.g. kakawin in Javanese), was a new cultural form in post-Asoka India. Although the fact is not always acknowledged in Western scholarship, it was writing that made kavya historically possible at all; pragmatically, ‘kavya’ was the name given to a literary text that was written down and transm itted primarily in w ritten form - indeed, the text was the kind it was, in complexity, magnitude and variety, precisely because it was written down. T he Indian intellectuals who theorized kavya as an expressive, imaginative, formally ordered type of language use, while saying little about its written embodiment, understood full well that it was a historically new type. T h e history of the text of Valmiki’s Ramayana, which Indian tradition from the second century onward has unanimously regarded as the first work of kavya, seems to confirm this fact of novelty. For in contrast to the manuscript record of the second great epic, the Mahabharata, which shows that it was transm itted entirely in writing (with the exception of a few of its books), that of the Ramayana testifies to a transitional relationship to writing. T he manuscripts are independent transcriptions of an oral version of Valmiki’s text that was passed down with considerable stability in largely memorized form. T he firstness of the poem may therefore lie, in part at least, in its being the first major literary text committed to writing. On this interpretation, the upodghata, or prelude, to the Ramayana, which was a later addition to Valmiki’s work, takes on an un­ anticipated significance: when the poet is shown to compose his poem after m editating and to transm it it orally to two young singers, who learn and perform it exactly as he taught it to them, what we are being given is, not an authentic image of a purely oral culture, but a sentimental ‘fiction of written culture’, as the phenomenon has been described for the remarkably parallel case of the chansons de geste. For here orality as such is being observed from outside orality, so to say, in a way impossible to do in a world ignorant of alternatives - ignorant, that is, of writing. Nostalgia for the oral and a desire to continue to share in its authenticity and authority, with the same lingering effects of a remembered oral poetry, mark other first moments of literacy across Eurasia, most memorably, in the English tradition, with Caedmon, whom one scholar recently described as an ‘exemplum of grammatical culture’ .8 80

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L iterary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India From the beginning of the Common Era kavya was always committed to writing and always circulated in manuscript form. Again, this is not to deny a continuing role for the oral performance of these written texts, or for the memorizing of such texts, let alone to deny a continuing vitality of primary oral poetry, which remains strong to this day in many communities in south Asia.9 But from the m om ent writing was invented the literary culture that resulted, the culture of kavya, became indissolubly connected with manuscript culture, so much so that the history of the one becomes unintelligible without taking into account the history of the other. II.

C O S M O P O L I T A N M O N O P O L I Z A T I O N OF L I T E R A R Y L I T E R A C Y , AN D VERNACULAR DE FIANCE

One thing that has remained unintelligible in the history of literary cultures precisely because of insufficient attention to writing is the phenomenon of vernacularization. All of literary culture in southern Asia prior to the vernacular revolution of the early second m illennium was composed in a language that was written and read across this entire space, namely Sanskrit (though restricted use was also made of Prakrit and Apabhramsha, M iddle-Indic literary dialects used largely as ‘rustic’ registers of what was actually court poetry). I call this ‘cosmopolitan’ language in large part because it was language that could ‘travel well’; indeed, it became cosmopolitan precisely because it could travel well, as later Persian or English, for their different reasons, were able to travel (Sanskrit was linked to no particular religious formation, and certainly not to colonial expansion). Sanskrit’s monopolization of literary literacy was challenged around the beginning of the second millennium. It was literary inscription, the act of writing kavya, in regional languages - languages that did not travel well, that were ‘languages of, or in, Place’ - that constituted the essential com ponent of the challenge, and that alone allows us to grasp it in its historicity. T his development was characterized in most places in India by a time lag between what I have called literization, the com mitting of local language to documentary, non-literary, w ritten form, and literarization,10 the development of literary expressivity in accordance with the norm s of a dominant literary culture. T he interval between these two moments is often substantial and dramatic. T hree to four centuries, as in the case of Kannada and M arathi, is not uncom­ mon (for the first, literization in the early sixth century, literarization in the late ninth; for the second, late tenth century and late thirteenth respectively); more extreme cases include K hm er and Newari (for the former, literization in the seventh century, for the latter, in the ninth; literarization for both only in the seventeenth). How do we explain this interval between the moments of writing as such and of writing literature? One answer may lie in the dialectical relationship between the literary function and the political function in India. Culture recapitulated power, and power underw rote culture, and so long as power meant trans-regional

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The History o f the Book in South Asia S heldon P ollock

rule, or empire, as it meant until the end of the first millennium c e , literature required a trans-regional mode of expression. T he regionalization of political power enabled - or even required, in ways we still do not fully understand the regionalization of culture. Prior to that point documentary writing in the vernacular, the recording of deeds and benefactions and so on, was entirely acceptable (contrast the very slow and reluctant acceptance of the vernaculars as languages of record in late medieval Europe). At the same time, the mom ent of literarization constituted something of a defiance against the established cultural order. It is im portant to realize that this defiance was typically not a m atter of social status or religious resistance, despite received views about a demotic vernacu­ la rly or anti-Brahm an insurgency.11 In most parts of India vernacularization was a project prom oted by the royal court, and often by Brahmans themselves. Yet the authorization to write vernacularly, in the face of deep and long-term cultural-political prejudices to the contrary, was not ready to hand for anyone, even the royal court. T h e decision to make the vernacular speak literarily was often so fraught that it required the direct intervention of a power beyond that of the dom inant cultural order, often the power of a divine being. Only in this way could the king of Vijayanagara himself, Krishna Deva Raya, be authorized to write his remarkable Amukta-malyada in Telugu in 15 17 . A god comes to the author in a dream - a god significantly localized as ‘T he G reat God Visnu of A ndhra’ (Andhra Pradesh being the region of Telugu) - and announces, You astounded us with honeyed poems in the language of the gods [i.e., Sanskrit] ... Is Telugu beyond you? Make a book in Telugu now, for my delight. Why Telugu? You might ask. This is the Telugu land. I am the lord of Telugu. There is nothing sweeter ... D on’t you know? Among all the languages of the land,Telugu is best.12

If the king was to compose a poem in Telugu, and not just compose but write it down in a book - and a fortiori a poem that attem pts to offer, as the Am uktamalyada does, a total vision of political governance - he needed less the inspir­ ation of the god than his permission, and of a sort he would never have needed for the creation of political literature in Sanskrit itself, the language of the gods. Similar stories of divine visitations (and of threatened destruction of the manuscript-books that resulted) are told of poets from all social and religious orders, from Vedic Brahmans like Srinathudu (Telugu, fl. 1450), or devotional ones like Eknath (M arathi, fl. 1575) or Krsnadasa Kaviraj (Bangla, fl. 1600), to Shudras like Tukaram (M arathi, fl. 1625). To write vernacular literature, even as late as the seventeenth century, was for traditional communities almost to tu rn the cultural world upside down.13 82

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L iterary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India Very different is the history of the second, or regional-vernacular revolution, that followed upon, and often seems to have directly rejected the aims and practices of, the first, or cosmopolitan-vernacular revolution, as I have called it, since the project was to reproduce the Sanskrit cosmopolitan literary culture at the vernacular level. T h e later revolution, in many cases, rejected not only the cosmopolitan vernacular in substance (its laukika, or worldly, orientation), but also in its forms, especially its literacy: thus the ‘M ilitant Saivas,’ with their vacanas (sayings) in late-tw elfth-century Karnataka, Narasimha M aheta with his prabhatiyas (spiritual aubades) in fifteenth-century Gujarat, or Kabir with his pads (songs) about the same time in Avadh, rejected the values, and the very fact, of m anuscript culture. In the case of Kabir, the first manuscripts of works attributed to him do not appear until 1 50 years after his death; in the case of the vac ana makers, the interval was twice as long.14 M any readers will find parallels here with Latin and medieval European literary cultures. T hese include the invention (or at least far wider use) of writing in the fourth and third centuries b c e in Rome, and the invention of literature around 240 b c e with the adaptations by Livius Andronicus of H om er and the Attic tragedians; the subsequent cosmopolitan career of Latin, and the uni­ formity and wide diffusion of Latin literary culture; the vernacular transform ­ ations in the north o f Europe in the ninth century (first at Alfred’s Wessex) and in the south in the tw elfth-fourteenth (Sicily, Occitan), which uncannily parallel Indian developments in the south in the ninth century (Karnataka) and in the north in the tw elfth-fourteenth (Gujarat, Orissa, Assam, Bengal); the place of Islamicate literary cultures in the vernacularization processes in northern India and southern Europe, Islam’s eastern and western frontiers up to the fifteenth century; and the second, or spiritual, vernacular revolution in India that bears comparison with the Reformation. W hatever causal factors may lie behind this larger Eurasian literary-cultural history, the local differences in developments are as significant as the parallels.15 Such differences mark their respective manu­ script cultures, too. I II . M A T E R I A L I T I E S OF M A N U S C R I P T C U L T U R E I N I N D I A

T h e propagation o f the courtly-vernacular revolution required a set of corre­ lative transform ations in the more concrete aspects of literary culture. Centrally im portant were the development o f vernacular orthographies and of the grammatical, lexicographical and other philological appurtenances upon which such orthographies rested. O rthographical reform turned out to be far less problematic than in Europe, not only technologically, since brahm i could easily be adapted to vernacular phonologies, but also ideologically. We find in India nothing similar to the situation in thirteenth-century Castile, where the arch­ bishop was in charge of the chancery ex officio, and the reform of spelling in the service of vernacularization bordered on sin.16 T h e development of a vigorous vernacular philology is to be found across southern India from the beginning of 83

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10

S heldon P ollock

PASHTO

KASHMIR! PANJABI

BALUCHI

NEPA1I ASSAMESE

HINföVtfKDU!

S NDHI GUJARAT!

ARABIAN

8AMGLA

SEA

BAY

MALAYA LA M !

5 IN H A L A

Figure i. Language map.

84

OF BENGAL

The History o f the Book in South Asia

L iterary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India the vernacular age, but the situation in the north is far more obscure to us. For Brajbhasha (the literary language of what is now often called the ‘H indi belt’), scribes and com m entators seem to have been perfectly aware of regional gram­ matical norms, but aside from the production of a few lexicons this knowledge was almost never systematized, not even by poets and scholars who were steeped from their childhood in the systematicity of the Sanskrit tradition, and in some cases dramatically espoused systematicity when it came to other disciplines, such as vernacular rhetoric.17 It is puzzling that not a single north Indian precolonial gram m ar was produced, in a culture where language analysis had attained an uncommon degree o f sophistication and where examples of such grammars abounded in the south. Similarly in Europe, it was in England under King Alfred in the early ninth century that one of the earliest grammatical cultures was promoted, which formed the background for Aelfric’s English Grammatica a century later (995). By contrast, Italian grammars would not appear until the beginning of the sixteenth century (starting with Fortunio’s Regole in 15 16 ). Substantial evidence exists nonetheless to suggest that, whether textualized or not, such forms of philological knowledge in India served to ‘assemble’ and standardize the vernaculars in a way that upends most theories of vernacular standardization that depend on printing.18 O f a piece with the individuation of vernacular languages through philological attention is the development of regional scripts. As noted earlier, all south Asian and south-eastern Asian scripts derive ultimately from brahm i in one or other of its forms. T h e great move toward a more regularized and definitive regionaliz­ ation of scripts coincided with the revolution in vernacular literary culture.19 T here are two tendencies in these developments that seem to me im portant for a larger cultural theory and that are intriguingly the inverse of developments in Europe. First, the cosmopolitan languages (above all Sanskrit, but also Prakrit and Apabhramsha) could be and were (and often continue to be) written in any of the regional scripts. We thus find Sanskrit epigraphs inscribed in what we can by the eleventh or twelfth century justifiably name the bangla, Javanese, kannada, khmer, oriya and telugu scripts.20 Second, script and vernacular language took on an increasingly one-to-one fit, and, correlatively, scripts were ever more carefully differentiated among each other: kannada from telugu, malayalam from tamil, bangla from hindi or rather devanagari. T his was a tendency only consummated and not commenced in modernity.21 T h e contrast with Europe is stark: Latin followed the rule of the non-arbitariness and non-substitutability of the sign, as Anderson has called it, of all cosmopolitan languages other than Sanskrit such as Arabic, Chinese or Greek. To be sure, modifications in the Latin script itself did occur, including the im portant simplification from Merovingian cursive to Caroline miniscule, but mutually unintelligible written forms of Latin never developed; late-medieval scribes were perfectly able to read earlier m anuscripts.22 By contrast, among western European vernaculars the tendency, intensifying in modernity, has been toward increasing commonality by the uniform use of the Latin alphabet.

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Two qualifications to this picture o f Sanskrit ecumenicism and vernacular difference need to be made. First, the one-to-one relationship between vernacu­ lar language and script was relatively slow in consolidating. In multilingual Vijayanagara, the last imperial formation in pre-M ughal India (c. 1340- 1565), the relationship was still fluid to some degree. T hus we find Sanskrit documents issued by the court in kannada, nandinagari (a form of southern devanagari), telugu and devanagari; Kannada in kannada, telugu, devanagari; Telugu in kannada, telugu and devanagari, and so on .23 In north India the language-script relationship was even more variable. M anuscripts of the H indi (and very H indu) Ram-carit-manas (discussed below), were written not only in devanagari but also in kaithi (a cursive ‘clerk’s’ script widespread in north India), and perso-arabic; whereas Sufi works like Candayan ( 1379, whose author, M aulana D aud, wrote the original, as he tell us, in ‘T urki’ letters) circulated not only in perso-arabic but also in devanagari. By contrast, accounts of the history of the Bangla Gaitanya-caritamrta (also discussed below) seem to suggest that copies had to be in bangla characters, which could not easily be prepared in Vrindavan to the west, where the work itself was composed and where its custodians, the Gosvamins (spiritual masters o f the Vaisnava tradition), had settled.24 T h e second qualification is already inferable from the above: there was a distinct tendency, found from a relatively early period and sometimes it seems reinforced by phono-graphic considerations, to write Sanskrit in a script other than that employed for the local language. G rantha was thus used consistently for Sanskrit in Tamil country (instead of vattelutu and later tamil, both scripts lacking signs for the aspirated stops o f Sanskrit) and in nandinagari in the Deccan. T his tendency contributed toward the trans-regional spread of devana­ gari in Karnataka already in the ninth century. Again we can observe that what has become something of a literary-cultural norm in m odern nationalist India the concomitance o f Sanskrit and nagari - was a strong tendency already in the medieval period. We may also perceive further evidence of the persistence of traditional tech­ nologies in the face of the innovations that eventually became central to m odern literary cultures. T h e indifference to w riting prior to the m id-third century b c e , as evinced by the grammarian Panini, has already been suggested. O f a piece with this is the general unconcern with paper. Although this was introduced into the subcontinent sometime in the thirteenth century, it had no consequences in India remotely comparable to the European and Islamicate experience, where by providing a cheap alternative to parchm ent it opened up communication practices. Scribes in many places in India continued to prefer traditional writing materials, especially palmyra leaf in the south and birch bark in the north, well into the m odern era. (It was the M ughal state, by contrast, in its desire to imitate the glories of Baghdad and Cairo, that came to be known as Kaghazi Raj, or Paper K ingdom .)25 M ore speculative is the case of block-print technology. It is likely this was made known to north Indians after Tibetans learned of it from China in the ninth 86

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Literary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India century, though actual proof of the existence of xylographic printing for Tibetan is not available until the fifteenth century, when the T ibetan Buddhist canon was printed under the M ing dynasty. ‘Indian B uddhist pandits in Tangut realms during the eleventh century (e.g. Jayananda) and later Indian visitors to the M ongol empire would likely have been among the first Indians to be aware of printing, though perhaps even someone like Devaputra, who was active in the D unhuang area in western China in the m id-tenth century, would have known of printed Buddhist dharanis (mystical formulae). T he numerous Varanasi pandits who visited the Fifth Dalai Lam a’s court from 1642 onwards included some who helped to correct texts published in Lhasa (e.g. the bilingual Avadanakalpalata) so we can be sure that some of them were entirely aware of xylography.’ 26 As for movable-type printing, a few books were produced by the Portuguese in Goa in the 1550s, but significantly the experiment was shortlived and did not spread. As for the Mughals, it is doubtful they knew about printing at first hand, but they must have been exposed to printed books brought by European travellers, though they too had no interest in making their own. One may suppose the M ughals’ indifference was related to their calligraphic tradition, which was unsuited to mechanical reproduction, but this would not explain the indifference of Hindus, for whom calligraphy was never a central cultural value. At all events, it seems clear that printing was another of the technologies that people in south Asia rejected as inferior or irrelevant to the material realities of their literary cultures. As Fernand Braudel once perceptively noted, ‘civilizations’ are defined as much by what they refuse from others as by what they borrow.27 IV.

SCRIPT-MERCANTILISM

As I suggested at the start, the effects of print often seem to be exaggerated in scholarship, as least from the perspective o f a student of south Asia. Here the true watershed in the history of communicative media was the invention, not of print-capitalism, but of script-mercantilism, so to call it, of the sort found in both Sanskrit and vernacular cultures. (The commercial side of this develop­ m ent became increasingly dom inant in the course of the late medieval period, though I use the phrase here more broadly to include pre-print publishing sponsored by the court or religious institutions.) T his manuscript culture was enormously productive and efficient. T h e more than thirty million manuscripts estimated still to be extant (eight million in Rajasthan alone), along with many hundreds of thousands of inscriptions, represent the merest fraction of what must once have been produced. (Consider that for all of Greek literature, classical, Hellenistic, and Byzantine, some thirty thousand manuscripts are extant - a figure that the Indie materials thus exceed by a factor of 1000.)28 T his was a cultural economy constituted by professional scribes and patrons who purchased their wares as well as by non-professionals who copied for personal use or for family members or teachers. As in the case of the vernacular revolutions and the script transformations that 87

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accompanied them , we have no good accounts of the pre-print publishing industry of south Asia, least of all of such core features of manuscript culture as the conditions of manuscript diffusion. For very few texts do we have any sense of the pace or networks o f manuscript distribution, or how language and genre affected these. As a kind of prolegomenon to a fuller account, four brief case studies are offered here, of four different socio-cultural publishing contexts: one courtly-literate, one religious-literate, one religious showing mixed oral-literate transmission, and one that m ight be called the market context of the earlym odern intellectual economy. Although several of the works in question are not in fact kavya, they serve to illustrate the kinds of circuits through which kavya also was distributed. (1) T h e story of the production and dissemination of the Sanskrit-PrakritApabhramsha gram m ar of the Jaina cleric and scholar Hemacandra, the Siddha-Hemacandra-Sabdanusasanam (c. 114 0 ), is told in a fourteenth-century collection. T h e place of state patronage, the conditions of mass production and the remarkable expanse o f the Sanskrit cosmopolitan order within which it circulated are explicitly addressed: Now, the venerable Hemacandra, having examined the collection of grammars [obtained by his king, Jayasimha Siddharaja of the Caulukya dynasty of Gujarat, who had been eager to create a new grammar for his kingdom], made a new, glorious, miraculous text known as the Siddha-haima [the Grammar of Hemacandra and Siddharaja]. ... It consisted of sutras and an excellent commentary thereon, a dictionary of nouns, and a synonym lexicon. It was the very crest-jewel of grammatical texts and [came to be] held in esteem by scholars everywhere. ... The king spent 300,000 coins to have the book copied in the course of a year. At the king’s command, officials from every department zealously summoned three hundred scribes and showed hospitality to them. The books were copied, and one set was given to the most energetic scholar of each and every school of thought. The text circulated and grew famous in all lands [regions from Nepal to Sri Lanka, and from Persia to Assam are listed]. Twenty copies along with explanations were sent by the king with great gratitude to the Kashmiris [from whom he had borrowed the Sanskrit grammars on which he modeled his own], and the text was deposited in their library.

(2) Books were produced and disseminated not only by political orders but also by spiritual lineages. In the Jaina tradition, lay communities regularly commis­ sioned the copying o f canonical and paracanonical texts and presented them to m endicant orders Tor reading and [public] exegesis’ .29 T he most remarkable example of religiously motivated, and tightly controlled, text-reproduction in pre-m odern India is offered by the Bangla-language Caitanya-caritamrta (Immortal Deeds of Caitanya) of Krsnadasa Kaviraj, a poetic biography of the religious reformer Caitanya (died c. 1533), composed around 1600, not in Bengal, but far to the west in Vrindavan, an im portant sacred centre of Vaishnavism. This is one o f the most often reproduced texts in the history of Indian manuscript culture, now existing in more than two thousand copies - virtually identical copies. T here is none of Eisenstein’s Textual drift’ here; print was not the sole

The History o f the Book in South Asia

L iterary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India bulwark against variation. T he publication history of this text has recently been reconstructed: A single copy of the work was hand carried back to Bengal by a trio of ‘missionaries’ sent to reorganize the Bengali community. The leader of that group, Srinivasacarya, was a professional scribe and ‘publisher’, already prominent in Vaisnava circles for that exper­ tise. (The Gosvamis, spiritual masters of the sect, complain of the impossibility of getting good copies of texts made anywhere in the Braj vicinity far to the west of Bengal, so they send back to Bengal for copies; it is not clear if this was because of script issues or some­ thing else.) Their cart of books containing the Caitanya-caritamrta was stolen near Visnupur, only to reappear in the treasury of local raja Vira Hamvira, who was eventually converted and ‘initiated [into the Vaisvana faith] with the book’. Srinivasa instructed Vira Hamvira to finance copies so that the book could never be lost again. The first copies were dispatched back to Braj and to the trio. Sometime between 1600 and 1620, a series of festivals was organized to celebrate the death anniversaries of the last devotees to have known Caitanya. At every festival, copies of the book were distributed to each lineage as its representatives left for home. Copies of the Caitanya-caritamrta, among other texts, were ceremonially distributed to each lineage. Copies of the text of the Caitanyacaritamrta and other key Vaisnava texts (some twenty-five are listed in the sources) were repeatedly copied for consumption all over Bengal, northern Orissa, and Braj. Because of the tight control of Srinivasa in the reproduction of the Caitanya-caritamrta (and other texts), there is decidedly little variation in the manuscripts - a critical edition of the Caitanya-caritamrta would in fact make no sense, because copies are virtually identical, with variation consisting of nothing more than the occasional spelling error, the insertion of paratextual material in the form of chapter/verse citations, or the appending of commentary.30 (3) Undoubtedly the most popular poem composed in Hindi (more strictly, Avadhi) in the precolonial period is Tulsidas’s Ram-carit-manas (Holy Lake of the Deeds of the God Ram), c. 1575. T his was a work produced by a literate poet in w ritten form, but it was the lips of wandering perform ers rather than palm leaves that ensured its vast dissemination and enormous popular impact (even within the poet’s lifetime his fame had spread a thousand miles to the west). T his is in keeping with the spirit of the work, which refers to itself as a story-to-beperform ed, a ‘telling’ (katha), rather than a book (granth), and from an early period accounts are available of the lives and lineages of those who won fame as oral perform ers or expounders. All that being readily admitted, the m anuscript history of the work is also immeasurably vast, remarkably stable and entirely literate (the m odest variations, aside from scribal error and occasional sectarian interpolation, have persuasively been attributed to different authorial versions). T here is no evidence whatever of oral transmission of the sort made familiar in the combined work of Parry and L o rd .31 Equally im portant, it was often the manuscript book of the poem that formed the basis of the kind of exegesis typical of performances: the first w ritten commentary (late eighteenth century) was produced by an expounder who claimed to have in his possession the poet’s auto­ graph manuscript: ‘Early expounders and commentators, not yet influenced by Western textual criticism, put great emphasis on obtaining the earliest and most 89

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authentic m anuscripts.’ 32 Perhaps no better example exists of the peculiar relationship between oral and written in the ‘publication’ history of a lateprecolonial Indian text. (4) A round 1625 a scholar from the southern region of A ndhra but residing in Varanasi wrote an introductory textbook on logic and ontology called the Tarka-samgraha, or ‘Com pendium o f Reasoning’. Such textbooks in the differ­ ent scholarly disciplines were a new genre in Sanskrit intellectual history, designed to meet the needs of what was apparently a new pedagogical market. T he precise nature of this market remains obscure to us, but its demand for manuscript books was clearly intense, and this was met by a production owing neither to royal nor to religious patronage, but to the efforts of autonomous scribes. These were often the individual readers themselves, who copied (as colophons so often tell us) ‘for my own reading’, ‘for teaching children’, ‘for my son’, ‘for helping others’, ‘for my own pleasure’ .33 But books were also purchased from professional scribes (often belonging to a caste specializing in clerkly culture, the kayasthas), often at very substantial cost.34 For the Tarka-samgraha, we cannot trace the publication history in the first two generations (the earliest extant manuscripts o f the work and its auto-commentary date to the second decade of the eighteenth century), but the work had moved swiftly across all of India by about the mid-eighteenth century. M ore than four hundred manuscripts are extant (and these are only the manuscripts that have been catalogued) in at least five scripts, with more than twenty-five commentaries.35 And we should rem ember that in a traditional Indian educational environment, one manuscript went a long way: only one copy of the work would typically be required, being read aloud to the class by a student while being continuously commented on by the teacher. T his was a literary culture, one would have to conclude, for which an entirely adequate and appropriate technology had been developed and maintained for centuries. V.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Literary culture and m anuscript culture in pre-m odern south Asia were largely co-extensive. M uch was produced in writing that was not literature, but literature, as locally defined, was always inscribed and what was not was not literature (but song or hymn or something else again). T he old ways of orality, both as a phenomenon preserved from the Vedic world and as a feature of popular culture, continued to play a major role in how the literary text was actually experienced. But it is only an appreciation of the central place o f writing in the constitution of regional literary cultures - something of which vernacular poets and intellectuals were fully conscious - that allows us to chart the revol­ ution o f the ‘vernacular m illennium ’ and the supplanting of the old cosmopoli­ tan regime o f culture and power that this revolution often represented. U nderstanding pre-m odern literary culture means also understanding the 90

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L iterary culture and manuscript culture in precolonial India pragmatics of manuscript culture both internally and externally. Internally, we find an ever-intensifying process of cultural differentiation. A kind of synecdoche for this phenom enon (which comprised also a regularization of orthographies, lexicology and other elements of standardization) is the regional­ ization of scripts, which sought an ever-tighter one-to-one correspondence with regional languages through the late-medieval period. Externally, the life of the m anuscript book can be mapped according to a time-space matrix of dis­ semination where language and genre were shaping factors, and where a wide spectrum of modalities in patronage and in the sphere and form of circulation is visible: from royal support to religious sponsorship to market forces; from limited geocultural domains to the vaster world of south and south-east Asia; from oral performance of a memorized text to texts m eant for the peculiar oralliterate pedagogy o f India, and even for private consumption. W hatever other conclusions we may wish to draw from these data, they suggest how uncertain it remains that the print-capitalism of m odernity - with the obliteration of oral text performance, the privatization of reading and the hyper-commodification of the book - has had in India anything like the historic impact, in depth and extent, of pre-m odern script-m ercantilism .36

NOTES

1 See Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia , ed. by Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 2 Roger Chartier, The Order o f Books (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 3. See also Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983) and Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 3 Information on the project ‘Indian Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism’ is available at www.columbia.edn/sanskrit 4 Some of the materials and formulations contained in this essay are adapted from my Language o f the Gods in the World o f Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). See also my ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, in Cosmopolitanism, ed. by Carol Breckenridge and others

(Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 591-626, and my ‘India in the Vernacular Millennium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000- 1500’, in Early Modernities, ed. by S. N. Eisenstadt et al. (Daedalus, 127, 3 (1998)), 4 1-74. All Indie diacritics have been omitted here. 5 Script names are given in lower-case, language names in upper-case, throughout. 6 Fundamental is Harry Falk, Schrift im alten Indien: Ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1993). On Asoka’s inscriptions see my ‘Axialism and Empire’, in A xial Civilizations and World History, ed. by Johann Arnason and others (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 7 On the oral transmission of the Veda see Kumarila Bhatta, Tantravarttika (Pune: Anandasrama, 1970), vol. 1 , p. 123 (his stricture was a response to the fact that Vedic texts had in fact come to be written down, as early as the fifth century c e ) . The story

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8

9

10

11 12

13

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15

16 17

of Dhanapala appears in Puratanaprabandhasamgraha, ed. by Jinavijaya (Calcutta: Abhisthata-Singhi Jaina Jnanapitha, 1936), p. 4 1, no. 60. The publishing of a literary work was typically its first oral performance, see my ‘Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside O ut’, in Literary Cultures in History (note 1 above), pp. 39-130 (specifically pp. 89-90). For an account of the arankerram, or oral-performative literary debut, in the Tamil tradition, which was fully alive at late as the 1860s, see Norman Cutler, ‘Three Moments in the Genealogy of Tamil Literary Culture’, in Literary Cultures in History, pp. 271-322 (specifically pp. 282- 5). On Valmiki see ‘Sanskrit Literary Culture’, pp. 80-4; on the chansons de geste, HansUlrich Gumbrecht, ‘Schriftlichkeit in mündlicher K ultur’, in Schrift und Gedächtnis: Beiträge zur Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation, ed. by Aleida Assmann and others (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1983), pp. 158-74 (p. 168); on Caedmon, M artin Irvine, The Making o f Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica ’ and Literary Theory, 350 -110 0 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 431- 5. And often with modalities specific to south Asia. On Rajasthani epic (and the oral recitation of a stably memorized text), John D. Smith, The Epic o f Pabuji: A Study, Transcription, and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); on Tulu epic (and the Heisenberg principle at the level of textual transcription, where the observer affects the thing observed), Lauri Honko, Textualising the Siri Epic (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia/Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1998). For a general account, Oral Epics in India , ed. by Stuart Blackburn and others (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). I felt forced to coin (as I thought) this rebarbative term (in ‘The Cosmopolitan Vernacular’, Journal o f Asian Studies, 57,1 (1998), 6-37), but others also appear to have found it unavoidable, e.g. Pascale Casanova, Republique des lettres (Paris: Seuil, 1999), pp. 188-93. For references see ‘The Cosmopolitan Vernacular’, pp. 28-32. Trans. V. Narayana Rao, ‘Coconut and Honey: Sanskrit and Telugu in Medieval Andhra’, in Literary History, Region, and Nation in South Asia , ed. by Sheldon Pollock (Social Scientist, 23, 10-12 (1995)), 24-40 (specifically p. 24); see also V. Narayana Rao and others, ‘A New Imperial Idiom in the Sixteenth Century: Krishnadevaraya and his Political Theory of Vijayanagara’, in South Indian Horizons, ed. by Jean-Luc Chevillard and Eva Wilden (Pondicherry: Institut fran^ais, 2004), pp. 597-625. On Srinathudu and Krsnadasa Kaviraj see Literary Cultures in History (note 1 above), pp. 419-26 and 518-21 respectively; for Eknath and Tukaram, Shankar Gopal Tulpule, Classical Marathi Literature: From the Beginning to A.D. 18 18 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979), pp. 354-58 and 286-91 respectively. The Millennium Kabirvani: A Collection o f pad-s, ed. by Winand M. Callewaert and others (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors, 2000), pp. 1 -26; Prithvidatta Chandrashobhi, Premodern Communities and Modern Histories: Narrating Virasaiva and Lingayat Selves (University of Chicago dissertation, 2005). These are spelled out in The Language o f the Gods (note 4 above), chapters 7 and 12, and some are touched on briefly below. See also my ‘The Transformation of Culture-Power in Indo-Europe, 1000- 1300’, in Eurasian Transformations, ed. by Björn Wittrock and others (Medieval Encounters, 2004). Roger Wright, ‘Latin and Romance in the Castilian Chancery (1180- 1230)’, Bulletin o f Hispanic Studies (Liverpool), 73 (1996), 115 -28. Allison Busch, ‘The Anxiety of Innovation: The Practice of Literary Science in the 92

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18

19

20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27

28

29

30

Hindi Riti Tradition’, in Forms o f Knowledge in Early-modern South Asia , ed. by Sheldon Pollock (= Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Vol. 24, 2 (forthcoming)). See for example John Earl Joseph, Eloquence and Power: The Rise o f Language Standards and Standard Languages (New York: Blackwell, 1987), and of course Anderson, Imagined Communities (note 2 above), pp. 4 1-9. A certain standardization has certainly been achieved by Kannada, Gujarati and other vernaculars by the fourteenth century. Very little good work exists on the development of post-brahmi scripts, certainly none that moves beyond positivist paleography. The best in the latter category remains A. H. Dani, Indian Palaeography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963). He points toward ‘proto-regional’ developments centuries before vernacularization (p. 108) but offers no good hypothesis to account for it, aside from variation according to new writing tools, and the rather vague categories of ‘taste for ornamentation’, and the ‘tendency to simplification’ (p. 113 ). One ambitious recent overview, in The World’s Writing Systems, ed. by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 371-430, ignores every question of cultural-theoretical interest. Note that with very few exceptions (e.g. brahmi itself, and siddhamatrka) there are almost no pre-modern descriptors for Indie scripts. In 983 CE, the patron of the colossus at Sravanabelgola in Karnataka signed his name on the statue’s foot in three languages and four scripts: Kannada in kannada charac­ ters, Tamil in grantha and vattelutu, and Marathi in devanagari (Epigraphia Carnatika 2: 159-60, nos 272, 273, 276). See David Ganz (pages 147- 56). On the non-arbitrary sign see Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 20- 1 . The information is derived from B. Gopal, Vijayanagara Inscriptions (Mysore: Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Karnataka, 1985- ). Tony Stewart, personal communication (see n. 30 below). Bimal Kumar Datta, Libraries and Librarianship o f Ancient and Medieval India (Delhi: Atma Ram and Sons, 1970), p. 1 3 1. See in general P. K. Gode, ‘Migration of Paper from China to India - a d 105- 1500’, in Studies in Indian Cultural History, vol. 3 (Pune: BOR Institute, 1969), pp. 1- 12, especially pp. 4- 5. Matthew Kapstein, personal communication. Fernand Braudel, On History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 203- 5. The remarkably slow acceptance of printing in Japan (see Peter Kornicki, this volume) is a striking parallel. And possibly, by a factor of three, ‘all that the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in a d 330’ (see Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 13). The estimate on Indie manuscripts comes from the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. The Greek comparison I owe to Christopher Minkowski. Jainapustakaprasastisamgraha, ed. by Jinavijayamuni (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidyabhavan, 1943), e.g. no. 166 (p. 120), 180 (p. 122). For a convenient recent account of Hemacandra and his works see R. C. C. Fynes, tr. Hemacandra: The Lives o f the Ja in Elders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). I am very grateful to Tony Stewart for allowing me to cite this account from his work in progress. See also Edward C. Dimock and Tony Stewart, trans. Caitanyacaritamrta o f Krsnadasa Kaviraj (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999).

93

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The History o f the Book in South Asia S h eld on P ollock

31 Albert Lord, Singer o f Tales (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, i 960). 32 Philip Lutgendorf, The Life o f a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas o f Tulsidas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 14 1; see also pp. 9, 117 , 13-31 and 11 for other points made in the paragraph. Useful on the transmission of the text is Sambhunarayan Chaubhe, Manas Anusilan (Varanasi: Nagari Pracarini Sabha, 2024 = 1967), especially pp. 40- 5. Imre Bangha’s work on Tulsi’s Kavitavali shows that the extant manuscripts ‘stem from written versions, and no phase of oral transmission was involved’. See ‘The Dynamics of Textual Transmission in Pre-modern India’, in Forms o f Knowledge in Early-modern South Asia (note 17 above). 33 atmapathanartham; balapathanartham; paropakarartham {Descriptive catalogue o f Sanskrit manuscripts in the Adyar Library , ed. by K. Madhava Krishna Sarma [Adyar, Madras: Adyar Library, 1942-], vol. 5, pp. 305, 100); putrasya pathanartham; atmamanoharartham {A descriptive catalogue o f Sanskrit manuscripts, ed. by Hara Prasad Shastri [Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1917-], vol. 7, no. 4985; p. 286). 34 Some data for the 12th to 16th centuries are collected in Jainapustakaprasas­ tisamgraha, e.g. nos 191 (p. 123), 333 (p. 142) (kayasthas); e.g. nos 84 (p. 78), 256 (p. 132), 285 (p. 136) {mulyena grhita); no. 78 (p. 74) {dravyam bhuri vitirya pustakam idam

...

lekhitam).

35 It is unclear what the manuscript history of the Tarka-samgraha might tell us about the question of textual drift, since no one has examined the manuscripts of the work in detail. One study of a seventeenth-century work on language philosophy (what might be called a monograph rather than a textbook) shows just how vulnerable the text was to invasion by scholiasts’ comments. See Gerdi Gerschheimer, La theorie de la signification chez Gadadhara (Paris: Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, j 996), pp- 103-72, especially pp. 158-66. Some suggestions on the relationship between genre and textual stability and criticism are offered in Gerard Colas, ‘Critique et transmission dans la litterature sanskrite’, in Des Alexandries I : Du livre au texte, ed. by Luce Giard and Christian Jacob (Paris: Bibliotheque national de France, 2001), pp. 309-28 (pp. 319-23). 36 I am very grateful to Ian Willison and Graham Shaw for their criticisms of earlier drafts of this essay. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to Wim Stockhof and the staff of the International Institute of Asia Studies, Leiden, which hosted me as visiting senior fellow during the drafting of this essay in June 2004.

94

[2] Early Manuscript Illumination Jeremiah P. Losty It is not yet possible to determine precisely when the Indians began to treat their manuscripts as something other than mere purveyors of information, and to treat them as physical objects capable of being made beautiful both in the way the information was written and in decorations applied over and above the actual textual matter. Calligraphy is an art which finds no mention in ancient Indian literature; certainly there is no surviving treatise on the subject. Y et from the earliest manuscript survivals it is clear that some scribes took immense pains to produce beautiful and measured harmony with their pen, to invest the page with dignity through the use of majestically large and separate letters or of lines proceeding in measured, rhythmic tread across the great width of a page. T h e former of these devices is found only in Buddhist manuscripts on paper from Central Asia about the middle of the first millennium a d , such as the Kashgar Lotus Sütra, which must have been a conscious imitation of large-lettered Chinese calligraphy. Y et the manuscripts are totally Indian in character, being in the pothi format but on paper, and resemble large-scale birch-bark manuscripts from India. T h ey conform in shape to no Chinese model. Likewise the script is the Central Asian variant of the Gupta script, used also for the Iranian languages of the area. With what devotion these scribes must have sat down to copy with the utmost beauty known to them the Lotus Sütra or the Perfection of Wisdom in language as remote to them as Hebrew to us. In the Indian subcontinent itself, examples of early manuscripts of similarly majestic size have been found only in the excavated stüpas of Gilgit. Here they are on large birch-bark sheets, but the script is much smaller than their Central Asian counterparts, being remarkable for the regularity of the spacing of the letters and lines, achieving a dignified, rhythmic whole (N o .i). These manuscripts also are of Buddhist origin, as are all calligraphically noteworthy early manuscripts. T heir only decorative elements are concentric roundels of considerable size, and a few elaborately designed versions of the Buddhist dharmacakra. An early tradition refers to the copying of Buddhist texts in golden letters, but there is no evidence of such a technique being practised in early India. T he tradition in Nepal of writing with gold ink on blue-black paper may now be dated comfortably to the 12th century (N o .i 1), but this type of paper seems never to have been used in India. The reference in the Nepalese VamsävalTs (Chronicles) to one Yashodharä fleeing in the reign of Shankaradeva with the Prajnäpäramitä written in the year 225 in letters of gold must refer to the Nepal era (the date equals a d i 1 0 5 ) , rather than to the chronicle’ s explicit citation of the Vikrama era {i.e. a d 170), when only palm leaf and birch bark were available for manuscripts. T he occasional attempts to fix gold on to palm leaves as in the miniatures of the Pancaraksä dated c.10 57 (No.4) show how difficult it was; an entire manuscript in gold script would have been impossible to fix. So the reference must be to paper and hence corroborates the early dates for the two 12th-century manuscripts on paper from Nepal (N o .i 1). The earliest illustrated manuscripts are found from the last two centuries before the collapse of the old Hindu states system about

22

The History o f the Book in South Asia 1 200- a few pairs of manuscript covers from Kashm ir in a style more related to Central Asian painting than to that of India, a considerable number of illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts and covers of Buddhist texts from eastern India under the Päla dynasty and from Nepal in a closely related style, whence come also a few Hindu ones, and a much smaller number of Jaina examples from Gujarat and Rajasthan, with one isolated Jaina example from Karnataka. Are they merely the accidental survivals of a much more widespread tradition, with many centuries of develop­ ment behind them ? Or are they the earliest survivals of a tradition that only began at about the same time ? T he Indian texts of the first millennium a d are full of references to painting. We read of pictures painted on walls, of picture galleries, of painted wooden panels or paintings on cloth, of the art of portraiture. T here are various technical manuals besides, on how to prepare surfaces and means of achieving certain technical effects such as foreshortening. We can still see the pitifully few remnants of the classic art of fresco painting at sites such as Ajantä and Ellora, and see that the manuals and artistic practice usually agree. T he Tibetan historian Täranätha has given us a valuable account of the different styles of painting practised in ancient India. There are, however, no references whatever to the illustration of manuscripts, whether of palm leaf or birch bark. Any argumentum ex silentio is not necessarily decisive in an Indian context, and since so few Indian manuscripts pre-date the n t h century we would still perhaps be justified in keeping our options open. However, the evidence of Central Asia may perhaps be taken into account, where innumerable leaves and fragments of Indian-language manuscripts, on palm leaf, birch bark and paper, in date from the 2nd century to the ioth, have been discovered. Not one of them bears an illustration. It is immaterial in this context whether these manuscripts were actually written in India or in Central Asia. Had the art been at all widespread in India we could legitimately expect some evidence to turn up in Central Asia, either in a fragment of Indian provenance, or in a Central Asian imitation of an Indian manuscript, for where in script and format the Central Asian scribes imitated Indian exemplars, they would surely have imitated illuminations also. It is noteworthy that the only illustrated manuscript material to be unearthed in Central Asia is either of Chinese inspiration or of Manichaean origin, and we know from Arabic sources of the habit of the Iranian Manichaeans of illustrating their manuscripts, an art learnt from the Byzantines. It is quite possible, however, that the illustration of wooden covers would have had a period of some development before iooo, especially in western India and Kashm ir, and our remarks here apply only to the actual folios of manuscripts. I f then it would seem unlikely that the illustration of palm-leaf manuscripts did not occur much before about the year i ooo, what was the inspiration that started them along this path? T he earliest decorated Jaina manuscripts from 1060 contain drawings and diagrams, with coloured miniatures not appearing until the 12th century, so that we must suppose that the art originated in eastern India and Nepal, and spread to other areas of western and southern India, i.e. it originated in a specifically Buddhist environment. Now it is noteworthy that none of the early manuscripts are in fact ‘illustrated’ in the sense of the pictures illustrating events described in the text. T he most favoured Buddhist text by far, the Prajnäpäramitä, is a work of the most abstruse

19

The History o f the Book in South Asia

8 ff.iß öb, 1 3 7 (details). T h e Bodhisattvas M aitreya (?) and Avalokiteshvara ( ? ) - b y the 1 2th century, iconographical standards had collapsed in painting ( N o .8, p .33).

23

metaphysics, on the nature of Buddhahood, Bodhisattvahood, and of Wisdom. The miniatures used to illustrate it are usually of the Buddhas, transcendental (the Jinas) or M ortal, the Bodhisattvas, goddesses, and fearsome divinities, and the eight great events in the life of Gautama the Buddha. T heir presence in the manuscript has no connection with the text itself, which is far earlier than the developments of the Mahäyäna which led to the proliferation of these divinities. T he manuscripts were generally commissioned by pious laymen as acts guaranteeing spiritual merit, the greatest rewards coming from manuscripts of the greatest beauty. In the Tantric school of Buddhism prevalent in eastern India at this time, the act of painting a mandala or an equivalent was more a spiritual than an artistic exercise, and meditation on the depicted divinities for the initiate served to concentrate the mind on one or other aspects of the divine. It was these developments in Vajrayäna Buddhism which would seem to have precipitated the illustration of manuscripts to form, as it were, mandalas in miniature, bringing divine aid to the protection of the manuscripts and to the spiritual well-being of both donor and artist. Technically, the possibilities of decorating palm-leaf manuscripts are limited by the nature of the medium itself. T he decorative elements apart from calligraphy are threefold. Firstly, small figurative paintings oc­ cupying the centre of a leaf, or sometimes two or three such paintings occupying the centres of the two or three columns of text into which a large leaf would be divided, the number of stringholes being the deciding factor in the arrangement of the columns. Such paintings invariably occupy the full height of a leaf, but rarely exceed that measurement in width, and are usually contained within painted margins. I f larger compositions were essayed, utilizing the entire width of the leaf, none has survived; it is improbable that this could have been a standard feature as the tension generated by the turning of leaves in such manuscripts results in flaking of the painted surface to a far greater extent than in painted paper leaves of a manuscript in codex format. A second decorative possibility was afforded by the margins between the columns of text and at the edges. M any surviving manuscripts have painted geometrical and arabesque designs on at least all those leaves which contain paintings (N os.5-9); while a very few have little figures of monks, worshippers, the Buddha, caityas etc. in these positions (No. 10). Related to this type of decoration is the provision of little vignettes of animals or flowers or diagrams to mark chapter endings as in N o .8 where it is restricted to those leaves which already have central paintings on them. T he third element was the wooden binding-boards (pata ) at top and bottom of the manuscript, both inside and outside, on which could be painted much larger compositions than was possible on the leaves. T h e most usual cycle in Buddhist manuscripts is of 18 paintings arranged in groups of six, with three per side, at beginning, middle, and end of the manuscripts of the Prajnäpäramitä , consisting usually of the eight great miracles in the life of the Buddha, some of the five Jinas (transcendent Buddhas), the goddess Prajnäpäramitä, and some of the great Bodhisattvas (N os.2, 5-6, 9). One Päla manuscript of this text originally had no fewer than 78 paintings, with in addition to the cycle of 18, a pair of paintings marking the end of each of the 32 chapters (N o.8), forming perhaps a most complex mandala. Other Buddhist texts have different cycles. T he Pancaraksä , a set of five charms dedicated to five 20

24

The History o f the Book in South Asia different protective goddesses, is illustrated with their images, and sometimes in addition those of the five Jinas to whom they are linked (No.4). T he illustrations of the Kärandavyühasütra are known only from an incomplete manuscript; here each of the 53 surviving folios (which comprise the bulk of the text) contains two paintings, and uniquely among Päla manuscripts, some of the narrative episodes in the sütra are illustrated (No. 10). T he Lotus Sütra, despite the immense popularity of the scripture, is usually illustrated only by one or two introductory paintings, as are a few other Buddhist texts. T he wooden covers gave much greater scope and freedom to the artist than the restricted space available on one of the folios, but only rarely was the opportunity taken to depict a fully integrated painting (No. 12). M ore usually the covers were divided into compartments, with scenes from the life of Buddha on one, and Prajnäpäramitä with attendants and worship­ pers on the other. However, there are very few examples of a Päla manuscript surviving complete with its original painted covers, which were the parts of the manuscript most exposed to dam age; the Prajnäpäramitä in the M useum of Fine Arts in Boston dated c .113 4 is perhaps one of them. It is quite possible that none of the 1 ith-century manuscripts had illustrated covers, as the covers must have been deemed less intimately connected with the text itself, and less capable of imparting magical protection. Only two sets of covers are of possible 11th-cen tu ry date, both of Nepalese origin, enclosing unillustrated manuscripts dated 1028 and 10 5 4 -how ever, these covers do not fit into the stylistic development of Nepalese painting between two securely dated manuscripts of 10 15 (N o.3) and 10 7 1 and are more likely to be 12th century; it was in this century and the next that many Nepalese covers were given to earlier Nepalese and Päla manuscripts (see N os.2, 3, 5, and 9). T urning to the Jaina manuscripts, we can see that again the miniatures do not illustrate the text but are rather images of Jaina divinities. T he Tantric element that led to the illustration of Buddhist manuscripts is apparent in Jainism to a much lesser extent, but even so the VidyädevTs (goddesses of wisdom), the Jaina equivalent of the Buddhist Prajnäpäramitä, occur in two of the surviving documents, on a pair of covers (No. 15) which show significant influence from Päla art and on the leaves of a manuscript dated 1 1 6 1 , where their function can only be magically protective. T he earliest surviving illustrated Jaina manuscript is dated 1060, and has delightful drawings of the goddess Shri and the love-god Käm a, with elephants, vases etc., and other manuscripts of this date have drawings of lotuses and diagrams in similar style. T hey apparently continue a tradition found in birch-bark manuscripts (No. 1). Illustrated manuscripts with paintings are not found before the 12th century, and have just a few opening illustrations of the Jinas, the gods and goddesses, various monks, including sometimes possibly the authors of the work, and the patrons of the manuscript. No large-scale iconographic sequence is attempted, except possibly for the VidyädevT sequence, nor in any 12th-century manuscripts is there any attempt at a narrative sequence illustrating the texts. The texts chosen for illum i­ nation are not confined to a few favourites as with the Buddhists, but include various parts of the Jaina Canon or its commentaries. It is only by accident that these illustrated manuscripts have survived rather than others, but it is not without significance that they are all canonical texts,

21

The History o f the Book in South Asia and that the miniatures in them have no connection whatever with the text. In other words, they must be serving the same purpose as the Buddhist miniatures, that of magical protection of the text and the bestowing of benefits on the donor. The same is true of the only known illuminated Digambara palm -leaf manuscript, a group of semi-canonical works on karma dated c. 1 1 1 2 from southern India which has the same set of m iniatures-divinities, donors, monks, etc. T he earliest miniatures which actually occur in texts capable of illustration are of early 13thcentury date in works on the lives of M ahävira and Neminätha, but the opportunity so to do is not taken, and the miniatures are simply of the Jinas and the donors. In fact, the earliest manuscript with narrative paintings is dated 1288, a Subähukathä, with 23 miniatures, and the earliest such manuscript of the Kalpasütra , the life of the Jin a Mahävira which was the standard text for illustration and presentation in the 15th and 1 6th centuries, is not for another century, and is dated 1370. Even this has only six miniatures, and it is not until the roughly contemporary Kalpasütra from Idar that there is a manuscript with a set of 34 miniatures fully illustrating the narrative portions of the Kalpasütra. By this time of course there was considerable influence from the Islamic world on the arts of India, and it is quite possible that narrative paintings in Jaina manuscripts are in imitation of the Persian book-arts. From the subject-matter of the miniatures in these Jaina manuscripts which we have traced from 1060 to 1370, it would appear that the art of manuscript illustration must have begun in western India only in the n t h century, and doubtless under the stimulus of emulating Buddhist manuscripts. T h e drawings in the 11th-cen tury manuscripts, the lack of fixed iconographical schemes in those of the 1 2th century, the slow realization of the possibilities of narrative illustration, all point to this conclusion. On the other hand, the paintings on the covers (patlts) of Jaina manuscripts seem infinitely more assured than those on palm leaves, and it is possible that there is a longer tradition behind them. There are indeed references in Jaina literature to painting pattakas, which may be cloth or wood panels. The Jaina covers from western India are concerned quite often with historical events of importance to the Jainas, such as the meeting between the Shvetambara Jaina polymath Vädi Devasüri and the Digambara scholar Kumudachandra for the purposes of theological debate in 1 12 4 at the court of Siddharaja Jayasimha of Gujarat, or the consecration of the temple of M ahävira at M arot in M arwar by the famous Jaina äcärya Jinadatta Süri (No. 16). Quite a large proportion of the 20 or so surviving Jain a patlTs do not depict either historical events or standard divinities, but on one of their sides include a flowering creeper motif which loops around a large variety of birds and anim als-m onkeys, geese, elephants, even a giraffe - revealing a delight in nature that is one of the enduring motifs of western Indian painting (No. 15). Calligraphically these manuscripts are of great beauty, especially the Buddhist ones. The script used in the latter is the ornamental Siddhamätrkä (‘Perfect-measure’ ) or Kutila (crooked) script, so called from the marked twist at the bottom of the vertical, stroke of each character ending in the finest of points. At its best the characters proceed with measured and even tread across the leaf, the heavy horizontal and vertical strokes being balanced by the lighter curves between of the characteristic portions of the letter, by the sublinear twist and by the flourishes of vowel indicators above the line, most markedly above the

22

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26

The History o f the Book in South Asia top line. T his script was already archaic by the n t h century. In this particular form it is found only in manuscripts from the Buddhist monasteries. T he Buddhist manuscripts from Nepal tend to use the early Nagari script to much lighter effect, although some have the Siddhamätrkä (N o.3). However, in Nepal from the 15th century there was an archaistic revival of the Kutila, called Ranjanä, using gold ink on blue-black paper. Although the effect of these manuscripts is of great richness, the Ranjanä is a complex character of no great calligraphic beauty, being heavy in effect without comparable dignity. It is moreover an almost unreadable character, and was probably never intended to be otherwise, for the texts written in it are of a very limited range and copied for pious purposes of donation to monasteries. There they remained wrapped and unread - like the earlier K utila manuscripts brought from India, except for the annual pustakapüjä, or book-worshipping day, when they were placed on public view and their covers anointed with sandal-paste, which still adheres to many of them (N o.7). T he script used in the western Jaina manuscripts was an early form of Nagari with characteristics that mark it out as Jaina — special forms of certain letters and diphthongal signs which normally protrude above the line always occurring before the letter (e and o) or with a combination of both (ai and au). It is an elegant rather than monumental script, and remained characteristic of the Shvetambara Jainas until the 1 8th century. The southern Digambara Jaina manuscripts used an early Kannada hand, of no particular beauty. All the early illustrated palm -leaf manuscripts which have survived from eastern India are of Buddhist texts, while all those from western and southern India are of Jaina ones. The Buddhist manuscripts owe their survival to having been taken to Nepal by monks fleeing the destruction of their monasteries by the T urkish invaders about 1200, and deposited usually in temple libraries there. T he Jaina ones were in any case deposited in bhandärs or libraries attached to temples in Jaina strong­ holds in western and southern India such as Jaiselmer, Patan, Cambay and M oodabidri, and they and their contents have survived to the present day. There are no survivals of a Hindu tradition of manuscript illustration in India from this time, but there certainly was one in Nepal, represented by documents from the 12th and 13th centuries (Nos. 13 , 14). The dated Buddhist documents from India are all in the regnal years of the Päla monarchs, who were Buddhist, except for one manuscript dated in the reign of the Hindu monarch of south Bengal, Harivarman, to which area one more manuscript can be assigned on stylistic grounds (No. 10), but it would be dangerous on account of the paucity of early manuscript material from Hindu Bengal to argue that Hindu illustrated manuscripts should also have survived had any been done there. Jaina bhandärs in western India have a catholic content that includes early and important manuscripts of Buddhist and Hindu texts, but no early Hindu illustrated manuscript is to be found in them. Again one can argue no case for this that the Hindus of western India did not decorate their manuscripts as the number of Jaina illustrated ones is in any case extremely small. We have argued above that the Hindus of India did not have a proper manuscript and library tradition until later, so it is in any case unlikely that there would have been many illustrated ones from this time, but we cannot at this stage rule out the possibility. From the Nepalese evidence it is clear that Hindu illustrated manuscripts are far

23

The History o f the Book in South Asia outweighed in number by Buddhist ones, as is to be expected, even though it would appear that the number of adherents of both religions in Nepal at this time was roughly equal. From the evidence presented by later illustrated manuscripts of Hindu, and M uslim, texts from Bengal (No.43), Assam (N o s.119 -2 2 ) and Orissa (Nos. 115 - 8 ), in which there are stylistic continuities of the Päla tradition, the most striking being the placing of figures under scalloped arches or their derivatives, whether in interior or exterior scenes, it is possible to argue that the Päla style could not have been confined just to artists working in Buddhist monasteries, but must have been widespread throughout eastern India, at least in wall paintings, if not in manuscripts, and that likewise it must have been used for Hindu paintings, even though the earliest of these manuscripts is of 16thcentury date. T he former point is indeed proven by the covers of the 1446 Buddhist manuscript from Arrah in Bihar (N o.3 1), which are descended in style directly from the Päla tradition, but 250 years after the destruction of the monasteries of Nälandä and Vikramashlla. If, as we believe, manuscripts were first illustrated in India about AD 1000 specifically to add magical power and protection to the manuscripts of the Prajnäpäramitä , it is hardly to be wondered at that there are so few Hindu manuscripts illustrated, as there would have been hardly any occasion to do so. T he precise iconographic depiction of a deity as an aid to meditation did not have the same force or rationale in Hinduism as in Tantric Buddhism. Those Hindu illustrated manuscripts which have survived from Nepal are identical in style to the Buddhist ones, coming often perhaps from the same brush, but painted without the same religious and philosophical significance. The pair of covers (No. 13) showing the avatars of Vishnu, for example, is decidedly odd iconographically; the image of Vishnu Anantasayana (lying on the snake Ananta) seems to be confused with Brahmä in the multi-headed form of the recumbent divinity, while some of the avatars are conventional Bodhisattva representations. T he hand which painted them was more used by far to Buddhist manuscripts. Any discussion of the style of the Päla Buddhist manuscripts is hampered by the paucity of securely dated and provenanced material. T he dated manuscripts are all given in the regnal years of kings, with no distinctions between them even if there be more than one king of the same n am e-three Gopälas, two Mahlpälas, etc. Opinion is also divided as to the chronology of the Päla monarchs, both relative and absolute. Only five of the illustrated manuscripts give their provenance - three come from the great monastic university of Nälandä (N os.5, 9) one from the monastery of Vikramashlla (N o.7), and one much damaged, from Uddandapuri (Bodleian M s. Sansk. c .i3 (R ). Absolutely fixed are the manuscripts dated in the reigns of Nayapäla (c. 1043-58), Rämapäla (c. 10 8 2 -113 0 ), and Govindapäla ( 1 1 6 1- c .i 170), which group includes two of the manuscripts from Nälandä. T he styles employed vary considerably. On the one hand is a style which employs a sinuous and flowing line able of itself to suggest volume, which is also achieved through gradations of colour tone, in har­ moniously composed groups of figures (usually exemplified by part of the M ahlpäla manuscript in the Asiatic Society Library, Calcutta); on the other is a style which uses an angular and distorted line and flat colour planes with only the most perfunctory attempts at modelling, in

24

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28

2 ff. 12 7 b , 12 8 (details). T h e B uddha is offered honey b y the m onkeys, and tames the elephant N alagiri, tw o of the eight great episodes from his life (N o .2, p .30).

The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia simplified groups (the other M ahlpäla manuscript in Cambridge University Library) (N o,2). Attempts have been made to classify the first of these styles as ‘early Päla’ because of its affinity with the classical frescoes at Ajantä, and the brittle style as ‘late Päla’ because of its affinity with the norm in medieval Indian painting from the 14th century on. However, neither Mahipäla manuscript can be later than c.1070, firmly in the centre of the probable time span covered by the surviving manuscripts (c .10 0 0 -1170), while manuscript paintings of unques­ tionably later date (those dated in the reigns of Rämapäla and Govindapäla, N o s.5, 6, 9) show in their handling of modelling and line more of an affinity with the so-called ‘early’ style than with the ‘late’ one. A more profitable line of enquiry towards establishing a relative chronology lies perhaps in an analysis of the iconographic content of the paintings, and the way in which certain conventions from the first half of the period are misunderstood by painters in the latter half. A notable example is the use of thrones, cushions and haloes. It is usual for seated divinities in manuscripts dated in the Rämapäla period to have a lotus or double-lotus base beneath them, and a cushion behind them, which hides the lower part of a throne-back, the top of which protrudes above the cushion on either side of the divinity’s head. T h ey can also have a double halo, a small one round the head and a larger one around the entire body encompassing also the small halo. The earliest securely dated manuscript to show the double halo is the Nayapäla manuscript in Cam bridge (No.4) of c.1057, but this has no throne-backs or cushions. O f the two manuscripts dated in the reign of M ahlpäla I (c.995-1043) or II (c. 1075-80) which are either slightly later than the Nayapäla manuscript or 50 years earlier, the Calcutta manuscript has double haloes while the Cambridge manuscript (N o.2) has a small, single one. As for the thronebacks, in the Rämapäla period, artists either no longer recognized them for what they were or else deliberately ignored their real nature, for the throne-top is tilted at right angles to the axis of the divinity’s head. T h ey have often been termed flames issuing from the divinities’ shoulders. M oreover, the standing Buddha and the Buddha lying down in his parinirväna scene are each encumbered with cushion and throne-top, and with double haloes also in the latest manuscripts. T he standing Buddhas in the Calcutta Mahipäla manuscript display the accompanying throne-back and cushion, while many of the divinities also display the double halo, features which would seem to argue against the early date (c.iooo, in the reign of M ahlpäla I) suggested for it. With the possible exception of one miniature, that of the birth of the Buddha, there is nothing in this manuscript that necessarily places it much earlier than Rämapäla manuscripts, with which it is stylistically linked. On the other hand, the Cambridge M ahipäla manuscript does not display any of these features, so that on iconographic grounds we arrive paradoxically at the conclusion diametrically opposite to that usually propounded for these two manuscripts on stylistic grounds, namely that the Calcutta manu­ script belongs to the M ahlpäla I period and the Cambridge to M ahipäla II. We believe the precise opposite to be true, and date them c. 1080 and c.iooo respectively. An early dating for the Cambridge manuscript is suggested by other arguments also (see N o .2). An examination of the evidence from Nepal reinforces these argu­ ments. There are two incontrovertibly 11th-cen tury illustrated manu­ scripts from Nepal, dated 13 5 / 10 15 in Cam bridge University L ibrary

25

The History o f the Book in South Asia (N o.3) and 19 1/ 10 7 1 in the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. These display the same format, the same type of text as the Päla manuscripts, except that the paintings are mostly accompanied by a caption identifying the subject as a divinity from, or worshipped in, such and such a locality. Frequently, the painting shows the divinity as an image, i.e. as a painted representation of a statue, with accompanying small worshippers. Where this is not the case, we may take the painting to be the iconographic representation of the particular aspect of the divinity worshipped in a particular location. Stylistically, the two manuscripts vary greatly. T he earlier is a vigorous, but crude, provincial style, the latter the most perfect of all surviving illustrated manuscripts of the period, in line, modelling, colouring and composition. Both, however, are distinctively and unm is­ takably Nepalese, even though they have not yet developed the charac­ teristics of the true Nepalese style of the 12th century, as they are presumably closer to the vanished Indian school of painting from which both the Nepalese and Päla styles spring. In both are missing the conventions of throne-backs and cushions which have been discussed above, while in neither has any divinity more than one, small halo. It would be an extreme position to argue from Nepalese evidence that all Päla paintings displaying these characteristics must be later than 10 7 1, but it is nonetheless a powerful piece of corroborating evidence that they are so. T h e crudity of the Nepalese manuscript of 10 15 strikes a chord when compared with that of the Cambridge M ahipäla manuscript, the crudity not of provincial backwardness but of stylistic innovation, and it is possible that these two manuscripts (N os.2, 3) represent the earliest attempts to produce illustrated palm -leaf manuscripts in Nepal and eastern India. We have seen that there are no literary references to the illustration of manuscripts in earlier works mentioning paintings, but art-historians have argued that the comparative perfection of the Calcutta M ahlpäla manuscript proved a definite stylistic link with a school of post-Gupta fresco painting in eastern India. However, if we accept the re-ordering of the illustrated Päla manuscripts proposed here on iconographic grounds, there are only three manuscripts earlier than the Calcutta ‘classic’ manuscripts of 10 7 1 from Nepal and the M ahlpäla manuscript of c.1080, viz. the Cambridge M ahlpäla manuscript (c.iooo) and Nayapäla manuscript (c.1057), and the Cambridge Nepal manu­ script of 10 15 , all of which are experimental in style. T he first of these (N o.2) employs garish colours, a jerky, unfluent line, with faces fixed in perpetual grimaces. As for the so-called crudity of the paintings of the Nepalese manuscript of 10 15 (N o.3) they are in an extremely vigorous style that lacks the classical harmony displayed by the 10 7 1 manuscript in Calcutta; an artist is coming to grips for the first time possibly with the problems of reducing to a tiny scale paintings on a much larger scale, and he is tempted to cram too much in. T he paintings in this manuscript are astonishingly detailed for their tiny compass, and in addition to the main figure and its shrine, often contain numerous other figures or objects or details of landscape. B y the time of the 10 7 1 manuscript a truer art of manuscript illustration had been developed. It had been realized that it was not possible to cram so much in without sacrificing plastic qualities which the artists also valued; thus in the later manuscript the central figures are much larger, the architectural elements have been greatly 26

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4 ff.ig b , 20 (details). T w o of the group of divinities accom panying M ah äm äyü rT -th e Bodhisattva M aitreya, and the goddess T ä rä (N o .4, p .3 1 ) .

The Histoiy o f the Book in South Asia reduced, and the subsidiary figures much more sensibly organized. The result is a truer art of book illustration, even though at the sacrifice of the vigour of the earlier style. N o material is available between these two dates to enable us to see this process in transition. T he Nayapäla manuscript (No.4) is a definite improvement technically, but exper­ iments with the gilding of the flesh of all the human figures, a none too successful experiment as most of it has disappeared. It was not apparently repeated in the later Päla manuscripts. We are here, it seems, witnessing early attempts to translate styles used in fresco or other largescale paintings into a miniature compass, and it is not to be supposed that the techniques to do so could be acquired immediately or that the translation could be accomplished without a crashing of gears. From the available evidence it took about 70 years to evolve both the classic Päla style which we associate with the reigns of MahTpäla I I, Rämapäla, and Gopäla I II , covering the period c.10 75—114 3 , and the classic Nepalese style. T h e iconographic peculiarities of the Päla school such as throne-backs and cushions accompanying the standing Buddha argue a school that was becoming increasingly atrophied and decadent, and they are common to all the later manuscripts. No doubt the earlier manuscripts contained paintings that were scaled-down versions of larger frescoes or patas, but once an iconographic norm had been established the evidence suggests that the paintings were copied from existing patterns almost by rote. M istakes of iconography that crept in by misunderstanding were irreversible. M any of the Bodhisattvas in the later manuscripts are unidentifiable, they have no attributes peculiar to themselves. Colours can be arbitrarily changed, even in the lovely manuscript dated in the 36th year of Rämapäla (N o.6) where the artist has adopted a colour scheme of blue throughout and sticks rigidly to it, despite the clear weight of tradition and evidence from other manuscripts that green is required. Nonetheless, if we ignore the peculiarities of some of the miniatures depicting the scenes from the life of the Buddha, these tiny miniatures in the classic Päla period of painting (N os.5-9) are of a grace and beauty which belies the decline of the religion they serve, having arrived at a peak of classical perfection. The crudities of the earlier manuscripts have been ironed out. Only the bare essentials for iconographic comprehen­ sibility are included now in the miniatures. T he Bodhisattvas sit in graceful pose on lotus seats with often no background other than the halo which is their radiant emanation of light. Flaking of the paint reveals the beauty and sureness of the line, its superb expression of the mercy and compassion which is the essence of Bodhisattvahood. T he Päla kingdom was reduced by rival Hindu dynasties to a small territory round Gayä by the reign of Govindapäla (commencing in 11 6 1 ) , and even this was destroyed soon afterwards. There are no illustrated Indian Buddhist manuscripts dated after this last reign, although there are some undated ones assigned to this period. T h e Buddhist monasteries and with them the traditions of Päla painting were destroyed by the Turkish onslaught which swept across the north Indian plain after the Battle of Tarain in 119 2 . O f the rest of eastern India outside the Päla dominions, only one illustrated manuscript has so far been published. Dated in the reign of Harivarman, one of a Vaishnava dynasty which ruled in south-eastern Bengal about 110 0 , it is a Buddhist manuscript of

27

The History o f the Book in South Asia the Prajnäpäramitä in one of its longest recensions. In a related style, but linked architecturally 'more to the Sena dominions of south-western Bengal, is a newly discovered manuscript of the Kärandavyühasütra (N o.io) which even in an incomplete state is the most heavily illustrated manuscript to survive from this period. Both are in a simplified Päla style, with neatly drawn figures, but eschewing any attempt at the sophisticated modelling practised under the Palas. T he Kärandavyüha is however remarkable for its being the only Buddhist manuscript of the period to attempt narrative illustration - a few of its miniatures actually represent the events described in the text. In Nepal, the 12th century was a kind of plateau in her achievement in the art of manuscript illustration. T h e heights reached in the 10 7 1 manuscript were not attained again, but a number of very fine manu­ scripts and covers survive from the period, including two on paper (N o.i i). From the 13th century on, the best painters in Nepal must have found even the comparatively large paintings in the 118 5 manuscript (N o .11) too cramping, and concentrated exclusively on large-scale paintings on cloth (pata ), while manuscript illumination developed a rigidity that argues a dying art even in so fine a piece of painting as the D evi in No. 14. T he technique here is brilliant, but the effect is cold; the pliancy and fluency of line and colouring in earlier Nepalese work has disappeared, leaving a hardness of line and a monotonous approach to colour modelling that is impressive in so tiny a compass but ultimately unsatisfying. Similar rigidity is to be observed in all later manuscript illustrations, but largely without compensatory brilliance. T he collapse of the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of northern India after 119 2 left Nepal isolated culturally as well as politically. Removed from the Indian states system, she continued in isolation for many centuries, and her manuscript traditions need not concern us again. The much greater rarity of illustrated Jaina manuscripts on palm leaves does not permit us to indulge in any large-scale discussion of stylistic development. All these manuscripts were preserved in the Jaina bhandärs of Rajasthan and Gujarat, with the exception of a group from M oodabidri in Karnataka, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary we must assume that the manuscripts concerned were produced in these areas of western and southern India. T he Jainas in the n t h and 12th centuries were by no means unrepresented in other areas of India, and may have illustrated their manuscripts. But it is only where safe refuges could be provided in the underground bhandärs that any have survived, and it is to the latter that these manuscripts owe their survival. We must first separate on grounds of style the painted wooden covers from the illustrated palm leaves. T his we can easily do as there is in fact no connection between them. None of the surviving covers is now attached to a manuscript, illustrated or otherwise; none of the manu­ scripts with illustrations has a painted cover. T his separation of the two seems to have been largely the case in eastern India also, where only one Päla manuscript has survived with its original cover. N ow the Jaina covers, of which the earliest appears to be late n t h century, are painted with a technical assurance that argues an already existing school of pata painting. The style is somewhat more angular and linear than Päla art at this time, but it is still capable of expressing considerable plasticity through modelling and indeed through the line itself. The narrative technique is fluent, as in the great Devasüri-Kum udachandra con­ 28

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32

The History o f the Book in South Asia frontation, with the different episodes of the story spaced out along both sides of the cover but interlocking. T he miniatures on the 12th-century palm leaves on the other hand are of much greater crudity, even though they use the same basic technique and artistic vocabulary, and this crudity is a constant factor throughout the manuscripts of this and the next century. In the 13th century, the basic vocabulary has practically disintegrated and it took another century to fashion a new one, as we see in the 1370 Kalpasütra in the Ujjamphoi Dharmasäla Bhandär in Ahmadabad. Attempts at plasticity have disap­ peared, the linear technique has triumphed, but it is now one that also imposes fixed distortions and angularities. T h e further projecting eye, of which there are hints as early as the Ajantä and Ellora frescoes, occurs in the book-covers as well as the palm -leaf illustrations; in the former it co­ exists happily with the generally plastic approach, in the latter it becomes part of the angularity and distortion. T he free rendition of the human figure in the earlier work is impossible in the later, figures must stand, sit or lie in only the one position, their clothing disposed in only the one way. T o compensate for these conformings to stereotypes, artists were allowed freedom of colouring and textile design which in the hands of the master who painted the Ujjamphoi Kalpasütra afford it a grace and delicacy not achieved before. In this manuscript and the approximately contem­ porary Idar Kalpasütra we can see that the narrative iconography of the Kalpasütra is fixed and is the same as the Bom bay paper manuscript of the same date, but we cannot as yet determine the source for it. T his must have occurred in Gujarat during the course of the 14th century, doubtless at a centre like Pattan which could impose it on others. Although palm leaves continued to be illustrated in western India for another century, new developments occur only in the paper manuscripts. i ‘V in a ya v a stu ’ o f the M ü la sa rvä stivä d in s T h e rules of monastic discipline in Sanskrit o f the M ülasarvästivädins, one o f the schools o f HTnayäna Buddhism , com ­ piled about the 4th century a d . T h is school seems to have had its stronghold in K ash m ir and G andhara. Its V inaya con­ tains in addition to the usual monastic regulations a large num ber o f illustrative stories (avadänas) and sütras so that it form s one of the most im portant sources for the study o f early Indian narrative literature. T h e discovery of almost the entire w ork at G ilg it in its Sanskrit orig­ inal (being previously known only from its T ibetan and Chinese translations) was one o f the greatest literary discoveries of this century. T h e whole M s., consisting apparently o f some 423 almost perfectly preserved leaves o f birch bark o f great size ( 12 x 6 6 cm ), superbly written in the G u pta characters o f the 7th -8th century, w as dug out o f a collapsed stüpa at G ilg it in 19 3 1. T h is is a M s. o f the finest quality, o f austere grandeur. T h e birch bark is of good quality, smooth and of even colour, w ith attractive darker brown lenticels running across the leaf. O f decorative

29

elem ents there are only large circles w hich mark the end of one o f the m ajor divisions o f the V inaya (as on f. 5 3 a), and the smaller circles w hich m ark o ff verse passages. T h e final folio contains three very large dec­ orated circles, apparently dharm acakras, the Buddhist W heel of the L a w .1 T h e folios are num bered on the recto, on the left. T h e stringhole is a third o f the w ay along from the left, and sits in solitary splendour in a blank square, four lines deep. Its undam aged state suggests the whole M s. was little used, as constant friction of the leaves over the cord w ould in course o f time have produced consider­ able damage. It was doubtless a p res­ entation M s ., given to the B uddhist monk whose relics w ere enshrined in the stüpa at G ilg it along w ith his library. T h e re­ m ainder o f the M s. is in the N ational A rchives, N ew D elhi, and a private col­ lection in Lahore. B ritish Lib ra ry , London, O r .u 8 7 8 A . f f . n (numbered 4 3 -5 3 ); 12 X 66cm ; birch bark; ten lines o f north-western G u pta script; in glass. B iblio grap h y: L e v i 19 32. 1See reproduction in V ira and C handra 19 7 4 .

The History o f the Book in South Asia

33

: f.5 3 . Birch-b ark folio, w ith roundels noting chapter ends.

2 ‘A stasäh asrik ä P ra jn äp ära m itä ’ Illustrated on p .25. T h e Perfection of W isdom in 8,000 Sections, one of the earliest works of M ahäyäna Buddhism , originating p rob­ ably in the A ndhra country o f southern India about the 2nd century a d . T h e 32 chapters are of m etaphysical specu­ lation on the nature of Buddhahood, Bodhisattvahood, and of W isdom . T h is is the earliest text of the Perfection of W isdom cycle; in subsequent centuries it was both expanded (to 25,000 sections) and contracted (to a few b rief verses). T h is palm -leaf m anuscript was copied in the fifth regnal year of the Päla m onarch M ahipäla. T h e rest o f the colophon is much rubbed, but the M s. was com m is­ sioned by one Lädäkä (?), the daughter of Bahubhüti. T h e M s. originally had six illustrated folios, w ith three paintings on each, of w hich only five have survived, the opening leaf being a later replacement without illustration. T h e covers are slightly larger, w ith interior paintings, and are replacements o f 1 2th-century date from N epal. T h e date o f this M s. is controversial, owing to the colophon’s not stating w hich of the two Päla m onarchs named M ahlpäla is m ean t; the fifth year of either being equivalent to c .io oo or 1080. Bendall in his Catalogue is inclined to identify the difficult to read Lädäkä, the donor o f this M s., with the Queen U ddäkä, w ho is the donor o f N o .4, w hich is firm ly dated in the 14th year of N ayapäla, c .10 5 7 , where she is described as param opäsikäräjnt, the ‘ devoutly Buddhist Q ueen’ . I f she is the same woman, then her description as Bah u bh ü ti’ s daughter necessarily m ust precede chronologically her description as N ayap äla’s queen, so that there can be no question o f her donating a M s. in the reign o f M ahipäla I I w hich occurred after the reign of Nayapäla. Stylistically this fits very well, for reasons advanced above, on the com parative crudeness of these m inia­ tures. E arly features include details such as the single halo only, the possibility that the round-headed arches under w hich the figures sit are the prototype of the large body haloes o f later Päla painting, and the

absence of the characteristic Päla dip in the upper eyelid (a universal feature o f the Räm apäla-period manuscripts) and of other late features such as m oving thronebacks and cushions. T h e painted covers are both slightly larger and were made for some other manuscript in N epal in the 12 th century. T h e y are extrem ely beautiful, with w onderfully-fluent figure m odelling; on one is the Buddha and attendant Bodhisattvas, on the other Prajnäpäram itä with attendants. U n iversity L ib ra ry , C am bridge, A dd. 1464. ff.2 2 7 ; 5 X 5 3 -5cm; talipot leaves; K u tila script, six lin e s; 15 miniatures, 5 X 4-5001; wooden boards, 5-5 X 54cm. Biblio grap h y: c u l 1883 p p .1 0 0 - 1, and p i.11, 1. Sarasw ati, 19 77, figs. 2 6 1- 3 in colour. 3 ‘A stasäh asrik ä P ra jn ä p ä ra m itä ’ T h e Perfection of W isdom Sections (see N o .2).

in

8,000

T h is m anuscript was copied by one Sujätabhadra in the N epalese year 13 5 / 1 0 15 in the ancient and fam ous m on­ astery o f S ri H lam , the whereabouts of which is not known to us, in the joint reigns o f Bhojadeva, R udradeva and Lakshm ikäm adeva (the Nepalese king o f­ ten adopted the system of jo in t reigns with sons and other relatives). It is w ritten in a transitional K u tila script, in w hich the angle at the bottom of the vertical strokes is scarcely noticeable. Another hand, that of K aru navajra, added a second colo­ phon in 2 5 9 /113 9 , stating that the P rajn äpäram itä was rescued by him when fallen into the hands of unbelievers. T h is note is in the hooked Nepalese script or Bhujm oli, one o f its earliest attestations. A third hand, probably the original scribe, has added notes in a more cursive script, almost a Bhujm oli underneath most o f the 85 paintings in the m anuscript, inform ing us o f the name o f the divinity and the whereabouts of the shrine containing this particular image. Sim ilar inscriptions oc­ cur in the m anuscript o f the same text dated 19 1/ 1 0 7 1 in Calcutta, and these two docum ents are unique in their importance

30

in this respect for their evidence o f icon­ ography and the main shrines o f V ajrayän a worship. Fouch er has noted that the first 26 of the inscriptions all end with the p hrase-ä risa sth ä n a , i.e. älekhyasthäna, the scribe’s note to the illu ­ minator to insert a m iniature here o f the deity so indicated, and that the appro­ priate chapter end is likewise indicated. In the later miniatures he sim ply wrote the name of the deity involved, the purpose by then being obvious. T h e m iniatures were obviously added after the text was w ritten, as the paint occasionally goes over the edges o f letters. T h ere is how ever no good reason to doubt that these m iniatures are contem porary w ith the original date o f the colophon, although doubts have recently been expressed on the grounds of the painting’s com parative crudity and re­ sem blance to certain m anuscripts o f the 13 th and 14th centuries.1 H ow ever, the possibility o f their being so late is ex­ cluded, as Foucher pointed out, by the w riter o f the second colophon in 1 1 3 9 actually w riting over the paint o f some of the miniatures on the last page. T h e substance o f the text o f the inscriptions at the beginning o f the M s. is a sufficient indication that they were instructions to a painter, either from the scribe or someone competent to choose an iconographic scheme for the M s. N o r need this very early attestation of the Bhujm oli script in the inscriptions deter us from accepting this date o f 10 15 for the paintings. B en d all’ s earliest M s. in this script is dated 1 1 6 5 ; the second colophon o f the 10 15 M s. in Bhujm oli is dated 11 3 9 . E arlier exam ples still are found in the Pancaraksä dated in the 53 rd year o f Räm apäla ( c .1 13 5 ) 2 and o f course the inscriptions under the paintings o f the 10 7 1 M s. in Calcutta, whose date no one doubts, are in a hand sim ilar to the 10 15 M s. in C am bridge. T h e 85 paintings o f the latter M s. occur at chapter ends and at the beginning o f the entire M s. T h e first chapter is an excep­ tion, w ith five single paintings occurring at various intervals throughout —the orig­ inal first folio is m issing so it is not known how m any paintings it w ould have had, although we m ay guess at three. T h e ends of the chapters are m arked by two paint -

34 ings on the same folio, until the end o f the 12th chapter, which is m arked by three. T w o pictures then mark the end o f each chapter (apart from chapter 14 w hich has three) until the 3 is t chapter, four folios of which have two paintings each. T h e end o f the 32nd chapter and o f the work proper (f.222a) has three paintings. T h e next and final folio (f.223) carries on the recto the colophon and the extra colophon inserted in 11 3 9 , and on the verso a short text in the same hand as the main m anu­ script entitled V ajradhvajaparinäm a on the virtues of reading the Prajnäpäram itä. T h is leaf has three paintings on the recto and no less than five on the verso. N o Päla M s. adopts this arrangem ent o f the m inia­ tures, which again argues for experim en­ tation in this manuscript. T h e 10 7 1 M s. from N epal has sim ply a single m iniature at chapter ends, and three to end the work. A s for the subjects of these paintings, they are in general different from their Indian Päla counterparts. Apart from the last eight on the colophon folio, w hich are o f the eight great scenes from the life of the Buddha, they are all o f specific icon­ ographic representations of the Buddha or Bodhisattvas or other divinities, or of im portant stüpas or caityas. T h e m ajority o f places designated are in eastern India, but there are some from far off places China, Ja va , Ceylon, G ujarat, southern India. T h e specific locations extend even to different temple types or caverns around and over the divinities.3 It need not be assum ed that the painter was p ersonally fam iliar w ith the specific ap­ pearance of these temples. Rather he was copying from earlier m aterials, either another m anuscript, as Foucher believed, or larger-scale wall paintings or p atas. T h e covers are later additions o f the 1 2th century, w ith fine paintings o f the P äram itäs4 spread over the two interior covers. U niversity L ib ra ry , C am bridge, A dd. 1643. ff.2 2 3 ; 5-25 X 54cm ; talipot leaves (first folio a paper replacem ent); six lines of transitional K u tila in three columns, with stringholes in the central m argins, which on the illustrated leaves and some others have large vajras painted on them ; 85 paintings (out of 88?), about 5-25 X 6 cm ; wooden covers, later additions, w ith püjä m arks on outside, and painted interiors, 5-4 X 54-5 and 6 X 56cm. B ibliograp h y: cu l 1883, pp. 1 5 1- 2 . Fouch er 1900. Sarasw ati 19 77 (with nu­ m erous col. repros. o f Add. 1643). 1Pal 19 7 8 , P-342Banerjee 1969. 3Saraswati 19 7 5 discusses them. 4T h e cover published by Pal (19 7 8 , fig. 16) as belong­ ing to this M s. actually belongs to A dd . 14 6 4 (N o .2). One of the Päramitäs is reproduced in Foucher 1900 p l.ix, 4.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

3 f .i2 7 a (detail). T h e Bodhisattva Sam antabhadra, and the m arginal decoration of a vajra (thunderbolt).

4 ‘P an ca ra k sä ’ Illustrated on p .27. Five hym ns addressed to five Buddhist protective goddesses. T h ese hym ns are among the most ancient o f Buddhist dhäram s or hym ns, fragm ents o f the text having been found in Central Asian M ss. o f the early first m illennium A D . T h e goddesses addressed are p ro­ te c tiv e -th u s hym ned, they w ard off evils. T h e text was extrem ely popular in N epal from at least the 10th century, as num erous m anuscripts of it have sur­ vived, m any of them illum inated. It ap­ pears to have been used at least in more m odern times as a sacred book on which oaths could be sworn. T h is M s. o f these hym ns was copied in the 14th year of K in g N ayapäla of the Päla dynasty, on the orders of Queen U ddäkä (see N o. 2), in a fine K u tila hand. T h e date is equivalent to c. 10 57. T h ere are 36 m iniatures in an elaborate iconographic scheme that is at present somewhat obscure. P ancaraksä M ss. are usually illustrated b y paintings of the five goddesses, w ith or w ithout their equivalent Jin as. Here this pattern is not adhered to. Pratisarä is accom panied by five o f the M ortal Buddhas (ff.ib , 2a); M ayü rl b y the rem aining two M ortal B uddhas, M aitreya, V ajrapäni and T ä rä (ff. 1 9b, 20a); Sähasrapram ardanl by four B odhisattvas and a stüpa being w orship­ ped by two figures (ff.45b, 4 6 a ); Sitavatl b y M an jushrl, Padm apäni and three other goddesses (ff.04b, 65a); and M antränusäram by five demonic figures o f yoginls (ff.66b, 67a). T h e final group round the end o f the text (ff.ögb, 70a) is the same five terrifying yoginfs around the last of the M ortal B uddhas, M aitreya. A ll the figure draw ing in this M s. is of great sim plicity and elegance. T h e artist o f these paintings experim ented w ith gild ­ ing the flesh o f all these figures, none too successfully as little of it remains. H ow ­ ever, its presence on this early m anuscript demonstrates that gilding on paper m anu­ scripts need not necessarily be taken as a late feature as has sometimes been claimed. M ost of the figures have both

31

head and body haloes, a developm ent since the M ahipäla I M s. (N o .2), but none o f them is seated on a throne w ith vertical throne-back as is found in later m anu­ scripts. Som e have large cushions behind them, and others triangular projections above their shoulders which are a feature o f the Bodleian m anuscript dated c .n o o ( N o .5). T h ese m ust be rudim entary ve r­ sions o f the backs o f thrones found in later P äla m anuscripts, but their curious shapes w hich change direction haphazardly sug­ gest that the artists are copying from a prototype whose precise language they no longer comprehend. U n iversity L ib ra ry , Cam bridge, Add. 1688. ff.70 ; 5 - 2 X 5 6 0 11; talipot leaves; K u tila script, five lines; 36 miniatures, 5-2 X 5 -6 c m ; lotus designs at end of ch ap ters; plain wooden boards. B iblio grap h y: c u l 1883, p .17 5 . Sarasw ati 19 77, col. figs.20 3-6 , 259-60. 5 ‘A stasäh asrik ä P ra jn ä p ä ra m itä ’ C O LO U R P L A T E IV

T h e Perfection of W isdom Sections (see N o .2).

in

8,000

T h e Päla empire was in decline from the m iddle of the 9th century, but under m onarchs like M ahlpäla (c. 9 9 5 -10 4 3) was able to check and even counteract this tendency. Räm apäla (c. 1 0 8 2 - 113 0 ) was another such m onarch, about whom we know far more than m ost other m edieval Indian kings, as he is the subject of a contem porary political biography (R äm acarita by Sandhyäkaranandl). H e came to the throne after his father (M ahlpäla II) had perished in a rebellion, and the imperial hold on B ih ar and Bengal was very shaky, but he succeeded in countervailing the fissiparoüs tendencies o f the Päla dominions and exerting strong central rule for most of his long reign. A nd it was during his reign that Päla painting seems to have reached its peak of classical p erfe ctio n -th ree extrem ely fine m anu­ scripts have survived, as well as several others.

The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia T h e Bodleian M s. is dated in the year 1 5 o f Räm apäla (c.1097) and was copied at the fam ous m onastery-university of Nälandä by the scribe Ahunakunda Bhattäraka. It is illustrated w ith 18 paint­ ings and has painted covers as well, most of it being in superb condition. It has the usual cycle o f 18 m iniatures in three sets of six each, the m iddle one m arking the end of the 1 2th chapter. T h e eight scenes from the life of the Buddha are sym m etrically disposed for once, being the outer pairs of the first and last sets, although they are not here, nor anywhere else, in their natural order. T h ere are three extra miniatures of the Buddha and the rem aining ones are of Prajnäpäram itä and the Bodhisattvas. T h e style of this m anuscript is not reflected in the two other known m anu­ scripts from Nälandä (the C alcutta M s. dated in the year 5 of MahTpäla and the Royal Asiatic So ciety’s M s. in the year 4 of Govindapäla, N o .9). T h e line is superb, especially in the draw ing of the Bodhisattvas o f the central pair o f illu s­ trated leaves; the outline o f their faces and o f the Buddha in three-quarter profile with the curve towards the lower part of the face is unique in Päla painting. O f especial interest also is the triangular shape of the throne-backs visible over the shoulders, which slopes and tilts with the figures. T h is is found in m ore pronounced form in the contem porary Bengal M ss. (see N o. 10). Absent are the elaborate throne-backs and cushions o f the standing Buddha. T h e covers have been published as Päla1 but are in fact superb specimens of N epalese painting o f the 1 2th century. On one, the more damaged, the temptation of the Buddha form s the centre-piece for the other scenes from his life; on the other is Prajnäpäram itä w ith the nine other Päram itäs and V arendra T ä rä surround­ ing h er2, a theme that is apparently found also on the covers of N o. 3. Bodleian L ib rary, Oxford, M s. Sansk. a.7. P rovenance: Hoernle Collection, ff. 18 8 ; 6-i X 55-7021; talipot leaves; text in fine K u tila hand in six lines in three columns ( 15 , 17 , and 15 cm w ide); 18 m iniatures, about 6 X 6 cm ; illum inated folios have m argins decorated in ara­ besque and geom etric designs; wooden covers 6 -1X 5 5 -5 0 2 1, w ith painted interiors. B iblio grap h y: B od 19 05, p .250. Conze 1948. M allm ann 1965. 'B arrett and G ra y, 19 6 3, p p .5 2 - 3 (col. repro.). 2Identified b y M allm ann 19 6 5.

6 ‘A stasäh asrikä P ra jn äp ära m itä ’ C O LO U R P L A T E I

T h e Perfection o f W isdom Sections (see N o .2).

in

8,000

T h is famous m anuscript is perhaps the most clasically perfect o f the great m anu­ scripts associated w ith the name of Räm apäla1 . It was copied at a place un­ specified in the 36th year o f his reign, c. 1 1 1 8 , at the expense o f one U dayasim ha for the benefit of his parents’ souls. O nly the illustrated pages plus one other sur­ vive from the whole M s. w hich originally had 179 folios, and was illustrated w ith a cycle of 18 miniatures, at beginning, m id ­ dle (beginning of chapter 12) and end. U nlike all the other sim ilar cycles, it lacks an image of Prajnäpäram itä herself, and also any o f the scenes o f the life o f the Buddha, who is represented only by the red-coloured Am itäbha Buddha, and Vajrasattva. It is the images of the Bodhisattvas w hich are the especial glory o f this manuscript, nine o f them in all, drawn w ith a p erfectly controlled line fu lly expressive o f volum e, so that even where the paint has flaked on the yellow and white Bodhisattvas the figures still seem fu lly m odelled. N ot the least rem arkable aspect of these miniatures is the uniform colour scheme w hich is preserved throughout the M s. T h e images are, apart from the red Am itäbha, all yellow, white or different shades of slate-blue, w hich is used as a substitute for green on the images of Sam antabhadra, Ratnapäni, V ajrapäni, Shyäm atärä and Parnashabarl. T h e large body haloes are all red, w hile the ground beyond is very dark slate-blue. A part from the occasional pink head halo, all other details of dress, throne-backs, cushions, lotuses and so on conform to this basic scheme of white, yellow, red and slateblue. E ven more rem arkably, the square m andala in w hich sits Vajrasattva, in the middle position of f.89b, is divided by diagonals into four triangles, each of w hich is coloured in one of these basic colours. T h ere can be no doubt that this is deliberate, that the artist was deliberately restricting his colour range, and indeed colouring his subjects in accordance with his scheme rather than w ith iconographical demands. Victoria and A lbert M useum , London, I .S .4 - 10 , 1958. Provenance: V redenburg Collection. ff.7 (numbered 1, 2, 89, 90, 178, 17 9 and one without illustration apparently u n ­ num bered); 6-2 X 54cm (ends slightly broken, and some pieces m issing from upper and lower ed g es); talipot leaves; six lines of K u tila , w ith m arked twist to the bottom, in three colum ns, 14 , 17 and 14cm w ide; four m argins on each folio; the illustrated pages have m argins dec­ orated w ith foliate and geom etric designs in yellow and white and touches of colour, and w ith red borders; 18 m iniatures, 6-6-2 X 7-8-2cm , including their red bo r­

32

35 ders ; no c overs; now mounted under glass and framed. B iblio grap h y: V redenburg 19 27 (col. re­ pro. o f nine miniatures), a b N o .45 (col. repro.).

'T h e colophon of this one seems incomplete, as Rämapäla does not have his full imperial titles, and indeed one of them, m a h ä rä jä d h i, breaks o ff in the middle of a word and carries on without interruption into the king’s name S r tm a d rä m a p ä la sy a etc.

7 ‘A stasähasrik ä P ra jn ä p ä ra m itä ’ C O LO U R P L A T E III

T h e Perfection o f W isdom Sections (see N 0.2).

in

8,000

T h is M s. is on 337 palm leaves, and was copied in the 15 th year of G o päladeva at the monastery of V ikram ashlla. T h is great m onastic-university establishm ent was founded b y D harm apäla (c.781 - 8 2 1 ) to teach the P rajnäpäram itä doctrine, and was destroyed along w ith the other Buddhist m onasteries at the end o f the 1 2th century. Its site has recently been discovered at Antichak east o f Bhagalpur in Bihar. T h e precise king named in the colophon is a matter o f some controversy, as there were three kings named G opäla in the dynasty, but it is now becom ing clearer that it m ust be the third of that name, whose reign began c .11 3 0 . T h e M s. is illustrated w ith six m iniatures, arranged in facing pairs at the beginning, middle (beginning o f the 1 2th chapter) and end of the work. A ll but one of these divinities are seated w ithin a shrine under a trefoil or cinquefoil arch surm ounted b y three dim ­ inishing horizontal courses in pyram idal form surm ounted by an am alaka and supported by pillars w ith vase bases, rep­ resenting the cella of a Päla shrine. T h e details are picked out m inutely in red, blue, green and yellow. One other illustrated M s. is known from the reign of G opäla 111, dated in his 4th year (c. 113 4 ) , w ith 18 m iniatures, and now in the Boston M useum of F in e A rts.1 T h e divinities are sim ilarly located under shrines, although not elaborately decor­ ated. T h is is the only Päla M s. w hich has survived w ith its original decorated covers, and on these the architecture is as detailed as on O r.6902. British L ib ra ry , London, O r.6902. ff -3 3 7 ;6 - 8 X 4 i c m ; talipot le ave s; six lines of fine K u tila script in three columns 1 1 -5cm w ide; four m argins on each side, 2cm wide, decorated w ith arabesque and geometrical designs; six m iniatures ap­ prox. 6-8 X 6-5-7-oocm ; two stringholes in inner margins, 1 3 -5cm from edge; wooden binding boards, undecorated, covered with p ü jä marks. B ibliograp h y: a b , p .39 [the present author has revised his view s on the dating

36

The History o f the Book in South Asia

o f this M s. to c.970 as presented there]. 19 10 , p p .1 5 0 - 1.

JR A S

'N o . 2 0.58 9 , published Bulletin b m fa , l x i i i , 19 6 5.

8 ‘A stasäh asrikä P rajn ä p ä ra m itä ’ Illustrated on p .20. T h e Perfection of W isdom Sections (see N o .2).

in

8,000

T h is undated m anuscript is the most heavily illustrated surviving Päla m anu­ script, w ith 69 m iniatures. It has lost a few folios, and w ould originally have had 78 m iniatures. T h e disposition of the m inia­ tures is com plex, com bining the normal cycle of 18 miniatures, w hich consists of six paintings each at the beginning and end of the w ork and another six at the beginning of chapter 12 (ff. 149b/150a), w ith another cycle w hich consists o f a pair of miniatures on facing folios at the be­ ginning of each of the 32 chapters not illum inated in the first cycle, i.e. all the chapters apart from N os. 1 and 12 . It is not yet clear w hether the precise iconographic scheme is to be interpreted as a single enormous m andala, or if not, what are the reasons for the choice o f divinities in their coupling and relative positions within the fram ew ork of the overall scheme. It begins w ith the five Jin as around Prajnäpäram itä, followed by the Jinasaktis, and then a sequence of important Bodhisattvas and four of the M ortal Buddhas. T h e six paintings at the be­ ginning o f chapter 12 are o f six of the eight great events from the life o f the Buddha, the rem aining two beginning chapter 25. Between these two points, the subjects of the miniatures are m ostly the terrifying divinities of the northern Buddhist pan­ theon, w ith some more Bodhisattvas, re­ sulting in some apparently very odd co u p lin g s-M a ric i w ith Lokanätha, D ipankara Buddha w ith Sam vara etc. T h e final group from chapter 26 on is of m ostly benificent deities again, w ith the rem aining three M ortal B uddhas. T h e last surviving miniatures beginning chapter 32 are o f V ajrasattva and V ajradh ätvlsh varl; they w ould have been followed by six m iniatures at the end of the chapter concluding the whole cycle, but these last two folios are m issing. T h ere are two styles represented in the m iniatures of this M s. One is an angular, linear style in w hich the scenes from the life of the Buddha are painted, w ith flat colour planes and hardly any modelling. T h e Buddha, when standing, carries his throne-back and cushion around with him. T h e other style is somewhat more modelled, and there are some lovely Bodhisattvas painted in pink, green and dark blue, fu lly m odelled, but still with rather angular features and pointed chins. E ven these are not so fu lly m odelled as the figures in the Räm apäla M s. of c .1 1 1 8

9 f . io i b (detail). T h e Buddha descends from the 33rd H eaven accom panied b y Brahm a and Indra, one o f the eight episodes from his life.

(N o .6) or the G ovindapäla M s. of 116 5 (N o .9), both from Nälandä. It could of course be later than this last M s. but since no M ss. o f com parable size or beauty are known from this period, between the collapse o f the Pälas and the destruction of the Buddhist m onasteries, it seems safer to date it to the late Päla period in the m iddle o f the 1 2th century, from a m onas­ tery other than Nälandä or Vikram ashlla (N 0.7.). B ritish L ib ra ry , London, Or. 12 4 6 1. ff.325 (five folios m issing, num bered orig­ inally 29, 104, 10 5, 324, 32 5 ); 6-2 x 39cm ; talipot leaves ( ff.3 2 1- 4 are yellow paper replacem ent leaves in an 18th -cen tu ry Nepalese h a n d -th e y have the text from the end of chapter 3 1 to the finish); six lines o f K u tila script in an elegant hand in three colum ns; text area 4 X 3 4 - 5 0 11; 69 miniatures, m ostly 6-2 X 4 -5-6 -50 11; pages with miniatures are decorated with geom etric and arabesque designs m ostly in red and yellow in the four m argins, while the end o f each chapter in the text area is usually m arked w ith a small coloured animal or d e s ig n -a peacock, deer, elephant, hare, rabbit etc. of singular c h arm ; stringholes in both inner m argins, 12 cm from edge; undecorated bevelled wooden boards 6-6 X 39 8cm w ith red in­ teriors, and copious p üjä m arks on upper c over; brass lotuses were added in N epal in the 18th century to cover the holes of the lower c o v e r-th e se w ould have had spikes attached to secure the leaves. B iblio grap h y:

33

ab

N 0.46. L e w is 19 59-6 0.

9 ‘A stasah asrik a P ra jn a p a ra m ita ’ T h e Perfection of W isdom Sections (see N o .2).

in

8,000

T h is M s. marks practically the end of the Päla tradition of m anuscript illustration. It is dated in the 4th year of Govindapäla, w hose reign comm enced in 1 1 6 1 and hence is equivalent to 11 6 5 . T h ere is no epigraphic evidence linking this ruler to the main line of the Päla kings, the last of whom is usually thought to be M adanapäla ( 1 1 4 3 - 6 1 ) and under whom m ost of the em pire was annexed b y neigh­ bouring H indu kingdom s. It is not even certain that G ovin dap äla’ s reign began when M adanapäla’s ended, but since the form er assumes the full im perial titles of the Pälas and is regarded in all Buddhist M s. colophons up to 119 9 as the legitimate Buddhist king, it seems logical to assume that he was the legitimate successor of M adanapäla. G ovin dap äla’s rule, how ­ ever, was confined to the area around G ayä and N älandä in Bihar. E ven this lim ited pow er collapsed early in his reign, for all the records in his reign apart from this, the first one, speak o f his ‘vanished’ or ‘ destroyed’ reign. T h e colophon is now somewhat dam ­ aged and almost illegible, but after the date comes a mention of the m onastery of N älandä, which in such a position can only mean that it was copied there. It has 15 illustrations, the original opening folio being m issing along w ith its three m inia­ tures, in the standard cycle o f 18. T h e style is a continuation of the Räm apäla style and is still at a high level o f sensitivity in line and modelling, although exhibiting the standard conventions o f the standing and lying Buddha w ith throne-backs and cushions.

The History o f the Book in South Asia Royal Asiatic Society, London, H odgson M s .i . ff.2 0 4; 6 25 x 5 7 c m ; talipot leaves; six lines of transitional N agari script, in three colu m n s; 1 5 m iniatu res; all four m argins on illum inated leaves are decorated, stringholes in both inner m arg in s; Nepalese covers w ith interiors painted with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, 12th century, 6-6 X 57-5010. Biblio grap h y:

ras

1876.

10 ‘K ä ra n d avy ü h a sü tra ’ A com paratively late Buddhist sütra in Sanskrit, concerned to exalt the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara through re­ counting his compassionate journeys to the underworld, C eylon, etc. T h e M s. is incom plete, having only 53 surviving leaves from a putative 70, but is the most h eavily illustrated surviving Buddhist M s. from India. A ll 53 leaves have a miniature in the centre o f each side, while all four m argins on each side also bear little vignettes o f the Buddhas, w orship­ pers, etc., under caityas. T h e outer m ar­ gins have how ever m ostly been broken away. T h e miniatures are in a fluent, almost purely linear style, that is different from the known styles associated w ith the Pälas or w ith N epal, and closely related to the only known illustrated Buddhist M s. from eastern India done outside the Päla em pire, i.e. the M s. of the 25000 P rajnäpäram itä w ith 22 miniatures in the B aroda M useum dated in the eighth year o f H arivarm an, c .iio o .1 T h e V arm ans were a H indu V aishnava dynasty who ruled over south-eastern Bengal (now Bangladesh) between about 1080 and

11 5 0 , and appear both to have tolerated and indeed patronized Buddhism . In both M ss. the neatly drawn figures are usually under trefoil arches below pyram idal roofs with horizontal courses, with crowning am alaka, as in the Vikram ashlla M s. (N o .7), but in a much more sim plified style, while two stylized trees protrude above the top of the temple structure. B ut whereas the H arivarm an M s. has w ide-opened eyes on all its faces, the K ä ra n d a vyü h a has the characteristic Päla dip in the upper eyelid, suggesting a provenance nearer the Päla em pire than the extrem e edge o f Bengal. A further clue is provided by the unusual type of temple architecture seen in a few of the m inia­ tures, w hich instead o f the types analysed b y Sarasw ati2 in other m anuscript illu s­ trations o f the period, is in fact a s'ikhara or deul type of temple consisting of a single tow er with vertical sides, and a top cu rv­ ing into a crow ning am alaka. T h is is not an architectural type seen in any other Buddhist M s. It is exem plified by the surviving temples of Orissa in particular, but it was also fairly common in the Bankura D istrict of W est Bengal border­ ing on O rissa.3 It is not axiom atic in these M ss. that such features are necessarily based on local architectural t y p e s -b o th the 11th -c en tu ry illustrated N epalese M ss. (N o .3) bear labels to all their illu s­ trations giving the whereabouts o f the particular image, but it is doubtful whether the different architectural types thus represented in fact conform to reality. H ow ever this M s. is in a different position; there is no attempt to suggest that the images o f Avalokiteshvara and the other divinities are localized anywhere in

37

particular, so it is probable that any ar­ chitectural oddities represent actual con­ ditions. Stylistically the M s. m ay be dated to the first h alf of the 1 ith century, when the Bankura area along w ith all south­ western Bengal was under the control of the H indu Sena dynasty. B ritish L ib ra ry , London, Or. 13940. ff.53 ; much damaged at edges, m axim um 5 5 X 36cm (originally about 5-5 X 39cm ); talipot leaves; six lines of early N ä g a r i in four columns, text area 3-5 X 35 cm ; 106 m iniatures, each in centre o f page, m easuring 5 X 4 -750 11 (all damaged at top and bottom ); both inner and outer m ar­ gins o f each page decorated w ith v ig ­ nettes, the outer ones m ostly broken o ff; stringholes in both inner m argins.. B iblio grap h y: U npublished. 'Bhattacharya 1944. 2Saraswati 19 7 5 .

3Saraswati 19 76 .

1 1 ‘V a su d h ä rä d h ä ra m ’ and ‘N ä m a sa n g iti’ C O LO U R P L A T E V I

T w o hym ns in Sanskrit to the Buddhist goddess of wealth, Vasudhärä, and to the Buddha, in a pair o f linked m anuscripts. T h e y are both on stout N epalese paper, dyed blue-black, and w ritten in alternate lines of gold and silver ink. T h is type of M s. is fairly comm on in N epal from the 1 6th century onwards, but it is now be­ com ing clear that there is a small group of much earlier m anuscripts in this s t y le - a M s. of the P rajnäpäram itä in the B ritish L ib ra ry , datable palaeographically to the 1 2th century,1 another, in the N ational Archives, K athm andu, w ith an apparent date of 12 2 5 2, and one in the H eeram aneck

10 ff-49b, 4 3 b (details). T h e goddess Parnashabari in an O rissan type of temple, and the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara as Sim hanada, mounted on a lion.

34

38

13

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Inner covers. T h e avatars of Vishnu.

Collection in L o s Angeles c. 12 5 0 ,3 which scholars have been reluctant to accept in the absence of corroborating evidence as to the antiquity of paperm aking in N epal. H ow ever, the M s. of the Vasudhärädhärani contains m iniatures of superb quality w hich are unquestionably o f 12th-centu ry date, as w ell as a secure colophon dated in year 305 of the N epal era ( c . 1 1 8 5 ) , in the reign of Som eshvaradeva (reg. C .A D 1 18 0 -5 ) . Palaeographically the M s. is in a securely 12th-centu ry hand, and it is the earliest known dated exam ple of such blue-black paper. A n even earlier M s. dated 11 0 5 on normal Nepalese yellow paper is in the Asutosh M useum in C alcutta.4 T h e M s. has two miniatures at the beginning on facing folios, o f the Buddha seated on a lion-throne w ith attendant B odhisattvas, and o f the six-arm ed form o f V asudhärä seated sim ilarly w ith two near-naked urchins above pouring out bags o f m oney. Both display naturalistic m odelling and a plastic use of colour of the greatest sensitivity. T h e companion text, N äm asangiti, is in the same calligraphic hand, and has four m iniatures of slightly less refinement b y a different hand. British Lib ra ry , London, O r .i3 9 7 iA and B. ff.2 1 and 28; 9 1 X 26cm, and 8 9 X 26cm ; blue-black pap er; five lines of K u tila script in alternate silver and gold ink; stringhole offset to left 10cm from e d g e ; A has two paintings 9 1 X 9cm on right side of page, w ith decorated squares around stringholes on these p ag e s; B four m inia­ tures 8-9 X c.9cm ; unbound. Biblio grap h y:

bl

19 8 0 -8 1.

XBM I902, O r.2202. 2T rie r 19 7 2 , fig. 1 1 8 . 3Pal 19 7 8 , plate 27. 4M ookerjee 19 4 7 .

12 M an u scrip t co ver C O LO U R P L A T E V

A single wooden cover to a palm -leaf M s, w ith painted inner surface representing the story o f the Vessantara J ä ta k a . One of the most fam ous o f the early Buddhist birth-stories, w hich recount the lives the B odh isattva (Buddha-to-be) led in his form er existences, probably dating from

the 5th century b c , they are part o f the literary heritage of southern Buddhism . A version o f this famous story how ever survived in the M ahäyäna tradition, under the title o f Vis'vambhara J ä ta k a , included in several o f the Sanskrit col­ lections of avadänas and jä ta k a s. T h e story concerns the B odhisattva’s incar­ nation as Prince V ishvam bhara, who em ­ bodied the virtue o f charity, and whose disinterestedness is tested by the gods to such an extent that he gives away his goods, his house, his kingdom , and eventually his w ife and children. T h is is an extrem ely rare exam ple o f narrative technique used on the cover o f a manuscript. I f the divinities painted in the Päla and Nepalese M ss. are to be regarded as scaled-dow n versions o f icons as wall paintings, it would follow that this cover is a version o f a full-size fresco o f this subject, and indeed w ith its fluid tran ­ sitions from one episode to the next it recalls the narrative technique em ployed in large-scale w all paintings as in Ajantä. It is datable to c .i 100, from Nepal. N ational M useum , N ew D elhi, 5 1 .2 1 2 . W ooden cover, bevelled top; 5-6 X 32-8cm ; plain top, painted interior. B iblio grap h y: references.

ic m a a

p. 1 1 4

and

cited

13 P air o f m an u script co vers A pair o f covers illustrated w ith the in ­ carnations of Vishnu. T h is pair o f N epalese covers m ust once have enclosed a H indu m anuscript; they are datable to the 1 2th century. T h e upper cover is divided into three groups of three panels divided by the stringholes w ith their decorated margins, representing the Fish , Tortoise, B o ar; M an-lion, B ali at the sacrificial fire, Bali and V äm ana; Vishnu T rivikram a, Parashuräm a and devotees, and Räm a. T h e lower cover has eight panels, showing a four-arm ed blue K rish n a w ith devotee, Buddha w ith devotee, K alk i on a green horse, then a panel which probably repre­ sents V ishnu lying asleep on Ananta (A nantasayana), but in which the god appears to have three heads and a male attendant rather than L a k sh m i; the next is

35

a double-width panel, showing Vishnu being w orshipped b y two devotees. A fter the second stringhole, the last three panels show V ish n u w ith Laksh m i on his lap, a pair of devotees and apparently the con­ secration o f a king. T h e background col­ our alternates between blue and red, and m any panels have the curtain roll and hanging tassels usual in Nepalese painting at this period. T h is interesting pair shows consider­ able iconographic freedom in the de­ piction o f the avatars, including charm ing representations o f the Fish and T ortoise avatars as precisely that, w ithout any hum an attributes at all. Particular atten­ tion is shown to the D w a rf incarnation (Vämana) w hich has three panels devoted to this theme. It is noticeable in fact that the iconography o f the avatars is closest to the norm when the subject had already been depicted in stone in N e p a l - Varäha, Narasim ha, V äm ana and T rivik ra m a ,1 w hile the other avatars after the first two animal ones are often no m ore than con­ ventional Bodhisattva representations. It w ould seem therefore that the covers were painted by a B uddhist monk, none too fam iliar w ith the correct representations o f some of the avatars of w hich he w ould have seen no sculptural representations. British M useum , London, 19 65, 6 -14 , 2. T w o wooden covers, bevelled top s; 4-6 X 56cm ; plain outsides, painted in­ teriors; stringholes match only if one cover is reversed. Biblio grap h y: Pal 1978, p p .5 5 -7 , fig .5 1. 1Pal 19 7 4 , figs. 1 - 3 , 9 2 -3 , 9 5 -7 . T h e famous Vishnu Anantashayana o f a d 642 at Budhanilakanth (fig. 12) does not have an attendant Lakshm i, so hence perhaps our artist’s confusion on this score, but he is ap­ parently confusing Vishnu with the four-headed Brahm a who is meant to be sitting on the lotus growing from Vish n u ’s navel in the standard icono­ graphy o f this scene.

14 ‘D e v im ä h ä tm y a ’ C O LO U R P L A T E II

T h e D evim ähätm ya (Glorification o f the Goddess) is a lengthy hym n from the M ä rk a n d eya Puräna, in w hich the D evi, the G oddess, is w orshipped as the su­ prem e principle o f the universe, and an account given o f her origin, of her superi­ ority to all other gods, and o f her victories

39

The History o f the Book in South Asia

1 5 Eight of the 16 Jaina Vidyadevis, with royal devotees on right.

over demons who tyrannize the w orld, in particular, her victory over M ahlshäsura the Buffalo-dem on. T h ree palm leaves, each w ith a painting of the G oddess slaying the Buffalo-dem on to the left o f the central hole, are all that is left o f this m anuscript. T h e second o f the two leaves in their present arrangem ent has a male and female devotee op the right o f the hole. T h ere is no text, other than a damaged inscription in Sanskrit in N epalese Bhujm oli script o f the i3 / i4 th century on the reverse o f the third leaf, w hich appears to record details o f the draw ing o f the miniatures, but w hich has so far eluded precise decipherment. T h e precise function of these leaves is puz­ zling. T h e y m ay be fragm ents of a m anu­ script o f the D evim ähätm ya. T h e y may possibly be an artist’s preparatory studies for a larger painting on cloth or on a wall, but in this case their form at remains puzzling, as there is no obvious reason for painting such studies on palm leaves when cloth and paper were both available, and the shape o f the leaf prevented its full utilization. B ut there can be no doubt of the provenance o f these leaves, w hich is N epal, of the 13 th century. T h e subject is identical in all three paintings, save that the G o ddess’s colour is respectively blue, green and red. W ith one foot firm ly planted on her lion vehicle, and the other on the back of the decapitated demonic buffalo, she stands serenely holding the weapons given her by the gods, while lassooing w ith her snakes the demons Chanda and M u n d a.1. B ritish Lib ra ry , London, Or. 13860. ff.3 ; 4-9 X i8 '4 c m ; talipot leaves; no text on verso, two lines o f B hujm oli script on reverse of f. 3 ; three m iniatures, 4-9 X 8-8cm, with extension on f.2 a ; cen­ tral stringhole. B iblio grap h y: U npublished. 1See Pal 19 7 4 , fig.2 7 8 , for an almost contem porary version in stone, and Pal 19 7 5 , fig.7 3 , for a 16th century bronze realization o f the same subject.

tion o f the mother-goddesses. T h is is one of a pair o f covers, the other being badly damaged, showing the 16 V idyädevis, to­ gether w ith a pair of female devotees one labelled D evasrI Srävikä, the other Padm ini, the im plication of the form er title being that the lady is a royal devotee. T h e rendering o f the V idyädevis seems to be partly dependent on influences from the Päla Buddhist m anuscripts, in their frontal viewpoint, in the attributes which they carry and the arches under which they sit, w hich are unique in Jain a paint­ ing at this period. T h e artist was none too clear about whether these arches were in fact arches, throne-backs or haloes, as they tilt about depending on the in cli­ nation o f the d evis’ head. I f these are dependent on Päla models, then it is im possible to date them before the second quarter o f the 12th century, to w hich time the two royal ladies w ould seem to belong. T h e y differ m arkedly from the set o f V idyädevis published by M oti C handra1 in a M s. dated 1 1 6 1 , in w hich none o f these Päla characteristics is apparent. T h e outside of the cover is decorated with a charm ing creeper design, issuing on two sides from the mouth of a kirttimukha in the centre o f the board, with elephants and strange beasts depicted in the loops o f the creeper. T h is is one of several such decorations known from this p eriod.2 Lalbh ai D alpatbhai Institute, Ahm adabad. Provenance: Jain a bhandär, Jaiselm er. W ooden cover, w ith bevelled edges; 7-5 X 58cm ; two stringholes; both sides decorated. B iblio grap h y: Pun yavijaya and Shah 1966. 1M oti Chandra 1949, figs. 1 7 - 4 2 . Hbid, figs.2 0 1 - 3 ; see Punyavijaya and Shah 1966, pp .4 0 - 1 , for a description of others.

16 M an u script co v er C O LO U R P L A T E V II

15 M an u scrip t co ver A wooden cover {p a tli) o f a p alm -leaf M s. w ith on the inner surface representations o f eight V idyadevis, and two female devotees. T h e V idyädevis, goddesses o f wisdom , of w hom there are 16 in the Jain a tradition, seem to be related to both the Buddhist P rajnäpäram itäs and the Hindu concep­

A wooden cover {p a tli) of a palm -leaf m anuscript. T h is is the only part o f this m anuscript that is known. Its upper surface is divided into two unequal portions. It depicts on the left a conversation between two Jain a monks, who are labelled as Sh ri Jinadatta Sü ri and Sh ri G unasam udra Ä cärya, with two laymen in respectful postures, and on

36

the right, beyond the stringhole, an image o f the Jain a Tirthähkara, M ahävlra, w ith four lay devotees, and two chowriebearers. Jinadatta Sü ri was one o f the greatest Jain a teachers of Rajasthan in the 1 2th century. B orn in D holka in 10 7 5 , he became the pupil, and ultim ately suc­ cessor, o f Jinavallabh a Sü ri, the 43rd P on tiff o f the Kharataragaccha. D urin g his pontificate he made frequent tours throughout Rajasthan and G ujarat, one o f the most famous being to consecrate a temple o f M ahävira at M arot in M arw ar. T h is form s the subject o f a p a tli form erly in one of the Jaiselm er bhandärs1, w hich is p robably contem porary w ith the event. T h ree sim ilar p a tlis in all involving Jinadatta are now known, and it w ould be rash to assume that all of them m ust be contem porary w ith the great Jain a p ontiff or have some personal connection w ith him. H ow ever, stylistically they all belong to the 1 2th century, and this small one probably to the latter part o f the period. It seems to have been copied from , or at least to belong to the same school as, the contem porary version referred to above. T h is latter depicts the consecration scene in the centre o f a m uch longer panel, w ith a conversation between Jinadatta and Jinaraksita on the left, and on the right between Jinadatta and a m onk whose name has been somewhat damaged, but which has been read as Sriguna(cam )dräcärya. It w ould be possible how ever to read it as Sriguna(sam u)dräcärya, and hence be the same subject as in this sm aller version. Indeed the two aksaras (syllables) o f ‘samu’ w ould fit the available space better than the one of ‘cam ’. T h is small cover could then be seen as a version o f part of the larger one. Both covers have the identical lotus pattern round the stringhole, with m argins o f a chain of small, white flowers, and the same marv ä r i leaf pattern form ing a border round the cover. Lalbh ai D alpatbhai Institute, Ahm adabad. Provenance: Jain a bhandär in Jaiselm er. W ooden cover, bevelled edges; 5-5 X 29cm ; stringhole one third o f w ay from le ft; painted e x te rio r; plain interior, w ith flower designs added later. Biblio grap h y: 1966.

P u n yavijaya

'M o ti C handra 19 49 , figs. 190—2.

and

Shah

The Histoiy o f the Book in South Asia

40

i 6 f.89b (detail). A Bodhisattva, perhaps Ratnapani, holding a white lotus, on which the distinguished object is no longer visible. Hayagriva is in attendance. plate

plate

II

14 f.2. T h e Goddess slaying the Buffalo-demon; with the donors of the manuscript in praying attitudes.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

plate h i 7 ff.i6 3b , 164. T h e Bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara Simhanada (above) and Maitreya (below) mark the end of the 1 ith chapter of the Prajnäpäramitä.

p l a t e iv 5 ff.92b, 93 (detail). The Jin a Vajrasattva and-Bodhisattva Vajrapani (above) and the Buddha teaching Indira and the Bodhisattva Jälinlprabhä (below).

plate

v 12 Prince Vessantara gives away his elephant (left), goes into exile with his family (centre), and gives away his chariot (right).

41

42

p la te

p la te

The History o f the Book in South Asia

vi i i ff.ib ,

2.

T he Buddha in dharmacakra mudra (above) and the six-armed Vasudhara (below).

vii 16 (detail). T h e Jina Mahavira, lustrated

by

elephants, with attendants and worshippers.

[3] The Imperial Library of the Great Mogul Jeremiah P. Losty

7 1 { . 2 1 2 b . M u n 'in K h än has towers built of the heads of the vanquished A fgh ans of Bengal in 1 5 7 5 . B y M anohar ( N 0 .7 1 , p .93).

In 1526 a young prince from Central Asia, Bäbur, a descendant of both TTmür and Genghis Khän, defeated and killed the Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi, at the battle of Panipat, and established the rule of his dynasty, generally called the M ughals, in India until 1 857. Not that he or his descendants would have tolerated being called M ughals or Mongols, which was a term of abuse applied by their enemies emphasising the barbaric side of their ancestry. T h ey rather saw themselves as the heirs of Tim ür, the conqueror of half of Asia, including Delhi, and whose immediate descendants were some of the greatest patrons of art and letters and sciences the world has known. Bäbur, who inherited the minor princedom of Ferghana, was three times the master of T im ü r’s fabled capital Samarkand, before finally being driven out by the Uzbeks. He resolved to try his luck in India, restoring Hindustan to T im urid rule. A poet, scholar and man of letters, he has left us a Divän of poems in his native Turki, of which a manuscript exists with his own annotations on it, written in Agra in 1528-9 (in the Rampur State Library) and an autobiography, one of the greatest works of the genre in any language. He records in detail not only the events of his life but also his reactions above all to India, its people, its climate, its animal and plant life. T his work translated into Persian was one of the most popular for illustration in the reign of his grandson Akbar. His reign was too brief to do more than establish his rule over the L od i dominions of Delhi, the Panjab and the Jaunpur kingdom, from the L od i capital at Agra. T he only one of his manuscripts known to survive from his reign is his D ivan , so it is impossible to know to what extent he patronized scribes and illuminators. T hat he was a collector of rare manuscripts is known for certain, for one of his and his descendants’ most precious possessions was an illuminated Shähnäma produced for Muhammad Jü q l in Herat about 1440, which passed with Bäbur from Samarkand over the perilous mountains into India and which bears the seals of all his descendants up to Aurangzlb as well as the autograph inscriptions of Jahänglr and Shäh Jahän. Bäbur’s brother Käm rän also patronized the production of manuscripts —a solitary volume of Jäm l’s Yüsuf va Zulaykhä survives commissioned by him probably in Kabul, with six miniatures in a poor version of the Bokhara style. There is no evidence that Bäbur himself patronized painters, but with his turbulent life he would scarcely have been able to offer them the settled conditions necessary for the production of first-class work, especially since the court at T abriz under Shäh Ismä'Il and his son Shäh Tahm äsp was attracting all the available talent from Iran and Central Asia. Bäbur’s son Humäyün was a much less forceful character who found himself unable to defend himself against the attacks of rival M uslim dynasties in India, and in 1540 he was driven from his throne by Shir Shäh Sür, an Afghan from Bihar. Humäyün was devoted to books, and seems at times to have been more concerned with the loss of his library than of his kingdom. At a later period when he was struggling to regain the throne of Hindustan, his delight in regaining his temporarily mislaid portmanteau of books is recorded in his son’s biography, the Akbarnäma (Nos.7 0 -1). These must have contained his father’s books as well as his

44

The History o f the Book in South Asia own, the library no doubt having been considerably enriched by his sojourn in Iran and Kabul. It was at Shäh Tahm äsp’s court at T abriz in 1544 that he was first exposed to the full panoply of the Iranian bibliographic tradition, where he doubtless saw the recently completed Shähnäma and Khamsa of Nizami, the greatest masterpieces of Safavid manuscript production. Shäh Tahm äsp was becoming more orthodox as he grew older, and turned away from painting after 1544. His artists sought patrons elsewhere, and some responded to H um äyün’s invitation to join him in Kabul, which he had been able to regain in 1545. T w o painters in particular took up his invitation, M ir Sayyid 'All, whose signed work is found in Shäh T ahm äsp’s NizämI of 1539 -4 3, and 'Abd as-Samad, to whom work has been attributed in the Shähnäma but about whose Iranian work much less is known. T h ey and their fellow artists brought with them to H um äyün’s court, and then on to Delhi when he was able to regain his Indian dominions in 1555, the latest developments in the Iranian book tradition: elaborate and highly finished paintings by master artists; fine calligraphy; illumination in shamsas, 'unväns, sarlavhs and other pieces scattered throughout the text, in profusion; sum p­ tuously illuminated margins painted in gold with individual designs; bindings now sometimes painted and lacquered rather than simply in tooled and painted leather; and a burgeoning interest in portraiture and the assemblage of albums. The earliest work identifiable as being by these Safavid artists for Humäyün is still in the pure Persian manner. This includes the fragmentary so-called Princes of the House of Timür , a large painting on cloth originally intended probably as a record of Humäyün and his court in Kabul. H um äyün’s return to Delhi was followed within a year by his death, through falling down the steep steps of his library, an octagonal, two-storeyed building still intact in the Puräna Qila (Old Fort) of Delhi, built by his rival Shir Shäh Sür. It was not until his son Akbar began to reorganize the royal studio and to impose on it his own standards and tastes that any movement away from the Safavid style becomes apparent. Akbar was born in 1542 in the deserts of Sind when Humäyün had been ousted from his throne, and while his father was in Tabriz, was already learning the hard art of survival in the house of his treacherous uncle Käm rän M irza in Kabul. Only 14 when he inherited the throne he was able quickly to crush all rebellions and to extend his dominions over all the independent kingdoms of northern and central India. A man of intense energy, he was intellectually interested in all that came his way, especially the religions of the majority of his subjects, Hinduism and Jainism , in Zoroastrianism, and in the Christianity which was conveyed to him through the Jesuits of Goa, who sent several missions to the imperial court, bringing with them European paintings and prints. In 1556, the artistic state of India was a confused one. We have analysed above the various kinds of manuscript illustration practised in India in the first half of the 16th cen tury-th e schools of the Sultanate courts, attested from Bengal, Mandu and Golconda, but doubtless existing in other courts also, utilizing styles derived from metropolitan Iranian styles at greater or lesser rem ove; a much more Indianized school of Sultanate painting exemplified by the Candäyana manuscripts, possibly from M andu; a Hindu school exemplified by the Caurapahcäsika group of manuscripts illustrating Sanskrit and Hindi texts, based at the Rajput courts; bourgeois schools derived from all three of 75

The History o f the Book in South Asia

5 4 T h e prophet Elias rescuing N ü r ad -D ahr from the sea ( N o .54, p .85).

45

the above certainly practising in the D elhi-A gra area and probably elsewhere; Jaina painting, still practised in its strongholds in Gujarat and Rajasthan; and local schools in eastern and southern India about which little is as yet known. Shortly after his accession, Akbar decided on an immense expansion of the studio and turned mostly to the artists and workmen who were available, i.e. artists from all the above schools who flocked to Agra, the capital, from all over India. The evidence for this migration lies in the first known complete manuscript from A kbar’s studio, the Tütinäma (Tales of a Parrot) in the Cleveland Museum, in which examples of most of these styles are to be found. It is unlikely that the energetic Akbar would have allowed his Persian artists to sit about idle for years after his accession, so that the expansion o f the studio can be dated to the late 1550s, as can the beginning of the Tütinäma. It is to be regarded as a testing ground for different artists perhaps; but as its styles are all somewhat later than their parent styles, yet clearly cannot be regarded as being under much influence from the two Persian masters, it does in a way serve as a terminus ante quern for all of them. M uch of it must have been finished before work began on A kbar’s first huge and immensely important undertaking, the illustration of the Hamzanäma , a romance of the adventures of Hamza the Prophet’s uncle (N o .54), which probably commenced about 1562. T he sources differ about the precise size of the undertaking, but it would seem to have been in 14 volumes each consisting of 100 paintings, and took 15 years to complete, so that it was finished by 1577. It was painted direct on to large sheets of cotton; originally five lines of text were written on the same side as the painting, leaving the verso blank, but the later paintings cover the entire surface, with the text written in large Nasta'liq on paper and mounted on the back of the cotton. The 100 leaves of each volume were then presumably bound up like album leaves, but no trace of their bindings has survived. Although scarcely more than 100 leaves have survived out of the whole gigantic enterprise, various stages in the development of the M ughal style can be distinguished. T he decorative pattern-making of Iranian painting changes to a concern for naturalism, painting reality in depth, more realistic portraiture, all features that characterize the great period of M ughal painting under Akbar and Jahangir, even though the technical methods of achieving these ends, of modelling, of shading, of landscape recession, which were learnt from European paintings and prints over the last two decades of the century, had not yet been fully worked out. Apart from a few highly Persianized early paintings, which were doubtless drawn by the Persian masters, the rest of the pages are in a remarkably uniform style, immensely vigorous, very un-Persian that must have been hammered out in vigorous artistic discussion between the Persians and their erstwhile Indian pupils. T he m id-1560s is the latest date this style can have been arrived at, as it appears in a manuscript dated 1568 (N0.56). T he creation of the Hamzanäma demanded a huge expansion of the imperial studio from the few Iranian artists brought by Humäyün from K abul to many hundreds of artists and calligraphers, as well as the other craftsmen necessary for the production of books. M ost of these artists could only come from the other regions of In d ia; we know the origins of some of them from their nam es-th e epithets Gujarati, Kashm iri, Lahori. About 70 per cent of the names we know of are Hindus, but it is not possible to sort out where they came from other than through their

76

46

58 f.12 8 . T h e scribe M u ham m ad Husayn KashmTrT ‘ G o ld en -p e n ’ and the painter M anohar. B y M anohar ( N o .58, p .87).

5 8 f. 66b. A peacock and other creatures decorating the text. B y M anohar (?) ( N o .58, p .87).

The History o f the Book in South Asia signed later w o rk -N än h ä for instance is almost certainly an artist from the Deccan, and probably his nephew Bishndäs also, while M ädhü Khurd (the Younger) may be pinpointed to Ahmadnagar, one of the three Deccani schools. A manuscript dated 1567 painted by Shahm (N o.55) is in an entirely Bokharan style, while in the m id -1580s at least two artists arrived from Iran, Äqä Rizä and Farrukh Beg, bringing with them a renewed burst of Safavid influence especially favoured by Prince Salim, A kbar’s heir. M ir Sayyid 'A ll was in charge of the studio for about half the production of the Hamzanäma. T he method of work at first would have been for him to draw the picture and for the other artists to paint in the colours, until they had gained confidence in this new style. Both Akbar and Jahangir pay tribute at a later date to their artists’ ability to copy anything, even the latest European work, so that no one could tell the difference. T his is indeed a facility all Indian artists have and it was remarked on by the British in the late 18th century. It would not have been difficult for Indian artists to copy the Safavid style in the 1560s, so that they could produce paintings in it by themselves after initial training. Under Akbar’s guidance, if not technical direction, the artists were trained to develop a style capable of illustrating in a realistic, naturalistic manner the great historical works of which he was so fond and which occupied his studio through most of the 1 580s. Few illustrated manuscripts other than the Hamzanäma were pro­ duced in the early period of the studio’s work. A group of three manuscripts (N os.55-7) dated between 1567 and 1570 occupy the middle of the Hamzänama period, along with the undated Zodiacal album in Rampur. T his paucity must be due to the overwhelming priority of the production of the Hamzanäma which claimed the entire studio’s attention. We know that six months was the average for the production of one of the highly finished but much smaller paintings of the later Akbar period works, so that at least a year must be allotted to each of the Hamzanäma pages. For 1,400 paintings taking 15 years to complete, about 100 artists must have been employed on it. In the earlier period of course, progress must have been much slower, as the atelier was in process of being built up. A bu ’l Fazl, A kbar’s court-historian, in his Ä in -i Akbart (The Institutes of Akbar) gives a short but valuable account of the tasvirkhäna, the imperial studio. In A 3in 34 he deals with the twin arts of calligraphy and painting, according in pious traditional fashion the primacy to the first, but as Pramod Chandra has pointed out actually giving primacy through his title to the painters. Am ong the calligraphers of Akbar’s court, he praises above all Muhammad Husayn al-Kashm lri, whom Akbar honoured with the title Zarin Qalam (Golden-pen). His calligraphy may be seen in manuscripts datable between 15 8 1 and 1604 (N os.5 8, 64, 70, 7 1) and his portrait exists in the first of these. He died in 1 6 1 1 . Other calligraphers whom he singles out as being among the ‘renowned calligraphists of the present age’ include three others whose works have survived —Maulänä Daurl, whom Blochmann identifies as the poetic name of Sultan Bäyazld, the scribe of the 1568 manuscript of Am ir Khusraw (N o.56); 'Abd ar-Rahlm, given the title Ambarin Qalam (Amber-pen) by the Emperor, the scribe of the Dyson-Perrins Nizam i of 1595 and the N afahät al-Uns of 1604 (N os.65, 69), and whose portrait is in the form er; and M ir 'Abdallah, surnamed Muskin Qalam (M usky77

The History o f the Book in South Asia

6 2 f.84. T h e attack on A u sh in 14 9 8 . B y Sh ivd äs (?) ( N o . 6 2 , p .89).

47

pen), a scribe in Sultan Salim ’s entourage in Allahabad, and presumably earlier, who copied a Divan of Am ir Hasan Dihlavi in 1602 (N o.72), and whose portrait we also possess at the end of this manuscript. A bu ’l Fazl goes on to discuss the imperial library and the Em peror’s favourite books. Books were kept either within the harem or without, the former presumably being the most costly and treasured items, and each section carefully organized as to language and subject. Akbar was apparently illiterate, one of the most surprising things about one so brilliant and fond of books and philosophical enquiry, and enjoyed having his books read out to him in assembly every day, rewarding the readers with so much per page. A bu ’l Fazl lists the favourite works which the Em peror never tired of hearing, including works on ethics and morality such as N äsir ad-Din TüsT’s Akhläq-i NäsirT (of which an illustrated Akbar-period manuscript was discovered recently); the Persian classics; and works on history. Learned men were constantly translating from other languages into Persian. The memoirs of Akbar’s grandfather Bäbur were translated from T urki into Persian so as to be more readily understood by the courtiers (Nos.62-3), while a consider­ able number of Indian works in Sanskrit and Hindi were also tran slated - Mahäbhärata (N o.88), Rämäyana, Harivamsa, Yogaväsistha (N o.68), the Atharvaveda, LTlävati (the mathematical work of Bhäskara) and various romances and tales. Akbar valued literature as a means of breaking down barriers between the men of different religions of his empire, for he considered prejudice was based on ignorance and incomprehension. He ordered copies of many of these works to be distributed to his courtiers. As for painting, A b u ’l Fazl tells us that Akbar was interested in this from his early youth both for study and entertainment. Jahangir in his M emoirs adds that Akbar was trained to paint by 'Abd as-Samad. Each week the work done by every artist was set before him for his consideration, and rewards were given to the artist according to the excellence of the work. M uch store was set by the quality of the materials, which the Em peror took pains to improve. W riting in the 1590s, A b u ’l Fazl considered that the artists assembled at the court, of whom more than 100 were adjudged masters, were a match for Bihzäd and for the Europeans. He singles out for special praise the two Safavid masters, M ir Sayyid 'A ll and 'Abd as-Samad, although the former had left for M ecca in 1 5 7 1 - 2 , half way through the Hamzanäma project, stating that the work of both had been transformed by the Em peror’s criticism. T his is not idle flattery, but an honest appreciation that it was Akbar himself who had acted as the catalyst transmuting Safavid painting into Mughal. It is clear that A bu ’l Fazl accords both Iranian masters, especially the former, the formal praise due to them as heads of the studio, but despite work being known from 'Abd as-Sam ad’s brush up to 1595 (N o.65), he seems to have been moved into administrative posts from 1 5 7 7 . Akbar must have found his very Iranian style lacking in the qualities he valued most. A bu ’l Fazl reserves his enthusiasm for two Hindu artists, Dashvant and especially Basävan, both of whose attributed work is from the beginning in the style Akbar wanted his artists to achieve. He names another 13 artists as also famous masters, all but two of whom are Hindus. All of them, as well as 100 more artists, are known from the contemporary inscriptions on the margins of the manuscripts containing their work. When their paintings were presented to the Em peror every week, there

78

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63 f.22b. B ab ur visits the H in d u ascetics at G u ra K attri in 1 5 1 9 (N o .6 3, p .90).

The History o f the Book in South Asia were notes on the edges ascribing the work, and artists were paid and given handsome presents according to the reception which their work received; the notes were later usually covered up by the gilded margins. A more formal note was made on the outer margins by the court librarians, after the painting had taken its place in the manuscript. The practice of the artist actually signing the work found occasionally in the earlier period, as with Shahm in the 1567 Gulistän (N o.55), was not favoured until under Jahangir, perhaps because few of the Akbari artists were competent pen-men. T he ascription to artists by librarians’ notes is attested from the Cleveland M useum Tütinäma onwards, where occur the earliest attributions to Dashvant and Basävan who must have been among the earliest artists to be recruited. Artists’ sons seem to have followed in their father’s fo o tstep s-o f three of Jahangir’s master artists, Manohar, A bu ’l Hasan and Bishndäs, the first two were the sons of Basävan and Äqä Riza, and the last the nephew of Nänhä. The two sons of eAbd as-Samad, Muhammad Sharif and Bihzäd, were both painters, whose work is found in manuscripts of the 1 580s. T he former was Prince Salim ’s friend from childhood, and in his reign he made him one of the grandees of the empire. Several artists must have worked on each of the Hamzanäma paintings, but as all the surviving pages have been remargined, there are no attributions. At the conclusion of the project in 1577 (?), there was a large number of highly trained artists waiting for employment, and it was at this stage that they began work on a series of historical works that lasted throughout the next decade —the stories of Akbar’s ancestors from TIm ür {Tarikh-i Khändän i Timüriyya, in Bankipore), of his grandfather Bäbur (N os.62-3), and of his father’s and his own reign, the Akbarnäma (Nos.70—1). At the same time, the Em peror commissioned Persian translations of the two great Hindu epics in Sanskrit, Mahäbhärata and Rämäyana, and his artists worked on illustrated versions of them alongside the historical works. These manuscripts are on the grandest scale, with an average of 150 full-page paintings each. The scale of A kbar’s studio can be appreciated by comparison with an Iranian one. No ruler of Iran before the unification of the country under Shäh Tahmäsp had the resources to include more than 30 or 40 large-scale paintings even in such a huge work as the Shähnäma. Even Shäh Tahm äsp could only produce one lavishly illustrated manuscript in his long reign, whereas Akbar was having five done in a single decade. Of course the style was less highly finished and exquisite than Iranian work, and is at times only too obviously produced as in a production line, but the magnitude of the achievement is undeniable. Akbar’s artists were extending the techniques of manuscript painting at the same time as extending its range. In earlier manuscripts, whether Iranian or Sultanate, it was only occasionally that the margins were utilized, although examples date from the 14th century. Finials, trees or pavilions could project above the top margin, horses’ hooves or landscape details could extend over the side margin, giving the effect of bursting out of the frame but not confined within another one. In the great M ughal manuscripts of the 1580s, however, the entire page is invariably utilized for the painting, the outer marginal rulings being nearly at the page’s ends. T his enlargement of the painted area to a size hitherto unknown for paper manuscripts creates a grandiose effect altogether fitting for these

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The History o f the Book in South Asia works. We can see the beginning of this process in the A nvar-i Suhayh of 1570 (N0.57). T he paintings in these manuscripts were usually produced by two or three artists, a master artist drawing the outlines and a lesser one applying the colour. T he master would then finish it off. Occasionally a third artist who specialized in portraiture would do the faces. T he names of those who drew the outlines are usually among the 17 master artists named by A bu’l Fazl. In 1575 Akbar sent a mission to Goa specially to learn from the Portuguese, and to bring back paintings and prints for his artists to learn from and to copy. Techniques such as modelling and perspective were learnt in this way and included in the 1 580s manuscripts. M ost of the historical works still tend to include large panels of text inside the painting, as the artists were still unsure of their recession techniques. Such panels hid awkward junctions very effectively. In the Akbarnäma, however, of c.1590, the text is usually reduced to a line or two, so that the double-page compositions in which this manuscript abounds are almost released from the subservience to the text approp­ riate for manuscript illustration. But this is not a simple matter of the earlier manuscripts having more text and the later less, as technical mastery in landscape and recession was attained throughout the studio. T he Ta’rikh-i A l ß of 1593, an historical work later than the Akbarnäma, has such large text panels proportionate to the paintings as to give the latter more the function of marginal illustrations. The same applies to as late a manuscript as the non-imperial Razmnäma of 16 16 . T he bio­ graphical work of JämT, Nafahät al-Uns, of 1605 (N o.69), is treated in much the same way as the 1580s manuscripts, while the intervening poetical manuscripts tend to follow the examples of the Akbarnäma. The reasons may perhaps be sought in the nature of the texts themselves. Fam iliar texts such as the Persian poetic classics, or the events of recent history would scarcely have needed the text for the story of the illustration to be recognizable. Not so in more obscure historical periods, such as the 14th-century history of T im ür and above all in the early history of Islam in the Ta’rikh-i A lß and in the translations from Sanskrit. The arrangement of texts, the layout on the page, the choice of subjects for illustration - all these were planned in advance by the head of the studio doubtless including consultation with the Em peror himself. The colophon of the imperial Razmnäma tells us that the manuscript was organized by Sharif, the son of 'Abd as-Samad. While these great co-operative projects were progressing, artists had an opportunity to produce individual paintings in smaller manuscripts. No dated work of this type has been found between the 1570 Anvär-i Suhayli and the 15 8 1 Gulistän, but the album of zodiacal and tilasm paintings in Rampur and the mutilated Anvär-i Suhayli fragments in Bom bay must have been done between these two dates, while the Tütinäma in the Chester Beatty Library (N o.60) and the Däräbnäma (N o.59) belong to the end of this period. In these manuscripts it is clear that paintings were usually the responsibility of a single artist, and the result is considerable unevenness in the quality of the work. In the Däräbnäma, for example, a masterpiece by Basävan jostles with some of the most garish and crude of all Akbar-period paintings. There has been speculation that this might reflect the change of capital from Fathpur Sikri to Lahore in 1585, when possibly new recruits were added to the

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The History o f the Book in South Asia studio from the locality, the epithet ‘ Lahori’ being added to two names in the ascriptions on the Däräbnäma. There is good reason however to suppose that the Däräbnäma was begun before the move to Lahore, as the work of certain artists in it seems to predate work in the historical manuscripts. Nänhä for example is exposed as a Deccani artist of promise in the Däräbnäma, whereas in the manuscript of the history of Tlm ür, which appears to have been begun in the late 1570s on the evidence of its early pages, he contributes a double-page scene of great power and originality in the developed historical style. It is probable however that work was continued on all these undated manuscripts of the 1580s for a very long time indeed, perhaps for over a decade in the case of the TTmür manuscript in Bankipore. T w o poetical manuscripts have survived from the imperial studios of the 1580s, a Dwän of Anvarl dated 1588 at Lahore, and an undated Khamsa of N izam i (N o.61) now in the K eir Collection attributable to 1 585-90 on grounds of style as well as the two-artist system of production. T his latter system was apparently found unnecessary for the smaller-scale miniatures of the manuscripts of poetical and other literary works, and for the superb-quality manuscripts produced during the 1 590s the system was abandoned. Instead, each miniature is the responsibility of one master, and finished to the highest degree. Such manuscripts are of thick, creamy paper, highly burnished, and contain illuminations of superb quality, in which M ughal illuminators or naqqäsh are seen to have finally diverged from their Iranian counterparts, through a heavier use of reds, oranges and other strong colours, an extreme fondness for floral arabesque, and in more daring shapes to their 'unväns and sarlavhs. In the finest manuscripts as in the Nizam i and Bahäristän of 1595 and the Am ir Khusraw of 1597 (N os.64—6), all the margins are painted with landscape, figural and floral designs in gold. T his kind of treatment is borrowed from Iran, where it reached perfection in Shäh T ahm äsp’s NizämI of 1539 -4 3, but quickly degenerated in both Iran and India into stereotyped designs applied using stencils. In manuscripts of high quality, however, all the margins are individually painted, although the themes tend to be repetitive and stock favourites - lions or tigers chasing or mauling deer is one of the most frequent. T h is type of work appears to have been done by artists at the beginning of their careers-tw o of Jahänglr’s great artists, M ansür and Bälchand, worked on the illuminations and margins of Nos.64, 66 and 70. Finally the manuscript was bound in a luxurious c o v e r-v e ry few M ughal covers have survived, two of the finest being on the 1595 NizämI and the 1597 Am ir Khusraw, both painted and lacquered (Nos.65-6). T here is no known leather binding which can safely be attributed to the period of Akbar, though one or two are known which may be Jahänglri. During the 1590s historical texts were not neglected. Akbar commis­ sioned, in order to mark the one-thousandth anniversary of the Hijra a history of the past 1,000 years called the T arikh-i AlfT which was presented to him in 1593, a millennium (a lf) after the flight of the Prophet from M ecca to Medina, the base of the M uslim calendar. This work is now dispersed and only fragments of it are known. T h e ChingTznäma (History of Genghis Khän) from Rashid ad-D in ’s history Jämi at-Tavärikh, now mostly in the Gulshan Palace, Tehran, was illustrated in 1597. After receiving the initial manuscript copy of 'Abd arRahlm ’s translation of B äbur’s memoirs in 1589, Akbar ordered other

The History o f the Book in South Asia copies to be made and distributed so that the work would be better known. Three other full-scale illustrated versions from the royal studio are known from between 1590 and 97 (N os.62-3). A bu ’l Fazl’s Akbarnäma originally presented to the Em peror in 1590, was continued by the author up to his murder in 1601 by the partisans of Prince Salim, and it may have been as a tribute to his dead friend that Akbar ordered another illustrated copy to be prepared. This, now divided between the British Lib rary and the Chester Beatty Library (N os.7 0 -1), is incom­ plete, and bears only a date on one of the pictures equivalent to 1604. Work on it may have stopped on Akbar’s death in the following year. Unlike the others in this group of historical manuscripts, the Akbarnämä’s paintings are mostly by two artists, a system apparently considered unnecessary for the others. All the manuscripts of the 1590s are in the fully mature, eclectic M ughal style, in which all its elements, Iranian, Indian and European are now fully assimilated into a balanced, harmonious whole. In the manuscripts after 1600, however, is found a change of direction with a cooler palette in transparent blues and greens, while many paintings are in ‘nimqalam’ which are really drawings with washes of brown and highlighting in colours and gold. Perhaps it was the influence of European drawings and prints brought by the Jesuits and other visitors to Akbar, or drawings in the Persian manner from Isfahan, which set M ughal artists off along this path, in reaction against the richly coloured palette favoured hitherto. In 1598 Akbar left Lahore, which had been the capital for 14 years, and returned to Agra, of course bringing the studio with him. T he following year Salim the heir to the throne left court without permission and took his studio with him to Allahabad where he remained until 1604. Salim, who took the throne name Jahangir (World-Conqueror) on his accession in 1605, tells us in his M emoirs how great a connoisseur he was. He had an enquiring mind, which delighted in observation, and had his painters record things which pleased or intrigued him -anim als, birds, flowers, curious happenings and so on. He tells us that the Iranian painter Äqä Rizä was in his employ from his entry into India some time before 1584, as was his son A bu ’l Hasan born in the palace in that year. He strongly favoured the elegant, facile art of Iran at this time, perhaps in youthful, filial antagonism to his father’s ideals in art. It is not known how many artists were in his studio, since of the three manuscripts known to have been produced at Allahabad for him (N os.72, 74—5), only one (Anvär-i Suhayli ) has attributions to artists. Äqä Rizä and his son A bu ’l Hasan were both with him, since the Anvär-i Suhayli contains work by the former dated 1604 and dedicated to Shäh Salim, the title he took in rebellion. Ghuläm , another Iranian painter, is to be numbered among the Allahabad group on the basis of an inscription on a painting mentioning Shäh Salim, and also Bishndäs, whose work unmistakably appears in the Räj Kanvär of 1603-4. Work on the Anvär-i Suhayli was continued until 16 10 , so that it is impossible to determine which of the other painters did their work at Allahabad and which were present in the imperial studio at Agra when Jahänglr took possession in 1605. W ork done in Allahabad and in A kbar’s studio at Agra after the return from Lahore in 1598 share very similar ideals, so that it is not possible to attribute to Salim ’s taste alone the changes from the style at Lahore. Akbar in his last years shared Salim ’s taste for portraiture and both of them were compiling albums at 82

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The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia

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this time. A bu ’l Fazl tells us that Akbar had the likenesses taken of all his chief nobles and the portraits bound up in albums. Only a few of these portraits appear to have survived. However some of Salim ’s albums have survived intact - the Gulshan Album in the ex-imperial library in Tehran and another album in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (N o.78). T he practice of collecting pictures and specimens of calligraphy into albums or muraqqa' was already long established among M uslim bibliophiles by the end of the 1 6th century - Shäh Tahm äsp for example had a famous collection, now in the Topkapi Saray M useum in Istanbul. Muraqqa were more than scrapbooks; they could exhibit a patron’s taste to the most exquisite degree, far more so than a manuscript, since the subject of individual paintings was directly under his own control. It was usual to alternate facing pages of paintings with pages of calligraphy, apposite verses written by famous calligraphers especially for such collections, and illuminated with floral designs and arabesques. The paintings and calligraphic specimens were pasted on to thin card made up of many layers of paper, the margins decorated through the addition of arabesques, floral paintings, designs in gold or any number of other decorations. The finished mounts were then bound up into an album with leather or lacquered covers. JahängTr’s albums are at once the earliest and greatest Indian muraqqa to have survived. Some of the earliest of all M ughal paintings are in the Gulshan Album , but it is unlikely that Salim began putting his albums together much before 1599. Signed work in the Tehran volume is dated between 1599 and 1609, and in the Berlin volume between 1608 and 16 18 . T he paintings of the M ughal school in the volumes are mostly portraits or genre scenes, animals and flowers, along with Persian and Deccani paintings, and European prints or M ughal versions of them. T h ey are most remarkable however for the exquisite paintings in the margins. We have seen above at the imperial studio in Lahore how at least three of the luxurious manuscripts of the 1590s had their margins all decorated with paintings in gold. In all three there occur little vignettes of figures or animals in part or full colour, standing out from among the gold. M iraculously, the attributions of these little vignettes in the Bahäristän (N o.64) have been preserved from the binder’s knife - Khlm , Shivdäs and Bälchand, the last named at the beginning of a glittering career under the Em perors Jahänglr and Shäh Jahän. In the albums this concept is expanded so that fully-coloured or half-coloured portraits, of ascetics, courtiers, artists, Christian saints, float in front of the shimmer­ ing gold background. It is the Jahänglri albums which develop this technique to the highest pitch of expressiveness, so that it is inextricably linked with his taste, but the same phenomenon also occurs in the first two pages of the 1604 Akbarnäma (N o.70). Other great albums also are known from the first half of the 17th century associated with the other M ughal emperors and princes in which the marvellous freedom of the Jahänglri border paintings can be seen slowly petrifying into stereotyped portrait figures or floral designs. T o artists so dependent on patronage, the change of ruler in 1605 brought great changes to their lives. Jahänglr had no interest in the mass production of heavily illustrated manuscripts of inevitably uneven quality; for him perfection was what was required, which could necessarily only be achieved by the few. He was not particularly interested either in the idea of illustrating manuscripts, since his freedom

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The History o f the Book in South Asia

80 f.7 2 . T h e ferrym an abandons the objectionable young man in the middle o f the river (N o .80, p .98).

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as a patron would necessarily be limited by another’s choice, that of the author. His greatest artists - A bu ’l Hasan, M ansür, Govardhan, Bishndäs, Bälchand, Bichitr e tc .-h a d so perfected their technique towards the realism he expected, that they could perfectly implement his wishes. B y commissioning individual paintings, whether of portraits, of animal and floral studies, of scenes from his life to illustrate his M emoirs, he was able to exercise complete freedom of patronage and show his individual taste for the rendition of the real world, echoing Prince D aniyal’s earlier cry to poets to write of the world they knew in India, not the fanciful one of Iran (N 0.81). Thus, overwhelmed by the beauty of the spring-flowers of Kashm ir, he ordered M ansür to prepare an album full of them, or to take likenesses of rare creatures, such as a zebra and a turkey, which were presented to him. At the beginning of his reign however he still had some manuscript illustrations prepared -w ork on the Anvär-i Suhayli seems to have continued until 16 10 , while a Büstän, Gulistän and K ulliyat of Sa'di appear to have been commissioned about 1605. He also indulged in the age-old habit among M uslim patrons of tinkering with earlier manuscripts. T hus the artist Daulat added a selfportrait to the colophon-page of the 1595 N izam i (N o.65), and seven unsigned paintings were added to the 1567 Gulistän (N o .55). Govardhan, Nänhä, and Manohar added superb paintings to a Khamsa of the T u rki poet N avä’I, now in Windsor Castle (N o.77), and nine paintings were added to a minute Divän of Häfiz (N o.76). Other Iranian manuscripts were subjected to a partial process of repainting, replacing the M ongoloid features of the Persian style with realistic M ughal ones, creating a very strange amalgam. Jahangir seems also to have started the habit among the M ughal emperors of inscribing manuscripts which he had just had brought to him from the library, and dating them. T he dates occur throughout his reign; his successor Shäh Jahän contented himself with recording that they came into his possession on his accession in 1627. Throughout the last decade of the 16th century and the first of the next, the two concepts of book-illustration which we have termed Iranian and Indian, had been battling in the M ughal studio for supremacy, and Jahangir’s accession finally marked the victory of the Indian method. In most manuscripts of the 1 590s, the lines of text allowed to intrude across a painting are very few, and in the c.1604 Akbarnäma these disappear entirely. Although text is found at top and bottom of paintings from this time on, the painting itself was released from subservience to the text, and its composition allowed to follow its own logic. It is in his reign too that the invariable Indian method of painting people in full profile triumphs in the M ughal school also. Some of Jahangir’s early manuscripts revert to the 14th-century manner of illustrating the text with horizontal paintings across the middle of the page, and this is continued by two of Shäh Jahän’s (r. 1627-58) earliest manuscripts commissioned in Agra in 1629-30, one of which he sent as a present to K in g Charles I (N o.80). Shäh Jahän was far less interested than his father in painting, but appears to have maintained his father’s academy. Numerous paintings from his reign are signed with the same names as occur on Jahänglri paintings. His major productions include a few magnificent albums and an illustrated history of his reign (the Pädshähnäma, now in the Royal Library, W indsor Castle, N o .82) in which the M ughal style is displayed at its most

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The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia sumptuous. Lacking any serious motivation in patronage of artists other than as glorification of himself and his achievements, Shäh Jahän’s reign marks the culmination of M ughal painting as a serious art form but heralds no new developments. T he interests which Jahänglr instilled in his painters of representing the real and natural world and of cultivating their own artistic personalities as individuals, both previously unheardof developments in a M uslim context, ruined them for manuscript illustration, an art which requires both imaginative efforts and a submergence of artistic personality which by this time were foreign to their work. Shäh Jahän’s successor Aurangzlb (r.16 58 -17 0 7) was a fundamentalist M uslim who reverted to the traditional condemnation of pain ting-un der him the arts of the book suffered a lingering decline. T he great library of the M ughals with its reputed 24,000 manuscripts, many of them illuminated, was sacked by the Afghan N ädir Shäh in 1739 and many of its treasures carried off as booty to Iran. Little now survives to represent the achievements of the book-artists of the reigns of Akbar and Jahänglr, but what does survive shows them to have been among the greatest in this field the world has seen.

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[4] THE JA IN KNO W LEDGE W AREHO USES: TRAD ITIO N AL L IB R A R IE S IN INDIA J o h n E. C o r t D en iso n U n iv e r s ity The Jains o f western India have preserved hundreds o f thousands o f handwritten manuscripts for many centuries in their libraries or “knowledge warehouses’’ (jnän bhandär). These manuscripts have been an invaluable aid in reconstructing much o f the history o f Indian society, religion, philos­ ophy, and art. But these libraries have never been viewed as social institutions in and o f themselves. This article investigates the patterns of ownership, management, and use o f the libraries and the manuscripts in the small town of Pätan in north Gujarat, to essay a beginning o f a sociology o f Jain knowledge. Some manuscript collections were owned by individual laymen, some by domesticated monks, and others were under the control of the leaders of the lay congregations. At the same time as these manuscripts have come to the attention o f the scholarly world, their utility within the Jain community itself has drastically declined, as handwritten manuscripts have been replaced by printed books for both ritual and pedagogical purposes. As a result, while the manuscripts are better cared for than ever, they have been relegated to a marginal status within the Jain community, and hence my use of the term “warehouse” to describe these libraries.

S tu d e n ts o f India ow e a g r e a t debt to the Jains for the hundreds o f thousands o f invaluable handwritten manuscripts preserved in their many jn ä n bhandärs (Sanskrit jhän a-bhän dägära) or “know ledge ware­ houses” in western and southern India. A recent article by Donald Clay Johnson, “The W estern D iscovery o f Jain Tem ple Libraries,” provides an excellent overview o f the process by which British administrators and Western scholars in the nineteenth century became aware o f and gained access to these extensive manu­ script collections o f the Jains in western India.1 The dis­ covery and publication o f some o f the more important o f these manuscripts expanded greatly scholarly know l­ edge o f Indian history, literature, philosophy, and art. But the role o f these manuscript collections within the Jain tradition has changed greatly in the past century. In this article I look at the libraries them selves, to indicate patterns o f ownership, management, and use o f the li­ braries and the manuscripts. In particular, I look at the libraries in the important Jain community o f Pätan (the

1 Donald Clay Johnson, “The Western Discovery o f the Jain Temple Libraries,” Libraries and Culture 28 (1993): 189-203. See also his “Georg Biihler and the Western Discovery of Jain Temple Libraries,” Jain Journal 26 (1992): 197-210.

medieval Anahillaväda Pattana), in north Gujarat. W hile not attempting to be com prehensive, this article essays a beginning at a sociology o f Jain know ledge.2 Written copies o f manuscripts have long played an im ­ portant role in Jain intellectual, ritual, and community life. In the absence o f any living enlightened teachers— according to Jain cosm ological doctrines, enlightenment in this era became im possible shortly after the demise and liberation o f Mahävira over 2,500 years ago— the texts containing the teachings o f Mahävira are essential for the guidance o f the Jain community. An early nineteenth cen­ tury hymn expresses this sentiment quite clearly: “In this difficult time, the icons o f the Jina and the scriptures o f the Jina are the supports o f the faithful Jains.” 3 Svädhyäya, or study o f the scriptures, is an important and expected activity o f all mendicants, and is found in early lists o f internal austerities practiced by them. Various

2 For a detailed description o f the Jain community o f Pätan, see John E. Cort, “Liberation and Wellbeing: A Study o f the Svetämbar Mürtipüjak Jains o f North Gujarat,” Ph.D. diss., Harvard Univ., 1989. 3 Vir Vijay, Cosath Prakäri Püjä (composed in 1818), in Vividh Püjä Sangrah, ed. Parinyäs Jinendra Vijay Gani (Sivänä: Tapägacch Jain Sarigh, 1986), 214.

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Journal o f the Am erican O riental Society 115.1 (1995)

texts give us some details concerning the praxis o f study in the early Jain tradition. In the Svetämbara U ttarädhyayana Sütra, for example, we read, “There are five elements to study: oral recitation, questioning, repetition, reflection, and religious sermons” (30.34).4 Among the key events in the crystallization o f the split between the Svetämbara and Digambara sects were three Svetämbara councils held in Valabhi in Gujarat and Mathurä in north India in the fourth and fifth cen­ turies to com m it to writing standard editions o f key Jain texts.5 According to a Svetämbara Jain tradition, the first libraries were built in the late eighth century. Dur­ ing a fierce drought between 785 and 789 the monks grew lax in their observance o f the full monastic behav­ ior, and so several monastic leaders decided that manu­ script collections should be established in major cities in order to preserve Jain know ledge.6 Arranging for manuscripts to be copied for monks to use and establishing places for them to be kept were among the duties expected o f laity as part o f their sup­ port for and devotion to the monastic community. The three most important ‘fields o f donation’ for m edieval Svetämbara laity were im ages o f the Jinas, temples con­ taining such im ages, and Jain texts.7 Furthermore, the colophons on som e manuscripts indicate that com m is­ sioning the copying o f a manuscript generated merit that could be dedicated to a living or deceased ancestor. For exam ple, in the thirteenth century v.s. the layman Soma arranged for the copying (lekh) o f the Säntinäthacaritra portion o f Hemacandra’s T risastisaläkäpurusacaritra to give to his mendicant guru Dhanesvarasuri, but with the spiritual benefit (sreya s) going to his father.8 Similarly, in 1362 Jasä Düngara and his w ife V ijhi TIlhi arranged

4 Jarl Charpentier, ed., The Uttarädhyayanasütra, Archives d’Iitudes Orientales 18 (Uppsala: J.-A. Lundell, 1922), 215.

5 On the problems involved in identifying these texts, as well as interpretive problems involved in speaking o f a Jain ‘canon’, see Paul Dundas, The Jains (London: Routledge, 1992), 61-70; and three essays by Kendall W. Folkert, “Scripture and Conti­ nuity in the Jain Tradition,” “The ‘Canons’ of ‘Scripture’: Text, Ritual, Symbol,” and “The Jain Scriptures and the Study of Jainism,” all in his Scripture and Community, ed. John E. Cort (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 4 1 -9 4 . 6 Triputi Mahäräj [Munis Darsanvijay, Jnänvijay, and Nyäyvijay], Jain Paramparä no Itihäs (Ahmedabad: Sri Cäritra Smärak Granthmälä, 1952), 542. 7 Hemacandra, Svopajnavrtti on Yogasästra 3.119, ed. Muni Jambü Vijay (Bombay: Jain Sähitya Vikäs Mandal, 1977-86), 564. 8Prasasti to ms. 167.1 in Sanghvl Pädo Bhandär: C. D. Dalal, A D escriptive Catalogue o f Manuscripts in the Jain Bhandars

for the copying o f the D harm avidhiprakarana o f Srlprabhasüri, with the spiritual benefit going to both Jasä’s father Limbä and his mother.9 It is therefore not sur­ prising to find that m edieval Jain kings and merchants were fam ous for the libraries that they established. The twelfth-century emperor Kumärapäla is said to have e s ­ tablished twenty-one libraries in Pätan, which was his capital,10 and arranged for the copying o f seven sets o f the Svetämbara ägamas along with Hemacandra’s San­ skrit and Prakrit grammar;11 and the fourteenth-century m ahäm ätya (“prime minister”) Vastupäla is said to have established three libraries in Pätan, Cambay, and Broach at a combined cost o f 180 million rupees.12 Most lay con­ gregations today maintain separate accounts, known as “know ledge accounts” (jnän khätä), in which the funds are to be used only for the propagation o f knowledge, primarily by printing books or pam phlets.13 The libraries established by Kumärapäla and Vastu­ päla in Pätan are believed to have been destroyed by the M uslim s, with som e o f the texts transferred to the library in Jaisalmer in the Rajasthani desert for safe­ keeping.14 M ost o f the extant manuscripts in Pätan are

ofPattan, ed. L. B. Gandhi, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 76 (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1937), 108. A lso Muni Jinavijaya, ed., Jainapustakaprasastisamgraha, vol. 1, Singhi Jaina Series 18 (Bombay: Bhäratiya Vidyä Bhavan, 1943), 2 0 -2 1 . 9 Prasasti to ms. 27.1 in Sri Sangh Bhandär, Pätan: Dalai, ibid., 3 4 4 -4 6 , and Muni Jinavijaya, ibid., 7 9 -8 1 . 10 Kumärapäla Prabandha, 16-17, quoted in Muni Punyavijay, “Jiiänbhandämü Avalokan” (in Limbdinä Jain Jnänbhandärni Hastalikhit Prationü Sücipatra, ed. Muni Caturvijay [Ägamoday Samiti 58, Bombay: Ägamoday Samiti, 1928]), 3, n. 5. 11 Ratnamandiragani, Upadesa Tarahgini, 140, quoted in K. C. Kasliwal, Jaina Grantha Bhandars in Rajasthan (Jaipur: Shri Digamber Jain Atishaya Kshetra Shri Mahavirji, 1967), 8.

12 C. D. Dalal, op. cit., 33. See also Punyavijay, op. cit., 3, n. 6 , and Bhogilal J. Sandesara, Literary Circle o f Mahämätya Vastupäla and its Contributions to Sanskrit Literature, Singhi Jain Series 33 (Bombay: Singhi Jain Shastra Sikshapitha and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1953), 38. 13 These locally published books tend not to find their way into the broader bookselling market, which is why so many Jain texts published in this century do not appear in North American or European libraries. 14 For a discussion o f the establishment o f the library at Jai­ salmer, and the security o f Jaisalmer relative to that o f Pätan, see Lalchandra Bhagvandas Gandhi, “Prastävanä,” to C. D. Dalai’s A Catalogue o f Manuscripts in the Jain Bhandars at Jesalmere, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 21 (Baroda: Central Library, 1921), 11.

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from a later period, and m ost (over 23,000) are on pa­ per. Only a little few er than seven hundred palm leaf manuscripts remain in Pätan. The oldest dated palm leaf manuscript is from 1062 c .e ., although there are per­ haps half-a-dozen undated ones from earlier in the tenth century. O f the dated palm leaf manuscripts, about a dozen are from the twelfth century, about one hundred from the thirteenth century, and the latest is dated 1441 c . e . 15 The oldest paper manuscript, on the other hand, dates from 1 3 0 0 -1 3 0 1 c .e .16 A count o f the dates as given by Muni Punyavijay (w ho organized the librar­ ies) in the manuscript catalogues gives the follow ing distribution for the copying o f the approximately 18,500 paper manuscripts for which either a specific date is given in the colophon, or Punyavijay provided an estimated date:17 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th

c. v .s .18 c. c. c. c. c.

4.9% 16.6% 26.9% 18.6% 23.2% 9.9%

A perusal o f the titles o f the manuscripts indicates that the numbers o f copies o f a given manuscript are di­ rectly related to its ritual and authoritative roles.19 W e

15 Dalai, Pattan Catalogue (see note 8), 40. 16 Ibid., 35. 17 Muni Punya Vijaya, Catalogue o f Manuscripts in Shri Hemachandracharya Jain Jnanamandira Patan, part I (Pätan: Hemacandräcärya Jain Jnänmandir, 1972); and Muni Punyavijaya, compiler, and Muni Jambüvijaya, editor, Catalogue o f the M anuscripts o f Pätana Jain Bhandära, parts I, II, and IV, Shree Shwetambar Murtipujak Jain Boarding Series 1 and 3 (Ahmedabad: Sharadaben Chimkanbhai Educational Research Centre, 1991). 18 The dates are all in the Vikram Samvat (v.s.) system, which is for the most part 56 years ahead o f the Christian cal­ endar. Thus 1995 c . e . = 2051 v.s. 19 For a discussion o f the ways in which the ritual and per­ formative uses o f texts provide us with a different ‘canon’ of texts than do more traditional considerations o f orthodoxy and normativity, see John E. Cort, “Svetämbar Murtipujak Jain Scripture in a Performative Context,” in Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia, ed. Jeffrey R. Timm (Albany: State University o f New York Press, 1992), 171-94. Scholarship on the Jains has tended to ignore two basic questions: what texts did the mendicants actually read and use?— and therefore, what texts should scholars study in order

find many copies o f texts belonging to the Svetämbara ‘canon’, devotional texts used in community rituals, nar­ rative texts used by monks as the bases for sermons, grammars used for the learning o f Sanskrit and Prakrit, and texts that are crucial to mendicant praxis. It is not surprising, therefore, that Georg BUhler in 1873 found in an Ahmedabad Jain library 400 copies o f the Ä vasyakasütra, for this important text contains the rules and texts for the six daily rites (ä vasyaka) that are obliga­ tory for all mendicants.20 More technical or philosoph­ ical works were copied less frequently. This pragmatic reason behind the choice o f which manuscripts to copy also in large part explains both the dem ise o f the tradi­ tion o f copying manuscripts, and the lack o f use o f most libraries today: whereas in former tim es the Jain com ­ munity needed to have on hand a number o f copies o f many texts for ritual and educational purposes, today these needs are met by printed copies. The libraries them selves were kept either in small, dark, unventilated cellars, or in similar chambers above ground. Peter Peterson describes quite vividly the cellar attached to the Säntinäth temple in which was kept the famous Cambay library, which he visited in early 1883: The books are kept in a dark underground vault, on step­ ping out o f the light into which you can see nothing that in the least suggests the real character o f the place. As the eye becomes accustomed to the darkness, a hole in the wall is seen, which is the entrance into the smaller and darker vault where the books are kept. We gathered below the one window which from above lets light into this strange place . . . 21

His description o f another visit three years later, in February 1886, to another room in the same library, is even more graphic:

to understand how the tradition was mediated to the mendi­ cants? A study o f the Jain libraries with these questions in mind, and especially o f the collections o f individual mendi­ cants that have been incorporated into the libraries, would be most illuminating.

20 Letter from G. Bühler to the Director o f Public Instruc­ tion, Bombay, 20 August, 1873, in Archibald Edward Gough, ed., Papers Relating to the Collection and Preservation o f the Records o f Ancient Sanskrit Literature in India (Calcutta: Su­ perintendent o f Government Printing, 1878), 100. 21 Peter Peterson, D etailed Report o f Operations in Search o f Sanskrit Mss. in the Bombay Circle, August 1882-M arch 1883 (Bombay: Society’s Library, Town Hall; London: Triibner & Co., 1883), 57.

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Something was said in my First Report o f the strange character of the place, as we then saw it, where for gen­ erations these Cambay books have lain undisturbed in their coffin-like boxes. This room was worse. The first thing to catch my eye was a square piece of white cloth extended over the roof exactly above the place where I was to sit. I might have thought it a canopy of honour, had not its real purpose been soon apparent. That part of the roof, and every part o f the roof, was covered without an interstice, with bats, hanging down from the rafters, and fastening— so it seemed at least— all their myriad eyes upon me. I sat in that noisome room for four mortal days doing my best to forget the bats, and get on with the work before m e .22

Many Jain pilgrim age shrines still have secret cellars where, in tim es o f political instability, im ages, orna­ ments, manuscripts, and other valuables could be stored for safe-keeping. These rooms were attached to Jain monasteries (upäsray) or tem ples, or on occasion to or­ dinary houses. Individual manuscripts might contain a single text in just a few pages, a single text o f many pages, or as many as several dozen texts, which might or might not be closely related in terms o f content. M ost extant manuscripts are on paper, with older ones being on palm -leaf, and an occasional one on cloth. U n­ like Brähmanical manuscripts, Jain manuscripts tend to be o f a fairly uniform size, paper manuscripts being roughly 9 to 12 inches wide by 4 to 6 inches high, with 10 inches by 4 inches being the norm.23 Palm leaf manu­ scripts tend to be wider but less high, and vary som e­ what more in size. C. D. Dalai notes that the extant Pätan palm leaf manuscripts range in size from 36" by 21/2" to 41/ 2" by U/ 2 " .24 Bundles o f texts were som etim es tied together and covered by cloth, or stored in w ellbuilt, fairly air-tight wooden boxes roughly one-foot tall. To protect the manuscripts from insects, they were som etim es stored with chips o f fragrant wood, and som etim es dusted with red arsenic powder. After work­

22 Peter Peterson, A Third Report o f Operations in Search o f Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Bombay Circle, A pril 1 8 84March 1886 (Bombay: Society’s Library, Town Hall; London: Trübner & Co., 1887), 30. 23 For a discussion and photographs of the preparation of the ink and the copying of a manuscript, see Eberhard Fischer and Jyotindra Jain, A rt and Rituals: 2500 Years o f Jainism, tr. Jutta Jain-Neubauer (New Delhi: Sterling, 1977), 12-13 and plates 101-3. See also Saryu Doshi, M asterpieces o f Jain Painting (Bombay: Marg, 1985), 2 8 -2 9 . 24 Dalai, ibid., 41.

ing for a day with such manuscripts, one can easily understand the fate that befell the inquisitive monks in Umberto E co’s The Name o f the R o se ! M anagement o f the manuscript collections was o f two kinds, either congregational or individual. The term for a Jain congregation is sahgh. But sahgh can refer to any o f several different types o f congregation. At its broad­ est, sahgh refers to the entire Jain congregation o f a town, w hile at its narrowest it refers to the congregation o f a neighborhood, centered around the neighborhood temple. In between are sahghs comprised o f the lay ad­ herents o f one o f the mendicant orders (gacch).25 A manuscript collection might be under the control o f a sahgh o f any o f these sizes. In practical terms, sahgh control really meant control by the leading laymen o f the sahgh, although mendicants could exercise more or less control depending on individual charisma. In the case o f larger sahghs, this lay control often involved the Nagarseth, the heritary Jain mayor o f Pätan, and the Jain members o f the Pancäyat, the ruling council o f Pätan. This was the case, for exam ple, with the bhandars in Jaisalmer, as described by S. R. Bhandarkar: At present the Bhandar is entirely in the charge o f the Panches (or trustees). In the case o f such Bhandars at Jaisalmer and elsewhere I generally found that each Panch (or individual trustee) put on his own padlock and kept his key, so that the Bhandars could not be opened unless all the keys were brought together. Under these circumstances it would happen that a Bhandar could not be opened even if there should be a single dissident Panch against that being done, unless his padlock were to be forced open .26

Up until the early decades o f the twentieth century, the actual ownership o f many o f the manuscript collec­ tions was in the hands o f specific mendicants who resided permanently in their monasteries. These mendi­ cants, known as yatis, did not take the full-fledged mendicant vow s o f non-possession (aparigraha), and so could legally possess monasteries and manuscripts. R. G. Bhandarkar, for example, reports that in Pätan each bhandar “is the property o f the Gachchha and is

25 On the mendicant orders among the Svetambar Murtipujaks, see John E. Cort, “The Svetambar Murtipujak Jain Men­ dicant,” Man, n.s., 26 (1991): 6 5 1 -7 1 . 26 Shridhar R. Bhandarkar, Report o f a Second Tour in Search o f Sanskrit Manuscripts made in Rajputana and Cen­ tral India in 1 9 0 4 -5 and 1 9 0 5 -6 (Bombay: Government Cen­ tral Press, 1907), 11.

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in the charge o f the prominent lay-members o f the sect. When, however, a priest [y a ti] makes an Upasraya his permanent residence, the library is always in his charge and practically he is its owner.”27 Similarly Bühler de­ scribes the bhandär o f the Khartar Gacch, which Tod described as being under the management o f the Nagarseth and the Pancäyat,28 as being under the control o f the Pancäyat and the Sripüjya, or head yati, and not un­ til the Sripüjya returned from a tour in Rajasthan was Bühler able to gain access to the collection.29 The institution o f the y a ti has largely disappeared from the Jain community as part o f a broad-ranging re­ form o f mendicant and lay practice over the past cen ­ tury. Part o f this reform involved lawsuits betw een lay sanghs and ya tis concerning the possession o f manu­ scripts, in part driven by instances o f yatis selling manuscripts to foreign scholars and other interested parties.30 W hile the courts sided with the ya tis, the with­ drawal o f lay support for the y a ti institution has resulted in most o f the manuscript collections com ing under the control o f lay sanghs. C. D. Dalai, who worked on the Pätan collections in 1915, reported that by that date all the bhandärs were in the hands o f laymen, although he was unable to see one collection because its y a ti owner had hidden it. Looking at the history o f the Pätan collections, most o f which are now part o f the Hemacandra Jnän Bhan­ där, show s exam ples o f all o f these ownership pat­ terns.31 Through the early years o f this century, the

27 Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, Report on the Search fo r Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Bombay Presidency during the Year 1883-84 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1887), 1. 28 Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod, Travels in Western India (London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., 1839), 233. 29 G. Bühler, Report on Sanskrit Mss., 1874-75 (Bombay: Director of Public Instruction, 1875), 6. 30 An extreme example was mentioned by Bühler, who in

manuscripts that are now in the Hemacandra Bhandär were in fact spread among more than a dozen different collections. The consolidation o f the manuscript co lle c ­ tions and the construction o f the new bhandär was part o f the above-m entioned reform movement. The reform­ ist sentiment was expressed very clearly, for example, in a 1905 article written by Kalyanji Padamji Shah o f Radhanpur in The Jain Sw etam ber Conference H erald, the main organ o f the reformists, entitled “The Problem o f the D ay.” In this article he stated: “The question for solution stands thus: How to release and diffuse our sa­ cred lore at present confined in dark and stinking cellars to the care o f heaps o f dust and corroding insects.”32

dal Suvarn Jayanti (Bombay: Pätan Jain Mandal, 1964), 2 4 1 43; Muni Punyavijay, Catalogue o f Manuscripts in Shri Hemachandracharya Jain Jnanamandira, Patan, part I: Paper Manuscripts (Pätan: Sri Hemacandräcärya Jaina Jnänamandira, 1972); and Muni Punyavijay, compiler, and Muni Jambüvijay, editor, Catalogue o f the Manuscripts o f Pätana Jain Bhandära, 4 parts in 3 volumes, Shree Shwetambar Murtipujak Jain Boarding Series 1 -3 (Ahmedabad: Sharadaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre, 1991). For good overviews on the location and cultural significance of Jain manuscript collections, see the following: anon. “Jnänbhandärno Paricay,” Jain Yug, n.s., 2.6 (1959): 2 5-29; Banärsidäs Jain, “Panjäb ke Jain Bhandärö kä Mahatva,” in Jainacharya Shri Atmanand Centenary Commemoration Volume, ed. Mohanlal Dalichand Desai (Bombay: Jainacharya Shri Atmanand Janma-Shatabdi Smarak Samiti, 1936), Hindi section, 157-68; Kanubhäi Vra. Seth, “Gujarätnä HastpratGranthbhandäro,” Parab 10 (1980): 668-74; Agarcand Nähtä and Bhanvarläl Nähtä, Bikaner Jain Lekh Sahgrah (Kalkattä: Nähtä Bradars, 1956), 6 1 -6 9 ; Ludwig Alsdorf, “Neues aus al­ ten Jainabibliotheken,” in Beitrage zur indischen Philologie und Altertumskunde: Walther Schubring zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht von der deutschen Indologie, Alt- und NeuIndische Studien 7 (Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter & Co., 1951), 5 9 -6 5 (reprinted in Ludwig Alsdorf, Kleine Schriften, ed. A l­ brecht Wezler [Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1974], 1 6 0 -

1869 received a number of manuscripts from a yati, who “asked in return nothing but a railway-guide— a request which I readily granted.” Report of G. Bühler dated July 5, 1869, in A. E. Gough, op. cit., 51.

Muni Punyavijay in Jhänähjali: Püjya Muni Sri Punyavijayji Abhivädan Grahth, ed. Pannyäs Ramnlkvijay et. al. (Baroda:

31 Information on the collections comes from my own study o f the collection, but more importantly from the following published sources: C. D. Dalai, A D escriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Jain Bhandars o f Pattan, vol. I, ed. Lalchandra Bhagawandas Gandhi, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 76 (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1937); Mohanläl Dalicand Desäl, “Pätannä Jain Bhandäro,” Jain Swetam ber Conference Herald 12.1 (January 1916), 2 8 -3 2 , and 12.2 (February 1916), 56-59; Muni Punyavijay, “Pätannä Jnänbhandäro,” Pätan Jain Man-

Sri Sägar Gacch Jain Upäsray): “Jnänbhandäroni Samrddhi,” Gujarati section, 6 -1 6 ; “Äpni Adrs'ya that! Lekhankalä ane tenä Sädhno,” Gujarati section, 3 9-52; “Jfiänbhandärö par ek Drstipät,” Hindi section, 1-1 8 . See also the reports on the searches for Sanskrit manuscripts by R. G. Bhandarkar, S. R. Bhandarkar, Georg Bühler, F. Kielhorn, and Peter Peterson cited elsewhere in these notes. 32 Kalyanji Padamji Shah, “The Problem of the Day,” The Jain Swetam ber Conference H erald 1.4 (April, 1905), 69.

66); K. C. Kasliwal, op. cit.; and the following articles by

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On the one hand, a number o f monks undertook to collect, study, and catalogue manuscript collections. In Pätan this was originally the work o f Pravartak Käntivijay (d. 1942), assisted by his disciple Pannyäs Caturvijay (d. 1940), although the bulk o f the work was done by Caturvijay’s disciple, the great Muni Punyavijay (1 8 9 6 -1 9 7 1 ), who catalogued the collections o f Jais­ almer, Chäni, the Säntinäth Bhandär in Cambay, and the L. D. Institute in Ahmedabad, in addition to cata­ loguing the Pätan collection .33 Support for this work was forthcoming from the laity, and resolutions advo­ cating manuscript preservation and cataloguing were regularly passed at the biennial conventions o f the Svetämbar Jain Conference. In the case o f Pätan there was also pressure from the government. Pätan was part o f the northern district o f Baroda State, and it was in part through the influence o f the Gaekwad’s govern­ ment that Western scholars first gained access to the main collections, and that C. D. Dalal from the Baroda Oriental Institute was able to prepare a preliminary cat­ alogue o f the manuscripts. Dalai warned o f the danger o f the destruction o f manuscripts by white ants, and so the Baroda government set up a com m ittee to recom­ mend proper steps for the preservation and study o f the manuscripts. W hile the Jains o f Pätan resisted the suggestion that the manuscripts should be shifted to Baroda and incorporated into the Oriental Institute’s collection, they did agree to arrange for the manu­ scripts’ preservation. This effort also gained the public support o f Äcärya Vijay Vallabhsuri (1 8 7 1 -1 9 5 4 ), one o f the leaders o f the reform movement. The bulk o f the different collections was incorporated into one single collection. A large new building was constructed to house the collection, and the new library was named after Pätan’s most famous monk, the medieval polymath Hemacandra (1 0 8 9 -1 1 7 2 ), who had been known as the kalikälasarvajha, “the Om niscient o f the Dark A g e,” on account o f the breadth o f his scholarship. This building was inaugurated on 7 April 1939, by K. M. Munshi, then president o f the Gujarat Sahitya Parishad

33 The Jaisalmer and L. D. catalogues were published by the L. D. Institute in Ahmedabad, and the Cambay catalogue in the Gaekwad’s Oriental Series in Baroda. To the best of my knowl­ edge, the Chäni catalogue has not been published, although the hand-written copy of the catalogue is in the L. D. Institute. For a brief biography of Muni Punyavijay, see Umakant P. Shah, “Life and Works of Agama Prabhakar Muni Punyavijayji,” in Jnänäfijali, ed. Ramnikvijay (see note 31), Abhivädan section, 8 9 -96.

and Home M inister o f Bombay State.34 M ost o f the m oney— Rs 2,100 in cash and Rs 51,000 in land— came from a single donor, Hemcand M ohanläl, in the m em ­ ory o f his father Mohanläl Moticand. This large build­ ing is in the heart o f a Jain area in the middle o f Pätan, next to the most important Jain temple o f Pancäsar Pärsvanäth, and surrounded by many other Jain institu­ tions and residential neighborhoods. It stands on a raised plinth for protection against flooding. The build­ ing contains a front reading room and three manuscript storage rooms, each closed by a heavy metal bank-vault door. The manuscripts them selves are stored in spe­ cially designed airtight wooden boxes which are kept inside locked metal cabinets. The largest o f the collections incorporated into the Hemacandra Bhandär is the Sri Sangh Bhandär, which was under the supervision o f the Pätan Jain Sangh. As o f 1915, when Dalal surveyed the Pätan collections, it was under the management o f a cityw ide Jain trust, Seth Dharamcand Abhecand Pedhi. In practical terms, this meant that the collection was under the control o f the Jain Nagarseth, together with the Jain members o f the Pancäyat. At that time the Sri Sangh Bhandär also con­ tained a smaller collection formerly under the control of a neighborhood sangh, that o f Limbdi Pädo, and a few manuscripts from the private collection o f a layman, Vastä Mänek. The bulk o f this latter collection had been given by Vastä Mänek to Vakil (lawyer) Lehrubhäi Dähyäbhäi, and upon his death was deposited in the Sägar Bhandär. Three o f the collections now in the Hemacandra Bhan­ där are exam ples o f collections managed by a sangh affiliated with a mendicant gacch. Vädi Pärsvanäth was the one temple in Pätan affiliated with the Khartar Gacch. The temple o f Vädi Pärsvanäth was consecrated in 1596, and its foundational inscription is an important

34 For a description o f the opening ceremonies and the back­ ground to the construction of the new building, see P. C. Divanji, “Correspondence: Resurrection o f the Jnana-Bhandars at Pätan and Appreciation of the Work o f the Jain Saint He­ macandra,” New Indian Antiquary 2 (1939): 121-25. 35 See G. Bühler, “Prasasti of the Temple o f VadipuraParsvanatha at Pattana,” E pigraphica Indica 1 (1892): 319-24; and B. J. Sandesara, “Inscription of the Jaina Temple o f Vädi Pärsvanätha at Pätan and Genealogy of the Teachers o f the Kharatara Gaccha,” Journal o f the Oriental Institute 25 (1976): 3 9 3 -9 8 . For further discussion o f the temple itself, see John E. Cort, “Connoisseurs and Devotees: Lockwood de Forest and

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document in the history o f the Khartar Gacch.35 The c o l­ lection in the Vädi Pärsvanäth Bhandär was established earlier than the present temple. M ost o f the manuscripts are paper copies o f earlier palm -leaf manuscripts, many o f them in Jaisalmer, copied in the years 1 4 2 5 - 3 5 at the orders o f Jinabhadrasüri.36 This collection includes many important logic and Advaita Vedäntin texts copied on paper manuscripts in the first half o f the fifteenth cen­ tury. This was the collection described by C olonel James Tod, who visited Pätan in 1 8 2 2 .37 Another collection under the control o f a sahgh affil­ iated with a gacch was that o f the Sägar Gacch (this gacch, more properly speaking, is an informal branch o f the Tapä Gacch), although earlier Bhandarkar described it as under the control o f Yati Rüpsägar. Dalai noted that this collection also contained 108 manuscripts that were formerly the property o f a Sägar Gacch ya ti, Bhäv Sägar, as w ell as the collection o f the layman Makä M odi. 75 palm leaf manuscripts from this collection were sold to F. Kielhorn in 1 8 8 0 -8 1 for inclusion in the Bombay Government collection, which now is the collection o f the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune.38 As mentioned above, for a time this collection also housed that o f Vakil Lehrubhäi Dähyäbhäi. A third such c o llec­ tion was that o f the Tapä Gacch, also known as the Ä gali Seri (“Front Street”) Bhandär, after the name o f the neighborhood in which it was located. Pätan tradition has it that this collection was established by Äcärya Vijay Devsüri ( 1 5 7 8 - 1 6 5 7 ) , head o f the Tapä Gacch in the first half o f the seventeenth century.39 A ccording to Dalai, an important part o f this collection is a set o f manuscripts o f the Jain Siddhänta (the Svetämbara ‘canon’) and related commentaries, copied at the expense o f a millionaire layman, Chaddu Säha, at the beginning

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Jain Temple Ceiling,” O ri­ entations 25.3 (March 1994): 68 -7 4 .

36 Muni Punyavijay describes this collection as a “new edi­ tion” (navi ävrtti) of the Jaisalmer collection. Muni Punyavi­ jay, “Pätannä Jnänbhandäro,” (see note 31), 242. 37 Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod, Travels in Western India, Embracing a Visit to the Sacred Mounts o f the Jains, and the M ost C elebrated Shrines o f Hindu Faith between Rajpootana and the Indus; with an Account o f the Ancient City o f Nehrwalla (London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., 1839), 232-34. 38 M. D. Desäi, op. cit.; Dalai, op. cit., 36; and F. Kielhorn, R eport on the Search fo r Sanskrit Mss. in the Bombay P resi­ dency during the Year 1880-81 (Bombay: Government Central Book Depot, 1881). 39 Muni Punyavijay, “Pätannä Jnänbhandäro” (see note 31), 242.

o f the sixteenth century v .e. (i.e., mid-fifteenth century c .e .).40 Both Bühler and Bhandarkar referred to another smaller Tapä Gacch collection in the same neighbor­ hood, that was established by Rupvijay (d. 1 8 4 9 ) o f Ahmedabad.41 I assume that this collection was later in­ corporated into the Tapä Gacch collection. R. G. Bhandarkar’s description o f the Ä gali Seri li­ brary indicates w ell the way in which collections were often aggregates o f smaller collections. Part o f this c ol­ lection had belonged to a layman, Säntidäs Devkaran, and had been catalogued in 1 797. A second group had belonged to the mendicant Gaiigävijaygani, and been catalogued in 1 6 9 5 . A third collection, catalogued in 1797, had belonged to the mendicant Pannyäs Satyavijay. A fourth collection had belonged to Sripujya Jinendrasüri 42 A fifth collection, also catalogued in 1 797, had been left in Säntidäs Devkaran’s house by the yati Mohan vijay. A further collection, catalogued in 1 805, had belonged to the layman (or possibly, though less likely, a y a ti) Dipcand Hemcand. A seventh collection, again catalogued in 1 7 9 7 , had belonged to an unknown Vijay yati. Lastly, there were three other collections be­ longing to unknown laymen, one catalogued in 1 780, and one in 1804. One small collection, that from Aduvasi Pädo, o f 114 manuscripts, is an exam ple o f a collection under the control o f a neighborhood sahgh. The collection in Khetarvasi Pädo is a neighborhood collection that is still separated from the Hemacandra Bhandär. Bhan­ darkar described it as under the management o f one Yati Ratanvijay, and said that the ya ti had m oved many o f the manuscripts to Ahmedabad, where he lived. This is a collection o f 7 6 old and rare palm -leaf manu­ scripts. Current plans are to incorporate this collection into the Hemacandra Bhandär, but at the moment it is frozen in Khetarvasi due to a court investigation into eleven stolen manuscripts. Another collection that is separate from the Hema­ candra Bhandär represents the control o f a sahgh that is both a neighborhood sahgh and a mendicant-lineage affiliated sahgh. This is the collection o f 3 ,2 0 6 manu­ scripts in Bhäbhä Pädo, the one neighborhood sahgh in Pätan affiliated with the nearly defunct Vimal branch o f the Tapä Gacch. M ost o f this collection was formerly in the nearby village o f Kungher, from where it was trans­ ferred to Pätan. The current condition o f this collection 40 Dalai, op. cit., 36. 41 G. Bühler, op. cit. (note 29), 4; and Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, op. cit. (note 27), 1. 42 A sripujya was the leader o f an order o f yatis.

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indicates som e o f the frustrations that can await those scholars who want to work with traditional manuscript collections. The only key to the bhandär is in a bank safe deposit box in Pätan, which can only be opened when two trustees com e from Bombay, where they re­ side. This bhandär had not been opened for several decades until Muni Jambuvijay, through his personal mendicant charisma, convinced the trustees to com e to Pätan so he could inspect the manuscripts in the course o f preparing the recently published com prehensive catalogue o f the Pätan Bhandärs. This is reminiscent o f a similar situation in the Jaisalmer described by S. R. Bhandarkar, who in 1905 inspected one bhandar “which had last been opened for the inspection o f Dr. Bühler more than thirty years ago and had remained locked up ever since.”43 A similar collection was that o f SanghvI Pädo, which also consisted largely o f palm -leaf manuscripts. This collection was in the monastery o f the LodhI Posäl branch o f the Tapä Gacch, a lineage o f yatis, but was un­ der the management o f a lay fam ily in the neighborhood. Dalal noted that the collection had been periodically catalogued and organized by the yatis, and then more recently by Pravartak Käntivijay. At the request o f Muni Jambuvijay, it was given to the Hemacandra Bhandär in 1976, and a new catalogue o f the collection prepared by Muni Jambuvijay.44 This collection includes some twenty manuscripts o f important Jain ‘canonical’ texts and commentaries, copied between the years 1381 and 1433 at the instructions (u padesa) o f two successive heads o f the Tapä Gacch, Äcärya Devasundarasüri (1 3 4 0 -1 4 0 4 ) and his disciple Äcärya Somasundarasüri (1 3 7 4 -1 4 4 3 ).45 Other collections represent those o f individuals. The collection o f Yati Himmatvijay consisted o f 72 manu­ scripts, m ostly on architecture (silpa sästra), which he had collected for his own use. A large collection o f 1,285 manuscripts was formerly in the possession o f a Jaisalmer Khartar Gacch yati, Äcärya Vrddhicandrasuri, but was transferred to Pätan at the request o f Muni

43 S. R. Bhandarkar, op. cit., 12. 44 Muni Jambüvijay, [untitled] (Patan: Sri Hemacandräcärya Jain Jnän Mandir, n.d.). Copies of this catalogue are in the collections of both the Library of Congress and the Center for Research Libraries. This information is also included in part IV, pp. 2 0 8-91, of the recent comprehensive catalogue (see note 31). 45 Somasundarasüri is also famous for consecrating the im­ ages of the famous Dharanacaturmukhavihara Jain temple of Ränakpur in 1440.

Punyavijay. Bhandarkar mentioned a similar small c o l­ lection in the hands o f another Pätan yati, Räjvijay Dayävijay, which later was either removed from Pätan or incorporated into another collection. Non-resident, non-yati monks also developed personal collections, e s­ pecially reformist monks who in their constant travels urged lay follow ers to donate manuscripts in their per­ sonal possession so they could be made available to the larger public. Examples o f these were the collections o f 2,013 manuscripts collected by Pravartak Käntivijay, 66 manuscripts collected by Äcärya Vijay Mänikyasüri (these were later kept under the control o f the neighbor­ hood sangh in Mahälaksmi Pädo, and is described as the Mahälaksml Pädo Bhandär by both Dalal and Desäl), and 1,352 manuscripts collected by Äcärya Vijay Vallabhsüri in the Panjab.46 The relocation o f two collections from Jaisalmer and the Panjab indicates the extent to which bhandärs have been mobile over the centuries. Two other collections currently in Pätan also came from elsew here. The Subhvlr collection o f 2,511 manuscripts came from Ahmedabad at the request o f Punyavijay, w hile another collection o f 407 manuscripts was bought in Bhuj, Kacch. This collection consisted m ostly o f poetry and poetic theory in Braj, Rajasthani, and Gujarati, and had long been famous among those interested in learning the techniques o f traditional poetry. This collection was in the monastery o f the yatis o f the Kusal Säkhä in Bhuj, who were also spiritual preceptors to the Maharao o f Kacch in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. When Muni Punyavijay heard that the then-presiding y ati was interested in selling this collection, he arranged for it to be bought and transferred to Pätan.47 D esäl and Dalal mention a collection that went in the other direction— that o f Yati Lävanyavijay. Desäl says that it was transferred to Rädhanpur, w hile Dalal says it was transferred to Pälanpur and most likely burnt in a fire there.48

46 A recent example o f such a collection is the large library being organized in Kobä (between Ahmedabad and Gandhina­ gar) under the inspiration o f Äcärya Padmasägarsüri o f the Tapä Gacch. 47 Bühler mentions this collection in his 1874-75 report (ibid., 2 -3 ), and says that it consisted of 614 manuscripts. For a discussion o f the tradition o f poetry among Kacch yatis, see Duleräy Käränl, “Kacchnä Räjkavi Yatisri Kanakkusaljl,” in Sri M ahävir Jain Vidyälay Suvarnmahotsav Granth, ed. N. Upadhye et al. (Bombay: Sri Mahävir Jain Vidyälay, 1968), part I, Gujarati section, 124-29. 48 Desäl, op. cit., Dalal, op. cit., 37.

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The final collection in Pätan was that o f the y a tis o f the Pürnimä Gacch, who still own a monastery in Pätan in Dhandher Vädo 49 This collection consists o f 701 pa­ per manuscripts o f fairly recent date, and o f no great scholarly importance. But it was the source o f great curiosity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen­ turies, in large part because it was inaccessible to scholars. Popular tradition had it that the bhandär o f the great Hemacandra was still extant in Pätan, but none o f the collections investigated had manuscripts from that time. Tod thought that this was the collection to which his y a ti assistant gained entrance, although as men­ tioned above this was actually the Khartar Bhandär attached to the Vädl Pärsvanäth temple. Bühler was under the same mistaken impression later in the century in 1 874, when he said that the “ Sripüj o f the Kharataragachha . . . together with the Panch [pancäyat] is the keeper o f Hemachandra’s Bhandär.”50 In fact, the person to whom Bühler referred was not o f the Khartar Gacch, but the y a ti o f the Pürnimä Gacch, Svarüpcand. This is clear from the description o f Ramkrishna Gopal Bhan­ darkar, who came to Pätan less than a decade later, in 1 88 3 . Bhandarkar said, “Svarüpachandra Yati, who had charge o f the Bhändär said to have originally belonged to Hemachandra . . . was as im m oveable as he was in 1 8 7 4 - 7 5 , when Dr. Bühler wished him to show his manuscripts to him .”51 Peter Peterson reported a similar failure another decade later, in 1 8 9 3 . 52 This m isconcep­ tion was cleared up only by C. D. Dalai, who firstly was clear that the collection in question belonged to the Pürnimä Gacch, not the Khartar Gacch, and secondly show ed that Hemacandra had belonged to yet a third gacch, the Pürnatalla Gacch. Dalai further reported that follow ing Svarüpcand’s death there was a lawsuit be­ tween his successor and the sahgh concerning the ow n­ ership o f the monastery and the manuscript collection, and as o f 1915 the location o f the collection was un­ known, as it had been hidden by the y a ti.53 This situa­ tion was also reported by D esäl, writing in 1916, who added that many o f the manuscripts had been sold to a

49 I have discussed this monastery and its yatis in my disser­ tation (see note 2 , above), 102 . 50 G. Bühler, ibid., 6. 51 Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, Report on the Search fo r Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Bombay Presidency during the Year 1883-84 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1887), 2. 52 Peter Peterson, A Fourth Report o f O perations in Search o f Sanskrit Mss. in the Bombay Circle, A pril 1886-M arch 1892 (Bombay: Society’s Library, Town Hall; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1894), 2. 53 Dalai, op. cit., 38.

British agent in Ahmedabad. Eventually, however, after the courts found in favor o f the y a ti— that he was the le­ gal owner o f the manuscripts— he gave the manuscripts to the Hemacandra Bhandär. Donald Johnson has succinctly described the process by which the Jain manuscript collections came to the at­ tention o f Western scholars. The subsequent investiga­ tion o f these collections has resulted in the publication o f many hundreds o f critical and sem i-critical editions o f texts, both by limited circulation Jain-funded text se­ ries, and more visible series such as the Bombay San­ skrit and Prakrit Series, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series and the L. D. Series. The texts have significantly augmented our understanding o f the social, royal, intellectual, and artistic history o f western India. Since the Jains have been quite catholic in their attitudes towards the collec­ tion and retention o f texts, the bhandär collections have also included valuable Brähmanical and Buddhist texts that would otherwise have been lost to posterity.54 M ost o f what w e know about western Indian painting com es from the study o f the many illustrated manuscripts in the bhandärs. In addition, over the centuries the bhandärs have becom e the repositories for other works o f art, such as illustrated scrolls, paintings on cloth, painted or embroidered book covers, painted wooden manuscript boxes, devotional im ages in stone, metal, and crystal, and other sculptures.55 Many o f the Jain collections have been catalogued and the catalogues published, but in the case o f Pätan the cataloguing history has been a checkered one. The first extensive catalogue was prepared by C. D. Dalai o f the Baroda Oriental Institute, who worked in Pätan in 1915. He died, however, before publishing his catalogue. His descriptive catalogue o f the palm -leaf manuscripts was finally edited by Pandit L. B. Gandhi o f the Oriental

54 Many o f the manuscripts for Brähmanical texts published in the aforementioned series came from Jain bhandärs. For examples o f Buddhist materials preserved in the Jain bhan­ därs, see Raniero Gnoli, ed., The Pramänavarttikam o f Dharmakirti: The First Chapter with the Autocommentary, Serie Orientale Roma 23 (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1960), which was edited from a 16th-century v.s. paper manuscript in the Bhäbhä Pädo bhandär, and Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Vasudhärä-dhärani: A Buddhist Work in Use Among the Jainas o f Gujarat,” in Sri M ahävir Jain Vidyälay Suvarnmahotsav Grahth, part I, English section, 3 0 -4 5 . 55 For an example o f the range of artistic treasures to be found in bhandärs, see Umakant P. Shah, ed., Treasures o f Jaina Bhandärs, L. D. Series 69 (Ahmedabad: L. D. Institute of Indology, 1978), the catalogue o f a 1975 exhibition in Ahmedabad.

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Institute, and published in the Gaekwad’s Oriental S e­ ries in 1937 as A D escrip tive C atalogue o f M anuscripts in the Jain B handars o f Pattan, vol. I. The second v o l­ ume o f this catalogue was to have covered the many more paper manuscripts, but was never published. Muni Punyavijay worked for many years, from 1928 through 1943, organizing and preparing a catalogue for the Pätan collection. V olum e one o f his catalogue, w hich covers the paper manuscripts from 13 o f the collections, was published by the Hemacandra Jnän Mandir in 1972 as Catalogue o f M anuscripts in Shri H em achandracharya Jain Jnanamandira, Patan, pt. I: P a p er M anuscripts. It is distributed through the L. D. Institute o f Indology in Ahmedabad, but few people know this, since it was never included in the lists o f L. D. publications. Typesetting o f the second volum e, which was to have covered the remaining three bhan­ dars, as w ell as transcription o f all o f the many manu­ script colophons, was begun by the staff o f the L. D. Institute but never finished, due to a dispute between the institutions. In the meantime, Muni Jambuvijay pre­ pared a small catalogue o f the palm -leaf manuscripts from the Sanghvi Pädo bhandär that was given to the Hemacandra Bhandär in 1976; this untitled catalogue is available only through the Bhandär in Pätan. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Muni Jambuvijay worked to re­ organize the Pätan bhandars. He re-edited the 1972 catalogue as w ell as the unpublished volum e 2 (except for the colophons), to which were added Punyavijay’s catalogue o f the manuscripts in the Bhäbhä Pädo bhan­ där, Jambüvijay’s list o f 268 paper manuscripts given to the bhandär subsequent to Punyavijay’s list, an alpha­ betical index o f all 20,035 paper manuscripts, and Jam­ büvijay’s catalogue (com plete with alphabetical index) o f all the palm -leaf manuscripts. This was recently pub­ lished in three volum es by the Sharadben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre in Ahmedabad as C a ta ­ logue o f the M anuscripts o f P ätana Jain B handära.56 W e have seen that the ownership o f Jain manuscript patterns formerly follow ed many different patterns. Som e collections were managed by the lay congrega­ tions, at the city w ide level by the Nagarseth and the Pancäyat, and at the neighborhood level by the leaders o f the local congregation. In one such case, that o f Sanghvi Pädo, a local collection was entrusted to the hereditary management o f one fam ily. Other collections

56 The Pätan bhandär also contains the extensive personal library of printed reference works collected and used by Muni Punyavijay. This invaluable reference library is also uncata­ logued, and lying in boxes on the second floor of the bhandär.

were the personal property o f resident yatis, but with the withdrawal o f lay support for the institution o f the yati, and the resultant extinction o f y a ti lineages, these collections also came under the control o f congrega­ tions. Still other collections were the personal property o f laymen. In som e cases these were then given to a congregation upon the layman’s death by his survivors, much as many American museum collections have been built up as descendants donate the collections o f de­ parted parents, aunts, and uncles. In other cases these private collections were turned over to public manage­ ment at the urging o f charismatic mendicants. W e have also seen the m obility o f these collections, with co llec­ tions from Ahmedabad, Jaisalmer, Kacch, and Panjab being brought to Pätan, collections m oving from loca­ tion to location within Pätan, and other collections pre­ sumably being taken from Pätan to other cities. A study o f the colophons o f the manuscripts further confirms the m obility o f texts, as many o f the texts currently in Pätan were originally copied in towns and villages throughout western India, and texts copied in Pätan are found in all the other major Jain manuscript collections. The history o f these collections further reveals a dra­ matic change that has occurred in the last one hundred years, as Western notions o f public libraries and re­ search institutions have com e to dom inance in India. Nowadays the vast majority o f the handwritten manu­ scripts are found either in bhandärs, such as the H e­ macandra Jnän Bhandär in Pätan, which is managed by a registered public trust, or else in research institutions (them selves frequently affiliated with universities) such as the L. D. Institute o f Indology in Ahmedabad, which is affiliated with Gujarat University. It is ironic that at the same time as access to these manuscripts on the part o f scholars has becom e easier, the need for the manuscripts in the Jain community itself has drastically decreased, with the advent o f published editions o f texts. These two factors may be related, as manuscripts have m oved from being an e s ­ sential part o f the tradition, and therefore governed by active ritual, educational, and purity concerns, to being a marginal part o f the tradition, relegated to the anti­ quarian interests o f the equally marginal scholarly community. These published editions, o f course, are them selves dependent upon the manuscripts. A visit to any Jain library indicates how marginal the manu­ scripts are to the ongoing Jain identity. Their condition is not unlike the condition o f Western archives as de­ scribed by Claude Levi-Strauss in La Pensee sauvage: “w e might say o f archives that they are after all only pieces o f paper. They need only all have been pub­ lished, for our know ledge and condition to be totally unaffected were a cataclysm to destroy the origi­

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nals.”57 Levi-Strauss goes on, however, to indicate that while such a loss might be negligible at one intellectual level, at another it would be profound: “We should . . . feel this loss as an irreparable injury that strikes to the core o f our being.” Levi-Strauss observes that archives, or in this case hand-written Jain manuscripts, provide our sense o f the past with its “diachronic flavour” by putting us “in contact with pure historicity.” One can more easily read a critical edition o f a medieval text in a research library in Cambridge or Chicago, but the text in this form loses some o f the numinous charge felt by the reader when reading a manuscript painstakingly copied by hand several centuries earlier. Jains insist that a book, any book, should be treated with respect. Once a year, therefore, on the fifth day after the N ew Year, known as “K now ledge Fifth” (Jnän Pancami), Jains go to the libraries and bhandärs to wor­ ship both the knowledge contained in the manuscripts and the physical manuscripts them selves. Both m odem printed books and older hand-written manuscripts are arranged in tiers on tables. Laity stand before the books with hands joined in a gesture o f veneration, and sing vernacular hymns to Know ledge. Offerings o f the sa­ cred, charged sandalwood powder known as väskep (as w ell as money) are made onto metal trays on the tables, and then, in an act sure to run shivers up the spine o f any library archivist, the powder is sprinkled over the books and manuscripts them selves.58 The very books and manuscripts as physical objects are to be treated with respect and veneration, and disre­ spect is considered as an asätnä, or moral fault. Once in Pätan I was attending a com plex temple ritual (mahäpüjä), to which I had brought along my own copy o f the ritual manual in order better to follow the proceed­ ings. W hen I placed the manual on the floor o f the tem­ ple in order to take som e photographs, a Jain woman became agitated and picked up the book. I said that there was no need for her to hold the book, but she re­ plied that it must not be placed on the floor, for, as she put it in English, “ It is a book. It is holy.” What I had treated rather cavalierly as a collection o f pieces o f printed paper was to her an inherently charged and sacred object. This sense o f numinous power is accentuated when one realizes, after a day o f working with manuscripts, that one’s hands are covered with a fine, red layer o f poi­ sonous arsenic powder, reminding one o f the observa-

57 Claude L 6vi-Strauss, The Savage M ind [no translator in­ dicated] (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966), 241-42. 58 For more on the performance of Jnän Pancami, see Cort, Liberation and Wellbeing (note 2), 198-203.

tions o f Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade that anything which is holy is also considered to be dangerous.59 And this perhaps epitom izes the condition o f the manuscript collections, or, as I prefer to translate jhän bhandär, the “knowledge warehouses,” in contemporary Jain society. The Jains are and have been profoundly ambivalent in their attitude towards manuscripts and the powerful, salvific knowledge (jnän) contained therein. This knowl­ edge is something to be preserved in libraries and wor­ shipped in the abstract in rituals, but not necessarily something with which they expect people to have fre­ quent contact. Manuscripts not only contain jhän, they also contain vidyä, a multivalent term that covers both the Western categories o f science and magic— in other words, powerful and efficacious knowledge.60 This holy power contained in the physical presence o f the manu­ scripts accounts for the many references over the past century to the inaccessibility o f Jain libraries. The manu­ scripts lie, in Peter Peterson’s words, “undisturbed in their coffin-like boxes,” or, in Kalyanji Padamji Shah’s words, “confined in dark and stinking cellars to the care o f heaps o f dust and corroding insects.”61 I cannot help but be reminded o f the scene at the end o f the movie Raiders o f the L ost Ark, in which the long-lost Ark o f the Covenant is carefully nailed inside a box and wheeled into a vast, endless warehouse from which it w ill never return. The Jain manuscripts are revered, they are holy, and they are protected; but they are also to a significant extent locked away and ignored, for they are dangerous and taboo. 59 Rudolf Otto, The Idea o f the Holy, tr. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1950); Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, tr. Willard Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959). 60 The connection between manuscripts and power some­ times expresses itself more directly. D. D. Kosambi relates his frustration in seeking manuscripts for the preparation of his critical edition of Bhartrhari’s Satakatraya, as in some cases owners refused to let him inspect manuscripts for fear that this would result in a diminution o f the owner’s temporal powers: “In one case, this was due to the fear of losing alchemical for­ mulae which might have been hidden away in the mass of scrap paper by some ancestor; in several other cases, it was due to the fear of titles to property being proved defective by exami­ nation o f the old bundles.” D. D. Kosambi, SatakatrayädiSubhäsitasahgraha o f Bhartrhari, Singhi Jain Series 23 (Bombay: Singhi Jaina Sästra Siksäpitha and Bhäratiya Vidyä Bhavana, 1948), 10. 61 Similarly Kosambi (loc. cit.) refers to manuscripts “being hidden away in private collections, [that] will be destroyed unused by the action o f time, air, rain, mice, white ants and all other vermin except scholars.”

[5] ORALITY AND LITERACY/PERFORMANCE AND PERMANENCE Christian Lee Novetzke The tongue makes a good book. — A T T R I B U T E D TO N A M D E V

J o n a t h a n z. s m it h hypothesized that if an alien were to pilot its fly­ ing saucer to Earth, presumably landing in the courtyard of the Divin­ ity School in Chicago, and observe scholars of the history of religions at work, the extraterrestrial would deduce that these scholars were philolo­ gists. Girded by texts and having completed years of language study in graduate school, the alien s subjects would evince a conviction that through reading the writing of religious traditions, a story of the past of particular religions can be told.1 Smith locates the foundation of the historical study of religions in philology—the study of “dead languages”—which has brought about a condition in the discipline whereby language study and philological work are paramount.2 Thus the modern study of religions, even of “nonmodern” ones, is regularly a study of their textual remains. Indeed, the idea that history is preserved best in writing, and that literacy not only leaves a record for historians but allows for the very ability to think historiographically, is almost canonical for historians, religionists, and frequently anthropologists.3 While the historical study of religions may be ruled by texts, the public memory of the Namdev tradition in Maharashtra is not. I argue in chapter 2 that Namdev typifies a practice of performance that uses nonliterate methods, primarily kirtan, to maintain its remembrance over time. We have seen that hagiography and songs attributed to Namdev reveal a pur­ poseful distance from literacy. Namdev is remembered as someone who

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sings and performs his songs, and because generations of kirtankars have done the same, his legacy endures and enters the world of the public. In­ deed, performance surrounding Namdev has been engineered to create public spaces where the ideals of bhakti can be expressed. Although the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition has remembered the preeminence of performance, it has simultaneously produced a written corpus of his work, a by-product perhaps of the central performance tradi­ tion of kirtan . Furthermore, the accumulative written economy of Nam­ dev s songs has organized, managed, and reorganized his literary corpus through a constant interaction of the performance tradition with various written traditions and the sociopolitical landscapes through which Nam­ dev s memory has traveled, whether in courts, at the periphery of colonial­ ism, or in the contemporary period. What do we do with the literate legacy of this nonliterate tailor who disregarded writing and books? How do we read the literary remains of a tradition that disavowed literacy from a theo­ logical and perhaps social point of view? Nam devs nonliterate ethos, and the practice of kirtan , are encoded in the written remnant of the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition, but not sub­ jected to them. Although the preeminent literate archive of the tradition, the bada, or “notebook,” has been carried by performers for centuries, it is primarily a device of memory, not its source. I argue that the contents of these notebooks show that they were produced in the service of perfor­ mance and are not considered records superior to human memory. This is an important point to assert, as the creation of a public within a largely il­ literate sphere requires the transcendence of literacy through orality. I also investigate two examples of ways in which the logic of the kirtan is en­ coded in writing, revealing a hybrid interaction of orality and literacy in the late eighteenth century. I contend that the modern dialectic of orality and literacy does not capture the intentions of writing put forth by Namdevs Maharashtrian tradition. Instead, a different set of objectives is at work that shifts between an investment in oral performance and a desire for an enduring public memory, a dialectic between two intentions that I label “performance” and “permanence.” Before the nineteenth century, at a time when Nam devs songs were handwritten, this writing took two distinct forms: the bada} a simple note­ book used by performers to record songs, make notes on performance, and record a variety of other information; and the pothi, a well-constructed type of manuscript intended to preserve texts, often for ritual religious practices. Pothi is a common term for a manuscript or “book” in northern

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traditions—such as Sikhism—as well as in Marathi.4 In Marathi, p othi generally refers to a well-fashioned and carefully preserved document. Usually the word designates a Sanskrit manuscript, though in the case of Sikhism, as Gurinder Singh Mann has explained, pothis that contain songs in Punjabi and other north Indian languages form the earliest layer of Sikh scripture.5 In some cases in Marathi, the word po th i is used to describe a particularly important text, without regard to the language in which the text is written. This is the case with the translation and commentary on the Bhagavad Gitä attributed to Jnandev, called the Bhävärthadipika, or eponymously titled the Jhänesvari. Manuscript versions of this text are called pothis and receive the kind of pride of place afforded Sanskrit and other manuscripts usually of a "classical” nature. However, Jnandev s name is also attached to thousands of song-narratives, or abhangs. When these songs are collected and written down, they are not contained in a compen­ dium called a pothi, though they are attributed to an author whose other works are preserved in pothis; instead, Jnandevs songs, like Namdev's, are recorded in the decidedly less high-class form of the bada .6 This difference in terminology is significant, as indeed are the differ­ ences between the cultural status of Jnandev s Jnänesvari and his abhangs. The p o th i marks a text with superior cultural capital in the world of "higher learning” in Marathi or what we might call, perhaps anachronistically (and with apologies to Habermas), the premodern Marathi public sphere. There is only one composition in Namdev s extensive literary corpus that is pre­ served in the form of a pothi. This composition is the autobiographical version of the Tirthävali, discussed in chapter 2, an exceedingly rare nar­ rative with only two extant copies, to my knowledge. I briefly discuss this text and its possible route of transmission toward the end of this chapter. A comparison of the p o th i and bada helps in highlighting how the p othi serves what we might call "private” or elite memory, the literate, perhaps courtly archive, as against public memory, an open, lightly mediated, and often nonliterate archive—the domain of the bada. The bada is the far more common storehouse for the few written records of Namdev s songs, and I turn to this first. How has the bada been used as a tool? How are its contents structured and what does this structure indicate about those who have carried and used these notebooks from the sixteenth century to the present? In asking these questions, I examine the interplay of kirtan and text in a few specific cases in order to realize the full interaction of perfor­ mance and literacy in the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition and the kirtan tradition more generally.

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The History o f the Book in South Asia {10 2} PRACTICES OF MEMORY

N O TEBO O KS AND PERFO RM A N CE: TH E BAD A In Nam devs songs, the word bada does not appear, which may be ex­ plained by the etymology of the word. The word bada in Marathi refers to a stack of pages (tämcanäci vahi) that has been stitched at some median place to form a spine over which the pages of the notebook can be folded (111. 3.1).7 The word bada may be related to a word for ‘Tine,” of Persian ori­ gin, corresponding to the lines often drawn in notebooks to help with transcription or maybe suggesting the stitch sewn to make a spine. The word suggests a cognate with the English word “bard,” particularly through the connection with poetry, singing, and traveling. Although this is a tempting route, I think a more likely connection (if there is one at all) to English comes through the Arabic word al-bada’ah, a saddle bag used on a mule or horse, which gives us the second, less common, definition of the word “bard” in English, protective armor for the flanks of a warhorse. This sense of the word does not make its way into Marathi, Urdu, or any other language in India, except for Persian, as far as I know. The former meaning, however—al-bada’a h as a bag used for travel on a horse—may have some association with the pockets or bags the notebooks were kept in or with the very construction of the bada, bound in leather and serving as a kind of “pocket” for the recording of performances. There also may be some as­ sociation with travel in general, an occupational necessity for kirtankars . If this is the etymology of the word bada, it would seem to have come into use after Nam devs traditional floruit, in the seventeenth century at the earliest.

i l l u s t r a t i o n 3 .1 T yp ical

badas.

so u rce

: u sed by p erm issio n o f t h e b h a n d a r k a r OR IENTAL R ESEARCH IN ST IT U T E .

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Despite its late entry into Marathi, and thus its absence from any verse attributed to Namdev, the word bada is the one most commonly used in modern Marathi to refer to the notebooks that hold the bulk of Namdev's written corpus and contain many of the songs of other Maharashtrian sants as well. The word vahi, however, is reserved in modern Marathi for notebooks carried by schoolchildren or so it seems to this observer.8 How­ ever, in Namdev's verses, vahi does appear once, in a single song, to de­ scribe a notebook: "Resolve has arisen from compassion,” Said the Teacher, Lord of Gods, Panduranga. Hari [spoke] to Saraswati, along the riverbank Of the Bhima, [saying,] "Sit on Nama's tongue. This darling lad Nama, hes my little baby. Without me, whom does he have? I am deeply in his debt [rna], By such small installments, I will repay [uttirna] him.” Nama says, “Panduranga sits down to write, Stitching the notebooks [vahyä] with his own hands.”9 This is the only appearance of the word vahi in the Government of M a­ harashtra's edition of Namdevs songs, the Sri Nämdev Gäthä. Yet here os­ tensibly is a narrative instance of Namdevs words being written down by Panduranga/Vitthal, which apparently contradicts what I stated in chapter 2 about the indifference to writing in Namdev s songs and in songs about Namdev by other sants . Here, it seems as if Panduranga, often described as “indebted” to Namdev, attempts to repay his debt by writing down Namdev's verses in much the same way as he did for Janabai in an earlier poem. In this case, Namdev becomes a conduit, literally a “human medium," through which Saraswati directs verses “sit[ing] on Namdev's tongue," Namdev pronounces them, and Panduranga writes them down. The “small installments" toward the repayment of a debt indicate such verses attrib­ uted to Namdev, inspired by Saraswati, and transcribed by God. In the oldest version of this song, present in a collection from Pandharpur, dated to around the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century by the editors of the Sri Näm dev Gäthä} we are told of one more verse in­ serted after the second verse where Saraswati is asked to sit on Namdev's tongue. This verse later disappears from the song, but in the early eigh­ teenth century, it was part of the composition in at least one version. The line goes:

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Hearing these words [of Panduranga, Nama] says, “Panduranga, Tell me, who will write this all down?” The words Namdev hears are Panduranga's instructions to Saraswati to inspire Nam devs speech. The poem appears to mark an anxiety in Nam­ dev over how to handle such exalted inspiration coming as it does from the goddess of learning, of Vedic recitation, and of the arts; she is often de­ picted holding a written text of Vedas in her lower right hand. The need for writing is at Namdev s insistence, but it is occasioned by an uncommon charge—to relay the words of higher learning rather than those of mun­ dane life. Indeed, the presence in this song of Saraswati is uncommon—the goddess appears almost nowhere else in Nam devs Marathi corpus. The coincidence of this rare appearance and the only instance of Namdev be­ ing positively associated with writing in any songs attributed to him is highly suggestive. Saraswati is a goddess of ancient lineage, appearing as Vac, the goddess of orality and the recitation of sacred text, as early as the Rig Veda. She de­ velops in later centuries into a goddess of learning in general, in particular as a deity of the arts. Within Saraswati is a melding of literacy and orality, mediated by performance. This poem transfers these functions to Namdev, who becomes a medium for recording verses inspired by Saraswati and committed to the written page by Panduranga. In this way, the song does not disrupt the thesis that Namdev is considered nonliterate. Instead per­ haps it serves to explain why a nonliterate sant’s verses would find their way into literate archives. Although Namdev remains at the center of literary production in this song, he is not its agent. It is Panduranga who presuma­ bly writes down Namdev s verses. It is also Panduranga who physically cre­ ates the notebook that will hold the verses. Namdev does not even do the stitching, an activity that one might expect from a tailor—he has aban­ doned this trade in favor of the life of a bhakta .10 Thus Namdev remains a nonliterate performer of songs, even in this rare but important abhang. Around him, however, there exists an economy of preservation that relies on recording oral performance, but works to create both the physical arti­ facts of notebooks and the words transcribed in them. The song seems to describe the creation of a bada} and it is in these notebooks that is found the vast bulk of Nam devs written legacy, pre­ served in an informal, largely unstructured archive, scattered throughout Maharashtra, in which the modern printed editions of Namdev s work find their source. The term bada designates a wide range of manuscripts that

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share a few physical and cultural characteristics. The notebooks generally have stitched spines th a t allow th eir pages to fold and form a “book”; the text ru n s left to right, but the orientation of a bada can be either vertical or horizontal and som etim es a m ix of these tw o in a single notebook. The text can be in either D evanagari or M odi script. The badas are dressed in a thick cloth cover, usually pasted or stitched around the outerm ost pages. They range in size and shape from as sm all as 2 inches by 2 inches, to 81/2 inches by 6 inches. The m ajority of the badas I have exam ined open verti­ cally like a long note pad (see 111. 3.1). Most notebooks are an omnium-gatherum of information far beyond the enumeration of songs attributed to famous sant-singers. Although some badas—perhaps a tenth of the ones I examined—contain only songs, the majority are filled by an array of information, and this varying content in the badas speaks volumes about the professional lives of their former owners. The badas contain all kinds of seemingly mundane information: astrological charts; records of births and deaths; notes on crop prices, ge­ ography, weather conditions; surveys of general news; and even bawdy songs, similar to the Marathi lavani genre. These materials indicate the diverse applications of the kirtan profession, which required a kirtankar to be peripatetic, a multitasking, jack-of-all-trades, carrying information about neighboring villages or entirely different regions of the subconti­ nent. Although a handful of notebooks are attributed to the early seven­ teenth century, most extant badas come from the eighteenth century onward, a period in the history of the Marathi-speaking area of relentless warring among landed families, Maratha expansionary expeditions, Mughal armies, and the southern kingdoms of Golconda and Bijapur.11 The tradition of keeping these notebooks traverses the period of colonial­ ism as well. Throughout these eras, kirtankars kept track of births and deaths, changes in commerce, politics, and the lives of famous personali­ ties. A kirtankar was part journalist, part foreign correspondent, part ac­ tor, part scholar, and part religious commentator, all in the context of the kirtan performance. Records of royal patronage to kirtankars make clear that monetary rewards reflected the entertainment value of a performance; the kirtankar had to sing for his supper.12 However, the regular terrain of the kirtankar was not the Maratha courts, Mughal courts, or colonial metropoles, but mundane village centers, pilgrimage networks, and holy sites. In these locations they performed the sacred stories, biographies, and songs of those figures that had ascended from ordinary life to hagiographical stardom.

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Everything about badas reveals a utility and an economic status far re­ moved from the carefully copied manuscripts of medieval Europe or of Sanskrit and Pali literature, different especially from the pothi mentioned above. The manner in which these notebooks are preserved today in ar­ chives is very different from the careful attention given to other manu­ scripts, as different in accommodation as the five-star Taj Hotel is from the Bombay YW C A just down the street. Pothis are preserved in glass cases, in teakwood cabinets, carefully arranged and catalogued; badas are piled in closets or stacked in storage spaces. The different valuation of the two kinds of manuscripts is also apparent when badas and pothis are referred to in English: a pothi is always rendered with the English word “manuscript,” which carries a weighted importance among types of documents, whereas a bada is designated with the English word “notebook,” a second-class citizen in the world of paper records. The oldest badas that have been used in compiling editions of Nam­ devs work contain colophons that give the date 1631 or later, but badas were probably compiled and carried by kirtankars from the beginning of the practice. Collections of these notebooks are scattered throughout M a­ harashtra in private and temple archives in Dehu, Paithan, Alandi, Pandharpur, Nagpur, Pune, and elsewhere; a few libraries, such as the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and the Thanjavur Saraswati Mahal Library in Tamil Nadu and the Deccan College Library in Pune also store notebooks. Few if any badas have been either catalogued or preserved under the aus­ pices of colonial-sponsored archives, indicative of general British colonial indifference to the practices of the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition and its literary remnant. For example, I have been unable to find badas in the India Office Library in London or any mention of old Marathi notebooks in any scholarship in English from any period. The notebooks probably bypassed inspection by European scholars for a host of reasons: they were the occupational materials of a group of per­ formers who held no obvious position of power in the political economy of the Deccan; they did not contain information, such as land grant transactions, or obvious historical records, and hence they would be use­ less to the exercise of colonial power and the gathering of intelligence. Furthermore, these badas were not intended to be visually pleasing pieces that preserved textual traditions. They were neither examples of careful calligraphy set amid wondrous illustrations nor bound in materi­ als meant to weather the ages. Instead, they were designed to hold for a short time the notes and jottings of k irta n ka rs—at most for a generation or two.

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Other work on similar manuscripts, especially in western and northern India, has revealed a comparable relationship between text and perfor­ mance. Winand Callewaert and Mukund Lath (1989), in their important work on Nam devs textual legacy in Rajasthan and northern India, found that the songs in manuscripts were frequently organized according to the rag system of Hindustani classical music. For example, the contents of the Guru Granth Sahib , including the songs attributed to Namdev, are ar­ ranged primarily by rag and secondarily by author, first Guru, then bhagat. A similar system is followed in many collections of other sant figures and sacred traditions, such as those that surround the figures of Dadu, Kabir, Raidas, and Haridas, as Callewaert and Op de Beek have shown.13 In con­ trast, the songs in the old notebooks within the Namdev Marathi tradition do not exhibit this kind of musical association with rag, nor is there any other primary logical association, except in the instance of particularly famous compositions, which I note below. When there is some discernable order, it is by purported author, not by rag. The mere fact that rag is an or­ ganizational principle of a manuscript s contents does not unequivocally establish that the manuscript itself was used in performance. Organization by rag may indicate a common source for songs grouped together—and this form of organization may have served performance—but the manu­ scripts themselves were likely to be meant as static archives.14 We might imagine that the m^-based codification of sant songs in manuscripts in northern India—the subject of Callewaerts several excellent textual studies—was an attempt to deal with the kinds of unclassified, diverse rec­ ords also seen to the south in the Marathi bada tradition. In other words, rag may have become the organizational key to orderly preservation that north Indian editors of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries used to sort out the morass of detail in even earlier manuscripts, which might have more closely resembled the badas and vahis of Maharashtrian kirtankars. Callewaert and Lath imply as much when they assert that it was “musicians” who classified songs by rag, but it was “scribes” (I assert that they were “editors,” that is, scribes with agency) who “kept the rag tag of each song” in the creation of manuscripts.15 A nother feature of th e notebooks th a t suggests their role in perfor­ m ance is th eir uniqueness: the badas are each distinct. As m entioned above, there appears to be no tradition of copying entire badas as discrete literary pieces, as there is w ith o ther sorts of m anuscripts, especially San­ skrit m anuscripts, or w ith th e autobiographical Tlrthävali, preserved in the p o th i form. W hile it is quite plausible th at early kirtankars com pared notebooks and shared verses, this is not p a rt of a “scribal” tradition but,

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rather, indicates the circulation, through writing and performance, of particular songs and compositions; in other words, I believe that this is more indicative of the social interaction of performers than the commissioned, formalized scribal process of copying manuscripts.16 Individual songs do appear in multiple notebooks, often word for word, which might indicate that individual verses were copied from one notebook to another or that an oral performance, perhaps aided by a notebook, was transcribed by an­ other performer. We observe an economy of texts that reveals a network of performance traditions throughout the Maharashtrian Deccan. This is far different from a scribal tradition of the sort text editors often encounter that copies entire narratives or manuscripts with the aim of faithful repre­ sentation and physical preservation. Although there is no evidence of a tradition of copying individual manu­ scripts, there are numerous examples that particular songs have been cop­ ied into multiple notebooks. We find recorded in notebooks Namdev s two principal biographies/autobiographies about Jnandev: the A d i biography of Jnandevs short life and the biographical Tirthävall The Sam ädhi, Jnandev s threnody, is copied in its entirety less frequently. These three compositions appear in eight of the thirty badas consulted by the government-sponsored §ri N ä m d ev Gäthä editorial committee, for example. The committee de­ scribed those eight badas as the "chief texts” (pram ukhaprat), which might indicate that the committee believed certain manuscripts were resources for others.17 Old collections of handwritten songs are stored in Pandharpur at the Namdev Mandir, as well as in the private collections of kirtan performers throughout Maharashtra. Dhule has been a vital center for Maharashtrian culture and religion for centuries, as well as the administrative headquar­ ters of the West Khandesh district of the Bombay Presidency during the late colonial period, an interesting alignment of colonial and noncolonial concerns. Dhule is home to two important archives and research institutes that have preserved badas for research: the Samartha Vagdevata Mandir and the Rajvade Samshodhan Mandal. A Pandharpur manuscript collection, in particular, has served as the largest source for the Government of Maharashtra's anthology of Nam ­ devs songs; and a single voluminous manuscript housed in Dhule, with a date of 1631, provides the oldest stratum of extant Namdev songs in M ar­ athi outside the fixed compositions of the Ä di, Tirthävali, and Sam ädhi triptych.18 On a recent visit to Pandharpur, however, I found the flow of information also ran in the opposite direction. Interviewing P. D. Nikte, the director of the Namdev Sevak Mandir in Pandharpur and an educator

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in N am dev Studies, I asked about the m anuscripts th at he kept. He m en­ tioned the P an d h arp u r m anuscript collection and inform ed me, “W hen we hear a new song, or a new version of a [Namdev] song, we w rite it dow n in the book/'19 This seem s always to have been the practice, providing a link betw een w riting and perform ance—a stockpiling of songs, selected from tim e to tim e by individual kirtankars for perform ance. There is no sense in w hich the collection now on h an d has been frozen or restricted to the past or th a t N am dev songs do not them selves travel, change, and re­ tu rn anew. R ather th a n a story about professional scribes, the legacy of the bada tells us about kirtankars w ho traveled regular to u r routes throughout the Deccan, m et in various venues and exchanged inform ation. In large pil­ grim age places or centers of cu ltu re—such as P an d h arp u r—p articular ar­ chives of m aterials were kept. From these stationary collections, traveling kirtankars may have found and copied into their notebooks m ore material; in exchange, they may have also supplied the keepers of these collections w ith song m aterial not yet archived. We hear echoes of som e aspects of the practice of recording songs in old notebooks in th e activities of contem porary kirtankars, for w hom the notebook is an ever-present prop. It is im p ortant to note th at kirtankars often will not read from a notebook in an actual perform ance but, rather, use the notebook as a way to prepare for the perform ance. O f course, con­ tem porary kirtankars also have at th eir disposal the large printed antholo­ gies of the works of Varkari sants, such as the Sakala Santa G äthä or the various state-funded critical editions. Yet the genealogies of these antholo­ gies are rooted in th e notebooks of earlier kirtankars, hence these m odern p rinted editions are the products of prem odern perform ance traditions. Very little attem p t has been m ade by the various organizers of printed an­ thologies to m ediate betw een th e old m anuscripts and the printed form. Instead, w ith a few notable exceptions, a com piler w ould include as m any songs attrib u ted to N am dev as possible, a practice highly “uncritical” from the perspective of m odern text editing. The relationship betw een perform ance and the com pilation of songs is not m erely a prem odern phenom enon. A celebrated Varkari kirtankar, V. Jog (1867-1920 c .e .), produced one of the first and m ost influential anthol­ ogies of N am devs verses, called N äm deväcä Gäthä, published posthu­ mously in 1925 by C hitrashala Press. He is one of several well-established kirtankars w ho edited the works of M ah arashtrian sants. In im portant ways, th e m odern printed edition inherits the tradition of the handw ritten notebooks kept by kirtankars, and, as such, these printed tom es tra n sp o rt

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the structure of oral, live performance into modern media through the replication of the contents of old notebooks.

T H E L I T E R A R Y F O S S I L S OF P E R F O R M A N C E ? The preeminence of live performance over the commitment of text to the written page in the Namdev tradition notwithstanding, the badas carried by kirtankars reflect a clear utilization and dependence on writing, and this dependence perhaps grew as more written materials, and later printed collections, became widely available to performers. How has the perfor­ mance of kirtan itself—as opposed to the use of literacy to aid kirta n — moved in to the realm of writing? To answer this question, I examine two manuscripts. The first is a bada likely from the early eighteenth century that, I argue, includes a record of the live performance of a kirtan. The sec­ ond is a portion of the Bhaktavijay, which served as a guide to the shape of Nam devs publicly received biography in Marathi, and was preserved be­ fore print in the p o th i form (because it was a fixed, single-author, composi­ tion, and composed by a high-caste, influential individual). In exploring the interaction of performance and writing, I also borrow a theme from chapter 2 and examine how the concept of authorship in these various contexts functions as a principle of organization, a focus of historical and cultural remembrance conditioned by orality.

A n Early K irta n Prim er? A manuscript in the collection of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research, bada number 52, is one of the largest notebooks I have examined in terms of physical size (111. 3.2) and is likely from the mid-eighteenth century. It mea­ sures 81/2 by 6 inches and consists of eighty-five folded pages, with writing on both sides. The bada displays an elegant, professional orthography, par­ ticularly throughout the second half of the notebook. The bada contains no colophon or other datable information. However, the orthography and grammar of the bada are similar to those of other texts of the eighteenth century, and this is the probable timeframe in which the bada was finished. The contents of the first portion of the bada are varied, but generally include songs organized by author. Especially frequent are songs marked with explicit reference to the purported author. For example, one finds sürdäsapada or "songs by Surdas,” referring to the famous sixteenth-century

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bada

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number 32, first page [bottom] and facing

page of special section. S O U R C E : U S E D B Y P E R M I S S I O N OF T H E B H A N D A R K A R O RIENTAL R ESEARCH IN ST IT U T E .

singer from Braj, or a section marked Narsikrta, or '‘[compositions] by Narsi [Mehta],” referring to the works of the famous fifteenth-century Gu­ jarati sant. It has divisions by verse form as well—by ärya, sloka, sdkhi, dohrä, and abhang—as well as the prose ballad called katäv. Other sec­ tions invoke particular stories from the Hindu epics, retold in brief Mar­ athi verse, such as the “Ayodhya Ägaman” or “[The] Story of the Arrival in Ayodhya,” from the Rämäyana. This bada has songs attributed to Madhavnath (sixteenth century), whose Guru was Eknath (sixteenth century); Ranganathaswami (seventeenth century) of the Ananda Sampraday;

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A m ritarao, a balladeer from the late seventeenth-early eighteenth cen­ tury; as well as the usual fare for a M arathi bada , such as songs attributed to Tukaram (seventeenth century) and, less com m on in badas w ith N am ­ dev verses, ones attrib u ted to the poet and figure of political intrigue dur­ ing Shivaji s period Ram das (seventeenth century), contained under the rubric rämdäs krta . Despite these organizational rubrics, in sections where N am devs songs appear, one finds no heading devoted to Namdev. His songs appear th ro u g h o u t the notebooks, in a particular sequence—as show n below—and interspersed am ong the songs of all the figures m en­ tioned above, but they are interw oven w ithout any explicit rubric as w ith other authors/sa«£s or even other types of verse. It is as if N am dev needs no introduction or he is not treated as an author in the sam e way as these o ther sants . Indeed, not only are his songs not dem arcated in a clear fash­ ion, but his songs are dissected w ith selections of verse attributed to N am ­ dev in H indi and to o ther sants; his w ords are interlaced w ith the words of o ther songs in a fashion wholly unprecedented w ith regard to any other sant. The very natu re of this interlocking display of songs, I argue, is at the core of th e oral rem n an t th at inhabits these w ritten texts. The bada in question does not follow a logical them e th at connects the various works it contains—in other words, it has no discernible overarch­ ing thesis th a t has w arran ted the sequence of songs and com positions, ex­ cept to say th at the songs in th e bada are Bhägavata in nature, th a t is, concerned w ith th e w orship of Ram, Krishna, and Vishnu. The bada itself does not m ake this connection—the songs are merely given w ithout expla­ nation. However, fourteen pages o f text tow ard the end of the bada indi­ cate a dram atic shift from th e stockpiling of songs in the previous pages to an apparently system atic form ulation. W h at changes in those fourteen pages is the way in w hich the songs are organized and handled as text. In the bulk of the bada is the usual accum ulation of m aterials m eant to serve perform ance, perhaps to be draw n on in order to recall or alter songs w ithin a kirtan. In the peculiar fourteen pages, by contrast, I consider the tran scrip t of a kirtan or, at least, the outline or "strategy” for one, w ith the overall subject being stories about Krishna's childhood pranks (bälkridä). The plan of these fourteen pages is d em onstrated in the layout of the verses and in th e position and use o f the songs, phenom ena not seen in any other bada , b u t indicative, nonetheless, of the use to w hich badas have been put for centuries. This unique piece of w riting deserves careful attention. A sw itch occurs in th e h andw riting from the preceding pages to a m uch m ore disciplined orthography, suggesting th at the contents of the fourteen pages are not the work of the sam e w riter/editor who com piled the preced-

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ing, or the following, sections (111. 3.2, compare top and bottom folios). The section begins with a salutation to Ganesh, "Guru Dattatreya,” Eknath, and "Ramchandra." The salutations are followed by the statement "the [story of] the arrival of Uddhav begins [here],"20 and then the word abhang, indi­ cating that the next song will be an abhang on a common theme, the pop­ ular story of Uddhav (utdhava in the text), Krishna's messenger who comes to console the forlorn gopis in Krishna's absence.21 The song is one of the first in the balkrida series, which is the first editorial collection to be made of Namdev's songs in badas beginning in the eighteenth century and rep­ resented in old notebooks, and is the single most utilized section of Nam­ dev's work in contemporary kirtan performances.22 Every song that follows this one in the fourteen pages—whether by Namdev or another singer—is likewise about Krishna's childhood. The section immediately following the salutation opens with the first six lines of an eight-line song attributed to Namdev that has been recorded in other manuscripts—as early as 1631 from Dhule.23 After the sixth line of this particular balkrida song is an unattributed sakhi, or "witness" song, in Hindi that I assume to be attributed to Namdev. The subject of the sakhi (in the form of a p a d ) and the abhang into which it is inserted are the same, that is, they are both about the birth of Krishna. Following the sakhi are the last two lines of the Namdev abhang Then there is another sakhi, then the first three-quarters of an abhang by Namdev—which is the sec­ ond song in the order of the balkrida series as it is represented in every printed anthology and in a handwritten manuscript by that title composed in the eighteenth century.24 This pattern continues for several pages, with a portion of an abhang given first, then a sakhi, an arya, a shloka, or a p a d interjected, but on the same theme as the abhang; and finally the conclu­ sion of the abhang is given on the fourteenth page. The section ends with the last line of the eighth song in Namdev's balkrida sequence about the arrival of Uddhav. At this point, the handwriting again changes—perhaps indicating that another writer has begun a different section or the earlier writer has resumed transcribing. Indeed, the story of Uddhav ends, as a new series of songs begins—a ballad or katav, then several songs by Tukaram and Namdev. However, the songs are not broken up by other material, as in the preceding section, but presented uninterrupted, returning to the form more common in kirtankar notebooks in Marathi. To re tu rn to the substance of th e story containing in the fourteen pages of interw oven verse, we have the narrative of the b irth of Krishna, w ho is feared by th e king of th e M athura region. The king, Kamsa, is told th at the eighth son b orn to his sister Devaki will kill him and end his reign. Kamsa

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has his sister im prisoned, along w ith her husband, Vasudev, and kills their children. A fter th e eighth child is born, a son, Vasudev m anages to sm ug­ gle him out of Kamsa's palace and give him to Yashoda, a w om an in the village of Gokul, taking her new born daughter back to the palace w ith him . Kam sa hears of th e child's b irth and com es to kill the baby, who taunts him (she is a goddesses herself), saying th at Devaki s son is alive som ew here in th e kingdom . Kam sa has all the m ale children of the king­ dom killed, b u t Yashoda m anages to hide Devaki's son. He is thus raised in secrecy, in the forest of Gokul, near the Yam una River, all w ithin the re­ gion called Braj. The series of songs in the fourteen pages outlined above describe the m om ent w hen K rishna, now a m an, has been sum m oned to face K am sa in M athura, and th e outcom e of the battle is unknow n to the citizens of Gokul. They recount the lam ents of the people of G okul as they await news of w hether or not K rishna, also know n as Gopal, has survived the night. Krishna's friend, Uddhav, is deputized to reassure them of his well-being, but also bears th e news th at he will never re tu rn to G okul even though he is victorious. Here is the translated text, w hich is w ritten alter­ nately in M arathi and H indi, and arranged in a way th at reflects its se­ quence on th e handw ritten page w ith corresponding line num bers (or lack of them ) given in th e original text: The Beginning of [the story of] Uddhav's Arrival A B H A N G [M A R A T H I ]

Age after age the bell rings [And Krishna] thus comes to the people of Gokul ||i|| Sadness was everywhere around in the forest [People cried,] “Why, Oh Lord of the Land, have you done this to us?"

INI Distressed, the cows become gaunt; the calves do not nurse ||3|| S A K H I [H IN D I]

Nine hundred thousand cows will not eat the grass [Their] calves will not drink milk 11 “Oh Gopal, Oh Gopal! The stars are like stones to us now," they were crying Nama [says], “Companions, do not lose heart." Refrain A B H A N G [M A R A T H l]

The cow-maidens rejected food and water 11 “Now from where will Cakrapani (Krishna) [come] to us?" ||4|| The trees along the Yamuna have dried up 11 Rocks split in half because of sadness ||s| |

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{1 1 5 }

In the morning all the companions were conversing [about their grief] [But] the Lord had not died. ||6|| S A K H I [H IN D I]

“Where? Who? Where? Who?,” the cowboys and cowgirls cried out. || The sight [of Krishna] did not appear in the town, as all the people of Braj

wept INI A B H A N G [M A R A T H I ]

[Gopal said,] “All those dear people who witnessed [this] 11 Were crying like birds for me/' ||7|| Like a fish out of water, under duress 11 Nama says, the blessing of love is in the heart. 118|| S A K H I [H IN D I]

Those dear people, they kept their hope in life [even before] death 11 In each eye a tear fell, as the flute, Murari, softly played. ||3|| A B H A N G [M A R A T H I ]

Seeing this love, just then 11 Govinda was overcome by their tears ||i|| Repeating [his] names, defeating sin 11 None of the cow-maidens lost their concentration ||2|| The very soul of faith [Krishna] felt no sadness 11 But was overcome by the love of bhakti \|3| | The thought entered Rishikeshi's [Krishna's] mind 11 Who shall I send to Gokul?" ||4|| At that very moment he appeared before Utdhav 11 And spoke to him just then ||s|| Nama says, “Now will come a very private moment 11 Remember to stay alert!" 116|| A B H A N G [M A R A T H I ]

The parrots and other [birds] who sing the praises [of Krishna] 11 They all cried out to Utdhav ||i|| S A K H I [H IN D I]

In a loud, bellowing [voice Krishna] said, “Udho, listen to my victory! Go tell the cow-maidens [that] You, with your own [eyes], have seen [me] incarnate." ||4|| A B H A N G [ M A R A T H I ] 25

The te x t co n tin u es th is way, dividing M a rath i abhangs w ith H indi sakhiSy m o st a ttrib u te d to Nam dev, for th e rem ain d er of th e fo urteen pages, at w hich p o in t th e orth o g rap h y again changes perceptibly (111. 3.3).

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bada number 52,

last page [top] and facing page

of the end of special section. S O U R C E : U S E D B Y P E R M I S S I O N OF T H E B H A N D A R K A R OR IENTAL RESEARCH IN ST IT U T E .

Although the notebook as a whole appears quite ordinary, the phenom­ enon observed in this particular portion of the notebook is entirely unique in b a d a s . The portion contains a highly systematized arrange­ ment of texts with an obvious intent. Furthermore, nothing in the text marks these particular fourteen pages as anomalous or unique. W ho­ ever kept the notebook seems not to have found this layout of songs and their verses incongruous with the other, more common way of record­ ing information in the notebook.

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My early attempts to understand what was going on in this particular notebook were fruitless. This changed on a visit to Pandharpur during the large annual pilgrimage in the summer of 2000. Among the many religious wares and paraphernalia for sale around the Vitthal temple in Pandharpur during the pilgrimage one finds book stalls selling everything from texts of Sanskrit verse, anthologies of the songs of the sants, and books for pleasure reading, to picture books of Vitthal and Pandharpur, and guides for pil­ grims regarding safety and proper behavior. Amid this plethora of publica­ tions are numerous works that deal with kirtan. I picked up several booklets that serve as primers for students of kirtan. These texts reveal the same layout as in the fourteen pages of the eighteenth-century notebook. One of the most popular of these modern kirtan manuals, the K irtan M ärgadarsikä (Exposition on the K irtan Tradition), is a series produced by Krishnadas Lohiya, trustee of the Maheshvari Dharmashala organization, which has branches in Pandharpur, Alandi, Tryambakeshwar, and Tirupati.26 Although the book is not about the same set of songs {balkrida) as in the bada mentioned above, a comparison of the general shape of Lohiyas text and that of the bada is instructive. Lohiya s book opens to a brief in­ troduction, followed by several pages of images found in this order: Vit­ thal, Jnandev, Lohiya himself, Eknath, Namdev, Bankatswami—Lohiyas kirtan guru, with Lohiya seated at his feet, Tukaram, and finally another picture of Lohiya, garlanded, with a book open on his lap and a halo sur­ rounding his head, the iconographic pose of a sant. These opening images are important for what they suggest about orality, literacy, and authorship. All the sants pictured are seated before their texts with the exception of Namdev and—until the end—Lohiya and his guru, Bankat. However, the last image of Lohiya shows him in a pose more reminiscent of Jnandev than Namdev, seated in the lotus position, with a book on his lap. These images are meant to invest the text in the reader s hand with some degree of sanctity and auspiciousness. Lohiyas tradition is kirtan, not textual or written scholarship; yet he has produced a text of kirtans, and the images that precede the text give the reader an orientation, a visual key to this transition between orality and literacy, from Lohiya as performer to Lo­ hiya as textual scholar. The images also serve to root the text in the visual, in darshan or the sight of the guru, the sant, and the kirtankar, who, as shown in chapter 2, sits in “the seat of Narada” in Naradiya kirtan. There­ fore, the images help to reinforce the continuum of orality, literacy, and visuality (specifically visual performativity) inherent in the kirtan form, but literally disembodied in the printed one where no human exists to me­ diate the information received.

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They indicate a clear expression of a lineage of authorship: Lohiya s own authorial position is bound up in the genealogy of the preceding sants and his own guru. However, the ascription of authorship, so common for the printed text, goes to Lohiya alone. Lohiya tries to obviate the connotation of sole authorship, which seems inherent in the modern printed book form,27 by making clear his reliance on his guru, Bankat, in the introduc­ tion, the dedication, and in the images that lead into the text, the entirety of which is ‘ offered at the feet” of Bankat, in common guru-student fashion. The transcription of the first kirtan in Lohiyas text begins with an opening chant, or jayjaykär, and a rüpäcä abhang, as is normal with Naradiya kirta n. Thereafter follows the kirtanäcä abhang, or "song for the kirtan,” which is usually attributed to Tukaram, Eknath, or Jnandev. After the introduction of this song is enlarged boldface text that provides songs by other authors—pad, abhang, sakhi, shloka, etc.—interspersed with commentary on the first abhang, set in smaller, nonbold type, all meant to serve the elucidation of the kirtan s first abhang The kirtan ends with a single line from Namdev on the importance of the name of God in worship. If one were to delete the interjected commentary throughout Lohiyas text, which presumably would be supplied spontaneously in the act of per­ formance, as is normal in a kirtan, the remaining structure would be identi­ cal to the fourteen pages of the eighteenth-century manuscript discussed above.28 One finds a portion of the song that is the main presentation of the kirtan; the song is given in parts, interrupted by other songs that elucidate the thesis of the theme song. Songs are set within songs as a practice of ex­ egesis in live kirtan, replicated in this printed manual. The similarities be­ tween Lohiyas text and the fourteen pages of the eighteenth-century manuscript suggest that the manuscript, like the printed manual, is a tran­ scription of a kirtan performance, lacking only the spontaneous commen­ tary that is scripted and present in Lohiyas text. The content of this interweaving of songs is also indicative of Namdev s position in Maharash­ trian public memory. Although this particular manuscript contains both Hindi and Marathi songs, no sant represented in this text other than Nam­ dev is remembered to have sung in both languages, and thus no sant s songs are interspersed in this way that reveals so fluid a relationship between lan­ guages, regions, and poetic styles. The correlation of themes—two sets of songs about the same subject—should stand in some metaphorical relation­ ship to Namdev s own remembrance. In the story recounted in the songs,

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both Hindi and Marathi, Uddhav is Krishna's messenger, who brings with him proof of the authenticity of his message. That proof is a flute, an instru­ ment of performance, of exciting the desire of the gopis, but also symboliz­ ing the object of their affection. The sound of the flute, m uräri, triggers memories in the gopis throughout devotional literature in India, and it be­ comes a sign for Krishna himself, as it does in this series of songs. Uddhav carries the message that Krishna will forever be absent. Bereft of their be­ loved, the people of Gokul enact practices of remembrance: they retell the stories of Krishna's childhood (raslila, krsnalilä, harikatha). One might see here the implication that Namdev does the same, that he becomes the “messenger” for the memories of bhakti delivered to God's adoring public. Although here we have the memories of Krishna, Namdev is also the biog­ rapher of the sants of his age, the messenger of those lives and memories. By Mahipati's time in the late eighteenth century, this vague connection be­ tween Namdev and Uddhav is made explicit: Mahipati claims that Namdev is none other than Uddhav's incarnation, Krishna's messenger to his people in a new era, with a new voice in a new language.29 Yet, I still wish to ask, why is it only with Namdev that this interlocution of verses takes place? I think the reason must go beyond the mere fact that Namdev is unique in his association with a substantial bilingual corpus of songs and instead points directly to the performative nature of his remem­ brance. The composer of these fourteen pages understood that the perfor­ mance, or the blueprint of one, should be presented in the voice and form of Namdev. As the ideal kirtan performer in Marathi, Namdev makes the perfect exemplar. The section brings together, in the shadow of the perfor­ mance for which it was designed in the eighteenth century, an elegant in­ tegration of Namdev's biographical transregional appeal and his local, Marathi character as an ideal performer of kirtan . The literary medium here gestures toward its inherent oral function and, furthermore, to a re­ ceptive public of memory that would have understood the virtuosity of the section in biographical, religious, and literary terms. The fourteen pages of this eighteenth-century notebook are a direct in­ dication that badas served performance. Furthermore, this bada fulfilled a dual purpose for its owner: a majority of the notebook provided source materials for kirtanf whereas the fourteen pages gave the structure of what appears to be at least half a kirtan performance. The continuity between what this eighteenth-century text records and Lohiya's kirtan primer pub­ lished in 1997 suggests a similar continuity in the teaching and practice of kirta n.

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The Logic of K irtan in the Writing o f Hagiography A second setting for the intermixing of oral performance and text is in the work of Mahipati, an exceptional personality in Marathi literature.30 Re­ membered as the premier compiler and commentator on the lives of the Maharashtrian sants, as well as of figures like Kabir, Mahipati wrote more than twenty-five separate biographical compendia in his lifetime, compris­ ing some 35,000 verses. One of his most famous is the Bhaktavijay, said to have been composed in 1762.31 Much of his hagiographical material on the early sants —Jnandev, Namdev, Janabai, Cokhamela, etc.—is drawn from biographical songs attributed to Namdev. The very practice of sacred biog­ raphy was initiated in the Varkari tradition by songs carrying Namdev s name. Namdev is an "author” on whom much of the first portion of the Bhaktavijay s "authority” relies. A survey of this text makes clear the ge­ nealogical interrelationship of literacy, biography, and performance. Mahipati was a stickler for sources, as mentioned earlier. He claims to have composed nothing from his own imagination, but depended solely on written texts set before him.32 We know that he had access to the A di and biographical Tirthävali as in old manuscripts; Mahipati s inclusion of these stories in his own work follows these early compositions almost word for word. He reiterates that he did not fabricate any part of his biographies, but faithfully followed standard texts, that is, transcribed them and incorpo­ rated them into his own work without intervention. In the Santalilämrta, Mahipati preempts his critics when he writes, "You will raise this doubt in your mind and say: You have drawn on your own imagination. This is not so.”33 And in the Bhaktavijay , he asserts, "You will say I have compiled this book on my own authority. This indeed is not so. Hold no doubts in your minds.”34 As discussed in chapter 1, Mahipati uses several key hagiogra­ phies from northern India in his work, which he references. Interestingly, though songs attributed to Namdev make up a significant portion of the Bhaktavijay, Mahipati nowhere cites Namdev as a source. Mahipati may have been faithful to his sources, but he was far more than a mere scribe. He was famous in his lifetime as a skillful kirtankar, and this fame no doubt led to the distribution and preservation of the works attributed to him. He also seemed to have been a student of sorts of Namdev, borrowing from him and mimicking some of his poetic style. A reading of M ahipatis mid-eighteenth-century account of Jnandevs life side by side with the account ascribed to Namdev reveals an almost exact transcription of Namdevs composition—first articulated in notebooks from 1631—interpolated with a kind of poetic commentary by Mahipati in

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1762. He creatively interwove stories, songs, and a narrative reminiscent of a kirtan into a text already well established a century before his lifetime, as badas attest .35 All around and throughout the extended quotations of au­ thoritative biographical sources, Mahipati has placed his own embellish­ ments and explanations, much like Lohiyas text above and the fourteen peculiar pages of the bada. Mahipati s B haktavijay appears to be a kind of written kirtan,, a textual commentary that emerges from the performance tradition of elaboration on the verses of a famous s a n t Between the lines of older texts, Mahipati inserts his own superfluities and flourishes, exactly as a kirtankar would in a live performance. That is, he does not tamper at all with the texts that he used as sources—he keeps his word to his readers. Instead, he applies his own genius in the creation of a hybrid text, consisting of exact quotations from earlier sources and novel creations all his own. Mahipati bridges a gap between oral performance and literacy with what appears to be a tran­ scribed kirtan , word for word. At the conclusion of the Bhaktavijay, Mahipati makes his connection to performance explicit in his text. He first reinforces his position as a "scribe,” but one who copies and creates from a source of inspiration and devotion: I have written every single letter in this book Just as Rukmini s husband has commanded. Like the puff of breath blown by a musician, I am the wind that sounds the flute.36 Mahipati tells us here that he is the instrument for expression, not the genius of the music itself. The metaphor is clearly meant to invoke a per­ formance, not the preservation of literacy (he is not the ink of the pen, for example), yet he is explicit that he has "written every single letter” just as each note of an instrument is sounded. Mahipati concludes his B haktavi­ ja y this way: To some you have given knowledge of the soul. Some have begged to dwell in the union of self and universe. My heart s desire is that I will sing [varnin]37 About the character [guna] of Hari. Some sit on beds of nails, Some sit with Vishnu in heaven. For me, in the kirtan of your servants I have become lost in supreme love.38

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Mahipati is both producer and consumer of the kirtan of the sants and closes what is probably his most famous hagiography by invoking the oral context of performance, set down on the written page. The last verse ad­ dresses his audience: "Listening to this, the Lord of the World is gratified. Listen all you faithful, loving bhaktas ”39 Indeed, each of the fifty-seven chapters ends with an order to Mahipati s audience to "listen” to these sto­ ries of the lives of the sants. A written text that concludes by asking its audience to "listen” is one that has not divided orality and literacy but un­ derstood the text as inherently performative and oral. Mahipati lived in a transitional period, when oral literatures were in­ creasingly written down and many were slowly finding themselves repli­ cated in blocks on printing presses, responding to the interest of colonial personages and the access to print technology and the printing machines they brought with them. In addition, during this period kirtan perfor­ mance had reached a high point of appeal and patronage (with kirtankars regularly serving in courts in Thanjavur and the Maharashtrian Deccan), and the feudal political landscape of India was coalescing under the ex­ pansion of British power. Mahipati s occupation as a scribe and his reli­ gious vocation as a kirtankar melded—to the benefit of historians—in his compositions. As argued above, his chief composition, the Bhaktavijay, is composed in the style of a kirtan; indeed, it may actually be a transcript of a kirtan performance, as well as an archive of biography and history. This text can be read like a fossilization of bones that occurs in an epoch of drastic climatic change, a fossil that records a negotiation of orality and literacy. Within fifty years of his death in 1790, his B haktavijay would en­ ter the discourse of modern printed scholarship on India in European and Indian languages, reflecting the changes modernity augurs and find new media, such as print and later film, in which to continue Namdev s Mahar­ ashtrian legacy.40

PUBLIC MEMORY A M ID LITERACY AN D PERFORMANCE What do we make of literacy when it is produced within a cultural field, in this case Namdev s Maharashtrian public memory, that disavows writing? This chapter builds on the previous one in demonstrating how perfor­ mance, specifically oral performance, is the primary means of communi­ cating Namdev s Maharashtrian memory into any given present moment. Amid a highly literate world of sants and hagiographers, it appears as if the

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authentic recollection of Namdev involves not only retelling stories or per­ forming songs attributed to him but couching these cultural productions in discursive realms appropriate to Namdevs character. This chapter in­ vestigates writing to see how the quandary of a nonliterate sant repre­ sented in literary media can be addressed. In the case of badas, the medium of recollection serves performance. Literacy is a tool to assist the practice of kirtan. It is not until the advent of print that Namdev comes to exist as a sa n t whose legacy is contained in writing. For all the performative power of a public reading of the Jnänesvari, it is still a text, genealogically con­ nected to Jnandev s own hand. And for all the ways that Tukaram has en­ tered into performative places—in kirtan} in music, in film—there are still hagiography and physical artifacts that tell us Tukaram s work is contained in a book that he wrote with his own hand as well. The literacy of figures like Eknath and Mahipati becomes part of their very character as sants: Eknath as a text editor and literary conduit for the epics into Marathi, and Mahipati as collator of hagiography and writer of books. There is no figure amid Namdev s fellow sants who stands in such stark contrast to literacy. The reason for this contrast is that Namdev is remembered first and foremost as a kirtankar, a practice he is said to have developed in order to reach the widest possible swath of humanity. The interweaving of Hindi and Marathi in the manuscript examined in this chapter indicates this well, suggesting that an essence is communicated through various performances. A story is retold, slightly or significantly, but in a way appropriate to the context and time. In this case, the story was of Uddhav delivering his mes­ sage to the gopis of Gokul told in two languages (Hindi and Marathi) and attributed to one person (Namdev). The arrangement of the verses in the two languages hinged on these points of connection, on the suffering of the cows and calves, for instance, or the crying of the birds. These pivot points tell us something about the structure of Namdev s remembrance. It comes to a devotee through impressions that often cannot be captured in a single, authoritative version of a song. The songs have a character that attests to their authenticity, rather than a reference to a previous textual source, and this character is performative. A memory of who Namdev was, in which languages he composed, what subjects he undertook to explore, and in what performative ways he explored them—this memory moves throughout the text examined above. Likewise, this memory is revealed in the use of the badas. Those kir­ tankars who took Namdev as their exemplar were not compelled to com­ mit their work to the written page. This is not the case with Tukaram, for example, where not only the manuscript attributed to Tukaram under

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glass in Dehu remains, but also the work of his scribe, Jaganade, whose seventeenth-century manuscript is one of the largest compendiums of Tukaram's verses other than the Dehu pothi . The finer of the written records of Namdev s songs are frequently appended to a collection of songs by Tukaram, as if Namdev received the literary largess that surrounded Tukaram. This fact should lead to the conclusion that literary recording of songs, unlike the recording of long compositions like the Jhänesvari, began in earnest in Tukaram's period, invested with the desire to preserve in writing his songs, as he is said to have done himself. If the transportation of Tukaram's verses into the future became a concern of literacy, it might have pulled within its orbit Namdevs memory, which was otherwise not concerned with writing for the sake of preservation. It should be clear at this point that the Maharashtrian Namdev tradi­ tion requires a different dialectic from that of “orality” or “literacy” to ac­ count for its practices of remembrance. Before suggesting what this different dialectic might look like, it may be worthwhile to understand how the dialogue of orality and literacy privileges the latter over the former in modern historical and anthropological research. In the highly influential and diverse work of figures like Jack Goody, Ian Watt, Walter Ong, and Marshall McLuhan, society in general is described as flowing from orality/illiteracy to visuality/literacy, which tracks a simi­ lar course from premodern and prescientific thought to modern, rational thought.41 Especially in the early work of Jack Goody and Ian Watt, a cul­ ture that shifts from oral/illiterate to literate is characterized as passing from “simple” to “complex,”42 from a society that has a sense only of the culture of the present and the capacity for “collective memory,” as Hal­ bwachs coined the term, to one that has the power of “history.”43 These seminal studies, and Goodys work in particular, all propose an essential technology of the intellect in the context of culture, which is also a teleol­ ogy, a standard typology in modern social reasoning 44 Cultural develop­ ment always seems to run hand in hand with race, and George Stocking has demonstrated how literacy and orality inform early anthropological formulations of evolution among “races.”45 Yet this dialectic did more than divide the “modern” world from the rest, it parsed levels within its own domains. Michel de Certeau, in a study on the writing of history in France from the seventeenth century to the present, argues: “Orality is displaced, as if excluded from writing. It is isolated, lost, and found again in a Voice' which is that of nature, of the woman, of childhood, of the people.”46 Furthermore, he finds “orality” to be the purview of “religion” and “popular culture” in the seventeenth cen-

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tury in France, an era when the creation of textual knowledge in the name of science and reason sat alongside the making of popular musical, theat­ rical, and hymnal-religious culture.47 Although a wholesale association of the realm of the “oral” with the “subaltern” should be avoided—in South Asia, orality is as central to Brahminical orthodoxy as to lower caste devotionalism—modern culture, at least, has become conditioned by the dialectic of orality and literacy and in turn categorizes its own members in a way that parallels the later work of historians of capital and social change. Orality and literacy mark class, access to power, and privilege at both the local level and in the context of “world history” and in the theory of social evolution. In response to Goody and Watt—essentially to Goody—R. W. Niezen tried to untangle the implications for their study in the exploration of sa­ cred writing 48 Niezen directly engages Claude Levi-Strauss when he pro­ poses the notion of “hot societies” that possess “restricted literacy” and “cold societies” with “widespread literacy.”49 Niezen compares literacy in the hot society of medieval Christianity in Europe and the cold society of contemporary African Islam among the Wahhabi of West Africa. The au­ thor s goal is to prove that scriptural literacy is a particular species of lit­ eracy that may engender a “hot” society (as in medieval Christian Europe) but does not lead to the kind of dynamic impulse to history, individuality, and revolution that Goody assumes to exist (in ancient Greece, for exam­ ple).50 Niezen asserts that in societies where literacy is tightly controlled by religious institutions, historical consciousness is stifled. Goody himself came to a more nuanced understanding of restrictions placed on literacy through social stratification, hence restrictions to historical conscious­ ness.51 Yet the dialectic of orality and literacy still holds sway, as highly conditioned as its conclusions may be. There is perhaps no place where the antagonism between orality and literacy is more apparent than in the modern science of philology, w h ich ). Z. Smith places at the center of the history of religions as a discipline. In particular, the creation of critical editions of certain texts attributed to discrete authors has long occupied an important place in South Asian reli­ gious studies. In his influential work A n Introduction to Indian Textual Criticism , S. M. Katre describes the interference of oral traditions with written ones in Sanskrit manuscript literature as a “pathology of texts,” a systemic illness of the body of work, using a term couched in the ultimate science, that of medicine.52 Orality, for Katre, caused the slow disintegra­ tion of the exact literate record; it eroded the written word by its unsys­ tematic oral interpolations. Trained in London as a philologist, Katre, a

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Maharashtrian Brahmin, returned to his hometown of Pune to become the director of the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute and a prominent figure in many important critical editions, including that of the M a häbhärata under the direction of S. V. Sukthankar (1887-1943). Sukthankar was more tolerant of the influence of orality than was his col­ league. Sukthankar believed that the problems of variation stemmed from the condition of oral transmission where the mind is hard-pressed to keep from meddling with an original author's intentions.53 The mind was prone to the lax transmission standards of orality; writing was a solution to the problem, but was constantly in battle with the undertow of the oral world. When copies of narratives or other texts did not match, the culprit was likely a scribe who allowed the heard to infect the w ritten. Several studies centered on South Asia have engaged this “divide” be­ tween orality and literacy, viewing the bifurcation with skepticism, but often, it seems, from the perspective of literacy invested with orality. Peter van der Veer has discussed the Orientalist creation of a textual foundation for Sanskrit literature through the composition of critical editions based on manuscripts that reflected the “primarily oral and performative nature” of narratives, such as the Vedas.54 The transfer of oral traditions into tex­ tual, “scientific,” arenas is tracked by van der Veer on a continuum between Brahminical and Orientalist philology.55 Wendy Doniger proposes the jux­ taposition of “fluid” and “fixed” written texts that exhibit purposeful and productive relationships with orality.56 Philip Lutgendorf's extensive study of the performative context of the R äm caritm anas argues that text and performance are inseparable; the two constitute one strand of praxis.57 Stuart Blackburn, A. K. Ramanujan, Kirin Narayan, Anne Feldhaus, and Joyce Flueckiger, among other folklorists of South Asia, have all amply demonstrated the deep involvement of orality and literacy, especially in the retelling of epic tales.58 J. S. Hawley has regularly invested the literary study of bhakti with ethnographic context and comment in order to draw out the oral and performative worlds in which bhakti exists.59 In a discus­ sion of the various “textures” of the Telugu K um äraräm uni K athä, Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam show how a written portion of the narrative is clearly not a “written text” but a “recorded” one, a transcription of an inherently oral discourse.60 Given the depth and number of these studies, one would be challenged to sustain the argument that South Asia has wit­ nessed the hegemonic ascendancy of literacy over orality. The British social anthropologist Jonathan Parry conducted an ethnog­ raphy in Benares, collecting oral data about how literacy and orality mix in the construction of history.61 Parry took Goody's ideas to task in the con-

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text of the “Brahminical tradition” or “traditional Hindu India.”62 Parry investigated the categories of “Brahminical” and “traditional” as they play out in relationship to Sanskrit and the pronouncements of Sanskritic scholars. He interviewed priests, scholars, and “householders,” asking them what constitutes authoritative history in their worldview.63 His project sought to understand what forms of oral knowledge underwrote authority. What Parry found was a consistent reference to Sanskritic sources as preeminent among all literary sources. However, as a literary authority, bound up in Sanskrit texts, Sanskrit served as a kind of oral trope of au­ thority among people who never had read and never could read Sanskrit. References to Sanskrit texts were a way to establish the authority of a state­ ment, but no actual written text was required; the oral reference alone contained authoritative power. Parry suggests that orality and literacy, at least among Hindus in contemporary Benares, combine effectively to form a gateway between “tradition” and innovation based on Sanskrit literary works as a model for reasoned assessments.64 The purviews of orality and literacy are not mutually exclusive, and neither is credited with sustaining either “tradition” or “cognitive modernism,” supposedly a necessary pre­ condition of historiography.65 An alternative way to imagine the relationship between orality and lit­ eracy is presented by Michel de Certeau in his study of the practices of “everyday life.” He has suggested that the modern idea of writing and au­ thorship occurred because writing had lost its connection to orality.66 Progressive developments in writing began to refer to earlier written sources, rather than to “original” oral ones, and writing took on a charac­ ter all its own. The symbiotic connection between orality and literacy was lost. In the modern-day West, writing came to inhabit a kind of elevated structure above orality, a technology thought to maintain greater clarity and precision of communication so long as its referents, its basis for sub­ stantiation, remained within the written record. Such an idea is readily apparent in the work of Goody and Watt, for example. Although they clearly state that literacy is always afloat in a sea of orality,67 the advent of self-referential writing is also the advent of history, a lifeboat on the ocean of information. But this shift to a self-referential writing system can be seen not as a positive, progressive advancement but, rather, as the mark of a loss of cultural integrity and a schism that takes on the shapes of class differences. Brought to the level of global comparison, this division comes to mark civilizations as “premodern” and “modern” or “developing” and “developed.” The dialectic of orality and literacy is at the heart of the self-serving judgments of the modern world.

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In the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition, no rupture with an oral tradi­ tion is marked, and no teleology of development following the line of lit­ eracy is upheld. The idea that the social world into which Namdev is inserted ever evinced a “transition” from the oral to the written cannot be sustained, and very few concrete examples exist anywhere in the world of a clear transition from an oral society to a literate one—this distinction is one of the key problems of the orality-literacy debate. Instead, in Namdev s Maharashtrian public memory there is a systematic interweaving of oral­ ity and literacy that yet privileges orality at least rhetorically through the biography and autobiographical statements attributed to Namdev. When set alongside the abiding importance of kirtan in the Maharashtrian Nam­ dev tradition, the superior position of performance makes good sense. In other contexts, such as those that surround Tukaram or Jnandev, literacy is often ascendant but still in partnership with orality and performance; antagonism is not found between these realms. This chapter demonstrates how orality functions in a system of writing, producing texts that serve and, in some cases, transcribe performance. The Namdev tradition in M a­ harashtra participates in both spheres of writing and speech. Yet the tradi­ tion does invest orality, specifically performance, with an influence over literacy. How can the largely modern dialectic of orality and literacy help explain the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition? The logic of transmission in the tradition in Maharashtra is clearer if the term “oral” or “orality” is abandoned, for several reasons. First, “orality” has been conditioned by a relationship with “literacy,” which is hard to extricate from a teleology that places orality as an early step toward liter­ acy. A tradition that uses the voice and body to communicate over time, rather than paper and ink, should not be seen as a tradition fixed in some premature stage of cognitive or technological development. Second, the idea of orality often invokes a sense of narrative chaos, or at least of the instability of a message, a constant cause of correction for the text critic and philologist. Poststructuralism brought to the forefront the old idea that even written words are never fixed symbolically, but are always inter­ preted or misinterpreted. In short, orality and literacy are equally incapa­ ble of precisely preserving and communicating a message. Third, the term “oral” should be abandoned because it suggests that literacy serves no pur­ pose whatsoever within the context of “the oral” or that literacy is a tech­ nology outside the ken of an oral traditions practitioners. Nothing could be further from the truth in the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition. The past 150 years have seen the prodigious creation of texts regarding Nam­ dev in Marathi, Hindi, Punjabi, and English, among other languages. Nam-

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dev’s followers regularly use print and writing, and these include famous performers. For these three reasons primarily, I use the term “performance” to stand for some of the ideas associated with orality, but with the caveats men­ tioned above and others to come. As to orality s archrival, literacy, I prefer the term “permanence,” in the sense of something immutable, to indicate the intentions of those who commit to writing narratives that they wish to make fixed and unchanging.68 The idea of permanence captures more ac­ curately what I believe is the collective sense of the power of writing and printing in modern society. However, I do not want to suggest that those who choose performance as a means of preservation do not also wish their materials to be eternally available—that is, performance does not exclude the desire to preserve materials. Rather, it assumes that preservation and change are linked; whereas the idea of permanence in this context assumes that preservation and immutability are linked. The conceit here is that lit­ eracy has provided the ability to preserve data over time more accurately; to distribute it more widely (especially in modernity, which is always con­ cerned with the reach of the “global”); and to allow for referentiality. This means that some level of permanence is required for progress, and writing has been a vital innovation in human communication to allow progress through various vistas. The essential benefit of literacy, in theory of the modern, has been this sense of permanence, this fight against chaos, decay, and inertia, a place for reason to substantiate and sustain itself against time. In the terms of the dialectic proposed here—“performance” and “permanence”—the emphasis on the former in the Maharashtrian Nam­ dev tradition is centrally important in understanding what has value within the tradition. The skill of narration and the ability to entertain are vital; the ability to write is not. But the secondary status of writing does not also mean that an idea of authorship, however conditioned by literacy, is not present. Authorship is essential here in ways quite similar to pat­ terns of authorship in modernity. The author organizes and validates sub­ jects; the author focuses critical attention; and the author generates meaning. In performance, the interweaving lines of authorship, from past to present, are apparent, but in the texts examined here the lines of author­ ship become obscured; in literacy produced by the Maharashtrian Nam­ dev tradition, it is even harder to ascertain who is an “author.” This is ironic from a modern perspective, in which writing essentially created the modern author. Elizabeth Eisenstein has suggested that in early modern Europe, the rise of the printing press produced the idea of

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the modern author as a single agent, and it is toward this creation that postmodern critics of authorship orient their arguments.69 But as seen in Lohiyas text, for example, the idea of authorship in the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition has not taken as its central concept the sovereign, crea­ tive author. Instead, the tradition has kept at its core a corporate model of authorship. Through the media of writing and print, as well as through the medium of performance, this corporate configuration has shifted and ex­ panded, but has not transformed itself into a mirror image of the modern Western author that Eisenstein sees produced through the world of print. Yet texts, printed and handwritten, exist in the tradition and are impor­ tant as a temporary archive for performance, as a resource to performers, and, in rare cases, as a fossilization of kirtan , a snapshot of the kirtankar caught in the act. In discussing the “historiographical operation” in France, Michel de Certeau proposed viewing writing as “the inverted image of practice.”70 In­ verted because it must mirror the subject of its history, but must necessarily do so from the present, backward. In other words, the practice that is the subject of histories moves forward in time, and the historian, in an action necessitated by his or her position later in time, works backward, “prescrib­ ing for beginnings what is in reality a point of arrival, and even what would be a vanishing point in research.”711 would argue that the Namdev tradi­ tion in Maharashtra, operating in a historiographic mode, sought to ad­ dress this very problem by reinventing the past in the present through performance, by blending time within performative space and finding in writing ways of assisting this process. And this mode of performance so conditioned a historical epistemology that literacy could not supplant per­ formance as the dominant technology of historical composition. The notebook tradition described here is a residue, a literate trace of a more dominant practice of performance. Yet this residue has served as an archive in major pilgrimage and religious centers and is the bedrock of modern printed editions. A line of performance fuses together the lineages of orality and literacy (and print) in the Maharashtrian Namdev tradition. My contention here, however, is that performance remains dominant, held up as a superior medium not just of expression but also of maintenance. Although I would not argue that the resilience of performance in the M a­ harashtrian Namdev tradition is to be interpreted as a protest or challenge to literacy or the power of writing,72 the realm of the “oral” seems always to be associated with the “peasant.”73 Here, I do not believe that the associa­ tion of the Namdev Maharashtrian tradition with performance is to be read as a feature of resistance to the field of power but, rather, as a strategic

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choice of media, in this case performance and human media, reinforced by Namdev s consistent association with the kirtan. The Namdev Maharashtrian tradition has been surrounded by writing and has used writing, but in the service of performance. The permanence sought in the commitment to writing associated with Jnandev or Tukaram is replaced by a desire to preserve a tradition in inherently oral media, to keep it true to its (oral) word. Part 1 of this book seeks to express the practices associated with Namdev s public memory in Maharashtra. Chapter 1 investigates history and hagiography; chapter 2 studies the centrality of authorship; and chapter 3 explores the interplay of orality and literacy. As sets of practices, these activities constitute what I call the “will to remember” that is evident in bhakti . This will is expressed through performative and written media and through both scholarly historical inquiry and popular biographical recob lections. Together, these practices form publics as they all require audb ences and assume that audiences demand further instantiations of memory. In Part 2, the discussion advances from the practices of public memory to historical moments when bhakti has replied to the demands of public memory.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Smith 2001. Ibid.:i40. For history in anthropology, see, for example, Faubion 1993:46-50. See Mann 1996:1-50. Ibid. See Kiehnle i997a:2i. See Date and Karve 1995 [19361:5:2243-2244. One exception to this use of vahi in modern Marathi is in reference to Tukarams bijaki vahi.

9. NG:57o [verse 1381]. 10. Kiehnle points out this interesting feature of the song in her work on Jnandev (i997a:2o). 11. See Gordon 1993. 12. Ranade 1984:132. For more on the connection between patronage and written his­ torical narratives, see Brown 1988:323, 325. See also Goswamy 1966. For instance, many famous performers of the erotic Marathi lavani genre, such as Ram Joshi and

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30.

{263}

Honaji (eighteenth century) became equally famous for their performances of the nonerotic kirtan. See Callewaert and Op de Beeck 1991* Callewaert and Lath (1989) would disagree with this assessment. See their chapter “Musicians and Scribes” Ibid.:4. Ibid.:ii-v. NG:i. NG:v. Personal communication, Pandharpur, July 1998. Furthermore, in 2001, Nikte com­ pleted a new anthology of Namdevs songs using the Pandharpur manuscripts, and other manuscripts, as a primary resource. The lines read: “utdhavägamanaprärambha." The popularity of the Uddhav story with Krishna mythology and within the work of sant singers has been explored in Hawley 1984. It is also interesting to note that Mahipati considered Namdev an avatar of Udho, Utdhav or Uddhav (Abbott and Godbole 1996 [i93i]:chap. 9, verses 7-12). Anna Schultz, oral information, July 2000. This is song 201 in the Sri Nämdev Gäthä. Manuscript accession number 7761 in the collection of Deccan College, Pune, mea­ suring 7.1' x 6.8', with 54 folios. The full text of this portion is printed in the appendix. Lohiya 1997. See Woodmansee and Jaszi 1994. We might also notice, as an interesting aside, that at the conclusion of the first kir­ tan, as it is transcribed, is an illustration of two decidedly Christian angels, one playing a trumpet and the other playing a violin! Mahipati in Abbott and Godbole 1996 [1931] 158 [chap. IV:i2]. Mahipati’s tradition floruit is 1716-90. See Khanolkar 1977:237.

31. See colophon in the text, chap. 56, verse 215, and Khanolkar 1977:237.

32. Khanolka:xxvi. 33. From the Santalilämrta (1.67-69), quoted and translated in Abbotts introduction to the Bhaktavijaya (Abbott and Godbole 1996 [i93i]:xxvi). 34. Ibid.:xxvii. 35. According to the Sri Nämdev Gäthä, the Adi and biographical Tirthävali appear, with variations, in ten manuscripts out of thirty consulted for the editorial project. Two of these have colophons: from Dhule, dated “1631-1634”for its composition and 1769 for its final shape; and Pandharpur “H” dated 1735. The Adi is also found in Jaganade s manuscript, dated for its final shape to 1731, but attributed to “Jaganade s hand,” presumably in the latter part of the seventeenth century. All three sources probably predate the composition of the Bhaktavijay. 36. Mahipati 1890 [1762]: chap. 57, verses 220-21. 37. The verb varne is also glossed by Molesworth as “to sing the excellencies of” (1991 [1831]735), and in the Mahärästra Sabda Kos as guna-kathan karane or “to speak the qualities [of someone or God]” (Date and Karve 1995 [19361:2757). 38. Mahipati 1890 [1762]: chap. 57, verse 212. 39. Ibid.: verse 223. 40. I have a printed copy of the Bhaktavijay from 1890, which is a reprint of an earlier copy, but I do not know the date of that copy. To my knowledge, the first mention

The History o f the Book in South Asia {264}

41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

ORALITY AND LITERACY/PERFORM ANCE AND PERMANENCE

of Mahipati in a Western scholarly publication is in Tassy 1968 [1839]. The first mention in modern Marathi scholarship appears in Janardan i860. There are ap­ parently earlier mentions of Mahipati in scholarship, but I am unaware of them. Goody 1977; Goody and Watt 1963; McLuhan 1962,1964; Ong 1982. Goody and Watt 1963:310, 345. Goody and Watt have proposed a fascinating, and troubling, paradigm of scholarship wherein the sociologist should study literate, developed societies, which are those that have history; whereas the job of the an­ thropologist should be to study oral, illiterate and undeveloped societies, that have no sense of history but merely of present culture (343). They independently moved away from this position in their later work, but the idea that they identify is still prominent in Euro-American thought. Halbwachs 1980 [1925]. Other studies examine literacy and orality in the context of cognitive development, such as Luria 1976 and Vygotsky 1962. Stocking 1968. See also Chomsky 1975. Certeau 1988:183. Ibid.:i84. Niezen 1991. Ibid.:229. See Levi-Strauss 1966. Ibid.:253. See Goody 1986,1987. Katre 1954:20. Sukthankar i933:lxviii. In Ali 1999:136. See also van der Veer 2001. Van der Veer: 143. Doniger 1995. Lutgendorf 1991. Blackburn 1996; Feldhaus 1995, 2003; Flueckiger 1996; Narayan 1989; Ramanujan 1991. See Hawley 1981,1983, and 1984. Rao et al. 2003:10. Parry in Overing 1985:200-225. Ibid.:200. Ibid.:203-204. Ibid.:22i. Ibid.:2i7. Certeau 1988:137. “We must reckon with the fact that in our civilization, writing is clearly an addition, not an alternative, to oral transmission” (Goody and Watt 1963:345) I use this term without reference to the way in which Eliade and others have used it in the context of “myth” and its functions vis-a-vis history. Eisenstein 1979. Certeau 1988:87. Ibid.:86. Cf. Skaria in Amin and Chakrabarty 1996:13-58, a brilliant essay in which Skaria critiques Derrida through an analysis of writing in the context of the Dangs re­ gion of western India in the nineteenth-century encounter with colonialism and suggests that nonphonocentric writing may pose a direct and purposeful chal-

101

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{2 6 5 ]

lenge to other technologies of literacy, especially the “logocentrism” identified by Derrida. 73.

For example, see Guha 1983:54; Nora 1989:7.

Part II Technology and Practices

[6] EARLY BOOKS AND NEW LITERARY PRACTICES

1556-1800 Stuart Blackburn

rint reached India in the mid-sixteenth century and Tamil books were printed soon after, although commercial printing did not develop until the early nineteenth century; this was also when folklore first entered print. By 1900, however, printed folklore was used in schools, read as cheap pamphlets and published as scholarly books; from the 1870s, folklore, especially folktales in English translation, had entered nationalist discourse. In this chapter, I will argue that to understand these uses of printed folklore in nineteenth-century Madras we must look back to nearly three centuries o f interaction between south Indians and Europeans; printing is an obvious legacy of that encounter, but hand in hand with the new technology, the colonial encounter also initiated literary practices that fundam entally changed Tamil literary culture. N one o f these practices began precisely or exclusively as a result o f either colonial contact or printing, but their effects on Tamil literary culture were magnified through the encounter with Europeans and European languages and through their alliance with print .1 W hile the history o f these new literary practices is relatively easy to trace, their consequences are not; nevertheless, I think a case can be made that translation, interlingual texts, script reform and discursive prose, stimulated new attitudes toward language and literature among Tamils. W riting about new attitudes toward language in nineteenthcentury Europe, Foucault remarked that language gained a ‘history

P

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27

and became an ‘object o f knowledge ’.2 In colonial south India, new literary practices, enhanced by print, contributed to a similar but not identical process o f the objectification of language. O f course, Tamil had always been an object o f knowledge, at least to the pundits who established the early grammars; but the encounter with Europeans, I believe, led to a fundamental shift in the way Tamils viewed their lan­ guage: no longer only as a patrimony, but as a thing to be measured, known and used. This new perspective emerged at first only among the tiny num ber o f Tamils who worked with Europeans, but eventually this understanding, im plicit in public instruction and study o f the language, became widespread. T he interaction between Tamils and Europeans, Jesuit missionaries in the first instance, then Lutherans and other Protestants, and finally British (and French) civil servants and scholars, initiated a range o f cross-linguistic activities: Tamils taught Tamil to outsiders; they learnt European languages from Europeans; Tamils translated European languages into Tamil and Tamil into Euro­ pean languages; and Europeans learnt, taught and translated into and, though less frequently, from Tamil. As a result o f all this activity, stretching over three centuries, from 1550 to 1850, and supported by dozens of interlingual grammars and more than fifty interlingual dictionaries, Tamil became a formal field o f academic study, an object o f knowledge, and eventually acquired a longer literary history. This linguistic exchange also produced a shift o f perspective: if to speak a language is to inhabit a culture, then to teach a language is to move outside a culture; to translate your m other tongue is to conceive for it a purpose beyond your own use. W ith the colonial encounter, I believe that Tamils began to see their language from the outside, from the vantage point of a foreigner; and viewed from that perspective, it could be considered a thing to be acquired, manipulated and reformed. More important, language was not only malleable, it was itself a tool for ideological and social change. O ne measure o f the impact o f Europeans and European languages on Tamil is to consider the very different interaction between Tamil and other Indian languages. I am not here concerned with the histor­ ical influence o f Indian languages on Tamil on the morphological or

The History o f the Book in South Asia

28

PRINT, FOLKLORE, AND NATIONALISM

lexical levels, but rather with the nature o f that interaction and its consequences for perceptions o f language. T he deep and extensive influence o f Sanskrit and Prakrit, for instance, is well known, but, as E. Annamalai has pointed out, this long contact did not produce any bilingual dictionaries, sayTamil-Sanskrit or Prakrit-Tam il .3 The only exception to this m ight be the medieval glossaries which often used Sanskrit to explicate the ‘hard words’ in the m anipravala Vaisnava commentaries .4 N or were Tamil grammars w ritten in Sanskrit or Pali or Prakrit by the proponents of Brahminism, Buddhism and Jainism when they settled in the Tamil country. T he arrival of the Portuguese, on the other hand, generated both the first interlingual dictionary and the first interlingual grammar of an Indian language, both by Henriques and both lost, at least until recently; a m anuscript, believed to be Henriques’s grammar, titled Sumario de A rte Malauar.; was found in Lisbon in 1954 and published in 1982.5 O ther such interlingual texts followed, beginning with de Proencas Tamil—Portuguese dictionary in the late seventeenth century and many more in the eighteenth century, most famously C.G. Beschi s five dictionaries and two grammars. These first interlingual texts marked a significant shift in language use: whereas the monolingual Tamil dictionaries and grammars were conceived as tools for composition, the bi- or trilingual texts prepared by Europeans were used for instruction .6 This absence of interlingual texts is related to another dimension of pre-colonial contact between Tamil and other Indian languages: there were virtually no translations, in the sense o f a word-for-word rendering from one language to another. Instead, the interaction between Tamil and Sanskrit, in particular, was characterised by assimilation, whereby foreign words were absorbed only if they were capable o f being pronounced in Tamil and written in Tamil script. Thus only Sanskrit words with sounds comparable to those in Tamil were transliterated into Tamil, at least into written Tamil, often with someTamilising suffix (tevan for deva, for instance)/ Other, unassimilatable words were kept out of written Tamil until about AD 1500. There were, o f course, loan translations (dharma-putra became aravanmakan ), and some new words were coined for Sanskrit words w ith sounds not available in Tamil (‘Sanskrit’ was known as vatam oli , the ‘northern language’).

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This is not to say that ancient and medieval south India was not multilingual, but only that the multilingualism was characterised by assimilation not translation. The extensive linguistic and grammatical interpenetration in this early period is described in Anne M oniuss excellent study o f Tamil Buddhist texts, especially the Viracoliyam (c. AD 1000) which codified the rules forTamilising Sanskrit words; this sometimes wholesale incorporation of Sanskrit concepts and categories into Tamil only illustrates the assimilation model that predominated until the arrival o f Europeans .8 As M onius shows, this early text was part of a project for transforming Tamil from a regional language into a translocal one; I will argue that the colonial encounter on the other hand, initiated a translation project that contributed to the marginalisation o f Tamil in the nineteenth century. After about AD 1500, translations from Sanskrit did appear and unassimilated words began to flood literary Tamil; eventually a hybrid idiom {manipravalam), mixing Sanskrit and Tamil words, and Sanskrit terms with Tamil inflections, was devised prim arily for use am ong Vaisnavas.9 A special, hybrid script (grantha) was also developed in order to write Sanskrit letters. Despite these medieval hybrids, and although many south Indian pundits were literate in both languages, the remarkable fact is that very few Sanskrit texts en tered Tamil through translation prior to AD 1500. One has to stretch hard to find examples of even loose translations: the Tamil K urm apuranam resembles one Sanskrit version, and Tantiyalankaram is close to the Sanskrit text, but the historical relation between these sets o f texts is far from certain .10 Kampan did not translate Valmiki; he rewrote the epic in Tamil. N or are the Tamil K antapuranam and B hagavatam translations o f their Sanskrit sources; they are transformations and adaptations, and the changes are substantial. The northern tongue’ was largely experienced through its sacred texts in a separate language, and assimilated rather than translated. During the early modern period (1600-1800), Telugu and Marathi were also prom inent as court languages in the Tamil country, but, like Sanskrit, neither language was extensively translated into Tamil. Never­ theless, the assimilation that once characterised Tamil interaction with other Indian languages gave way to greater interlingual practices during

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this period, especially the eighteenth century, when new literary practices, detailed in this chapter, were already gaining ground. As Indira Peterson has shown, the literature produced at the M aratha court at Tanjore is characterised by a striking degree o f multilingualism; many texts were self-consciously written in various and playful combinations o f Telugu, Sanskrit, Tamil, M arathi, and occasionally H industani. This textual polyglossia, in Petersons analysis, reveals a movement from viewing language as rooted in one culture to seeing language as detach­ able .11 In other words, language had become a thing, and the silent assimilation o f the early centuries was overturned in the volatile rearrangement of politics and social relations that shook up the Tamil country during the eighteenth century. These alterations in the inter­ action between languages and perceptions of language owe something, I believe, to the new literary culture that emerged from the encounter w ith Europeans and their languages. Beginning in the sixteenth century, interaction between Tamil and European languages was different from that which we have described for Tamil and the Indian languages, at least before the early m odern period. It differed in m otivation (conversion rather than integration) and means (print rather than oral/w ritten com position), and it was characterised more by translation than by assimilation. O ne factor mili­ tating against assimilation, o f course, was that European languages arrived in south India after merely a long journey at sea, w ithout the centuries-long familiarisation with scripts and sounds that accompa­ nied Sanskrit s penetration o f Tamil. A few Portuguese words, and later many English words, did enter Tamil, but what distinguishes the con­ tact with these languages from that with Indian languages is the sheer num ber of foreign texts that appeared in Tamil. Beginning with the first printed Tamil book in 1577, which was a translation of a Portu­ guese catechism, printed translations into Tamil totalled more than two hundred by the end of the eighteenth century; by the early nineteenth century there was an avalanche, as not just C hristian texts but also governmental acts, m unsifs regulations and European popular tales appeared in Tamil. Translation is usually considered as a movement out o f India, as an

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instrum ent of Orientalism which misrepresented India to a European audience of readers; but translating into Indian languages, bringing an outsider s perspective within Indian languages, was at least as influential in shaping local attitudes toward language and the literary past. For one thing, these initial translations into Tamil were coterminous with printing in Tamil; interlingual dictionaries and grammars, script reform and discursive prose writing were also first fruits of the new technology, but they m atured later, especially in the eighteenth century through the efforts of the Jesuits and the Lutherans. The literary and linguistic practices of these missionaries, their rivalry in print, and Besehts literary tale, which brought folktales into Tamil literary culture, are central to our story; but first we must consider the earlier history of Tamil printing during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Henri Henriques and the sixteenth century Tamil was not only the first Indian language to appear in print (both in Roman transliteration and in its own script), it was also the first nonEuropean language in print. This historic event arose from a conver­ gence between colonial expansion and local politics, plus the talent and determination of one man, Henri Henriques. Soon after Vasco de Gamas landing in 1498, the Portuguese built a string of forts and trading cen­ tres along the west coast o f India, first, with the support o f their ally the Zamorin, at Cochin in 1503, next at Goa in 1510, then Q uilon in 1519 and C ranganur in 1537; meanwhile Franciscan, Augustinian and D om inican missionaries built churches .12 T he Society o f Jesus (founded in Rome in 1540), as the intellectual vanguard of the counterReformation, built mission stations in those fortified settlements and set up the first printing press at the College of St Paul in Goa in 1556 . But why did Tamil, which was spoken not on the west but on the east coast, become the language o f early Indian printing ?13 W hy not Konkani, spoken in Goa, or why not Malayalam, spoken in Cochin, Q uilon and Cranganur, where the first books were actually printed? The answer is that the Jesuits, led by St Francis Xavier, concentrated their missionary work on the east coast among the Tamil-speaking Parava

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fishermen. A decade before Xavier, Franciscan missionaries had reached the Paravas, who lived on the so-called Fishery Coast, stretching north from Kanyakumari up to the Coromandel Coast. As Susan Bayly explains, the mass conversions o f the Paravas were in part a result of fierce warfare in the 1530 s between the Portuguese and east coast M uslim groups, with whom the Paravas were also in conflict over control o f fishing and diving rights. Following the principle of my enemys enemy is my friend, a delegation of Paravas visited Portuguese authorities at Cochin to seek protection. Seizing the opportunity to extend their control over maritime trade to the east coast, the Portuguese soon dispatched a party of Padres, who reportedly made thousands o f converts .14 Following in their wake, Xavier arrived in Goa in 1542 and then travelled up the east coast as far asTuticorin and Punnakayal. Before he left for the Far East two years later, Xavier had established a network o f Jesuit mission stations and baptised more than 10,000 Paravas (and Malayalam-speaking Mukuvars on the west coast); his zeal and charisma also brought m any Jesuit missionaries to what was then a hinterland. Today his legacy is evident in the shrines to St Xavier and the towering spires o f Catholic churches in fishing villages along the coast, as well as Portuguese words in local speech. The most im portant o f those early Jesuits inspired by Xavier was Henri Henriques (1520-1600), a Portuguese Jew, who arrived on the Fishery Coast in 1547 and worked in south India until his death in 1600. During those years, Henriques produced five different books in Tamil script and language, printed at various Jesuit settlements on the west coast; he also compiled a Tamil grammar and a Tamil dictionary, which, though never printed, were widely used by other Europeans. He m ight just be, as Graham Shaw has suggested, ‘the first great European scholar o f any Indian language ’.15 More than twenty years before Henriques’s books were printed in India, however, a book using an Indian language was printed in Lisbon. In 1554, Vicente de Nazareth, Jorge Carvalho and Thome da Cruz, three Indians living in Lisbon, translated a Portuguese catechism ( C artilha) into Tamil, and then transliterated the Tamil into Roman script; their work was supervised by Fr. Joao Villa de Conde, a Franciscan mission-

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ary who had himself travelled widely in south India and Ceylon. The C artilh a , intended for use by Portuguese missionaries before their departure for south India, was a bilingual text, with the romanised Tamil in large red letters above the Portuguese version in black letters .16The Lisbon Cartilha soon led to the first printing presses in India. In 1556 Portuguese Jesuits set up a press at the College of St Paul in Goa; oper­ ated by a lay brother named Joao de Bustamente, this press issued a total of eight books in a variety of languages (Portuguese-Latin, Konkani, Ethiopic and Tamil); a few years later a commercial press was also set up in Goa, which printed six more books. W ith one exception, all these early books produced from the two presses at Goa between 1556 and 1581 were printed in roman types; that sole exception was Henriques s D octrin a Christum o f 1577, a Tamil translation o f a Portuguese cat­ echism, which then became the first book printed in an Indian script and language .17 Early on, Henriques realised that missionary success required books printed in Indian scripts. During the first years of the Jesuit mission on the Fishery Coast handwritten copies o f a catechism were distributed, but few Paravas could read or understand the Portuguese. Recognising the problem almost imm ediately after landing in India, Henriques began to compile a Tamil grammar, and after a short two years he had acquired enough knowledge to complete a first draft o f it (Sum ario de A rte M alauar) ,18 Henriques revised and perfected his text for many years; he also compiled a Tamil-Portuguese dictionary and planned translations of a catechism and a confessionary. None of these, neither the completed manuscripts nor those planned, reached the press. How could they? No Tamil types had been cast. Indeed, following the example o f the Lisbon C artilha o f 1554, Henriques suggested that his Tamil gram m ar be printed in Europe with rom an types. But the situation changed in 1574 when the newly appointed Jesuit Visitor to the Province o f India, the historian and diplom at Alessandro Valignano, arrived in Goa; the following year he convened a conference and instructed H enriques to prepare a catechism and confessionary in Tamil (and another, unnam ed missionary to prepare the same in Konkani). To complete this task, Henriques was relieved of his missionary duties on

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the east coast and moved to Goa where he began to prepare his texts; there he was assisted by Father Pero Luis, a Tamil Brahmin, who had entered the Jesuit order in 1562, aged thirty. The stage was finally set when Tamil types were cast in Goa by Joao Goncalves, with assistance from Luis. In 1577 the first o f Henriques s five books was printed in Goa: D octrina Christam, Tampiran Vanakkam ('Worship of the Lord’) possibly a revision o f St Xaviers earlier rewriting (1542) and then imperfect Tamil translation (1544) o f a Portuguese catechism by Joam de Barros printed in Lisbon in 1539.19 This 1577 text was, as noted earlier, not only the first book printed with Indian types but the first w ith non­ rom an metallic types anywhere in the world; the first such books in Chinese and Japanese appeared more than a decade later, while the first book in another Indian script (Sinhala) did not appear until 1737.20 T he casting o f Konkani types had begun in the sixteenth century but was never completed; hence the practice (even today) of printing Konkani texts in roman types. Because no copy o f this 1577 D octrina Christam now exists, most scholars have been reluctant to accept it as historical fact, a consensus confirmed by the most recent study on early Tamil books .21 Graham Shaw, however, has demonstrated that its printing is beyond doubt: it was noted in contemporary letters (written by Valignano and Henriques) and listed in European library catalogues up to the end of the seven­ teenth century .22 Fortunately, samples o f the fonts used for that now missing book were reproduced when a second edition o f the same catechism, using improved types, was printed in Q uilon in 1578 .23 This second printed Tamil book was only sixteen pages, but a third catechism of 127 pages, a Tamil translation of another popular Portu­ guese text by Marcos Jorge, was printed, again with new types, in Cochin in 1579. Three catechisms (two were the same text), were printed in three consecutive years, w ith three sets o f types, at three different locations on the west coast. Henriques s two other books were printed at Cochin: a confessionary ( Confessionairo ) o f 214 pages in 1580; and a lives o f the Saints {Flos Sanctorum ), a prodigious work o f 669 pages, in 1586 .

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Fortune has not smiled on these early Tamil books. As m entioned above, after the copy in the Leiden University library disappeared sometime before the early eighteenth century, no known copy survives o f the 1577 D octrin a Christum. O nly one copy o f the 1578 D octrina Christum is now extant, having passed through m any hands before ending up at the Harvard University library. Two o f the three surviving copies of the 1579 edition o f D octrinu Christum were also lost in the middle of the twentieth century, one from the Sorbonne in Paris and the other from a Jesuit library in Belgium; the last surviving copy is at the Bodleian Library in Oxford (fortunately, a photostat copy had been made o f the Paris copy before it disappeared). Both the 1586 Flos Sunctorum and the 1580 confessionary are known from a single copy each, at the Vatican and Bodleian, respectively; the latter was found by Graham Shaw in 1980, a comparatively recent date, which raises hopes that more copies o f these first Tamil books may lie unknown in other libraries or private collections. Henriquess output of five books, with a total o f more than a thou­ sand printed pages, is impressive by the standards o f the day, but the impact of the dedicated Jesuit s labours is more difficult to assess. Un­ like the earlier Curtilhu and other books printed in roman letters, his catechisms, confessionary and lives o f the Saints were printed in Tamil script because they were aimed at Tamils themselves. However, a hand­ ful o f Christian religious texts, produced in a small num ber o f copies by Europeans in their coastal enclaves and used in their missionary work on the other coast hardly suggests that these early printed books penetrated deeply into local literary culture; indeed, it would be almost two hundred and fifty years before Indians took up printing, to any substantial extent, on their own .24 For south India, at least, this time lag m ight be explained in two ways. First, there was no demand: poets, scholars and rulers apparently saw no advantage or prestige in using print to produce what was already composed, heard and read through other means. Second, printing presses were difficult to obtain (the Jesuits, as we will soon learn, could not get one in the eighteenth century), and types for Indian scripts were extremely difficult to make: following the successful Tamil experiments in the sixteenth century,

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and the Konkani failure, no new types were cast in India until the early eighteenth centu ry. Paper was also scarce. Indeed, the scarcity of print­ ing presses, types and paper remained a problem, especially for Indians, well into the nineteenth century .25 The printed book was also a rare object in early m odern south India, even am ong missionaries, and knowledge o f its wonders may have not spread much beyond Christian circles. Nevertheless, this new m ethod o f preserving and disseminating texts m ust have impressed a culture already comm itted to doing the same on palm leaves: if not practical or prestigious, it was at least novel. Sources for these initial Tamil reactions to the printed book are few and are recorded by Euro­ peans, but they are suggestive. A Portuguese Jesuit history o f 1710 (wrongly) identified the 1577 Tamil catechism as £the first printed book that India saw on her soil5, adding that ‘by its novelty it helped a little to gain the goodwill of the natives’.26 The novelty o f the printed book is recorded again in eighteenth-century Protestant sources when these newly arrived missionaries distributed books among converts on the Coromandel Coast. But the depth of local desire for books is recorded even in the Preface to the 1579 catechism, addressed to the new Christians on Fishery Coast: Because you wished for you and your descendants to achieve salvation in heaven, you have desired many different kinds of printed books and contributed large sums of money toward a printing press. We therefore present this book to you as a gift. Your financial support for this press has earned you respect and praise in the eyes of the world.27 Writing about a much later event, H om i Bhabha has suggested that one group o f Indians displayed subversion o f colonial authority and naturalisation of a foreign religion when they spoke to a local catechist about the printed Bible they were reading aloud in a grove o f trees outside Delhi in 1817.28 But the earliest printed books, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, were probably viewed more like mirrors, clocks and other European objects brought to the Mughal courts at that time. Even in the nineteenth and tw entieth centuries, the mystique of the book in an essentially oral culture might, for some, still be a sign taken for wonders’.

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W hen the precious few copies of Henriques’s books reached the Fishery Coast, they were used in Christian rituals and displayed in churches. T he num ber of literates among the thousands of Parava converts would have been small, and these early books were almost certainly read aloud in groups. During the 1540s, Xavier had distributed a written copy of a catechism in each village he visited and exhorted the neophyte Christians to meet in one place and sing all together the elements o f the faith’ on every Feast day.29 The Annual Jesuit letter of 1600 m entions that the Tamil books had found their way into the hands o f Flindus in the interior, where pundits admired the novelty o f print .30 However local people encountered one of these books, they would have quickly known that, although in Tamil letters, it was not a typical Tamil text but something brought in from the outside. These were the beginnings of a new perspective toward language. For one thing, the woodblock prints on the front page o f these early books are striking. Two books (the 1579 catechism and 1580 confessionary) display the traditional Jesuit emblem o f IHS encircled by a shining sun, while the 1578 catechism shows, according to a Tamil Catholic scholar, ‘the Holy Trinity worshipped by saints and martyrs’, perhaps on Palm Sunday; but others will simply see a globe m ounted by a cross, flanked by two bearded and robed men seated on a platform, above a crowd o f spear-carrying men also with beards. The bilingual titles of the catechisms, printed in both roman (.Doctrina Christam) and Tamil ( Tampiran Vanakkam , Kiristtiyani Vanakkam ), also signalled that these books were translations, produced from another culture. Although the second Tamil title also indicates that ‘Christian and other keywords of the new faith (like kuruc , Portuguese ‘cross’) were being quickly assimilated into Tamil, the foreign source o f the text was unmistakably marked by the use o f ‘diam ond’ signs (f) before and after each of these Portuguese or Latin words transliterated into Tamil; for example, kattolik or ikireca (ecglesia> church) was framed by these special diam ond signs. Curiously, later dictionaries prepared by Protestant missionaries adopted a similar mark, more like an asterisk, to indicate which words were derived from Sanskrit (a practice followed by the authoritative Tam il Lexicon into the late tw entieth century). A nd if all these signs were missed, the 1578 catechism announced that it had been ‘translated into

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Tamil by Father Henri Henriques and Father M anuel de Sao Pedro’. In addition to its appearance, the prose of these early books, especially the catechisms and confessionary, was unlike anything in Tamil to that date. Tamil commentaries (urai) were generally either lapidary, erudite annotations of poetic texts {kurippurar, longer forms were called polippurat) or rather fulsome praise of authors and gods {payiram )?1 The prose of the Catholic catechisms, by contrast, uses simple diction and constructions to speak with a new tone of urgency, and of persuasion, addressed directly to the reader/listener. A leading French scholar has argued that the language of the 1554 Cartilha was that spoken by Paravas on the Fishery Coast, and while there seems little evidence for this claim, it is true that the Tamil in Henriques s books uses many colloquial expressions.32The first Tamil books in print also contained praise-prose sections, to the Virgin Mary, for example, w hich were forerunners to an enorm ous and popular literature o f Christian bhakti (largely by Vedanayakam Sastri in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries). But the overall tone of the catechisms is captured in a section headed ‘Final Things’ in the 1578 text: ‘In the end there are only four things: death, judgem ent, hell, heaven, and in the last words o f the 1579 text: ‘O nly by the name o f Jesus will you be saved ’.33 A similar prose o f advocacy, written in simple diction and appealing directly to readers, w ould be perfected by other missionaries in the eighteenth century b ut was not used by Tamil H indus until perhaps the 1830s, when the Crescent newspaper lent its support to an anti-missionary campaign in Madras. In addition to the Tamils who would have seen and heard these books on the east coast and its interior, there was a small group on the west coast who directly participated in producing them. Father Pero Luis and Father Manuel de Sao Pedro have already been mentioned as assisting Henriques in the work of translation; they also helped others to cast the all-im portant Tamil fonts. Pero Luis worked with Joao Goncalves for two years at Goa in order to prepare the fonts used in the 1577 catechism, but they managed to cast only fifty characters. Follow­ ing that printing, Pero Luis went down to Quilon, where he worked w ith Father Joao de Faria, and together they added more letters but were still unable to produce a full set. These are presumably the ‘learned

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Tamils who were acknowledged in the Preface to the 1579 catechism as having helped Henriques to perfect the orthography and fonts used in it. These men, and probably several unnamed others, were the first of an increasingly large num ber of Tamil—-mostly but not exclusively Christian— pundits, poets and entrepreneurs, who worked with Europeans over the next two hundred and fifty years on translations into Tamil, on revising orthography, standardising spellings, preparing interlingual grammars and dictionaries, and in fashioning a modern prose. The consequence of these new literary practices was that Tamils began to view language from a new angle, not just as familiar speech and written verse, but as an object to be acquired, manipulated and improved, for definite purposes— for religious, social and political reform. No longer simply a register of change, language was itself seen as an instrum ent o f change. In summary, Henriquess books, published between 1577 and 1586, constitute the first phase of printing in Tamil. As translations, using interlingual titles, displaying Christian imagery, highlighting new words with diam ond marks, and written in an unparalleled prose of advocacy using the conversational idiom, these books m ark the beginning of a new literary culture in Tamil. O f the five innovations discussed in this chapter, only a new orthography, introduced in the eighteenth century, was not among Henriquess achievements (the script used in his books resembled that used for contemporary, written Tamil). Nevertheless, the significance of the printing and literary work by Henriques and his assistants is underscored by the fact that no new Tamil fonts were cast in India until the early eighteenth century; and no new Tamil fonts were available at all until those made in Rome arrived on the Malabar coast in the 1670s. O nly then, in 1677, almost a hundred years after Henriquess last book was another Tamil book printed in India; and that was a very different Tamil catechism, written by a very different Jesuit missionary named Roberto de Nobili.

Roberto de Nobili and the seventeenth century W hy there should have been this long gap in Tamil printing is an interesting question. Certainly there was no shortage of texts written

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in or translated into Tamil by Jesuits in south India. N or did the Jesuit presses remain idle during the seventeenth century; at various centres along the west coast some forty books were printed between 1600 and 1700, but only four in Tamil. As in Henriques s time, presses at Goa printed several books, in Portuguese, Latin and Konkani (using roman types); at least one book in Syriac types was printed at Vaipikkotta (not far from Ambalakad); at Rachol, south o f Goa, the English Jesuit Thomas Stephens produced a purana of Christs life (1616) as well as a Konkani grammar (1640), the first printed grammar of any Indian language, again in rom an letters. And once the English East India C om pany established a centre at Surat, north o f Bombay, a lim ited success was achieved in printing H indu texts in 'Banian character’ (probably Gujarati types ).34 The century-long lull in Tamil printing m ust therefore be explained by technical problems. First, there was the now persistent lack of good Tamil fonts; those cast in the sixteenth century were presumably either worn out or lost since the Tamil types used in the seventeenth century were cast in Rome and then taken to India. Second, as Shaw noted, there was a lack of printers with sufficient knowledge o f Tamil; the official Jesuit printer in the province of Malabar at that time was a specialist in Konkani and was 'not known to have had any knowledge o f Tamil’.35 Even the fewTamil books that were printed in the 1670s m ight never have been produced; only a few years later, in 1684 the Portuguese officially withdrew support for Indian languages and ordered that education and missionary work be undertaken only in Portuguese and Latin. Printing in Indian languages resumed in Goa only in the 1820s. W hen these Tamil books were printed during the seventeenth cen­ tury, with the types made in Rome, it was not on the presses at Goa, but at Ambalakad, not far from C ochin, where the Jesuits had also established a college. Though only five in num ber and printed within a space o f two years, these books m ight be called the second phase or the revival ofTamil printing. There were five books but only two texts. The first was de Nobilis catechism, Nanopatecam, printed posthumously in three volumes: volume 1 (parts 1 and 2) in 1677; volume 2 (part 3) in 1678; and volume 3 (part 4) also in 1678. T he second text was An tern

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de Proencas Tamil-Portuguese dictionary o f 1679. This dictionary, the first to be printed in any Indian language, was a major innovation, while the catechism is remembered primarily because of its author. Roberto de Nobili, an Italian Jesuit, arrived in Goa in 1605 and died near Madras in 1656. After spending a few years on the Fishery Coast, Nobili made a m om entous move to M adurai, the capital o f the ancient Pandya kings, where he established a new Jesuit mission. Proficient in Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit, he wrote approximately ten works in Tamil (although others are often ascribed to him). The famous, three-volume catechism was an ambitious achievement consisting of eighty eight separate sections explicating the mysteries of the Christian truths; a similarly titled, but very different, text ( Nanopatecam) presented similar ideas in an anthology of twenty-six lectures or sermons. Nobili also wrote biographies o f the Virgin and Christ, as well as essays on theological topics. Beyond their sheer erudition, the significance of his writings is that they deliberately rejected the translation method of his predecessors and proposed instead assimilation .36 Unlike Henriques, for example, in order to create his catechism Nobili did not translate a Portuguese text into Tamil; instead he wrote his own manual, so that he might emphasise the mysteries and hidden truths o f the new faith. He also departed from Henriques and others in rejecting their reliance on transliterating Portuguese or Latin words into Tamil; instead, Nobili invented or resuscitatedTamil words, often derived from Sanskrit, a language the Italian knew well. In all his Tamil writings, Nobili chose to write in a philosophical language in order to explicate his vedanta-influenced theology; but this reliance on Sanskrit-derived Tamil terms, instead of transliterated Portuguese or Latin terms, outraged fellow Jesuits, especially his Superiors, who argued that Henriques s texts had set an inviolable standard that should not be abandoned .37 This debate about the proper Tamil to be used in translation, which continued throughout the colonial period and continues today whenever another translation of the Bible is proposed or printed, contributed to new ideas o f language as a malleable object and an instrum ent o f change. Tamil pundits and poets had already faced the choice of which Tamil5for centuries before these missionaries arrived, but I would argue

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that the missionaries’ translations and interlingual dictionaries raised the stakes of choosing an appropriate linguistic register: it was no longer simply a m atter of internally selecting words but of coining some and resignifying others to represent novel concepts and events. Nobili s controversial linguistic practices are perhaps less well known than his use o f the sacred thread and sandalwood paste, although they, too, derive from the same assimilationist stance. The noble-born Italians adoption o f local H indu dress, customs, language and theology cul­ m inated in his claim that he was neither a ‘parangi’ (foreigner) nor a Portuguese but a Brahmin. This claim soon embroiled the entire Jesuit world in a dispute that later became the famous ‘Malabar Rites5contro­ versy. In disputing with the Jesuit authorities in Rome, Nobili called on the aid o f his Tamil assistants; they had already helped him to write his theological tracts in Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit, but now Nobili involved them in an entirely new role, as witnesses in defence o f his linguistic and cultural practices. As Ines Zupanov describes it, Nobili enlisted Tamils as native voices’ in a proto-ethnographic’ manner: first the ‘testimonies’ on both sides o f the dispute were written in Tamil on palm leaf, then the Tamil text was translated into Portuguese and writ­ ten on paper; finally, Nobili asked his Tamil supporters to co-sign the docum ent to be sent to Rome .38 Eventually, Nobili won his battle with Rome, and his assimilationist stance was followed by m any Jesuits in the M adurai Mission, including Beschi. But the trium ph was only tem ­ porary; the controversy simmered throughout the eighteenth century and eventually led to the suppression o f the Jesuit order in India. Despite his controversial life and his considerable scholarship, Roberto de Nobili made a lim ited contribution to the innovations from which a new Tamil literary culture emerged; his disputed prose did contribute to the debate over which Tamil to use, but the writings themselves did not: of his texts, only his catechism was printed before the nineteenth century, and none was ever widely read. This obscurity may in part be explained by the fact that many copies o f his texts were undoubtedly lost when D utch Protestants ‘destroyed the libraries at Ambalakad and other places’ in their battles against the Portuguese .39 But it is also true that Nobili wrote his theological discourses in an

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indigestibly turgid prose, which m eant that they were ‘impossible to memorize, recite or s in g .40 If, as is often claimed, he were ‘the father of Tamil prose’, one would feel pity for the offspring. In truth, his philosophical, Sanskritised prose never gained popular acceptance; that honour belongs instead to one o f his Jesuit successors, and to his Protestant adversaries, in the eighteenth century. In fact, the most important Tamil book printed at Ambalakad in the seventeenth century was not written by Nobili. Rather it was a Tamil-Portuguese dictionary. Where Henriques had laboured but failed, another Jesuit, An tern de Proenca ( 1625- 66 ) succeeded, posthumously in 1679 41 Proencas dictionary was a limited success, however, containing only some 16,000 main entries, and the printing showed no real improvement over that achieved a hundred years earlier; again, good Tamil fonts were in such short supply that, according to one source, the Tamil words were printed with wooden types and the European words with metal types.42This was the first book printed in India to use western alphabetical order, and while it is easy to overstate and difficult to measure the impact o f this method of organising language, it did become standard for many intellectuals in Madras in the colonial century. As the first printed dictionary in any Indian language, Proencas work contributed to the formation of a new literary culture which increasingly relied on reference books and language learning. Nevertheless, and like the other innovations that resulted from colonial contact, Proencas lexicography would be significantly improved upon in the eighteenth century.

Beschi and the Lutherans in the eighteenth century It was not until the eighteenth century that the practices initiated in the sixteenth century began to lodge themselves firmly in Tamil literary culture. The rise of Tamil printing was dramatic: in the first two centu­ ries o f Indian publishing, only ten books (and only six different texts) were printed in Tamil; by 1800, however, the total num ber o f Tamil publications had reached 266.43 This increase was part of a rise in print­ ing throughout India, which saw the num ber o f printed books grow from a mere nineteen in the sixteenth century and forty in the

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seventeenth century, to 1712 new books printed in the eighteenth cen­ tury. But the increase in Tamil printing (266 books by 1800), and to a certain extent in Sinhala (139), so far exceeds that in Persian ( 100) or Bengali (84) that it must be attributed to a second development: from the early years of the eighteenth century, presses were working on the east coast, atTranquebar, Madras and Pondicherry, and across the Palk Straits at Colombo. In fact, none o f the early centres for Tamil print­ ing on the west coast— Goa, Cochin, Quilon, Ambalakad— produced a single book in any language in the eighteenth century .44 In part this was due to the shift in official Portuguese policy away from Indian languages; but it also follows a more general trend, in which, by the end o f the eighteenth century, political and economic power had shifted from Goa and its dependencies to Madras, C olom bo, C alcutta and Bombay. This relocation o f printing presses in India, m irroring the decline o f Portuguese power in the subcontinent and the rise o f D utch and British companies, wrought immediate and long-lasting changes in Tamil printing and literary culture. Early in the eighteenth century a printing press came to a Lutheran mission atTranquebar, a small Danish colony on the Corom andel Coast. A second arrival, nearby and only a few years later, ran counter to the growth o f British and Protestant influence but also changed Tamil literary culture: the Jesuit missionary, C.G . Beschi. Throughout the first half o f the eighteenth century, these two rival camps, the Lutherans and the Jesuits located barely fifty miles apart, engaged in theological disputes, arising from their differing interpre­ tations o f the Christian scriptures and approaches to missionary work. Underneath all the disputations, however, was Beschi the m an— con­ summate Tamil scholar and flamboyant missionary. Following Nobili s path, he was a controversial figure and went native, in an even more ostentatious fashion than his predecessor, which angered his Lutheran neighbours 45 At times the antagonism between them became aggres­ sive, and even spilled over into violence and death. This internecine Christian dispute would have little bearing on our main narrative if not for the fact that it was conducted by the Lutherans

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through printed books and pamphlets and that it provoked Beschi to write tracts that led to the development of modern Tamil prose. Between them, Beschi and the Lutherans also produced major dictionaries and grammars, influential translations and early discursive prose. But it was the Jesuit who had the greater influence on these literary practices, which took root in the eighteenth century and gave a defining shape to modern Tamil literary culture. Beschi wrote more than twenty books— including an epic poem in Tamil and several grammars and dictionaries; and although only one o f his books was printed during his lifetime (because the Jesuits had no printing press), m any o f them became standard reference works by the early nineteenth century. In addition to the script reform that he brought in (or reintroduced), Beschi s prose writings broke new ground in Tamil literary history. O ne of his works, Param artta K uruvin K a ta i (hereafter ‘G uru Sim pleton), was the first example o f Tamil prose fiction, the first Tamil folktale brought into literary culture and the first printed book of Tamil folklore. T hat printing occurred much later, in 1822, in London, before which we must describe Beschi s rivalry with the Lutherans, the rise of Protestant printing and the shift o f literary culture to Madras. Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi was born in 1680 in Castiglione delle Stiviere, in northern Italy, and entered the Jesuit order at age eighteen. For the next two years he underw ent noviciate training at Novellara and then taught for a year at the Jesuit college in Ravenna; from there he was sent to Bologna, where he studied philosophy and theology for a full decade. Beschi was ordained as a priest in 1709, and sailed from Lisbon to Goa in the autum n o f 1710. From Goa, he proceeded to Ambalakad and was eventually sent to work as a missionary on the Tamil-speaking east coast, where he entered the Madurai Mission. Over the next several years Beschi worked at a num ber o f different Jesuit stations in the districts of Tinnevelly, Madurai andTrichinopoly, finally settling in Elakkuricci, nearTrichinopoly, in 1717; and there he stayed, more or less, for the next thirty years. Beschi s small mission o f Elakkuricci was little more than fifty miles from Tranquebar, where the Lutherans proved to be a constant thorn in Beschi s side, but he was driven away only by the armies ravaging the Tamil country in the 1730s and 1740s.

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C .G . Beschi. Source: M uttusam i Pillei 1840. (Reproduced by kind permission o f the British Library)

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At the beginning of this chaotic period, Beschi enjoyed the protection of local rulers, especially Chanda Sahib, the Muslim usurper who in 1736 overran Trichinopoly and ousted the H indu Nayaka ruler, only to be ousted himself and taken captive by the Marathas five years later. Having lost Chanda Sahib s political and military support, Beschi fled south to the Fishery Coast, to Ramnad and Tuticorin, and eventually travelled to Ambalakad, where he died, it appears, in 1747. Only a few years before Beschi finally settled in Elakkuricci, the Lutherans had arrived atTranquebar; by 1711, these Protestant mission­ aries from Germany, w ith the support o f the D anish crown and later the London-based Society for the Promotion o f Christian Knowledge (SPCK), set up the first printing press on the east coast. W ithin twenty years, the industrious Lutherans had produced more th^n a hundred books, including the first ever Tamil translation of the Bible; by the end of the century, they had printed a total o f 338 separate books (bibles, gospels, catechisms, grammars, dictionaries, almanacs, etc). A few were printed in G erm an, D utch, Latin and D anish, m any in Portuguese, others increasingly in English, but most o f their books were in Tamil. Now the Jesuits had a rival camp. Having dom inated the mission­ ary field in the Tamil country since the arrival o f Xavier almost two hundred years before, and having led the m odernisation o f Tamil through the achievements of Henriques, Nobili and de Proenca and others (Bouchet, Rossi, Leve, Bourzes in the M adurai Mission, and Goncalves in Ceylon), the Jesuits now faced a challenge from their doctrinal nemesis. Since their sixteenth-century arrival, the Jesuits had spread out from the Fishery Coast and established major centres, not only at M adurai and other towns inland from the Fishery Coast, but also to the north, near Tanjore and Trichinopoly, and even in the Carnatic. By 1700, Jesuit sources cl^im that 45,000 Christians were under their pastoral care in the Fishety Coast alone ;46 by mid-century, one reliable source claimed a total o f 350,000 Catholics in all south Indian Jesuit missions .47 But soon after the Lutherans arrived at Tranquebar they, too, were claiming several thousand converts, some former Jesuits; and although the total num ber o f Protestants in 1800 was only about 50,000, most of these were concentrated in the Tanjore

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andTrichinopoly area where Beschi also w orked .48 More alarming to the Jesuits, and not unrelated to this success in conversions, the Lutherans had also usurped that other Jesuit specialisation, printing in Tamil; although pioneered and controlled by the Jesuits, in the eighteenth century Tamil printing became a Lutheran enterprise. To the Lutherans, however, Beschi was alarming. To them, he was not simply a formidable theological opponent, but an arrogant one, who exhibited all the typical excesses o f Jesuits, especially Romanish compromises with local customs. Legendary accounts of Beschi, which were first collected and written in the early nineteenth century, portray him as a bejewelled H indu raja, sporting sandalwood paste on his forehead and riding in a palanquin with full royal accompaniment; even during his lifetime, Beschi s Jesuit superiors in Rome criticised his extravagance’. Worse still to Lutherans, Beschi was said to have served as Diwan (or Prime Minister) to an Indian ruler, Chanda Sahib. M uch in the role o f an Indian poet-saint, Beschi was also invested with nearmagical powers, with which he overcame opponents in debate and converted stunned H indus to Christianity. These images o f Beschis excess— as the Oriental raja and magical poet— rest largely on two texts w ritten by his Tamil biographer, M uttusam i Pillai, who worked at the College o f Fort St George in Madras. W hen, in about 1817, he was sent by F.W . Ellis, then head o f the College, to collect whatever he could find o f Beschi s writings that still survived, M uttusami Pillai gathered anecdotes as well, and wrote up his account o f Beschis life and writings in 1822; this Tamil text (the first m odern literary biography in Tamil) was not printed until 1843, but M uttusami Pillai produced his own English translation which was published in 1840.49 M uch later, in the early twentieth century, Tamil scholars added considerable historical detail by drawing on Beschi s own letters and those o f his contem poraries .50T he Beschi of the 1822 Tamil text, however, remains closest to the nineteenth-century popular perception o f this extraordinary Italian who wrote Tamil grammars and dictionaries, epic poetry and literary folktales, with such consum­ mate skill that some Tamil scholars have refused to acknowledge his authorship .51

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Despite his legendary powers to convert H indus into Christians, Beschis Jesuitical insolence, personal flamboyance and his reported adoption o f H indu practices infuriated many o f his fellow Christians, beginning with his contemporaries at Tranquebar and continuing with those who dom inated south Indian C hristianity in the nineteenth century. A measure o f that enmity is revealed in a handwritten note found in the British Library’s copy o f M uttusami Pillars 1840 English text; at the bottom of the page describing Beschi riding in procession with thirty horsemen and so on, a displeased reader has written in large letters: ‘Somewhat different from the poverty o f the Apostles who subsisted by their manual labour/ 52 Other critics were less censorious, only observing, for example, that Beschi assumed the pom p and pageantry of a H indu guru. He fell in with their prejudices, went about dressed in purple flowing robes / 53 M any simply comm ented that his writing style was too flowery and ornate; one Protestant assessment of Beschis life and writing, printed as a Preface to one of his books in 1844, sums up the critique by accusing him of adapting his discourses to the taste of his hearers and readers and of becoming all things to all men, he falsified the narratives and doctrines of our holy Religion ... [he] will receive such a reward as the motives which actuated him while here below will render right and proper.54 To be fair, however, most Protestant missionaries admired Beschi s literary skills— they printed one o f his grammars and another o f his books ( Vetiyar O lu kkam , a manual for catechists) became standard reading for them by the early nineteenth century— but nearly all o f them deplored his theology. D uring Beschi s lifetime, his rivalry with the Lutherans in south India was intense, and in part expressed through the printing press. Indeed, no greater contrast could be imagined than that between the Italian Beschi and the German Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg, who along with Johann Grundier, set up the Protestant mission and press at Tranquebar in 1706. While Beschi reportedly travelled in a palanquin dressed in turban and robes, Ziegenbalg stuck to northern European dress, wearing a coat and hat, even when he ventured into villages near

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Tranquebar. A contemporary letter adm itted that local people did not know what to make o f him, and ‘even dogs and cows made loud noises when he approached .55 Ziegenbalg died in 1719 and, as far as we know, never met Beschi, who lived but a short fifty miles away. But by his prodigious printing, achieved in those few years at Tranquebar, Ziegenbalg ensured that the lives o f these two great European scholars o f Tamil would meet, and not in harmony. Six years after arriving in Tranquebar, Ziegenbalg had established the first printing press on the east coast. It was not too soon for the G erm an Lutheran, who was acutely conscious of the role o f printed books in spreading ‘divine Truths’ during the ‘happy Reformation in Europe .56 Ziegenbalg would know well that M artin Luther’s theses did not long remain tacked to the church in W ittenberg in 1517; quickly printed, they became ‘known throughout Germany in a fortnight and throughout Europe within a m onth ’.57 Indeed, before the press arrived at Tranquebar, Ziegenbalg had often complained that the traditional m ethod of transcribing Tamil texts on palm leaves was arduous, timeconsuming and expensive: Whereas the art of Printing is not known in these Parts, Transcribing must supply the Place of the Press ... our Charity-School cannot well go forward without taking in some Men to assist us ... first to translate and then with some Iron Tools to print upon Leaves of Palm-Trees’.58 Having employed six m en in these tasks, Ziegenbalg explained to his patrons in the Danish court that he desired a press, with Tamil and roman types, to avoid the costs that drained the lim ited budget o f this missionary outpost .59 His increasing frustration was repeatedly expressed in his letters to Denmark, which were translated into English and passed on to the SPCK in London, who soon answered his call. In early 1711, the SPCK, itself only a decade old, sent by ship 213 copies o f a Portuguese bible, roman types, hundred reams of paper, a printing press and a printer. But it was not all clear sailing. The ship was captured by the French near Brazil and was eventually ransomed by the Governor o f Fort St George at Madras (not the last time that French-Anglo warfare would directly affect the fortunes o f printing in south India). Still, when

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it finally reached Tranquebar in 1712, only the bibles, press, types and paper were on board; earlier, when the ship had been captured by the French, the printer, Jonas Finck had been arrested and then released, but he later died, having fallen overboard near the Cape of Good Hope .60 Despite these setbacks, a D anish soldier somehow m anaged to operate the press, which printed a small Portuguese catechism with the roman types in 1712. Soon, however, Tamil types cast in Halle, Germany arrived with German printers and the Lutherans set to work. The first Tamil book issued by the Lutheran press was a pamphlet in refutation of Hinduism, and this was quickly followed by Ziegenbalg s translations o f biblical scriptures: the Four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles in 1714; part o f the New Testament in 1715; and after his death, the Old Testament, completed by his successor, Benjamin Schultze, between 1723 and 1727. W ith the establishment of both a foundry for casting types and a paper-mill, the Lutherans finally had a self-sufficient print shop, which became central to their mission. In the first eight years alone (1712-20), they printed a total of sixty-five books (in all languages), and another fifty-two in the next decade. By the end of the century, the Lutherans had produced a total o f 338 books, making the Tranquebar press the longest-lived and most prodigious of any in India during the eighteenth century .61 W hen it was shown to local Indians, Ziegenbalg reported that they were astonish’d at this rare invention, never known before in these Countries ’.62 T he phenomenal achievement by the newly arrived Lutherans did not go unnoticed by their Jesuit neighbours. In his Annual Letter of 1727, Father P. Giulani wrote: They [Lutherans] have printed and published the Sacred Scriptures in rather coarse Tamil and have disfigured them by their commentaries, full of errors against the true faith, and have published a good many other books, more or less heretical. But the types are excellent, well-cut, numerous and varied. They are at least of seven or eight kinds, and of various sizes. Already a few Christians of the lower strata of society, some Pariahs, enticed by the love of rupees, fell away at their instigation; and the number of apostates is daily increasing. We wish we could oppose book to book. But means fail us. We have no press, and can scarcely oppose one book to one thousand books.63

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The underfunded Jesuits, still forced to produce laborious palm leaf or paper copies o f manuscripts, struck back with the only weapon they had— a superior knowledge o f Tamil. T he Jesuit authorities in M adurai ordered Beschi to write a book that would expose the errors of the heretics in Tranquebar.64 Beschi, who had just completed his Tamil masterpiece, an epic poem o f 3615 stanzas on the life of St Joseph, responded with a vitriolic attack, a long and closely argued text entitled Veta Vilakkam (‘Explanation of Religion). The Lutheran counter-attack was to publish Tirucapai Petakam (‘Schism in the Church’), a Tamil translation of a Portuguese text explaining the glories of the Reformation, which they kindly sent to Beschi for his edification. Beschi fired back by refuting the Lutheran position in a brief pamphlet, P etakam aruttal (‘Refutation o f the Schism5), followed by another detailing Lutheran lies CLutterinattiyalpu , ‘The Essence o f Lutheranism5). Beschi apparendy silenced the Lutherans with his prose since, as his biographer Muttusami Pillai wrote, ‘after that, nothing more was heard from them .’65 Beschi s attacks against the Lutherans were nothing if not w ith­ ering. It was not just that their doctrines were wrong, b ut that their knowledge o f Tamil was poor; and worst of all, they chose to use their fallacious Tamil to explain their flawed theology by translating the holy scriptures into Tamil. As if that were not enough, they then flaunted their heresy by printing their translations; we m ight remember that among the first Tamil books issued from Tranquebar were translations of the Four Gospels and the New Testament. Nothing would gall Jesuits more than those translations. Like most Catholics, Jesuits believed that the scriptures could not and should not be translated, that the word o f God m ust be apprehended in the original and that any attem pt to convert it would distort it. For Protestants, and especially Lutherans, however, translating the Bible was an essential, perhaps the most val­ ued, calling for a missionary; European translators into English had been martyred, and a similar if not identical glory awaited those who spread G od s truth in other tongues .66 As for Ziegenbalgs mastery o f Tamil, one can only say that he did not waste any time: he began his translation of the Bible only two years after arriving in India and completed it within two more .67 Beschi, by

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comparison, completed his magnum opus, the epic poem Tempavanl , sixteen years after his arrival in India. Translating into Tamil may not be as demanding as composing an original text in the language, but putting the Bible into Tamil in four years time is quick work indeed. Although he did translate Tamil ethical literature and wrote a long essay on south Indian H induism (both unpublished until the nineteenth century), Ziegenbalg appears to have had little respect for Tamil literature. He explained that he had gathered traditional texts by buying them from the widows of deceased Brahmins’ so that he could understand their idolatry the better to condemn it. He also was one of the first Europeans to identify poetry as the cardinal sin o f Tamil, the extirpation of which would become a rallying cry for literary-cultural reformers throughout the next century. Ziegenbalg had this to say to a Brahmin at Tranquebar: I am all Amazement when I see your Blindness in not discerning Spiritual Things; as if you had sworn Eternal Allegiance to the Dictates and Poetical Fictions of Lying Bards; who riding upon the Ridges of Metaphors and Allegories, have rhimed you into the Belief of lying incomprehensible Per­ plexities.68 For Beschi, who also deplored H indu superstitions, Tamil literature was a source o f inspiration. Whereas the German Lutheran was content to write that Tamil ‘books are stuffed with Abundance of pleasant Fables and witty Inventions’, the Italian Catholic steeped himself so deeply in Tamil literature that later Tamil scholars would regard him as an accomplished poet in the language .69 Still, Beschi was an elitist in both social and intellectual terms; he had a low opinion o f m ost ordinary Indians and prided himself on the purity of his own Tamil compositions. Although Beschi admired Nobili, he did not refrain from adding that his translations of prayers into Tamil ‘cannot be highly praised’.70 Beschis attack on the Lutherans therefore targeted literary and linguistic, as m uch as theological, weaknesses. Shrewdly Beschi began his attack by refusing to acknowledge that the language written and printed by the Lutherans was proper ‘Tamil’; rather, he dismissively called it the ‘eastern tongue’ (k iltic a i molt). In order to press home his advantage, he also employed imagery and figures

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o f speech familiar to a H indu audience. T he Protestant Reformation, for example, is described as having poisoned the am irtam of the words o f Jesus/ 71 A few pages later he returns to this image, and others: ‘W hen these Tranquebarians cannot even write the name of their own country in correct Tamil ,5wrote Beschi, ‘their translations of the Bible are like a gem thrown in the m ud, like poison mixed w ith ambrosia, like black ink spilled on a beautifully drawn picture / 72 Following the precedent set by Nobili, Beschi also frequently invoked caste hierarchy to valorise the Jesuit mission and disparage his Protestant opponents; like his predecessor, Beschi saw Jesuits as European Brahmins, o f superior intellectual and literary talents, and preferred to convert Brahmins, leaving lower castes to the Protestants. In his Petakam aruttal , Beschi defended Jesuit guardianship of the Bible against pollution by the infidels speaking the ‘eastern tongue 5with this striking image: Is it possible for a washerwoman, a Panchama woman, picking over oysters [sic] in the paddy field, to explain the Chintamani or discuss theTholkappiyam? Is it not proper that the Scriptures, like a tank of drinking water, should be guarded from the pollution of the unclean and the casteless, who shall, instead, be served with a potfull by the guardian brahmin?73 But the m ost famous and (mis)quoted passage is that which describes the ‘eastern tongue 5as burning the readers 5ears like a ‘raging fire5and concludes: ‘N o one can regard what the Tranquebarians have written in the name o f the Holy Scriptures w ithout anger and laughter / 74 T hen Beschi plays his trum p card— his opponents 5 ignorance o f Tamil language and literature. At one point he likens the Lutherans to little schoolchildren ‘in the second standard who do not understand a word of literary Tamil5; and later he asks sarcastically, ‘We know that people “grow up by [drinking] milk55, but has anyone heard of “growing someone by milk 55?573 His most scathing remarks, however, are reserved for their lamentable knowledge of Tamil literature: These Tranquebarians say, ‘We came to this country and studied Tamil5 [Beschi has them say paticcu , the unrefined form of the verb], which should mean that they have read all the Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts and books— Tolkappiyam, Nannuf Iruporulkarikai alankaram , and other grammars, plus

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the 18 Puranas, the sthalapuranas, 64 arts and philosophies, the two divisions of Saivism, thzTirukkural and Nalatiyar , Cintamani, Cilappatikaram> Ramayanam. Their claim should mean that they have studied all of this and more, without fail.... But their claim is like putting on the disguise of the lion, king of animals: as soon as the mouth is opened, the truth is revealed and the other animals, assembled to hear, start to laugh.76 Wise enough to know that more than vitriolic prose was needed to defeat the Lutherans, Beschi had an image o f Mary (in ‘the Indian style) set up at Elakkuricci; as Beschi himself claimed, it was the power of this Virgin that in the end ‘was the coup de grace for the Lutherans ’.77 T he Lutherans, however, appeared to weather Beschis withering prose. Armed with their printed Tamil Bibles, the missionaries and their catechists continued to gain converts from the local population in the Tanjore and Trichinopoly areas where Beschi lived: between 1717 and 1730, the num ber o f Protestants living in villages around Tanjore is reported to have risen from a mere fifteen to 3 6 7 7 s Beschi, who would have seen this activity w ith his own eyes, wrote that the Lutherans, ‘intent on the ruin o f souls, roam the fold, seeking whom they may devour’.79 O ne particular soul, who was stolen by the Lutherans in this way, was at the centre o f the print rivalry, and may have even ignited it. His name was Rajanayakan, a third-generation Catholic and Paraiyar convert, who was also a low-ranking officer in the army o f the Maratha king o f Tanjore. T he story, as told in Protestant sources, is that this devout Catholic was unable to quench his thirst for the knowledge o f Jesus because the Catholics had no books to give him; then, in 1725, his reading o f Ziegenbalg’s translation o f the Gospels and Acts changed his life: ‘W hen I had thus obtained the book my longing was satisfied by it. I used to read it all day and then from the evening till midnight by a light .’80 Rajanayakan also read other books printed atTranquebar, including translations o f the Bible and Ziegenbalg’s rant against heathenism, and was soon baptised as a Protestant; he then became an active catechist, established a congregation in the H indu temple-town o f Tanjore, and converted both Hindus and Catholics. The Jesuits did not idly let this man switch sides. In a letter w ritten to the Lutherans atTranquebar,

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Rajanayakan accused Beschi of sending henchmen to stop the apostate by any means, short o f m urder; these Catholics reportedly attempted to destroy his house and later, in 1731, killed his father.81 Rajanayakan, however, survived and by m id-century had extended the Protestant congregation inTanjore by building a school and prayer hall; this school would soon produce the m ost im portant literary figure in the history of Tamil Protestantism, Vedanayakam Sastri, who created a unique blend o f Tamil literature, mixing German pietism with Tamil bhakti .82 Among the long-term outcomes o f this struggle between Beschi and the Lutherans is the rise o f Protestant printing and the shift o f Tamil printing from the Corom andel Coast to the growing metropolis of Madras. Defeated by the prodigious Lutheran printing press, the Jesuits never recovered the advantage they held before the Lutherans had arrived; and by 1740, they were in open retreat: missionaries in the field left and converts dwindled .83 This change in the history of Tamil printing took place in the context o f a more general shift from Portuguese to British power in south India, as m entioned above, and the steady growth of Protestant influence and decline of Jesuit influence in Tamil literary culture during the eighteenth century. The controversy of the ‘Malabar Rites’, as already mentioned, slowly eviscerated Jesuit influence in Asia throughout the eighteenth century, and eventually resulted in the suppression o f the Society o f Jesus. Although it had more to do w ith Jesuits in C hina than with those in India, Papal scrutiny extended to the Madurai Mission as well; supported by the Capuchins in Pondicherry, the investigation began a few years before Beschi arrived in India and it continued throughout his lifetime. In 1704, a 551-page document prepared by a team sent out from Rome to south India listed the flashpoints: the avoidance o f saliva in baptism, the use o f the marriage badge {tali), the sacred thread and a man’s top­ knot 0kutum i ), saying the liturgy in languages other than Latin, and so on. Reversing the accommodations agreed with Nobili almost a century before, the Pope upheld these objections, with some compromises (the ta li , for example, was acceptable if it contained an image of the Holy Virgin) and later reaffirmations. W ith the Society suppressed in Portugal in 1759, 228 Jesuits were forced to leave Goa; then followed similar

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decrees in other European countries and finally the worldwide suppression by Papal decree in 1773. The Jesuit Mission of M adurai, home to Nobili and Beschi, was restored only in 1836.84 Although the suppression did not mean the immediate cessation o f Jesuit activity in India, the decline, if gradual, was dramatic: the number of Jesuit fathers and catechists in south India (Goa, Malabar and Madurai missions) in the sixteenth century was more than 1000; by 1720 it had dropped to less than three hundred, and by 1760, after the first wave o f suppression, only a few score remained .85 Another factor behind the Jesuit decline was that they were losers in the Anglo-French wars that tore apart the Tamil countryside from the 1730s to the 1760s. The French at Pondicherry, and their Indian supporters, notably Doust-ali Khan at Vellore, provided support for Jesuits, especially Beschi, who had an audience with Doust-ali Khan before Khan was killed in battle in 1740. But it was Chanda Sahib who was Beschi s most consistent support in these war years; Beschi, as we know, is reported to have been Diwan to Chanda Sahib, the Frenchpuppet atTrichinopoly, and to have received tax-free lands from him. W hatever the truths of those stories, after Chanda Sahibs capture by the Marathas, Beschi fled the region, but the prisoner returned to Trichinopoly at the head o f a massive army in 1749. If, as is often said, Robert Clives victory over C handa Sahib in 1752 buried French hopes in south India, it also hastened the decline of the Jesuit influence in Tamil literary culture. The French had a printing press at Pondicherry in the mid-eighteenth century, and Jesuit printing undoubtedly would have been revived there (after its cessation in the late seventeenth century). But political events again intervened to redirect the history of printing in south India, and the printing of Tamil texts in Pondicherry was delayed until the 1840s. The Lutherans, on the other hand, grew in literary and political influence throughout the eighteenth century. Having established their dominance through the press at their little mission in Tranquebar and having been taken under the wing o f the SPCK in London, the Lutherans soon extended their printing efforts to larger centres of trade and politics, under British protection. In 1737 they sent a Danish type-caster to

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Colom bo, where he prepared new Tamil types and printed the Tamil Lord’s Prayer in 1739 (the same year that the first printed Sinhala book, part o f the Gospels, appeared); parts o f the Tamil Bible were printed in Colom bo in 1741.86 O f far more consequence, however, was the establishment of a Protestant mission and printing press at Madras. T hat press had in fact been under French control at Pondicherry; its capture and transfer to British Madras under the control o f SPCK in the 1760s well illustrates the influence of politics on the history o f Tamil printing in the eighteenth century. Since Tamil had been the first South Asian language in print, it is perhaps not surprising that Madras was the first o f the three colonial metropolises to print books. Benjamin Schultze set up the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in 1726 at Vepery, outside M adras, but this new venture only took over from Tranquebar as the centre of Protestant missionary and printing activities after mid-century under the leadership o f J. Fabricius. W hen the English fleet besieged Pondicherry in 1761, Sir Eyre Coote confiscated a printing press from the French Governor’s palace and took it, along with the French printer, Delon, and some types, to Madras. There Fabricius convinced Coote to give the printing press and types to him, with the undertaking that requests for printing from Fort St George would take priority over missionary work. In 1762 the SPCK press at Vepery issued a calendar, soon followed by several Tamil books, pre-dating the first books printed at Calcutta and Bombay by more than a decade .87 Soon thereafter, by 1766, the Vepery missionaries had their own press, so the original one, along with Delon the printer, was transferred to Fort St George, where it became known as the Governm ent Press. The Vepery press was now the SPCK press, and its first Tamil book was a small catechism, prepared by Fabricius and printed, with types cut in Halle, in 1766. T he two m ost im portant books printed at Vepery in the eighteenth century, however, came considerably later: Fabricius’ own Tamil dictionary in 1779 (exactly a century after Proenca’s historic achievement) and a popular translation of Pilgrims Progress (Oru parateci yo n p u n iya n carittiram ) in 1793. Later, in the nineteenth century, the SPCK press at Vepery changed its name to Diocesan Press, still in operation today. This extension of Protestant printing was accompanied

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by an improvement in technology, too; by the early 1770s, the SPCK press at Vepery had cut its own Tamil types, which were used to print Fabricius translation of the New Testament in 1772 and remained in use for a century, until the 1870s.88

New literary practices By the end of the eighteenth century, then, printing in south India had passed into the hands of Protestants, with whom it had moved north to M adras, where a new literary culture was emerging. Central to that development, however, were a set o f literary practices fostered by the Jesuit—Lutheran rivalry and perfected through the long course o f the century; the competition for conversion stimulated both Jesuits and Lutherans, in print and in writing, to improve on the literary practices begun two centuries earl ier. Translation was the speciality of the Lutherans and script reform belonged to the Jesuits, but both contributed to interlingual grammars and dictionaries, and to the development o f discursive prose. And for the first time folklore was brought within the sphere o f Tamil literary culture; before introducing Beschi s ‘G uru Simpleton, however, we need to assess these wider literary achievements. O ne literary practice that took firm root in Tamil literary culture in the eighteenth century was the production of interlingual grammars and dictionaries; even more than translations, and as noted earlier in this chapter, these texts were the direct result of colonial contact. We have mentioned Proencas Tamil-Portuguese dictionary of 1679, as well as Fabricius’ Tamil-English work exactly a hundred years later.89 Beschi also produced five dictionaries, four of which were interlingual: Tam ilLatin and Portuguese-Latin-Tamil, Tamil-French and Tamil-French, all in the 1740s; other interlingual dictionaries are often attributed to Beschi, but they are usually copies o f one o f these four .90 We may also note that he did not produce a Tamil—English dictionary, which had to wait for the Protestants. Beschis four interlingual dictionaries were w ritten for Europeans as learning tools, but his fifth and final dictionary was written entirely in Tamil for Tamils; and it influenced Tamil literature long after its authors death. Composed in 1732, the C atu r-akarati (‘Four-part D ictionary5) may be m onolingual, but it

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represents an admixture o f European and Tamil lexicographical tradi­ tions: its outer structure followed the Tamil (and Sanskrit) nikantu or dictionary model in its four parts, arranged by word function, but its inner design conform ed to European practices o f alphabetisation and the use o f prose .91 Alphabetisation had been used in a late sixteenthcentury Tamil dictionary (A karati N ik a n tu ), but only for the initial letter, whereas Beschi s work extended this system up to the last letter.92 It is also true that Henriques 1586 book listed the saints in alphabetical order, and that Proencas 1679 Portuguese-Tamil dictionary was alpha­ betical, but it was Beschi who actually brought the practice into Tamil literary tradition. Despite antipathy to Beschis theology and lifestyle, Protestants eagerly em braced his writings. T he Lutherans at Tranquebar wrote to him asking for his permission to p rin t his C atu r-akarati , but he refused; apparently when they had printed his grammar of comm on Tamil in 1738, it had been bound with another grammar by the Prot­ estant missionary Walther, displeasing Beschi.93 W hen the Lutherans wrote for permission to the Bishop o f Mylapore, Beschi s superior, they got no answer. Eventually, they bought a copy from a soldier, who had got hold of a copy which Beschi had left behind when he fled the area around 1741; when they again asked Beschi for per­ mission to use it to prepare a new dictionary that would also include Ziegenbalgs unpublished work, we understand why Beschi repeated his refusal. His C atu r-akarati rem ained unpublished because o f this until 1824, after which it went through m any editions and influenced Tamil scholars, including the famous U.V. Swaminatha Iyer.94 The first bilingual Tamil grammar printed in India was also written by Beschi (Ziegenbalgs grammar was printed in Halle in 1715). Again Beschi produced not just one grammar, but three; and again, one of these was monolingual but bicultural. TonnulVilakkam (1730) followed traditional Tamil grammars (especially Nannut) in its overall organisation o f five divisions: col (words), p o r u l (meaning), eluttu (letters ),y a p p u (prosody) and a n i (rhetoric); but it introduced new features as well, such as extensive use o f prose and a section on the four H indu goals of life. In a difficult exercise of synthesis, Beschi also reduced the nearly

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thousand grammatical rules (in most traditional grammars) to just 370; and in a bold act o f scholarship, whereas traditional grammars typically only framed rules and adduced examples to illustrate them, Beschi com m ented upon them in prose .95 For example, he frequently drew aphorisms from the T irukkural to dem onstrate the purity o f language, which, in his opinion, neither the K am param ayanam nor Jivakacintam ani (the two jewels among the then-known Tamil classics) but only the Bible achieved .96 TonnulV ilakkam , first printed in 1830, was w ritten in Tamil, but Beschi later translated it into Latin for Europeans, with the title Clavis hum anorium , which was printed only in 1876. Beschi wrote two other grammars in Latin intended for use by Europeans, one for common Tamil (probably in 1728) and another for literary Tamil (in 1730). The second o f these was o f limited use, since few non-Tamils could follow it, but the first, his grammar o f comm on Tamil was probably the most widely used and influential printed book on Tamil before 1850.97 Crucially, it was accepted by the Lutherans, who printed it atT ranquebar in 1738, presumably with the authors permission and certainly with that o f Bishop Joseph o f Mylapore, who added a Preface, dated 2 November 1737, blessing the book. The Lutherans may even have printed Beschi s grammar from the manuscript now in the British Library, which has a printed slip that reads: ‘W ritten in a beautiful hand by Constantius Josephus Beschi... (Missionary in Madurai), 29 December 1729’;98 the more than two hundred and fifty small pages of this manuscript, which are indeed beautifully written, are easier to read than the poorly printed edition of 1738. The grammar was later translated into English by Henry Horst and printed at Madras in 1806, and translated again, more accurately, by George M ahon and printed by the College o f Fort St George in 1848. Beschis grammar of comm on Tamil is im portant also because he uses it to set forth his scheme for reforming Tamil script, another o f the practices that contributed to a new literary culture in the eighteenth century. Although the use of dots over consonants to indicate the in­ herent consonantal sound (without a vowel) is described in the oldest Tamil grammar, it apparently fell out of use until the Italian Jesuit

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rehabilitated it. Equally important, Beschi cleared up a major source of confusion by distinguishing short and long forms o f two vowels (o and e), both as independent vowels and when joined with consonants; as he explained in his Preface to his comm on grammar, earlier grammars prescribed the use of a line over the vowel to distinguish the short from the long form, but this m ethod had fallen into d isu se." Beschi also rationalised the orthography for the three separate forms o f V (r, ra, rA). W ithout these distinctions, readers o f manuscripts and early printed books often laboured to decide which letter and which word, and thus which meaning, was intended. Although, as Meenakshisundaram admits, we cannot be precise about what Beschi invented, reintroduced or just popularised, his was the most influential contribution to Tamil orthography until Arumukam Navalar’s introduction of western-style punctuation in the m id-nineteenth century and E.V. Ramasamis new w riting system (as required by the typewriter) in the m id-tw entieth century.100 Even more significant for the form ation o f a m odern literary cul­ ture than either interlingual texts or script reform were the related practices of translation and discursive prose; both were virtually absent before European contact but both became widespread by 1800. Al­ though translations into Tamil had begun in the sixteenth century, translations from Tamil into European languages were achieved for the first time in the eighteenth century. Again, this change in translation activity is a direct consequence of the rise o f Protestant printing and cultural dom ination in the Tamil country. We m ust rem ember that Beschi, like his predecessor and role model Nobili, was not primarily a translator; both preferred to compose their own texts in Tamil. How­ ever, if Nobili and Beschi wished to blend in with Tamil culture, adopt­ ing local customs and using the language from the inside out, rather than follow the earlier Jesuit practice o f inserting transliterated Euro­ pean words into their texts, this harking back to the pre-colonial model of assimilation was only temporary; with the rise of Protestant influ­ ence from about 1750 onward, the translation model, in which other languages were brought into Tamil, never looked back. Even within

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the Protestant camp, however, some were critical of the ‘foreign words’ and other impure imports into Tamil. During his brief stay in Tranquebar at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Ziegenbalg translated a few Tamil texts o f ethical aphorisms into Germ an, but they rem ained unpublished until the tw entieth century; at the tail end of the eighteenth century, a Tamil version o f the Bhagavatam (a south Indian Sanskrit religious text) was published in a French translation in Paris, and extracts from the Tirukkural appeared in English in London. However, translation into Tamil, which was almost naturalised by 1800, had a far greater impact on local literary history. Some Jesuits may have realised that translation into Tamil was useful to their mission, but for Protestants it was an obligation and a soteriological stra tegy. The Jesuit experiments in the sixteenth century were dwarfed by the num ber of translations that were issued by the presses at Tranquebar and Vepery— the Old and New Testament, stories of Christs life, Ziegenbalg s letters to the Hindus, theological tracts, Christian story literature and almanacs. By 1800 the num ber of Tamil Christians who, like the Catholic-turned-Protestant Rajanayakan, m ight have read or heard these translations had increased to more than 250,000.101 N ot every one o f them would have been as deeply affected as Rajanayakan, but even those who only heard these translations read aloud would have encountered an externalised vision o f their language, a foreign viewpoint operating inside the m other tongue. Although the language of Christianity was becoming naturalised in Tamil (tampiran and karttar for ‘the Lord’; kiracai for ‘grace’ and so on), these translations continued to generate vigorous debates about language use. Fabricius’ 1772 revision o f earlier translations o f the New Testam ent (by Ziegenbalg and Shultze) brought praise from m any Protestants, including Vedanayakam Sastri, but fierce criticism from de Melho, a Tamil Protestant in Ceylon. De Melho, who had published his own translation of the Bible in 1759> echoed Beschi’s earlier condemnations when he stated that Fabricius’ effort was errorprone, ungraceful and contained too many impure and foreign words. W hen the Lutherans responded with the essential Protestant tenet that

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communicating to the common people was more important than lin­ guistic purity, de Melho countered by saying that it was precisely the bastardised idiom o f the east coast which ordinary Tamils would not understand. A second round o f this language debate was initiated in the early nineteenth century by the publication o f Rhenius’ transla­ tions. His Bible o f 1819, for example, was denounced by Vedanayakam Sastri as adulterated by 'mixing in ... all the Cutcherry [pidgin] Tamil and gentoo [Telugu] words .102 If translation stimulated thinking about which Tamil’ to use, it also demonstrated new possibilities for prose; although written as commen­ taries to traditional Tamil poetry from at least as early as the thirteenth century AD and as histories in the seventeenth century, discursive prose began to emerge as an independent genre only during the eighteenth century.103 Liturgical prose, from the Jesuit experiments in the sixteenth century to the Protestant tracts two centuries later, became a major genre o f Tamil Christian literature, but other forms o f prose during the eighteenth century had far greater impact on mainstream Tamil literary culture. O ne example of a more public prose is the mid-century diary o f Anandaranga Pillai, interpreter and Diwan to the French GovernorGeneral o f Pondicherry; this diary, o f twelve volumes w ritten in colloquial Tamil, is the forerunner to m odern autobiographies and journalistic prose.104 O ther examples, which led to the development of a public prose in Tamil, are the polemical essays produced during the print rivalry, although the Lutheran texts are unimpressive compared to those written by Beschi. Beschi s major prose essay was Veta Vilakkam , a long text of more than 250 printed pages, written with wit and verve. W hile it utilises complex sentences and employs literary allusions, as the passages quoted above demonstrate, it also achieves an intimacy w ith the reader that, according to one scholar, was entirely new in Tam il.105 More widely read, because the Lutherans used it, was Beschis guide to catechists, entitled Vetiyar Olukkam \ some scholars consider this work, in which Beschi proceeds by supplying examples and evidence and then draw ing conclusions, to be the first example of expository prose in Tam il.106 Although these prose essays were not printed until the 1840s, they were widely circulated and read in C hristian circles from their composition a century earlier.

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A third type o f prose writing introduced to Tamil during the eighteenth century was literary fiction; as a forerunner to the experi­ mental novels o f the late nineteenth century, this prose had a major impact on m odern Tamil literary culture. T he broad outlines of this development have been traced elsewhere, and here I want to emphasise one particular aspect, which will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter: that literary prose fiction was brought into Tamil through printed folklore.107 The 1793 translation of Pilgrims Progress, a bilingual text with the English on the left hand side and the Tamil on the right of each page, represents a major development in Tamil prose writing. Freed from the liturgical weight of scripture, but impelled by the passion of the narrative, this translation achieved a storytelling technique unprecedented in Tamil. It soon proved to be a favourite among Tamils, and not only Christians; according to one missionary’s report in the nineteenth century, it was often read aloud to large groups of people.108 O ther translations of European storytelling would be printed by the mid-nineteenth century (Kalvi Eni, or English tales by Mrs Trimmer in 1827; L aim des Enfans in 1838), and some would come from European folklore (Aesop’s tales in 1853), but the earliest example of Tamil literary prose fiction dates from the first half o f the eighteenth century.109 And it was based on folklore.

Beschi’s ‘Guru Simpleton* Beschis ‘Guru Simpleton (.Paramartta Kuruvin Katai) is in fact a com­ bination o f Tamil oral tales and European story literature, plus the author’s invention and imagination. Although Beschi had worked out some o f the episodes years before in one o f his prose works, he com­ pleted the story only in 1744 and appended it to his Latin-Tam il dictionary of that year.110 ‘G uru Simpleton’ was not published until 1822, in London, but it was well known during the author’s lifetime.111 The bilingual manuscript was apparently first written by Beschi in Tamil and then translated by him into Latin; in printed Tamil editions, its eight chapters usually cover about forty pages (a Tamil word-count would give no indication of its length). While the Tamil narrative text

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has often been translated and printed in English, Beschi s Latin Preface has not; it appeared in Tamil translation in 1975 but never, as far as I know, in English.112 In this Preface of 1744, Beschi reveals his intentions and his sources for his famous literary tale, as well as his desire to print it. First, Beschi explains that he wrote this tale, describing the adventures of a silly guru and his band of dim-witted disciples, to provide some amusem ent for hapless Jesuits condem ned to the difficult task of learning Tamil. The language used to narrate folktales, explains the learned Italian, would supply useful illustrations of spoken Tamil for learners. But Beschi also makes the point that this lapidary oral style is characteristic of the best literary Tamil as well: cEven when they wish to achieve a more elegant and ornate style, they prefer to make use of concise phrases.5 Beschi’s observation that pure Tamil is close to spoken Tamil is im portant to the arguments developed later in this book: repeated by other influential Europeans and Tamil scholars, it explains uses of printed folklore, and underlies constructions of folklore and nationalism, in the second half o f the nineteenth century. Next Beschi complains of the ignorance and indolence o f scribes, which make it ‘impossible to find a single [written] page in com m on Tamil which is free from orthographical errors5.113 In order to dem ­ onstrate correct spelling, Beschi also reveals that he wishes to put these examples ‘in print5(typis). But, as we know, the Jesuits had no press and Beschi had already refused the Lutherans permission to print his C atur A karati; perhaps then this was a plea for a Jesuit patron, somewhere outside India, to underwrite the publication o f his dictionary and folktale. Finally, Beschi explains that he has chosen a story ‘which is rather humorous and is well-known in these regions ... to this story we have added others, that is, we have grafted other branches onto the trunk5. In other words, ‘Guru Simpleton is an amalgam of local folktales and European stories (‘others5) known to Beschi, who had acquired a classical education at Ravenna and Bologna before arriving in India. Although ‘Guru Simpleton is a literary tale in eight episodes, it is not organised around a frame-story. Instead the author has linked these episodes into a single, coherent, if ram bling narrative, more like a novel

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than its counterparts in world story literature such as The Arabian Nights , the Pancatantra or similar collections of Tamil tales. The linking of the episodes, through a recurring m otif of a horse,' is creative, but the true genius of Beschi s confection is that he has taken as his foundation a series of oral tales, still told today not only in south India but elsewhere in the subcontinent, and interwoven them with stories from Aesop and Juvenal, as well as numbskull tales familiar to those who know the Mad M en o f Gotham or William Hogarth’s prints.114 This hybrid text has confused many scholars, some of whom claim that it is ‘indisputably of European inspiration’, while others are convinced that it is so Tamil that it m ust have been w ritten, like Beschi’s epic poem, by his Tamil pundit, Cuppiratipa Kavirayar.115 Six separate Indian folktales (and a possible seventh) are folded into Beschi’s story of the bungling guru and his companions. Several are numbskull tales, including the story about the Guru’s disciples who are unable to count their full num ber because the person counting cannot remember to include himself; in another episode the heroic disciples buy a pum pkin believing it to be a horse’s egg from which they plan to hatch a herd of horses; and in yet another, a disciple cuts off the branch on which he is sitting.116 In a fourth tale, the disciples play the literal fool, a popular theme in Indian folklore and elsewhere. W hen the G uru’s hat falls off while riding on his horse, the disciples are told ‘to pick up everything that falls’, which soon includes animal droppings. They faithfully follow his instructions yet are scolded by the G uru, so the confused disciples sensibly ask him to write out a full list o f exactly what they should pick up. Before long, the Guru himself falls off the horse, but he’s not on the list! This particular folktale, reported only in India, had appeared sixteen years earlier in Beschi’s Veta V ilakkam , where it exposed the stupidity of Lutherans and their leaders.117 It was about that time, in the late 1720s, that Beschi himself actually fell off a horse and injured his arm so badly that he could not write for several m onths.118 T he two remaining tales restore some balance to the adventures of the stupid disciples by demonstrations of cleverness. In one, a greedy m an receives his comeuppance when his would-be-victims apply the

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premise o f his own faulty logic (an illustration of what would later be called ‘deconstruction).119 W hen the G uru falls off a hired bullock in the searing heat, the disciples place him in the shade o f the bullock; the bullock-owner then asks for extra cash for the use o f his animal as an umbrella, the disciples object and the local village leader adjudicates. Explaining his decision in favour of the Guru and his disciples, the leader describes how he was once similarly charged extra for smelling the rice he didn’t eat; in payment, he simply placed his money bag under the greedy m ans nose and said, ‘T he payment for eating is money; the price for smelling is sm elling/The disciples then pay the bullock-owner for the rented shade by holding their money bag in front of his face, saying, ‘Here’s some money-shade to pay for the bullock-shade.’ T he most entertaining tale, and the longest, is em bedded in the final chapter o f ‘Guru Simpleton. This is an Indian variant of an inter­ national folktale, ‘The Priest’s Guest’, reported from Turkey to Iceland.120 In the European versions, a priest’s servant, who has eaten the guest’s chicken, uses her wits to get him to flee and to deceive the priest as well. Substitute a pious man for the priest, a wife for the servant, and her anger for her greed, and we have the Indian versions, in which the wife drives away a guest invited by her husband by inventing a story about a rice-beater (a long, heavy piece o f wood). T he tale is widely told in India, with versions reported in Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil;121 it is a classic tale, appearing in the first collection o f Indian folktales in English (in 1868) and also in the first English translation of Tamil folktales (in 1884). In every reported Indian ver­ sion, a pious man performs a religious duty by feeding strangers, often sadhus, an act of charity which is among the highest o f H indu virtues and is often praised in Tamil folktales. But here, as is typical in folklore, we view this meritorious act from another angle, that o f the wife, who after all must prepare and serve all those meals for which her husband gains religious merit. Told from her perspective, the folktale displays the wife’s ingenuity, which matches the credulity o f the invited guest. In Beschi’s telling, and in most Tamil versions, the husband sends a sadhu to his house for a meal, explaining that he will join him there after finishing some work. T he wife greets the guest cordially enough

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(‘Yet another one!’ she mutters to herself), but then coolly plots her revenge: carefully placing a rice-beater in his view, she smears it w ith rice-powder, mumbles some words and prostrates herself to it three times. His curiosity aroused, the guest asks what puja she is perform ­ ing, and she replies, ‘Its a special puja,’ and then, as if speaking to herself, but still audibly, adds, ‘You’ll find out what it is when my hus­ band comes home.’ ‘W hat do you mean?’ the guest asks. ‘Well, I really shouldn’t tell you this, but since you seem like a pious m an I guess there’s no harm in telling the tru th ,’ the wife shrewdly says and then explains that in order to relieve the pains of his dead mother, who ex­ pired with a terrible backache, her husband uses the rice-beater to beat someone’s back every day. After the frightened guest flees, the husband arrives and asks about the guest. ‘O h, h im ,’ answers his wife. ‘W hat kind o f guests are you sending me these days? He wanted that old ricebeater o f your m other’s, but I said it’s a family heirloom and I’d have to ask you. So he got angry and left.’ ‘You idiot! You refused a sadhu’s request for an old rice-beater,’ screams the husband, who picks up the rice-beater and runs after the guest. ‘Stop! Stop! I’ve got something for you,’ he shouts, but the guest, turning back to see the m an charging at him with the weapon, realises that the wife told the truth and runs away even faster. This tale of self-centred husband, clever wife, bogus puja and gullible sadhu must have interested Beschi; he uses it in the conclusion to ‘G uru Simpleton but, because it involves neither gurus nor disciples, he had to find a way to insert it into his narrative. Beschi’s solution is itself clever. At the end o f the tale, when G uru Simpleton is on his death­ bed, he remembers a mantra that a Brahmin taught him: ‘A sanam sitam; Jivanam nastam’ (‘Cold in the rear, death is near’ in Crowquill’s brilliant translation).122 But it has no effect, so he orders his disciples to bury him. W hen, in desperation the disciples summon another man, a joker of sorts, to the Guru s bedside, he tells the ailing man that the Brahmin’s m antra is a hoax, and boasts, ‘I’ll perform the “rice-beater puja” on that Brahmin and cure your illness.’ W hen the Guru says that he had never heard of this puja and asks what it might be, the joker explains that his ignorance is not surprising since this mysterious ritual is ‘found neither

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in the six internal nor in the six external rituals o f Saivism’. Finally, in order to explain the ‘rice-beater puja’, he tells the folktale of the exasperated wifes clever strategy to drive away the unwanted guest, which makes the G uru laugh out loud and gain tem porary relief from his pain. This tale-within-a-tale thus reiterates the them e o f gullibility in ‘Guru Sim pleton. In the tale narrated by the jester, the wife outwits her husband by playing on the credulity o f the guest— the story she invents about the puja to the rice-beater is as absurd as it is effective— while in the tale told by Beschi, the naive G uru likewise falls for a bogus m antra (‘A sanam sitam; Jivanam nastarn). In Beschis capable hands, the bogus ritual in the tale o f the puja becomes an antidote for the m um bo-jum bo in the tale of G uru Simpleton. This may be an attack on H indu superstition and stupid gurus, as many, beginning with Babington, the first translator of the tale, have claimed;123 but if it is a satirical attack, it is launched from within since the story o f the ‘ricebeater puja is a popular Indian folktale. Recreating these Indian tales of dupes, charlatans and clever women, Beschi has written a piece of entertaining prose fiction, just as he intended. But I believe there is more to the story, since this Jesuit missionary was incapable o f writing anything w ithout some ethical implication. Is it possible, for instance, that this story o f simpletons is a parable about spiritual wisdom, that the fool is wisest? Beschi’s title, p ara m a rtta kuru , is intentionally ambiguous: para m a rtta m (from the Sanskrit) means ‘excellent, or high aim’, while p a ram arttan means a sim pleton. However, the entry in W inslows 1862 dictionary, which may be taken from Beschi s story, notes that pa ra m a rtta m also means ‘spiritual knowledge which reveals the vanity and illusion of the world’ and that the word is used ironically for ‘simplicity’. Like the satire on Brahmins, however, the paradox o f the wise fool is inherent in the folktales themselves, and perhaps Beschi merely highlighted this in his title. W hatever moral Beschi intended for ‘G uru Simpleton’, it lies not in the borrowed oral tales but rather in the m aterial he invented and introduced in order to weave the disparate episodes into a coherent

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whole. And the thread that holds his tale together is the horse. Although the horse occurs in many of the independent tales, in the connecting material it becomes a symbol of futility: that which we most crave is that which will undo us. T he horse, which the G uru so desperately needs— to fearlessly cross rivers, to avoid exhaustion when travelling in the withering heat and on dusty roads— proves to be an unending source of trouble. After failing to hatch a horse from a pum pkin, which they believe is a horse-egg, and to vivify a mud-horse, and after hiring an expensive bullock, the disciples finally succeed in buying an old, blind, lame, one-eared hag. Even for this defective m ount, however, the Guru must pay road taxes and exorbitant prices for feed; soon they fall prey to another conman, who performs nonsense rituals and declares that the ‘horse-troubles’ will cease if its remaining ear is chopped off. Later the G uru falls from this horse into the water, which eventually leads to his death. T hroughout the story, then, the horse brings the opposite of what its owner desires; a similar paradox is illustrated by the final image of the folktale o f the rice-beater puja, in which the pious husband chases after his fleeing guest with the heavy beater in his hand: the more you try to gain something, the more unobtainable it becomes. T he Arabian horse, im ported to this part o f south India by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, soon became a status symbol for rajas, warriors and merchants; as the preferred conveyance for mission­ aries on their long pastoral travels, the horse was on Beschi s mind, too. As mentioned above, while riding one, he fell and injured his arm and could not write for several m onths. N o greater calamity could befall a writer, no better image o f futility than a writer who cannot write. The authorial intentions o f Beschis text are still a topic o f debate among Tamil scholars, but one thing is certain: ‘Guru Simpleton marks the beginning of literary prose fiction in Tamil. It was not published until 1822, in London, but when it was distributed and sold in Madras the following year, it became the first example o f Tamil folklore in print; in its several Indian editions, starting in 1845 and continuing to the present day, the text has played an important role in the history of Tamil prose writing. Beschis deliberate choice of folktales for his text illus­ trates the new attitudes toward Tamil literature that was fundam ental

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PRINT, FOLKLORE, AND NATIONALISM

to the emerging literary culture o f the eighteenth century. All the literary practices discussed in this chapter— bilingual grammars and interlingual dictionaries, script reform, translations and discursive prose— all o f them contributed to this heightened awareness o f lan­ guage as a hum an artefact and o f literary forms as a tool for cultural change. A n d these literary practices, in turn, were underpinned by print throughout the century; from the early bibles, to the grammars, to Pilgrim s Progress, print forced people to ask and to answer new ques­ tions of what kind o f Tamil to write, what it should look like and what textual forms it m ight assume. For example, Beschi s scheme for script reform, first printed in his 1738 grammar, soon became standard orthography for Tamil. In addition, print enabled a wider distribution o f the answers to these questions, conflicting answers which then ignited more debate about the purposes of language and literature. Far m ore than m ute machine, the printing press was instrumental in the development o f Tamil literary culture in the eighteenth century. The last Tamil book printed in the eighteenth century was issued from the SPCK press at Vepery in 1799; Tirucapai Carittiram was a translation and revision of an earlier Portuguese history o f the Christian church. This 1799 book contained a passage from Beschi s unpublished Veta Vilakkam of 1727 in which he discusses Nobili; through this printed book, therefore, many more people had access to the views Beschi had expressed in his handwritten text seven decades before. In the early part o f the nineteenth century, when two influential writers, one British and the other a Tamil Catholic, quoted Beschi on Nobili, they did so not from Beschi s 1727 manuscript but from the extract printed in the 1799 book. W hile one cannot yet speak o f a literary culture dom inated by print, the activities o f Beschi, the Lutherans and other Protestants during the eighteenth century made such a development only a m atter o f tim e. As noted earlier, by the end o f the eighteenth century, 266 Tamil books were in print; by the end o f the next century, the annual figure would reach nearly a thousand.124

151

152

The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia

198

Notes Early Books and New Literary Practices: 15 5 6 —1800 1.

The history o f prose, in particular, owes much to pre-colonial traditions and conventions, but the discursive prose that missionaries wrote became the preferred model for Tamil in the nineteenth century. On pre-modern historical writings in south India, some o f which were in prose, see Narayana Rao, Shulman and Subrahmanyam 2001.

2

. Foucault 1970: 296.

3. Annamalai 2000: 74. 4. Vaiyapuri Pillai 1982 [1936]: xxxiv-v. 5. Henriques refers in letters to his grammar, which he began in 1348 and completed four year later (Vermeer 1982: xiii). Vermeer (1982: xiv), following Thani Nayakam (1954), who discovered the manuscript in Lisbon, believes it is Henri quess grammar or a copy of it; the manuscript is bilingual but primarily in Portuguese. The first printed grammar of any Indian language is the 1640 Konkani Arte da lingoa Canarim. . Annamalai 2000: 74 -5. 7. Annamalai 1979: 53, fn. 2.

6

153

The History o f the Book in South Asia NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

199

8. Monius 20 0 1, especially pp. 1 1 7 - 3 3 . Rules for assimilating foreign words into Tamil were revised in a later medieval grammar, Nannul 9. Annamalai 1979: 3 8 -4 1.

10. David Shulman, personal communication, October 2000. 11. Peterson 1993: 9. 12. Bayly 1989: 258. 13. One book in romanised Konkani was also printed at Goa in the sixteenth century. 14. Bayly 1989:325. These conversions, however, were in name only (Stephen 1998: 62-5). 15. Shaw 19 81a: 26. 16. Thani Nayakam 1958. Stephen 1998: 327. On early Tamil books, see Shaw 19 8 1a, 1982, 1987, 1993. 17. Commercial printing came later, but even these early books were sold: a 1568 impfint in Goa, for instance, announced that it was for sale at the house of Fernao de Castilho, bookseller, at the front o f the butchershop. The price is one and a half tangas, paper money (Diehl Papers, I.E. pp. 59-60; the tanga was an old Muslim coin, equal to about one-eighth of a gold cruzado). 18. The details on Henriques5life and work are found in Shaw 1982; Shaw 1993; Thani Nayakam 1958. 19. Diehl Papers, 2J3. p. 23; Thani Nayakam 1958. Stephen (1998: 326), citing Xavier s letters, notes that he was aware that his translation was incorrect and desired Henriques to complete it.

20 . The first printed book in Telugu appeared in 1746 in Halle, Germany; Bengali in 1778 in Hugli; Malayalam in 1799 in Bombay; English in 17 1 6 in Tranquebar. Printed books in Marathi, Persian and Urdu came early in the nineteenth century.

21 . James 2000: 10 1. 22 . Shaw 19 81a. 23. Diehl mentions that this 1578 book was printed on paper made in China (Diehl Papers. 1. G. p. 67). 24. Shaw (1987: 9 -10 ) notes a few Indian-run presses in late eighteenthcentury Bombay. Bayly reviews existing arguments for the failure of north Indian rulers to take up the new technology but reaches no conclusion, which is not surprising since none of the arguments is convincing (Bayly 19 9 6 :2 38 -9 ).

154

The History o f the Book in South Asia

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

25. Until about 1850, printing presses in India were, with few exceptions, made o f wooden frames, susceptible to termites (Graham Shaw, personal communication, December 2001). Iron presses became common in Madras only in the 1870s {Manual o f the Administration o f the Madras Presidency, 1885, Vol. 3: 550). 26. From Oriente Conquistado a Jesu Christo, Vol. 1, p. 18, as quoted in Ferroli 1939: 469. 27. Thani Nayakam 19 58: 290 (my translation). See also Stephen 1998: 324. 28. Bhabha 1994. 29. Letter by St Xavier, as quoted in Bayly 1989: 328. 30. Cited in Stephen 1998: 335. 3 1 . On the commentary tradition in Tamil, see Zvelebil 1974: 23 IfF.; Cutler 1992; Monius 20 0 1: 13 2 -5 5 .

32. Filliozat 1967. Stephen 1998: 332 -6 . 33. M y translation from the Tamil text as reproduced in Tamil Natan 1995: 48. 34. These details are taken from Shaw 1987: 7. 35. Shaw 1987: 6. 36. On Nobili s life and writings, see Rajamanickam 1972; Zupanov 1999. 37. Zupanov 1999: 78—80.

38 . Zupanov 1999: 84—9. 39. Rajamanickam 1972: 98ff. 40. Zupanov 1999: 246. 4 1. Antem de Proenca, Vocabulario Tamuelco com a significacao Portugueza, Ambalakad, 1679. See Thani Nayakam 1966. 42. Diehl Papers, 2. D. p. 28. 43. Shaw 1987: 13 . 44. These details are taken from Shaw 1987: 1 3 - 1 4 . 4 5 • Among Europeans in Madras, however, adopting Indian dress and customs was commonplace during the eighteenth century (Caplan 1995). 46. Bayly 1989: 380. 47. Grafe 1990: 25, fn. 1, statistics from 1750. 48. Grafe 1990: 25 -6 . 49. Muttusami Pillei 19 33 [1822]; Muttusami Pillei 1840.

50. The main sources are Besse 19 18 ; Ferroli 19 5 1; see also Vinson 1899; Srinivasan 1954; Sorrentino 1980.

The History o f the Book in South Asia NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

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201

5 1. M. Arunachalam (1974: 277) wrote: ‘All the works that go by the name o f Beschi were the works o f Supradipa [Kavirayar] ... no foreigner could grasp the thoughts that go into the making of Catur Aharadi or Tonnul Vilakkam.’ See also Cuppiramaniyan 1978: 12. A leading French scholar, on the other hand, claimed that ‘Guru Simpleton is indisputably of European inspiration (Vinson 1899: 125). 52. Muttusami Pillei 19 33 [1822]: 44. 53. Hough 1824: 143. 54. Beschi 1844: ix. 55. Hudson 2000: 23. 56. Ziegenbalg and Grundier 17 1 5 : 26. 57. Eisenstein 1983: 15 3 , quoting Maurice Gravier. 58. Kesavan 1985: 38—9. 59. Kesavan 1985: 40. 60. Shaw 1987: 7; Packiamuthu 19 8 1: 2 3-4 . 6 1. Shaw 1987: 7. 62. As quoted in Teltscher 1995: 10 1. 63. Besse 19 18 : 84-5. 64. Besse 19 18 : 85. 65. Muttusami Pillei 19 33 [1822]: 38.

66 . See Teltscher 1995 (chapter3) on the differencesbetween Jesuit and Lutheran missions in south India; the assumption o f a linkbetween printing and Protestantism, however, has been challenged in Alexandra Walshams essay, ‘Post-Reformation Catholicism and the culture of print’ in Past and Present 2000. 67. Packiamuthu 19 8 1: 23; Priolkar 1958: 42. The latter source claims that Finck died o f fever.

68. As quoted in Teltscher 1995: 99. 69. As quoted in Hudson 2000:

16.

70. Muttusami Pillei [Pillai] 1840: 252, citing an unnamed essay by Ellis. Beschis words were originally written in the Preface to his Veta Vilakkam (1729), which were then quoted in a Protestant church history, Tirucapai carittira postakam (1799). 7 1. Beschi 18 4 2 :2 6 3 . 72. Beschi 1842: 269-70; see the slightly different translation by Chitty (Chitty 1859: 75, footnote). 73. Srinivasan 1954: 303.

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The History o f the Book in South Asia

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

74. Beschi 1842: 2 7 3-4 . Most citations and translations o f this passage include the phrase ‘burn the eyes’, but printed books at that time were primarily heard. 75. Beschi 1842: 2 7 3-5 . 76. Beschi 1842: 273-4 ; ‘two schools o f Saivisrn translates ulcamayam and

pura camayam\ ‘Tirukkural’translates irati; ‘Nalatiyaf translates nalati. 77. Besse 19 18 : 1 1 7 , quoting Beschi s Annual Letter o f 1 7 3 1. 78. Hudson 2000: 47. 79. Besse 19 18 : 105. 80. Hudson 2000: 44. 8 1. Richter 1908: 1 1 1 - 1 2 ; Paul 1967: 33; Hudson 2000: 45. 82. Peterson forthcoming. 83. Father Bouchet, Beschis successor, however, claimed that the Madurai Mission had thirty churches and that he alone had baptised 20,000 converts (Campbell 19 2 1: 235). 84. Neill 1985: 75ff. 85. Neill 1985: 72. 86 . Shaw 1987: 8. 87. Shaw 1987: 9. 88 . Muthiah 1990: 385. 89. Fabricius dictionary may have been based on an unpublished dictionary by Ziegenbalg (Meenakshisundaram 1974: 255). 90. For (conflicting) lists and dates o f Beschi s dictionaries and other works, see Sommervogel 1890; Vinson 1900; Besse 19 18 ; James 2000. 9 1. James 2000: 1 1 0 - 1 4 ; Meenakshisundaram 1974. 92. Meenakshisundaram 1974: 246. Beschi also used an alphabetical index in his Veta vilakkam. 93. James 2000: 154. 94. Zvelebil 1994, Vol. 2: 298. 95. Meenakshisundaram 1974: 169. 96. Muttusami Pillei [Pillai] 1840: Appendix 2. 97. On Beschi s grammar, see Meenakshisundaran 19 6 1. Nannul, especially Arumukam Navalars edition o f this traditional grammar in 1850, was the key text for Tamil scholars. 98. O R ms 13586, OIO C. The British Library holds a second manuscript as well: O R ms 13044, O IO C. 99. Nanappirakacam 1985; Subbiah 1965/1966; Meenakshisundaram 1974: 17 0 - 1.

The History o f the Book in South Asia NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

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203

100. Meenakshisundaram 1974. In the Preface to his 1744 Tamil-French dictionary, Beschi gave some guidelines about how to use his new ortho­ graphic system (see the English translation in James 2000: 559-64).

101. Grafe 1990: 25. 102. Hudson 2000: 146. 103. For sources on commentarial prose in Tamil, see note 3 1 , this chapter; on histories, see Narayana Rao, Shulman & Subrahmanyam 2001. 104. See Shulman forthcoming. 105. Nanappirakacam 1975: 13 - 1 6 . 106. Nanappirakacam 1975: 17. 107. Meenakshisundaram 1974; Kailacapati 1987; Paramacivanantam 1966. Collections of folktales such as Madanakamarajan katai and Vikkirama tittan katai had little effect on Tamil Literary Culture. 108. Madras tract and book society, Annual report, 1861. 109. Sarah Trimmer ( 1 7 4 1 - 1 8 1 0 ) wrote childrens stories, adapted from biblical narratives.

110. In his Veta vilakkam, Beschi 1842: 258-9. 1 1 1 . Hudson 2000: 155.

112. Nanappirakacams translation in Beschi 1975 [ 1845]. I am also indebted to Prof. Shackle, my colleague at SOAS, for preparing an English translation o f Beschis Latin Preface for me. Working from these two translations, I have prepared my own, from which the passages quoted below are taken. 1 1 3 . Beschis explanation for rule no. 14 (which governs sandhi after a final vowel) is for some reason omitted from the published Tamil translations of Beschi s Preface. 1 1 4. Babington (1822) notes many folktale and European sources for Beschi s tale, including Juvenals Satires, which includes a reference to a tax on urine. Also see the contemporary review o f Babington’s text (Asiatic Journal 1822). 1 1 5. Vinson 1899: 12 5 ; Cuppiramaniyan 1978: 12. 1 1 6. These episodes are international tale-types AT 1287; AT 1 31 9; AT 1240, respectively. 11 7. Beschi 1842: 258-9. The tale is AT 1692. 11 8. Besse 1 9 1 8 : 4 1 . 119. This is possibly AT 1592A.

120. This is AT 1 7 4 1 , about which see Van der Kooi forthcoming. 121. Sankaran 1984: 282-5.

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204

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

122. Crowquill 1861. 12 3. Babington 1822: iii-iv; Pope 1886: Preface; Meenakshisundaram 1974: 288. 124. Statistics on books and pamphlets in all languages registered in Madras are found in the Annual Reports on the Administration o f the Madras Presidency, beginning in 1867.

[7] Calcutta: Birthplace o f the Indian Lithographed Book GRAHAM SHAW It can be argued quite forcefully th a t the introduction o f lithography to In d ia in the 1820s h ad a far m ore significant im pact on the history o f p rin tin g in South Asia th a n the arrival o f typography in the 1550s. T his m ay n o t apply w ith equal force to all languages, regions or com m unities (for instance, Bengali w ith a tra ­ dition o f typography established early never seriously em b raced lithography), b u t overall it is true th a t its introduction h ad m ore im m ediate an d far-reaching effects. For the first two an d h alf centuries o f its use in India, typography h ad no im pact at all upo n the overw helm ing m ajority o f the population. U p to 1800 access to prin tin g rem ained very largely a coastal p h en o m en o n , hard ly p e n ­ etrating the h in terland beyond the various trad in g centres established by the E uropeans, an d it rem ained alm ost exclusively the preserve o f those E uropeans, w hether for purposes o f proselytization, adm inistrative an d legal control, or m eeting inform ation an d leisure needs.1 By contrast, the very next decade after lithog rap h y ’s in troduction to In d ia the w idespread ow nership o f presses by Indians themselves began, in the wake o f the 1835 M etcalfe A ct2 w hich rem oved the previously tight restrictions on p rin tin g and publishing. Being relatively cheap, portable an d easy to take up as a tech ­ nique w hen com pared to typography, lithography played a large p a rt in th at process of dem ocratizing p rin t in South Asia. W ith the developm ent o f type­ faces for m ost In d ian scripts still then in its infancy, an d the availability o f those developed lim ited, lithography represented a technological break th ro u g h an d instantly extended the facility o f p rin t to m any m ore languages in th e subcon­ tinent. Its arrival also coincided w ith the cultural renaissance, b oth H in d u and M uslim , first w itnessed in Bengal right at the beginning o f the nin eteen th cen ­ tu ry 3 bu t gradually p erm eatin g the subcontinent as the first h alf o f the century w ore on. L ithography becam e the p rin tin g m edium p a r excellence o f the M uslim com m unities in South Asia for its ability to m ake possible the ‘massproduced m an u scrip t’, w hich m et the criteria o f cultural authority w hich the type-set text could no t.4 1 For a summary of typography’s use in India up to 1800, see G. Shaw, The South Asia and Burma Retrospective Bibliography (SABREB) Stage 1:1556-1800 (London: The British Library, 1987), pp. 5-12. 2 India Office Records: V / 8 / 31 India Acts 1834-40: Act no. X I of 1835. See alsoj. W. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe (London: Richard Bentley, 1854), vol. II, pp. 245-72. 3 See, for instance, D. Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: the Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1773-1855 (Calcutta: Firma K . L. Mukhopadhya, 1969). 4-See F. Robinson, ‘Islam and the Impact o f Print in South Asia’, in N. Crook (ed.) The Transmission of Knowledge in South Asia: Essays on Education, Religion, History, and Politics (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 62-97.

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W hereas in E urope lithography rem ained largely on the p erip h ery o f book production, in India it quickly established itself in the m ainstream . P relim inary statistics for 1824-50, based for E urope on T w ym an’s C atalogue5 an d for In d ia on the a u th o r’s own research still in progress, ap p e ar to show th at alm ost three tim es as m any works were p rin ted by lithography in In d ia th a n in E urope during the sam e period. Period

Europe

India

[1801- 23] 1824-30 1831-40 1841-50

[48] 45 94 79

[0] 79 I5I 410

Total

218

640

T h e A rabic an d Persian scholar, Alois Sprenger, w ho h ad been at Lucknow from 1848 to 1850 cataloguing the m anuscripts in the K in g o f O u d h ’s libraries, com m ented in 1854 th a t ‘the nu m b er o f works lith o g rap h ed at Lucnow an d C aw npore m ay am ount to about seven h u n d re d ’.6 From S p ren g er’s com m ent it is clear th a t the ou tp u t o f ju st these two m ajo r centres even up to 1850 is signifi­ cantly u nd errep resen ted in the table above. In d eed it w ould n ot be at all surpris­ ing if by 1850 over 1000 editions or titles h ad been lith o g rap h ed in India. Yet despite the great im portance o f lithography in the developm ent o f Indian prin tin g and publishing, surprisingly research into the history o f its use in the subcontinent has hardly begun. T his p ap e r is a first attem p t to address th at w ant, by presenting new evidence concerning the in troduction o f lithography into India an d th en discussing the first decade or so o f its use for prod u cin g books in C alcutta. The introduction o f lithography

T h e circum stances of lithography’s in tro d u ctio n into In d ia have h ith erto been regarded as clear-cut: the m an responsible was Jam es N ath an iel R ind, an assistant surgeon in the Bengal M edical Service, an d the date was August 1822, w hen R in d retu rn ed to C alcutta from sick-leave spent in L ondon an d Edinburgh w ith a lithographic press and m aterials.7 N ew evidence, however, suggests th a t there were others involved in the transfer o f this p articu lar piece o f E u ro p ean technology to India, an d th a t several Talse starts’ an d at least p artially success­ ful experim ents h ad taken place before R in d ’s retu rn . T h a t evidence com es prim arily from contem porary C alcutta jo u rn als w here a m inor debate on the

5 In M. Twyman, Early Lithographed Books (London: Farrand Press, 1990), pp. 277-337. 6 A. Sprenger, A Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Hindu’sta’ny Manuscripts, of the Libraries of the King of Oudh (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1854), vol. I, preface p. vi. 7 See, for instance, most recently: A. S. Cook, ‘The Beginnings of Lithographic M ap Printing in Calcutta’, in P. Rohatgi and P. Godrej (eds), India: a Pageant of Prints (Bombay: Marg Publications, ‘ 989)* p -127-

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subject ensued, not least because o f R in d ’s own insistence th a t he alone deserved the credit for introducing the new technique to India. Before considering those claims and counter-claim s, we can add to the confu­ sion by noting that at least one rep o rt was circulating at the same tim e th at a form o f lithography had originated in Asia. A D r J. G. G erard o f Sabathu, a m ilitary post n ear Simla, m entioned m eeting the famous H u n g arian orientalist, Csom o de Körös, at the m onastery of K an am in K unaw ar, whose ‘learned com panion, the Lam a, has inform ed him that lithographic p rin tin g has flourished for ages in the ancient cities o f Teshoo L oom poo and Lahassa*, and the rep o rt o f the p ro ­ ceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for July 1829 recorded the presentation by the same D r G erard o f ‘a specim en of the stone used for lithographic p rinting in T hibet, and of the p rin tin g ’, a footnote adding th at ‘it seem ed to be a fine­ grained chlorito-argillaceous schist’.8 T his is clearly a reference to the practice (originating in C hina but spreading early to o th er B uddhist cultures) o f taking inked rubbings on p ap er from stone inscriptions, the forerunner o f taking inked impressions from wood, a process w hich the Sinologist T h o m as F. G arter him self referred to in the 1920s as ‘lithography’ or ‘lithograph ru b b in g ’.9 Remarkably, news o f E uropean lithography reached In d ia w ithin th irteen years o f its invention. T h e Calcutta Gazette, 28 M arch 1811,10 contained an article entitled ‘A rt o f P rinting w ith S tone’ w hich began: The art of printing from stone, originally discovered in Germany about nine years ago, and which has since been successfully practised in Italy and France, appears to be but little used or even known in this country; though meriting from its simplici­ ty, its expedition, and its economy, to rank high among modern discoveries, and offering some real and important advantage to the arts. W hile th a t 1811 article expresses the opinion th a t the technique was ‘b u t little used’ in India, the first real evidence th a t the new technique m ay have actually been im ported into In d ia appears only two years later. In 1813 an English tran s­ lation by Lewis F erdinand Sm ith o f M ir A m m an D ihlavi’s p o p u lar U rd u d idac­ tic work, Bagh 0 Bahar, appeared u n d er the title, The Tale o f the Four Durwesh , ‘p rin te d by L. M endes at the O rien tal L ithographic an d T ypographic Press, N o .i, Zig-Z ag Lane, Cossitollah’.11 O n exam ination, however, we find th at the book is entirely letterpress p rinted, n o t lith o g rap h ed , b u t the im plication rem ains th a t b oth m ethods o f printing were already available at M en d es’ press in 1813. However, no o ther book w ith th a t exact im p rin t has been traced, an d the next earliest work prin ted by L. M endes th at has so far been found dates from 1835,12 so the 1813 date o f this work m ay be suspect. 8 Collection of the Original Papers, Published in the First Six Numbers of. .. Gleanings in Science, January— June 182g (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1829), p. 66, and Gleanings in Science, no. 8 (August 1829), p. 246. 9 The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward (New York: Columbia University Press,

I2~l6-

10 Supplement p. 2. The article, not signed, was no doubt largely copied from one of the imported

‘Europe papers’ which made up much of the content of the early Indian newspapers. 11 British Library copy: 14112^.48 - 8°. NB There was a 40 edition ‘printed by Greenway and Co. —Hurkaru Press’ also issued in 1813. 12 The Memorials of A. Imlach . . . with the Official Proceedings (Calcutta: L. Mendes, [1835]). British Library copy: 8023.bbb.31.

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From the possible availability o f the technique in In d ia by 1813, we can move to the first practical experim ent in lithography being m ade ab o u t five years later in 1818 or 1819. A ccording to a letter in the Calcutta Courier 27 Ju n e 183213 from ‘A B rother o f the C ra ft’: It is about 14 years [ago] that the first attempt of that kind was made by Mr. Toulmin, who was then an usher [i.e. assistant schoolmaster] in the Durrumtollah Academy. He would have succeeded had he been a man of the Great, and not a jack of many trades. W illiam M aintrue Toulm in h ad arrived in In d ia in 1815; by 1821 he h ad left teaching to set him self up as an ‘operative chem ist’; an d ab o u t 1824 he m oved up-river to the D anish settlem ent o f S eram pore w here he died on 9 M ay 1839 at the age of thirty-five.14 C learly he did n o t succeed in business and, as the Calcutta Courier article concludes, ‘now lies b uried a clod o f earth at Seram pore, forgotten by every m a n .’ In M arch 1822 T oulm in published one book at C alcutta, Rational Amusement: Being a Series o f Curious and Instructive Experiments in Chemistry. A lthough the w ork contains a section on ‘sym pathetic inks’, th ere is disappointingly no m ention o f lithography, and although the book contains two illustrations execut­ ed by Toulm in himself, they are engravings an d not lithographs. Yet clearly the know ledge o f chem istry w hich T oulm in evinced in this book m akes the 1832 Calcutta Courier claim perfectly feasible, even if as yet no p ro o f o f his successful operation o f the technique can be traced. The French connection

By the tim e T oulm in’s book appeared, however, the first succcessful p ractitio n ­ ers o f lithography in India m ay well have b een not British b ut French. T h e Calcutta Journal of 26 S eptem ber 182215 - ju st one m o n th after R in d ’s re tu rn to In d ia - rep o rted th at Mr Belnos, and Mr de Savighnac, two French artists resident in this city, having united their information and skill, have produced specimens of lithographic engraving and printing equal to anything we have seen from England; and we have now in our possession a portrait of a private individual, and a sketch from nature, which it would be difficult to distinguish from pencil drawings. U nfortunately no surviving copy o f either the p o rtra it or the topographical view executed in 1821-22 has yet been located. A n article published by ‘L ithographicus’ in C alcutta some seven years la te r16 appears to corro b o rate this version o f events: As far as we can trace, the earliest recorded fact of the employment of Litho­ graphy in this country is that of the present superintendent of the Government 13 P- M y 14 For biographical data see various years of The East India Register and Directory published at Calcutta: 1819 (2nd edn) p. 170; 1821 (2nd edn) p. 169; 1823 (2nd edn) p. 172; 1826 (2nd edn) p. 176. See also Holmes and Co., The Bengal Obituary (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1848), p. 347. 15 Vol. 5, no. 231, p. 349. 16 ‘On the rise and progress of the lithographic art in India, with a brief notice of the native litho­ graphic stones o f that country’ in Collection of the Original Papers, p. 26.

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Lithographic Press [i.e. Rind], which dates in the early part of 1822; but we know that, considerably more than a year previous to that time, Mr Savignac had built (after a drawing and description in Senefelder’s history) a large, but perfectly ser­ viceable wooden press on the exploded star construction, with which he executed very tolerable impressions. To this individual, therefore, undoubtedly belongs the credit of having introduced the Lithographic Art into India. R in d was stung into a reply in w hich he outlined his personal route to lithog­ raphy. Early in 1821 he h ad been p erm itted to re tu rn to E ngland Tor the benefit of m edical advice, having unfortunately lost b o th h ealth an d hearin g by expo­ sure to the inclem ency o f all w eathers ... d uring the P in d ara an d M a h ra tta cam ­ paigns o f 1816, 17, 18 and 19’. In E dinburgh, having m ade a p artial recovery, he was ab o u t to leave w hen T accidentally m et w ith an old schoolfellow Mr. A lexander F orrester’ w ho m entioned th a t 'am ongst o th er occupations he h ad been practising lithography w ith some success’. T h ey quickly ad jo u rn ed to F orrester’s prin tin g office w here R in d w rote a sentence on transfer paper: 'Being done, it was transferred to the stone, and in a few m inutes several im pressions were struck o ff’. R in d was greatly im pressed by the precision an d rapidity o f the technique and im m ediately saw its applicability ‘to the w ants o f India, especial­ ly in prin tin g the oriental character, a thing yet only partially effected w ith ty p e’. R in d ’s future career was decided there and then: In the course of the evening it was finally arranged, that giving up all idea of my projected tour of visits, as well as of every other recreation or pursuit, I should immediately commence the study of lithography under Mr. Forrester, and having obtained from him a competent knowledge of the art, that I should immediately embark for India. W hen n arratin g events once he retu rn ed to C alcutta, R in d contrasts his own professional train in g in lithography an d his know ledge o f all p ractical aspects o f the technique w ith de Savignhac’s self-taught ap p ro ach an d the lim itations inevitably arising from that: On showing some of my productions to the late Dr. Jamieson,17 he, although approving of them, expressed his fears, as many of my friends had done at home, that the art could never be practised in India with any thing like efficiency, adding that M. Savignac had been making some attempts but without success. I immedi­ ately called upon M. Savignac to ascertain exactly what progress he had made. I found that he had taken a solitary impression of a chalk sketch of a head, the stone having, by the injudicious pressure used, been broken. He had reunited the two pieces by means of a cement, and had made another sketch. All this had been done with materials received from Europe, he being entirely ignorant of the method of preparing them, the real secret of the art. In short he knew nothing of lithography, not even the most elementary part of its processes.18 Since R in d ’s proposal to set up a lithographic press was n o t p resented to the East In d ia C om pany authorities until J a n u a ry 1823, h m aY we^ have been these U Probably Jam es Jameson, Surgeon and Secretary to the Medical Board, who died 20 January 1823 (see The Bengal Obituary, p. 161). 18 ‘On the first introduction of the lithographic art into India’, Gleanings in Science, no. 10 (1829), pp. 293-95. See also Oriental Observer, 16 November 1828, pp. 734-35.

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two French artists w ho w ere the very first to practise the new technique in India. C ertainly they are to be credited w ith its first artistic exploitation, as R in d was initially producing only m aps for the S urveyor-G eneral an d routine form s n eed ­ ed for the various branches o f adm inistration. D espite R in d ’s p erh ap s u n d er­ standably ja u n d ice d view, there is no d ou b t o f Philippe de Savignhac’s skill as a lithographer from the later 1820s, such as his contributions - b o th p o rtra it and topographical —to two works published in 1828, the Asiatic Museum Illustrated an d the Amateur’s Repository o f Indian Sketches (figs. 1 & 2).19 From co n tem p o rary C alcutta directories we know th a t Jean-Jacques Belnos h ad arrived in Bengal as a m iniature p ain ter as early as 1807;20 de Savighnac, however, probably arrived m uch later.21 It m ay have been the latter therefore who b ro u g h t the new tech ­ nique of lithography w ith him from France —p erh ap s literally in the form o f a copy o f Senefelder’s treatise - an d jo in e d forces w ith the already w ell-established Belnos. G iven the superb quality of contem p o rary French lithography, seen for instance in the two volumes o f L ’Indefrangaisef1 it is equally p robable th a t France, an d no t E ngland, was the route by w hich lithography reached India. T h e French connection w ith early lithography in In d ia is reinforced by the fact th a t the first litho g rap h er to be nam ed in an In d ian book was one Em ile Louis L igard Billon, w ho cam e to In d ia from France in 1817 an d is listed in the directories as a m in ia­ ture p ain ter first at H ow rah an d then M onghyr.23 If we b ear in m in d th a t the finest early litho g rap h er o f m aps in In d ia after R in d himself, Jean-B aptiste Tassin, was a native o f A ix,24 then there were p erh ap s m ore French th a n British practitioners o f lithography in C alcutta in the 1820s. To sum up, although de Savignhac possessed lithographic m aterials an d h ad exploited them before R in d ’s retu rn , th at exploitation was im perfect an d very lim ited. R in d was the first to establish a lithographic press on a p ro p er footing, the first to use the new technique for purposes o f book-production in In d ia and, above all, the first to recognize and exploit its suprem e utility for p rin tin g in oriental scripts. Rind’s description o f lithography in India

R in d has given us a vivid first-hand account o f the early days o f ad ap tin g litho­ graphy to the tropical clim ate o f In d ia25 as a result o f the p a rt he played in introducing lithography to Bombay. O n 2 Ju ly 1824 the Bom bay G overnm ent appointed R obert M acD ow all, an Assistant in the S ecretary’s Office, as the first

19 British Library copies: W 2994 and X 444 respectively. 20 The East India Register and Directory,for 1819, p. 141. 21 The Bengal Directory and General Register, for the Tear 1824 (grd edn), p. 174, listed as portrait painter and engraver. 22 (Paris: Chabrelie Editeur, 1827-35). British Library copies: X 193 and X 1217. 23 India Office Records O /5/28: Collection no. 58, f. 11; The Mew Annual Bengal Directory and General Registerfor the Tear 1824, p. 408; The Calcutta Annual Directory and First Quarterly Register,for the Tear of Our Lord 1831, p. 371. 24 R. H. Phillimore, Historical Records ofthe Survey of India (Dehra Dun: Office o f the Northern Circle, Survey of India, 1958), vol. 4, p. 469. 25 India Office Records F/4/928: Board’s Collection no. 26079, PP* 26~44-

The History o f the Book in South Asia C A L C U T T A : B IR T H P L A C E O F T H E IN D IA N L IT H O G R A P H E D B O O K

Figure 1. Philippe de Savighnac: lithograph o f ‘The Late Sir William Jones’ . From Asiatic Museum Illustrated (1828). Image with letters 222 X 180 mm.

Figure 2. Philippe de Savighnac: lithograph of a ‘Police Thannah’ . From Amateur’s Repository of Indian Sketches (1828). Image with letters 207 X 225 mm.

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S uperintendent o f its L ithographic Office. H e was ju st tw enty-four years old a n d a com plete tyro in lithography or any form o f printing. Conscious o f his inexpe­ rience, he took the sensible step o f w riting to R in d in C alcu tta w ith a series o f thirteen queries, ranging from the p ro p er m aterials to be used, the ap p ro p riate staffing an d accom m odation for an efficient press, an d the rates o f pro d u ctio n to be expected, to the costs involved and w heth er lithography could be shown to be cheaper th a n typography for G overnm ent p rin tin g in India. R in d ’s answers are filled w ith the good sense of practical experience, laced th rough w ith pride, an d deserve to be quoted in full: ist Query. The mode of preparing aprinting ink sufficiently black toproduce thefinest and darkest lines? The finest black ink must be used in marking and this is procured by burning oil of turpentine and collecting the smoke in a large cistern or other vessel. This black requires afterwards to be roasted in a close iron pot, in the same manner that all blacks are treated; a very little fine indigo rubbed down with varnish in the man­ ner of paint, added to this, renders the colour much finer and darker. I have never used Europe ink except experimentally, and very soon discovered that it would not suit this climate. It is also absolutely necessary for you to burn your own varnish if you wish good ink, and care should be taken to obtain the finest Europe linseed oil for the purpose. The thinnest varnish should just draw strongly and no more; the next ought to be a little thicker; and the third, or strongest, about the consistency of Venice Turpentine. 2nd. The best mode of preparing chemical ink, as Senefelder's recipe may, there is no doubt, be accommodated better to this climate? Very good transfer ink may be made from shell lac 3 oz, wax 3 oz, tallow 4 oz, mastic 5 oz, and soap 4 oz. Black prepared from oil of turpentine and afterwards well roasted as much as to render the ink sufficiently black. 3 rd. The chalk sentfrom England is so soft and consequently useless; the best recipesyou havefor making it? Chalk drawings are not required by the Supreme Government, I have therefore had little experience in them; but nothing is more easy than to make the chalk as hard or as soft as you desire. Remember, however, to keep it well closed in glass stopper bottles, otherwise it undergoes a chemical change. 4th. Do you conceive it necessary to allow the transfer to be on the stone some hours previous to printing? I have often printed successfully immediately after making the transfer to the stone, but never except as an experiment or of necessity. It ought always, when practicable, be allowed to remain on the stone some hours, or, at all events, till the gum gets dry; then inked in with a sponge dipped in ink, gummed, and allowed to dry again. It is then fit to print. yth. In preparing transferpaper, what sort ofpaper doyou use? China, or fine Europe print­ ing paper. 6th. Is the atmospheric heat sufficientfor the stone in a transferring, or doyou heat it artificially? The atmospheric temperature is almost always sufficient to render the stone fit for receiving the transfer; but, in cold damp weather, the stone is better warmed with the sun a little, or, on a cloudy day, I warm the stone by means of an iron plate, under which a fire is kindled; when the plate is heated, the stone is put upon it, a few sheets of waste paper intervening.

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yth. How many impressions in English or native languages haveyou takenfrom one transfer, and how many in one day? I have often taken 1000 impressions from English writing in one day. So many have not been required in the native languages; but a Persian and a Naguree writer are daily employed in this office, and 260 impressions are always taken of their writing in about 2 hours, and the stone remains in most cases as good and clean as at first; but, more impressions not being required, the stones are imme­ diately cleaned for other purposes. From 600 to 800 impressions agreeable to their size etc., I look upon as a good day’s work for one press when very numerous impressions are required of a very small form, 12 copies of which could be written on half a sheet of Post paper; this was accordingly done, and 100 impressions of the dozen copies were taken next morning in less than an hour. I often have orders for some thousand copies of forms, and manage in that way.

8th. Haveyou selected the coolestplaceprocurablefor the establishment? I am allowed Rs. 200 per mensem for house rent and office rent; but so much do I value a cool situation that I pay 350, and intend, as soon as I am able, to build an office upon the ground, which will cost 3,000 Rupees more. an in book form and Prosody and rhyme in miniature editions Textbooks/primers Selections from the Qu^an Hindu religion Exegesis Books in Urdu Hadith Textbooks/primers Jurisprudence Principles of jurisprudence Grammar and syntax Prosody and rhyme Rhetoric Calligraphy Theology Letter-writing Inheritance law Arithmetic and geometry Miscellaneous religious Logic works Histories of prophets Lexicography History of kings etc. History Human medicine Ethics Veterinary medicine Medicine Medical dictionaries Philosophy General dictionaries Literature Female education Rhetoric Ethics and Sufism Logic Kulliyät, dlvän Religious disputation Masnavl Grammar and syntax Wäsokht Books in Persian Tazkirah Exegesis Rare collections Hadith Music Jurisprudence Astrology Theology Tales (prose and Miscellaneous religious verse) works

Books on Islam (Urdu) Exegesis Hadith Sunni jurisprudence Shica jurisprudence Miscellaneous religious works Books on Hindu Religion (Urdu) Publications of the Office of the Kayasth Samacar, Allahabad Books in Hindi (in Nagari script) Epics Puranas Vedanta Poetry Music Tales, etc. Medicine Astrology Miscellaneous Textbooks/primers Books in Sanskrit Grammar, Dharmshastra, etc. Astrology (Sanskrit with Urdu transl.) (Sanskrit with Hindi transl.) Books in English Textbooks/primers History Tales/Narrative Dictionaries Miscellaneous Various Maps Maps of India Maps of Arabia and the Near East Asia, Africa, America Avadh, small and large Maps of the Turco-Russian war, etc.

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3.2

The NKP’s Sales Network in 1879 City

1.

Name of Bookdealer

Location

Shaikh Vilayat Husain, bookdealer

Sundaryapati

2. Calcutta

Maulvi Muhammad Kamil, bookdealer

Taltala Bazar

3. Calcutta

Miyam Ahmadullah, bookdealer

Wellesley Street No. 9, near Madrasa (Aliya

4. Calcutta

Shaikh Nasiruddin, bookdealer

Wellesley Street No. 84, Rahmani Press

5. Calcutta

Miyam Rahmatullah, bookdealer

Dharmtala Daftaripati

6. Patna

Maulvi cAbdul Ghaffur, bookdealer

Korth [?]

7. Bombay

Qazi Fateh Muhammad and Qazi Salih Muhammad Brothers

8. Bombay

The late Haji Muhammad Ibrahim, bookdealer

9. Bombay

Mullah Nuruddin, bookdealer

Bhendi Bazar

Headmaster Kayasth Pathshala

Bahadurganj

The Manager, Naval Kishore Press

Sarsaiya Ghat

Calcutta

10. Allahabad 11. Kanpur 12, Kanpur

Bhendi Bazar

Nizami Press

Patkapur

13. Moradabad

Maulvi Haji Hidayat Yar Khan, bookdealer

Chauk Bazar

14. Bareilly

Maulvi Haji cAli Yar Khan, bookdealer

Katra Manrai

15. Delhi

Agent, Naval Kishore Press Bookshop

Dariba Kalan

16. Lahore

Miyam Chiraghuddin, bookdealer

Kashmiri Bazar

17. Patiala

Agent, Naval Kishore Press

18. London

Trubner Company [sic]

Ludgate Hill

addressed to the NKP each year was an astounding 25,000 letters.61 In light of this it is no coincidence that the firm’s Lucknow warehouse and head office were situated adjacent to the General Post Office.62 Payment for book orders was strictly in advance. It was effected in cash, by money order, bill of exchange, or cheque. Smaller amounts could also be paid in stamps. Customers were urged to insure and register their cash payments if remitted by mail. They were also asked to abstain from sending telegram s or unstam ped letters to the NKP. All 61 Avadh Akhbär, 19 A pril 18 7 0 , cjted in Siddiqi 19 80 : 50. 62 Urdu sources generally claim that the post office w as established with the express purpose o f meeting the N K P ’ s needs.

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communications were to include postal stamps for the firm’s reply. Given the surge of letters that reached the firm each year, it proclaimed itself unable to cover the expenses involved in postage. Equally, all dispatch costs were to be met by the customer. In including various advertisem ents for stationary and general merchandise, the 1879 list reveals the full extent and diversity of the NKP’s trading activities. As a bookseller, Naval Kishore was also a sta­ tioner dealing in pens and ink; his firm sold cloth for bookbinding in various colours and different kinds of paper imported from London’s famous John Dickinson Company and the German firm of Ullmann, Hirschhorn & Co. Lithographic stones imported from England and types of Nagari founts were advertised alongside popular patent medicines (F ihrist 1879: 122-3). The NKP had been appointed sole distributor for the ‘celebrated medicines’ of one Dr De Roos, which were extensively advertised in A vadh A khbär and sold exclusively on the premises of the press. More surprisingly, Naval Kishore also acted as a broker for several Lucknow-based general merchants. Advertised in the 1879 catalogue was a great variety of general merchandise, including household ware, perfume, drapery, and haberdashery. All these items could be ordered through the NKP’s Lucknow agents against remittance of advance payment in cash and a brokerage fee. With brokerage rates ranging from 1 anna per rupee for small orders of less than Rs 100 to half an anna per rupee for orders valued at Rs 250 to 1000, and to a standard two per cent for bulk orders exceeding Rs 1000, the publisher had opened up another attractive sideline for himself (Fihrist 1879: 3). By the 1880s the firm apparently boasted a substantial clientele of European customers. According to the testimony of John Hurst, in the mid-1880s Munshi Naval Kishore issued a comprehensive English version of his catalogue, which listed almost 2500 titles on more than eighty-eight pages and was supplemented by an alphabetical index of another twenty pages. Hurst presumed it to be ‘the first time Kishore has given full publicity to the Anglo-Indian world of the issues from his press’ (Hurst 1887:354). While I could not trace this English catalogue, its existence raises the question of the extent of British expatriate and metropolitan consumption of oriental literature. Diversity was key to commercial publishing. Consistent with its other marketing practices, the NKP tried to induce readers to buy books through a variegated selection of titles that would appeal to individual preferences. Religious classics were issued in various formats, suiting the financial means and intellectual demands of an increasingly heterogeneous reader­ ship. The Holy Qur’an, for example, was made available in as many as

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19 different editions, meant to suit every pocket and every degree of theological sophistication. A Hindi classic such as the Räm äyan of Tulsi­ das was offered in plain and illustrated, hardcover (kitäbnum ä ) and paperback (patränum ä ) editions, with or without annotations. The firm’s abridged and illustrated pocket Räm äyän as well as its 1882 edition in ‘very large letters’, designed especially ‘for children and the elderly’, were proudly advertised as the only editions of their kind. A publisher’s notice in the large-letter Räm äyan extolled the efforts of its calligrapher Pandit Murlidhar, a Gujarati Brahmin of Agra, who was said to have spent several years of intense labour in copying out the text in large and pleasant letters, ‘so that the aged devotees of Hari, too, could read it without difficulty.’ To be able to react to the variegated demands of the marketplace had indeed become the hallmark of a successful publisher. 3.5 Author-Publisher Relations The four great figures in the creation of the nineteenth-century Urdu novel—Nazir Ahmad, Ratan Nath ‘Sarshar’, cAbdul Halim Sharar, and Hadi cAli Rusva— were each in one way or the other connected with the House of Naval Kishore. Nazir Ahmad published his masterpiece M irät al-carüs with the NKP. Ratan Nath ‘Sarshar’ served in the firm’s Trans­ lation Department and as an editor of Avadh A khbär , in which his novel F asäna-eÄ zäd was first serialized to wide popular acclaim. cAbdul Halim Sharar also served on the paper’s editorial board. Rusva, in 1899, immortalized the NKP in his celebrated tale of a Lucknow courtesan, JJmraAo Jän Adä.

As noted earlier, in the absence of publisher’s records frustratingly little is known about Naval Kishore’s dealings with writers, the agree­ ments he entered into with contemporary authors, and the terms of their contracts. Information on this fundamental aspect of the publisher’s activities is largely confined to some particularly famous cases and only comes piecemeal. For the time being, it cannot even be said what kind of author-publisher contract was most commonly in use at the House of Naval Kishore. If metropolitan models are a measure to go by, the general practice among authors and publishers in the latter half of the nineteenth century was to enter into one of the following forms of agreement: (a) O utright sa le o f co p yrigh t to the p u b lisher fo r an agreed am ount (b) A ssig n m e n t o f co p yrigh t fo r one edition or fo r a sp e c ifie d period, after w h ich it reverted to the author (c) P rofit-sh arin g, u su ally in the form o f a h alf-p ro fit arrangem ent (d) P aym en t o f ro yalty to author on s a le s (e) P u blication at author’ s e x p en se and risk. (A lle n 1 8 9 7 : 1 7 )

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The last form, which implied the least risk for the publisher—not even royalties were payable and the author bore all expenses— was usually limited to new authors, whose commercial value was unpredictable. Outright sale of copyright was one of the simplest forms of contract: in England it had remained the most common form throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth (Patten 1978: 22).63 In the absence of original contracts, our principal source of information for the period up to 1880 is a list of NKP copyrights included in the firm’s 1879 book catalogue (Table 3.3). It contains 125 titles, plus an extra 25 copyrights of textbooks. Since however, the list is incomplete, the actual number of copyrights acquired by the firm over time must have been higher. Over one-third of the copyrights related to the firm’s own translations, which usually involved high expenses and had to be properly safeguarded against piracy. A good proportion of original works registered in Naval Kishore’s name were by authors employed by the NKP, others were by minor authors. By contrast, but for a few exceptions, famous names in contemporary Urdu or Hindi literature are conspicuously absent from the list. This may be taken as an indication that established authors of re­ pute were reluctant to part with their copyrights and instead opted for some other form of contract. It is significant that, by this time, Naval Kishore had the collected poetry (kulliyät, dlvän) of over fifty Urdu poets on his list, including some famous contemporary names such as Ghalib, Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’, and cAbdul Ghafur Khan ‘Nassakh’. Yet the NKP only owned four copyrights, namely that of the divans of Nassakh and of three minor Lucknow poets, Amir, Wasti, and cAshiq. Perhaps the earliest known instance of an eminent Urdu literary figure ceding his copyright to the NKP is that of Mirza Rajab cAli Beg ‘Surur’ (1787-1867), the author of the famous prose romance F asäna-e cajdyib (A Tale of Wonders) and himself a native of Lucknow. Sometime in the 1860s, during what must have been one of his many episodes of financial distress, Rajab cAli Beg sold the copyright of his collected letters Inshäe Surür and of F asäna-e ^affiib, by then a decidedly popular work, to Naval Kishore. A second prominent name is that of the poet, literary critic and taikirah writer cAbdul Ghafur Khan ‘N assakh’ (1834-89), a leading representative of the Bengali Muslim intelligentsia, who is some­ times called the doyen of Urdu poetry in Bengal. Precisely why Nassakh chose to publish with Naval Kishore and sell him the copyright of his collected Urdu poetry is not known, but can certainly be taken as an 63 S e e ibid.: 2 2 - 7 for other common form s o f contracts.

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3.3

Copyrights Owned by the NKP in 187964 No.

Title of Copyrighted Work

Author/T ranslator

1

Sharh-e Taczlrät-e Hind

Sayyid Ghulam Haidar

2

Makhzan al-naycPir

Maulvi cAbdul Qayyum

3

Amän al-lughät

Maulvi M. Aman al-Haq

4

Tafsir-e Qädiri, Urdu trs. of Tafsir-e Husaini

Maulvi Fakhruddin, trs.

5

Majmücah-e auräd mustandah Muhashshä-e khäristän

Mullah Majruddin Khani

6

Sharh-e M asnavi-e Mauläna-e Rüm

(Abdul cAli Muhammad ‘Bahr al-cUlum’

7

Häshia-e kitäb-e Icjäz-e khusravi

B

Inshä-e asrär-e frimesan

?

M atlac al-culüm va Makhzan al-fanün

Wajid (A li Khan

10

Sharh-e Kulliyät-e khäqäni

Muhammad Sadiq ^Ali

11

M asnavi Sumbulistän

12

Farhang-e Sikandamäma

Mir Ibn Hasan

13

Inshä-e Safdarl

Mufti Ghulam Safdar

Urdu

Titles

14

N ayn-e parvln

Debi Parshad

15

Inshä-e Surür

Rajab cAli Beg ‘Surur’

16

Shams al-^uhä

17

Futühät-e Wäqidi, Urdu trs.

Maulvi Basharat cA li Khan and

18

Tazkirat al-khulafä man^üm , verse trs. of Futühät-e Wäqidi

Hakim Amanat (Ali, trs.

19

Annals and Antiquities o f Rajasthan , Urdu trs.

Pandit Kanhaiyalal, trs.

20

Saulat-e Afghani

Haji Muhammad Zardar Khan

21

Futühät-e Hind

cInayat Husain

22

Tärikh-e tilism-e Hind

Totaram ‘ Shayan’ , trs.

23

Tärikh-e cahdnämajät va iqrämämajät, Urdu trs.

Pandit Kanhaiyalal, trs.

24

Government Gazetteers, 7 vols

Sayyid Mehdi Husain, trs.

Pandit Ajodhya Parshad and

64 Not including copyrights of school textbooks.

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Table 3.3 (contd.) No. 25

Title of Copyrighted Work

Author/Translator

Tarikh-e Bonapärt Napolyan , Urdu trs.

26

Tärikh-e baghävat-e Hind , Urdu trs.

Pandit Kanhaiyalal, trs.

27

Muqaddama-e katnishan Baroda ,

Pandit Pyarelal, trs.

Urdu and Hindi trs. 28

Tänkfi-e räjparsasti

Debi Parshad, trs.

29

Mirät al-salätln , Urdu trs. of Siyar al-muta?akhkhirin

Gokul Parshad, trs.

30

Mukhtasar-e Sair-e gulshan-e Hind

Baburam, rayis of Kanpur

31

Bahäristän also called Gulzärshähi

Ghulam Sarvar Lahori

32

Käm äm a navä^in

Debi Parshad

33

Wäqicät-e panj-hazär sälah

Radhelal, ra?is of Mohan

34

Makhzan-e hikmat

Ghulam Sarvar Lahori

35

Tärlkh-e makhzan-e Panjäb

Ghulam Sarvar Lahori

36

Sarod-e ghaibi

Sayyid Muhammad cA li Choya Ghulam Imam

37

Iläj al-ghurrabä , Urdu trs.

38

Tibb-e Akbar , Urdu trs.

Hakim Muhammad Husain Nanautawi, trs.

39

Qaräbädin-e ShifäH , Urdu trs.

Hakim Muhammad Hadi Husain Khan, trs.

40

Qaräbädin-e Zakä^i, Urdu trs.

Hakim Muhammad Hadi Husain Khan, trs.

41

Mujarrabät-e Akbari, Urdu trs.

Hakim Vajid cA li Mohani, trs.

42

Mucälajät-e Ihsäni

Hakim Ihsan cAli

43

Murraqabät-e Ihsäni

Hakim Ihsan cAli

44

Iläj-e Ihsäni

Hakim Ihsan cAli

45

Maqälät-e Ihsäni

Hakim Ihsan cAli

46

cIläj al-amräz

Hakim Muhammad Hadi Husain Khan, trs.

47

Iksir al-qulüb , Urdu trs. of Mufarrih al-qulüb

Hakim Muhammad Nur Karim, trs.

48

Kimiyä-e canäsiri , Urdu trs. of Qärabädin-e Qädiri

Hakim Muhammad Nur Karim, trs

49

M ajm ac al-bahrain tibb-e yünäni va angrezi

Hakim Muhammad Haidar Khan

50

Zakhirah-e khvaräzmshähi ,

Hakim Muhammad Hadi Husain Khan, trs.

Urdu trs. 51

Am ritsägar , Urdu trs.

Pandit Pyarelal, trs.

52

Makhzan al-adviyah, Urdu trs.

Hakim Muhammad Nur Karim, trs.

53

Lughät-e Sarvari

Ghulam Sarvar Lahori

285

286

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3.3 (contd.)

No.

Title of Copyrighted Work

Author/T ranslator

54

A rbac-e canäsir

Muhammad Nasir cAli

55

Q issa-e guläb cameli

Raja Shiva Prasad

56

Nikät-e Ihsänl

Hakim Ihsan (Ali

57

TahzJb-e Ihsänl

Hakim Ihsan (Ali

58

Akhläq-e Sarvari

Ghulam Sarvar Lahori

59

Rahbar-e räh-e haqq

Muhammad Zardar Khan

60

Kulliyät-e Nassäkh

(Abdul Ghafur Khan ‘Nassakh’

61

Divän-e Amir

Amir Ahmad ‘Am ir’

62

Divän-e Wästi

Sayyid Fazl Rasul Khan ‘W asti’

63

Divän-e cÄshiq

Pandit Kanhaiyalal ‘Ashiq’

64

M asnavi Sacdain

Anvar Husain ‘Taslim’

65

M asnavi Mirät al-mashriqain

Hakim (Inayat Husain Dehlavi

66

Majmücah-e wäsokhthä

(collection of wäsokht)

67

Saräpä-e sujdmn

Sayyid Muhsin cAli (comp.)

68

TazJcirah-e Gulshan naghma-e candalib

Hakim Qutbuddin Khan Dehlavi

69

cAjä^ib al-makhlüqät, Urdu trs.

Gokul Parshad, trs.

70

M atlac al-culüm va Makhzan al-funün , Urdu trs.

Zain al-(Abidin, trs.

71

M atlac al-mujä^ib, Urdu trs. of M aclümät al-cäfäq

Mehdi cAli Khan, trs.

72

Hirz-e Suleimäni

Khvaja Ashraf (Ali

73

Näfac-e khalä^iq

Muhammad Zardar Khan

74

Tilism-e ruhanl

Maulvi Husain Ahmad

75

Indarjäl, Urdu trs.

Lala Svamidayal, trs.

76

Qänün-e sitär

Sayyid Safdar Husain Khan

77

Ghuncah-e räg

Nizam ud Daula Navab Muhammad

78

Alif-Laila , Urdu trs.

Totaram ‘ Shayan’ , trs.

79

Alif-Laila manzüm

Totaram ‘Shayan’

80

Fasäna-e cajäyib

Rajab (A li Beg ‘Surur’

81

Sarosh-e Sukhan

Sayyid Fakhruddin Husain ‘Sukhan’

82

Tilism-e hairat

Maulvi Hamid (Ali Shevan

83

Tilism-e fa iä h a t

Muhammad Husain Jah

84

Waqäyi-e räjkumär, Urdu trs. of Durgeshnandin i

Kumvar Jagat Singh, trs.

85

Fasäna-e m acqaul

Sayyid Ghulam Haidar Khan

Mardan (Ali Khan

209

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210 Table 3.3 (contd.) No.

Title of Copyrighted Work

86

Ä^in-e cuqül

Sayyid Ghulam Haidar Khan

87

Navab Muhammad Haidar cAli Khan

88

Jada-e taskhir Jogannäma

89

Qissa maqtül jafä

Muhammad Amiruddin

90 91

Sikandamäma, Urdu trs. Näla-e Manzür manzüm

Maulvi Haidar cAli Khan Bilgrami, trs.

92

Masnavi bägh-e cäshiq

Pandit Kanhaiyalal ‘Ashiq’

93

Iksir-e hidäyat, Urdu trs. of Kimiyä-e sa cädat

Fakhruddin ‘Fakhr’ , trs.

94

Durr-e mukhtär, Urdu trs.

Muhammad Khurram (Ali and

95

Kanz al-daqä^iq, Urdu trs.

Muhammad Ahsan Nanautawi, trs. Muhammad Sujan Khan, trs.

96

Daväzdah majlis Asrär-e Karbalä Mazäq al-cärifin, Urdu trs. of

97 98

Author/Translator

Batin Akbarabadi

Maulvi Sayyid Manzur Ahmad

Maulvi Vahiduddin Muhammad Rizvi Muhammad Zahiruddin Bilgrami Maulvi Basharat cAli Khan, trs.

Ihyä culüm al-din Siräj al-sälikin , Urdu trs. of Minhäj al-cäbidin

Maulvi Munir, trs.

100

Guldasta-e karämat

Ghulam Sarvar Lahori

10 1

Minhäj al-nubüwat, Urdu trs. of Mädärij al-nubüwat

Khvaja cAbdul Majid, trs.

99

10 2

Tazkirat al-shohrä manzüm

10 3 104

Asrär-e ghaflat Qänün-e Shaikh bü cAli Sinä,

Muhammad Zahiruddin Bilgrami Ghulam Hasnain ‘Allamah Kinturi, trs.

Urdu trs. 10 5

Sharh-e qänün-e mucähada ,

Muhammad (Abdul Qayyum Khan, trs.

Urdu trs. of Act IX of 18 72 106

Sukhsägar, Urdu trs.

Makkhanlal

10 7

Bhägvat manzüm-e Khushtar Lakhnavi

Jagannath Sahai ‘ Khushtar’

108

Rämäyan manzüm-e Khushtar

Jagannath Sahai ‘Khushtar’

109

Mahäbhärat manzüm

Totaram ‘Shayan’

110

Rämäyan manzüm

Shankardayal ‘Farhat’

111

Prem sägar, Urdu trs.

Lala Svamidayal, trs.

112

Bhaktamäl

Raja Pratap Singh

113

Bahär-e Bindräban

Acarya Bindraban

114

Samar-e bahär-e Bindräban

Acarya Bindraban

115

Gyänsägar

Girdhari Lai Sahranpuri

116

Käyasthdharmdarpan

Ramcaran

287

288

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(contd.)

No.

Title of Copyrighted Work

117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125

Yogavdsistha , Hindi trs. Hätim Täi, Hindi trs. AlifLaila , Hindi trs. Amrtsdgar, Hindi trs. Amarkos, Hindi trs. Vratärk, Hindi trs. Dästän-e Amir Hamza, Hindi trs. SYri darpan Fasäna-e cajä:>ih, Hindi trs.

S ource:

211

Author/T ranslator Pandit Kanhaiyalal, trs. Jivanram Jat, trs. Pandit Pyarelal, trs. Pandit Kalicaran, trs. Mahesh Datt Shukla, trs. Mahesh Datt Shukla, trs. Pandit Kalicaran, trs. Madhav Prasad Pandit Ramratan Vajpeyi, trs.

Fihrist 1879.

indication of the publisher’s widespread reputation in Urdu literature which reached as far as Bengal. The two men knew each other personally: Nassakh, a Deputy Magistrate in the British administrative service, had met Naval Kishore during a visit to Lucknow in 1867.65 The most im­ portant work included in the K ulliyät-e N assakh (*1874) was Sukhan-e shucarä (Discourse of the Poets), a large anthology of almost 900 poets, compiled by the poet over a period of twelve years and completed in 1864-5. The publication in 1874 of this understudied work was a considerable step forward in establishing the canon of contemporary Urdu poets. Garcin de Tassy deemed it of such importance that he re­ printed the full list of poets in an appendix to his D isco u rs of 1876.66 Perhaps one of the best sources on author-publisher relations in nineteenth-century Urdu literature, which also offers some insight into what could go wrong in seeing a work into print, is the extensive correspondence of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869). While most of the original correspondence between Naval Kishore and Ghalib is lost, the poet’s letters to other correspondents allow us to reconstruct at least some aspects of their relationship. Even if Ghalib’s case is special, involving as it did the most prominent of contemporary Urdu poets, some generalizations may be drawn from it regarding the way in which Naval Kishore interacted with his authors. By the time Ghalib and Naval Kishore established personal contact in the early 1860s, the great poet had undergone various troublesome 65 N assakh mentions his acquaintance with the publisher in his autobiography,

Khudnavisht savdnih-e haydt-e Nassakh (Abdus Subhan 19 86 : 96). 66 For a discussion o f important Urdu tazJcirahs o f the nineteenth century, see Pritchett 20 03.

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experiences in his dealings with editors and publishers, which had left him wary. The publication of his Persian prose work P anj ähang had been disappointing. Of the two printed versions, Ghalib found one ‘de­ fective’ and the other abounding in mistakes. As he complained to a friend: ‘The copyist made “corrections” in my prose of which only my heart can tell. Were I to tell you that no line is free of mistakes, I should be pitching it too high. But I can say without exaggeration that no page is free of m istakes’ (Russell/Islam 1994: 266). The ensuing publication of his Urdu divan turned out to be even more vexing, involving a series of mishaps. Initially, Ghalib had somewhat rashly entrusted the manus­ cript to a nondescript publisher of Meerut and had experienced great difficulty in retrieving it.67Having wrested the divan ‘from the hands of that unjust usurper’, he decided to commit it to the press of his friend Munshi Shivnarayan at Agra, but for some reason changed his mind and instead gave it to the Delhi-based Ahmadi Press— a mistake he was soon to regret. Meanwhile, in early 1860 Naval Kishore approached Ghalib regarding publication of his collected Persian works. While the publisher’s initial letter has not survived, it is significant to note that it was he who took the initiative in contacting the poet, and not vice versa. Ghalib replied on 18 July 1860, in a letter written in Persian, indicating that his three published Persian prose works— P anj ähang , M ihr-e n im m z , and D astanbu — were available for reprint. He also promised to supply the publisher with a few recently composed Persian ghazals. As a subsequent letter to Nawab Ziyauddin Ahmad Khan reveals, Naval Kishore’s suggestion had put the poet in a spot, for he was not in possession of a single manuscript of his Persian poems and had to urge his correspondent to part with his copy, so that it could be forwarded to the publisher. Throughout 1861, negotiations for having the Persian verse printed were under way. What may have finally convinced Ghalib to turn away from his previous publishers and entrust the Persian K u lliyät to the upcoming Lucknow publisher was his dismay at receiving an utterly defective volume of his Urdu divan, newly released from the Ahmadi Press in August 1861. Ghalib was appalled and seems to have instantly regretted not having entrusted his divan, too, to the NKP. ‘A las!’ he wrote to a friend. ‘When the Lucknow press prints a man’s diwan, it raises him to heaven. The 67 On 1 1 June 18 6 0 Ghalib wrote to a friend: ‘That fellow who asked me for my

Divän is not even an acquaintance.. . . He is not a human being but a ghost, a demon! N asty and foul! . . . S o , I am now asking him to return m y Divän. He refuses to give it back. I hope to God that I can retrieve it. Y o u too p ray’ (Rahbar 19 8 7 : 2 3 7 ).

289

290

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calligraphy is so good that every word shines radiant! May Delhi and its water and its press be accursed!’68Meanwhile, he considered his ties with Naval Kishore close and amicable enough to commend his unemp­ loyed shägird Mir Ghulam Hasnain ‘Qadr’ Bilgrami to the publisher. Armed with Ghalib’s letter of introduction, Qadr Bilgrami set out for Lucknow and was promptly given employment in the firm’s editorial office. (He was to remain with the NKP for some time, despite his repeated complaints to Ghalib about his low salary.) By the beginning of 1862, the manuscript of Ghalib’s collected Persian verse was lying with the NKP. Moreover, the poet had decided to entrust the firm with the publication of his Q ätic-e Burhän , a sharply worded critique of the Persian dictionary Burhän-e qätif , which was to spark off a fierce controversy on publication (see Chapter 5). For a young publisher like Naval Kishore it was a matter of great prestige to have a literary figure of Ghalib’s standing on his list. The announcement of the two forthcoming titles was given due prominence on the front-page of Avadh Akhbär of 1 January 1862. Advance subscriptions for the K u lliyät were called for, offering readers a special subscription rate of Rs 3, a s 4, as against the later sales price of Rs 5.69 Q ätic-e Burhän was released in March 1862. ‘The printing of Qäte i Burhan is finished, and I have received one copy which is the author’s right’, Ghalib informed his friend cAla>i on 19 June 1862. ‘Other volumes I have ordered as a customer and the order is with the publishers. But they can’t be sent until I’ve paid for them. I am trying to raise the money. If I manage it, I’ll send it o ff (Russell/Islam 1994:272). The order referred to by Ghalib involved fifty copies of the Q ä tic-e Burhän which he meant to distribute among his friends and well-wishers. The money seems to have come forward soon afterwards, for in the same month Ghalib made it known that the ‘entire stock of the bound copies of Q ä tic-e Burhän ’ was now in his possession and that he had purchased it according to the terms of his contract (Rahbar 1987: 252). Things went less smoothly with the Persian K u lliyät which, although announced at the beginning of the year, was not forthcoming. On 5 May 1862 Ghalib wrote to Qadr Bilgrami to enquire about the status of printing and raise a number of questions concerning the insertion of the customary odes and chronograms. Apparently Ghalib had been requested to compose 68 For a full wording o f the letter in which Ghalib complains bitterly about the sloppiness o f both copyist and publisher, see Russell/Islam 19 9 4 : 2 59 . 69 The announcement for K ulliyät w as in Urdu, that o f Q ätic-e Burhän in Persian. Both are reprinted in N aqw i 19 80 : 1 1 6 - 1 7 .

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the customary chronogram indicating the date of printing of his K u lliyät , for in a subsequent letter to Qadr Bilgrami he refused to comply, main­ taining that it could be done by ‘the people at the press’. From Qadr Bilgrami’s reply he learnt that the printing of the K ulliyät had been post­ poned: the book’s calligrapher had gone on leave and, to make matters worse, its proofreader Maulvi Hadi cAli had been taken seriously ill. Ghalib was particularly impatient to see his collected Persian verse in print, since his own health at the time was rapidly deteriorating. He ex­ pressed his growing anxiety in June 1862: ‘I cannot see the printing of the collected verse being finished during my life-time’ (Russell/Islam 1994: 272). With the K u lliy ä f s publication delayed by another year, his patience was put to the test. The volume was at last ready in June 1863. It was only in December 1863, when Naval Kishore called on Ghalib during a visit to Delhi, that the two men came face to face for the first time. The meeting left a vivid impression on Ghalib, who seems to have been quite taken by the good looks and agreeable manners of his junior contemporary. Moreover, negotiations with the publisher had turned out in Ghalib’s favour. On 3 December 1863 he reported to cAla)i: My kind and considerate benefactor, that man of kindness incarnate, Munshi Naval Kishor came by the mail. He met me, and your uncle, and your cousin Shihab ud Din Khan. The Creator bestowed upon him the beauty of Venus and the qualities of Jupiter. He is himself the conjunction of two auspicious stars. I hadn’t said anything to you, and accepted that ten copies of [my Persian] collected verse cost fifty rupees. But now when I mentioned it to him he agreed to accept the price that had originally been advertised in the newspaper—three rupees, four annas per copy. At this rate ten copies come to thirty-two rupees, eight annas, and thirty-two mpees, eight annas is what you are to pay. In all, sixty-five m pees will have to be sent to the Avadh Akhbar Press. I shall be ordering on the 10th or 11th of December— this month. I ’ll give the thirty-two m pees eight annas to Ali Husain Khan, or I ’ll send it to Lucknow— whichever you say (Russell/Islam 1994: 2934).

The passage suggests that Ghalib had sold the copyright of his K ulliyät to the NKP. As we have seen, however, there is no mention of it in the list of copyright works included in the 1879 catalogue. Naval Kishore published two more works by Ghalib during the poet’s lifetime, notably a small booklet entitled D u cä-e subah m ac tarjuma-e n asr va tarjum a-e manzüm (*1867), containing Urdu prose and verse renderings of the Islamic morning prayer, and the Kulliyät-e nasr-e Ghälib (*1868), in which Ghalib’s Persian prose works were for the first time

291

292

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assembled in one volume.70Further titles followed after the poet’s death, including reprints of his collected letters, CÜd-e H indi (*1874), and the aforementioned Urdu D ivdn (*1877). The latter was reprinted from the Nizami Press edition, which again raises the question of copyright. Among Ghalib’s pupils, a poet who followed his great master in choos­ ing to publish with the NKP was Nawab Mardan cAli Khan ‘Racna’ (d. 1879), a raPis of Muradabad. Ra(na, who also used the pen name ‘Nizam’, was a prolific poet and historian in Persian and Urdu. Up to 1858 he was employed in the Punjab Revenue Department. He became associated with the NKP in the early 1860s as a frequent contributor to Avadh Akhbär. In 1867 he went to Marwar, where he rose to the position of prime minister and became a key figure in cultivating Persian and Urdu literature in the princely state. Naval Kishore published most of his works, including Ghuncah-e rag (*1863), N avd-e gharib (*1863), Z abt-e cishq (*1864), and M uhr-e nubüwat (*1872). A volume of his collected poetry, K u lliyät-e Niz.dm , followed in 1875.71 On occasion, Mardan cAli Khan supplied the publisher with rare manuscripts from his private library, the most famous being a manuscript of the D ivan of Shah Wali Allah Gujarati (1667-1707/8), of which a lithographed edition was published from Lucknow in 1878. How little is known about author-publisher contracts and the pub­ lishing history of even the most famous works of nineteenth-century Urdu literature is exemplified by the case of Maulvi Nazir Ahmad (1831— 1912). Nazir Ahmad’s association with the house of Naval Kishore dates back to the year 1861, when he was sent to Lucknow to oversee the print­ ing of his Urdu translation of the Indian Penal Code. As Deputy Inspector of Schools, he remained closely associated with the press during the following years. Naval Kishore at the time issued several of his minor writings, including a translation of a British official’s account of the 1857 uprising entitled MusdPib-e ghadr (The Tribulations of the Rebellion, * 1863), which Nazir Ahmad had undertaken at the instance of his superior in the education department, Shiva Prasad (Russell 1992: 114). In later years, the author apparently felt quite embarrassed about his involvement in publicizing this particular work, for he never mentioned it in his writ­ ings. Left to him, MusdPib-e ghadr probably would not have seen a second edition. However, the copyright of the text lay with Naval Kishore, who 70 The 18 6 8 lithographed edition comprised 2 1 2 pages and w as printed in 2 7 5 copies. A n enlarged version o f 4 2 2 pages w as issued in 1 1 0 0 copies in 1 8 7 1 . 71 R a cna also authored a local history entitled Tärikh-e Märwär. Further details in Sh. A . Khan 1 9 8 1 : 59 ; Avadh Akhbär, 19 April 18 7 0 , cited in Nurani 19 9 5 : 54 .

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can hardly be blamed for trying to cash in on the author’s fame when he brought out a second edition in 1896 (Siddiqi 1971: 209). The year 1869 saw the publication of Nazir Ahmad’s famous didactic tale M irät a l-carüs (The Bride’s Mirror) for which he received a prize of Rs 1000 under the Allahabad Government Gazette Notification. M irät a l-carüs has rightly been called the first bestseller in Urdu fiction. Three years after its release, it had already sold in almost 10,000 copies.72 By 1888 the novel had been translated into various languages and had sold over 100,000 copies.73When M irät a l-carüs was first brought to official notice in 1869, the government at once ordered 2000 copies with a view to including it in the school syllabus. The author was permitted to retain the copyright ‘and make suitable arrangements on his own part for printing it’ (Ahmad 2001: 203). W hether it was by Nazir Ahmad’s own choice or by order of the educational authorities that the printing commission went to Naval Kishore, cannot be said. M irät a l-carüs was first released in December 1869 in a lithographed edition. The print run was 3100 copies, priced at twelve annas each. The 1879 NKP catalogue carried an entry to the effect that the title had been registered by its author, which however does not reveal anything about the precise terms of the agreement reached between author and publisher. Evidence suggests that Nazir Ahmad may have either sold the copyright to the firm or given it on lease, for the NKP continued to reprint the text, issuing a seventh edition of 15,000 copies in 1894. This, in turn, would mean that other editions of M irät a l-carüs such as the one issued from the Qaisari Press of Bareilly in 1880 were pirated. Indeed, it may safely be assumed that due to their enormous popularity M irät a l-carüs as well as Nazir Ahmad’s subsequent novels were subject to large-scale piracy. For the printing of these subsequent works Nazir Ahmad did not re­ main with the NKP. Meanwhile transferred to Kanpur, he gave the contract for B anät an-nafsh (The Daughters of the Bier, 1872), the sequel to M irät a l-carüs, to the local Nizami Press. Two years later his masterpiece Taubatan-NasUh (The Repentance of Nasuh) was issued from the Mufide cAm Press at Agra in a first lithographed edition of 1600 copies.74The existence of simultaneous reprints of Taubat an-Nasüh from the Nizami Press and the Mufid-e cAm Press in 1879, both bearing copyright notices, 72 Banät an-nacsh (A gra: M ufid-e cA m Press 18 79 ), preface. 73 R ussell 19 9 2 : 2 6 5. Further details in ibid.: 9 2 - 4 and N aim 19 8 4 . S e e also the afterword by Pritchett in Ahm ad 2 0 0 1: 2 0 4 - 2 1 .

14RP1R 1 8 7 5 : 82.

293

294

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suggest that the author had ceded his copyright to the government, which then divided the printing work among various presses. However, by the time the fourth edition of Taubat an-Nasüh came out in 1882 (2000 copies), Naval Kishore had acquired the copyright of the text. This is borne out by a publisher’s notice included in the twelfth NKP edition of 1914, to the effect that the fourth and all subsequent editions of the novel had been issued from the NKP with the author’s permission.75 From 1877 to 1884 Nazir Ahmad served in the princely state of Hyde­ rabad. Upon his return to Delhi in 1884, he resumed his writing and in the following year completed M uhsinät : F asäna-e M ubtala (The Story of Mubtala, literally ‘an afflicted person’), in which he dealt with the evils of polygamy. For its publication he returned to Naval Kishore, who issued an appallingly slovenly edition of 600 copies in 1887. Finding both the calligraphy and printing defective, Nazir Ahmad did not renew the contract, but decided to publish a fresh edition under his own super­ vision. By this time he seems to have been thoroughly exasperated by the various badly executed editions of his work, for in 1889 he decided to abandon his earlier publishers and enter into an exclusive contract with the Delhi-based Ansari Press. Whether the author’s discontent stem­ med from licensed editions or from cheap pirated copies of his work remains open. It also remains a mystery how, despite the existing copy­ right contract with the NKP, an edition of Taubat an-Nasüh could be issued from the Ansari Press in 1889 with the author’s consent. In its preface Nazir Ahmad made the following statement: For some time I have been observing with much gratitude and joy that all classes of readers appreciate my books much more than is their due. At the same time I am deeply afflicted by the fact that the faults in composition, the badly executed calligraphy, the poor quality of the paper and the faulty printing have generated general discontent. It was for lack of opportunity, nay out of carelessness, that I have not paid attention to this before. Now I have made up my mind that I will no longer allow my books to be spoilt. Therefore after amendment and revision I have started to have all my books registered afresh and published through the good offices of the Ansari Press of Maulvi Talattuf Husain Sahib in Delhi. According to my wishes Maulvi Talattuf Husain Sahib has entered into a special agreement with Muhammad Nazir Husain Sahib, bookseller, that no person whosoever and under no circumstances shall attempt to print my books or have them 75 Taubat an-Nasüh,

Khan 1979:311.

12th ed. (Lucknow: NKP 1914), publisher’s notice. Cited in

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printed, otherwise he will be liable to pay both damages and a fine. And whosoever wants to deal in [my] books should deal with Muhammad Nazir Husain, bookseller, Greater Dariba, Delhi.76

Authors, as Nazir Ahmad’s case shows, were flexible in choosing their publishers, and prompt in dismissing them. Unlike today, few authors at the time identified with a particular firm. The most pressing questions, however, are left unanswered: who made the profit from Nazir Ahmad’s books which sold in tens of thousands? How much of the share went to the publisher, and how much to the author? Next to Nazir Ahmad, the only other famous author of modem prose fiction on Naval Kishore’s list was Pandit Ratan Nath Dar, poetically sumamed ‘Sarshar’ (1846-1902). Sarshar belonged to a family of Kash­ miri Brahmins of Lucknow. He joined the press as editor of Avadh Akhbär in 1878, Naval Kishore having successfully lured him away from the rival A vadh Punch. Soon afterwards, Sarshar’s famous novel Fasänae Ä zä d (Azad’s tale) was serialized in A vadh A khbär to wide popular acclaim. He resigned from his job as editor in 1880 but remained attached to the NKP into the 1890s. His association with the House of Naval Kishore, with whom he published several more novels, will be outlined in more detail in Chapter 6. Even for a publisher of Naval Kishore’s standing, negotiations with authors were not always successful. When he approached Lucknow’s celebrated m a rsiy a poet M ir Babar cAli Anis (1802-74) with the suggestion of publishing his collected poetry, his request was declined. Although the two men were personally acquainted and Anis might have materially profited from seeing his elegies promoted by a reputed local publishing house, he refused for some reason to consign his compositions to print. Only a few m arsiyas appeared in A vadh Akhbär . It was only after the poet’s death in 1874 that Naval Kishore could proceed with his project. He lost no time in assigning the task of collecting whatever m arsiyas by Anis could be found to Maulvi Tassaduq Husain, who had recently joined his team of editors. The task was not an easy one, for the poet’s manuscripts were scattered in the homes and private collections of Urdu literati in Lucknow and beyond. Tassaduq Husain’s painstaking efforts resulted in a printed collection of 118 elegies entitled M arsiyahäe A m ir A n is (*1877). Had it not been for the publisher’s perseverance, many of them would have been lost to posterity. By contrast, it required 76 Cited in Khan 1979: 312-13. Strangely, the accompanying signature of Nazir Ahmad bears the date 1873, which must be a misprint.

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no effort on Naval Kishore’s part to acquire the collection of Lucknow’s second great m a rsiy a poet, M irza Salam at cAli Dabir (1803-75). Following Dabir’s death, his son Mirza Muhammad ‘Auj’ personally took his father’s manuscripts to the publisher. The collection, including 78 m arsiyas in two volumes, duly appeared in 1876.77 Among less known authors, Mufti Ghulam Sarvar of Lahore formed a long-standing alliance with the NKP. A descendant of the great Sufi Shaikh Baha^uddin Zakaria of Multan, Ghulam Sarvar was a highly reputed scholar and a prolific author of religious, historiographical, and lexicographical works in Persian and Urdu. His connections with the NKP can be traced back to 1875, when he offered the copyright of his dictionary Lughät-e Sarvarl (also known as Z ubdat al-lughät) to Naval Kishore. Once the deal was done, the publisher sent for corrected proofs from his Lahore agency and had the work published in March 1877. At this time, author and publisher seem to have entered into an exclusive contract. Over the following years Ghulam Sarvar published a large number of works with Naval Kishore, including three historiographical titles (Tärikh-e m akhzan-e P a n jä b , B ahäristän-e tärlkh, and the Persian Ganjinah-e Sarvari , all *1877), various collections of religious poetry (Nact-e Sarvari , * 1878; G uldasta-e karäm at , * 1880 and Tuhfat-e Sarvari , *1881), and two works on ethics (Akhläq-e Sarvari and Gulshan-e Sarvari ; *1878). Fifteen years later, Ghulam Sarvar still remained loyal to the NKP and commissioned the firm with the publication of his second lexicographical w o rk Jäm ic al-lughät-e Urdu (*1892), an advanced dic­ tionary containing idioms from science and medicine.78 While over time Naval Kishore built up a reputation as a major pub­ lisher in Hindi, prominent contemporary Hindi authors are conspicuously absent from his list. The reasons for this may lie in competition and copyright laws, as will be discussed in Chapter 7. The educationist Raja Shiva Prasad of Benares stands out as the only renowned figure in Hindi writing who published several works with Naval Kishore. Shiva Prasad was a long-time associate of the NKP, having closely collaborated with it while Inspector of Schools in the 1860s and 1870s. The two men also shared common political views and worked side by side in the antiCongress movement. It is no surprise then that in the 1880s Shiva Prasad chose to cede the copyright of most of his Hindi and Urdu works, including 77 S e e L L H 1876: 25 for a reproduction o f the publication notice carried in Avadh Akhbär o i l A pril 1876. 78 A ccording to the RPIR o f 1878, he also edited the Urdu journal Makhzan-e Panjäb (Punjab Gazetteer). DIPL : 206; Storey 1953: 1043.

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his most widely-selling textbooks, to his ‘friend’ Naval Kishore. Later in life he also consigned his Urdu autobiography Savänih-ecumri to the Lucknow publisher, who printed it in 300 copies in 1894.

3.6 The Naval Kishore Press After 1895 Upon his death in February 1895, Munshi Naval Kishore left a flourishing enterprise and a huge fortune to his adopted son and designated heir Munshi Prag Narayan Bhargava (1872-1916). Under Prag Narayan’s management the firm continued to prosper for some time. Yet, as the twentieth century progressed, it became clear that the heyday of North India’s largest publishing house was over. Drastic reductions in British patronage, lower public demand for Persian and Urdu literature, increased competition in the publishing trade and adverse political circumstances combined to bring about its slow but steady decline. When Munshi Prag Narayan assumed charge of the family business, he was well prepared to do so: following his education at the Jubilee High School, at Agra College, and the Lucknow Canning College, he had been apprenticed at the NKP and risen to the post of superintendent. Prag Narayan profited socially and economically from the fact that Naval Kishore had substantially augmented the ancestral property by investing large amounts of his profits in landed property acquired from various ta calluqdärs (Metcalf 1979:274). Apart from the ancestral zam indäri in Aligarh District, Prag Narayan held estates in the districts of Gonda, Barabanki, Unao, Kanpur, and Hamirpur.79 As a large landed proprietor he was admitted into the ranks of the Avadh ta calluqdärs. He gained membership of the British Indian Association and for some time served as its joint secretary. His successful assimilation into the traditional landed elite allowed him to seek marriage alliances for his children in this hitherto hermetic social group.80His case illustrates a typical pattern among Hindustani commercial classes, who over time shifted their social and political bases from an urban ra?is background to landowning and zam indäri associations (Bayly 1971: 296). 79 H.R. Nevill in his Aligarh Gazetteer reports: ‘The Bhargava family of Sasni holds six mahals in the Sikandra Rao tahsil and five in Hathras, paying in all Rs 3,264: while to the same caste belongs Munshi Prag Narayan, Rai Bahadur of Lucknow, the son of the celebrated publisher Newal Kishore, who owns a property of one whole village and six mahals in tahsil Sikandra Rao, with an area of 4657 acres and a revenue demand of Rs 9,529’ (Nevill 1909: 115). 80 For the rise of Lucknow’s urban notables to the status of tacalluqdärs, see Oldenburg 1989: 230-6.

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Under Prag Narayan and his relative Manoharlal Bhargava, superin­ tendent of the press, the NKP continued to do brisk business. By 1902 three new book depots had been opened in Jabalpur, Nagpur, and Raipur. Between 1907 and 1911 the publishing house won several prizes at international exhibitions in Calcutta, Paris, and Brussels (Bhargava 1981: 31). In addition to A vadh Akhbär . in 1901 Prag Narayan launched Avadh Sam äcär , a Hindi weekly that was curiously announced as being ‘espe­ cially suited to agriculturists, tradesmen and females of India.’81Among his many publishing ventures, two biographical compilations deserve special notice since they remain of undiminished interest to modern-day scholars of South Asia: Sahifa-e zarln (*1902), a two-volume compilation in Urdu published on the occasion of the Coronation darbär , which contains over 2000 biographical entries and 500 pictures of Indian chiefs and princes, and its English counterpart entitled W ho's who in India . Containing L ives and P o rtraits o f Ruling Chiefs , N obles , Titled P erson ­ ages and O ther Em inent Indians (*1911).82J.R. McLane has underlined the importance of these collective biographies as prime examples of the growing interaction, overlapping interests, and mutual favouring among landholders and urban professionals (McLane 1977: 201-2). The inclusion of Indian nationalists and urban professionals such as Prag Narayan himself in the category of ‘titled personages and other eminent Indians’ vividly testifies to changing perceptions within Indian elite society. Endowed with the same enterprising spirit as Naval Kishore, Prag Narayan not only invested in the modernization of the publishing house but also sought to diversify and open new sources of income.83With the 81 Thacker's Indian Directory 19 0 2. 82 The following biographical sketch largely relies on the information contained in this work, as w ell as a short account given in Uttar Prades 19 80 : 2 9 -9 . 83 The Cyclopedia o f India (19 0 8 : 3 6 2 ) contains the following description: ‘The works, godowns, etc. occupy a very considerable area at Hazratganj, and no expense has been spared in equipping them with the latest printing and steam machinery. They do a very extensive business, giving employment to about 50 0 men. The works are specially equipped for printing in all the vernaculars o f India, and experts are retained who can handle any o f the local languages, A rab ic, Persian, Urdu, Sanskrit, Hindi, Mahratti, Urya, Punjabi, etc. besides English. In consequence, work flow s in from all parts o f India, as well as from foreign countries, such as P e r s ia .. . . The press do their own typecasting, having modem machinery for the purpose o f casting type in various languages. They also do electro-typing and stereotyping, and all processes necessary for their work. Lithography is a speciality. They also print all descriptions o f educational works at prices which place them within reach o f the very p o o re st. .

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establishment of the ‘Newal Kishore Emporium and Fire Arms Depot’ and the ‘Newal Kishore Ice Factory’ in Kanpur, he built up a mostly family-run commercial empire which provided employment to over 1500 people.84 Managed by his younger brother Govind Prasad Bhargava, an engineering graduate, the Lucknow Iron Works grew into a thriving business of 300 employees that largely performed government contract work. Prag Narayan further extended his influence in commercial circles as a member of the Upper India Chamber of Commerce, director of the Upper India Paper Mills Company, and president of the U.P. Chamber of Commerce. He also successfully entered the banking business, acting simultaneously as the director of the Bhargava Commercial Bank in Jabalpur and the Bharat National Bank in Delhi, and as treasurer to the Delhi and London Bank. In recognition of his public services, he was conferred the title of Rai Bahadur in 1909. His rise in the world of trade and commerce was accompanied by a political career that followed the regular paths: as a member of the Lucknow Municipal Board he was elected to the Legislative Council of the United Provinces in 1912. Subse­ quently, he was made a Member of the Imperial War Council and of the Imperial Legislative Council of India. As a trustee of Agra College and in various other offices Prag Narayan continued his father’s involvement in charitable arid educational causes. However, it seems that he was especially generous in his support to institutions representative of Hindu culture. For example, he gave a large grant of Rs 10,000 to the Benares Hindu University (Sundaram 1936: 635) and set up a trust for the restoration of ancient Hindu temples. Following Prag Narayan’s death, his son Bishan Narayan (1898— 1931) assumed charge of the family business. Bishan Narayan is best remembered for the services he rendered to Hindi literature through the famous Hindi literary magazine M ädhurl , launched in 1922. Its first editor was his nephew, the enterprising Dularelal Bhargava. Under Dularelal Bhargava and a number of other illustrious figures—Rup Narayan Pandey, Krishna Bihari Mishra, and Premchand — M ädhurl became a greatly influential institution in the Hindi literature of the 1920s 84 Ibid.: 3 6 3 . Thacker's Indian Directory o f 1 9 1 7 further testifies to the family character o f the firm: ‘N ew al Kishore Press, booksellers, printers, publishers, statnrs., bankers, imptrs. o f printing and ice machines, & c.: Propr. Hon. R ai Bahdr. M . Prag Narain Bhargava. Pte secy B . Um rao L a i Shrivastava. Persnl. A sst. B . Mukut Behari L a i B hargava, B .A . Supt. printing dept. B . M anohar L a i B hargava, B .A . M angr., book dept. & N ew al Kishore emporium B . M ohan L a i Bhargava. A gt. Banking bch. M . Jugul Kishore. Supdt. “ Oudh Akhbar” B . Mukat Bihari L ai Bhargava, B .A .’ (p. 276 ).

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and 1930s.85As Orsini has shown, its attractive presentation and openness to a variety of themes, styles, and opinions distinguished M ädhurl from other contemporary journals, making it ‘the foremost forum in Hindi for literary discussion’ (Orsini 2002: 57). Yet, despite the journal’s wide popularity, Bishan Narayan never recouped the large investment that M ädhuri meant for him, but is said to have incurred a financial loss of almost Rs 20,000 in sustaining it. Soon after Bishan Narayan left the family business to his two sons, Munshi Ram Kumar Bhargava (1915-71) and Munshi Tej Kumar Bhargava (1919-87), conflicts began to emerge in the family. As a result, the management of the firm had to be entrusted to a Court of Wards under the aegis of the British collector of Lucknow. By this time the publishing house was already running at a loss, and the threat of retrenchment of employees and salary cuts had divided the staff into opposing factions. One of those immediately affected by the situation was Premchand, who has left us a vivid account of the tensions gripping the firm.86 The establishment of a new branch in Ajmer in 1938 could not conceal the fact that the NKP’s days were numbered: in 1947 Partition brought with it the loss of the Pakistan market, while the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition Act of 1950 severely affected the family fortunes. The mortal blow to the House of Naval Kishore came in the same year, when, fol­ lowing a rift between the two brothers, the firm was divided into two separate enterprises, renamed Ram Kumar Book Depot and Tej Kumar 85 H im self a poet o f Brajbhasha, Dularelal Bhargava initiated a revival o f Brajbhasha poetry through Mädhuri. Around 19 2 7 he started his own literary publishing house, the G anga Pustak M ala (Orsini 20 0 2: 7 5 - 6 ; 388 ). Premchand’ s association with Mädhuri lasted from February 19 2 7 to October 1 9 3 1 . During that time he not only served as editor o f Mädhuri but also worked in the N K P book depot, preparing textbooks and children’ s books (Madan Gopal 19 6 4 : 2 6 1 - 5 ; Am rit R ai 1990: 2 2 4 3 3 , 266). 86 On 1 1 Septem ber 1 9 3 1 Premchand wrote to Dayanarayan Nigam : ‘There is a new development here. M anager X , who is the leader o f the group hostile to me, has got a new supporter in one Y , who has been taken on as a canvasser. E v e r since his appointment, Y has been trying to dominate the affairs o f the business house. Taking me for his enemy from the very first day, he has been trying to get me thrown out. A move for economy w as already afoot. He has now thought o f getting the entire editorial staff dism issed, and securing books written in the name o f responsible and influential persons, preferably members o f the (textbook selection) committee. These stupid people here do not realise that what they pay me can be easily realised from a single book that I write. In fact, they haven’ t yet paid me even half o f what they have earned from books written by me, and also that the royalties which they have to offer to the influential ones are very high’ (cited in M adan Gopal 19 6 4 : 330 ).

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Book Depot. Both continued to function separately until recently. The Tej Kumar Book Depot kept up the NKP’s venerable tradition of pub­ lishing religious and literary classics in inexpensive editions. Moreover, it reprinted a substantial number of approximately ninety Hindi and eightyfive Urdu works first published during the days of Naval Kishore. External and internal factors thus combined to bring about the slow but steady decay in the firm’s fortunes in the course of the twentieth century. The process is clearly reflected in the NKP’s production figures: of the estimated total of 12,000 titles issued from the publishing house during its lifespan of almost a century, about 5000 were published during Naval Kishore’s lifetime, 3000 during the time of Prag Narayan, and 2000 each during the time of Bishan Narayan and his two sons. These figures only serve to highlight the outstanding individual achievement of the firm’s founder-proprietor.

Bibliography Ahmad, Nazir. 2001. The Bride ’s Mirror. Mirät ul-carüs. A Tale o f Life in D elhi a H undred Years Ago. Trs. by G.E. Ward, with an afterword by Frances W. Pritchett. New Delhi: Permanent Black. Allen, Clarence E. 1897. P u b lish e rs’ A ccounts. Including a C onsidera­ tion o f C opyright and the Valuation o f Literary Property. London: Gee Co. Barrier, N. Gerald and Paul Wallace (eds.). 1970. The Punjab P ressy 1880 -1 9 0 5 . East Lansing: Michigan State University. Bayly,C.A. 1971. ‘Local Control in Indian Towns—The Case of Allaha­ bad 1880-1920’. M AS 5.4: 289-336. . 1992 [1983]. Rulers, Townsm en and Bazaars. N orthlndian S o­ ciety in the A ge o f B ritish Expansion 1770-1870. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bennett, Scott. 1990. ‘The Golden Stain of Time: Preserving Victorian Periodicals. ’ In: Laurel Brake, Aled Jones and Lionel Madden (eds.). Investigating Victorian Journalism . Basingstoke: Macmillan, 16683. Davis, Emmett. 1983. P re ss and P o litic s in British W estern Punjab 1836 -1 9 4 7 . Delhi: Academic Publications.

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B ibliography

Ghosh, Anindita. 1998. ‘Cheap Books, “Bad” Books: Contesting PrintCultures in Colonial Bengal’. South A sia R esearch 18 (2): 173-94. Griffiths, Antony. 1996 [1980]. P rin ts andPrintm aking. An Introduction to the H istory an d Techniques. London: British Museum Press. Hay, Sidney. 1994 [1936]. H istoric Lucknow. Reprint. Delhi/Madras: Asian Educational Services. Hoey, William. 1880. A M onograph on Trade and M anufactures in Northern India. Lucknow: American Methodist Mission Press. Howsam, Leslie. 1998. K egan P aul—-A Victorian Imprint: pu blish ers , books an d cultural history. London and Toronto: Kegan Paul Inter­ national and University of Toronto Press. Hurst, JohnF. 1887. ‘A N ativePublishingH ouseinlndia’./Ztfr/^r’sAfew M onthly M agazine LXXV, June to November. Joshi, Priya. 2002. In A nother Country. Colonialism , Culture and the English N ovel in India. New York: Columbia University Press. Metcalf, Thomas R. 1979. Land , L andlords , and the British Raj. Northern India in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. Ohdedar, A. K. 1966. The Growth o f the Library in M odern India: 1 4 8 9 1836. Calcutta: World Press Private. Oldenburg, VeenaTalwar. 1989 [1984]. The M aking o f Colonial Lucknow 1 8 5 6 -1 8 7 7 . Delhi: Oxford University Press. Orsini, Francesca. 2002. The H indi P ublic Sphere 1920-1940. Language a n d Literature in the A ge o f N ationalism . Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rahbar, Daud (trs., ann.). 1987. Urdu letters o f M irzä AsaduHlah Khän G hälib. Albany: State University of New York Press. Russell, Ralph and Khurshidul Islam (trs.; eds). [1969] 1994. G halib 1 79 7 -1 8 6 9 : Life and Letters. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Scheglova, Olga P. 1999. ‘Lithograph Versions of Persian Manuscripts of Indian Manufacture in the Nineteenth Century.’ M anuscripta O rientalia 5.1: 12-22. Sharar, Abdul Halim. 1975. Lucknow: The L a st P hase o f an Oriental Cul­ ture. Transl. and ed. by E. S. Harcourt and Fakhir Husain. London: Paul Elek. Shaw, Graham. 1981. Printing in Calcutta to 1800: A D escription and C hecklist o f Printing in Late 18th-Century Calcutta. London: The Bibliographical Society. . 1998. ‘Calcutta: Birthplace of the Indian Lithographed Book.’ Journal o f the Printing H istorical Society 27: 98-111.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Bibliography

Sundaram, V.A. (ed.). 1936. B enares Hindu U niversity 1905 to 1935. Benares: Benares Hindu University. Szrajber, Tanya. 1997. ‘New Documents on Early Lithography’. Print Q uarterly XIV (3): 290-302. Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad. 1993. ‘Rediscovering Munshi Newal Kishore (1836-1895)’. South A sia Library N o tes an d Q ueries 29:14— 22 . Twyman, M. 1967. ‘The Lithographic Hand Press 1796-1850’. Journal o f the Printing H istorical S ociety 3: 3-50.

Works in Hindi Bhargava, Manhargopal [Bhärgava, Manhargopäl]. 1981. ‘Navalkisor Navalkisor jl ki vams paramparä’. Bhargava Patrikä, Farvari: [24]. pres kä samksipt paricaya’. U ttar P rades 9 (9): 31. Works in Urdu Khan, Sarvar Qaiyum [Khan. Sarvar Qaiyüm]. 1980. ‘Munshi Navalkishor avadh riviyü ke ä ’Ina mem’. N ayä D aur 35 (8-9): 185-9. Nurani, Amir Hasan [Nurani, Amir Hasan]. 1995. Savänih-e M unshi N avalkishor. Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library. Sabiri, Imdad [Säbiri, Imdäd]. 1953. Tärikh-e sihäfat-e Urdü. Vols 1-3. Delhi: Jadid Printing Press. Siddiqi, Ansar al-Hasan [Siddiqi, Ansär al-Hasan]. 1980. ‘Matbac Avadh Akhbär kl kahänl, Avadh Akhbär kl zabänl’. N ayä D aur 35 (8-9): 48-51. Zamani, Asifa [Zamänl, Äsifa]. 1980. ‘Munshi Navalkishor aur unkä nazm-o-nasaq’. Nayä D aur 35 (8-9): 163-7.

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[10] Readers, Reading Practices, Modes of Reading A.R. Venkatachalapathy

H

aving looked at publishing structures, agencies, varieties, and state interventions in the dom ain of the book, we reach an im portant figure missing so far in our picture: the reader— the consumer for whom the book was produced. So, here I explore the social composition o f readers and chart evolving reading prac­ tices as well as modes o f reading.

Readers and their Social C om position W ho read? How m any people read? These apparently simple ques­ tions are the most difficult to address and answer satisfactorily. The rise of the novel is what first brings readership into discussion and analysis. From all the evidence it is clear that, with the growing volume o f novels, there was a great expansion in readership, leading away from patronage publishing for a select readership towards an expand­ ing book market. But with the lim ited research in this area so far it is dangerous to hazard a guess as to printruns and sales figures— the only reliable ways o f estimating the readership for books. It is even more hazardous to generalize about readership based on one class of books, the novel. We found earlier that most novels, even those by the most popular writers— for instance J.R. Rangarajus C handrakantha (5th impres­ sion) and R ajam bal (9th impression), Arani Kuppuswamy M udaliar’s A boorva C hin tam ani (3rd impression)— all had printruns o f only a

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thousand copies each,1 a figure that persists to this day. But these novels were frequently reprinted, testifying to their popularity. J.R. Rangaraju led in this area: by 1927 his R ajam bal had seen 22 im ­ pressions, Rajendran 9, Varadarajan 2 ,2 giving a combined sale of about 70,000 copies for these titles. Even at a conservative estimate o f four readers a copy, this amounts to a substantial readership— given the literacy rate of the period. It should also be borne in m ind that works by Arani Kuppuswamy Mudaliar, Vaduvur Duraiswamy Iyengar, Vai.Mu. Kothainayaki Ammal, and S.S. A runagirinathar were sold in even larger numbers. T he circulation figures o f contem porary periodicals too could help us make a calculated guess on readership numbers. At the end o f the first year o f its existence A n an da B odhini claimed a total o f 5,000 subscriptions.3 In 1933 A n an da Vikatan claimed a printrun o f 50,000 copies.4 We have figures for A n an da Vikatan s circula­ tion through agency sales alone, as distinct from subscription sales (Table 7.1). These figures show that A n anda Vikatan had reached every district of Tamilnadu, with a strong readership base in Madras, Coim batore, Thanjavur, Tiruchy, M adurai, Tirunelveli, and Ramanathapuram , suggesting the wide geographical spread of popular read­ ing materials. However, this tells us little about the social composition o f book readers; for this we need to look elsewhere. Fortunately, Maraimalai Adigal m aintained an address book in which he kept a record o f all those who bought his books. I was able to locate only the second of his address books, which starts with entry no. 906 dated 20 April 1923 and ends w ith entry no. 1852 dated 10 August 1930, giving a total of over 950 readers.5 It is hazardous to generalize about reader­ ship based on the profile o f just Maraimalai Adigal’s readers. Yet, in 1 G .O . nos 375- 6 , H om e (Edn), 19 M arch 1918. 2 See advertisem ents in Rangaraju, M ohanasundaram (C hennai: R anga­ raju & Bros, 1927, 12th edition). 3 A nanda Bodhini, 1 (12), June 1916. 4 A nanda Vikatan , 8 (3), 26 N ovem ber 1933. 5 Address Book no. 2, M araim alai Adigal Papers. T h e data in the follow­ ing paragraphs are draw n from this address book unless otherwise specified.

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Table 7.1 Agency Sales of Ananda Vikatany 1933 Madras Chinglepet N o rth Arcot Salem S outh A rcot T hanjavur T iruchy M adurai R am anathapuram Tirunelveli Nilgiris Pudukkottai C oim batore

2025 181 300 455 581 2070 1022

1441 857 1050 115 125 3435

Source: A nanda Vikatan , 10 June 1933

the absence o f any other data, this may suggest certain broad patterns. Here are some o f the results of the analysis. O f the 956 readers, 556 belonged to the Tamil districts o f the Madras Presidency. As many as 202 were from Sri Lanka, 64 from Burma, and 34 from the Federated Malay States. O f the 556 from Tamilnadu, 59 were from Madras city and its environs, 48 from the cities o f Tiruchy, M adurai, and Coim batore, 139 from other towns, and 310 from rural areas, giving the lie to the generally held assump­ tion that books were read mostly in urban areas. The educational qualifications o f only 24 could be ascertained. There were 21 BAs (including five Licentiates in Teaching and four Bachelors of Law) and two MAs. Educational qualifications below graduation obvi­ ously went unrecorded because it was not customary to indicate those along with one’s name. Perhaps a good num ber of the others were matriculates. T he occupational classification tends towards the m iddle class (Table 7.2). Before m aking hasty generalizations, we need to note that occupations were identified from the addresses given, and one cannot be quite sure except in the cases of teachers, students,

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Table 7.2 Occupational Profile o f Tamil Readers, 19 2 3 —19 3 0 Booksellers Headmasters, teachers, and pundits M erchants Authors, editors and scholars Students Sangam secretaries Bureaucrats Engineers Vakils Doctors Clerks Press managers Tahsildars/karnams Post office employees Native doctors Astrologers Priests and religious m utts M irasdars, zamindars, and landlords Com m ission agents Railway station vendor Bangle-sellers

37 87 49 15 19 49 14 3 9 4 47 3 2

9 6 2

16 9 8 1 2

Source : M araimalai Adigal’s Address Book n o .2

merchants, and the like. In any case, teachers, clerks, änd merchants predom inate. More interesting is the presence o f two bangle-sellers and a railway-station vendor in the list of readers. Vaiyapuri, a hawker from the Salem railway platform, bought a copy o f Adigals Vellalar N agarigam . How m any unsung M enocchios lurk am ong these is difficult to guess. This draws attention to the fact that though books are by and large social products fashioned by complex historical forces that operate within identifiable social classes, they often take on an independent existence and may reach the most unlikely hands. From occupation to caste we tread even more treacherous ground. Surnames are tricky indicators o f caste, especially in the case of 'Pillai5 and ‘M udaliar’. But a tentative count of the caste surnames

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in M araim alai Adigals Address Book gives the following results (Table 7.3). It is not very surprising that Maraimalai Adigals books, which were most often addressed to a Saiva Vellala audience, should have been bought by so m any Tillais’ and ‘M udaliars. ‘C hettiars, especially those involved in the banking business in Burma, too were patrons of his works. (Perhaps it was a portent for what was to come. There was a surfeit o f Chettiar capital flowing into the Tamil book trade dur­ ing and after W orld War II, as many Chettiar firms had to flee from South East Asia and Burma.) T hat thirty-five Brahmins should figure as readers of Maraimalai Adigals frequently anti-Brahm in books is interesting. T he presence o f Gounders, a dom inant caste in the west­ ern region o f Tamilnadu, is notable, because they have invariably gone unm entioned in studies of colonial political and social move­ ments. There is no indication of dalit surnames. T he low percentage Table 7.3 Caste Surnames of Tamil Readers, 1923-1930 Pillai M udaliar Chettiar Brahmins G ounder Yadavar/Konar Padayachi Reddiar Achari N adar Desigar N aidu/N aicker Udaiyar M oopanar Servai Devangar Karunigar M uslims Christians Source: M araimalai Adigals Address Book no. 2

215 61 92 35 27 3 2 12 6

13 10 14 1 1

3 1

2 13 22

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of Brahmins apart, this broad caste profiling fits broadly with assump­ tions about purchasing power alongside the cultural priority accorded to book purchases, and goes some way in reinforcing them. T he Traditional M ode o f Reading Until the turn of the twentieth century, reading practices were largely determ ined by the lim ited availability o f printed materials.6 We have little evidence of how printed books were read in the first centuries of their existence and circulation in the Tamil world— except for some surprisingly detailed docum entation o f how print impinged on one native convert in the early eighteenth century. This brings in the astonishing story of Rajanaiken, a poor outcast pariah’ who lived in Thanjavur. The story comes from J. Fred. Fenger, a missionary who spent m any years at Tranquebar and wrote the history of the mission in rich detail.7 Rajanaiken’s grandfather became a Catholic at the age o f 30 and Rajanaiken himself was baptized at birth. By the age of 22 he had learned to read and write. Along with his younger brother Sinnapen, he took a great fancy to reading books— mostly on palm leaf which contained ‘papal histories o f saints, the miracles o f the Virgin M ary and a few of those o f C hrist.’ His hunger for reading was not satiated and he tried to get more books, especially the books of Moses, from Catholic catechists through ‘flattery and presents’. It was at this time, in 1725, that he met a Catholic m endicant m onk, Sittananden, who possessed a printed book containing the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles bound together (Ziegenbalg’s translation of the first 6 For instance, see Madras Public C onsultations, vol. 619,22 February 1834, pp. 514- 28 , for the high subscription tariff and restrictive rules and regula­ tions o f the M adras H in d o o Literary Society for borrow ing books. 7 Fenger, History o f the Tranquebar Mission, pp. 175- 9 . Fenger m entions th at his account is based on Rajanaikens ow n letter w ritten in 1732. It is not clear where this letter is now. For a detailed account o f p rin tin g in Tranquebar, see m y ‘W ritten on Leaves in the M alabarian M anner: P rint and C ultural E ncounter in E ighteenth-C entury T ranquebar’, Review o f Development a n d Change, xiv ( 1- 2 ), Janu ary -D ecem b er 2009 . Also see V olm er Rosenkilde, ‘Printing at Tranquebar, 1712- 1845’, Library (5th series), iv ( 1949); Priolkar, The Printing Press in India, ch. 3 .

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part of the New Testament, 1714)— a copy probably acquired from Schultz. Apparently he could not read it him self—an im portant rem inder that books were often m eant not for reading but to stand as respected artefacts signifying authority— and had torn off the title page. After m uch effort he granted Rajanaiken’s request to read it but warned him, ‘You can keep it for your own reading, but take care that the Priest does not see i t/ Rajanaiken used to read it all day and then from evening till m idnight by a lig h t/ W hen he had read it through, the Lord had given me great light in understanding i t/ But then he was struck by a real fear: once Sittananden came he would have to return the book. ‘I therefore determ ined to CQpy it all out on Palm-leaves and make a book o f them , and so began to write. I copied the Gospels of St M atthew and M ark and part o f Luke, but being b u t little accustom ed to w riting, m y h an d was so tired th at I could do no m o re /8 Luckily for him, Sittananden never turned up, so Rajanaiken kept the book. A few years later, in 1727, he went to Tirukadaiyur, a village near Tranquebar, where he m et a Catholic, ‘Schaw rim uthu, who had a small printed book— Ziegenbalgs letter addressed to all Malabarians, published in 1717. Rajanaiken claims, interestingly, that this Savarimuthu could not actually read the book but pretended to and so collected alms from his ‘ignorant (Romish) hearers ! Rajanaiken prom ptly bought the book from him, for ‘one fano’. U pon enquiry he found that Savarimuthu had got the book from G erm an priests. Rajanaiken struck a deal and got him self other imprints from the Tranquebar press. Beginning to suspect that he was being cheated, however, he began corresponding with the Germ an priests and finally went to Tranquebar with his brother. The first book he bought was the full New Testament. ‘A fter I had had about six m onths’ intercourse with them , partly by writing, partly by word o f m outh, and had studied the Bible’, he says, he converted to the Evangelical congregation in 1728.9 Rajanaiken personifies the impact that print could have on people.10 8 Fenger, History o f the Tranquebar Mission, p. 177 . 9 Ibid., p. 179. 10 T h e opening up o f access to p rin t that lower-caste converts had through m issionary agency caused m uch h ea rtb u rn am ong up p er caste literati. An

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Buchanan, in his record o f a journey through large parts of south­ ern India in the first years o f the nineteenth century, states that there was ‘a great cry for Bible’. W ith typical Christian make-believe he tells us that people followed him crying they did not want bread or money but we want the W ord o f G od’! A missionary of Thanjavur told him there were over ten thousand Protestants in the south­ ern districts 'w ho had n o t am ong them one com plete copy o f the Bible, and that not one Christian perhaps in a hundred had a New T estam ent.’11 If this was the situation w ith the Bible, the near-exclusive o u tp u t o f the early presses, little need be said of other literature. In this situation o f the lim ited availability o f printed artefacts and restricted literacy on account o f social factors such as caste, class, and religion, a printed book was quite novel even in the m id-nineteenth century. As late as 1858 Sabapathy Navalar was describing print as celutha e lu th u \ the unwritten w rit’! The phrase is quite revealing o f p rint’s continuing novelty and is employed by the early editor Thiruthanikai Visakaperumalaiyar as w ell.12 An incident narrated by U.V. Swaminatha Iyer bears testim ony to the sense o f surprise the printed book continued to evoke even in the 1870s. O ne day, Swaminatha Iyer happened to be reading verses from a printed copy o f K a m b a ra m a y a n a m along w ith som e fellow stu d en ts at the Thiruvavaduthurai M utt, Am balavana Desigar, an old-fashioned scholar and teacher o f M ahavidw an M eenakshisundaram Pillai, happened to walk past them. Enquiring of the book they were holding and learning it was a copy o f K am baram ayanam he exclaimed, 'Have

1828-p e titio n to th e C o m p a n y by u p p e r castes fro m T iru n elv eli co m ­ plained, ‘European missionaries having com e to the country, sent teachers to the village and by m eans o f books w hich they have newly and cunningly m ade and p rinted [ . . . ] , m any m ean caste people such as pallars, parias and shanars w ho were as slaves [ . . . ] , becam e bold and tu rn ed to the religion o f C h rist.’ Q u o ted in Bhavani Ram an, ‘D o cu m en t Raj: W riting and Scribes in Early Colonial South India (unpublished m anuscript, 2010), p. 70 . 11 J.S.M . H ooper, B ible Translation in India, Pakistan a n d Ceylon ( 1938, rev. edn. O xford: O xford University Press, 1963), p. 75 . 12 Venkatasamy, Pathonbatham Noottrandil Tam il Ilakkiyam, pp. 94- 5.

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they made a book [he used the English term] o f it, too!’ This ex­ clamation in turn surprised the students, who could barely control their laughter at the old m an’s naivete.13 The anecdote reveals not only the novelty of the book to the older generation but also the beginnings o f its penetration into the new. H aving been social­ ized into print, young students had begun to take printed books for granted and so felt the disdain of the technologically advantaged for supposedly passe scholars brought up on palm-leaf m anuscripts.14 As we have seen, even in the latter part of the nineteenth century palm-leaf manuscripts and printed books continued to exist side by side. Mylai Seeni. Venkatasamy’s observation that printed books did not displace palm-leaf manuscripts overnight should put to rest the argum ent for technological determ inism .15 It is pertinent that paper, which was introduced into N orth India as early as in the thirteenth century, was not taken up inTam ilnadu until well into the nineteenth century. Non-Tamil words— k adith am ,16 kadithasi , kagitham — were used in the nineteenth century for paper until T h a t, from £stem/stalk’, was employed by more discerning users o f the language. Given the fact that palm -leaf m anuscripts and printed m atter could not be consumed in the same mode, conflicts arose. Traditional scholars often ridiculed new scholars who fumbled w ith palm-leaf m anus­ cripts, unable to decipher them fluently. C.W. Dam odaram Pillai, refuting criticisms o f his editions, derisively referred to his critics as ‘scholars o f the printed book who know not how to hold or read palm-leaf m anuscripts.’17 Likewise U.V. Swaminatha Iyer writes that his teacher M eenakshisundaram Pillai rarely ever wrote on paper, preferring to dictate to his students.18 A.C. Burnell, the distinguished Orientalist, observes as late as 1874 that the use of paper in South 13 SM P Q vol. 2 , 1940, p. 207. 14 N o w onder, one B rahm o Sam ajist rued th a t young m en were being m isled by the baseless allegations o f C h ristian m issionaries co n tain ed in ‘clearly p rinted tracts. Thattuva Bodhini, 1 (1), M ay 1864, editorial. 15 Venkatasamy, Pathonbatham Nootrandil Tamil Ilakkiyam , pp. 94, 107. 16 By the early tw entieth century ‘kaditham came to m ean a letter. 17 Tholkappiyam—Porulathikaram—N acchinarkkiniyar Urai (C h e n n a i: A uthor, 1885), Preface. 18 SM P Q vol. 2, p. 277.

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India ‘is at all events very recent, and even now scarcely ever occurs except among M ahrathi colonists.’19 It is said that Dandapani Swamigal too rarely, if ever, wrote on paper and preferred to use cadjan leaves,20 while Ramalinga Adigal, even when he used paper, used the orthography m eant for palm leaves.21 But this was a passing genera­ tion. The new breed o f students and scholars was pretty uncom fort­ able w ith palm -leaf m anuscripts, and, as even U.V. Swam inatha Iyer adm its, when M eenakshisundaram Pillai asked him to read from the T h iruvidaim aru du r Ula he could read out from a palm-leaf m anuscript only falteringly.22 It was years before he acquired the proficiency required for reading manuscripts— which he then used to edit the classics. Printed books also caused conflicts over the authority of texts. O n one occasion, in the early 1870s, U.V. Swaminatha Iyer was reciting a poem from Sivaprakasa Swamigal, a well-known poet o f the seven­ teenth century. As the recitation progressed, Meenakshisundaram Pillai corrected him on one count. W hen Swaminatha Iyer asserted boyishly that he was only following the printed version, there was stunned silence among the observers: a young m an had dared to contradict a scholar o f M eenakshisundaram Pillai’s stature on the mere authority o f print! M eenakshisundaram Pillai broke the ice by instructing Swaminatha Iyer: ‘Print does not validate everything. People who are not proficient in the language may print anything.’23 The authority of print was therefore never taken for granted and in fact its initial penetration into society was considerably contested. O n another occasion M eenakshisundaram Pillai was giving clas­ ses on Periya P uranam , the Saiva literary classic. W hile a student read out from the printed book, he annotated the allusions and provided glosses. W hen the class had progressed to the story o f Kannappa Nayanar-—the hunter-devotee o f Siva who in his devotion 19 Burnell, Elements o f South-Indian Palaeography , p. 11.

20 In terv ie w w ith T h a . K ov en d h an (1 9 3 2 -2 0 0 4 ) , e d ito r o f som e o f D andapani Swamigals works, 21 June 1992. 21 See the facsimile edition o f Arutperunjothi A gaval (Vadalur: T h iruvarutprakasa Deva Nilayangal, 1961). 22 S M P C , vol. 2, p. 60. 23 Ibid., pp. 9 2 -3 .

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Fig. 8: M ahavidw an M eenakshisundaram Pillai (1 8 1 5 -1 8 7 6 ). Legendary teacher an d prolific poet-scholar. N o te th e p alm -leaf m a n u scrip t in th e foreground.

went so far as to gouge out his eyes to offer them to Siva— Meenakshi­ sundaram Pillai stopped the lesson, observing that certain verses were missing in the printed version. He then went in and fetched a palm ­ leaf m anuscript, and as he had pointed out, five verses were indeed missing in the print version. Naturally, his students were awestruck.24 Though exceptional scholars like M eenakshisundaram Pillai could often dazzle students and others by such display, they were fighting a losing battle by clinging to a traditional m ode of reading and attendant reading practices which placed a prem ium on mem ory and learning by rote. Even geniuses have limits, and these limits were 24 Sw am inatha Iyer,

En C harithiram , p. 205.

315

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Fig. 9: A rum uga N avalar (1 8 2 2 -1 8 7 9 ). Scholar, orator, cham pion o f Saiva revivalism. C redited w ith in tro d u c in g p u n ctu atio n in to Tamil. Seen here holding a p rin ted book.

exposed by print. Before the advent of print, only a limited number of texts could be acquired for study or reference, for locating and copying them were often unrewarding exercises, particularly be­ cause their owners rarely ever permitted people to read or even examine them.25 C.W. Damodaram Pillai once wrote in exasperation that it would be easier to extract the mythical ruby from the cobra than make certain owners part with their manuscripts, even just to read or copy them.26 One reason for reluctance among owners will have been 25 For an in te re stin g an e cd o te o n how o n e of M e e n a k sh isu n d a ra m P illa i’s stu d e n ts tric k e d th e zealous o w n er o f Sivad aru m o th ara m in to parting w ith it for a few days, see SM P C , vol. 1, pp. 2 0 8 -1 5 . 26 D am odaram Pillai, Kalithogai (C hennai: Author, 1887), Preface.

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that copying was an expensive process involving a great deal o f time and energy. The early eighteenth-century Danish missionaries ob­ served that ‘Transcribing was to supply the Place o f the Press, which as it required more Hands, so it increased also the Cost consider­ ably;27 they added that ‘O ne of the most expensive Branches of the whole Undertaking, was the transcribing o f Books for the Use of their Schools . . . For this End they sometimes employ'd Four, Five, Six, or more Kanakappel, or Transcribers.'28 M urdoch recollected Rev. Peter Percival telling him, in the early part o f the nineteenth century, that a m anuscript copy of Beschi’s Tamil dictionary cost him nearly 10 pounds while now in 1865 a printed copy cost him only 2s. 6d!29 (It was in this context that rich Jains adopted the practice of sastra dhanam or the gifting o f manuscripts to scholars on festive occasions.) T here was the additional and legendary problem of scribal errors. Students in the traditional schools copied out the manus­ cripts of elementary texts— this explains the widespread occurrence o f such texts d uring national m anuscript m ission searches— as did more m ature scholars in monasteries. W ith the coming o f the printed book a m uch larger num ber o f standard copies of various texts began to be more widely available, and few traditional scholars could keep pace. The limits o f the traditional m ode o f reading are highlighted by some anecdotes in the life of M eenakshisundaram Pillai. As a teacher he was in the habit of testing new students by asking them to recite verses. O n one occasion, a new recruit from Tirunelveli surpris­ ed M eenakshisundaram Pillai with a verse he had never heard of. O n enquiring he learnt that the verse was from Thirikudarasappa Kavirayar's Thirukkuttrala Puranam .30 O n another occasion, Subbu Bharati surprised him with songs from K u ttm la K uravanji , composed by the same author.31 The latter work, especially, is now considered a 17 Propagation

o f the Gospel in the E ast , p t ill (L o n d o n : J. D o w n in g ,

1718), p. 8. 28 Ibid., pp. 11-12. 29 M urdoch, A Classified Catalogue o f Tamil P rinted Books , p. xxxiii. 30 S M P C , vol. l , p . 154.

31 Ibid., p. 215.

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classic and not only forms part o f the school curriculum but has also been popularized as a dance drama. And to think that Meenakshi­ sundaram Pillai was ignorant of it! Similarly, he had never read M ambala Kavirayar, his contemporary, until he was accosted with a printed copy o f his verses on a visit to Pondicherry in 1867.32 Print and the availability o f a wider range o f texts were beginning to seriously erode the authority even o f outstanding scholars whose erudition was based on an earlier mode of reading. In brief, though printed books began to be more easily available during the age of patronage, there was no major change in reading practices. Before the arrival o f print, the concept o f private reading did not exist. Given the physical disadvantages o f palm-leaf m anus­ cripts, not to speak of their lim ited social accessibility, special efforts had to be made to read them. Even though palm leaves were probably hardier than paper (even in those pre-acid days) palm-leaf m anus­ cripts were unwieldy. Processed slats o f dried palm leaves were cut to shape before being used for writing w ith a hard and pointed iron stylus, which in turn required enormous energy.33 Given the absence of binding, a large perforation or two was made for a string to run through the leaves in order to tie and hold them together. Flipping through the leaves was impossible and the m anuscript had to be carefully handled to pre-empt damage. Sometimes lecterns were used to provide support. Substances such as turm eric and soot had to be applied to the surface o f the palm leaves to make the writing visible. More importantly, the orthography followed for palm-leaf m anus­ cripts constituted a major determ inant o f the mode of reading. Since this orthography was not entirely standardized, and especially because dots could not be used (they would damage the leaves), a single charac­ ter could be read in more than one way. Lack of page numbers was 32 33

Ibid., p. 299. Sw am inatha Iyer narrates an incid en t in M eenakshisundaram Pillais

life attesting to the speed o f his verse-m aking and dictation. O n e day he overheard a student saying th at Pillai could n o t m atch the speed w ith w hich he could take them dow n on palm leaves. T h e next day he dictated so m any verses that the errant student finally broke dow n and w ept. S M P C , vol. 1, pp. 3 1 4 -1 7 .

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the norm. (It could be argued that the nature o f the palm-leaf also precluded the development of calligraphy in Tamil.) Letters, words, lines, verses, commentaries, glosses, and quotations followed one another w ithout space for breath, not to speak of the enormous scope for scribal errors. A bewildered Ziegenbalg wrote, there is neither comma, colon, nor semicolon, to be m et w ith.’34 Consequently read­ ing a text virtually am ounted to deciphering a text. This dem anded a high level of scholarship, knowledge of prosody, and the possession o f a vast vocabulary. Identifying the verse form alerted the reader to the length o f the line with its set num ber of syllables and feet. Students were therefore expected to learn prosody and memorize traditional lexicons and thesauruses in verse form, called nigandus .35 O ften the text had actually to be read aloud in order just to make out verses from the accompanying commentary, never m ind com ­ prehending their meaning. Print made a definite impact on verse: after the early years, during which poetry was printed in line with the palm -leaf m anuscript tradition (but sometimes with a comm a or asterisk to indicate line break), it was laid out in a m anner that enabled easy recognition o f the verse form. T he alliterative pattern— of ethugai , m onai , and iyaibu — could now be easily recognized with the indented splitting of lines. The use of a dash (though there was no uniform ity in employing an en or em dash or sometimes even just a hyphen) to mark the thanichol (caesura) in the nerisai venba form was especially useful and conspicuous. Vocalized reading could mean two things— reading to oneself and reading to an audience. Reading by rote or memorization, and intens­ ive and meditative reading, were a corollary to this mode o f reading. Such consum ption o f texts could not usually happen in private. There were more or less specifically defined arenas for reading. Students read under the tutelage of teachers. Scholastics read in monasteries. Arangettram was an arena where compositions were ritually pre­ miered to an audience. Text-based discourses on religious occasions, fairs, and festivals stood on a similar footing as the arangettram. The 34

Propagation o f the Gospel in the East , part m, p. 30.

35

Swadesam itran , 26 M ay 1914, reprinted in B haratidasan, M anudam

Pottru (Chennai: Poom puhar Prasuram, 1984), pp. 1 1 -1 4 .

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consum ption of texts in these arenas, it is evident, was aural, the audi­ ence listening attentively. N ot surprisingly therefore kelvi (lit. to hear, hearing), and later the tautological k elvijn an am , is Tamil for knowledge. This kind o f aural consum ption set certain herm eneutic lim ita­ tions, the interpretation being mediated by teachers, scholars, and performers, apart from scholarly aids such as verse dictionaries and thesauruses, and scholastic and religious commentaries. But the relatively easy availability of printed texts posed a serious threat to such hermeneutics. The very availability o f a text in multiple copies of the same standard w ithout any inconsistency was what underpin­ ned the subversive potential o f print. Apart from the fact that texts (in the form of printed books) could be conveniently carried on ones person, the text itself had undergone quite dramatic changes in the process o f being printed. The very transcription o f the text from the palm leaf to the printed page entailed a major interpretation. Print, for good or ill, not only made for a singular and definite reading of the m anuscript, it also stabilized the text and gave it fixity.36 Even though m any early books resembled palm-leaf manuscripts in their layout, the very fact o f transcription am ounted to a decipherm ent and fixing o f orthography.37 T he introduction of punctuation, credited to Arum uga Navalar (m uch like Vidyasagar for Bengali), made it possible to scan the line silently, or even glance through the pages, a virtual impossibi­ lity w ith palm -leaf m anuscripts.38 Interestingly V.G. Suriyanarayana Shastri (Parithimal Kalaignar) s early discussion o f Navalar s 36 N o w onder the Tam il scholar T.T. K anakasundaram Pillai com m ented on th e im m in e n t p u b lic a tio n o f an im p o rta n t classic: ‘To th in k th a t Chilappadhikaram will be available in prin ted form shortly, obviating the need to cry over cadjan leaves, gives m e unutterable joy.’ Letter to U.V. Swami­ n atha Iyer, 3 June 1890, U.V.S. Papers.

M urdoch, w riting in 1865, says th at ‘A w hole sentence was w ritten as if com posed o f one w ord. A bout tw enty years ago, the M adras Bible Soceity resolved to p rin t each w o rd separately an d in its n atu ral form , w ith o u t change or addition o f letters . . .’, M urdoch, A Classified Catalogue o f Tamil Printed Books, p. xxxii. V.G. Suriyanarayana Shastri, Tamil Mozhiyin Varalaru (A H isto ry o f 37

the Tamil Language; C hennai: G.A. N atesan, 1903), pp. 1 2 4 -5 .

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innovation follows deliberations over the vexed issue o f san dh i (conjugation) and the controversy over splitting it while printing verse. In his view punctuation marks contributed to clarity and speed5. W hile the introduction o f punctuation was controversial only in relation to verse, he noted that nobody would object to it in prose5 and added categorically that ‘Considering everything there is no reason to object to [the introduction of] punctuation marks. Even those who would object have not objected. Therefore there is little doubt that punctuation will soon be adopted and fully practised. Undoubtedly, special benefits will accrue to Tamil.539 V.P. Subramania Mudaliar, writing a few years earlier, had noted that the practice of introducing space between words and various punctuation marks had been adopted from ‘English conventions5.40 A contemporary guide to punctuation stated, ‘[Punctuation marks] are signs used to add clarity to sentences and verses [. . .] If punctuation marks are proper­ ly learnt and used in the right contexts, sentences and verses may not only be better understood but will also be more elegant [.. .] Rules [for punctuation] are not to be found in any Tamil gram m ar— N an nool , Thonnool or Tholkappiyam . Therefore, it has become neces­ sary to list the various marks and their appropriate uses.’41 By the end of the nineteenth century similar handbooks on printing had been prepared. A brilliant example comes from C.V. M unisam i Nayudu of the Madras Government Press, whose catechism had coined a num ber of words for printing terms, including punctuation.42 Vocalization retarded speed; reading w ithout articulation enabled the reading o f m any pages and saved energy. W hile the handiness of printed volumes made it possible to read in isolation, the changed Ibid., p. 125. Preface to the Tam il translation o f Paradise Lost (1895), reprinted in Sandhi Kuriittu Vilakkam (Chennai: S. Rajam, [1957/8]), p. 37. 41 Vasaga Kurigal (P u n c tu atio n M arks; C h en n ai: M adras R ip o n Press, 1908, 2 nd edn), Preface. 42 C.V. M unisam i N ayudu, A Catechism o f Printing in Tamil, P a rti (Madras: C. N arahari N ayudu, 1892). H is coinages were based on Tamil roots rather than Sanskrit ones, and m any o f them seem to have been assimilated into the Tamil language, even though it is nearly impossible to attrib u te authorship. Some other coinages rem ain w orthy o f adoption. 39

40

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format of the printed text enabled readers to scan lines w ithout reading aloud. By the end o f the nineteenth century the book was recognized, in its physical aspect, as ready for silent reading. W hat was now re­ quired was a literary genre suited to silent reading, a social class with the requisite mental equipm ent and sensibility, and the prioritization by individuals w ithin that class of leisure time for reading. So the transition that we spoke o f earlier entailed not merely a shift from patronage to the market but also from one way o f reading to another, or a shift from the ear to the eye.43 T he appearance of the novel and the emergence of the middle class led to the silent mode o f read­ ing in Tamil society.

T he Silent M ode o f Reading In the early twentieth century the novel made inroads into Tamil society and became the art form par excellence of the middle class. This middle class, especially the young w ithin it, had been educated in m odern schools and were thus not new to print, having already been socialized to read by textbooks. But their curiosity for reading material was often aroused by sundry non-educational matter. Printed adver­ tisement notices, especially o f plays which were extremely popular in the early part of the twentieth century, probably provided the first extra curricular reading material for young students. C.A. Ayyamuthu recollects, how, as a young boy in Coim batore, he would run after carts from which dram a notices and leaflets were distributed to the sound o f band music, and how he was thrilled by such reading material.44 Bharatidasan writes of his excitement on seeing a notice for a gram ophone record performance with the now-well-known pic­ ture (the H M V logo) of a dog sitting beside a huge funnel-shaped speaker and a turntable.45 Namakkal Ramalingam Pillai was even

M arshall M cL uhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The M aking o f Typogra­ phic M an (Toronto: U niversity o f T oronto Press, 1962), pp. 2 6 -8 . 44 Enathu Ninaivugal (M emoirs; C hennai: Vanathi Pathippagam , 1973), 43

p. 99.

45 Puduvai Murasu, 25 M ay 1931, reprinted in Bharatidasan, Manudam Pottru , p. 89.

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more captivated by a dram a notice— he began to copy it out o f a picture during class hours and was punished by his teacher for inattentiveness.

46

This, then, was the generation which was drawn to the novel grow­ ing rapidly in popularity from the 1910s. We have seen the character of these novels: they were written in a popular style with action, thrill, suspense, and titillation in ample measure. This was a heady mix for new readers. V.K.R.V. Rao, the distinguished econom ist and institution builder, recollects that as an eleven-year-old, studying in the third form at the American Arcot M ission School, Tindivanam, he ‘became a voracious reader both in Tamil and in English. I read the C ount o f M on te Cristo and O liver Twist and Tales fro m Shakespeare in Tamil translations or adaptations before I read them in English. It was during this period that I developed my passion for detective stories, first in Tamil by reading A rni K uppusw am i M udaliar s novels . . .’47 M .M . Ismail, noted as a judge and man of letters, remem­ bers reading scores of novels ias a high school student in Nagapattinam in the 1930s.48 Ka.Naa. Subram anyam recollects that ‘In the two years [1921-3] I spent at my grandfathers, I m ust have read three or four hundred novels— at least that is my impression. If someone asks, “Were there so m any novels in those days?” I’d say, “Yes, I think so.’”49 Clearly, readers of that time perceived a surfeit o f novels, and felt the urge to read them all. But given the nature o f the novels and the disciplinarian attitude o f parents and elders to such reading material, young readers had to be surreptitious to overcome such moral policing.50 Consequently even the possession o f a forbidden novel— usually in demy octavo Pillai, En Kathai, pp. 4 4 -6 . 47 S.L. Rao (ed.), The Partial Memoirs o f V.K.R.V. Rao (New Delhi: O xford U niversity Press, 2002), p. 34. 48 M .M . Ismail, Ninaivu Chudar(T\ie Flame o f M em ory; Chennai: V anathi Pathippagam , 2001), p. 17. 49 Ka.Naa. Subram anyam , M uthal Ainthu Tamil Novelgal (The First Five 46

Tamil Novels; C hennai: A m udha N ilayam , 1957), p. iii. 50 Ka.Naa. Subram anyam , Padithirukkireergala? 2 (Flave you Read these Books?; C hennai: A m udha N ilayam , 1958), p. 104.

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and printed on cheap newsprint with plain colour wrappers and a title handset on letterpress— was the reason for secret pleasure.51 Once a novel was acquired, it had to be quickly consumed away from the watchful eyes o f elders. Solitude combined with both the necessity and the urge to read fast contributed greatly to speed-reading in silence. As a young boy, Kalki read J.R. Rangarajus R a jam bal by an oil lamp and slept only in the wee hours. He tells us he read Natesa Sastri’s T h ik k a ttra Iru K u la n d a ig a l foregoing lu n c h .52 Ka.N aa. Subram anyam recollects th at reading J.R. Rangaraju m ade one unm indful o f sleep, thirst, and hunger.53 This absorption in fiction led to a complete identification with the characters and events in the novel, which in turn was predicat­ ed on reading in silence and solitude. As Kalki remarked: cH ow startled we were when Rajambal was murdered! And when Govindan brought her back alive, at the end of the story, how happy we were! If an election had been held then, and Detective Govindan and Lokmanya Tilak had both contested it, I’d have certainly voted for G ovindan.’54 T he experience o f Ki. Savithiri Ammal sounds similar. As a young girl, w hen she read N atesa Sastri’s T h ik k a ttra Iru K ulandaigal , she empathized completely with the two lost children, Radha and Alamu, experiencing all their adventures and tribulations. So com pletely was she absorbed in the story o f A. M adhaviah’s P adm avathy C harithiram that she felt a great urge to go to Triplicane (then a suburb of Madras) and meet Padmavathy and Narayanan, the leading lights of the novel.55 Such belief in the ‘reality’ of novels indicates a new type o f re­ lationship developing between the book and the reader, a cultural Ka.Naa. Subram anyam , M uthal Ainthu Tamil Novelgal, p. iii. Kalki s forew ord to R.K . N arayan, Swamiyum Snehidargalum , p. i; also Ananda Vikatan , 17 February 1934, q uoted in Sunda, Ponniyin Puthalvar, pp. 6 1 -2 . 51

52

53 54

Ka.Naa. Subram anyam , Padithirukkireergala? 2, p. 104. Ananda Vikatan , 17 February 1934, quoted in Sunda, Ponniyin Puthalvar,

pp. 6 1 -2 . 55

‘N a n P ad ith a M u th a l K athaigaF (T h e F irst S tories T h a t I R ead),

Bharatamani, Septem ber 1944.

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phenom enon new in Tamil society. The personae that readers en­ countered in these novels were not the supernatural or fantastic beings o f ballads and epics but ‘real’ people o f flesh and blood, set in real places and not in some cloud-cuckoo land. The novels seemed so thrilling because they m irrored the lived experiences o f their readers. Novels that portrayed this reality became, not surprisingly, the dom i­ nant art form of the middle class. As Kum udhini declared: T o r vari­ ous reasons, my world is small. But books are one o f the greatest wonders of the world. M ore than half of my life’s happiness has come from books.’56 Ka.Naa. Subramanyam also says these novels, especially those by Vaduvur Duraiswam y Iyengar, brim m ed w ith subtle titillating suggestions designed to excite adolescent fantasies.57 Kalki’s confession, in a rare m om ent of indiscretion, provides further evidence on this score: Tom e time ago, I chanced to read a couple of recent Tamil novels. O h, I cannot express my horror. Before I could get past a few pages, I felt as though I was rolling in the gutter. Well, even if one rolls in the gutter, one can cleanse oneself with soap. But the filth that dirties the m ind is not cleansed as easily. O nly after a few nights’ sleep did I feel sufficiently clean.’58 If even an avowedly G andhian writer could feel sexually dis­ turbed by the novels, need we say more about adolescent readers! Ra.Ki. Rangarajan, popular writer and an editor o f the mass-selling weekly K u m u dham , recollects in his autobiography an instance within a Vaduvur Duraiswamy Iyengar novel: an advocate and a courte­ san brushing against each other while travelling on a bullock cart, com bining ‘some openness and some suggestion’. This remained in his m em ory over half a century.59 Young readers such as Ra.Ki. Rangarajan may have felt no guilt and perhaps indulged their fanta­ sies freely: such fantasies were very m uch a part o f the experience yielded by silent reading. The silent mode o f reading gradually emerged as a distinct, if not 56

‘E n P uthakangaf (My Books), K alaim agal , vol. 7, M ay 1935, p. 439.

57

Padithirukkireergala? 2, p. 68.

58

A nanda Vikatan , 10 June 1933.

Ra.K i. R angarajan, A van (H e; C h e n n ai: G angai P u th ak a N ilayam , 2 0 0 1 ), p. 46. 59

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dom inant, m ode o f reading. This is highlighted by the contrast­ ing reading practices o f old and new generations. W hile Ka.Naa. Subram anyam read aloud from the B hagavatham to his grand­ mother, he slipped out to read novels alone, in silence.60 Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar, the popular playwright, read out religious works to his aging m other.61 M .M . Ismail recollects that his uncle would retell stories from Vaduvur Duraiswamy Iyengar’s novels at bedtime to the family as they gathered around.62 The case o f the grandm oth­ ers of Indira Parthasarathy and Sujatha is even more interesting. They listened to the novels o f Arani Kuppuswam y M udaliar, Vaduvur Duraisw am y Iyengar, and Vai.Mu. Kothainayaki Am m al as they were read out by their grandsons.63 Apart from the fact that this is an inversion o f the grandm as tale— the grandm others becom ing the recipients of stories narrated by grandchildren— the grandmothers of Sujatha and Indira Parthasarathy suggest that the literary genre (here, the novel) did not of itself determine the mode o f reading. As Roger Chartier has argued, the same reading materials could be appropriated for differentiated and plural uses.64 Studies indicate that silent reading existed in Greece even by the fifth century BC. The passage from St Augustine’s Confessions where he refers to reading w ithout the m ovement o f lips is well known. However, there isn’t a shred of evidence on the existence o f non­ vocalized reading in Tamil intellectual history. Closely associated with the rise o f the silent mode of reading was reading as a leisure-time activity. N.R. Sridharan, B.A., the hero of Kalki’s Thyaga Bhoomiy relaxes over a Charles Garvice novel, lying in bed and fantasizing about his future wife.65 Or, as Kum udhini

Ka.Naa. Subram anyam , M uthalA inthu Tamil NovelgaU p. ii. Pam m al S am banda M udaliar, En Suyasarithai (M y A uto b io g rap h y ; C hennai: A uthor, 1963), p. 8. 62 Ismail, Ninaivu Chudary p. 17. 60 61

63

In d ira P arthasarathy (interview ), Subamangaky Ju n e 1993; Sujatha,

‘T h o ran ath u M avilaigaf, Kalki Deepavali Malary 1992. 64 Roger C hartier, The Cultural Uses o f Print in Early Modern France, Introduction. 65 Kalki, Thyaga Bhoomiy p. 23.

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portrays the ideal setting for reading: ‘M onsoons. This is the season I like the most. O ne cannot go out anywhere. There are few household chores to attend to. N o visitor is likely to come and disturb our peace. O n such occasions I sit beside the bookshelves through the day.’66 There was thus a close association between being alone, and read­ ing in silence at leisure. O nly a person like Padmasani, married to a professor, with two schoolgoing children, could have the leisure to read so m any novels and other books and yet remember them .67The novelist Krithika, wife o f a high-ranking ICS officer, also found ample time to read extensively.68 Criticism of wom en reading novels was frequent and can be culturally decoded as the male gaze turning into a frown against what men subconsciously recognized as an em ancipat­ ory trend which m ight lead ‘their wom en who knows where. Very quickly, the habit of reading on trains caught on. A trave­ logue writer found m any persons reading stories as they travelled on a tra in .69 A nother observer found passengers glancing through books lost in thought, unm indful o f the gossip o f fellow travellers.70 T.K. Chidam baranatha M udaliar found some passengers even more relaxed: they smoked cigarettes while reading Kalki s stories.71 By the 1920s Higginbothams, a major European-owned bookselling firm based in Madras city, had a wide network of outlets (which survives to this day) at most railway stations. Later in the day, Swadesam itran joined the fray. Ka.Naa. Subram anyam recollects having bought novels at the Thanjavur Railway Station,72 while Chandilyan claims to have m ade effective use o f the S w adesam itran bookshops to quickly sell off his first collection of short stories.73 Reading on an Indian train, though, barely qualifies as a leisure-time cultural practice. 66 67 68

‘E n Puthakangal 4 ’, Kalaimagal, vol. 9, June 1936, p. 476. ‘Rem em bered Books’, Indian Review , N ovem ber 1946. K rithika, Vasavechwaram (C hennai: N ool-A gam , 1991 [2 n d ed n ]),

A fterword, pp. 162-3; 165. 69Jananandini, O ctober-D ecem ber 1891, reproduced in A.K. C hettiar (ed.), Tamilnadu {Payana Katturaigal), p. 48. 70 Anandaguna Bodhini , 15 June 1926, reproduced in ibid., p. 73. 71 Preface to Kalki, Kanayaliyin Kanavu , p. x. 72 Ilakkiya Chatha naiyala rgaU p. 189. 73

C handilyan, PorattangaU p. 54.

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Unlike European trains, those in India were cramped and notorious for their discomfort: not the ideal setting for relaxed reading. Reading as a leisure-time practice also m eant that reading was often extensive and desultory, whereas the earlier mode was often intensive (especially given the lim ited availability o f books) and concentrated, involving the exertion o f ones m nem onic faculty. K um udhini adm itted that as a young girl she read a book in its en­ tirety but that as she grew old she read only the prefaces o f books.74 R.K. Narayan, an aspiring author living in Madras, observed: L et n o n e c o n c lu d e [. . .] th a t I am a v o ra c io u s rea d er. It is n o t necessary [. . .] to get lost in th e co n ten ts o f a b ook. M y m a in d elig h t I derive by tu rn in g a page o f a jo u rn al here, passing o n to so m e th in g else next, a n d m a k in g a m e n tal n o te to read such an d such an article at a later date; b u t I regret to confess th a t I have seldom d o n e so. By th e tim e I am b ack th ere again a new issue o f a jo u rn al is o n th e table o r th e n o te has gone o u t o f m y m in d [. . .] B row sing over th e pages o f a b o o k here a n d a b o o k th e re [. . .] is a pleasure [. . .]75

This then is the testament o f a reader produced by the silent m ode o f reading. Such reading came to be practised by an increasing tribe of middle-class readers; a perceptive observer remarked: A new trend is growing presently in the dailies, weeklies, and monthlies being pub­ lished in Tamil. O nly “light” matters are given importance as though to suggest that periodicals are intended for spending leisure time and for relaxation.’76 No wonder A. Subramania Bharati identified these readers (especially, o f novels) as a whole lot of butlers who know not how to spend their free time, lazy men whiling their time away at choultries [charitable inns]j, unemployed loafers, jobless women, m enstruating wom en with nothing worthwhile tp do in their ritual seclusion, shopkeepers w ithout business, and others o f their ilk.’77 Ananda Vikatan, 1 Septem ber 1932. ‘O n Libraries’, Hindu, 23 Septem ber 1951, reproduced in The Hindu Speaks: On Libraries (Madras: K asturi & Sons, 1992), p. 92. 76 Review o f Jayabharati in M anikkodi , 15 D ecem ber 1936. 74 75

77 A. S u b ra m a n ia B h a ra ti in his p reface to V ai.M u . K o th a in a y a k i A m m al, Shanbaga Vijayam, p. 4.

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The newly acquired zeal of middle-class readers to possess books, whether these were read in their entirety or not, was another new phenom enon. Maraimalai Adigal arranged and rearranged books on his shelves with a kind of narcissistic pleasure:: ‘I have really a very wonderful selection of the best books on every subject of Philo­ sophy, and the valuable books are many; it is a source of genuine intellectual pleasure to have in ones possession so m any admirable books.’78 This despite the fact that his wife is not in good terms with me on account of the money I spend buying books.’ But: ‘W hat am I to do! I have an unusual craving for buying new books.’79 Such craving was by no means peculiar to Maraimalai Adigal; it crossed K um udhini’s m ind as she surveyed her bookshelves: ‘There are all kinds of books on the shelves. I cannot even figure out how they reached there. I have not read quite a few of them. It is also doubtful that I will ever read them . T he alm irah is full. O nly if some of the books there are cleared out can space be found for new additions. But I haven’t the heart to part w ith them. I don’t know which ones to discard.’80 Considering that middle-class readers sometimes bought books for no better reason than that they were cheap,81 no w onder such dilemmas became commonplace. Parting w ith a prized collection could be traumatic. W hen Deenadayalu, the protagonist o f Natesa Sastri’s eponym ous novel (1902), is forced by pressing financial need to sell off all his books for Rs 400, it feels ‘like selling off child­ ren during times o f famine’.82 Visits to libraries perhaps provided vicarious satiety to readers who w anted to possess books but did not. O ne reader confessed he hung 78

M D y 30 Septem ber 1914.

79

M D , 8 D ecem ber 1906. Also see article by V. N arayanaiyar in Tamilar

Nesan , D ecem ber 1918. 80 ‘En Puthakangal 4 ’, K alaim agal , vol. 9, June 1936, p. 476. K um udhini w ould have p ro fited from reading O rh a n P am u k s essay ‘H ow I got R id o f Some o f M y Books’! 81 Ibid., p. 479. 82 N atesa Sastri, D eenadayalu (19 0 2 , rp n t. C h e n n ai: S angam Books,

1985), p. 99.

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about libraries unasham edly and trespass [ed] into any place that proclaims itself to be a free reading room and library.’ The book’s physical beauty becomes the source o f aesthetic pleasure: 'T he faint aroma o f gum and calico that hangs about a library is as the fragrance of incense to me. I think the most beautiful sight is the gilt-edged backs o f a row o f books on a shelf T he alley between two well-stocked shelves in a hall fills me w ith the same delight as passing through a silent avenue o f trees. The colour o f a binding cloth and its smooth texture gives me the same pleasure as touching a flower at its stalk.’83 By the 1920s and 1930s, by which time silent reading among the middle classes was quite the norm , there was an increasing de­ m and for and access to books. The Madras Library Association was founded in 1928 to foster the library m ovem ent in the M adras Presidency. It was this movement that nurtured S.R. Ranganathan, inventor o f the Colon Classification system. Some of the consistent demands of the movement were for increased public spending on libraries, a wider network o f public libraries, and free and easy access to libraries for everyone.84 This period also saw the spawning of many 'libraries’ which were public forums doubling as reading rooms, esta­ blished by the nationalist and Self-Respect movements. W ith reading growing apace, book reviews became a staple part of the diet offered by periodicals. Q uite a few articles also began now to draw attention to the poor quality and often misleading nature of book reviews. Pudum aippithan, in his characteristic style, warned that such reviews w ould end up disappointing enthusiastic read­ ers and ultimately kill the nascent reading habit.85 Parallel to this 83 R.K. Narayan, ‘O n Libraries, p. 92. 84 Contem porary periodicals teem in articles about the library movement. For some o f them, see Bharati, June-July 19 32 ; Kumaran, November 1923 and 18 January 1934; Suthanthira Sangu, 20 July 1933; Bharatamani, 17 February 1939. The H indu Speaks: On Libraries is a useful volume w hich reproduces m any o f the articles published in the H indu on the library movement. 85 M anikkodi, 15 August 1937. For more on book reviews, see Kalki, Ettikku Potti (1930, rpnt. Chennai: Tamil Pannai, 1965), pp. 157-67; Kumaran, 30 July 1927, sub editorial.

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criticism was the stigma attached to borrowing books instead of buy­ ing them , it being felt that book loans harm ed the book trade as a whole. T he num ber o f hum orous pieces on this growing habit of borrowing books is considerable.86 By the end o f our period silent reading had become so dom inant that attem pts were made to codify it. S. Satyamurti, a conservative Congress leader, while in prison during 1941, wrote a series of letters to his daughter, Lakshmi. They are homilies and pontifications on various aspects o f middle-class life and culture. O f them at least three are devoted to books and reading practices. First, Satyamurti pres­ cribes the right m anner of reading: ‘There are certain ways o f proper reading. You should habituate yourself to them. You m ust read w ith the right posture. To read in a sitting position is best. W hen we are lazy, we occasionally read lying down. It is not advisable to do so; it is bad for the eyes. We should also ensure that adequate light is available when reading. At night we should read using an electric light [. . .] There should not be too m uch light either.’87 Com ing to the reading materials themselves, Satyamurti suggested a mix o f great literature consisting o f the Indian epics, Shakespeare, Kamban, Tulsi­ das, the English romantic poets, Kalidas, Valmiki, and Bhavabhuti.88 Novels were to be read only on trains or when there is no other work to do or to relax the m ind.’89 Apart from training in the classics, he advocated the study o f psychology, history, religion, geography, and the sciences. He also suggested the right approach to a study of these disciplines: ‘It is not possible to attain expertise in all these subjects. N or is it necessary. It is enough if you make a preliminary study and get a general understanding o f them. If you do this, you will be able 86 Amirtaguna B odhinf 16 July 1932; Bharatamani, May 1945; Kalki, Alai Osai (1953, rpnt. Chennai: Vanathi Pathippagam, 1983), Preface; Kalki, Ettikku Potti, pp. 26-35. 87 Arumai Puthalvikku (To My Dear Daughter; 1945, rpnt. Chennai: Bharati Pathippagam, 1988), pp. 24 9 -5 0 . Lakshmi (1925-2009), married to the well-known bookseller K. Krishnamurthy, launched the pioneering Tamil book club Vasagar Vattam in 19 65, and published many memorable books. 88 Ibid., pp. 54-7, 247. 89 Ibid., pp. 54-5.

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to follow newspapers and magazines in an intelligent and serious fashion.’90 Satyamurti also advised regular visits to libraries,91 as well as the use of notebooks to jot down notes while studying.92 His advice on the use of a dictionary, to be kept by the side while reading,93 is interesting because, in the earlier m ode o f reading, students were expected to memorize verse dictionaries before proceeding to tackle literary texts. The reading practices codified by Satyamurti were novel in Tamil society, in marked contrast to the earlier m ode with its emphasis on intensive and exhaustive study, preferably w ithin just one field. The new mode involved consum ing reading materials in solitude and silence, by scanning lines on the printed page. This also fashioned a new sensibility in tune with changing times and the changing needs of the middle class. This stentorian passage sums up what books meant to this class: ‘Books are silent teachers; they act as consoling friends in our worries; they are philosophers when we are in a confused state because o f critical situations; they are beacons of light showing us the nature o f the world; they are cenotaphs of the past, mirrors o f the present, and prophets of the future.’94

M odes o f Reading and the Incom plete H egem ony o f the M iddle Class The reading m iddle class, being a product o f colonialism, was conge­ nitally weak. It harboured hegemonic aspirations but was never able to achieve hegemony within Tamil society. We have briefly looked at some aspects o f this failed hegemony vis-a-vis popular publishing. The consum ption o f popular literature was in marked contrast to the modes o f reading (especially silent reading) involved in elite literature. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid., p. 245. 92 Ibid., p. 250. 93 Ibid., 28 July 1941, p. 247. For a humorous article on reading the dic­ tionary, see Thi.Ja. Ranganathan, Pozhuthupokku (Passing Time; 1942, rpnt. Chennai: Kalaimagal Kariyalayam, 1953). 94 V. Govindan, ‘Puthakamum Vithakamum’, Sakti, March 1941.

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The audience for popular literature was wide, it was not restricted to buyers alone. By contrast books in the elite sphere had to be posses­ sed, at least for a while, in order to be read. A whole range o f people listened to songsters as they went about their shopping in the m arket­ place or tarried at crossroads. It is difficult to assess the experience o f a crowd, but to hold a crowd some at least o f the songs will have been enthralling: we know that some actually wept when a song was exceptionally poignant.95 The crowds would generally thin once the song was over and the sale o f chapbooks began. The dispersion would be complete when the chapman moved to the next convenient point to start his performance all over again. Given the location o f m arketplaces and crossroads and their environs, the lower orders were the predom inant buyers and consumers of chapbooks. Perhaps the reach of the ballads was a little restricted, these being usually consumed in small group readings. Curious little boys, running an errand for their mothers, were some who cut across class lines to devour the literature o f the street.96 The survival o f chapbooks is itself a story. N one o f the book collections of scholars and elite personalities that I’ve seen contains chapbooks or ballads. A handful o f antiquarians saved some for posterity and these surviving chapbooks are not individual book­ lets but compiled chillarai kovais , indicating the chapbooks bought by the com m on folk were little more than ephemeral. It is a difficult task to reconstruct the experience of the com m on reader. And as regards the elite, if they ever read popular literature it was either for its novelty or so that they m ight condem n it for not being elite. W hen T hi.Ja. Ra(nganathan) wrote, ‘from my boyhood days, I have read m any kinds of books on my own accord, w ithout any­ body’s com pulsion or suggestion— from A llia ra sa n i M a la i and 95 Interview with M. Babu, 2 June 1992, Madras. 96 R. Muthukumaraswamy (b. 1936), interviewed on 15 June 1991, recol­ lected in vivid detail how as a little boy he used to stand in the crowds listen­ ing to the songs. The M annady intersection and the Armenian Street crossing, in George Town, Madras, were im portant nodal points even as late as the early 1940s. In popular parlance these songsters were therefore called M annady Kavirayar (Poets of Mannady).

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K a va d i Chindu to N alavenba and T h iru v a im o li ,97 he was only brag­

ging o f the w idth o f his interests, which reached down to the ‘lowest’ rungs of literature. Very rarely do we find com m on readers as possessors of books. After the beginnings o f the mass phase o f the nationalist movement, the custom ary exam ination o f passengers on the way back from abroad, especially Sri Lanka, was intensified. A more thorough bag­ gage examination yields some docum entary evidence o f com m on folk owning books. Through the 1920s and 1930s there are num er­ ous instances o f passengers apprehended with proscribed literature, and virtually all of them were chapbooks on nationalist themes, such as M a h a tm a G a n d h i A rrestu P a ttu , D esiya G eetha T h ira ttu , and elegies on Bhagat Singh. Nationalist chapbooks were only a small fragment of the repertoire o f popular literature, but in the absence o f similar data on other classes o f chapbook we m ust perforce general­ ize based on this class o f chapbook. D anushkodi was an im portant point on the sea route to Sri Lanka. People on their way back from earning a livelihood in the tea, coffee, and rubber estates o f Sri Lanka, and some o f the less unfortunate employed in odd jobs in the service sector, thronged to Danushkodi. During the 1920s and 1930s the Inspector o f Customs often came across proscribed literature in their baggage, and prom ptly confiscated it. This was reported to the Governm ent o f Madras, and enquiries about the persons found in possession of such literature were made by the district magistrates o f their native districts. These reports on the social and political background of such people throw some light on popular readers. In July 1932, five persons arriving from Sri Lanka were found possessing proscribed chapbooks like Congress P attu y Desiya Geetha T h ir a ttu , G a n d h i D h y a n a m y M a h a tm a G a n d h i M a h im a iy and K allu kkadai M ariyal. They were all coolies in the Kandy estates; at least one o f them was an Adi Dravida (dalit), and another an O dda (a working-class caste traditionally occupied in digging wells and 97 jEppadi Eluthinen (How I Wrote; Madurai: Sakti Kariyalayam, 1943), p. 61.

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laying roads). M uch to the surprise of the District Superintendent of Police, who conducted the enquiries, not one of them was literate or had any political antecedents— not politically inclined’, ‘nothing against their character’, as expressed in the prose o f counter-insur­ gency. In yet another classic case of colonialism denying subjecthood to the lower orders among the colonized, he blamed ‘the maistries and kanganies in the several estates of Kandy who used to dabble in politics are selling these objectionable and unauthorized leaflets to their illiterate coolies at a high price and make a good profit out o f the collections. T he coolies who are all illiterate buy these books not out o f choice but on pressure.’98 W hat is being crucially missed here is the fact that consuming a popular text was not contingent on the ability to read alone: there could exist other modes o f ‘reading’ which did not require ‘literacy’. Apart from the indentured labourers of the estates, we also find m en with petty jobs apprehended by customs officials for posses­ sing proscribed literature. There was one S.M .N. Maraicar and his brother from Nagore, who eke[d] out their livelihood by selling caps worn by M oham m edans in Africa.’ We learn that ‘[their] m onthly earnings may roughly be estimated at 2 0-25 Rs.’99 Twenty-three-yearold M uthuswam i ‘was a barber by caste and profession’.100 So was Palani who was caught w ith two chapbooks on Bhagat Singh.101 Veerannan was a servant in a tile factory at Negombo on the west­ ern coast o f Sri Lanka, and Shanmugam o f Tirunelveli worked in a blacksmith’s forge in C olom bo.102 A. Narayanan was the son of a mason who worked in a hotel, and Srinivasa Asari was employ­ ed in a smithy.103 A.R. Kannusamy was a petty accountant with a 98 G .O . no. 1145, Pub. (Gen.) (Confdl), 2 September 1932. Here it may not be out o f place to m ention some chapbooks which portray in poig­ n an t detail the plight o f in dentured labourers in overseas plantations. See Desamakkalai Nasappaduthum Theyilai Thottapattu\ Adimaigalin Arivuvilakka Theyilaippattu; Rubber Thottappattu, Madras, c. 1929. 99 G .O . no. 12 0 2 , Pub. (Gen.), 20 September 1932. 100 Ibid. 101 G .O . no. 1242, Pub. (Gen.) (Confdl), 24 September 1932. 102 G .O . no. 1582, Pub. (Gen.) (Confdl), 8 December 1932. 103 Letter no. 108, Pub. (Gen.) (Confdl), 30 January 1933.

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N attukkotai C hettiar firm and lived ‘with his widowed sister who lived by selling cakes and doing work in Chetty houses.’104 None of these seem to have had any education w orth the name in the enquiry reports of the district officials. O nly on one occasion that I have come across did the Joint Magistrate o f Ram nad think it fit to note that C. Vellachami had studied third standard. Can read and write Tamil.’105 Booksellers at M adurai’s Pudum antapam would often sell songbooks to illiterate villagers who would come into their shops after a visit to the city on business or pilgrimage: they would ask the booksellers to read bits out, and upon recognizing some lines would buy the songbooks.106 W hen U.V. Swaminatha Iyer was a teacher in the Kum bakonam G overnm ent College in the 1880s he saw the Brahm in cook o f one o f his students reading a popular book as he waited for his master to eat.107 This then was the social background of the consumers o f chap­ books and other popular literature. They were people from the lower orders o f society: coolies, cap sellers, barbers, cooks, and petty em p­ loyees w ith hardly a smattering o f literacy in the conventional sense. Similarly, a knowledge o f ballads seems to have been quite wide­ spread at the popular level. Suddhananda Bharati reminiscing about his younger days in Sivagangai at the tu rn o f this century says even impecunious peasants who could barely read were able to re­ cite A llia ra sa n i M a la i , P u la n th ira n K a la v u M a la i , E lu th a riyu m P erum al A m m an ai, etc.108 This was especially true o f women: and, as Bharatidasan observed, even illiterate women acquired a knowledge of popular ballads by listening to them .109 104 G .O . no. 1145, Pub. (Gen.) (Confdl), 2 September 1932. 105 Ibid. 106 Based on interviews w ith booksellers in M adurai Pudum antapam , November 1992. 107 Sw am inatha Iyer (ed.), Thenthirupperai M agaranedumkulaikathar Pamalai (Chennai: Kalaimagal Kariyalayam, 1939), Preface, p. xv. 108 Engal Ur (O ur Village; Chennai: Kalaimagal Kariyalayam, 1957), p. 136. Originally published in Kalaimagal in the early 1940s. 109 Bharatidasan in Puduvai Murasu, 20 July 1931, reprinted in Manudam Pottru, p. 101.

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Knowledge of these ballads stemmed mostly from group readings. Such readings took place often, especially during ritual occasions like funerals. As no other activity could take place until the pall was removed, ballads like K arim edu K aruvayan were recited to keep the mourners occupied or, if it was night, awake.110 Texts like Chithira Puthira N ayan ar K ath ai, V aliM otch am , and Vaikunta A m m a n a i were recited to expedite the death o f those terminally ill. Here is a des­ cription o f one such event in a novel by Ki. Rajanarayanan: ‘Everyone sat around [the dying] Annarappa Gounder. The hurricane lantern was cleaned and the wick raised. Balarama Nayakkar, who stood watching with other men, was sum m oned and asked to recite Chithira Puthira N ayanar K a th a iP 11 Similarly, the Virata Parvam of the Mahabharata would be recited publicly, ritual fashion, when the monsoons failed. There were strict stipulations on how to recite it. It had to be recited at one go, w ithout a break on the part of the performer, who was expected to be ritually pure.112 Ballads were recited or sung, not read out. To read out ‘like prose7 was im proper and even demeaning. In an incident in another of Ki. Rajanarayanans novels a town educated boy is the butt o f ridicule because, unable to recite in a singsong manner, he reads words out flatly like prose. The boys grandm other is so disappointed with him that she stops indulging h im .113 If men dom inated such ritual occasions, wom en had their own reading circles w hen the m en were away. Bharatidasan says they would congregate ‘like the inhabitants of Kishkinda ,114 In one such reading session ‘There was a lectern shaped like “x”. Nachiaramm a would place a heavy tome of K am baram ayanam in paraphrase, with the .other wom en seated around her. She would sing at the top of 110 I owe this information to A. Sivasubramanian, the folklorist. 111 Ki. Rajanarayanan, Kidai Kurunovelum Pannira?idu Sirukathaigalum (Sivagangai: Annam), 1983, p. 86. 112 Aranga Srinivasan, N inaivu Alaigal (Waves of Memories; Chennai: Vanathi Pathippagam, 1996), pp. 92-3. 113 Ki. Rajanarayanan, Gopallapurathu M akkal (Sivagangai: Annam, 1990), pp. 99-100. 114 Bharatidasan in Puduvai Murasu, 20 July 1931, reprinted in Manudam Pottru. p. 101.

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her voice and, as she recited, the wom en would start shedding tears. Nachiaramm a would wipe away her tears and continue to recite the paraphrase in a choked voice. All the while [they would] wipe their eyes and blow their noses/115 Such joint readings bred a sense of gender solidarity am ong wom en who often identified their pro­ blems in an oppressive patriarchal world with the plight of ballad characters like Sita or Nallathangal. These were simple women, like Sankaranarayanavadivu, who parti­ cipated in such reading sessions. W idow ed early in life and having been educated only up to the second standard, she read a num ber o f big-letter books bought for her by her brother-in-law (older sisters husband).116 Middle-class intellectuals repeatedly criticized wom en for reading such ballads.117 In M adhaviahs 1898 novel we find Savithiri, along with her friends, reading such ballads.118 So it is not surprising to find m any chapbooks addressed directly to women. These popular modes o f reading were far from being displaced by the new phenom enon of silent reading. If anything they were spread­ ing further into domains over which the middle class had little, if any, influence, because o f the m ushroom ing and circulation increases o f the dailies. Si.Pa. Adithan, the shrewd entrepreneur and founder o f D in a T h a n th i , the largest-selling Tamil daily, observed on its inaugural day in 1942: ‘Even today you can see this in the villages: parents may not be literate, [but] they listen to their literate children read out stories from the M ahabharatam and Ramayanam. In days to come they will also start listening to newspapers being read o u t / 119 Adithans forecast was prophetic. In Ki. Rajanarayanans novel we 115 Ki. Rajanarayanan, Kidai, p. 7. See Azhagiyanayagi Ammal, Kavalai (Palayamkottai: Folklore Resources and Research Centre, 1998), pp. 122-7, for an autobiographical account of such joint readings. 116 Interview with Sankaranarayanavadivu, aged 71, Kombukkarapottal, Srivaikuntam taluk, Tuticorin district, 6 November 19 92. 117Nagai Neelam bikaiyam m ai, T am il M atharum Sirudevathaikalum ’ (Tamil Women and Folk Deities), SentamilSelvi, 5(8), August-September 1927. 118 A. Madhaviah, Padmavathy Charithiram (1898, rpnt. Chennai: Vanavil Prasuram, 1978), p. 56. 119 Dina Thanthi Ponvizha M alar (Dina Thanthi Golden Jubilee Number), 1993, p. 119.

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find, by the beginning of W orld War II, newspapers have reached the village of Gopalla. In the evenings, villagers sit on the pial o f N unnakonda Nayakkar’s house as the local teacher reads the paper out loud in his ‘bell-like’ voice.120 At about the same time the toddy tappers o f Kanyakumari in H ephzibah Jesudasan’s Putham Veedu slowly learn to read out newspapers and follow the affairs of the wider w orld.121 As noted earlier, sensational news items and stories in D in a T h a n th i were especially targeted at such a neo-literate, or even non-literate, audience. Even today, this situation has far from changed. D in a T h a n th i is a standard presence in every teashop and saloon, even in urban areas, and is often read out and the news discussed.122

120 Ki. Rajanarayanan, Gopallapurathu Makkal, p. 202. 121 Hephzibah Jesudasan, Putham Veedu (Chennai: Tamil Puthakalayam, 1964). 122 For an ethnographic account of such reading practices in present-day rural Tamilnadu, see Francis Cody, ‘Daily Wires and Daily Blossoms: Culti­ vating Regimes o f C irculation in Tamil India’s Newspaper R evolution, Journal o f Linguistic Anthropology 19 (2), 2009.

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Part III The Cultures o f the Book in Colonial India

[11] The Battala Book Market A n indita G hosh

rint became an essential m edium in the nineteenth century for standardizing the Bengali language and sanitizing its literary traditions, by the colonial intelligentsia. Classical and ‘high’ literature flourished and the local literati joined hands to push through the project started by colonial administrators. But the process had also given a trem endous impetus to the small book’ trade. Print generated not only the ‘high’ literature o f vernacular reformists and purists, but also a large corpus o f cheap, popular books, the language, concerns, and themes o f which ran seriously against the concerns of Bengali in­ telligentsia and colonial reformers alike. T he printing press unleashed a huge production o f petty pam phlet literature— consisting of m y­ thologies, fables, popular religious texts, farces, almanacs, sensational novels and the like— whose content was quite contrary to the dom i­ nant acceptable forms. W hen print arrived in Bengal, very significant numbers o f people, possessing only a ‘little education, thrived on a culture still largely based on the earthy, unsanitized traditions o f the pre-colonial era.1 Given the trem endous commercial possibilities o f this market, popu­ lar publishing could hardly be expected to absorb and cement the tastes and conventions o f a lim ited W estern-educated middle class. Cheap printing techniques and spread o f basic literacy combined to create a sizeable body o f printers-publishers, authors and readers, o f ‘relatively plebeian o rig in .2T he centre o f this industry was Battala in Calcutta.

P

1 The point on readership has been examined in Chapter 4. 2 Sumit Sarkar, ‘Calcutta and the “Bengal Renaissance” in Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed.), Calcutta:The Living City, 2 vols (Calcutta, 1990), vol. 1 , p. 10 2 .

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W ith attention usually focused on elite literature in colonial Ben­ gal, the world o f cheap print has gone largely unrecognized until very recently.3 Even this lim ited writing on the subject, however, em pha­ sizes a marginalizing or ‘disciplining o f such popular print, under pressure from a colonial and bhadralok elite. These scholars have taken the civilizing critique by the colonial state and Bengali-educated as direct evidence o f their successful control over popular tastes in read­ ing.4 M y conclusions point in a different direction. In reality, Bengali print-language actually escaped m uch o f colonial and bhadralok disciplining, for print had a m uch more varied and wider penetration than has been previously thought. Despite bhadralok disapproval, the Battala presses did a brisk trade in this ephemeral literature, and enjoyed a large and popular readership. Outrage from critics and de­ fensiveness from the producers confirm how successful the com m er­ cialization o f the literature actually was. From the 1860s onwards, there were growing num bers o f readers who m ight be defined as ‘functionally literate5, who received training in the elementary vernacular to serve in the governm ent and comm er­ cial establishments in the cities. W ith this audience, Battalas readers grew phenomenally in lower-middle class urban and rural homes. Print then, far from perpetuating dom inant cultural norms, had actu­ ally opened up a process o f diffusion o f m ore popular writing. Pro­ viding such a picture o f a complete literary marketplace5 puts us in a better position to judge the comparative influence and historical significance o f printed texts in circulation.5As we shall see in the later chapters, the implications for participation and representation o f various literate urban groups in this world o f print literature, was significant. 3 Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta (Calcutta, 1989);Tapti Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text: Colonial and Nationalist Surveillance of Bengali Literature’, in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), Texts o f Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (Calcutta, 1996). 4 This perhaps is not surprising as the evidence cultural historians of colonial Bengal tend to rely on comes entirely from official documents and those engaged with suppressing and disciplining obscene’ works. 5 This is a term borrowed from James Raven, Judging New Wealth: Popular Publishing and Response to Commerce in England, 1750-1800 (Oxford, 1992), p. 23.

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Serampore and Early Publishing, 1 800-56 T he earliest vernacular printing presses in Bengal were run and con­ trolled by Europeans— missionaries and administrators. Missionaries needed printing for evangelical purposes. T he needs o f the administra­ tion based in Calcutta were also initially contributory. Bengali printed works were needed to codify C om pany Regulations, train civil ser­ vants at Fort W illiam College, and provide a wider audience for British O rientalist scholars. T he small numbers o f mostly European-owned Bengali printing presses had, therefore, merely a functional role. It was only later when indigenous enterprise joined w ith a commercial m ot­ ive, that the print m arket took off in Bengal. T he earliest press provisioned w ith Bengali type was that o f a book­ seller, Andrews, in Hooghly, from which issued N.B. H alheds A G ram m ar o f the Bengal Language , the first book containing the printed form o f the vernacular, in 1 7 7 8 . 6 However, this work was written mainly in English, and contained only some Bengali extracts from m anuscript texts by way o f illustration. T he punches for this were cut by the Orientalist scholar Charles W ilkins, who was a friend of Halhed, and a servant o f the East India Company. W ilkins was assisted in his efforts by Panchanan Karmakar, a blacksmith by caste from Hooghly.7 By 1 7 8 5 , W ilkins had completed his task o f cutting founts o f the Bengali alphabet— around 6 0 0 o f them — based on which a num ber o f im portant translated legal codes issued from the C om pany s Press which had been set up in 1 7 7 8 . 8European-owned private presses 6 Yogendranath Ghosh, Bangla Mudrankaner Itibritta O Samalochan, Jatiya Sabha Lecture presented at the Jatiya Mela on 4 July 1870 (Calcutta, 1873), p. 22. 7 Panchanan is ackowledged by the Serampore missionaries as ‘the very artist who wrought with Wilkins in that work’. See Memoirs Relative to the Translations o f the Sacred Scriptures (1807). 8 The first of this series was a bilingual publication, the Bengali in verso, and the English in recto, by Jonathan Duncan, Regulations for the Administration o f Justice in the Courts of Dewanee Adaulat (1785). Three more similar works fol­ lowed from the same press between 1791 and 1793. N.B. Edmonstone, Bengal

Translation o f Regulationsfor Administration o f Justice in the Fouzdarry, or Crimi­ nal Courts in Bengal\ Bihar and Orissa (Calcutta, 1791); and Bengal Translation o f Regulations for the Guidance o f Magistrates (Calcutta, 1792); H.P. Forster, A Collection o f All Laws Passed in 1793 by the Council o f the Honourable Nawab Governor- General (Calcutta, 1793).

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provisioned with Bengali types were also in operation.9However, these presses were content to meet the lim ited dem and for a few grammars, vocabularies, and government publications only, and did not try out any larger commercial venture, involving indigenous tastes.10 T he real foundation stone for the vernacular printing press in Bengal was laid by W illiam Carey. W hile a preacher in Maldah, Carey had purchased a second-hand English wooden printing press for forty pounds, which was then set up in a small room o f the Mission building in 1 8 0 0 . 11 Panchanan, who had earlier helped W ilkins, and was then in Colebrookes employ, was next mobilized. H e came to stay at the Mission in M arch 1 8 0 0 . W ith his skill and the painstaking labour of the printer-missionary W illiam Ward, the first publication issued from this pioneering press in August 1 8 0 0 . It was Careys transla­ tion o f M athew s Gospel, printed in 1 2 5 dem i-printed pages.12W ith Careys appointm ent as a teacher o f Bengali at the Fort W illiam Col­ lege that year, the Mission joined the efforts o f the College in printing and publishing suitable textbooks in the vernacular. There were two kinds o f printing involved w ith the Mission Press— biblical literature, and textbooks for the Fort W illiam College and elementary vernacular schools. Thousands o f tracts and pamphlets in Bengali, expounding the Christian doctrine, issued from the Mission and were often distri­ buted free am ong the people.13Allegedly, tracts in particular, were very 9 For an account of European-owned presses operating in eighteenth-century Calcutta, see Graham Shaw, Printing in Calcutta to 1800 (London, 1981). 10 In 1793, A. Upjohn s English-Bengali vocabulary issued from the press of the newspaper, Calcutta Chronicle, whose editor was Upjohn. A.K. Priolkar, The Printing Press in India (Bombay, 1958), p. 55. In 1799 and 1801, H. P. Forsters English-Bengali vocabulary issued in two parts from the Ferris and Company’s Press. 11 Carey refers to buying this press after locating an advertisement regarding its sale in an English paper. Careys letter to Clipstone, dated 26 September 1798. See PeriodicalAccounts Relative to the Baptist Missionary Society, 1 (1800), p. 469. 12 Five hundred copies of the work were printed on the occasion. Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahityer Itibritta, vol. 5 (Calcutta, 1985), pp. 415, 419. Opinions differ on whether this was by Carey or Ram Basu. See Nikhil Sarkar, ‘Printing and the Spirit of C alcutta, in Sukanta Chaudhuri, Calcutta: The Living City, vol. 1 , p. 130. 13 O ther missions also subsequently established their printing presses with the London Missionary Society setting up in 1819, and the Church Missionary Society in 1822. O f these, the Baptist Missionary Press, formed by a breakaway

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m uch in dem and.14However, Carey and the Serampore Press are better remembered for their contribution to vernacular textbook literature. Carey had originally started off w ith a second-hand wooden press. W ard was its printer, assisted by an Englishman sent by the hom e society in Kettering, and Carey s son, Felix.15Paper was im ported from England, and types were bought from the newly established typefoundry set up by W ilkins in Calcutta. But soon four more m odern English-made iron printing presses were im ported and installed in Serampore.16 T he Mission even gained a type-foundry through the efforts o f the enterprizing Panchanan, and his son-in-law, M anohar Karmakar. O n Panchanans death three years later, M anohar conti­ nued and surpassed his excellent w ork.17By 1 8 0 5 , the press had moved into more spacious premises. It produced types not only for Bengali, but other languages as well, including Chinese, and was big enough to employ seventeen printers and five bookbinders.18 Three m onths before a disastrous fire burnt down the Mission in 1 8 1 2 , W ard pro­ vided a vivid description o f the printing-office at Serampore in a letter to Reverend Fletcher in England. C ould you see your cousin in his printing-office surrounded by forty or fifty servants, all employed in preparing the H oly Scriptures for the Nations o f India, you would, I’m sure, be highly pleased . . . the whole office . . . is 174 feet long. T he next persons you see, are learned natives translating the Scriptures into the different languages, or correcting the proof sheets. . . . You Serampore group in 1818, was the most important. Like its parent body, this too started with a wooden printing press, but within twenty years could boast of printed books in eleven major Indian languages, seven steel presses, and its own type foundry. It went on to print later, thousands of books for the CSBS, with whom it had very close links. See Nikhil Sarkar, ‘Printing and the Spirit of Cal­ cutta’, p. 132. 14 Missionaries reported the tremendous demand for their tracts in different parts o f Bengal. See Chapter 4. 15 J.C. Marshman, The History o f the Serampore Mission Embracing the Life and Times o f William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, vol. 1 (Lon­ don, 1859), pp. 129, 141. 16 M.S. Khan, ‘William Carey and the Serampore Books (1800-1834)’, Libri, 2 : 3 (1961), p. 239. 17 G.A. Grierson, ‘The Early Publications of the Serampore Missionaries’, Indian Antiquary, xxxii (1903), p. 241. 18 Ward’s journal, Periodical Accounts, 2 (1801), p. 483.

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next come to the presses, and see four persons throw ing off the sheets o f the Bible . . . and on the left are half a dozen Musselmans employed in binding the Scriptures for distribution; while others are folding the sheets and de­ livering them to the Store-keeper. . . . This Store-room, which is 142 feet long, is filled w ith shelves from side to side, upon which are laid, w rapped up, the sheets o f the Bible before they are bound. You go forward, and in a room adjacent to the office, are the Type-casters, busy in preparing the types in the different languages. In one corner, you see another busy grinding the printingink; and in a spacious open place, walled around, you see a Paper Mill, and a num ber o f persons employed in m aking paper.19

As im porting paper proved costly, from 1811 onwards, the Mission began m aking its own paper. T he paper mill was also locally made, and manually operated by a team o f forty m en.20 But this paper was prone to worm attack, and was more attractive for its low price to local print­ ers than for the Mission s own printing work. In 1 8 2 0 , a twelve-horse power steam engine was im ported from England and installed to work the paper mill.21 It was crucial in drying the paper and m aking it more durable. This improved paper quality was a key factor in popularizing the M issions publications. T he press was formally closed down in 1 8 3 7 when the Mission ran into heavy debts.22 But during its short life it had revolutionized the world o f print. Between 1 8 0 0 and 1 8 3 2 alone, 212,000 copies o f books had issued from it in forty different languages.23 W hile Europeans had initiated the printing press activities in Bengal, indigenous enterprise was not far behind. T he pioneering Indian proprietors o f vernacular presses were m en from the scri­ bal high castes, who had been associated w ith European enterprises for sometime as teachers, authors, and printers o f vernacular works. Having gained some techniques and knowledge o f the trade, they 19 ‘Description of the Printing Office. Extract of a letter from Ward in Seram­ pore to Rev. William Fletcher, Derbyshire, 5 December 1811 (BMS). 20 George Smith, William Carey: Shoemaker and Missionary (London, 1887), p. 219. 21 Siddhartha Ghosh, Karigari Kalpana O Bangali Udyog (Calcutta, 1983), p. 23. 22 It actually merged with the Baptist Mission Press. Nikhil Sarkar, ‘Printing and the Spirit o f Calcutta, p. 132. 23 Nikhil Sarkar, ‘Printing and the Spirit of Calcutta’, p. 130.

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moved on to establish their own businesses. T he first local endeavour was that o f Babu Ram, who set up his Sanskrit Press in Khidderpore in 1807, to provide textbooks in H indi and Sanskrit to Fort William. H e was m ost liberally patronized by H.T. Colebrooke. But the press only became prom inent when it was taken over in 1814 by Lalloo Jee, teacher o f H industani at Fort W illiam.24H e moved it from Khidderpore to Pataldanga in the ‘Black Town area and, between 1815 and 1825, printed several religious and astrological texts as well as some o f the early treatises by Ram m ohan.25 Ram Com ul Sen was a prom inent m em ber o f the Calcutta School Book Society, and author o f textbooks for the Fort W illiam College. Like the others, he too was briefly asso­ ciated with the Hindoostanee Press at Lai Bazaar set up by Gilchrist and W illiam Hunter. T he m ost dynamic publisher, and an individual gifted with keen business acumen, was Gangakishore Bhattacharya.26 After having worked for some years as com positor at the Serampore Press, and been associated w ith Ferris and C om panys Press for a consi­ derable period, he set up his own printing establishment in Calcutta. In 1816, he published for the first tim e the A nnadaM angaU the very popular medieval tale by Bharatchandra. It was printed at the press o f Ferris and Company, and carried six full-page illustrations. The work registered high sales. For more than six years his Bangala Press conti­ nued to successfully print various popularly read works. Gangakishore s extraordinary success induced others to follow his lead. In 1821, the missionary newspaper, the F riend o f India, reported how w ithin the last ten years native works were being printed by the natives them ­ selves5and sold am ong the ‘H indu population w ith astonishing rapi­ dity5.27 By 1825, the same source gave unofficial estimates o f more than thirty thousand volumes in circulation.28 24 David Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance (Berkeley, 1969), p. 12 0 . 25 Barunkumar Mukhopadhyay, ‘Bangla Mudraner Char Yug’, in Chittaranjan Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Dui Shataker BanglaMudran O Prakasan (Calcutta, 1981), p. 95. 26 See Sukumar Sen, Battalar Chhapa O Chhohi (Calcutta, 1984), for an ac­ count o f Gangakishore’s early publications. 27 ‘O n the Effect o f the Native Press in India’, Friend o f India, Quarterly Series, 1 (1821), p. 133. 28 ‘O n the Progress and the Present State o f the Native Press in India’, Friend o f India, Quarterly Series, 4 (1825), pp. 149-50.

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M ost o f the eighteenth-century Calcutta printing presses run by the Europeans had been concentrated around the Tank Square in the ‘W hite T o w n . By the 1820s, however, Bengali presses had started to move up to the north, and by the m id-nineteenth century, they were concentrated in the heart o f the older part o f Calcutta, in the Sutanati area. By then local entrepreneurs had set a viable book trade going. T he third report o f the Calcutta School Book Society, published in 1 81920, contained an appendix listing Sanskrit and vernacular works that had issued from the native presses in recent years. It showed nine such presses, including missionary ones, that had produced sixty-five books between them .29 Presses were known by the names o f their propriet­ ors, who were also the publishers o f books printed by them. Those of Lalloo Jee, Gangakishore Bhattacharya, Bishwanath Deb, the Hindoostanee Press, and the European-owned press o f Ferris and C om pany were am ong the foremost.30 M unshi Hedayetullah’s M uham m adi Press at M irzapore was a rare example o f a M uslim-owned press o f the tim e.31 Am ongst the earliest private indigenous suburban presses was Nilm ani H aidars press at Serampore.32Two newspaper presses, those o f the Sam achar C handrika and the S a m va d T im im ashak , were in­ volved in printing books as well.33 Judging by the names o f the 29 O ther slightly later presses, that do not find mention in the CSBS list, but are known to have published commercially, are Harachandra Roys press at Adpuli, Ramkrishna Mallick s press at Chorebagan, and the presses of Mathuranath Mitra and Pitambar Sen. Samachar Darpan (14 January 1826); and (27 February, 1830) in B. N. Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, 2 vols (Calcutta, 1949), vol. l,p p . 82, 97. 30 Biswanath Debs was a prominent press of the times. A newspaper adver­ tisement gives his address as the Shobhazar Deb residence. See Samachar Chandrika (11 February 1826), in B.N. Bandyopadhyay, Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1, p. 84. Among the lesser known ones were Lavandiers Press at Bowbazar, Pearce’s Press at Entally, and Rammohuns Unitarian Press at Dhurumtollah. 31 Third Report o f the CSBS (1819-20), see Appendix. 32 Samachar Darpan (14 January, 1826), in B.N. Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1 , p. 84. 33 B.N. Bandyopadhyay, Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1 , pp. 82-3. An in­ teresting case of the two presses clashing over the publishing rights of a popular love tale, Chandrakanta, in 1 829 is reported in the pages o f their respective news­ papers. See Samachar Chandrika (15 August 1829); and Samvad Timirnashak (22 August, 1829), in Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, pp. 90-1.

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proprietors, some o f the presses were still owned by Europeans, but undoubtedly, local enterprise was already on the scene. In 1822, F riend o f India, published a letter from a correspondent in M urshidabad’. I am glad to perceive, that everyday the natives are increasing in their sales o f native books: there are now in and near the city o f M oorshedabaad no less than four walking booksellers that I know of. In speaking to one last week, he in­ form ed me, that upon an average he sold to the am ount o f 30 Rupees per m onth. Two o f the four are in the employ o f a native o f Calcutta, the other two are selling for another native, who has established a press near Agrudeep. . . . T he books sold by these, o f course, are great trash, but I suppose a press has never yet been introduced am ong a people w ithout some alloy.34

Unlike the U rdu presses in north India and the Bengali presses of Dacca, which started off with publishing newspapers, the vernacular presses in Calcutta came up to cater primarily to the dem and for books.35 M anuscripts texts, mostly of a religious and mythological nature, were already quite popular in Bengal before print made its appearance. To be economically viable, therefore, the safest item for the earliest commercial printers to publish, was the book. The new vernacular presses simply built upon this existing readership.36 Gangakishore Bhattacharya o f the Bangala Press had been quick to see this opportunity, and had, therefore, made a successful speculation when he printed A n n ada M a n g a l in 1816. T he early productions of the Bengali press reflected popular tastes o f the pre-print era. W hat the M urshidabad correspondent above had thought ‘trash’, actually formed the bulk o f this literature. It consisted mainly o f mythological tales revolving around popular divinities like 34 Friend o f India, Monthly Series, 5 (1822), p. 86. 35 See essay on Munshi Nawal Kishor, pioneer of Urdu printing in India, by Syed Jalaluddin Akhtar, Libri, 3 1 :3 (1981), pp. 227-37; Graham Shaws find­ ings for Dacca also indicate that the initial thrust for printing there came from newspapers and periodicals. See G. Shaw, ‘Printing and Publishing in Dacca 1849-1900’, in Sharifiiddin Ahmed (ed.), Dhaka: Past, Present and Future (Dacca, 1991), pp. 10 1- 2 . 36 The printed works themselves bear evidence of it. Thus it is found men­ tioned, byway o f colophon, in a 1860 edition of Jibantara, that it was a puthi or manuscript by Rasik Ray, a popular writer of panchalis and love tales: Eputhi Jibantara, rashiker ankhi tara, rachila Rasik Chandra Ray. Rasik Ray, Jibantara (Calcutta, 1860), p. 68.

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Shiva and Krishna, popular legends such as those centred on Vikramaditya, the medieval romances o f Vidyasundar and C handrakanta , some astrological, legal and grammatical works, and lyric love poe­ try.37The Vidyasundar, a part o f the A n n a d a M a n g a l narrative, issued simultaneously from three presses in 1829.38 The F riend o f India complained in 1821, ‘We ought not to forget that the great body o f the people have nothing to feed on for ages, but the tales o f lewd gods and goddesses. . . . It [is] not to be expected then that a taste for them should disappear in the immediate rise o f a native press\39Tapti Roy has recently examined the shifting production figures o f Bengali print genres over the first half o f the century. H er estimates show that ‘scriptures and mythologies consistently claimed a large share o f total production for the entire period.40 Significantly, reprints far outnum ­ bered original editions.41 Reverend James Long, the Bengali enthusiast discussed earlier, cal­ culated in 1854 that not less than two million books had issued over the previous ten years.42 Even given that this is an unsubstantiated com m ent, there is no denying the fact that by the mid-century, print in various forms had made remarkable inroads into the Bengali cul­ tural world. T he m ultiplicity o f copies o f the same text made possible the diffusion o f these works to a larger audience. O f course, print took a long tim e to oust collective reading practices. M anuscript texts not 37 J. Long, Returns Relating to Publications in the Bengali Language in 1 8 5 7 , Selections from the Bengal Government, vol. xxxii (Calcutta, 1859), Appendices C and D, p. 77; Samachar Darpan (30 January, 1830), in B. N. Bandyopadhyay, Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1 , p. 97; Friend o f India, Quarterly Series, 1 (1821), p. 136; and 4 (1825), pp. 148-9. 38 Samachar Darpan (30 January, 1830), in B.N. Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Sam­ vadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1, p. 97. 39 Friend o f India, 1 (1821), p. 140. 40 Tapti Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed T ext, pp. 38-41. Advertisements of printed Bengali religious works in the 1820s highlighted the employment of Brahmins for the printing job, to ensure the purity’ of the work. See advertise­ ment for Bhabanicharan Bandyopadhyays Srimadbhagavat, in the Samachar Darpan (25 August, 1827), in B.N. Bandyopadhyay, Samvadpatre SekalerKatha, vol. 1 , p. 88. 41 Tapti Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text’, pp. 40-1. 42 Long to G.F. Cockburn, Chief Magistrate of Calcutta, 23 June 1854, quoted in Jatindranath Bhattacharya, Bangla Mudrita Granthadir Talika, 1743-1852, vol. 1 (Calcutta, 1990), p. 161.

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only provided the initial ingredients to the printing industry in Bengal; they themselves continued to flourish simultaneously for a consider­ able period thereafter. In 1821, the Serampore College Library, for ins­ tance, housed forty-nine Bengali manuscripts and only twenty-eight printed Bengali books.43 But the remarkable increase in the num ber of easily accessible printed works cannot be denied. Growth of Commercial Publishing and Battala,

1857-1900 Although local entrepreneurs had got the book trade going in the earlier half o f the century, the commercial m arket really took off in the 1860s. As initiative and enterprise in the trade passed from the earlier scholar-scribal groups to more profit-oriented and lower-caste hands, lighter print genres swept the market. Teeming small presses in the Battala area to the north o f the city, run by prim arily artisanal castes, poured out books, pamphlets, and pictures for popular consum ption. T he earliest comprehensive account o f the vernacular book market in Bengal dates to 1857, when an attem pt to survey and catalogue it was made following the M utiny that year. T he Governm ent o f India felt that some o f the vernacular presses had been producing seditious literature and needed to be brought under supervision. James Long presented an elaborate report on the Bengali press for one year between April 1857 and 1858, and subm itted it to the governm ent in 1859.44 Long had been working on it for sometime, and had prepared two earlier lists in 1852and 18 5 5 ,one ofw hich had been subm itted to the C hief Magistrate o f Calcutta.45 By the time Long subm itted his third report, the book trade in Ben­ gal had already taken off. Longs investigations returned 571,670 books printed for sale in Calcutta in 1857. In 1853, this num ber had 43 Second Report Relative to Serampore College (1821). 44 J. Long, Returns. 45The first catalogue, the Granthavali, prepared on Longs own initiative, was an alphabetical list of Bengali works, containing a total of 1084 titles classified by subject. The second list was prepared as a governmental undertaking two years later, and listed 1400 Bengali books and pamphlets that had issued from the presses over the previous sixty years. See James Long, Granthavali (Calcutta, 1852); James Long, A Descriptive Catalogue o f Bengali Works (Calcutta, 1855), reprinted in Dinesh Chandra Sen, Banga Bhasha O Sahitya (Calcutta, 1950).

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been only 303,275. Q uite obviously, the m arket had grown enor­ mously w ithin just four years.46A nother m anifestation o f the flourish­ ing trade was a ‘decided im provem ent5that Long noticed in the paper and style o f printing. The m ajority o f Bengali books, he reported, were being printed on good paper, w ith clear type— a great contrast to earl­ ier days o f shoddy wooden presses using poor quality paper.47 Presses continued, however, to serve as book depositories. Book shops were still rare and had only begun to be opened in the m id -1850s. T he entire trade continued to be concentrated in the northern part o f the city. As Long reported: Few Bengali books are sold in European shops. A person may be twenty years in Calcutta, and yet scarcely know that any Bengali books are printed by Bengalis themselves. H e m ust visit the native part o f the town and the C hitpoor road, their Pater N oster Row, to gain any inform ation on this point. T he native presses are generally in by-lanes w ith little outside to attract, yet they ply a busy trade.48

In his 1857 Report, Long returned a total o f forty-six Bengali presses operating in Calcutta and its vicinity. T he largest genres were educa­ tional literature, almanacs, mythology, and H induism , M usalmanBengali and fiction.49 Twenty years later, in 1877, the num ber o f Bengali presses operating in Calcutta was sixty-one, w ith sixteen mofussil or suburban presses.50T he average print-runs for various ‘listed5 categories remained more or less the same.51 46 It is significant that this estimate was exclusive of another 7750 didactic books printed for gratuitous distribution by certain Hindu aristocratic patrons of native literature such as the Raja of Burdwan and Kaliprasanna Sinha, and the 76,950 tracts and pamphlets given away by the Bible and Tract Society of Calcutta. James Long, Returns, p. xi. Lack of accurate records and fear of taxation often made booksellers supply wrong information and Long therefore was of the opi­ nion that the total sale figures for that year could well have been over 600,000. 47 Ibid., p. xii. It is not however that metal presses were unknown. Metal types had been used for printing H alheds work as early as 1778. 48 Ibid., p. xiv. 49 Ibid., p. viii. These categories are Longs own. However, they are easily re­ cognizable and conform to our gradual understanding of these genres. I have therefore followed them largely, in the following discussion. 50 Quarterly Report o f the Bengal Library, 1877 (hereafter Quarterly Report). 51 See Table 1 . The figures are only rough estimates formed from Longs Re­ turns■, and the Quarterly Reports for 1877.

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Table 1 Print genre Almanacs Educational literature Pauranic/mythology and Hinduism Musalman-Bengali Farces

1857

1877

2000-8000 2000-5000 1000-3000 1000-1500 -

1000-6000 2000-5000 2000-3000 1000-2000 1000-2000

Behind this remarkable phenom enon was a prodigious production o f commercial print issuing from the m any presses concentrated in the Chitpore-Ahiritolla area in the northern part o f Calcutta. It comprised the part o f the native town called Battala, wdiich was also the heart of the general book m arket in Bengal. Almost all o f the forty-six presses listed by Long in 1857, were concentrated in this area, along Garanhata, Ahiritolla, Chitpore, and Barabazar. There were num erous others situ­ ated in and around that region— at Kumartuli, Simulia, Mirzapur, and Bagbazar. Metalworkers and traditional artisans engaged in the trade lived in densely populated colonies around the book m art. T he spa­ tial distribution o f the different presses was very significant. W hile the Battala presses turning out cheap popular literature were clust­ ered together in the northern part o f the city, the more ‘respectable’ ones such as the Tattvabodhini Press and the Sanskrit Press, were located further south at Jorasanko and College Street, respectively (Figure 1). Except the first two, the rest o f Longs presses controlled the bulk o f the popular’ bazaar book trade in Calcutta in 1857 (Table 2).52Ana­ lysis o f the print-runs o f the productions o f a typical press such as the Sudhasindhu on Chitpore Road, reveals 7500 copies o f epic extracts, 2800 copies o f Pauranic literature, 6000 copies of almanacs, 3000 Muslim-Bengali works, and 4000 copies o f indigenous popular m e­ dicinal texts.53 Some like the Cones’ Press and Sudhasindhu o f Simulia printed only almanacs.54 T he average annual production of presses in Battala ranged variously between 8000 and 47,000 copies, depending on the size o f the press. T he area continued to thrive as the m ajor centre 52 See Table 2 . Presses have been arranged in descending order according to their annual production figures. J. Long, Returns, p. viii. 53 J. Long, Returns, pp. 53-4. 54 Ibid., pp. 22, 56.

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POWER

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THE BATTALA BOOK MARKET

Table 2 Press Sanskrit Press Baptist Mission Press Chaitanyea Chandradoy Press Videa Ratna Press (1 ) Sudhanidhi Press Sudhasindhu Press Harihar Press Shastra Prakash Press Kabitaratnakar Press Tatvabodhini Press Anglo-Indian Union Press Kamalasan Press Jnanodoy Press Videa Ratna Press (2) Cones’ Press Kamalalay Press Lakhmibilas Press Purnachandrodoy Press

Annual production 84,220 55,000 47,000 38,000 27,700 25,300 24,000 23,000 22,800 19,300 19,100 18,000 14,750 14,500 14,000 13,800 11,750 8450

o f book production till College Street, adjacent to Presidency College, superseded it in im portance around the turn o f the century. T he gradual appearance o f suburban presses from the 1860s onwards, marked an im portant stage in the m aturing o f the print m arket in Bengal. T he administrative division o f Calcutta still pro­ duced the greatest num ber o f books, but was closely followed by the Dacca, Presidency, Burdwan, and Rajshahi divisions, in that order.55 By 1881, there were over three thousand printers operating in Calcutta and its suburbs.56T he Bengal Administrative Report for 1887, return­ ed eighty-nine presses in the suburbs, including missionary, English, and government presses.57 But in terms of output, Calcutta far out 55 Annual Report on the Administration o f the Bengal Presidency for 1877, p. 434 (hereafter Annual Report). 56 Census o f the Town o f Calcutta and Its Suburbs, 1881. There were over a thousand bookbinders and over 200 booksellers involved in the trade as well. See p. xlvii. 57 ‘Statistical Returns’, Annual Report, Bengal, 1887, pt. iv (C2), pp. cxiv-cci.

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surpassed them .58W hile the num ber o f titles produced annually from Calcutta was over a thousand, the corresponding figures for Dacca hardly exceeded 200.59 T he displacement o f the printing press area in C alcutta from the W hite to the Black Town by the second half o f the nineteenth century, is indicative o f the shift in patronage and proprietary rights in pub­ lishing. W hile the native entrepreneurs in the beginning o f the nine­ teenth century seem to have been a displaced scribal population from the higher Brahmin and Kayastha castes, who had m ade their way to the commercial centre o f Calcutta for better opportunities, in the 1850s and 1860s, these were mostly m en from lower-caste groups such as smiths and artisans from the surrounding countryside. These artisan groups adapted their old skills o f working in metal towards prepar­ ing type-faces and engraved blocks, and were readily absorbed into the flourishing new industry o f the m etropolis.60 T he Bengal Library Reports from 1867 onwards, show that m en from non-scribal lower castes were prom inent in the business. Biswambhar Laha in the 1870s and 1880s, was a noted individual in the trade, publishing books not only from his own Kabitaratnakar Press, but also from other presses in Chitpore.61 Nrityalal Shil was another major publisher, printing and publishing from his own N.L. Shils Press at Ahiritollah.62 Another printer w ith the same caste-name was Jaharilal Shil, who operated simultaneously from m any different presses.63 G ouricharan Pal oper­ ated as a printer-publisher from the H urihur Press.64 T he enterprising printer Tinkari Biswas was connected w ith the N utan Bijnan Press that 58 An impression of the proliferating printing and publishing business in Cal­ cutta can be obtained from a contemporary drama where one of the characters complains of there being more presses in the city than grocery stores. See Anon., Granthakar: The Author: A Farce (1875), p. 14. 59 Graham Shaw, ‘Printing and Publishing in Dacca’, p. 90. 60 A list o f castes and professions in this area is cited in Pradip Sinha, Calcutta in Urban History (Calcutta, 1978), Appendix v. 61 See Quarterly Reports, March 1870, pp. 12-13; June 1870, pp. 52-3; March 1879, pp. 10-11; September 1880, pp. 26-7. 62 Ibid., June 1870, pp. 2-3; March 1879, pp. 10-11; September 1880, pp. 4 -5 . 63 Ibid., March 1881, pp. 16-17. 64 Ibid., June 1870, pp. 34—5.

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flourished at Battala in the 1 8 8 0 s . 65 In 1 8 7 6 , the greatest concentra­ tion o f printers and bookbinders can be evidenced in the M oocheepara area o f the city, marked by predom inantly low-caste settlements.66 Interesting results follow from a comparison between the caste backgrounds o f editors o f vernacular newspapers and those o f ver­ nacular press owners, made by the F rien d o f India in the middle o f the century. Am ong twenty editors o f newspapers listed, one-seventh were Vaidyas, one-tenth Kayasthas, and the rest one-fifth, Europeans. In the cases o f the presses publishing books, however, only about one-third o f the press owners m entioned were Brahmins, while an almost equal proportion were Sudras.67This tendency o f lower-caste m en to dom i­ nate in the printing industry is also evidenced elsewhere. Graham Shaw s findings for Dacca show fifteen Basaks involved in the book trade in the second half o f the nineteenth century.68As seen later, the fact that low-caste m en dom inated the popular book trade had deep implications for the social history o f print for the period.69 An im portant development in the book market around this time, that points towards its growing commercialization, was the growth of copyright rules over books, and even pictures, produced for sale. In 1 8 6 7 , the Copyright Act was passed to protect ownership rights over printed products. T he same Act also required that all publications be registered w ith the local authorities.70 T he legislation gave an im ­ portant fillip to authors. Long noticed how the new Bengali works published were rather highly priced when copyrights belonged to the author.71 In 1 8 6 8 , the C h itta tim ir N ashak , issuing from the 65 Ibid., September 1880, pp. 12-13. 66 Census o f the Town and Suburbs o f Calcutta, 1876. See pp. xcviii-xcix. 67 Friend o f India (1 May 1851). See Ranu Basu, ‘Some Aspects of the Com ­ position of the Urban Elite in Bengal, 1850-1872’, in Warren. M. Gunderson (ed.), Studies on Bengal, Occasional Papers on South Asia, no. 26, Asian Studies Centre (Michigan, 1975), p. 112. 68 Originally a subgroup of the weaver caste, they turned to the new techno­ logy of printing as the influx of cheap machine-made goods destroyed the indig­ enous cotton industry of East Bengal. Graham Shaw, ‘Printing and Publishing in D acca, p. 98. 69 See Chapter 5. 70 This was the Act X X V o f 1867. S e t Annual Report, Bengal 1867-8, p. 230. 71 J. Long, Returns, p. xii.

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Bidyaratna Press, was priced at 6 annas and 6 paisa. Its author, Kalikrishna Chakrabarty o f Khurda, had retained the copyright. A nother work, B etalpam chabim sati , the copyright o f which had been retained by the publisher, and issued from the same press that year, was only 1 anna and 6 paisa.72 T he composing o f Bengali works had become very profitable as a result, and some authors drew a regular income from them .73From the 1880s onwards, established authors even began appearing in the role o f publishers. Writers o f farces, a genre that gain­ ed a phenom enal popularity during the closing decades o f the century, preferred publishing their own works.74 From the point o f view o f commercial publishing, however, copy­ right when retained by the author could never achieve very high sales, and was restricted generally to print-runs o f 500. Leading presses thus bought copyright o f promising works, often at a hefty price. T he book trade received a boost from original works as aspiring num bers o f auth­ ors joined in, Long listing more than seven hundred o f them as early as 18 59.75 T he Bengal Library R eport for 1867 also indicated that ori­ ginal compositions were clearly overtaking reprints or translations o f older works as the staple of the publication business. C ontem porary fictional literature alluded to the perceived opportunities and freedom that lay in a career in writing as compared to a fiercely competitive and enslaving’ petty service world.76 72 Quarterly Report, 1868. 73 J. Long, Returns, p. xvi. 74 Some works may be cited by way of example: Bechulal Beniya, Sachitra Hanumaner Bastraharan (1885); Sambhunath Biswas, Kusum Tinkarir Pancbali (1885); Siddheshwar Bhattacharya, Kalir Avatar (1886); Upendranath Mukherjee, Durgapaujar Amod (1885). See Quarterly Reports, 1885-6. 75 J. Long, Returns, p. xv. Apparently, it did not cost much to publish a book privately. A drama, for instance, could be printed privately at the cost of 2 rupees and 14 annas only. If the book were priced at 1 rupee, and even a thousand copies sold over three months, it were enough to recover publication costs with ample profit margins. Anon., Granthakar, pp. 14, 18. 76 A farce, Granthakar, thus portrays a young hopeful author, Kalachand, explaining his choice of career to his wife. He reports a situation where a recently vacant petty clerical post in an office with a salary of 12 rupees only, had at­ tracted applications from 217 and ninety-one holders of BA and MA degrees, respectively. According to him, it was pointless to fight over such clerical jobs which he encapsulates in three words: service; enslavement; necessity’. Anon., Granthakar.

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T he Bengal Library Reports dem onstrate that flourishing printing firms retained copyright, to ensure cheaper productions. In the 1820s, proprietors published works from their own presses. But from the m id-nineteenth century onwards, the role o f printers and publishers seems to have merged. Proprietors o f presses were separate individuals, who retained ownership rights over long periods o f tim e.77 Even as early as 1867, when the Act had just come through, copyrights of popular works were often held by enterprizing printer-publishers like Benimadhab De o f Vidyaratna Press, and Gouricharan Pal, printerpublisher o f H urihur Press.78 In all probability, they could have either had salaried authors in their employ, or could have simply bought the copyright from authors. In any case, three very popular authors seem to have had fixed contracts with certain printing-publishing firms: I.C. Chandra and Brothers of N utan Bijnan Press held copyrights of books by Tinkari Biswas; Akshaykumar and C om pany o f H urihur Press owned works by Nandalal Raya; and printer M aula Baksh o f D haka had copyright to all works o f H arihar N andi.79 O ther prom i­ nent proprietor-publisher figures, surviving even after the coming o f the copyright, and well into the 1870s were: Biswambhar Laha o f Kabitaratnakar Press, Nrityalal Shil ofN .L . Shils Press, Ramkanai Das o f Sudhasindhu Press, Indranarayan Ghosh o f Sudhanidhi Press, and A runodoy Ghosh o f Videaratna Press.80 T he role o f printer-publishers in the book trade was a lot more con­ tributory than may be imagined. There is plenty o f evidence o f printers actively recruiting and chasing authors for manuscripts, and even 77 Thus Nabin Chundra Nundi remained proprietor of Tamohar Press at Hooghly between 1876 and 1888, and Rusick Lall Chunder of Kavita Kaumudi Press at Calcutta between 1877 and 1888. See Annual Reports, Bengal 1876-7 to 1887-8. 78 See for instance, Gouricharan Pal withholding the copyright to Jungnama by Munshi Yakub, printed and published from the H urihur Press in 1867. Quar­ terly Report, December 1867, pp. 2-3. 79 See for instance, I.C. Chandra and Brothers retaining the copyright of two works by Tinkari Biswas. Quarterly Reports, June 1879, pp. 32—3; and September 1880, pp. 24-5. For a similar tie-up between Nandalal Raya and Akshaykumar and Company, see Quarterly Reports, June 1879, pp. 30-1; March 1880, pp. l b 17; June 1883, pp. 4-5. Copyrights to Harihar Nandis popular farces were mostly held by Maula Baksh of the Dacca Girish Press. See Quarterly Reports, Septem­ ber 1884, pp. 6-7; June 1886, pp. 8-9; September 1886, pp. 6-7. 80 See Quarterly Reports, 1870-80.

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attem pting to make the works more ‘intelligible’ (read saleable) by interfering w ith the texts.81 Given the substantial commissioning of works by anonymous authors and renditions o f popular classics, the scope for a closer entrepreneurial involvement in the actual produc­ tion was considerable. These m ight even involve innovations in aspects of semantics, typography, narrative or layout, in order to adapt the works to perceived ideas o f readers’ expectations. Entrepreneurial intrusion and distortion o f the text have not been directly traced here, but it was not an unusual practice in the print trade. Uncertainties o f m arket and costs and overheads o f presswork encouraged m ultiple issues o f small works, rather than the printing of large ones. An edition o f 1 0 0 0 —1 5 0 0 copies was m ost economical. Economies o f scale following from increasing print-runs and a com ­ peting market, resulted in a significant lowering o f prices during this period. In 1 8 2 5 , a copy o f Vidyasundar on very bad paper cost one rupee. In 1 8 5 7 , the same work on better paper was only two annas. The price o f another work, Shishubodh , a m uch used school text, came down from eight annas in 1 8 2 5 to three pice in 1 8 5 7 . 82 Even a 4 5 0 page volume o f the A nn adam an gal , cost only a rupee in 1 8 5 7 . 83 In 1 8 2 2 , Bengali textbooks published from the Mission Press, such as the R ajabali , B atris Sim hasan , and the first volume o f Carey’s D iction ary , all cost between four and five rupees.84 In 1 8 5 7 , school books like Varnaparichay , Bodhodoy , and Sishushiksha , cost a few annas.85 Prices at Battala remained low for the rest o f the period. Considering that the average daily wage o f a skilled labourer was over six annas in 1 8 8 1 , such 81 See Chapter 7. 82 J. Long, Returns, p. xiii. 83 Ibid., p. 35. 84 Samachar Darpan (2 February 1822), in B.N. Bandyopadhyay Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1 , p. 7 3 . The leather-bound complete two volumes of Careys Dictionary, consisting o f 2060 pages in 1 825 printed from the Mission Press was priced at a stupendous cost o f 110 rupees. Samachar Darpan (11 June, 1825), in B.N. Bandyopadhyay, Samvadpatre Sekaler Katha, vol. 1, p. 77. 85 Varnaparichay in separate parts o f twenty-six pages each cost three-fourth annas; Bodhodoy of sixty-one pages cost two annas; and Sishushiksha in two parts of forty-two and twenty-six pages, cost one and a half, and one and a quarter annas respectively. They were all published from the prestigious Sanskrit Press. J. Long, Returns, pp. 40-1.

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works m ust have been easily affordable to a wide audience in various non-labouring sectors.86 Affordable prices were accompanied by easy availability o f this print literature. In 1881, there were 219 booksellers operating in Calcutta and its suburbs.87 But wider distribution was ensured by the operation o f hawkers who were indispensable to the book trade.88M ore than two hundred o f them worked for the Calcutta presses as early as 18 5 7 -8 .89 M any sold books seasonally, for eight m onths only, while devoting the remaining rainy season for cultivation o f their fields. They bought the books themselves at wholesale price, and often sold them in distant towns and villages at double that price. Such was the dem and for print­ ed books that, when unable to pay in cash, people often exchanged them for m anuscripts.90Long estimated that it gave hawkers a m onthly income o f about six to eight rupees. It was apparently a com m on sight to see these m en going through the native5parts o f Calcutta and the adjacent towns w ith a pyram id o f books on their heads.91 The new postal system was also instrum ental in spreading the reach o f these books far and wide. T hat the Calcutta readership was not its sole clientele is dem onstrated by Battalas book advertisements that were always careful to include the additional rates for post and package for mofussil readers. For such readers, these proved slightly more ex­ pensive, but had the benefit o f providing almost immediate access to the latest books as their Calcutta counterparts.92 86 p rices anc[ Wages in India, no. 17, Office of the Superintendent of Govern­ ment Printing (Calcutta, 1900), Table 1 . 87 Census o f the Town and Suburbs ofCalcuttay 1881, vol. 2 , p. xlvii. 88 A report of the Vernacular Literature Society recorded how their sales had risen dramatically from 848 to 2,512 in just one year (1857-8), following the employment of hawkers. J. Long, Returns, p. lvi. 89 J. Long, Returns, p. xiv. 90 The sizeable archive of manuscripts at the Calcutta University is built out of such works. Collectors like Nagendranath Basu (1866—1938), purchased them from Calcutta hawkers, in turn, and preserved them for posterity. See Sukumar Sen, Battalar Chhapa O Chhobi, pp. 59-60. 91 J. Long, Returns, p. xiv. 92 Typically, a work available for sale over the counter and costing 1 rupee, would cost 1 rupee and 50 paisa if delivered by post as VP (Value Payable) pack­ age.

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T he m arketing strategies at Battala were initially based on personal rather than commercial networks. M ost books were available for sale at the printers own residence which doubled as printing press and book depository.93 Frequently, a prom inent individual in a village, personally known to the proprietor, would house copies, his residence often serving as a distribution and sale centre in remote locations. Separate shops selling only books were rare but not unknown, these being usually sold along with other merchandise and stationery.94 It was not before the 1890s that well known printer-publishers like Baishnabcharan Basak and Gurudas Chattopadhyay set up bookshops exclusively selling books from their respective presses.95 C om petition forced greater attention to advertising, book design, and m ethods o f attracting and retaining new readerships. Bold adver­ tising and prom otional offers were intended to attract customers, w ith ingenious m arketing strategies such as special discounts, m oney back guarantees, and free gifts.96 Twelve ‘juicy pictures’ ideal for ‘hanging in the bedroom ’ were thus offered along w ith Prem er D a li (The Basket o f Love) in an advertisement sporting detailed chapterization and explicit titles m eant to titillate readers’ senses.97 O ften prints offered were entirely unrelated to the books being prom oted, typified in 93 Elaborate instructions were provided in title pages and booklists directing customers to such locations. Interestingly, spatial markers deriving out of local knowledge such as a well-known reservoir or the family residences of social elite, disappear by the 1870s when precise street names and addresses replace such in­ formation. 94 Such shops sold items as varied as pen and paper and decor for horse-drawn carriages. See Gautam Bhadra, ‘Bigyapone Bangla Boi’, Desh, 23 January (1999), p. 124. Even as early as 1853, however, Madhusudan Shil had his bookshop in Battala. See contents page, Rasik Ray, Panchali, vol. 1 (1853). 95 Gautam Bhadra, ‘Bigyapone Bangla Boi’, pp. 124-5. Basak’s shop at 127 Masjidbari Street, and Chattopadhyay’s shop at 201, Cornwallis Street, revolu­ tionized book marketing at Battala. 96 An advert for a book based on the antics of Gopal Bhand, the legendary court jester of Nadia, thus declared that readers could mercilessly tear up and return the book if it failed to meet their expectations. A full money back guaran­ tee was assured. Gautam Bhadra, ‘Bigyapone Bangla Boi\ p. 125. 97 W ith captions like ‘Union (Milan), ‘Bedroom’ (Sajyagriha), and ‘Stealing of clothes’ (Bastraharan), the pictures echoed the themes highlighted in the work itself. Benimadhab De and Co. Panjika, 1895-6 (Vidyaratna Press).

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provocative images o f voluptuous women, thinly clothed, with accen­ tuated bodily curves.98 Printers never failed to append book lists o f other related or significant works issuing from their presses. These appeared regularly on either side of back covers, and the reverse of the front cover or title page, complete with prices and booksellers’ addres­ ses. Even works in press were announced with great flourish, working up a sense o f anticipation am ong readers. A publisher thus promised his readers a breathless read o f the work, T in ti Chitra (Three Pictures): It is true that the presses have been churning out loads and loads o f novels . . . b u t they do n o t contain the elements desirable o f the genre. . . . I can vouch that a novel like Tinti Chitra is rare in the Bengali language. O nce you sit dow n to read it, you cannot let go o f it. You start neglecting your meals, . . . T he thought param ount in your m ind is that o f finishing the b o o k ."

To further lure potential customers, there were other books available as free gifts. Some messages were more provocative, and teasingly played upon the apparent parsimony o f readers. An advertisement for an illustrated collection o f hum orous stories being offered at a dis­ count price thus convinced readers that twelve annas was not w orth holding on to compared to the joys to be had from reading the volum e.100 O f Bengali works published, the m ost commercially viable and most num erous were school books. In Longs 1857 Report, educa­ tional works stood highest, num bering 145,000 for the year. Even almanacs, enjoying an outstanding popularity ranked below them, with an annual circulation o f 136,000 only.101 W ith the rise in im ­ portance o f vernacular education, various agencies were in operation 98 A very popular contemporary series was that on ‘sundaries’ (beauties), such as ‘Sushilasundari’ (Beauty Grooming Herself); ‘Pramodasundarf (Beauty with a Comb); ‘Golapsundari’ (Beauty with a Rose); and ‘Ranisundari’ (Beauty with a Hookah). See pp. 108, 110, 111, and 113 respectively of Sripantha (Pseud.), KeyahatMeye (Calcutta, 1988). 99 Advertisement by H. Basak and Co., 75 Nimu Goswamis Lane, Bandha Battala. Srirampur Ganguly Press Panjika, 1896-7. 100 Advertisement for Sachitra Golpobhandar. Srirampur Ganguly Press Panjika, 1896-7. 101 J. Long, Returns, p. viii.

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encouraging the circulation o f educational literature at low rates.102 Between them , the Sanskrit and Baptist Mission Presses, issued most o f the educational works in Calcutta and around.103 It is significant that 60 to 70 per cent o f this educational literature dealt w ith the vari­ ous aspects o f the Bengali language.104Grammars, vocabularies, glossa­ ries, keys, dictionaries, readers, and primers abounded. From the 1860s onwards, the category o f moral tales became very popular and sold by the thousands. So lucrative was it to write school textbooks that the law o f copyright was infringed on several occasions.105 D uring the period starting from the m id -1870s and extending right up to the early 1920s, however, non-educational literature grew in importance. In 1874, the annual Report on Publications registered an actual decline in educational literature, when it returned only 112 edu­ cational as compared to 782 non-educational vernacular works.106 M uch sought after works were extracts from or verses o f the Ramayana and M ahabharata and popular Islamic legends. But the genre, which had the m ost extensive circulation, was the native almanac. Twentytwo editions, am ounting to not less than 170,000 copies, circulated in the market during the last half o f 1867-8 alone.107 Tapti Roy rightly points out a noticeable increase in the num ber o f prose fiction and dram a in the 1860s. From only eight dramas and twenty-eight fiction works in 1857, the numbers rose w ithin eight years to 112 and 114, 102 In 1857, popular works like Vidyasagar’s Kathamala and Charitabali, of 79 and 109 pages, cost only two and a half and four annas, respectively. J. Long, Returns, p. 43. 103 Thus the first press turned out 84,220, and the second, 55,000 copies for circulation in 1857 alone. J. Long, Returns, p. viii. 104 See J. Long, Returns, p. xxiv. Graham Shaws findings for Dacca confirms this. Educational works comprised 60 per cent of the total number of imprints from Dacca between 1857 and 1900. O ut of this, 45 per cent were concern­ ed with language learning. Graham Shaw, ‘Printing and Publishing in Dacca’ , p. 1 0 1 . 105 Dhaka Prakash, 23 April 1876, quoted in Graham Shaw, ‘Printing and Publishing in Dacca’, p. 101. 106 Reports on Publications Issued and Registered in the Several Provinces o f Bri­ tish India During the Year 1874, Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Home Department, vol. cxxxiii (Calcutta, 1877), p. 1. 107 Annual Reports, Bengal, 1867-8, pt. 1 , p. 230.

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respectively.108T he thriving m arket for ephemeral genres had encour­ aged num erous amateur authors. In 1886-7, 979 original Bengali titles were produced for sale, as compared to 172 translations.109 Elaborate efforts by the educated bhadralok to ‘improve5 literary standards and sanitize tastes remained unrealized in the face o f this print-revolution o f ephemeral genres. Print had actually helped dis­ seminate alternative tastes in reading for the masses. T he nature o f works issuing from these presses were mostly rem nants o f pre-print literary traditions, and a far cry from the Sanskritized, purified, and ‘enlightened5 literature o f the vernacular reformists. Popular Printed Genres at Battala In 1857, Long listed in his Report sixteen categories o f vernacular works produced in Calcutta. In terms o f num ber of copies printed for sale, they may be arranged in order o f decreasing importance, as given in Table 3.110 Even if such classification has its own problems, freezing as it does the various genres in Longs own peculiar taxonom y o f Bengali print, the significant market in recreational literature in 1857 is beyond doubt. T he market continued to thrive in the second half o f the century, w ith its production easily surpassing the lim ited output o f the more ‘respectable5 presses in the city. By 1857, printed almanacs had completely captured the traditional m arket in m anuscript almanacs.111 These were small, compact, and handy for regular consultation and provided more copious inform a­ tion than the m anuscript versions, at remarkably cheap prices o f about 108 Tapti Roy also noted how scriptures and mythology titles had decreased. Tapti Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text, p. 47. 109 Annual Reports, Bengal, 1886-7, pt. 1 , p. 309. 110 J. Long, Returns, p. viii. 111 These had been very popular in pre-print Bengal. A group of Brahmins, called the Daivagyas, made a living out of making horoscopes, casting charms, drawing up genealogies, and copying and selling almanacs to private households, for only a few annas or a helping of rice. William Ward, A View o f the History; Literature and Mythology o f the Hindoos: Including a Minute Description o f Their Manners and Customs and Translations o f Their Principal Works, 3 vols (London, 1820), vol. 2, p. 86. Also see J. Long, Returns, p. xxi.

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Table 3 Print Genres Educational Almanacs Mythology and Hinduism Moral tales and ethics Fiction Musalman-Bengali Biography and history Miscellaneous Sanskrit-Bengali Erotic Natural sciences Christian Periodicals Dramatic Law Newspapers

Number of Books

Number of Copies

46 19 85 19 28 23 15 12 14 13 9 8 12 8 5 6

145,000 136,000 96,150 39,700 33,050 24,600 20,150 18,370 15,000 14,250 12,250 9550 8000 5250 4000 2950

two annas. So great was the dem and that publishers com peted with each other for lower prices. Eighty pages for an anna was a standard rate. An indication o f their popularity can be deduced from the cir­ culation figures o f single editions which often ranged between 8000 and 14,000. Long estimated the total annual production figure o f 135,000 to be too low. According to him, there were probably 250,000 almanac copies published annually.112 They circulated in a vast m ar­ ket, and in areas where Tew other Bengali books reach5. Just previous to the beginning o f the Bengali year was a busy season for the almanac sellers o f Calcutta, when the books sold most. Long recorded the tre­ m endous significance of the almanacs in Bengali life. T he Bengali Almanac is as necessary for the Bengali as his hooka or his pan [betel leaf], w ithout it he could n o t determ ine the auspicious days for m ar­ rying . . . for first feeding an infant w ith rice . . . com m encing the building o f a house, for boring the ears . . . w hen a journey is to be begun, or calculating the duration or malignity o f a fever.113 J. Long, Returns, p. xx. 113 Ibid., pp. xx-xxi. 112

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Almanacs at Battala evolved in two phases. The early almanacs were simply modelled on their m anuscript versions. They contained dia­ grams o f planetary positions predicting suitable dates and m oments for everyday activities and ceremonies, a table of dates and instructions (often in verse) on rituals and festivals, and woodcut or metal im prints o f H indu gods and goddesses.114A different kind o f additional infor­ m ation, however, soon began to be considered handy in the new urban and professional world that was emerging in Calcutta. Almanacs, from the 1830s onwards, came to contain lists on weights and measures, postal rates, railway timetables, medical m em oranda, rules and tables o f fees in small case courts, list o f public holidays, and num erous ad­ vertisements for Battala books. T he lists, simple at first, grew in dim en­ sion to include even names of commercial agents and schools and colleges in Calcutta, while woodcut pictures o f railways appeared side by side with those o f H indu divinities.115 It has been suggested that the new almanacs were modelled consciously on the European diary, in order to make them more useful to com m on people.116 The leading name in the world o f almanac production from the 1870s onwards was G ungadhar Karmakar, who operated from the Serampore C hundrodoy Press. The Serampore almanacs gained in popularity through the fine pictorial contributions o f the engraver and artist, Krishna C handra Karmakar. These varied in size from 56 to 160 pages, and were priced at 2 -3 annas. All almanacs were com ­ posed by scholars o f jyotish or astrology, traditionally taught at the Sanskrit tols. Pundits prepared them under the conventional orders of the patron Rajah o f their tol, a notice regarding which appeared on the title pages. T he two im portant pundits composing almanacs during this period were M adhavchandra Suryasiddhanta o f Serampore and Shri C hunder Vidyanidhi o f Bali. Both held the copyrights to their works, and had them printed simultaneously from m any presses, 114 See for instance Panjika, title page missing, for 1836-7. 115 Day, Law and Company’s Panjika (n. d.), pp. 300-1. For pictures of rail­ ways see, Nutan Panjika, for 1868-9, Kabitaratnakar Press (Calcutta, 1868); Nutan Panjika, 1871-2, Chundrodoy Press (Serampore, 1871). 116 Chittaranjan Bandyopadhyay, ‘Bangla Panjika, Desh (13 Baisakh, 1359 bs ) (1952). Also see Amalendu De and Vinaybhushan Roy, ‘Unish Shataker Bangali Jibane Panjika, Bibhav (Autumn 1978).

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including Sudhanidhi, Kabitaratnakar, N.L. Shil s, and Vidyaratna.117 Print-runs o f almanacs in the 1870s reached figures o f 8000-10,000. Next to almanacs and educational works, books on H indu religious themes and mythological and love tales were immensely popular. T he most com m on were various versions o f the Ramayana, M ahabharata, C handi and Gunga B hakti . These were usually read or chanted by pro­ fessional reciters to collective audiences. T he Puranas and Sastras were also being widely translated and several expository works on the tenets o f H induism , and its fringe beliefs such as the Vaishnava and Tantric cults published. There was immense scope for participation afforded by the structure o f compositions such as panchalis strung in rhymed couplets. They were spoken as well as sung in parts, w ith other internal structural flexibilities, which allowed for extemporary com m entary on even contem porary events. ‘Erotic’ works, as Long preferred to call works in prose or poetry dealing in mythological or love themes w ith explicit sexual expostula­ tions or even allusions, apparently had a flourishing m arket till the Obscene Publications Act prohibited their sale in 1856.118 Long m en ­ tions a ‘hideously obscene book w ith its twenty most filthy pictures’ selling 30,000 copies in just twelve m onths.119 Traditional romances like K a m in iK u m a r and Jivan Tara also did brisk trade. The Lakshmibilas Press on Chitpore Road sold 3750 copies o f Vidyasundar in just four m onths in 1857. Surely, such a wide, popular and vigorous m arket could not be wiped out by a single act o f prohibition. T he cheapness o f the publications and the enorm ity o f the dem and together in fact ensured their survival. T he B engal Library Reports show that these continued to be published well into the 1880s.120 117 See Quarterly Reports, 1868-74. 118 Apparently, ‘terrified’ booksellers destroyed most of their obscene’ stock. J. Long, Returns, p. xxv. 119 J. Long, Returns, p. xxv. 120 Even Long admitted in 1857, that the stated circulation figure of 14,250 in his report might not be accurate, for such books were often sold covertly, and not openly displayed as before. A report in the Indian Mirror of 2 1 August 1873, reveals how such books were ‘sold in obscure shops and never (made) . . . their way to the Registrar General’s Office for report and registration/ See Alok Ray (ed.), Society in Dilemma: Nineteenth Century India (Calcutta, 1979), pp. 203-4.

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T he spurt in Muslim-Bengali literature around the tim e James Long subm itted his report owed itself to a special factor.121 Muslim leaders had begun to make available religious literature in the Bengali language, in a desperate attem pt to pitch the net o f Islamic identity as far and wide as possible.122 Stepping out o f the narrow limits defined by Arabic, which had always been the favoured m edium for Islamic religious texts, the leaders of M uslim society from the m id-nineteenth century onwards took to popularizing the canon by throwing it open to the Bengali people in their own language. Works were composed in a language w ith a dom inant Perso-arabic and U rdu vocabulary, that had begun to be associated w ith Islamic religious literature, and gave the genre its distinctive name. Interest­ ingly, the sentences in these works were structured from right to left, as in Arabic and Persian texts. They were o f varying sizes from small pamphlets o f twelve pages to more substantial works o f 104 pages, but not costing more than a few annas.123 Over the second half o f the cen­ tury, the same works appeared as num erous reprint editions. Some, like the Yusuf-Zuleikha, A m eerH a m za rP u th i, a n d H atem -T ai bySyed Ham za and M unshi Garibullah, continued to be popular till the 1890s.124 T hus the period 1865-1900, the golden age for creative writing at Battala, saw only extant m anuscript printing for M uslimBengali literature. So m uch was this literature based on manuscripts that even though in print, the latter was more widely known am ong Bengalis as p u th i (manuscript) literature. There were two sub-genres o f this literature based on once popular manuscript texts. O ne was religious in them e and dealt w ith various legends and tales revolving around the Prophet. A nother was made up o f fairy tales and romances based on U rdu and Persian originals. 121 The average print-run was 1000 in 1857. J. Long, Returns, pp. 17 -1 8 , and 24-5. 122 See Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims: A Quest for Identity (1871— 1906) (New Delhi, 1998). 123 Mursid Nama (12 pages), dwelling on the doings of a Muslim fakir, and printed at the Chaitanya Chandrodoy Press in 1857, cost 1 anna only. The Hajar Machhla (104 pages) or a thousand questions on religion given to Muhammad, was printed at the Jnanodoy Press the same year. It cost 3 annas. M.A. Qayyum, Chokhazarer Ketahpatti (Dacca, 1990), pp. 18, 24. 124 See Quarterly Reports, 1880-97.

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Official reports were consistently disparaging o f the latter, and high­ lighted their profanity in no uncertain terms. Accordingly, they presented Very little variety, and [were] . . . almost entirely taken up with works o f fiction o f a low and extravagant type, calculated to foster and strengthen credulity and superstition am ong the large body of low-class M usulmans who read them ’.125 Primarily, however, it consti­ tuted a literature o f advice, warning, and adm onition— a moral com m entary on the life o f the people that emerged from contem po­ rary social settings. Its innovativeness is apparent in its ability to reach out to its listening audience, serving both as a social commentary, as well as guardian o f social morality. It is interesting to see that it were the H indus who dom inated the trade in Muslim-Bengali literature in the beginning. In 1857, Chaitanya C hundrodoy and Jnanodoy Presses in Battala specialized in such works.126 In the 1860s and 1870s, the established names in this area of publishing were Gouricharan Pal and Biswambhar Laha, who oper­ ated from the H arihar and Kabitaratnakar Presses, respectively. It is only m uch later, from the 1880s onwards, that Muslims themselves took up the production o f these works in a major way.127N o t only the Calcutta presses, but also those in Dacca in East Bengal, were active in the trade.128 T he development o f Bengali prose language also had a gendered quality. As female literacy and readership rose steadily during the second half of the nineteenth century, wom en’s participation in 125 Annual Report, Bengal, 1879-90, p. 506. The Annual Report for 1896 also complained that such works furnished amusement and edification to a large class of readers belonging to the lowest class of Bengali Muhammadans’. See Annual Report, Bengal, 1895-6, p. 334. 126 J. Long, Returns, pp. 17-18 and 24—5. A list of major Muslim-Ben­ gali works enjoying a wide circulation at the time are given by Long. J. Long, Returns, pp. xxxi-ii. 127 In the 1880s the major Muslim publishers dominating the trade in this genre were M uhammad Jan and Munshi Male M uhammad of Dacca, and Tazuddin Muhammad, Maniruddin Ahmad, and Mafizuddin Ahmad of Chitpore, Calcutta. See Quarterly Reports, June 1882, pp. 31-2; March 1883, p. 51; Sep­ tember 1885, pp. 66-9; March 1886, pp. 44-7. 128 For an account of the trade in East Bengal, see M.A. Qayyum, Chokbazarer Ketabpatti (Dacca, 1990).

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Bengali print culture came to be categorized along gendered lines. By wom en s literature’ was m eant various cheap p rint genres produced at Battala, which were seen as a threat to the growth o f a ‘refined’ taste in reading. In the earlier part o f the century, there were frequent com­ plaints in public debate about wom en reading ‘erotic and im m o­ ral tales’. Towards the end o f the century, the focus shifted to their consum ption of ‘trashy, romantic novels’. Even though not usually w ritten by women, this literature was read and listened to by them. O ne particular print genre consumed by wom en that was distasteful to the bhadralok were the basarghar songs and jokes. O n the wedding night, after the completion o f the ceremony, it was customary for female relatives to accompany the couple into the basarghar or bridal chamber and spend the night in fun and frolic with them. T he idea was to jest with the new groom and make him pay that one night for his authority over his wife for the rest o f their married life. The songs and dialogues at these basar sessionswereoftenprovided by commercial publications that specifically catered to this purpose, and based on these women organized carefully rehearsed perform ­ ances. Although w ritten by men, the basar songs reflected the senti­ ments o f women, who were their sole consumers and performers. T he style and language o f these songs were abusive and coarse, and also dis­ played strong sexual overtones. In one such work, the groom is teased with jokes and riddles. If answered well, he is promised rewards in the form of sexual pleasures by one o f the participants.129 A lthough the 1856 Act endeavouring to repress obscene publica­ tions did n ot affect clandestine sales o f the traditional Battala genres, their appeal fell during the last decades o f the century. New tastes and the demands o f comm unities exposed to urban life for the first time shaped other categories o f ‘obscene’ literature. From the m id-1870s onwards, a new genre o f literature began to figure prom inently at Battala, and became the target o f colonial and bhadralok reformers. Cheaply produced pam phlet dramas began to be produced as publish­ ers realized their trem endous sales potential. Particularly it were the popular one- or two-act skits composed in the form o f farces in a coarse style, dwelling on everyday social problems, that suddenly swept the 129 Shyamacharan De, Basarkautuk Natak (Calcutta, 1859), pp. 10—11.

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print m arket in the m id-1870s.130 They rose in num bers perceptibly w ithin just a year, from sixty-four in 1877 to a sudden hundred and four in 1878.131 Presses specializing in farces in the late 1870s and 1880s were the Sudharnab, Kar, N utan Bijnan, General Printing, Sudhasindhu, Mechhuabazar, H urihur, Gyanollas, and the Chaitanya Chandradoy. By the next decade well-known authors had begun pub­ lishing their own farces. In 1865, Wenger, the officiating G overnm ent Bengali Translator, described the farces as ‘little books . . . hum orous, and some very coarse’.132 C.W. Bolton, an Under-Secretary to the Bengal Govern­ m ent, who subm itted a report on vernacular publications in 1878, also thought that w ith ‘the exception o f a few, the greater part [was] devoid o f literary ability, elevated moral tone, or any correct description o f native society’, though some took occasion ‘to decry the evils o f in­ temperance amongst the rising generation o f educated Bengalis’.133 T he Elokeshi-M ohanta case was a likely impetus. In 1875-6, Cal­ cutta was rocked by a scandal in which a young, m arried wom an by the name o f Elokeshi, was m urdered by her husband, on suspicions o f adultery. T he priest or m ohanta ofth e temple atTarakeshwar was later convicted o f seducing Elokeshi. T he Bengal L ibrary Reports seem to indicate that farce writing in its initial stages took off from, and centred a lot around this incident.134 Bolton described how any im portant public incident was at once seized upon and made the subject for a 130 Average print-run figures stood between 1000 and 2000, and sold at 1 to 4 annas. The farces are discussed later in Chapter 5. 131 C.W. Bolton, Report on Publications Issued and Registered in the Several Pro­ vinces o f British India During the Year 1878, Selections from the Records of the Government of India,’Home Revenue and Agricultural Department, vol. clix (Calcutta, 1879), p. 136. 132 J. Wenger, Catalogue o f Sanskrit and Bengalee Publications Printed in Ben­ gal, Selections From the Records o f the Bengal Government, vol. xli (Calcutta, 1865). 133 C.W. Bolton, Report on Publications, p. 135. 134 The earliest works on the theme in the Bengal Library reports are a musi­ cal, Nabin Mohanta Gitabhinoy, by Rajendralal Ghosh, from Gyanollah Press in 1874; and Mahanta Elokeshi Natak, by Maheshchandra De, containing ‘three large illustrations’, from Sucharu Press in 1874. Quarterly Reports, 1874. One scholar lists about thirty-four plays on the event. See Sripantha (pseud.), MohantaElokeshi Samvad (Calcutta, 1984), pp. 71-2.

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drama’.135 He reported another sensational event that occasioned a similar spate o f farce writing. It was the trial o f a native attorney o f the H igh C ourt for adultery w ith his niece. Such farces, w ritten in racy and abusive language b ut with a strong moral message, mocked the promiscuous lifestyles o f urban m en and women, frauds and hypocrites posing as reformers and holy men, and villains o f contem porary scandals. They found an eager readership amongst a large section o f im m igrant lower middle-class groups in Calcutta, still fiercely loyal to traditional social mores and distrustful o f the vices they associated w ith the new urban culture. Bolton rei­ terated Longs recom m endation that the government ought to keep a close watch on such productions o f the vernacular press.136 Printed genres o f the kind described above were the staple o f the popular press. In their language, concerns, and sensibilities, they de­ fined non-standard aesthetics and reading preferences. Myths and fables spun in a syncretic and earthy colloquial language, racy and abusive dramas m ocking the fallen bhadralok, uninhibited accounts of sexuality and belief in the supernatural, were far removed from the Sanskritized and purified world o f polite literature. Produced from small presses run by smiths and artisan castes, and consumed by edu­ cated but lower middle-class groups in Calcutta and around, the works were more expressive o f a petty bourgeois identity than their more successful counterparts from the upper rungs. The Market in Picture Prints and Illustrations An integral part o f this market were cheap pictures, printed or painted. These sold by tens of thousands usually at two pice each, and could be seen pasted up by way o f decor on walls o f shops and homes. They included hand-painted pictures or pats, woodcuts, metal imprints, lithographs— plain and coloured, and oleographs, dwelling on both religious and secular subjects. Originally associated with the already established small book trade at Battala, the market in art prints, developed independently o f it later on. Pictures in the earlier half o f the century were simple woodcuts and metal engravings in black and white, sometimes hand-painted, with crude and unclear lines. In the 135 Bolton, Report on Publications, p. 137. 136 C.W. Bolton, Report on Publications, p. 136.

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1870s and 1880s, with the im portation o f superior lithographic and oleographic techniques from Europe, and the influx o f middle-class professionals trained in W estern schools o f painting in the trade, there followed a proliferation o f attractive, photo-like, glossy H indu reli­ gious and mythological prints, that completely swept the market. Historians studying print in the Indian context tend to exclude the visual, and concentrate on printed texts only.137 But for readers at Battala, the visual was not divorced from the printed text. It was an essential com plim ent to the textual narrative. T he world o f printed books, in fact, went hand in hand with the world of the image. It is im ­ portant to see print-culture as a culture o f the image as well.138 Pictures furnish a repertory o f motifs and figures that serve not merely to em ­ bellish the w ritten word, but also to reinforce its message and crystall­ ize its sentiments. Besides, when sold as separate picture prints these are far more accessible and manipulable— being easily carried, or hung on walls and thus available for continuous viewing— a part o f everyday life. They encourage entry into written culture o f people who are not truly literate, fostering intim ate and private relationships between print and those beyond the pale o f the printed word. Pictorial representations ran parallel to the concerns and values o f the Battala books, as evident in a range o f commercialized images from the religious to the pornographic. In both secular and religious ico­ nography there occurs a replication o f the sentiments expressed in contem porary social dramas, novels, and farces. Picture printing in Calcutta, for the greater part o f the nineteenth century, belonged es­ sentially to the world o f small Bengali presses, and non-W esternized 137 See for instance, Tapti Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text’. Even Sumit Sarkar and Partha Chatterjee while obliquely referring to print at Battala, tend to focus on the textual side of it. See Sumit Sarkar, 4 “Kaliyuga”, “Chakri” and “Bhakti”: Ramakrishna and his Times’, Economic and Political Weekly, 18 July (1992); Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, 1993). 138 Roger Chartier’s works have done much to establish the importance of the printed image within the study of print-culture. See his ‘From Ritual to the Hearth: Marriage Charters in Seventeenth Century Lyons’, in Roger Chartier (ed.), The Culture o f Print: Power and the Uses o f Print in Early Modern Europe, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Cambridge, 1989). Also see Rolf Reichardt, ‘Prints: Images of the Bastille’, in Robert Darn ton and Daniel Roche (eds), Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775-1800 {London, 1989).

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tastes. T he artists and engravers came from the same social groups as those in the book trade, and shared a com m on social outlook with the wider literary world o f writer-publishers in the locality. T he m entalite of these artists was shaped by older values o f the rural social order. Liv­ ing in an alien city environm ent, and drawing themselves into tightly knit caste colonies clustered around the presses, with strong village and clan affiliations, their art developed a vehement social critique of the loose urban moral order.139 Songs, doggerel, pantom im e and other street entertainm ents in this part o f the native town also joined in the 140 critique. T he prom inent artists o f the time seem to have flourished in be­ tween the 1850s and 1870s. Engravings give the often misspelt name o f the artist in Bengali (they sometimes appeared in English initials, as well), his residence, and the press from which they were printed. Almost all came from the sm ith castes, as indicated by their titles— Hiralal Karmakar, Panchanan Karmakar, Ram dhan Swarnakar— although there were also m en from other occupational groups such as Nrityalal Datta, Benimadhab Bhattacharya, N abin C handra Bandyo­ padhyay, Kartik C handra Basak, and G obinda Chandra Ray.141 Some o f them , like Nrityalal Datta, and the father and son team o f M ano­ har and Krishna C handra Karmakar at Serampore, were prosperous enough to establish their own presses. So highly competitive and commercialized was the market, that illustrations often declared in unequivocal terms the artist s copyright over the item. Engraver Ram­ dhan Swarnakar thus threatened any potential plagiarist w ith the following words: ‘This plate has been recently engraved. W hoever now steals it will be engulfed by fear and s in .142 C ontrary to previous ideas that these woodcut artists developed their skills under the supervision 139The areas of Kumartuli (potters quarters), Kansaripara (braziers quarters), Sankharipara (conch shell workers’ quarters), and Dorjipara (tailor’s quarters) are illustrative. The number of artisans in Calcutta in the pre-census period can be guessed from the number o f licenses obtained under the Licences Act. In 1868-9, the figure was 3,600. See Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, ‘Traders and Trades in Old Calcutta’, in Sukanta Chaudhuri, The Living City, vol. 1 , pp. 207-8. 140 This has been discussed in Chapter 5. 141 See Plate nos 15, 28, and 29 in Ashit Paul (ed.), Woodcut Prints o f Nine­ teenth Century Calcutta (Calcutta, 1983), pp. 25, 40, and 41. 142 Ramdhan Swarnakar, ‘Shri Shri Bindubashini’ (coloured woodcut, n.d.), Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Bengali words read as, ‘Shri Ramdhan

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o f Europeans, it has been established in a num ber o f studies, that these skills dated from pre-colonial times, and developed quite independ­ ently, albeit simultaneously w ith British efforts in Serampore and Hooghly.143 These engravers first worked as apprentices both w ith established European, and fledgling indigenous enterprises in Battala, preparing type-faces for them . As that dem and fell, they offered their services in the area o f book illustration for almanacs, religious and mythological works, and educational texts.144 They worked prim arily w ith woodengraved blocks, which were well suited to small book illustrations. Engravers in wood also specialized in etching metal blocks, which were longer lasting and produced finer prints. T he earliest illustrated Ben­ gali book, the A n n a d a M a n g a l , printed and published by Gangakishore Bhattacarya in 1816 from the press o f Ferris and Company, carried six crude and ill-formed pictures.145Two of them , bearing the signature of Ram chand Ray, are claimed by experts to be metal im prints.146 But far more profitable than book illustrations was the m arket for independ­ ent picture prints. There were two kinds o f themes around which such metal and wood engravings revolved— pictures o f gods and goddesses, and the urban life o f Calcutta. In both, the artists drew inspiration from the Kalighat pats, and were indeed often their direct reproductions in Sivarnakarer ei nihedan. Samprati pelet khodita rohilo. Ekhon ei pelet je koribe matra baran bhoi pap tahare ashibe\ 143 See Pranabranjan Ray, ‘Printmaking by Woodblock up to 1901: A Social and Technological H istory, in Ashit Paul, Woodcut Prints, pp. 86-7. He points out that the early European print makers in India had all worked with metal engravings and aquatints, and never done any relief printing from woodblocks. R.P. G upta also asserts that Bengali artists transfeed their traditional skills of printing woodblock designs on cloth, to paper in the nineteenth century. See his A rt in O ld Calcutta: Indian Style’, in Sukanta Chaudhuri, Calcutta: The Living City, vol. 1 , p. 143. 144 Kamal Sarkar, ‘Bangla Boier Chhobi, 1816-1916’, in Chittaranjan Bandyo­ padhyay, Dui Shataker Bangla Mudran O Prakashan, p. 314; Pranabranjan Ray, ‘Printmaking by Woodblock’, p. 87. 145 Gangakishore Bhattacharya, Annada Mangal (Calcutta, 1816). 146 Sukumar Sen, Battalar Chhapa O Chhobi, pp. 22, 41; Purnendu Pattrea, ‘The Continuity o f the Battala Tradition: An Aesthetic Revaluation’, in Ashit Paul, Woodcut Prints, p. 50.

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print form. Paintings in the traditional pat style o f religious scroll paintings had become very popular with pilgrims visiting the tem ­ ple o f Kalighat at the beginning o f the nineteenth century, selling at extremely low prices o f two pice or one anna each.147 From the m id­ century onwards, the pats moved from the traditional genre o f reli­ gious painting to more contem porary social and secular themes when artists developed a powerful repertoire o f lam pooning images o f urban m en and women. Degenerate and licentious babus, promiscuous wo­ men and hypocrites parading as holy m en became the leading subjects, and found a ready clientele am ong the pilgrims from the surrounding countryside to the city.148 It is not clear what exactly the professional relation between the wood and metal engravers at Battala, and the painters was, but prints in im itation o f Kalighat pats began to appear from the 1860s onwards, and rapidly captured the market. They sold at half the price o f the pats— costing one paisa in black and white, and two paisa when tinted w ith coloured patches149 and shared not only a pictorial, but also a social and moral vocabulary with pat paintings. Indeed, in m any cases artists could have had merged identities.150As 147 Starting off with drawings on cloth, and using methods of gouache and tempera with home-made colours, the pat artists, however, soon changed over to cheaper mill-made paper and watercolours, that enabled mass production at greater speed. For studies on the Kalighat pats see Hana Knizkova, The Drawings o f the Kalighat Style (Prague, 1965); W.G. Archer, Bazaar Paintings o f Calcutta (Lon­ don, 1953); and Kalighat Paintings (London, 1971); Ratnabali Chattopadhyay, From the Karkhanas to the Studio, etc. (New Delhi, 1990). 148 R.P. Gupta is doubtful of the contention that the babus in Kalighat pats reflected the westernized urban male, for two reasons: the babus reflected there are hardly westernized’, and the period mentioned in such studies, 1870-1900, marked out not the emergence but the dying spasms of babudom. R.P. Gupta, ‘A rt in Old Calcutta’, p. 140. Indeed, the earlier images might well have been those o f country-style zamindars and landed rich, narrating their usual and so­ cially acceptable liaisons with courtesans. However, the portrayals of the later period were distinctly reproaching in mood, and depicted men in Western-style boots. Surely, this was the new urban professional man ignoring traditional values, as neither befitted his status, nor the acceptable moral order. 149 Nikhil Sarkar, ‘Calcutta Woodcuts: Aspects of a Popular Art’, in Ashit Paul, Woodcut Prints, p. 37. 150 Hana Knizkova suggests that many of the patuas or artists were settled in the same neighbourhood as Battala, around the Chitteshwar temple at Chitpore. Hana Knizkova, The Drawings o f the Kalighat Style, p. 151.

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Pranabranjan Ray speculates, it is possible that the pat painters them ­ selves took their ware to the C hitpore wood-engravers, to have them replicated and circulated in a wider m arket.151 T he woodcuts were the size of the Kalighat pats— generally 17" x 11"— printed on single sheets o f paper. Sometimes they appeared on larger sheets to accommodate two juxtaposed prints, and were even printed occasionally on both sides o f a sheet.152 Stylistically, like the pats, the images remained flat and two-dimensional, and non-realistic in their renderings. Thus the figures o f wom en in the woodcuts are round and voluptuous with prom inent curvilinear lines, to highlight their seductive role. C ontem porary realities intrude— in the form o f European dress and furniture items— but combine uneasily with traditional religious iconography. In a depiction o f the well known ‘Vastraharan scene from M ahabharata, for example, Dushm ashan is represented as a very distinctly European soldier dragging Draupadi by the hair.153 T he mass produced prints on the Kalighat model dom inated the scene o f commercial bazaar art between the 1860s and 1880s. Religi-ous picture prints depicting mythological tales, and popular images of Kali, Shiva, and Krishna were a vital part o f the trade. Scenes from Krishna’s mythical life at Vrindavan, often with provocative repre­ sentations o f flirtatious gopinis (milkmaids), were m uch in dem and (Figure 2). Secular engravings seem to have form ed one o f the staples o f the trade, reinforcing the satirical com m entary o f Battala literature on the babus. It is significant that the visual narrative o f the babu ran simul­ taneous and parallel to his representation in farces and lampoons at 151 Pranabranjan Ray, ‘Printmaking by Woodblock’, p. 95. 152 R.P. Gupta, ‘A rt in Old Calcutta, p. 143. Gupta points out that when electricity became available at Battala at the turn of the nineteenth century, wax moulds were taken from original woodcuts, and electrotypes made by immers­ ing the moulds in a galvanized copper bath. The electrotypes were then mounted on wood by means o f screws. These were more long lasting and produced tens of thousands of prints this way, instead of a few hundred like their original wood­ cuts. 153 Nrityalal D utta, ‘D ushm ashan K artrik D raupadir Bastraharan’, or ‘Draupadi Being Disrobed by Dushmashan (coloured woodcut, 1880), Private Collection, Calcutta. See Anindita Ghosh, An Uncertain “Coming of the Book”: Early Print Cultures in Colonial India’, Book History, vol. 6 (2003), p. 42.

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Fig. 2 ‘G opiganer Bastraharan’ or the ‘Stealing o f the M ilkm aidens Clothes5 (coloured w oodcut, 1890). Courtesy: C entre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.

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Battala. It is possible that the artists, freed from imm ediate and inti­ mate contact w ith their patrons (as in earlier courtly traditions) and spurred on by the anonym ity o f the m arket and the clientele, deployed the artistic license to express their deepest felt sentiments. Alienated from the opulent material culture o f the city and living a life o f extreme poverty, they looked upon the more prosperous as a kind o f bastardis­ ed nobility, w ithout any roots or lineage, who had made it big only through illegitimate means. T heir artworks lashed out at this new colonial elite while caught in a curious paradox o f perpetuating older oppressive feudal norms that they had for long been socialized into. Between 1840s and 1860s, the new artistic techniques introduced by European artists and the G overnm ent A rt School at Calcutta (estab­ lished 1854), and imbibed by the Bengali middle classes, challenged the traditional art market. W ith their survival at stake in this changing social and professional environm ent, they blamed their m isfortune on the new tastes and ideologies o f their urban clientele.154 Although it was not until a few decades later that Kalighat pats and woodcuts were wiped off from the market, artisanal grudges found forceful expression in their handiworks from the 1870s onwards. T he babu in these pictures appears as a licentious rascal visiting prostitutes, and ignoring his family. Calcutta being the city o f sin, the corrupt moral order is quintessentially conjured in the prostitute quarters where godless m en spend their nights. T he wom an or b ib i is usually an imm oral courtesan. T he voluptuous image of the wom an in the pats represents her as an irresistible sexual tem ptation. W ith amorous poses, they seduce the babu and enslave him (Figures 3, 4). It is not coy modesty that defines this demeanour, but rather an ab­ rasive sexuality. T he brush strokes or etchings outlining the wom ans body are bold and ballooning, suggesting their corporeality and decay, as opposed to delicate lines and tender grace. T he artist s chisel or brush seems barely able to contain an aggressive fecundity, bursting at its seams. W ithout a male reference point in the visual frame, the lone lustful female figure hints at the unchaste and imm oral associations o f the public woman. But there is a difference. T he representation is no longer solely indicative o f the erotic gratification o f the male viewer. It also drives hom e the image o f unleashed female sexuality. As 154 Ratnabali Chattopadhyay, From theKarkhanas to the Studio, see Chapter 3.

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Fig. 3. ‘Courtesan Embracing Lover (Kalighat pat, 1890), IS-53-1961. Courtesy: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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Fig. 4. 'Courtesan with Client’ (Kalighat pat, 1875). Courtesy: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.

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Ratnabali Chattopadhyay points out, I n painting after painting . . . we see the logic o f the reversed world-order gaining ground, as the “erotic” is transform ed into the “obscene”.’155 W hile such images could well be o f prostitutes, it could also be the overlapping image o f the dom inating and pam pered wife. To the insecure village artisan lodging in the city, the bhadralok reforms aiming to free wom en o f male controls was a frightening prospect. O ne pat has the babu kneeling subserviently before a lady.156 A coloured w oodcut shows a bejewelled wife riding on the shoulders o f her hus­ band, while the m other is dragged by a rope tied to her neck (Figure 5). Scandals in the city, like the Elokeshi-M ohanta episode, were im ­ mediately reproduced in a powerful visual vocabulary. It w ent hand in hand w ith the huge outcrop o f dramas and farces from Battala on the event.157There were familiar scenes from everyday life as well, provid­ ing glimpses of Bengali social life on occasions o f the Brother s Day or b h a ip h n o ta , a circus, mail coach or dancing w om en.158 A round the 1880s, the engravers were first seriously challenged, and then completely wiped out by the widespread commercialization of lithography and oleography techniques. Tapati G uha-Thakurta has shown how at first, hand-coloured lithographs, and then more sophisti­ cated English-style chrom olithographs produced by middle-class professional artists in the city, trained at the Governm ent School of Art, outdid the w oodcut prints in style and price.159T he photo-realism o f the litho prints made them irresistibly attractive to the buyer. The new technology also allowed exact replicas to be produced at one-tenth the price. Following the example o f the Art School students, other enterprizing local presses m ushroom ed and began to reproduce pale imitations o f the Art School varieties.160 Unlike their middle-class predecessors, however, the painters at these studios lacked Art School 155 Ibid., p. 67. Undated pat reproduced in Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Streets p-153. 157 See Figures 9-11, Chapter 5. 158 See Plate nos 17, 19, 24, and 31, in Ashit Paul (ed.), Woodcut Prints, pp. 28, 30, 35, and 46. 159 Tapati Guha-Thakurta, The Making o f a New ‘Indian Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850—1920 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 93-116. 160 Ibid., pp. 101-2.

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Fig. 5. ‘G hor Kali’ or I n the D epths o f the Kali Epoch’, showing a babu w ith his pam pered wife on his shoulders, while his m other is ill-treated (coloured w oodcut, n.d.), V M R5134(B). Courtesy: V ictoria M em orial Hall, Kolkata.

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training, and perhaps came from the same social milieu as the engraver artists. Their representations therefore were closer to the pats and woodcuts than to W estern realism. Printed Bengali literature underw ent an extraordinary expansion from the m id-nineteenth century. Having reached the shores o f Bengal so late, print capitalism had no difficulty in finding for itself very firm and fertile grounds. T he interest generated in printed books by readers and entrepreneurs alike helped locate a healthy, commercial market. By the end o f the nineteenth century, print literature had penetrated the m ost interior parts o f Bengal. However, print did not work to reform and civilize’ all o f its new communities o f readers. Far from dis­ placing earlier literary conventions and tastes, and grafting onto them the sensibilities o f an educated middle class, print actually helped in their survival and expansion. Battala emerged as the single most im ­ portant centre o f this cultural world, as cheap technology and alternat­ ive literary preferences o f the mass market, together com bined to open up the proverbial Pandoras box for the larger Bengali readership.

[12] The Domain of Konkani Rochelle Pinto

| T

ow ards

R ecovery |

W ithin the realm of literary history, J. H. da Cunha Rivara, the Secretary to the Governor General, and elite Goans have customarily been credited for their efforts to systematize and advocate a wider use of the Konkani language, even though they did not use it themselves as a literary medium. A continuity of influence is assumed between the publications of this section of Goans and Portuguese and the subsequent growth in Konkani print in the early years of the twentieth century.1 However, the divisive effect of linguistic politics and print, the relatively depressed print economy in Goa, and the absence of intellectual links between various classes of Goans, diminished the potential for literary or cultural influence of elite Goans over other groups. W hen da Cunha Rivaras preliminary essay on the Konkani language was published in 1858, it already had to combat arguments that relegated Konkani to a dialect undeserving of a grammar or history.2 Among the few printed texts produced by the Goan elite in Konkani were dictionaries, grammars, and re-published texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These were a conscious contribution to philology and lexicography, and combated the increasing legitimacy of linguistic theories produced through the English colonial administration in India, which relegated Konkani to the status of a dialect. Others, like songs, proverbs, and hymnbooks were intended for wider consumption.3 Though the battle to have Konkani recognized as a language was taken into British territory by those who published outside Goa, the pronouncements of Goan linguists and historians were not effective in altering decisions that were based on the elaborate superstructure of surveys and linguistic studies and eventually incorporated as British colonial policy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for instance, George Grierson

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conducted a series of surveys and commissioned translations, which were returned to him from various parts of what would become Maharashtra and Karnataka, with the verdict that Konkani was only a dialect of Marathi.4 The numerous forms of this dialect were listed in his Linguistic Survey o f India and bolstered claims for official recognition of the Marathi language in Goa with administrative and academic legitimacy; Griersons correspondence indicates that Dalgado had sent him a copy o f his dictionary.5 Dalgado s work discussed Konkani as a language, without signs of an anxiety to prove or substantiate such a stand. Cunha Rivaras work in the 1850s, and Vicente Bragan^a da Cunhas thirty years on suggested a distinct place for Konkani as a language, although Cunha Rivaras essay was not translated until the mid-twentieth century. But whereas Bragan^a da Cunhas history and Dalgados studies preceded Griersons, and both were recognized as scholars, their discussion of Konkani as a separate language did not affect the latter s study. Attempts to include and initiate literary production in Konkani by elite Goans continued to be sporadic, and to sound somewhat conscientious. Alongside dictionaries and grammars, and compilations of proverbs, they began to print Konkani songs in predominantly Portuguese anthologies as the only available form of Konkani literature.6 The editorial in the Almanach literdrio fndo-Portuguese of 1911, decades after the first almanac had appeared in Goa, seemed suddenly conscious that the form was a means to develop linguistic skills among Goans. ‘In view of the pleas which I made to various fellow-countrymen resident in the British territory, the collaboration on English and Concanim was not as plentiful as I had hoped,5said Alberto Figueiredo.7 ‘It is a mystery that all of us who love our country, have to labour for the resurgence of our mother tongue which we learn in childhood, especially in view of the efforts of our brothers in British India, who have done much in this respect5, he stated.8 In 1929, when Luis de Menezes published the first Konkani newspaper to appear in Goa, decades after Konkani newsprint had emerged in Bombay, it was with a similar sense of duty towards a language he no longer used in print. Eduardo Jose Bruno de Souzas efforts however, were more sustained. Bruno de Souzas Udeteche Saloky the first Konkani journal in Bombay (whose popularity is however doubtful) had a comprehensive project for the development of Konkani. His urge for linguistic improvement ensured that most of his works included prefaces that tried to persuade writers that his adaptation of a seventeenth century form of orthography was a viable form for Konkani prose and poetry.9 Only one other person employed this form, as the Marian alphabet and the intricacies of the alphabet did

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not find a wide audience.10 Bruno de Souzas epic poem, Eva ani M ori was something of a landmark for modern Konkani. It combined the verse forms of Camoes and Dante with Konkani hymns.11 It attempted, therefore, to draw on the various literary legacies that were available to Goans from the sixteenth century on. He followed this with compilations of hymns, articles on the need to revive Konkani, and a primer on the Marian alphabet. In the early twentieth century, Bruno de Souza wrote three fictional texts in the Marian alphabet, Khuxalponnacho Ghorabo a n i Ponchtis Kunvor ; K ristav Ghorabo and Sorgacho Thovo .12 All three were predom inantly religious and moral texts. The rarefied religiosity of his work perhaps limited its reach, apart from the fact that an alphabet with several unfamiliar diacritical marks and accents was not likely to be adopted by writers who until very recently had limited writing skills. The overall discomfort with the Roman alphabet expressed by the Goan elite drew in part from the legitimacy of linguistic discourses that could only see the phenomenon of an Indian language in a non-Indian script as a distressing anomaly.13 Nevertheless, since most of the Goan elite apart from Bruno de Souza restricted their engagement with the language to prescriptions for its use, they were quite easily ignored. This indicates that texts that were shaped by bourgeois conceptualizations of linguistic and cultural improvement did not have as formative an impact as others, though they, like Bruno de Souzas works, are recalled over other popular material in most literary histories. For this reason, the ‘real’, story of Konkani print is one that unfolded at the end of the nineteenth century, at exactly the same time as the elite interest in Konkani outlined earlier began to find an audience that was restricted to the sphere of linguists and orientalists. The realm of popular print was one in which dictionaries, cookbooks, hymnals, and romances were held together by the relationships which bound those who had written and read them, into an economic, religious, and ethnic community. Bi- and trilingual Konkani dictionaries of the second half of the nineteenth century for instance, did not signify the development of an academic interest in the language, but the entry, finally, of its speakers, into economies that required a rapid formalization of their linguistic and literary skills. By the beginning of the 1860s Konkani publications produced by and directed at a readership quite distinct from the Goan elite emerged. These were not, however, produced as a response to Rivaras injunctions to revive Konkani, which usually earn him pride of place within histories of the Konkani language. The print market of Bombay allowed a class other than the Goan elite access to print. O f the large numbers of working-

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class migrants who had begun to shift out of Goa, substantial numbers began to secure white-collar jobs as they had a rudimentary education in parish schools in Goa. If the Goan elite had secured a foothold in the academic and professional circles of Bombay, they were outnumbered by the massive migration of Goans largely from the Old Conquests of Goa. The distinct and separate forms of print generated by the Goan elite and the Goan working class in Bombay were shaped by the institutional structures of British colonial governance in that city. Some of these, such as commissioned reports and linguistic texts produced under the aegis of the Bombay branch of the Asiatic society, have already been mentioned. Relations were also determined by and filtered through police reports, community associations, the medical establishment and the Catholic Church. The structures of both the Portuguese and the British colonial state and set the conditions under which Konkani print would emerge.

| T h e G oan E l i t e in B om bay | The uncertain political status of this otherwise privileged group of Goans within British India and their representation in the gazettes and census of the British government were areas of concern for them. The categorization of Goans as a whole as ‘Native Portuguese' or ‘Indo-Portuguese’ may have secured them political security within British India, but may also have, in the eyes of the British, conveyed a blurring of racial identity, which could as easily undermine their political status.14The British state itself had long abandoned attempts at a military take-over of Goa, though relations at the border were always edgy. They converted their sufferance of the Portuguese presence in India to a more economic and efficient use through treaties that tended to turn Goa into a feeder economy for British India. This effort was backed by the systematic collection of information about Goa. The Rev. Cottineau de Kloguens A n H istorical Sketch o f Goa, for instance, was printed in Madras in 1831.15 Kloguens work was not commissioned by the colonial government there, but began to be treated as an authoritative account. J. J. Cicilia Kol’s A General, Statistical an d H istorical Report on Portuguese India , however, did enjoy official status as he was the Chief Secretary to the Government of Portuguese India.16 Later in the century, Jose Nicolau de Fonseca, a Goan, was commissioned by the government in Bombay to write his An Historical a n d Archaeological Sketch o f the City o f Goa in 1878. This was a comprehensive statistical account of the economy and the population, provided a history of land

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relations, listed newspapers, and other kinds of information.17 Fonsecas association with the British government along with publications produced by Gerson da Cunha and J. Saldanha reveal a growing interlacing of the Goan intelligentsia with colonial institutions of British India. While the few institutions of higher education in Goa would suffice most middleclass Goans until the mid-century, those who shifted to Bombay frequently refurbished their skills there. Jose Nicolau de Fonseca for instance, learnt English at the Robert Money Institution while he worked at the Jamsetjee Hospital. He set up practice in Dhobi Talao (allegedly without a formal qualification), in an area that housed many working-class Goans, and was involved in setting up some of the key institutions such as the Dabul church, the Temperance Society and the Sociedade dos Amigos das Lettras, which spanned the sphere of working- and middle-class Goans.18 Aside from these mid-century developments, the presence of Goans of various classes in Bombay had already generated lines of communication between both colonial states. The notoriously more systematic British colonial state provided a socio-political grid that formed the ground for a hostile encounter between both classes. Elite Goans began to accept and contribute to the criminalized representations of non-elite, especially working class Goans, in reports of the police, medical, and municipal establishments under the British colonial state. Correspondence between the British and Portuguese police was one site for the production of criminalized representations of migrant Goans. Apart from this correspondence, the report of a commission to inquire into the situation of ‘Indo-Portuguese migrants, which was published in 1931, indicates how the criminalized representation of migrant Goans had been normalized by groups other than the police. The report indicates two distinct trends among migrants: it foregrounded their propensity to poverty, and subsequently, crime, as well as the prevalence of formal associations such as unions, co-operative societies and artisan guilds set up to protect com m unity interests.19 Newsprint in Portuguese and Konkani was the site for the solicitous authoritarianism of the efforts of the Goan elite that expanded the production of Konkani print outside their own circle. In 1865 the Bom bay C a len d a ra n d Alm anac listed 14,199 migrants who had originated from Goa, Daman and Diu.20 By the end of the nineteenth century, it was estimated that at least ten per cent of the population of the Old Conquests had migrated to various parts of British India and various British colonies.21 Waiters who may have earned eighteen

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rupees a m onth, and clerks who earned more, all sent money home to families in Goa through unofficial and exploitative channels.22 Directories and Gazettes produced in Bombay and Karachi, another city to which Goans migrated, list Goans as Native Residents.23 Among all the towns across British India such as Calcutta, Poona, and Karachi, however, none seemed to offer the kind of host print market that Bombay did. By the late nineteenth century newsprint that had emerged through Bombays cheaper print economy had become the ground for the articulation of the experience of urban non-elite Goan migration. The linguistic and political concerns of these newspapers were quite distinct from those that emerged in Goa, and from the pamphlets circulating among non-elite Goans. The place and consciousness of the Konkani language as a marker of class and social identity was given a definite shape through the pages of these newspapers, which were as attuned to life in Goa as they were to the goings-on of Goans in the city. The elaboration in preceding chapters, of the stance of the elite and the colonial state over the question of language and culture was intended as an explanation for the emergence of a print sphere among Goans that was characterized by sharp linguistic divides. The readerships for Portuguese and Konkani would have remained quite sealed off from each other, were it not for the percolation of lower castes into the domain of print. The financial concerns voiced in these papers all emanated from working-class or lower middle class Goans.24 In contrast to Goa, which could be characterized by the relative lack of a network of societies and interest groups between elite and non-elite, in Bombay, a number of small unions sprang up among tradespeople. Konkani papers were knit into disputes over these associations as the papers served sometimes to voice the discontent of those disillusioned with their unions.25 The Goa M a il (1919), which advertised itself as ‘the organ of the Goan community’, ‘ruthlessly revealed lies and misrepresentations of rival organizations among seamen and other newspapers.2 The Concanim publicized itself as the representative of the Goan people in Bombay in 1891. It satirized the composition of the Instituto Luso-Indiano set up in 1883 to represent the interests of Goan migrants. It characterized the two groups into which the Goan community in Bombay was to remain divided for the first half of the century— as those who had alphabets after their names (BA, LLB...) and those who didn’t— the cooks, butlers, and manual workers.27 In contrast to the relationship of democratic representation, which the editor of the Ultramar in Goa had constructed between editor and reader, no singular position of leadership was assumed, nor were demands for political

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recognition made through editorial intervention. A report on Goan migrants undertaken by the government in Goa stated that not even ten per cent of those who arrived in the city were literate.28 Most of these earned less than 100 rupees a m onth, and the report claimed that there were few signs of co-operation and solidarity between classes. By 1910, the Goan Union, which had held its first meeting in 1903, had branches in forty-six towns and cities of British India. Other associations whose concerns were not directly economic had also emerged.29 Newspapers and unions were not the only cohesive force among Catholic Goans. A new arrival in search of a job in Bombay would head to the clubs set up in south Bombay for newcomers from his own village. These village-specific institutions were buildings that had been bought and divided into minuscule rooms with common kitchens and provided cheap accommodation and board for new-comers. Despite the caste rivalries and corruption charges which plagued these from the start, they eased entry into the city. Some clubs were established as early as 1857, and are said to have been set up by early migrants on a co-operative basis.30 The relatively fewer women (though their numbers were considerable) were not housed in village-specific clubs but in general womens clubs. While migrants from various parts o f India formed similar networks in Bombay, it is doubtful whether these were undertaken with the same degree of prescriptive formality.

|AN

o n -e lite M o d e rn ity |

Konkani print was one of the mechanisms through which migrant Goans made their acquaintance with elements of urban modernity in Bombay. The assimilation of migrants from scarcely monetized villages in Goa was eased through structures which accommodated them within familiar village identities, religious norms, and caste structures, and prepared them to appear as salaried and wage labour in Bombays offices, restaurants, and dockyards. Print preserved and represented elements of life in Goa without which they could not easily survive the city, and simultaneously articulated their ironic, humorous, and apparently easy assimilation into urban structures that might otherwise have appeared as insurmountably alien and difficult. For instance, a book of rules regulated life in the Bombay clubs. Club-dwellers were bound to promote unity and mutual assistance among members, to maintain the premises, to participate in provident schemes for the families of

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deceased members, as well as mutual benefit schemes, to co-operate with other Goan clubs, and to participate in devotion to the patron saint of the village.31

The rules specified divisions of time and space which determined when and how the club was cleaned, meals prepared, rent collected, the patron saint’s feast day celebrated annually, and the club members met for a daily rosary. By listing individual and community rights and duties within the club, the book of rules had become a new quasi-legal mechanism that defined relations between members, and effectively introduced a new foundation for their interaction. It reflected both, the need to fit the routines of an urban workday, and to replicate the rhythms of life in a rural parish. The adoption of mutual benefit and provident schemes suggests the ability of migrants to turn their accelerated literacy to immediate use. If the club reproduced structures of casteist and religious control to regulate the experience o f anonymity and loss o f moral accountability in the city, it also used these to introduce wholly modern mechanisms of evaluating labour and the life-span o f workers, through the members themselves. Advertisements for the Karachi-based Indian Life Insurance Company, which dot several Konkani publications, explained the terms on which an insurance company was run in Konkani and Portuguese.32 The formalized limits on what constituted a mans working years, the accountability of companies towards the depletion of an individuals resources, the idea of a formal investment in one’s own mortality, may all have been quite new ways of quantifying human years and the worth of labour to those who were tenant farmers or small cultivators. These individualized quantifications were offered, however, in the form o f club-based schemes and in the form of advertisements, within the structures of communal living, and to communities rather than to individuals.33 The tone o f advertisements in Konkani newspapers, but especially of those on the covers of books, probably written by editors and publishers, was usually intimate and familiar. Readers and consumers were constructed through intimate and filial modes of address. Advertisements hailed them as our brothers’, or our people’ to whom shopkeepers offered medals of St. Francis Xavier that had been touched to the saint’s body during the last exposition, to compensate for their absence from the pilgrim site in Old Goa. Insurance agencies claimed to protect them, restaurants offered to gratify desires for confectionery, and a range of medical practices and products supported Konkani print and the health of its readers. These advertisements were garrulous, and were written in the same colloquial

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Konkani as were prefaces to novels. There was no difference in the tone used to address the reader of advertisements, or that of novels, pamphlets, dictionaries, or prayer books. The eighteen books produced by one popular writer, Jose Manuel Pinto, included prayer books or religious histories, a history of Goa, translations of Romeo a n d Juliet and Robinson Crusoe, a Konkani-English dictionary, a Konkani-English letter writing and conversational guide, a grammar, two primers, and a romance. As with the club-book of rules, and advertisements for insurance, the letter-writing guide also suggests how print rearticulated certain basic social relations. The guide suggested fixed formats for reshaping and replacing familial communication and relationships through letters. Fathers advised sons at school to stay away from temptation. Replies may have been intended to reassure, and described the school library s many ‘biographies and adventures as well as spiritual readings5.34 The details of letters hinted at the attractions and deficiencies of the big city. Sons asked their mothers for tobacco from Goa, and mothers asked for tea and sugar from Bombay. Business letters taught potential clerks how to place orders and readers how to subscribe to newspapers. Tenants were instructed how to complain to landlords and butlers, cooks and nurses taught how to apply for an increase in pay. Model letters suggested how a writer could propose marriage, could ask a friend to be the witness at a wedding or a godfather to a baby, and a brief format was provided for anyone who had to raise a toast at someones wedding. W ith Pintos output alone, a new migrant was equipped to take on life outside Goa. The book D uddvancho sam bal provided advice on the management of money to migrants who were unaccustomed to the ways of their new economy.35 J. C. F. de Souzas Sucollacheo Vatteo, {Pathway to Success) was a veritable portmanteau of advice.36 It held forth on spirituality, truth, positive thinking (for adults and children), fatalism, suffering, education, self-improvement, alcoholism, the corrupting effects of political power, the dangers of franchise, and the evils of casteism, and it quoted Swami Vivekananda. W hat was of greater interest however, was its criticism of the lack o f entrepreneurship among Goans. This was to feature as an incidental comm ent in many novels located in Bombay. The author claimed: If one of our Goans accumulates some money, what does he do? He will celebrate the saints5feasts to gain honour and to go to heaven. Perhaps he might tie up his savings in a knot; because you know, my Goan brothers, he has been taught that the World is a devil....

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In contrast, he asked, ‘W hat does a Parsi do with his savings? The Parsi will start some successful business, and will gain himself a name by using his earnings to protect his religion.37 Catholics were offered ways in which to resolve the dichotomy between capitalist entrepreneurship and accumulation, and the Catholic distrust of worldly wealth. ‘Useful’ books offered linguistic, economic, and moral assistance, and also offered help on affairs of the heart sensitive to the specificity of Bombay. Readers represented to themselves the constraints of conducting a romance across the balconies of a boarding house or in Bombay’s minuscule houses. The book Nachachi Chavi , a guide to dancing, said its author, ‘had been kept to a small size so it could be slipped into the pocket and be consulted in case one forgets while dancing. The same text included a key to secret signs to be used while conducting a romance. These included advice about writing invisible letters in dried coconut juice and soap, and codes to arrange a rendezvous, through the judicious placement of an orange on the dining table, or the waving of a handkerchief from one window to another. T hrough the 1860s and 1870s, dictionaries, vocabularies, and devotional texts began to be printed.38 These dictionaries and vocabularies of the late nineteenth century preceded and paralleled those of the Goan elite, but were of a substantially different order.39 They offered readers the equivalents of commonly used words in languages in which they had to be proficient quickly, and fulfilled the promise held out in most advertisements, o f being useful to those who had to hold down jobs and do well in school.40 These did not propagate heightened literacy as a means to cultural improvement and linguistic status, which were the concerns motivating the production of dictionaries by the Goan elite.41 The preface to the M an u al de Tres M il Vocabulos of 1892, which carried words in Portuguese, Konkani, English, and French, claimed that many people had requested such a vocabulary, ‘since so many of our compatriots have emigrated in such large numbers to British India, where the principal languages are English and Hindustani,’ and since many who wanted to study Portuguese and Konkani...could not find a book which could guide them in these languages’.42 Lists of table service, drinks, and food included distinctively European and Anglo-American preferences and practices, and were intended to help the many Goans employed as cooks, waiters, butlers, domestic servants, and barmen in Bombay, to negotiate the unfamiliar intricacies of their work. The differences between Bruno de Souza’s comparatively difficult Konkani texts and those which had more direct uses among the Goan

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community also distinguish cookbooks produced for elite homes from those which would help hone the skills of restaurant cooks. In the 1890s, therefore, Portuguese, English and Konkani texts continued to have largely divided readerships. T he Portuguese cookbook, Recipes fo r Confectionery a n d Household Dishes prepared by the Portuguese Community in the Bombay Presidency, was intended for elite Goans, while The Goan Cook's Guide was explicitly intended for another audience.43 The Goan Cook's Guide must have been invaluable to cooks as it had interest tables,

salary charts, glossaries, menus, and a vocabulary in English, French, Hindustani and Konkani, apart from recipes in Konkani for, among other things, the Half-pay Pudding, Conservative Pudding, Nurse Hannahs Pudding and Mysterious Pudding.44 Similarly, the recipes in Joao Manuel de Souzas The Goan Barman's Guide for the Byculla Cocktail, Cholera Cocktail, Corpse Reviver, India Cocktail, Stars and Stripes, and American lemonade, suggest that among barmen employed on ships, in clubs, and in restaurants, cosmopolitanism had to be swiftly and competently acquired.45

| O p p o s it io n t o E l it e D e f in it io n s | The apparent self-sufficiency of the lives of Goan migrants and their print production did not take shape in complete isolation from the aesthetic and political injunctions of the Goan elite. The authority of the Goan elite in their professional capacity and as a class was challenged in every form of print as migrant communities faced under their policing eye and programmes for improvement and charity. One o f these attempts was in the form of a report on Bombays Goan clubs by Dr Socrates Noronha, following the Seventh Congresso Provincial, a forum that was set up to discuss the needs of the community in general. Noronha drew up a programme for their amelioration that would be carried out under the supervision of the Goan government and village-level committees. In keeping with Noronhas professional interests, the report drew on the context of the Bombay plagues, and distinctly characterized the clubs as the sites of disease. His suggestions for their improvement, however, sounded ominously authoritarian, and called on the combination of state and civil forces to police the inhabitan ts of clubs. By the early twentieth century, such a report could not pass without drawing comment from the proposed recipients of his programme. The replies to Noronha implicated every organization and trade with which the Goan elite were associated: the legal, medical, and religious professions.46 Point by point, and with systematic detail, every allegation

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and insult was hurled back in both Konkani and Portuguese, and modified to suit the tastes of the audience for each. D. Menezes, a Bombay-based Goan had written prior defences of migrants in Bombay which were not circulated widely, but 500 copies were distributed to the ‘important’ men of the community, since by the word club’, these men understood a place that was like a pig-sty or stable, inhabited by uneducated m e n .47 D r Noronha evidently did not receive this, said the author, since in his report to the Seventh Goan Congress, Noronha had described the clubs as though their inhabitants had no norms or principles according to which they conducted their life. Menezes claimed that he had undertaken an independent study of 200 clubs that he visited over and over again, before penning his retort. To combat Noronha’s description of the club population as comprising predominantly the uneducated proletariat of Goa, Menezes retorted that the Goan elite ensured that their medical and legal practices in Bombay were profitable by being parasitic on the impoverished Goan clientele they despised.48 Against allegations about the lack of hygiene, he brandished the rulebook with its clear guidelines for club maintenance, and asked, ‘How could we report to work everyday if were ill? Does Noronha know who takes us to the hospital if we are ill, and to which hospital we are sent?’ 49 At some point through this, Menezes switched to an active definition of what the club stood for and represented, and the terms within which it was conceptualized by those who lived in it. This kind of articulation not only emphasized class antagonisms, but explicitly posited the institutional structures within Bombay that they had constructed and which supported their existence outside Goa: The club was a society of God set up by poorer people under the protection of their village patron saints, in memory of their motherland. This society doesn’t have philosophers like Espinosa, Renan, Conte, Taine, Darwin, and Hegel...etc. but it has S. Augustinho, S. Tomas de Aquino, S. Hilario, S. Ambrozio, and S. Francisco Xavier.... The clubs are the houses of our fellowmen, and their founders were our poor and rich fellowmen of yore, both educated and uneducated. And they are no worse than the huts in which Goan landlords usually maintain their tenants.50

Those who were actually in need of reformation, claimed Menezes, were the vicars, teachers, landlords, and Regedores, or magistrates of Goa who arraigned themselves against the poor. ‘Instead, the poor of Goa draw support from their parents, the parish priest, and the parish schoolteacher’, he declared, since none of these had been legitimized by any official

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government body.51 The terms of this opposition had drawn from Noronhas report which advocated that a Public League of Health and Morality be formed in each district of Goa, under a vicar, landlord, doctor or primary school teacher. The purpose of the League was to initiate ‘intensive educative action in the villages from where the emigrants emerge, with the end of training them, and avoiding the great moral and physical ills which afflict the great cities abroad.’52 The exchange of print between the city and the Goan village could be harnessed, according to Noronha, to publish the names of those who brought glory to their village, as well as those who, by their involvement in crime, disgraced it. Noronhas project signalled, therefore, not just the easy collaboration between the state and the Goan elite, and the manner in which spiritual, pedagogical, and medical professions could be used as means of control, but the potential use of Konkani print for the surveillance and humiliation of lower middleclass Goans. The Portuguese government had, however, received another missive from a Goan migrant, which announced his hope that its contents would be discussed at the Congress. Joao Luis Carvalho, the author of the missive, was to be disappointed. The Seventh Congresso Provincial had ignored his D ha M andam ent or Ten Commandments . His Icravo M andam ent or Eleven Commandments was published in 1929, two years after the first publication on which he and Menezes had collaborated. Both publications were satires on the Goan elite and elaborated lists of suggestions of ways in which to improve the lot of the thousands of emigrants whose earnings contributed so much to the Goan economy. Carvalho launched a broad critique of the Congresso Provincial. Though seven congresses had been held: ...nothing had been done for the people of the land. The sons [sic] of Goa dedicated their intelligence and life force to strange lands, and returned home extinguished and exhausted without the strength to employ their talents for their motherland, which they could if the government would provide them the means to.53

Carvalho s growing list of demands and complaints eventually blended into a long scathing critique in Konkani. He demanded a tax on Goan landlords and priests that should be used for the betterment of emigrants. He recommended shutting the medical schools and Lyceu, the domain of the upper class, since they did no good. He denounced landlords and their ilk as ‘two-legged tigers who roamed the jungles of Goa feeding on the poor’.54 The government, he said, had made a mistake in allowing those occupying government posts to enter the Congresso Provincial>which

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ought to have been a peoples parliament. W ith the denunciation of the Congresso Provincial, nearly every realm of the elite had been delegitimized as a sphere that strengthened their monopoly, and threatened the wellbeing of the poor. From the club book of rules, to the commandments presented to the Congresso P ro vin cial the hold of religion and the structures of the church are highly visible, with the local parish priest preferred to the higher ranks of priests within the church, still the preserve of upper caste Catholics. The range of texts suggests the centrality of print to endowing the village, the landlord, the club, and the city with symbolic value. One can trace an indissociable correspondence between forms of print used, and the way social relations were structured in the city, while those of the village were reinterpreted. These forms of print had either substantively replaced village structures or put in place relations that had no existence outside of print. The texts described above did not limit the repertoire of print production in Konkani. Normative accounts of history and culture also emerged in Konkani among a non-elite readership. While the formal structures of these texts were reproduced, they were rew ritten to accommodate the non-elite into dom inant narratives that otherwise excluded them. The first volume of Jose Manuel Pintos political history of Goa, Gomanta> claimed to be a short sketch of the history of Goa from the earliest times to the establishment of Portuguese rule. Since the earliest known mention of Goa referred to it as Gomanta, the author declared in his preface that he had laid claim to the legacy. Apart from the effort, which, he impressed on his readers, he had put into the work by consulting a range of English, Portuguese, and Marathi books to construct his own, Pinto had also made choices about the kind of history he had decided to compile. While in neighbouring territories the focus on antiquity was frequently a means to construct a narrative of brahmanical and H indu supremacy, in Pintos history the emphasis on establishing who the earliest inhabitants were had a direct bearing on land relations in the region. Contemporary Konkani pamphlets also cited histories of land or of the Goan people that emphasized the lower-caste identities of the earliest inhabitants to justify claims for land rights.55 Pintos first chapter asserted that: the old histories say that the first king was Kadamba, and that the people were of the Cunbi caste. Clever and knowledgeable historians dofrt dispute this. The first gauncars were Cunbis and subsequently there were Dravidian and Sudra vangodds. The readers will realise later when it was that the Chardos and Brahmins arrived in Goa.56

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These assertions bolstered demands by sudras in ongoing land disputes to have land rights not just granted, but in the light of these claims, restored to them. They also endowed agricultural communities with written histories and proof of a civilization: one can see that the earliest Cunbi people did not have an inferior set of practices and civilisation. They had made images of stone that astonish those who see them today. The early gauncars were Cunbis and bhandaris, now dispersed across the New Conquests.57

In the words of a Doctor Marchesetti, quoted in Pinto s text, ‘the servants of today were the gentlefolk of yore/58 A narrative of decline, along with nostalgia that had begun to tinge the works of most migrants, also coloured this political history. Despite the evident poverty and inequalities that they themselves dwelt on, life in Goa prior to the migration to Bombay was also seen as a period of prelapsarian perfection. Pinto claimed: Great differences have come up between the communidades of today and those of yore. Earlier everyone used to cultivate their land, but now Goans are dispersed around the world. In the earlier days, each would cultivate their own fields and those of their neighbours, they had one language, and people were always with their children. These days, we do not find such things, for reasons which do not need to be reproduced here.59

The second part of Pinto s history reproduced the details of the Revolt of Cuncolim, in which the villagers of Cuncolim had hacked Jesuit priests to death in 1583, and the story o f Peres da Silva. The revolt of Cuncolim had begun to be assimilated into nationalist histories of anti-colonial movements, and the inclusion of the event in Pintos history probably had a similar motivation. If the revolt of Cuncolim was reproduced as a narrative of the suffering of villagers and their resistance to forcible rule and conversion, the account of Peres da Silva was a hagiographic sketch of his career. Peres da Silva was evidently a historical figure that had found popularity among non-elite Goans, since he was reputed to have hastened through reforms in their favour in his few days in power. This was perhaps the first time that Peres da Silvas famous charters of demands, which were circulated in government bulletins in Portuguese while he was Prefect, had appeared in Konkani. Pinto s history, Gomanta , like others produced in this milieu, touched on themes, names, and historical events that were by this time familiar features of political and economic histories of Goa.

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They reappeared in non-elite texts however, to signal the inauguration of a new subject of history, the non-elite, within histories of Goa.

| T h e K o n k an i L iterary F ield | Few of those who wrote in Konkani, if any, could live by their writing alone.60 W here those who read Portuguese novels had their reading channelled through newsprint into a range of genres, Konkani writers had to contend with much smaller incomes, and sometimes-shaky literacy skills. Readers had to be convinced, therefore, of the potential value of reading in itself, as well as be given reasons why it might be worthwhile to invest in a novel. ‘O ur dear readers may ask, of what use it is to us to buy such books?5said a reviewer, and urged that it would help readers learn the language.61 The novel E liza , which was advertised as a romance in Konkani by I. X. de Souza, may have been the first Konkani novel, though no known copy of it exists.62 The review o f this in both Portuguese and Konkani emphasized the dexterity of language use in the book, because of which ‘it could never be despised by those who study the language5.63 For decades after the appearance of the first novel, writers continued to produce books to fill a vacuum in Konkani print, which they articulated over and over. Publishers urged both church and state that the evidence of the interest in the language ought to be taken as a sign that Konkani needed to be taught in parish schools, which reached sections of the population that state schools did not.64 By the early decades of the twentieth century, Konkani writers could refer to predecessors and mentors whose books had inspired them. The lack of Konkani literature could be referred to as a phenomenon of the past even as it was evoked each time another book appeared. Almost all Konkani texts foregrounded the conditions for their production, as well as the function of each text to increase the possibility that another would appear. An introduction to an adaptation of Shakespeares Winter's Tale did not acknowledge the source of the adaptation, but dwelt, instead, on the need to stoke an interest in cultivating the language among readers.65*The translation of a text that was considered a part of the linguistic capital of another people endowed the recipient language with some of its legitimacy. The translator of Romeo a n d Juliet, for instance, claimed that he wanted to ‘decorate Konkani literature with its splendour5.66 W ith reference perhaps to the twenty-four advertisements that supported the publication of his book, the popular playwright, B. F. Cabral claimed that those who wrote and published Konkani books usually incurred a

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loss. He claimed that this was because they had few readers, and these readers often borrowed books from each other so that there were at least five or six people to a book. Readers were therefore never expected to purchase a novel or translation in Konkani for pleasure alone. Until the twentieth century, newspaper advertisements that listed available books rarely mentioned their authors. The language, genre, and content of books were, instead, offered as reasons for purchase rather than the accomplishments of the author, which presumed a perception of novel writing and reading as an individuated activity. This was not the case with advertisements for Portuguese books where the identification of the author was an important part of the publicity for his or her work. However, when Portuguese books were advertised in Konkani papers, the authors name was frequently excluded.67 Most Konkani texts were published by their authors and occasionally, by acquaintances of the author, and by the early twentieth century, bookshops and printing presses undertook to publish books. W hen authorship was foregrounded, it was to emphasize the caste origins of writers and to remark on their sudden access to print. W ith some vehemence against the obsession with identifying caste, a letter to the editor of a newspaper decided to have done with the furtive nature of the inquiry, and elaborated the caste, village and land titles of each popular writer of the time: ‘Let us see, who these writers are, their caste and village, gaunkar or tenant.../68 At least five of the popular writers of the time were Sudras, some of whom were of cross-caste parentage, and five others were either brahmin or chardo. Despite the fact that the Konkani print market was fairly small and somewhat expensive, with access to print, sudra writers simultaneously produced a diverse range of genres.

| D o m in a n t F o rm s in K o n k an i L iter atu r e | The near complete linguistic bifurcation between elite and non-elite meant that the value associated with works that were supposed to have literary merit was invested in a language entirely different from the one in which popular literature was produced. There was, then, no one literary language through which Goan readers and writers could be placed in a measure of increasing or decreasing literary merit. W ith a high tradition in Portuguese or Marathi and a low tradition in Konkani, the influence of elite tastes and criticism was diminished. If literary production among the Goan elite invoked European literary practices, Indian cultural antiquity, and sometimes took the form of ethnographic nationalist romances, writing in Konkani staked a claim on a different literary universe. Novels and

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plays in Konkani narrated, instead, the social reordering of Goans in Bombay within the workings of colonial capital, and fictionalized the structures of Goan village life as a primary space of social authenticity or as a past to which they had developed a distanced relation. Tiatr, a combination of narrative sketches and dramatized songs, which was strictly censored in Goa, had a more moneyed audience in Bombay and a freer space for the usually topical and politicized farces that were regular features of the form. Playwrights were also novelists and many novels were elaborated plays, interspersed with songs. The Tiatr form in fact is said to have originated among Bombays migrant Goans, and drew from developments in contemporary theatre, particularly Parsi and Gujarati plays.69 Its structure was frequently adapted to furnish Konkani novels. For between two and five rupees, theatregoers could watch plays performed at a south Bombay neighbourhood, Cavel, which housed many migrant Goans through the century.70 Much later in the century, Goan theatre companies produced plays that drew names and historical references from popular literature, and situated these squarely in the neighbourhoods of Bombay and Goa.71 The earliest plays to be staged in the New Alfred Theatre or neighbouring theatres, by the Goa Portuguese Dramatic Company, were dramatized Konkani translations of books that had appeared in English.72 Tickets for a single performance were the price of a novel— four to eight annas. W hen Joao Agostinho Fernandes’ The Belle o f Cavel or Sundori Cavelchi opened in 1895, residents of Cavel and the surrounding south and central Bombay areas inhabited by Goans found their recent history dramatized through plays. Fernandes’ next play, Bhattkar, has drawn more attention as it depicted the oppressive treatment of lower caste tenants by upper caste landlords.73 It was in the Gaiety, Empire, and New Alfred Theatres that an increasing number of plays were performed which drew less from exotic locales and themes (such as Hispano American War Minstrels) than from the lives of lower caste protagonists. Charni Road Baugh , based on another area of Bombay to house the earliest migrants, Sotorichi Bondday {The Revolt ofSatary), Bebdo, and K unbi Jaki placed drunks and peasants before Goan audiences, who encountered familiar situations in familiar theatrical forms in their new city space.74 Translations from popular European novels and plays were common to a Portuguese and Konkani readership. For instance, the rags-to-riches story of Bertholdo, who overcame his plebeian origins and rose in the Italian court because of his cunning, was originally a seventeenth-century

The History o f the Book in South Asia The Domain o f Konkani < 24 1

Italian opera and subsequently a novel based in Verona. A Portuguese translation was printed in Bombay and sold 1000 copies in 1875. It was translated into Konkani and serialized in the first Konkani journal, the Uditeche Salok in 1890, and in 1889, was translated into English in Bombay, and sold simultaneously in Goa.75 A dramatized performance Berthold anim Albion Patxai Verona Xaracho was advertised as a comic opera and was performed at the Empire theatre in 1916.76 The popularity of this text was perhaps because it was (as the advertisement for it stated) a tale of the success of a simple peasant who rose to eminence at the court of Verona through his own sagacity.77 A study on translations of English novels circulating in India suggests that melodramatic English novels that traced a change in the fortunes of their protagonists found a wide audience as they offered ‘fantasies...not just...of personal grandeur and wealth but larger cultural and political fantasies of freedom...5.78 Other literary preferences were stories about the demise of monarchies and aristocracies, which enacted and legitimized the rise o f people through individual effort that was not linked to circumstances of birth. J. L. Lobos Mysteries o f Bombay probably drew its title from G. W. Reynolds series, Mysteries o f London that were available in Bombay.79 This otherwise ridiculous tale allowed for a fantastic construction of the criminal world of Bombay, with its Pathan, Goan, Italian, Muslim, Hindu, and Parsi criminals, who were stereotypically costumed and depicted on the front cover of the book.80 The romance Lulu opened with a description of the beauty of the view from Malabar Hill of the whole of south Bombay, especially the Backbay road, where one would see ‘Parsis wearing hats like foreigners atop their heads, Parsi girls wearing coloured silks like beautiful Spanish women. Hindus in splendid turbans, Mussulmans in their robes, all classes of Goans, Goan women who were maids to the Parsis5.81 C. M. Pintos detective novel GupitPulisechi Cannim , aniB om boichi g u p it sociedade choram-crimidoranchi (Stories o f the Secret Police a n d Bombays Secret Society o f Thieves a n d Criminals), seems almost a record

of the roads of south Bombay and the milieu of the growing middle class.82 The characters in the novel would have one believe that Bombay was almost entirely inhabited by Goans with somewhat romanticized names. The main protagonists of the novel were the clever policeman, Justin Ferrando, and his friend, Timothy Braga, determined to reveal the truth about the unjustly convicted Juvenal Cortez. Ferrandos taxi rides through Girgaum Road to Charni Road junction, his walk to Foras Road to shake

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criminals ofFhis track, and his second taxi ride to Queens Road to Princess Street, took in a large part of south Bombay. Deals were struck in Irani restaurants, inquiries made in banks on Bank Street, and a faulty letter e’ on a typewritten letter lead the detectives to a furniture shop in Grawford Market. While the plot is derivative of detective novels in English, the particularities of this story rejoice in the buzz of a growing city and the sheer plausibility with which these mechanisms could be transferred to their Bombay setting. The use of the press as a decoy in the course of discovering the whereabouts of a criminal gang and the suavity o f conversations with opium dealers suggest a cosmopolitanism and street-smartness acquired by second-generation migrants, at home in the urbanization of neighbourhood newsboys, typewriters, telephones, and taxis.83 Living among the Goan elite seemed to pose a greater problem within Konkani fiction than living among people from other parts of India. While the Goan elite suggested that the plague had in part been caused by the conditions in which the Goan working-class lived, the time of the epidemic was recalled quite differently in the Konkani novels of the ti me. In the novel Lulu for instance, the plague allowed for a description of the life of plenitude of the Goan migrant, and its depletion by the disease: Since these places happen to be important rendezvous to Goans in that city and since I am presenting this account for the benefit of Goans, I undoubtedly have to recall that areas such as Cavel, Mazagaon, and the outskirts o f Girgaum were deserted because o f that deadly plague— especially Cavel, which I would have nicknamed the Goan Village. The Glass House o f Cavel, or what the poor among us call the ‘Glass Castle’, looked like a vacated factory. O ne would ordinarily be delighted while passing the houses in which the true Goans lived to hear music emanating from pianos, organs, violins, and the sound of melodious singing. These houses told a strange story that year and were evidence of the sudden severe attack o f the plague.84

Any mention of illness in the city was occasion to criticize the alleged rapaciousness of the elite Goan doctors in the city. The medical profession in Bombay had a number of Goans, and resistance to them was articulated through the rejection of modern medicine and the valorization of older medical traditions followed in Goa.85 Much Konkani print was supported by advertisements for a series of quick-fix medical remedies from chemists based in Bombay and Goa.

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| A R

e t r o s p e c t iv e

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ie w o f

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oa

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Scarcely any play or novel, however, was located in Bombay alone. Most literature represented the dual space of the migrant imagination: the city o f Bombay, and the villages of Goa. Novels and plays straddled the oppositions that constituted the life of a nineteenth century Goan: the present city and the absent village. The urban economy was the present reality of the migrant, and the rural landlord-tenant relationship was the past that they had escaped. It was through novels that the system of landlordism was criticized, and its demise caused partly through the migration of tenants to Bombay, enacted. Romances between the landlord’s daughter and the tenant’s migrant son, the revenge of the tenant and the dependency of the landlord, were common fictive devices which chipped at social hierarchies as they made a claim for the dignity and social equality of the migrant tenant to be recognized. Rags to riches stories enabled by a foothold in the city not only affected, therefore, the immediate marital prospects and life of a protagonist, but implicitly strengthened the process by which rural social relations were transformed. The most meagre salary in Bombay was probably still more than could be earned in Goa. The inevitable erosion of monopolies on social prestige with the visible and growing stability of thousands of migrants who visited their homes in Goa, was viewed with some resentment and trepidation by affluent landlords. While the Catholic Church had structured itself around the hierarchies of class and caste in Goa, it was within the metaphors of Christian equality that most critiques of these structures were offered in plays and novels. The discrepancies o f land distribution were discussed in a variety of print forms in Konkani. Apart from essays in newsprint, it had shaped political histories in Konkani.86 This preoccupation also determined which stories were selected for translation into Konkani. Adaptations and translations were used as a flexible canvas, not just to plot the escape of Goan landless labour to richer economies, but also to refigure a history for Goa. Many adaptations would not have been recognizable from original texts were it not for the title o f the texts and the names of protagonists. If Dumas’ Chateau d ’i f w z s m apped onto and thereby glamourized the Goan landscape, a story of Julius Caesar and his son Constantin allowed for the construction of an ancient past for Goa, for an imagination of the rituals and practices and landscape of the time, and for a commentary on both the imagined past and contemporary reality. Constantin’s visit to Goa (at that time not on the map, we are told) provided an occasion for festivals,

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weddings and medical practices to be described, and ended with an exhortation to Goans to use their money wisely and learn how to invest it, and to Goan landlords and rulers, to rule better.87

| In h ab itin g a Fo rm : A D iscu ssion o f th e N o v e l B attcara | In 1900, an advertisement for the Konkani novel Battcara stated, ‘This novel shows the life of a Goan landlord from birth to death...it traces the enmity between brother and sister-in-law, and shows how the Goan landlord mires the Bombayite in litigation and debt’.88 The following is a discussion of one of the earliest available Konkani novels that was advertised as a criticism of Goan landlords. A. C. J. Franciscos Battcara adopted the norms of a realist biographical novel, and traced the life of a Goan landlord from birth to middle age.89 The situation depicted in the novel, we are told, was one that could be found in about 1845, nearly half a century before the time it was written. The way in which the form of realist fiction is employed in Battcara suggests that the norms of realist novels were absorbed and reproduced as a marker o f elite and therefore normalized fictional writing. These were, however, subsumed by extra­ realist techniques that suggested their inadequacy to contain the problematic of non-elite narratives. The previous chapter has suggested two ways (ethnography and ethnographic satire) in which the norms of realist representation were thwarted in novels that claimed to employ them. If non-elite fiction had to approximate the status of elite fiction, it did so by reproducing it and foregrounding the signs of its dominance. Non-elite narratives could not, as the novel discussed below suggests, be accommodated comfortably within dom inant forms. Realism could not be emptied of its themes that usually involved dominant social groups and reworked with new ones. Instead, non-elite writers used distancing techniques to implicitly inscribe a place outside dom inant realist narratives while reproducing them in their entirety. The figure of the landlord in Battcara was almost always preceded by an explanatory gloss, which demarcated the class of landlords as one apart from that of the narrator or of most readers. The repeated reintroduction of the landlord through the novel as though he had not been mentioned earlier suggested an inability to normalize the techniques of realist representation. The narrator stated for instance, ‘In those days many of

The History o f the Book in South Asia The Domain of Konkani A 245

those, whom the tenants, labourers, and coconut tree climbers called batcar, had begun to educate their children.90 While the statement ostensibly constructed a record of the spread of education in Goa, it defamiliarized the term batcar , as though it required to be explained to readers. The gloss on the word batcar, the use of the past tense, and the reference to a particular point in the past, suggests that the term and therefore the social conditions which produced it had disappeared so far back in time that the word batcar in print demanded an explanation. Each object or event depicted in this novel about the life of a Goan landlord appeared either as a signifier of the distance between the life of a Goan peasant and a Goan landlord, or its distance from the contemporary situation and time in which the author set them down. While many of the plot elements and situations depicted in this novel are similar to those in Gip s Jacob e D ulce discussed in the previous chapter, the forms of representation indicate that the narrator of Battcara was situated quite outside the class he described. While the narrator in Jacobe Dulce rhetorically constructed an audience external to his protagonists, as an ironical expository technique, the intended readership for the novel was the class depicted in it. The relation to objects and events depicted in Battcara , however, implicitly suggested that its readership did not share the experiences of the protagonist. The sense of shared hum our evident in Jacob e Dulce is not evident here. Instead, the narrator of Battcara informed his readership of the minute details that comprized the life of the affluent Goan landlord as he criticized it. The novel detailed the movements, objects, and modes of reasoning of the class of landlords as a fulfilment of the curiosity of a readership located well outside the realm depicted. The narrator’s repeated comments that some of the things he described were typical of half a century earlier, persuaded readers to view contemporary Goa and contemporary land relations as somewhat changed. He commented, for instance, on the landlord s house: ...strangers would be astonished to see the house that was bigger than the palaces of all of Goa’s governors and bishops. There were many good things which were expensive by the standards of the time when we didn’t usually see things like that, as well as by today’s standards.91

There were three aspects to these descriptions of furniture: their precise physical state and the material of which they were made, the location in which they appeared in the house, and the familial use of furniture in

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the house. At that time it wasn’t customary to keep a round table in the middle of the room as is done now5, said the narrator: and around it there weren’t chairs and a sofa as we see now when we walk into a good room. But there were a few chairs of black wood that had high seats and four shingles in the middle and there was no handiwork on them. The coir and cane of the seat having been torn out before, it was covered with a counterpane.92

The intricacy of detail, and the elaboration of the absence of an entire set of furniture conveyed many meanings; it emphasized the narrators familiarity with the ways of the rich, the fact that the family in question may have fallen on hard days since it had not repaired its chairs, and that affluence was accompanied by greater plenitude of objects around the house, from the early to the late nineteenth century. The reader learned as well how the daily life of the landlord’s household could be mapped according to their use of furniture. Four large benches of good wood, were used by the mother, daughter and daughter-in-law to sew during the day, and to sit on after singing the Ave Maria’.93 The changes that occurred in the years between 1845, the time of the novel, and 1897, the time it was written, had brought more furniture to the rich, and a detailed knowledge of furniture and its meanings, to the upwardly mobile poor. The changes brought by the passage of time did not, however, necessarily signify a change between tradition and modernity, or between indigenous and western ways. Black wood chairs in the homes of the rural bourgeoisie in Goa by the early nineteenth century were not a novelty, and were remarked on only in comparison to the abundance brought by later years. The absorption of Portuguese influences was interpreted as a sign of the acquisition o f western cultural norm s, but this was not the predominant or most significant connotation to the demarcating of older domestic arrangements from new ones. W hen the narrator stated, for instance, that, ‘These days rich people have cabinets and large cupboards which in English are called “wardrobes ”, or that ‘the daughter-in-law and daughter would keep their clothes in these; the daughter-in-law wearing bazu-toddpin and the daughter a dress,’ a refined knowledge of a variety of modern social norms is being displayed.94 The bazu-toddpin was a form of dress adapted by Goan women subsequent to the entry of the Portuguese, and its gradual replacement with the dress signified the upper class origins of its wearer, as well as the process o f modernization. The shift to the dress undoubtedly devalued indigenous clothing that

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had become a sign of lower class norms, but this shift did not symbolize the loss of cultural authenticity within the novel. The unfolding of the stages and nature of the life of the landlord had a doubled meaning, just as that which informed the representation of objects. The description of each aspect of the landlords life evoked its difference from a norm implicit and consistent in the novel— the standard of life of the Goan peasant. As with the Portuguese novel Jacob e Dulce published a year before, the institutions into which the landlord class was born were introduced through the signs of their corruption and fraudulence, as well as, in the case of this novel, the contrast with the unprotected fortunes of Goan peasants.95 The protagonist, Especta^äo blundered through school, but his mark of twelve is transformed to twenty-one, and he is declared to have cleared an examination before appearing for it. This satire on the education system is common to Jacob e Dulce as well, but in Battcara some of the consequences of such corruption are given further space. The doctor called in to attend to Especta^ao’s father who is ill because of excessive drinking, is unable to diagnose the problem. D r Bento, claimed the narrator: had not studied medicine the way it is studied now but was a compounder with D r Ferreira Mourao...he spoke good Portuguese but couldn’t write a letter straight. But just as we say Esperimentado metado letradoy that’s how he ran his profession.96

The three rhyming Portuguese words implied that semi-educated doctors learnt their profession as they attended to various patients. Once he left home to train as a lawyer, Especta^ao s education follows a similar pattern of informal irregularity. A description of the birth and baptismal ceremony o f the heir of the family provided an occasion for the establishment o f class difference. ‘Celebration wine is red’, said the narrator. However, ‘The toddy tapper said that the landlord had distributed wine for the celebration^ but it wasn’t real wine. After filling the wine in bottles from the barrel, ordinary coconut liquor was mixed with it and burnt sugar added to make it sweet’.97 The narrator described the growing interest in the village about Espectaa) o f H indi, had indicated 1873, the year he lau n ch ed H arischandra *s M agazine, as the beginning o f a new era for (K hari Boli) H indi. B ut w hereas B härtendu, an eclectic experim enter, had k ep t his definition o f the print language fairly loose, D vivedI took a rath er m ore stern and norm ative view on the m atter. T he standard langu­ age he relen tlessly im posed on all contributions to S arasvati w as a high re g iste r with reg u lar syntax and w ord order, elaborate subordinate clau­ se s and a p referen ce for a b stract nouns and nom inal verbs. The sam e reg u lar syntax, co n sid ered fit for the exp ressio n o f ab stract ideas in an o bjective m anner, w as applied to both pro se and poetry, w hile it w as left to ad jectiv es to convey sentim ent. S econd, Sarasvati w as a m iscellan ea o f ‘useful k n o w led g e’ and ‘usefu l litera tu re’: it co m prised articles and creativ e p ieces on historical and contem porary issu e s o f public interest. A t the sam e tim e, the choice o f su b jects and o f language rev ealed D vive­ dI’s stro n g opinions about w hat kind o f literature w as fit for the tim es (cf. 2.2): only K hari Boli poetry and sh o rt sto ries on historical or refo rm ­ ist th em es w ere accepted. F or exam ple, he co m m issio n ed a team o f ‘D vivedI p o e ts ’ to illustrate w ith p o em s reproductions o f R avi V a rm a ’s h isto rical and m ythological p aintings; M aithillsaran G u p ta’s Bhäratbhärati can be co n sid ered a typical exam ple o f the poetry D vivedI ap­ p ro v ed o f (cf. h ere 3.1). By ex ercisin g such rigid screening and c e n so r­ ship o f the m aterial to be p u b lish ed in term s both o f language and con­ tent, and by review ing regularly and extensively publications in H indi, D vivedI d em o n strated the potential o f the journal as an educational and standardizing m edium . H e w as fam ous for the stinging sarc asm he d irected at w orks that did not m eet his standards, and he could be equally h arsh ag ain st Braj B h asa poetry and C häyäväd, w hich he rejected as ‘u s e le s s ’ and harm ful to H indi literatu re.71 D vivedI thus em bodied the figure o f the ed ito r-arb iter b efo re the figure o f the p ro fessio n al critic existed , and u sed the jo u rn a l as a m eans to sp read ‘sta n d a rd ’ norm s and v alu es in the H indi public sphere. Jaysarikar P ra s a d ’s v e n tu re Indu (B enares, 1909-), by contrast, broke new literary ground by introducing K hari B oli and Braj B h asa poetry that S a rasvati w ould not publish. Y et its self-consciously so p h isticated out­ look sp e a k s m ore o f the d esire o f two ‘ra s ik s ’ (con n o isseu rs), P rasa d (1 8 8 9 -1 9 3 7 ) and R äy k rsn ä D as (1 892-1980), to ‘p u b licize’ their own 71

Under the pen-name ‘Sukavi kimkar’, S arasvati , May 1922.

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Language and the Literary>Sphere f 55 tastes and the resu lts o f th eir ex perim entations than o f any organized project. T he jo u rn al bro u g h t out a few ‘ra y s ’, i.e. issu e s, and then w ith­ ered. By contrast, w hen M ädhuri cam e out from L ucknow in July 1922 under the editorship o f D ularelal B hargava, ‘adorned with varied topics, related to literature, illu strated ’ (vividh visay-vibhüsit, sähitya-sambandhi, sacitra ), it had im m ediate im pact on the literary sphere. A s a com petitor said, it ‘created a so rt o f revolution in H indi jou rn alism . . . until then nobody knew that such a large m agazine could be brought out in H indi’ ,72 It w as not only a q uestio n o f size and presentation (it w as over a hundred pag es long, with plenty o f colour plates, sev eral colum ns, and all the m ost fam ous H indi w riters and poets as contributors). Mädhuri differed from Sarasvati in one crucial respect: its openness. W ithout the m o ralist and refo rm ist m ould M ah äv lr P ra sa d D vivedI had c ast Sarasvati in, w ithout a definite agenda and with a m ore com m ercial orientation, it opened its p ag es to a m uch g reater variety o f voices and styles. It tried to reflect contem porary public opinion rath er than m ould it. In fact, though in outlook M ädhuri did not differ substantially from its p re d e c e s­ so r,73 it sho w ed how o p e n n e ss alone m ade all the difference. M ädhuri becam e the forum for d isc u ssio n and literary production in Hindi. A s had been the case with S a rasvati, e ssa y s on literary or topical su b jects, m ostly by learn ed contributors, took up h a lf o f the jo u rn al, along with political n ew s and com m ents by the editor, fixed colum ns on literary and g eneral new s, sh o rt co ntributions, book review s, etc. T he em p h asis w as on the w ide-ranging nature o f the reading m aterial offered, and m ore on inform ation than on edification. T h is apparently m inor shift brought about a very sig n ifican t change and allow ed M ädhuri to becom e an open venue for differen t tastes and opinions, from Braj B h asa to the latest ex ­ p erim entations in K hari Boli. N otes, articles, and contributions by un­ know n n am es w ere w elcom e. B oth renow ned sch o lars and new com ers could tackle the sam e topics and a d d re sse d the sam e public solely on the strength o f their argum ents. In this w ay, both acquired a public voice and a role that tran scen d ed their individually defined identities, becom ing m em bers o f the d iscu rsiv e public sp h ere; read ers w ere im plicitly invited to m ake up their own m inds b etw een the different opinions presented. W hen the co n trib u to r’s opinion differed considerably from that o f the 72 Devldatt Sukla, at the time assistant editor of S a ra sv a ti , admits that his own journal had to increase the number of pages, plates, and columns in order to keep pace. Sukla, Sam pädak he p a c c h ls vars, p. 20. 73 In the introductory statement to the first issue, Dularelal Bhargava acknow­ ledged S a ra sv a ti as his model.

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504

The History o f the Book in South Asia

56 / The H indi Public Sphere editor, the latter could choose to publish along with it a short note if he considered it worthwhile or exciting reading nonetheless. It was this openness, the variety of the information the journals provided, and their participatory nature that made them the most important supplement or substitute for schools as a source of cultural and political education. The other great appeal of M ädhuri lay in creative writing, mostly poems and short stories, which took up the other half of every issue. Here, again* Bhargava was more catholic than Mahavlr Prasad DvivedI in his tastes. Braj Bhasa poems appeared along with Khari Boli ones, whether by established ‘DvivedI poets’, fiery nationalists such as GayäprasädSuklaSanehl ‘Trisül’ (1883-1972), ‘Ekbhärtiyätm ä’ (Mäkhanläl Chaturvedl), Lochanprasäd Pändey and others, or by new voices such as Badrinäth Bhatt, a very young Bälkrsna Sarrna ‘Navin’ (1897-1960) and Bhagavatlcharan Varmä (1903-81); there were also the controversial Chäyävädls: some ofNirälä’s first poems, ‘Turn aur maim’ and ‘Adhiväs’, appeared in early 1923 and Prasad’s play Janm ejay K yä N äg-yajna in December 1922. Braj Bhasa poetry featured regularly, not only in schol­ arly articles and commentaries by the foremost Hindi scholars: an addi­ tional column on Braj Bhasa poetry and poets, ‘Kavi charchä’, started in January 1925, bearing witness to its enduring popularity and the ongoing process of canonization. Short stories, universally acknowledged to be what made journals sell, were practically created as a genre by these journals. M ädhuri supported this trend, enlisting regular contributions from authors who had acquired a loyal readership: Premchand, Visvambhamäth ‘Kausik’, and Sudarsan. Indeed, short stories by unknown authors were also readily published, and they were the first contributions to command payment. As a rule, short stories and novels followed differ­ ent courses of publication. Although at the turn of the century some periodicals appeared carrying only novels in instalments, novels pub­ lished in journals in the 1920s were surprisingly few. Short stories always appeared in periodicals first, while novels were mostly sold to a publisher, possibly an indication that a distribution system that could ensure continuity of reading was yet underdeveloped.74 Journals like M ädhuri were thus vital in providing an opening, legiti­ macy, and publicity for new writers. They also reflect a literary sphere 74 The only novels Sarasvati serialized were translations from Bengali; Chärhd w as more enterprising and serialized among others Premchand’ s Nirmalä ( 1 9 2 5 - 6 ) and Pratijnä ( 19 2 7 ), and G . P. S riv ä sta v a ’ s Dil ki äg urf diljale ki äh (publ. 19 3 3). Sudhä , B h argava’ s next venture after Mädhuri, serialized Vrndävanläl V arm a’ s Kundali cakra , K au sik’ s novel Mä (19 2 9 ) and N irälä’ s first novel, Apsarä (19 3 0 ). Am ong the separate journals publishing novels in instalments and catering to the low-brow

The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary Sphere I 51

in which variety was accepted and novelty was not only tolerated but en­ couraged: in this way, the originality and literariness of contemporary Khari Boli poetry were legitimized. At the same time, the taste for Braj Bhasa poetry, though not of the most erotic kind, was also validated in the public arena (cf. 2.2). The team of literary scholars Mahävir Prasäd DvivedI had collected around S arasvati was drawn to the new, more glamorous and financially rewarding journal: among them were the Misra brothers, Rämchandra Sukla, Guläbräl, and occasionally DvivedI himself. At the same time, M ädhuri gave space to the younger generation of poets and graduates like Krsnadev Prasad Gaur (1895-1965), Mätädln Sukla and Parasuräm ChaturvedI, who sympathized with and defended the new literature. Altogether, they made M ädhuri the foremost forum in Hindi for literary discussion. It was journals, more than public associations, that carried controver­ sies and created news. With literary reviews slowly developing, they also provided an on-line commentary on the literature that was being pro­ duced. To writers (and therefore readers) coming from varied schooling experiences and literary samskäras, magazines like M ädhuri thus pro­ vided a common and thorough literary grounding. As we have seen, they were enormously influential in validating and encouraging new tastes while accommodating earlier ones. Finally, it was the growing centrality of journals that shifted the main medium of literary transmission from orality to print. Even poems recited at kavi sammelans acquired a longer lifespan through publication. While earlier poems were recited and diväns were printed, now journals ensured a more piecemeal and conti­ nuous publication in print. In fact, literature in journals had a peculiar semi-permanence. Journals, available privately or in libraries even in rural areas, travelled further and faster than books, but they also dis­ appeared more quickly, since few libraries kept old files; only at times were journals a prelude to a more permanent existence as books, yet literary material in journals aimed at something more than the piovision of entertaining reading matter. Beside the declared aim of ‘filling the sthäyi bhandär [treasure] of Hindi’, they fostered a lively discursive literary sphere, where contributors referred to other contributors and poets responded to other poets in a uniform, public space. market were K isorlläl G o sväm l’ s Upanyäs (19 0 0 ), Gopälräm G ahm aiTs Jäsüs (19 00 ), and Devkinandan Khatrl’ s Upanyäs lahri (19 0 2 ), still running in the 19 2 0 s with an average o f 50 0 copies. S e e my ‘ Detective N ovels: A Com m ercial Genre in Nineteenth-century North India’ , in V . Dalmia and S . Blackburn, eds, New Literary

Histories fo r South A sia (forthcoming).

505

506

The History o f the Book in South Asia

58 / The Hindi Public Sphere The expansion of journals in the 1920s went hand in hand with their commercialization. A large investment required sales of at least 2000 copies to break even, hence more attention was paid to the technical aspects of advertising and distribution. S arasvati had counted on the net­ work of government and affiliated schools and public libraries through­ out the Gangetic plain, thanks to the excellent rapport between the Indian Press and the Education Department. An expensive enterprise like M ädhurl needed both a big initial investment, and especially managerial skills. While the former could be provided by a publishing house or by making the journal a limited company, the latter depended on the new figure of the editor-entrepreneur. Sarasvati belonged to the Indian Press, M ädhurl to Nawal Kishore, Visäl Bhärat to the Ramananda Chatterjee group which published M odern R eview and Prabasi. Chärhd , started with private capital, turned into a press and publishing house—Chand Karyalay—and was made into a limited company in 1932. The daily Äj, founded by the nationalist millionaire Babu Sivaprasäd Gupta through a company, Bharat Samachar Samiti, was said to have incurred a loss of Rs 40,000 in the first year, a loss no lone editor could have faced; it was incorporated with Jnanmandal, Sivaprasäd Gupta’s publishing house, and converted into a limited company in 1940.75Dularelal Bhargava and Rämrakh Simh Sahgal of Chand Press were representatives of the new wave of editors who had managerial flair. Duläreläl Bhärgava in fact pro­ vides the best example of a literary entrepreneur in this period: with M ädhurl he created a new sense of competition among Hindi monthlies by loud self-publicity, by continuously increasing the number of pages, columns and illustrations, improving paper quality, and offering extra features like special issues: in a word, by making continuous innovation a value. Other journals had to follow suit in order to remain competitive, and the old one-man ventures could hardly afford it. Further, enterprising editors such as Duläreläl Bhärgava and Rämrakh Sahgal tried to in­ crease distribution by employing local sales representatives and by dis­ tributing their journals at railway stalls through an agreement with A.H. Wheelers, the bookseller. They also fostered a strong emotional link 75 B .V . Parärkar

(1880-1955), the editor o f Äj, remarked in his presidential speech

at the first Editors’ Conference at the 1 6th Hindi Sähitya Sam m elan meeting in Brindaban in

1925 that the time o f the owner-editor w as gone. Though the need for capital

inevitably narrowed down the editor’ s freedom, ‘progress can only happen through comm ercial means. . . . N o w capitalists [invest] out o f patriotism or indirect interest, later when su ccess comes they w ill invest out o f interest, and it will be a tough time for editors and for the independence o f n ew s’ ; quoted in Sammelan patrikä , XIII,

4-5, 1925,

p.

237.

S e e V isvanäth Prasad, ‘ Jnänmandal’ , n.d.

The History o f the Book in South Asia L a n g u a g e a n d th e L ite r a r y S p h e re I 5 9

with their readership through aggressive self-publicity in the pages of their own journals. One peculiar form of self-publicity Bhärgava intro­ duced (and Sahgal took up) was the regular publication o f appraising comments (sam m ati) on the journal and its publications by leading lite­ rary people, other journals, and noted personalities.76 Advertising was also actively pursued, generally at the front and the back: M ädhurl , Sudhä , Chärhd, S a rasvati, and Ä j carried several pages of advertise­ ments for small consumer items, testifying to the fact that the vernacular public had started to be acknowledged as a consumer market (Illustra­ tion 1.1) . Another factor in the greater commercial viability o f journals in the 1920s was the sym biosis between periodical and ‘ stable’ (sthäyi) litera­ ture. S arasvati once again had shown the way and most of the important

Illustration 1 . 1

Hindi periodicals followed suit. Journals were either launched by bookpublishing houses or else their publishers branched out into book publishing them selves. The sym biosis between periodical and ‘ stable’ literature is easily explained: books enhanced and confirmed the success 76

See advertisements in the second issue.

507

The Histoiy o f the Book in South Asia

508

60 / The H indi P ublic Sphere of poems, short stories, or novels already familiar to the public through journals. They also multiplied the profit, since the same material could be used twice— and with no additional cost when the editor-publisher bought the rights of the work, as Duläreläl Bhargava did. Journals meant publicity, since they could carry large advertisements for the books published by the publishing house (Duläreläl Bhärgava even had his own book praised in his own magazine!), and both journals and books could use the same channels of distribution. The habit of subscribing to a jour­ nal or a publisher, becoming a sthäyi grähak , was strongly encouraged: beside creating a sentimental link between the publisher and the reader, it provided financial security to the former and concessional rates to the latter. Journals and publishing departments could share not only the mate­ rial, but also manpower, thus creating the first professional class of salaried intellectuals in Hindi. After DvivedI himself, Rüpnäräy an Pändey, Sivpüjan Sahäy (1893-1963), Navjädikläl Srivastava (1888-1939), Devidatt Sukla, Banärsldäs Chaturvedi, Mäkhanläl Chaturvedi and Mätädln Sukla were among the first professional literary editors.77 To take S arasvati as an example, M.P. DvivedI worked also as literary advi­ sor to the publisher, suggesting titles, writers and employees, and was the first ever Hindi editor to receive a pension from his employers. Later, Devidatt Sukla, who joined the Literature Department of the Indian Press in 1918, was asked to assist in editing the house’s children’s journal Bälsakhä , read the proofs of S a rasvati , and translate articles for it as well as several books for the Indian Press. Premchand, who in 1927 was offered the editorship of M ädhuri by Babu Bisnunäräyan Bhärgava (at Rs 200 per month, the highest pay for an editor at the time), was entrusted as well ‘with the task not only of preparing textbooks for the Nawal Kishore Press but also of getting them prescribed in syllabi, and . . . had to do a lot of travelling, to Benares or to Kanpur, to Patna or to Naini Tal’. In 1931 he was moved to another branch of the publishing house, the Book Depot.78Journals required both stable, salaried staff who sat in the office and occasional or fixed contributors who sent in their work by post and came to the office for occasional meetings. Duläreläl Bhärgava in par­ ticular introduced the practice of regularly paying contributors and for the first time allowed writers to think that they might actually earn a living 77 S e e biographies in the Appendix. 78 S e e Amr'iiRai, Premchand: A Life, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1 9 9 1 , pp. 2 3 0 and 266.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary Sphere / 61

from freelance writing. In practice, the question of monetary remunera­ tion remained a thorny one. Only large journals could afford salaried staff and paid contributors; and actually, most occasional writers were content to see their articles in print (Illustration 1.2). Besides, demanding money for säh itya-sevä, service to literature, could appear improper. Throughout his life, Jaysankar Prasad considered that payment for any of his writings defiled his pure devotion to Sarasvati, the goddess of learning. Poems were not paid ‘by column’ like the rest, They have no price and cannot be paid by page,’ cunningly argued D. Bhärgava in an editorial note, and concluded laconically: ‘cbfacii ^TT ^ %’ (to reward a poem is a complex matter).79 On the other hand, for the new impecunious Hindi intelligentsia writ­ ing had become a means of survival, however meagre and however tinted

Illustration 1.2 . T h e poor editor is surrounded b y w hat are now clearly reco gn iz­ able as ‘ w riter ty p e s ’ . ‘ Print our e s s a y s , w hich u sher in a new a g e ’ , they sa y , T ve got a cupboard full o f them and I ’ m go ing m ad ’ , is his reply. S o u rce : M ädhuri , III, pt. 1, 5 , D ecem b er 1 9 2 4 , p. 6 6 3.

19Madhuri, II, pt. I, 4, Novem ber 19 2 3 , p. 5 1 2 .

509

510

The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia

62 / The H indi Public Sphere with nationalist passion. Poor remuneration jeopardized the possibility of maintaining a dignified living standard adequate to the public status of a ‘writer’ (cf. 2.3). 80 Journals attracted Hindi literati, whether as stable staff or as occasional contributors, and tended to shift the centre of lite­ rary production from villages and courts to towns. They also induced a shift in literary training and recognition: the editor became the ustäd or guru who passed or failed one as a writer; to have published in Sara­ sv a ti , M ädhuri , Prabhä, etc. became the mark of recognition. Editors’ offices became symbols of this shift and of the poignant ambiguity be­ tween literary work as sevä (i.e. dedicated service) or as naulcri (clerical work). The ‘professional’ atmosphere of the office could feel unpleas­ antly impersonal for the traditional literary person: in 1923 Sivpujan Sahäy left the Matvälä office in Calcutta, where the atmosphere was con­ genial but the pay insignificant, to go and work for Duläreläl Bhärgava’s M ädhuri for much higher remuneration. Yet the business-like atmos­ phere was so disturbing that he quit shortly after and went back to Mat­ välä.81 When Kisoridäs Vajpeyi, already well-known as a grammarian, decided to quit teaching and work ‘among the gods’ (i.e. among editors), he was appalled by the office-like (daftari) reception at Sudhä’s office and left immediately. The working atmosphere at Chand Karyalay, though equally ‘European’ and professional, was tempered by the famil­ ial and protective attitude Sahgal and his wife had towards the staff.82 The complete trust Chintamani Ghosh (and later his son Harikeshav Ghosh) had in Mahävlr Prasäd DvivedI is well known. DvivedI, always very sensitive about hierarchy, was deeply moved, since this trust con­ cealed the fact that DvivedI was only an employee; he termed the publishe rs’ attitude towards him as one of personal krpä (favour). Devidatt Sukla, who worked at the Indian Press for 26 years, from 1919 to 1945, 80 Once questioned by Banärsidäs Chaturvedi on the subject in 19 30 , Premchand replied that to that time, writing ( 1 3 0 stories and seven novels between 1 9 2 1 and 19 3 2 ) had earned him from R s 50 to R s 80 a month— a meagre sum for the best and most popular Hindi fiction writer; quoted in Robert O. Sw an Munshi Premchand o f

Lamhi Village , Durham, Duke University Press, 19 69 , p. 28. This conclusion has been questioned by later critics, who point to Premchand’ s liberality and disastrous management o f his press as the causes o f his financial problems. 81 Räm viläs Sarm ä, Nirälä ki sähitya sädhnä, vol. 1, p. 8 3. 82 Devidatt Sukla recalls the awe the first glimpse o f the Indian Press office ins­ pired in him; Sampädakkep a cch isva rs , p. 9. In fact, his experience is fairly indicative o f that o f a Hindi literary publicist; see biography in the Appendix. S e e also K i­ soridäs V äjp eyl, Sähityik jivan aur samsmaran, Kankhal, Himalay A gen cy, 19 5 3 , pp. 8 - 1 3 .

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary Sphere / 63

recalled his joyful surprise at finding that the publishers behaved to­ wards employees more like family elders than masters.83 BOX 1.1

The Hindi Political Press The expansion of miscellaneous journals and of the reading public must be set in the context of the general expansion and growth of the Hindi press, especially the political weeklies and dailies. While Urdu newspapers flourished in the nineteenth century, the only Hindi daily launched in the North Western Provinces was more the result of an experiment than of existing demand (Hindosthan, 1883). The concentration of Marwari capital and of Bengali publish­ ing made Calcutta an early centre of the Hindi press and attracted a sizable community of ‘expatriate’ Hindi literary people with a high turnover. Here emerged some successful political weeklies, and the first dailies with World War I: Bhäratmitra (weekly, 1878, then daily), H indi b a h g v ä si( 1890), Calcutta sam äch är( daily, 1914-18), Visvam itra (daily, 1916), Svatantra (daily, 1920-30), with eminent editors like Bälmukund Gupta, Laksminäräy an Garde, Ambikäprasäd Väjpeyl, and B.V. Parärkar. In north India, the torch-bearers were H indi pradlp (1877-1910) in Allahabad and Bhärat jivan (weekly, 1884) in Benares. But it was only between 1910 and 1920 that political weeklies, and dailies after 1920, grew in every town into real focuses of poli­ tical activity, and often of factionalism, attracting activists and writers. Among them were: in Allahabad A bhyuday (weekly, 1907) and M aryädä (monthly, 1910-21, ca. 1500 copies) launched by M.M. Mälavlya; later the radical B havisya (1919, daily in 1920, ed. Sundarläl), soon forced to close down, and the weekly Bhärat (1928, daily in 1933) edited by V.N, Tiväri for the Leader Press. In Kanpur G.S. Vidyarthl’s Pratäp (weekly, 1913, daily during World War I and after 1920) and Prabhä (monthly, 1920, 3000 copies in 1921), and the dailies Vartamän (1920, ed. R. Av^sthl) and Ä dars (1921,4000 co. in 1921) acquired a popular edge, as did Sainik (ed. K.D. Pällväl, weekly 1925, daily 1935) in Agra. Benares grew into a centre of the nationalist press with Ä j (daily, 1920, ed. B.V. Parärkar), Jägaran (weekly, 1929), and H am s (monthly, 1930, both 83 D. Sukla, Sampcidak ke pacch ls vars, p. 10.

511

512

The History o f the Book in South Asia

64 / The H indi P ublic Sphere ed. Premchand). In Lucknow, Hindi dailies emerged only after the Hindu-Muslim riot of 1924. Ä rti (1924) and Änand (1924) eroded the common readership of the Urdu H am dam ,u in Delhi and the Punjab Hindi newspapers like the short-lived Dainik Vijay (daily 1918, 7000 copies), Arjun (daily, 1923), and Navyug (1931) were run by Ärya Samäjists, often from Gurukul Kangri. Other locally important nationalist newspapers were active in Almora (Sakti , 1918), Garhwal ( V isälK irti ), Hathras (Bhärat bandhu ), and Gorakh­ pur (S v a d e s , 1919, ed. D.P. DvivedI); in the Central Provinces there were K arm avir (1924) in Jabalpur, the Gandhian Tyägbhümi (1927) in Ajmer; in Bihar Bihär bandhu (1874), Pataliputra (1920), and the socialist Jantä (1937).85Table 1.1 list important periodicals in UP between 1921 and 1937. Table 1.1. Important periodicals in UP, 1921-1937 19 2 1

1926

19 30

19 35

19 3 7

price p.a. Rs annas

English Independent

D

4000

Leader

D

Pioneer

D

3600 7500 7000 16,000

14,000

15,000

14,500

20.0

12,000

8,500

19,000

24.0 18.0

Urdu 4500

2000

2500

5000

1000

12,50 0 a

6000

6500

7500

8000

6.0

M

2000

1600

1500

500

1000

5.0

Abhyuday

w

6000

3000

3000

2500

6000

Äj Bharat

D

2000

3000

5000

5000

6000

12.0

-

9000

5500

5000

20.0

-

11,0 0 0

-

-

15,000

6,500

5000

6.8

1500

2000

1000

6.0

3000

5000

300

2.4

Hamdam

D

Medina

Bi-weekly

Zamana

Hindi

Bhavisya

Bi-weekly W

-

2000

Chämd

M

-

Hams

M

-

Hindi kesari

W

3600

6000 -

700

3.8 .

84 S e e Mädhuri, III, pt. 1 , 4 , Novem ber 19 2 4 , p. 5 7 1 .

^ Bibliography: in English only R.R. Bhatnagar’ s informative but unwieldy The Rise and Growth o f Hindi Journalism (Allahabad, 1 9 5 1 ) is available; in Hindi, K .B . M isra, H indipatrakäritä (19 6 8 ) is valuable for Calcutta journalism; Brahmanand’ s Bhärtiy svatantratä ändolan aur uttarprades ki hindipatrakäritä (19 8 6 ) is a compre­ hensive su rvey and a history o f the nationalist movement through the Hindi press. Com parative charts on subscriptions to and numbers o f Hindi and Urdu newspapers are available in Bhatnagar, The Rise and Growth, pp. 36 8 ff.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

513

Language and the Literary Sphere 1 65 M W D

Mädhuri Pratäp

w

Sainik Sarasvati Sakti Sudhä Svades Vartamän a19 2 2

M W M W D

-

9000 -

4000 1000 -

3500 8000a

6000 7500 1000

3200 1500

4000 16,000 5000 4500 3500

-

1200

2500

-

7200b -

4000

2000

2000

6.8

14,000 12,000

1000 1000

10.0

7000 2500

5000 5000

3.6 3.00

1000

1200

6.8 2.8

2000

2000

12.0

-

4000

-

2500

12.0

b19 28

Source: ‘Statement of Newspapers and Periodicals published in the UP’ (Govern­ ment Press, Allahabad) for the relevant years.

Part of the political press expanded by lowering prices and in­ creasing sales. In a general shift from being journals of ideas to journals of news, Hindi newspapers widened their appeal and paid more attention to the popular public of Hindi, This is what G.S. Vidyärthl’s Pratäp and B.V. Parärkar’s Ä j did: they gave voice to local concerns through a network of local stringers rather than re­ lying on English news agencies. This important move contribut­ ed substantially to opening and widening the Hindi public sphere (cf. 5.1) and showed an awareness that the Hindi public was intrinsi­ cally different from the more elite English one. In the editors’ eyes, it was also more genuine: the lives of Hindi readers were ‘true’, those of English-educated Indians were ‘artificial’. ‘Hindi newspa­ pers ought to mirror their lives instead of aping English papers,’ argued Parärkar, who in his daily Ä j did just that:

W e [H indi] editors com pletely ignore fa cts like w hat c la s s e s our readers belong to, h o w they live, how they earn their livin g, w hat are the d ifficu lties they fa ce in the battlefield o f life, how they en jo y th em selves, what are their interests, and w hat they want. I f w e found out about them and ga v e our

514

The History o f the Book in South Asia

66 / The H indi Public Sphere readers the n ew s they want, and if w e turned o u rse lves into their helpers in the struggle for life, our n ew spap ers w ould becom e more popular in no time at a l l . . . . Until w e adopt the com m on folk and w e turn our n ew sp ap ers into reflection o f them w e shall not p ro g ress and serve the real [prakrt , as op­ posed to krtrim] nation.86

The expansion of Hindi journalism and publishing after 1920 marked the coming of age of a modem Hindi literary industry concentrated in a few big towns; at the same time, it created a unified literary space through a network of distant contributors and regional distribution. Thanks to the growing interest in news generated by World War I and by the first nationalist mass campaign, Hindi journals and the political press reached beyond the pale of the highly literate and formally schooled public; through periodicals and print language, this more mixed reading public received a common cultural and political education. At the same time, journals became more open to the diversity of tastes and voices present in the Hindi literary sphere and became show-cases for contem­ porary writing. In fact, whether monthlies, weeklies or dailies, whether political or social or religious in inclination, all Hindi periodicals of this period featured literature in some form. This helped popularize the names of contemporary writers and highlight the social relevance of lite­ rature. Although not a highly remunerative or secure job, journalism became an important avenue for nationalist-minded Hindi intellectuals, and possibly the only source of remuneration for the first professional writers. The growth of big literary magazines in the 1920s should not lead us to conclude that small or one-man journals disappeared from Hindi journalism; indeed, quite the contrary. The fact that there is hardly a writer of the period who did not contribute to or to launch a magazine, and the host of small-to-medium-sized journals which printed between 500 and 2000 copies in provincial towns like Mirzapur, Etawah, Gorakhpur, Khandwa, Jabalpur, Indore, and Ajmer, bear witness to the fact that publicity had multiplied and that there was finally a real Hindi-reading public (Illustration 1.3). Although larger ventures set the pace, scholarly, local, or one-man journals survived to provide local venues for expres­ sion—often at great financial cost for the editor-owner.87 The overall 86B .V . Parärkar, Speech at the Sampädak Sammelan, Sammelan patrikä, XIII, 4 - 5 , pp. 2 3 3 , 2 3 5 . 87 Premchand’ s well-known financial troubles in running Hams and Jägaran

Source: Chäriid, XVI, pt. 2, 6, May 1939.

Illustration 1.3. ‘Even coachmen in England read newspapers', complained the Hindi press. Here the contrast between indifferent Indians and eager readers abroad is supported by publication figures; 5000 copies are considered a success in India, while 150,000 are commonplace abroad.

£

ON

2

2 Q

3

fc

3*

3

fe

Hä

R

Cr,

Cr,

S'

03

O O S' o s S-

ÖD

S 3 o -h sr* Hi

W

3Hi

516

The History o f the Book in South Asia

68 / The Hindi Public Sphere spectacular growth of the Hindi press in this period shows the tremen­ dous importance attached to the medium. At this important historical juncture it was journalism that made Hindi writers aware of their public voice and authority. 1.3.2. Publishing and the Literary System The history of publishing in Hindi still waits to be written. Only a handful of monographs exist on some important publishing houses in north India, and although valuable in themselves they cannot shed light on the many questions connected to print, reading, and writing. Accounts of nine­ teenth-century Hindi literature, for example, describe these publishers as heroic, public-minded pioneers, but what is one to make of the quick spread of printing presses even in small towns all over north India be­ tween the 1820s and 1840s? What did they print? As Chris Bayly has observed, what is striking about printing in India is not (only) that it spread so late, when the technology was long known to Europeans in their coastal enclaves, but that it suddenly spread so rapidly between 1820 and 1840, and not only at the hands of the modernizing elites.88Was publishing seen as a commercial business after all? Who were the pro­ fessional printers? Can they be distinguished from the publishers? What we need is a study of publishing as an industry and as a market. Such a study, I will argue here, would shed a different light on the literary system as a whole, for even oral genres got printed, in fact got printed first. Lite­ rary histories, by contrast, have so far included only texts and authors of an either educational or reformist character. What about cheap, popular publications? The question of distribution and sales is still unexplored, and we have little idea of how books, collections of poems, and stories circulated. This, together with an eye for the different prices of books and chapbooks, would in turn help us understand the audience such publica­ tions catered to. A study of Hindi publishing would necessarily have to be one of Hindi an d Urdu publishing, for they were part of an osmotic literary system. They had different traditions, of course, partly reflected in their different publics divided by education and script, but these in fact had to interface in the new world of print. Not only did linguistic allegiance shift from the indicate both the need for commercial acumen and the writer’ s resilient dream of having his own magazine, his own platform to speak from. 88 B a yly , Empire and Information , pp. 2 3 8 ff.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

517

Language and the Literary Sphere / 69

mid-nineteenth century onwards, translations (or, rather, translitera­ tions) from one language to the other were readily undertaken whenever it was felt that there was a market on the other side.89 Finally, certain genres, especially of fiction, like detective, social and historical novels, first took root in Urdu and later caught on in Hindi;90others, like the book­ lets of gh azals printed in great numbers and with large print-runs were, by the 1930s, published almost exclusively in Nagari script.91 The num­ ber and print-runs of Urdu literary publications declined significantly by 1935 (see Table 1.2): literary and miscellaneous publications continued to appear but the popular market definitely belonged to Hindi. Should we deduce that elementary literacy, along with elementary education, switch­ ed script, or that we have here two different publics? From 1868 onwards provincial education departments started com­ piling lists of publications, in English and Indian languages, registered according to the Registration Act of 1867. These catalogues, preserved in the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library in Lon­ don, make wonderful sources; they have been used by some scholars in recent years92 and they are the basis of my observations here. Christo­ pher King has used them to write about patterns of publishing, but while Table 1.2. Urdu publications in UP, 1915-1940 1915

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

Fiction“

titles copies

52 63,300

56 53,250

93 138,400

56 47,900

19 16,300

19 13,500

poetry

titles copies

78 79,700

104 96,000

143 126,500

166 200,900

64

68,000

31 31,400

titles copies

80 119,500

45 178,400

90 72,500

110

74

113,350

66,100

43 71,200

334

331

472

556

306

203

education overall titles

“Fiction and drama. 89 Thus, q issä s were printed in Hindi from the 1 860s; the Puränas, Räm äyana ver­ sions and compilations, Devkinandan Khatri’ s Chandrakäntä (published by his son in both Hindi and Urdu) and textbooks were also printed in Urdu; Statement o f Parti­ culars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the United Provinces o f Agra and Oudh, quarter ending on M arch 1 9 1 5 . 90 E.g. social novels by Pyäreläl, Ratannäth Dar, and Sambhu D ayäl S axen ä ap­ peared in Urdu from (at least) 19 14 , while they caught on in Hindi a decade later; ibid. 91 S e e Statement o f Particulars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the United P rovinces o f Agra and Oudh for the year 19 3 5 . 92 Frances Pritchett, Mamelous Encounters. Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi,

518

The History o f the Book in South Asia

70 / The Hindi Public Sphere his tables show the overall numbers of copies, I have indicated the num­ ber of titles and of copies only in the case of those genres relevant to an assessment of the reading public: fiction, drama, poetry, and educational books (Tables 1.2 and 1.3). The situation in the 1870s in Oudh may serve as a point of compari­ son: while Urdu was then definitely the lingua franca of publishing and Persian was still a relevant language, Hindi publications were limited in number and range. They comprised religious books (Rämäyana, Sür Sägar, Prem Sägar, Hanumän ch ä lisa , etc.), a few textbooks and educa­ tional books, almanacs and the odd Nagari version of well-known q issä s (stories).93 Data from the Benares region would probably provide a somewhat different picture, but it is evident that publications in Urdu, and indeed in Persian, were more eclectic in nature: they included Hindu, Muslim and Christian religious texts, translations of Persian histories and literary texts used for educational purposes, literary works, Urdu ghazals, books of useful knowledge, and translations of government laws.94By the turn of the century, small religious publishers in Hindi had cropped up almost everywhere, often at pilgrimage centres, producing devotional and ritual texts of low printing quality in huge numbers.95 Benares and Calcutta were the main centres for religious books of all kinds and for popular publications.96 Delhi, Manohar, 19 8 5 ; King, One Language, Two Scripts ; Ghosh, ‘ Literature, Langu­ age and Print’ ; Priya Joshi, ‘Culture and Consumption: Fiction, the Reading Public, and the British N ovel in Colonial India’ , Book History , 1 , 1 , 19 98 . 93 Catalogue o f Books printed in Oudh during the q u a rter . . . , for the years 1 8 7 3 and 18 7 4 . 94 Fam ously, it w as the profitable monopoly on the publication in Urdu o f the Indian Penal Code ( Tazkirät-i Hind) in 18 6 1 that started the fortune o f Munshi N aw al Kishore; 30,000 copies were printed and purchased by the government at R s 3 per copy, which N aw al Kishore set aside for scholary publications in Persian, Arabic, and Urdu; S yed Jalaluddin Haider, ‘ Munshi N aw al Kishore ( 1 8 3 6 - 9 5 ) . M irror o f Urdu Printing in British India’ , Libri, X X X I , 3, Septem ber 19 8 7 , p. 2 3 2 . 95 V ed Sansthan, Ajm er w as the main centre for Ä ry a Sam äj publications, while Brahmanand Ashram in Pushkar sold millions o f copies o f its Brahmänandbhajanmälä, and the Ramakrishna M ission in Nagpur published Ramakrishna and Vivekananda literature. Other centres in U.P. were Mathura (with Shiksha Bharati, Shyam kashi Press, etc.), Gorakhpur (Gita Press) and B enares— which had a tradition o f both Sanskrit and Hindi publishing. In Bom bay Khemräj Srlkrsnadäs had the greatest stock o f religious titles, followed by the N im ay S a g a r Press and Vipul Trust. M ost o f this information is drawn from K. Beri, ‘ Hindi prakäsan kä itihäs’ , typewritten article by courtesy o f the author, n.d., pp. 16 ff. 96 E.g. M ahävir Prasad Poddär’ s Hindi Pustak A gen cy, Mülchand A g ra v ä l’ s

The H istoij o f the Book in South Asia

519

Language and the Literary? Sphere 111

Table 1.3. Hindi publications in UP 1915-1940 1915

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

Fiction11

titles copies

105 149,000

119 173,200

186 287,900

169 253,700

283 480,200

184 241,400

Poetry

titles copies

371 674,400

338 585 613,600 1,146,600

1014 2,506,600

1048 2,281,750

650 877,900

Education

titles copies

127 141 314,700 625,600

176 646,200

342 871,600

257 514,850

540,100

1365

2039

2095

1548

Overall titles

870

939

211

aFiction and Drama.

Table 1.4. Overall numbers of titles published in UP, 1915-1940

Urdu Hindi English Polyglot Sanskrit Persian Arabic

1915

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

334 870 164 469 73

331 939 137 271 51 ca. 7 -

472 1365 301 401 84 16 7

556 2039 289 447 92

306 2095 313 518 153

209 1548 230 218

8

6

-

-

3

2

2 4

86

Source: ‘Statement of Particulars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh’, for the relevant years.

It was in fact religious books and the profitable and growing market for textbooks that made the fortune of the first big publishers in Hindi such as Nawal Kishore (1858) in Lucknow, Khadgvilas Press in Bankipur (Patna, 1880) and the Indian Press in Allahabad (1884).97The case of the Indian Press well exemplifies the nature of Hindi publishing at the Popular Trading Co., Nihalchand B eri’ s Nihalchand & Co. and the Narsingha Press published both religious and popular publications. Several Hindi publishers, like Nihalchand Beri and R .S . Varman, fluctuated between Calcutta and Benares; ibid. 97 The N aw al Kishore Press, the largest early publisher in the United Provinces, published m ostly Urdu books, translations o f religious books (Quran, Upanisads, Puränas) and Hindi translations of Persian and Urdu romances. The Khadgvilas Press o f Bankipur, near Patna, w as the pioneering literary publisher in Bihar; it published Bhärtendu’ s books, the earliest translations o f Bengali novels and theatre chapbooks o f M udräräksasa and Satya Harischandra ‘ which sold by tens o f thousands’ ; Krsnachandra Beri, H indiprakäsan kä itihäs, p. 4. Information on the Indian Press com es from Mushtaq A li, ‘ Hindi sähitya ke itihäs mem ilähäbäd kä yogdän’ .

520

The History o f the Book in South Asia

12 I The Hindi Public Sphere

turn of the century. Its founder, Babu Chintamani Ghosh (1854-1928), a Bengali, was a self-made man, a pioneering editor, and a patriotic refor­ mer in the spirit of the times. He realized the potential of educational pub­ lishing, and thanks to his contacts in the education department and to the literary expertise and skills of Mahävir Prasad DvivedI and Syämsundar Das, he became the foremost publisher in north India for school text­ books, anthologies, readers, biographies, and other reading books for schoolchildren in English and Hindi.98 The literature department pub­ lished almost exclusively translations from Bengali: contemporary Hindi literature was practically absent.99 However, the Indian Press was cru­ cial in establishing high printing standards for Hindi publications. Chintamani Babu was particularly fond of character-building biogra­ phies (43 titles between 1909 and 1940), ‘useful literature’, religious books for both adults and children and quality illustrations.100 The view from the bazaar gives a different and more composite pic­ ture. After all, in both Hindi and Urdu entertaining publications outnum­ bered educational ones. As the 1920s marked a big change, it will be 98 In fact, thanks to Syäm sundar D as, the Indian Press struck a very advantageous deal to publish educational books prepared by the Nägari Prachärinl Sabhä; in 19 2 8 it entered an agreement with the Sabhä to print all its publications, and a special branch o f the Press w as opened in Benares to deal with the work. The agreement lasted until 19 40 , when the Sabhä revoked it, suspecting mismanagement o f funds by Syäm sundarD äs. Publications included all the Sabhäseries: the ‘popular’ Manoranjan pustak-mälä, the historical Devlprasäd-aitihäsik-pustak-mäläand Süryakumäri pustakmälä, the Nägari-prachärinl-granthamälä for critical editions o f Hindi ‘ c la ssic s’ , and the dictionary Hindi sabdasägar, A li, ‘ Hindi sähitya ke itihäs m em ’ , pp. 4 4 2 ff. S e e also D as, Meri ätmakahäni. "T ra n sla tio n s o f Bankimchandra, Tagore, R .C . Dutt, Charu Chandra, Prabhat Kum ar Mukhopadhyay, Sharatchandra, etc. were done mostly by em ployees o f the Press such as Janärdan Jhä, Lalllprasäd Pändey, and Rüpnäräyan Pändey, the most prolific o f all. In order to understand the stature o f the Indian Press, it suffices to note that it w as T ago re’ s publisher until he retrieved the rights for his own press at Santiniketan, and it published Ramanand Chatterjee’ s Prabäsi and Modern Review until Chatterjee moved back to Calcutta. For a complete list o f publications and a history o f the press, see Mushtaq A li, ibid. For a list o f English and Bengali novels trans­ lated into Hindi, see Gopäl R ay, Hindi-upanyäs-kos, Patna, Grantha Niketan, vol. 1, pp. 3 6 2 ff. 100 The large illustrated edition o f the Hindi Mahabharata (transl. from Bengali by M ahävir Prasäd DvivedI, 1908) became a prized household book. In the Bälsakhä

pustak-m älä (a series o f children’ s books), Mahäbhärata, Bhagavadgitä, Srimad Bhägavat for children were also published; Bäl Rämäyana , reprinted in a new edition in 19 2 0 at 8 annas, sold 12,0 0 0 copies in one year.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary Sphere / 73

useful to start from 1915. By then Hindi had already overtaken Urdu for numbers of publications and copies, and Urdu seems no longer to have been considered a vehicle for Persian, as the decline of bilingual publica­ tions shows. Yet Urdu publishing was still growing, and was a more eclectic field than Hindi, with significant numbers of new titles and gen­ res and of books of non-fiction on various subjects. It reflects a ‘mature’ reading public that sustained a literary publishing market, took an interest in political affairs, and was not averse to novelty in poetry and fiction. A closer look at Hindi publications shows, first of all, that the categories of classification need to be questioned: for example, dramatic stories in verse and prose, säm glt , were classified sometimes as drama, sometimes as verse, and sometimes as fiction. When we collapse these categories, we see that the m arket for publications in 1915 was made up of about 50 per cent of short collections of songs, bhajans, and retellings of the Rama and Krishna stories; 30 per cent of sämglt (verse ballads and dramas), qissä, and Älhä, tales in verse, ballad, or dramatic form; about 10 per cent of the early fictional spin-offs of these verse creations and of the commercial novels of Devkinandan Khatri and Kisoriläl Gosvämi (cf. 3.2), and the last 10 per cent of secular poems in Braj Bhasa and Khari Boli: seasonal songs such as phäg, chaiti, kajll , bärahm äsä, jhülanä , compositions in the well-known metres and forms of the riti tradi­ tion, savaiyä, kavitta (classifiedas ‘erotic’), andghazal,qawwali, chappai. Selling for a few annas, sometimes for a few paise, these books were printed throughout the region and show that it was largely the oral genres of songs and story-telling, catering to well-established tastes and requir­ ing only elementary literacy and limited literary samskäras, that consti­ tuted the literary market.101 Publishers of all these genres were in fact confident enough in their audience to run editions of one or two thousand copies—even in the case of unknown authors; yet these are totally absent 101 E.g. the twelve-page Barä gopäl gciri, on the marriages o f Ram and Krishna, published by Baijnäth Prasad at the Shri Lakshm i Venkateshvar Steam Press in 15 0 0 0 copies for 3 paise each w as constantly reprinted until at least 19 40 . The same publisher also printed religious chapbooks (15 ,0 0 0 copies o f a collection o f Krishna

lila were printed), lävanl, qissä, and w as based in Benares and Darbhanga. A rough count o f Hindi publishers, booksellers and printers mentioned in the 1 9 1 5 and 19 2 0

Catalogues fo r U.P. and Bihar gives a number o f ca. 2 50 , with the greatest concen­ tration in Benares ( 3 1 ) , and others spread over A gra, Aligarh, Hathras, Allahabad, Bareilly, Bijnor, Brindaban, Bulandshahr, Dehra Dun, Etawah, Faizabad, Farrukhabad, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lakhimpur, Lucknow , Mainpuri, Meerut, Moradabad, Mathura, Bhagalpur, Chapra, Darbhanga, G aya, Muzaffarpur, Patna-Bankipur, and Ranchi.

521

The History o f the Book in South Asia

522

74 / The H indi P ublic Sphere from literary histories. By contrast, the few publications of the ‘serious’ authors who, like Srldhar Päthak and Maithillsaran Gupta, made it into literary histories appeared few and far between. Generally speaking, although original works in Hindi had the same print-run (of 1000-2000) as the genres mentioned above, they were more expensive; on the other hand, novels running along well-tested tracks cost 4-8 annas, and qissäs 1 anna or even less.102Thus a second or third edition was crucial in bring­ ing the price down: this was Maithillsaran Gupta’s fortune, for example, for his historical-mythological poems did find an audience and were reprinted regularly in cheap editions until the 1940s.103 The other striking point about Hindi publications in 1915 is that poetry was the medium for almost everything: apart from literary enjoyment (rasäsvädan), verse was the vehicle for religious discourse and contro­ versy, social reform, women’s uplift, and political awakening. By con­ trast, in the case of Urdu, prose fiction was already the medium of public discourse.104 Finally, the politicization of the Hindi public with World War I was borne out by the publishing market, too, with a book like Sheokumar Singh’s Europe ki laräi (1914), selling at 4 annas, running into three editions and selling 12,000 copies within a year!105 After 1920 the situation changed in many ways, both in terms of a general expansion in the numbers of titles and copies and of diversi­ fication in the market. Within fiction, new genres such as thrillers, ro­ mantic novels, and detective stories captured a share of the commercial market, first in Urdu and subsequently in Hindi, too. In Hindi, apart from the usual fare of jä s ü s i upanyäs (detective stories), translations of ‘so­ cial’ and ‘historical’ novels from Bengali and Urdu, original historical, social, and even political novels started to appear. Drama showed a simi­ lar trend, with more historical and original literary plays and satires published alongside sämgit, and even a drama series, Nätak Granthamälä, 102 Särhglt generally sold for 1 or 2 annas, qissäs, ghazal, bhajan, and song collec­ tions for 1 anna or 6 paise; a translation o f the M ysteries o f Paris sold for 4 annas in 1 9 1 8 , while the translation o f a Bengali novel, part o f the Upanyäs Grantha-mälä pub­ lished by Sheo Ram D as Gupta, sold for R s 1 and 4 annas in its first edition. 103 His poem Rang mem bhang (19 0 9 , pp. 3 1 ) w as in its 8th edition o f 2 0 0 0 -4 0 0 0 copies in 19 2 0 and sold for 4 annas. 104 S e e e.g. Muhammad H usain’ s Tim ki devi (The goddess o f learning, 1 9 1 5 ) , in favour o f pardä among M u slim women. 105 A ll details are taken from the Statement o f Particulars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the United Provinces o f Agra and Oudh for the year 19 15.

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary>Sphere 1 15

published by Sheo Ram Das Gupta in Benares. The plays by Agha Hasra Kashmiri (1879-1935), Arzu, and Haridäs Manik also became popular at this time and were simultaneously published in Urdu and Hindi. Col­ lections of selected songs from different dramatic plays also started to appear as a separate item, attesting to the impact of commercial theatre and foreshadowing the publication of film songs.106In poetry, too, hist­ orical-patriotic poems started circulating in book form (Maithillsaran Gupta was by no means alone; cf. 3.1), while print-runs for religious and popular poetry swelled to 5000-10,000.107Overall we can say that the po­ pular market diversified its production, embracing new commercial genres in poetry, fiction and drama, while literary and nationalist books started finding a market.108 Journal editors were crucial in making some space for modem litera­ ture in the market place, for when they branched out in the book market they consistently published literary books; Duläreläl Bhargava’s Ganga Pustak Mala in Lucknow was perhaps the most successful attempt and made a very significant difference to the Hindi literary sphere. Beside the standard ‘useful literature’—biographies, history, children’s and women’s books109—Bhargava created a remarkable catalogue of contem­ porary Hindi literature, comprising novels, short stories, drama, poetry, essays, and literary criticism.110With his selection of both ‘high-brow’ and popular writers, the use of thick ‘antique’ paper and cloth binding, a räj samskäran (royal edition) along with a sädhäran samskäran (ordinary 106 S ee e.g. Rägini thiyetar, compiled by M aster B achcha Lai for Sheo Ram D as Gupta, 4th edition 19 2 5 , 5 annas (10 0 0 copies). 107 S e e e.g. Rädhesyäm , Snrämkathä , Bareilly, 5th ed. 1 9 2 0 ,3 annas (4000 copies), and Bhajan ratnävali , published by Gullu Prasad Kedar Prasad, Benares, 19 2 5 , 3 annas (15 ,0 0 0 copies). 108 A distinction should be made within the ‘popular’ market between those genres that carried over into print from pre-print traditions, and those, like detective novels, which were bom with print, and which I have termed ‘ com m ercial’ . 109 In the series M ahilä-m älä and Bäl-vinod-vätikä. 110 H is catalogue o f authors and titles is truly im pressive: it included Premchand’ s

Rahgbhümi (in 19 2 5 , paid the record sum o f Rs 1800), the play Karbalä and several collections o f stories; also Visvam bham äth Sarm ä ‘ K au sik’ , Chatursen Sästri, Bhagavatlcharan Varm ä, Vrndävanläl Varm ä, Pändey Bechan Sarm ä ‘ U g ra’ , Nirälä, GovindvallabhPant, Badrinäth Bhatt, Rüpnäräyan Pändey, and Pratäpnäräyan Sriv ästava, etc., in a word all the best Hindi writers. B härgava took care to include also works by older writers like Bälkrsna Bhätt, M ahävir Prasäd DvivedI, Sridhar Päthak, Krsnabihäri M isra. Translations o f Moliere, G alsworthy, G orky, and Alexander Dumas were published, too.

523

524

The History o f the Book in South Asia

16 I The Hindi Public Sphere

edition) and aggressive advertising, Bhärgava identified and captured both the sophisticated audience (and library circuit) and the new Hindi middle-brow readership. Backed once again by business innovations, he recognized the swelling tide of Hindi and managed to keep a purely lite­ rary concern afloat.111 By 1930, a host of small literary publishers exist­ ed, such as Ganga Pustak Mala in Lucknow, Bharti Bhandar in Benares and Hindi Pustak Bhandar in Laheriasarai (Darbhanga), who were com­ mitted to publishing quality literary books by the new poets, playwrights, novelists, and short story writers. A major factor in the expansion of Hindi publishing and reading in the post-1920 period, with significant peaks in 1920 and 1930, was the boom in political publications. They were brought out by three different kinds of publishers. First, there were newspapers like Abhyuday, Pratäp , Ä j and Chäriid which branched out into book publishing and brought out political books and cheap tracts, collected speeches and biographies of nationalist leaders, and collections of the articles and nationalist poems published in their newspapers.112 Sasta Sahitya Mandal in Ajmer (est. 1926) was another important publisher of cheap nationalist books.113A special mention should be made here of Babu Sivaprasäd Gupta,114 111 Maithillsaran Gupta had also proved su ccessfu l in publishing his own works from his village near Jhansi. R äykrsnadäs established Bharti Bhandar ( 19 2 7 ) in Benares as a cooperative publishing house to give a higher royalty— 2 5 per cent— to writers, but he had to sell it in 1 9 3 5 - 6 to the Leader Press in Allahabad, a Birla con­ cern. A lso in Benares Premchand founded his Hans Karyalay, and Vinod Sankar V y ä s the Pustak Mandir ( 19 3 0 -5 0 ) . 112 For example V . N. T iv äri’ s articles published in Sarasvati in favour o f Hindi in the Hindi-Hindustani controversy, quoted later here (5.4), appeared also in booklet form, distributed free by the Indian Press in 10,000 copies in 19 3 9 . Pamphlets and books put out by the Pratap Press included the translation o f Gandhi’ s prison account, nationalist poems by ‘T risü l’ , Vidyärthl’ s book on the Princely states and booklets on R ussia and communism. 113 S a sta Sahitya Mandal w as a Gandhian publishing venture established by Ghanshyam das Birla and Jamnalal Bajaj in 19 2 6 , managed by Haribhäü Upädhyäy, editor o f the Gandhian paper Tyägbhümi ; it published mainly translations o f Gandhi’ s and T o lsto y ’ s works, o f historical and ‘useful’ books and biographies; all information is taken from publication lists in journals. 114 During a long world tour, Sivaprasäd Gupta had been impressed by the excellent and cheap publications he found abroad, and once back in India he drew up a long list o f titles and subjects inviting Hindi writers to write books on them in keep­ ing with ‘ scientific standards’ . These included biographies o f patriots from all over the world; critical editions o f classics, and books on history, sociology, political science, science, handicraft, religion, and philosophy. He then suggested popular

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary Sphere / 77

whose publishing concern, Jnanmandal (1917), and newspaper Ä j be­ came centres for serious and scholarly books on history and political science: they provided Hindi readers and students with nationalist-ins­ pired political and historical analyses, and several Hindi scholars, politi­ cians, and publicists with the chance to work on seminal subjects.115For its breadth of scope, nationalist vision and partial freedom from commer­ cial compulsions, Jnanmandal presented a unique case and a particularly precious opportunity for the Hindi public sphere.116Second, there were commercial booksellers and publishers who branched out into national­ ist songs and sarhgits. Third, the Catalogues of Publications show an impressive amount of self-produced and locally-printed miscellaneous nationalist tracts, pamphlets, speeches, stories, drama, songs, bhajans, Älhäs, many of them given away free or almost free, which speak of a more direct use of print for intervention in the political sphere.117 The Sharda bill or Child Marriage Restraint Act provoked a flurry of Särdä bil nätak, poems, and tracts both in favour and against it, and translations of the bill into Hindi and Urdu.118During the Non-cooperation and Civil English books for translation, and drew up a list which included the Home University Library series, science primers, Jack s People’ s Books series, Tem ple Encyclopedic Primers, important books on history such as B u ry ’ s Greece , R hys D a v is’ Early Bud­

dhism , V . Sm ith’ s Early History o f India, M acD onnell’ s H istory o f Sanskrit Litera­ ture, L e c k y ’ s D emocracy and Civilisation, basic texts o f European philosophy, phy­ sics, chemistry, botany. 115 Am ong the writers associated with Jnanmandal were Chävlnäth Pändey, a Congress activist, Padmasimh Sarm ä, Rämdäs Gaur, Sampürnänand, Janärdan Bhatt and Mukundlläl Siivästava. Am ong the books published were: Sriprakäs, ed.,

Svaräjya kä sarkäri masvidä (2 vols.), Chandrasekhar V äjp ey, Yürop ke prasiddh sudhärak (19 2 0 ), Laksmannäräyan Garde, Jäpän ki räjnitik pragati (transl., 19 2 1 ) , Prännäth Vidyälam kär, Räjnitisästra ( 19 2 2 ), Sampürnänand, Antarräs'triy vidhän ( 19 2 4 ), Harihamäth, Sam särke vyavsäy kä itihäs (tr. 19 2 4 ), Am bikäprasäd V äjpeyl, Chin aur Bhärat and the seminal Samächärpatrom kä itihäs ( 1 9 5 3 ) , on nineteenthcentury journals in Hindi; list o f publications available from the publicity list at Jnanmandal Press, Benares. 116 Despite generous funding, poor distribution brought huge lo sses every year. In the end, Jnanmandal survived thanks to its academic and educational publications. 117 This phenomenon w as more visible from an earlier stage in Bihar; see, for example, in 19 2 0 Kisänom ko matadhikär milä, a free tract translated and published in 5000 copies by a S wami Vidyänand containing the appendix o f the Franchise Com ­ mittee report on peasants’ enfranchisement. 118 Am ong the publications condemning it: Sajjäd A li, Islämi naqqärä, published by the author in Morädabad (2nd ed. 1 9 3 0 ,1 0 0 0 copies for 1 anna each); and Lachm l Näräyan Sarm ä, Särdä satranj, a farce contemplating the evil consequences o f the

525

The Histoiy o f the Book in South Asia

526

78 / The H indi P ublic Sphere Disobedience movements, nationalist poems and songs swamped the market (240 titles in 1930 alone);119 for example, one collection titled R ästriy dahkä athvä sv a d e s khädi (National kettledrum or svades khädl), compiled and published by one Chandrikä Prasäd Jijnäsü, was printed five times adding up to 30,000 copies in 1930! I20Nationalist publications swelled in Urdu, too, although several tracts against the movement and against peasants’ activism were also published.121The picture that emer­ ges is not one of centralized Congress propaganda ‘mobilizing’ the peo­ ple, but of a strikingly diffuse intervention in, and controversy over, political affairs through print.122 Finally, the market for Hindi textbooks expanded into a veritable industry during this period; this made the fortune of several Hindi publi­ shers such as the Indian Press, Ram Narayan Lai, Nandkishor & Bros, (see 1.4), and many smaller ones. It was a continuous expansion in terms of titles, copies and print-runs, while Urdu textbooks expanded in terms of titles but not of copies (see Table 1.2) Apart from the textbooks themselves, an industry mushroomed in ‘keys’ (to the textbooks), read­ ing books and juvenile books in general: several booksellers and pub­ lishers launched series aimed specifically at children and youth, like the Indian Press’ Bälsakhä Pustakmälä, Ram Narayan Lai’s Bälakopyogl Pustakmälä, Rämjlläl Sarm ä’s Sadvichär Granthamälä and the Sisu Pustakmälä, all in Allahabad, the Bäl Manoranjanmälä from Darbhanga (Bihar), and many, many others. While publishing textbooks allowed small Hindi literary publishers to survive, it also strengthened the de­ pendence of the Hindi book-market on the education system—making Hindi literature a kind of subsidized department.123 A c t published in Benares in 19 3 0 (10 0 copies, 2 annas). Am ong the publications in favour: the poems Rupye kä lobhi bäp by Räm D as Pände (Gorakhpur, 3rd edition 19 2 9 , 6 paise, 8000 copies!), and Rädhäkrsna Preml’ s Särdä bil qänün utfbäl-viväh (Patna, 19 30 , 1 anna, 50 0 0 copies); and Lllävatl D evi and HamsmukhI D e vi’ s pam­ phlet Bhärat merit bdlvivdh ki bhisantd , published by the authors in Bulandshahr in 19 3 0 (1 anna, 1000 copies). 119 For example, Premchand’ s nationalist stories were published in 19 3 0 in 5000 copies at a price o f 2 annas and 6 paise; Catalogue o f Publications for the year 19 30 . 120 Ibid. 121 S e e e.g. the tract Kisdnorii ki nek mashvird by one Chaudhuri Muhammad M äsüd, asking cultivators to remain loyal to the British government, and published by the author in Bara Banki in 19 30 (free, 50 0 copies). 122 C f. G yan Pandey, ‘ Mobilization in a M ass Movement: Congress “ Propaganda” in the United P rovin ces’ , M odem Asian Studies , IX , 2, 1 9 7 5 , pp. 2 0 5 -2 6 . 123 This is a thomy question which still troubles the Hindi publishing world; several

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The Histoiy o f the Book in South Asia

Language and the Literary Sphere 1 19

By 1940, then, the Hindi publishing market had expanded and diver­ sified: popular and commercial genres of poetry, drama, and fiction still formed the largest share of the market; another share comprised educa­ tional books; while devotional and educational songs commanded the largest print-runs,124Literary publications by contemporary authors also acquired a small but significant share of the market; print-runs seldom exceeded 2000 copies, but some writers like Premchand, M. Gupta, and J. Prasad were continuously reprinted. A small but well-established readership for modern Hindi poetry, drama and literary fiction, and for translations of world classics such as Tolstoy and Dumas had thus cer­ tainly come into being. The growth of literary publications did not alter the general balance between readers of popular and of literary publications, however: the 184 ‘poetry’ titles in 1925 had grown only to 189 in 1940, and the breakdown in terms of popular genres, both religious and secular, and literary genres remained roughly the same (see Table 1.5). Table 1.5. Hindi ‘Poetry’ titles 1925-1940 19 2 5

1940

Religious and devotional

70

64

Sämglt, seasonal songs and ghazals

67

69

Didactic and topical (in Khari Boli)

23

22

Nationalistic

15

16

9 (2)

18 (11)

184

189

Literary (new style in brackets) Total

What we can assume, then, is a Hindi readership divided between those who could buy S arasvati and books at Rs 2-3, and those who bought bhajan, sämgit, kajll, and nationalist songs for a few annas. It remains to be seen whether the balance changed at all after Independence. This imbalance between the flourishing and ubiquitous popular litera­ ture and the few and stunted ‘serious’ publications must have struck factors seem to contribute to it: low literacy and hence a limited readership despite the enormous potential; an inadequate system o f distribution, which makes literary books difficult to get outside the main urban centres; and the complete dichotomy between ‘ good literature’ (studied at school) and literature for entertainment. A ll these factors already prevailed in the 19 2 0 s and 19 3 0 s. 124 S e e for example the 6-annas and 4-annas detective series published in 50 0 copies by K .N . B hargava o f Bhargava Bhushan Press, Benares, R .L . Burman in Calcutta, and Harikrishna Jauhar o f Hindi Press, Benares.

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The History o f the Book in South Asia

80 / The H indi P ublic Sphere Hindi writers and intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s. It certainly ex­ plains why reformers anxiously pleaded with the Hindi public to read serious literature (cf. 2.2 and 2.3). It also underlines, from a different angle, the centrality of journals for introducing and supporting contem­ porary writers. As the case of Duläreläl Bhärgava’s Ganga Pustak Mala shows, journals were successful in creating a space for modern literature in the market place; they managed to form a reading public for Khari Boli books out of former Urdu readers and newly educated groups. However, this space hardly amounted to the commercial success that would have enabled contemporary writers to acquire the wider cultural authority that stems from mass popularity (cf. 2.3 and 5.4). Nor did writing generally bring wealth sufficient to ensure social status. Thus the cultural capital acquired by writing in journals and publishing literary books was not spendable in the wider public sphere; the exceptions were nationalist writers and university professors. In the case of the former, their cultural capital came from their political role and the popularity they acquired through newspapers and poetry meetings (cf. 1.3. and 1.3.3); in the case of the latter, it came from their institutional role, which will be discussed at length in Section 1.4. The picture the Hindi publishing world presents is thus one of inner division within the Hindi public. This division became even more appa­ rent and problematic when old tastes and new aspirations, and old and new audiences came face to face in the mixed arena of poetry meetings.

PartIV Post-colonial Histories

[16] Publishers’ Perspective R ita K othari See patient W ilkins to the W orld unfold W hat’ ver discovered Sanskrit relics hold But he performed a yet more noble part He gave to A sia typographic art (in K esavan, 19 8 5 :2 6 4 ) V ario u s segm ents, from m any social levels, ju stify through their reception, the intellectual and cultural cost o f a literary product and ‘ explain* its proliferation. The preceding chapters have shown how a ‘ literary’ product, in this case an Indian text in E n glish translation, is neither confined to, nor ex c lu siv e ly dependent on lite ra ry fa c to rs alo n e . A m o n g in stitu tio n s that c a n o n iz e w o rk s o f art, the publishing industry p lays a very crucial role. Situated at a point o f intersection between culture and com m erce, print capitalism ‘ determ ines’ , to an extent, the production and consum ption o f literature. P u blish in g ch o ices stem from both cultural and market-driven forces. When it com es to literature, w e do not, on the whole, think o f market forces as decisive in the generation, availability and reading o f books. O f co u rse, books are products o f n ego tiatio n s betw een p u b lish in g agencies and socio-cultural trends. In the complex interplay o f demand and supply, readers’ desires are both created and addressed, making the role o f publishing and d issem in atin g too im portant to ignore. T h is part o f the study is based on the premise that the proliferation o f books in English translation in the recent decades and the dynamism o f English-language publishing in India are interconnected. A s in the earlier chapters, the main focu s o f this chapter is the period o f the m id­ eighties. W hat follow s here, therefore, is a discussion o f the preceding period.

An Historical Introduction Printing and publishing began system atically with the British presence in India, although the Jesu it m issionaries had made sporadic efforts at printing, or more precisely, at spreading the G osp el through print, in the 1 5 5 0 s . Printing, as w e know it today, began w hen in 1 7 0 6 B artholom ew Z ie g e n b a lg , the w ell-k n o w n Protestant missionary, started working with a printing press in Tranquebar. A little later the E a st India C o m p an y installed a press at V e p o ry , a suburb o f M adras. T h ese ea rly attem pts at printing w ere o ccasio n al and w ithout the typ o grap h y unique to each language. H ow ever, they still laid an important foundation for the a ll-p e r v a s iv e d ev elo p m e n t o f p rintin g that took p la ce b y the m id d le o f the nineteenth century. Sisir Kum ar D as notes that the establishment o f the Seram pore M ission Press stabilized scattered ex ercises in printing and p ublishing ( 1 9 9 1 : 3 2 ) . Started by Jo sh u a M arshm an, W illia m W ard and W illia m C a r e y in 18 0 0 , the Seram po re M ission Press may be considered a watershed in the movement from the scribal to the printed word. T h e Seram pore M ission Press initially published translations o f

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The History o f the Book in South Asia P ublishers * P erspective

59

the B ible into d iffe re n t Indian lan gu ages. G ra d u a lly the press began regu lar p rodu ction o f d ictio n aries and E n g lish tran slatio n s o f r e lig io u s and literary masterpieces in Sanskrit and Persian. It also began publishing the works o f English o ffic ia ls w h o had co m e to Seram p o re C o lle g e and Fo rt W illia m C o lle g e for training. In the meanwhile, the British with the help o f local experts had begun to invent lan gu age types fo r m any eastern lan gu ages. T h ese types first appear in H a lh e d ’ s A G ra m m a r o f th e B e n g a l L a n g u a g e in 1 7 7 8 . C h a r le s W i l k i n s ’ contribution in this regard has been very remarkable. W ilkins w as mentioned as a translator in the first chapter, but it is his contribution to typography that earned him his p lace in the annals o f history. T h u s, on the w h o le, printing had made inroads into m ost Indian lan gu ages by the end o f the nineteenth cen tu ry. T h e course w as slow , steady and far from uniform in all languages. From printing in the Indian lan gu ages let us turn our attention to printing s p e c if ic a lly in E n g lis h . W h ile re g io n a l p re sse s o w n e d and run b y In d ian s flour-ished in British India, publication activity in En glish during the nineteenth century and the first few decades o f the twentieth century w as, by and large, in the hands o f the B ritish . E x cep tio n al cases like R ajp al and S o n s, or M . N . R o y 's R enaissance Publications or G an d h i’ s N avjiva n Press (one o f the first bilingual presses in the country), did not alter the scene, which continued to be dominated by the British. Frin ge efforts like that o f the indigenous firm Popular Prakashan ( 19 2 8 ) , w hich also published English books were overshadowed by the large-scale operations o f the British firm s. M acm illan , Longm an and the O xford U niversity Press (established in 1 9 0 3 , 19 0 6 and 1 9 1 2 resp ectively ) w ere the only ones to meet the demand for English textbooks in India. Until 19 4 7 , India’ s entire English language book trade and most o f its publishing industry com prised titles imported from the U .K . Indians confined themselves to subsidiary activities like distributing, importing and reprinting books (A ltbach , 1 9 7 5 ; Kum ar, 19 9 8 ; M enon, 19 9 8 ). A t this point w e need to take account o f two landmark developments in the fifties— the establishm ent o f the S ah ity a A k ad em i ( 1 9 5 4 ) and the N ational B oo k T rust ( 1 9 5 7 ) . Th ese public sector undertakings have had the responsibility o f ‘ nationb u ild in g’ by m aking k n o w led ge av ailab le to all sections o f the so ciety. In the fifties, full-fledged and commercial publishing activity by private firms w as a tall order, given the absence o f a market and the socialist leanings o f the nation-state. H ow ever, w e see some glimmerings o f this kind o f activity in the A sia Publishing House in the sixties and in P. L a i’ s W riter’ s Workshop. The government’ s decision to nationalize school textbooks in the sixties w as a serious blow to the very few English-language publishers operating in India. Textbooks, ‘guides’ , and ancillary m aterials constitute w hat is called ‘ ed u catio n al’ p u b lish in g, w h ich form s the b ack b o n e o f E n g lis h -la n g u a g e p u b lish in g in In d ia. T e x tb o o k s in p articu lar provide stable and mass sales to institutions and libraries. Th e nationalization o f textbooks, implemented with a view to subsiding textbooks and reducing the gaps between the elite and the m asses, altered the structure o f the publishing industry irrevo cab ly. S o m e publishers veered tow ards areas o f general interest (fiction, poetry, travel and autobiographies) and tried addressing the individual buyer. This phenomenon, called ‘ trade’ publishing, is germ ane to the issue at hand in that it p rovides the context o f literature publication. T h e attempts m ade by Ja ic o and

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533 Translating India

V ik as in the sixties to publish titles in fiction and poetry by Indian authors need to be contextualized against this m ove towards trade books. Su ch sporadic and scattered efforts at publishing En glish -lan gu age books characterize the sixties, seventies and som e part o f the eighties also. Indiscrim inate import o f foreign books, remaindered titles and rigid government policies assailed the book business in India. A lo n g with all this, the size o f the En glish-readin g public never made E n glish -lan gu age publications co m m ercially viable. T h e sm all section that did read in E n g lish m o stly read E n glish authors or Eu ro pean authors in E n glish translation.

Post-eighties Scenario T h e last ten to fifteen years have seen a number o f chan ges in the publishing scenario, som e dram atic w hile some not so dram atic. A broad o ve rv ie w o f the situation will bring these to light. W hile the industry may still be view ed in terms o f the private and public sectors, there have been changes in the structuring o f E n g lis h -la n g u a g e p u b lish in g on the w h o le . On the one hand p u b lic -s e c to r publishing agencies have upgraded their English language publications, and on the oth er p riva te p u b lish ers h ave exten d ed their in terest to areas tra d itio n a lly considered the domain o f the public sector. W h ile this overlapping o f roles has created competition at one level, it has also strengthened the industry by tie-ups and co lla b o ra tio n s at another. T h e o pen in g-u p o f In d ia ’ s eco n o m y after the eighties has caught the attention o f multinational publishers. “ A lot o f foreign publishers have com e seeking the w orld’ s largest English-know ing and reading (if not actually buying) audience. T h ey have found it a very price sensitive market and they can only hope to make up in volume what they cannot achieve through high p rices” (K rish nan , personal interview 19 9 8 ). T h e grow th o f the E n glish reading market is visible today, not only in terms o f the number o f books but also in terms o f an expansion o f segm ented and niche m arkets. G iv en the size and cultural preoccupations o f the middle class (discussed earlier), English books by Indians make cultural as well as economic sense today. Foreign books not only fail to a n sw e r the s p e c ific p o stco lo n ia l needs o f an Indian read er, but are also p ro h ib itively ex p e n sive sin ce the devaluation o f the Indian rupee. T h e broad context o f English-language publishing in India as well as the post-eighties’ shifts helps us understand the ‘ boom ’ o f the Indian English novel and the rise o f I L E T today. A s things stand now, educational publishing still constitutes about 80 per cent o f En glish language publishing in India. T h e space created for trade books though, h o w e v e r sm a ll, is fa r fro m in sig n ifica n t. Indian p u b lish ers tap the indigenous market for literary, academ ic and specialized books. Con sequently, publishing firm s such as O xfo rd U n iversity P ress, Perm anent B la ck , Sterlin g, Papyrus, Prestige, Pencraft and Sa g e for academ ic books; K ali for W om en and Stree for gender studies; R upa-H arperCollins, R avi D ayal, Indialnk for books o f literary and general interest and many more, define the publishing scene. The last 2 0 years have witnessed the emergence o f more players than ever before. Run by professional and enterprising editors, both old and new Indian publishing firms confidently face the English-language market and target its various segments.

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The History o f the Book in South Asia Publishers ’ P erspective

61

It can be concluded from the above that many factors have contributed to the o p tim istic m ood in the Indian p u b lish in g in d u stry to d a y . T o b egin w ith , a consistent devaluation o f the rupee against the dollar has m ade imported books prohibitively expensive. The cheapest imported books are virtually unaffordable for the average Indian buyer. A fter the eighties, this created a sm all vacuum that Indian publishers have been tryin g to fill w ith books produced in India. T h is economic development has coincided with the increase in trade publishing— which means publishing geared towards an individual reader and focusing upon popular fiction, literature in translation and books o f general interest. Traditionally, 90 per cen t o f In d ian p u b lis h in g has been e d u c a tio n a l; it has a lw a y s a d d re sse d institutional buyers— all sales have been library sales. There is now a significant sh ift fro m in stitu tio n al to in d iv id u a l b u y e rs , w h ic h in turn m ean s that the individual reader needs to be continuously informed about books available in the market. A lm o st all the leading n ew spapers in the country carry a page on new ‘ literary titles’ . R eview in g books has become a regular, on-going activity with the appearance o f journals such as The Book R eview , The Indian R eview o f Books and

B ib lio d e v o te d alm o st e x c lu s iv e ly to r e v ie w s . T e le v is io n p la y s its part by telecasting interviews with new authors. Promotion and publicity, integral features o f trade books, have made books very visible today. Narendra Kum ar concludes his evaluation o f the current publishing scene by com m enting that fo r the first time, “ the industry is being professionalized to an extent that the nineties opened new vistas which could lead to the full flow ering o f Indian scholarship in the best sense o f the term” ( 1 9 9 8 :1 ) . The professionalization o f the industry has resulted in better editorial standards and focused marketing, which has to a certain extent led to an ‘ im age m a k e -o v e r’ o f books, turning them into consu m er products. T h e visib ility m ay not a lw a y s translate into sales, it m ay not, in fact, even increase econom ic investment in books, an issue w e shall revert to. F o r the moment, the discussion m oves from a broad o ve rv ie w o f developm ents in E n glish -lan g u ag e publishing to the specific trajectory o f English translation.

The Cultural Economics of English Translation Though governm ent-funded bodies like the Sa h ity a A k ad em i and the N ational Book Trust m ay appear less relevant in these times o f late capitalism, they are still useful in many w ays. T h ey reach out to languages and genres that do not attract private publishers. A lso , since their stakes are low they can afford to venture into fresh p astu res. W h en w e turn to the c a se o f E n g lis h tran slatio n p ro p er, the subsidized activity o f the A kadem i, which included translation for the first time, has a very significant contribution. It marked, according to Menon (19 9 8 ), the first phase o f translation and made it p ossible to create an initial corpus o f literary w orks. Thou gh the usefulness o f the S ah ity a A k ad em i and the N B T cannot be gainsaid, their commitment to quality and their modes o f distribution have been far from satisfacto ry. Private publishing houses, on the other hand, could have afforded editorially sound translations along with efficient system s o f distribution. However, the small size o f the English reading public acted as a deterrent to private publishers, and hence for a very long time, publishing translation cam e to be seen

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535 Translating India

as an uneconom ical activity that is prim arily ‘ good for the ra tio n ’ . Outside the fram ework o f the institutions just mentioned, first Ja ic o and Hind Pocket B ooks and later San gam B oo ks (Orient Longm an ), V ik a s, A rn o ld Heinem ann, O xford University Press and Bell Books brought out Indian authors writing in English and translated into E n glish . A c co rd in g to M enon, this m arked the second phase o f tran slatio n and w a s ch a ra c te riz e d by “ an im p ro vem e n t in d istrib u tio n and marketing and much greater attention to the quality o f translation” compared with the earlier state-subsidized activity ( 2 0 0 2 :1 2 4 ) . So m e o f the best-known w orks were translated in this period, although translation did not have a huge readership. Ja ic o brought out the translation o f Prem chand’ s Godan. V ik as alone published over 3 0 titles, which include Bhisham Sahni’ s Tamas (as K ites will Fly) and Kiran N a gark a r’ s Seven Sixes are FortyThree. B ell B o o k s published K rishna S o b ti’ s Blossom s in the Darkness , Indira Parthasarthy’ s R iver o f B lood and some others. Oxford University Press, in addition to some titles in Indian English literature, also brought out influential works in translation. The series o f Indian Drama in English introduced Girish Karnad, V ija y Tendulkar, M ohan Rakesh and Badal Sircar and paved the w a y for a ‘ National Theatre’ . A fairly substantial body o f translations from T am il, Kannada, M arathi, Bengali and Hindi w as created, but on the whole, translation w as not com m ercially viable. Menon maps the third and current phase o f translation announcing that “ quantitatively as w ell qualitatively there is a seachange” ( 1 9 9 5 :1 6 ) . Sin ce 19 8 6 the Akadem i has been organizing w orkshops on literary translations at the national and regional le v e ls. T h e A k ad em i is now concerned with all the aspects— theoretical, cultural and practical— o f translation activity. It has created a pool o f translators whose names appear in the Translator's

Directory. In 19 9 6 , the Akadem i also set up a centre for translation that functions as a resource centre for all kinds o f translation across the country. It also plans to bring out the first-ever and the most comprehensive history o f translation in India. K atha, a non-governm ent organization set up in 1 9 8 8 , is eq u ally, if not more, com m itted to translation. Its program m e K ath av ilasam is geared tow ard s the institutionalization o f translation theory and practice. L ik e the A kad em i, Katha also conducts w orkshops and sem inars, institutes aw ards and form s a d v o c a c y groups to im prove the lot o f translation activity in India. The high-profile nature o f Katha’ s activities have gone a long w ay in making the general public aware o f the importance o f translation. A s part o f the Katha Translation Contests, it invites literary experts to nominate a ‘ go o d ’ but untranslated story, w hich is sent out to contestants all over the country. A panel o f distinguished writers and critics judge the quality o f translation and in a well-publicized event, prizes are awarded for the best translation. The anthologies o f stories emerging out o f these events have done extremely well in the domestic market— they run into frequent reprints. Unlike the S a h ity a A k ad em i and K atha, niche publishers like K ali fo r W om en and Stree (established in 19 8 4 and 19 9 0 respectively) are indirectly involved in the activity o f translation. Com m itted to the ideology o f gender, both Stree and K ali publish w om en’ s texts (fiction, autobiographies, non-fiction), and in the process, resort to En glish translation. A lth ough translation figures only as a means to a different ideological end, these publishers publish at least ten w orks in translation each. S tr e e a ls o has an im p rin t c a lle d S a m y a , d e v o te d to is s u e s o f c a s te and

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unto uch ab ility and this also takes reco u rse to E n g lish tran slation. T h e three prominent educational publishers o f India— M acm illan India, Orient Longm an and the O xford University Press have increased space for English translation over the years by either re v iv in g their old series or in troducing new ones. A p art from publishing w ell-know n dramatists like V ija y Tendulkar and G irish Karnad, O U P has also published n ovels like U .R . A nan th am urthy’ s Sam skara and G opinath M o h an ty’ s P araja. Presently, O U P plans to introduce a fresh series o f M odern Fiction in Translation. M acm illan published its first translation in 1 9 7 8 and till about the mid-nineties, the list o f its works in translation never went beyond Five to six tran slated w o rk s. H o w e v e r, in 1 9 9 6 , M a c m illa n in tro d u ced the v e ry ambitious programme o f M odem N ovels in English Translation (M IN T ) and under this program m e, it has brought out about 8 0 w orks in fiction. Translation had become a part o f Orient Longm an’ s publishing programme in the seventies with a series titled Sangam . Despite the Herculean efforts o f the editors, the series w as discontinued for lack o f a market. In these changing times, Sangam is reborn in the avatar o f D isha, an imprint o f Orient Longm an that includes Indian En glish writing as well as translation. Large-sized commercial publishers like Penguin India (set up in 19 8 5 ) and Rupa-HarperCollins (tie-up in 1 9 9 1 ) tap the Indian market for I W E and topics o f general interest. E v en so, their interest extends to E n glish translation— Penguin India publishes at least 1 5 titles in translation annually, while Rupa-H arperCollins publishes five. The increasing interest in translations evident in new titles m akes to d a y ’ s ju n cture an important one. M een akshi M u kherjee sums up the publishers* involvement very aptly: W hat w e now witness is the em ergence o f a system atic and promotional p ro d u ctio n b y in stitu tio n s and e sta b lish e d p u b lish in g h o u ses w h o carefu lly select the text to be translated; control the quality and texture o f the translation; provide a suitable context for each book, introductions, translator’ s prefaces and notes. ( 1 9 9 8 :3 4 ) It should be evident from the above that the En glish language industry is abuzz with a ctiv ity and the excitem en t o f exp lo rin g native talent through E n glish is spillin g into the area o f regional lan gu ages also. U n d o ub ted ly, the purpose o f outlining this trajectory w as to com m unicate the ‘ contribution’ o f the publishing industry and identify it as one o f the key institutions that provides concrete and external attention to English translations. A t the same time, the word ‘contribution’ suggests an unproblematic and benign relationship, and n ot the com plex process o f n ego tiatin g betw een culture and co m m erce that the p u b lish in g industry is actually engaged in. In an age o f print capitalism , institutions o f print and visual m edia w ield enorm ous p o w e r and in fluence as far as cultural perceptions are co n cern ed . T h e y m ay fo c u s o n ly h eg em o n ic fo rm s o f cu ltu re and rein fo rce h ierarchies, or altern atively they m ay w alk the tight rope betw een p o litica lly c o rre c t c h o ic e s and e c o n o m ic c o n s id e ra tio n s. S o m e o f these ten sio n s and resolutions are v isib le even in the case o f E n g lish translations. F o r instance, O xford U niversity Press’ s recent publication o f the first novel from Konkani into English ( Upheaval by Pundalik Naik, trans. V id y a Pai) is indicative o f its decision

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to support and foreground a historically marginalized language. Sim ilarly, K atha’ s encouragem ent to all languages, written as w ell oral, for its anthologies o f short stories is also borne out o f a publisher’ s choice to include an ethical component in an economic proposition. An Anthology o f Tribal literature (ed. G . N . D evy , 20 0 2) by Penguin India also marks a departure in publishing concerns. H ow ever these are exceptions, or rather the glim m erings o f a new beginning by w a y o f w hich the print media is m aking India’ s (ironically new ly-d iscovered ) linguistic diversity a truly marketable object. B e that as it may, publishers o f translations are governed by affiliatio ns, fo r personal or popular reasons, with certain lan gu ages and w e shall exam in e this issue n ow . T o start w ith, the S a h ity a A k ad em i has a lw a y s perceived translation as a ‘ u n ify in g ’ tool betw een lin gu istic com m un ities. Its express aim o f providing ‘ uniform representation’ to each language may be seen in its p re fe re n ce fo r ‘ re p re se n ta tiv e ’ and ca n o n ize d texts fo r tran slatio n . T h e A kad em i’ s list o f ‘ recognised’ languages is more inclusive than that o f the Eighth Sch ed u le, and it publishes from d ialects and ‘ m in or’ lan gu ages also. It form s A d viso ry Boards from each language, which recommend texts in order to ensure equal representation. The Akadem i is not alw ays able to fulfill this task (an issue ex a m in ed later), but the fa ct rem ain s that it is bound b y c o n sid e ra tio n s o f uniformity, a limitation not known to private publishers. Private publishers prefer source texts o n ly from ‘ p re stig io u s’ and therefore m arketable lan gu ages like Bengali and Hindi. It w as mentioned earlier that Katha has been able to include a couple o f stories from dialects and marginalized languages and does claim to be free o f the “ politics o f lan gu ages and representation’’ (D harm arajan , personal interview, 19 98 ). Admittedly Katha engages in the publication o f short stories, and so can afford to add variety to its anthologies without risking the com m ercial viability o f an entire book. Penguin India, R up a-H arperC ollin s and R a v i-D a y a l restrict them selves to only w ell-know n authors from w id ely accepted languages. Traditionally, O xford University Press has also refrained from venturing into less know n texts and lan gu ages. T h u s lan gu ages like B e n g a li, M a la y a la m , T a m il, T elu gu and Kannada figure in com m ercial efforts but ‘ m inor’ languages such as Manipuri and Kashmiri hardly ever do. The preference for certain source languages also rests upon the a v a ila b ility o f in-house editors in each pub lish in g house. Editors in publishing houses select or commission a work o f translation. In a costeffective scenario, review s o f translations by outside review ers increase cost and, therefore, editors are obliged to select from am ong lan gu ages that they know . R ep re sen ta tive s from Pen guin India and R u p a -H a rp e rC o llin s state that their publishing house also publishes texts recom m ended b y in-house editors. Stree adm its o f h a v in g a v e r y high q u ality M arath i literature list b e ca u se S tr e e ’ s business partner is Popular Prakashan from M u m bai. T h u s, private publishers choose works in translation depending upon the popularity and acceptance o f a S L , its m a rk e ta b ility, and the a v a ila b ility o f ed ito rial s k ills. I f the A k a d e m i is ham strung by the burden o f non-literary considerations such as uniform ity, the p rivate p u b lish ers are bound b y the “ lo g ic o f the m arket” (S atch id an an d an , personal interview, 19 9 7 ). In either case, the para-literary contexts underscore the politics o f translation. W e notice that publishing philosophies have an impact not only on the languages and texts, but also on the genres o f translation. Since fiction

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is the m ost popular genre o f the present cen tu ry, w e find its preponderance in a lm o st all p u b lis h in g p ro g ra m m e s, in c lu d in g n o w d a lit w o rk s in E n g lis h translation (see V . Padma, 2 0 0 4 ). F ictio n ’ s claim to ‘ realistically depict various aspects o f modem India’ (Satchidanandan, web article n.d) makes it more amenable for publication. Trivedi considers this as a trend that “ conforms broadly to Frederic Jam eso n ’ s obvio u sly inadequate and slanted description o f Third W orld literary works as national allegories” (see Trived i 1 9 9 6 : 5 1 - 5 2 ) . M acm illan India entered the arena o f translation with its series o f M odern N o vels in Translation, its aim being to “ show as authentic a picture as possible o f the different strata o f Indian society” (Krishnan, personal interview, 1998). Katha has focused almost entirely on short stories, a commitment bom out o f the founder’ s belief that “ at the beginning o f everything is the story” (Dharmarajan, personal interview , 19 9 8 ). For those at Katha, the ‘ sto ry ’ represents the most organic and primal relationship between human beings and literature. The Akadem i, on the other hand, ventures into genres such as poetry, autobiography, travelogue, and literary treatise, which, by and large, seem risky to private publishers. A t the same time, Stree and K ali for W o m en ’ s efforts to examine how knowledge o f and by women is created have taken them to translations o f biographies, m onographs as w ell as academ ic studies. D ram a in En glish translation has rem ained a much n eglected area, a lacuna that Seagu ll B ooks from Calcutta has attempted to fill. S e a g u ll’ s manifesto o f its series titled N e w Playwrights o f India mentions: In a c o u n try d iv id e d b y la n g u a g e , r e g io n a l trad itio n s and cu ltu ral variations, promoting cultural interaction across differences becom es all the more im portant. In the field o f theatre, there w a s a m ajor gap o f knowledge o f one another’ s theatre tradition between the different states. In order to brid ge this gap , translation w a s p e rce iv e d as im portant, translation into a link lan gu age com m on to most states, i.e. E n g lish accepted by the south and the north as a practical com prom ise to enable communication, (w w w .seagullindia.com ). In its rhetoric o f d iversity and “ cultural interaction” , Seagu ll does not fram e its statement o f purpose any differently from other publishers. H owever, its decision to handle a r e la tiv e ly less p op u lar genre m akes S e a g u ll’ s contribu tion unique. E q u a lly hearten in g are new sig n s o f n o n -fictio n in E n g lish translation.

The

N a v a y a n a P u b lish in g house establish ed b y S . A n an d and R a vik u m a r in 2 0 0 3 em ploys English translation “ to take forw ard debates on issues related to society, cu ltu re, literature, histo ry and p o litics that the m ainstream d o es not w ish to address” . N a va y a n a focu ses on caste as a catego ry o f an alysis and aim s to go beyond “ dalit literature that sells” (Personal interview , 2 0 0 5 ), and produces nonfiction writing in English translation to provide a holistic discourse on caste. The case o f N avayan a points to the use o f English translation for polem ical uses (See A ppendix).

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Do Translations Sell? In broad terms, all private publishers share a com m on concern for com m ercial benefit. A t the end o f the day, regardless o f the nature o f the text, every publisher has to decide whether it is econom ically viable or not. Publishers m ay d iffer in their strategies to meet this goal, but in purely business terms, any given book has to a tlea st p a y fo r itse lf. G e n e ra lly sp e a k in g , the path o f E n g lis h -la n g u a g e publishing is far from smooth. “ The English-know ing reader, the backbone o f the market, is still scattered over a very wide area and difficult to reach, in the absence o f good bookshops in all but the larger cities” , notes R avi D ayal ( 1 9 9 8 :3 0 - 3 5 ) . In addition to this, co m petitio n from other kinds o f m ed ia such as te le v isio n , com puters, C D -R O M s is d isturbingly real, as is the com petition from foreign investors. R aising the visibility o f books does help but it also creates a ‘ c a tc h -2 2 ’ situation, so that books don’ t sell without publicity (Renuka Chatterjee, personal in te rv ie w , 1 9 9 7 ) . T h e p ro c e ss o f e x p lo rin g these issu es b rin g s to lig h t the undeniable fact that publishing translation is far from lucrative. Com pared to other kinds o f texts that can be priced high or sold in large volum es, translations have small print-runs and are relatively low priced. M andira Sen (Stree) rightly^notes, “ T ranslations, despite the C ro ssw o rd aw ard, still do not have the ‘ glam o u r’ o f writing in En glish by Indian” (personal interview , 2 0 0 1 ) . A t the same time, the decision to add new titles and commission works indicates that even as a business proposition, it cannot be written o ff co m p letely. In order to have translations survive, publishers either have a very selective list or invent strategies and address specific target groups. B y focusing upon a specialized market for w om en’ s texts, K a li for W om en has done w ell in the o verseas m arket. Stree targets a sim ilar market but prefers to tie up with a foreign agent or sell distribution rights to an overseas publisher. Oxford University Press and M acm illan India continue despite unsatisfactory sales, because texts in translation have potential as textbooks. The M acm illan project, a unique combination o f what Su jit M ukherjee calls “ private vision and com m ercial effort” ( 1 9 9 7 :1 6 6 ) , succeeded in countering the lack o f viability. In the words o f its ch ief editor: T h e m ost im portant item o f su rv iv a l is m o n ey. I d o n ’ t b e lie v e that translations are lucrative unless you get one or two titles into university board prescriptions every year. Translations rarely pay for them selves. Hence our translations are targeted towards home audience, students and foreign readers. M y concern w as how best to make it possible for these translations to be both enjoyable reading material and textbook design. (Krishnan, personal interview, 19 9 8 ) The nexus between academ ic institutions that help by absorbing texts for students and publishing houses that publish texts is a very crucial one. A t this point, even at the cost o f focus, a digression into the relations between translators, academ ics and p u b lish ers needs to be m ade. V e r y o ften , co n tin u ities run fro m literary practitioners, academics/translators and publishers in the En glish language book industry in India. For instance, Rukun Advani (ex-editor, Oxford University Press

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and c u rre n tly the fo u n d er, P erm an en t B la c k ) is a lso the au th or o f a n o vel

Beethoven among the Cows. Pankaj M ishra (founder, Indialnk) is the author o f the novel The Romantics , while D avid D avidar (C E O , Penguin India) is the author o f a recent novel The H ouse o f Blue M angoes . U rvashi B utalia and Ritu M enon (co ­ founders, Kali for W om en) have also contributed to literature and personal histories on Partition. In the earlier decades, the well-know n writer Girish K am ad w as also the editor o f the O xford University Press, just as a pioneering translation theorist, Su jit M ukherjee w as an editor with Orient Lo n gm an , as w as P riya A d ark ar, an established translator from Marathi into English. Such exam ples are legion, but the tenor o f the argument is that there are continuities and inseparable connections betw een literary a ctivitie s (such as w ritin g and tran slating) and teachin g and research on one hand, and publishing and editing on the other. T o come back to the subject o f selling translations, we must remind ourselves that not all publishers rely upon educational institutions for their clien tele. If M acm illan targets the market for educational books, Katha aims at the com m on reader and the neo-literate; Kali concerns itself with the market for feminist texts. Penguin and HarperCollins, on the other hand, aim at a general Indian readership and confine them selves to titles o f general interest. Within India, Katha volum es have gone into reprints and created ripples in the dom estic market. Its focu s on stories alone makes a Katha volume easy reading; a feast o f stories for the price o f a sin g le book m akes it ‘ go o d v a lu e fo r m o n e y ’ . T h u s, n ich e m ark ets, new disciplinary formations, syllabi in schools and co lleges— all these form different mechanisms o f countering the cost o f publishing a translation. It can be concluded from the forego in g that the body o f I L E T , h o w ever sm all, acquires its sp ecific slants from publishing concerns, among other things. The philosophy o f translation differs from one publishing house to another, d ifferences reflected in decisions regarding selections o f source texts, S L s , genres, and fin ally the targeting o f the market. These decisions usually stem from the set o f explicit or implicit aims and p rio ritie s o f each p u b lish in g h o u se. T h e im p lem e n tatio n o f the tran slatio n program m e o f each p u b lishing house is in keeping w ith the w a y it p e rce iv e s translation vis-a-vis other publishing activities. This is not to say that goals do not get modified or that publishing programmes are alw ays congruent with the stated goals. In the chapter on Gujarati, w e shall see this issue from the point o f view o f a constituent part o f I L E T , in itse lf a pie w ith unequal p ie ce s from d ifferen t languages. In the m eanwhile looking at the publishing scenario today, this seems to be a good time to be publishing translations. T h e field is likely to gro w more exciting and com petitive— a recent strong indication being Picador India’ s arrival here to tap the Indian market potential not just in terms o f writing in English, but translations as well. From the publisher’ s point o f view , it now means “ recognizing the importance o f quality translations and paying for them; and, sim ultaneously, developing the market for writing in translation, and translation itself as a desirable skill” (M enon, 1 9 9 5 :1 6 ) . Cop yright policies and revised paym ents for translators today bear out the recognition extended to translators by the publishing w orld. W ith the exception o f the Sahitya A kadem i, which holds the copyrights o f all its p u b lica tio n s, tran slators and authors n ow e q u a lly share the c o p y rig h t. M o st publishers provide ten per cent royalty to be divided between the author and the

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translator. Even in cases o f a lump sum payment, the amount distributed between the tw o is eq u al. T h e generous sp ace give n to tran slato r’ s introductions and prefaces further testifies to the fact that a translator is now considered important in the scheme o f publishing. The difference between a 1 9 5 4 edition o f Rabindranath T a g o r e ’ s G ora in an E n glish translation (w h ich contains a sin gle-lin e hum ble acknowledgem ent by an unnamed “ The Translator’ ’) and the re-translation o f the same book in 20 00 with an impressive translator’ s name and a superb introduction by an established critic, shows that English translation activity in India has come a long w ay. The very physical appearance and format o f a text in translation today indicates the presence o f a translator, an entity m issing altogether from the pages o f many publications earlier.

[17] Epilogue: Exaggerated Obituaries? A.R. Venkatachalapathy

he death of the book, in the wake o f the digital onslaught that was predicted, anticipated, or feared— depending on ones ideological and cultural position— in the 1990s seems exceed­ ingly alarmist now, at the end of the first decade of the twenry-first century. Following M ark Twain we could say that obituaries o f the book appear to have been somewhat exaggerated. Even though pro­ phets of doom such as Jeff Gomez have declared that print is dead, prescient observers o f book culture such as Jason Epstein and Robert D arnton expect the book to survive as codex.1 Even though the disintegration of the Gutenberg galaxy was prophe­ sied by Marshall M cLuhan as early as the 1960s, there is no mistaking the anxiety occasioned in the 1990s. ‘Over the past few decades, in the blink of the eye of history, our culture has begun to go through what promises to be a total metamorphosis [. . .] The stable hierarchies o f the printed page [. . .] are being superseded by the rush o f impulses through freshly m inted circuits.’2 However one should be conscious o f the fact that the culture that Sven Birkerts mentions is W estern culture. This is predicated on the E nlightenm ent no tio n o f self and knowledge, and the possible disappearance o f an artefact that has been valued in that culture for over half a m illennium. Given Roger Chartier’s perceptive statem ent

T

1 Jeff Gomez, Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age (London: Macmillan, 2008); Jason Epstein, Book Business. Publishing: Past Present and Future (New York: W .W . N orton, 2001); Robert D arnton, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), Introduction. 2 Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate o f Reading in an Electro­ nic Age (Boston: Faber & Faber, 1994), p. 3.

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o f its centrality in Western culture— the book has been one o f the most powerful metaphors used for conceiving o f the cosmos, nature and the hum an body’3— one can understand and empathize with such fears and anxieties. However, such insights from the history o f the book also point to the fact that there is no one universal history o f the book. If there is no one universal history o f the book it follows that there need be no single future for the book. If books have specific and contingent hist­ ories— as I hope I have dem onstrated in the foregoing history of the Tamil book— it would follow that the new digital technologies will impact countries and cultures variously. T he thrust of this epilogue is therefore to make a specific argum ent for the possible future of Tamil books and track how Tamil book publishing has fared in its engagement with digital technology.

As noted earlier, Tamil was the first non-European language to deploy movable type and printed books. The first printed Tamil book (1577), the first complete translation o f the New Testament (1714/1715), the first full translation of the Bible (1796), the first extended lexicon (1912-36), and the first m odern encyclopaedia (1954-68) constitute some other ‘firsts’ that printed Tamil can claim in relation to other Indian languages. Such justifiably proud claims, however, conceal a host o f basic problems and weaknesses that characterize the Tamil publishing world. By com m on consent Bengali and Malayalam, two m odern Indian languages whose engagement with printing begins some two hundred years after Tham piran Vanakkam , are way ahead of Tamil publishing. Despite the early origins of print in Tamil, until the mid-nineteenth century printing was a European preserve w ithin which missionaries dom inated. From the later half of the nineteenth century print made some inroads into Tamil society and developed organic links with indigenous society. T he recovery o f ancient Tamil classics and their 3 Roger C hartier, -Libraries W ith o u t W alls’, Representations, no. 42, Spring 1993, p. 49.

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canonization through the m ediation o f print had far-reaching social and political consequences. Well until the end of the nineteenth cen­ tury Tamil publishing was largely sustained by forms of traditional patronage derived from zamindars, native princes, religious monaste­ ries, landlords, and caste leaders. However, the establishm ent o f W estern-type schools and the expansion o f a m odern bureaucratic adm inistration had im plications for publishing. A part from the dem and for printed materials that this created, the emergence o f new social classes based on education as well as the colonial occupations and professions disrupted the material foundations of Tamil publish­ ing. By the time o f W orld War I Tamil publishing was breaking away from patronage publishing and inching towards a faceless, im per­ sonal market. In the inter-w ar period Tamil publishing showed vitality and growth, a trend that became more pronounced during W orld War II. The inflationary war economy ignited Tamil publishing, a process further fuelled by the influx of C hettiar capital fleeing Burma, IndoChina, and South East Asia from both Japanese invasion and local resistance. M any o f the characteristic features of Tamil books until the advent of digital technology— layout, typography, cover design, etc.— took shape during this period. The process o f state takeover o f textbook publishing which started in the mid-1960s and reached a head in 1971 exposed the real found­ ations of Tamil publishing: the bedrock o f assured textbook sales had subsidized trade books. Once again, with their characteristic myopia, publishers looked to the state w ithout exploring ways and means to expand and reach out to a market. The outcome was the establishment o f the Local Library A uthority (now the Directorate of Public Libra­ ries), which, almost as a m atter o f routine, bought a certain num ber of copies— as m uch as 50 per cent o f the actual printrun. (Bulk orders under various government schemes such as O peration Blackboard and A nna M arumalarchi T hittam constitute periodic windfalls to publishers.) Even if this ensured bread and butter for publishers, it effectively killed creativity and innovation.

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This was the backdrop within which digital technology announced its entry into Tamil publishing. T he most substantial impact o f digital technology in Tamil publishing has been in the field of text com po­ sition. Well until the mid-1990s the technology o f print had remained unchanged. For over a century movable types, cut and cast in local foundries, were used for composition w ithin establishments which were little more than sweatshops. Even though hot metal technologies such as monotype, linotype, and rotary were available throughout the twentieth century— and widely employed for publishing in English even in Chennai— the Tamil publishing industry rarely took recourse to them. The prim ary reason was the low printrun— the average printrun o f Tamil books hovered at the 1,000 mark. (In fact, as shrewd cutters o f cost, Tamil publishers make printers print 1,200 copies for the price o f 1,000 as they claim that 200 copies are m eant for free distribution to authors, reviewers, and other prom otional purpo­ ses!) Am ong the rare occasions when the rotary was used was when C. Rajagopalachari’s popular prose renditions of the M ahabharata and Ramayana were published by Sakti Karyalayam and printed at the daily Dinam ani press (of the Indian Express Group) in the 1950s. Or, when the periodical magazine press dabbled in book publishing, they pressed their rotary machines into service. Given that the dim en­ sions o f the paper rolls used for these machines were different from the sheets that were ordinarily used for Tamil books, such books were dubbed unsize’ in popular publishing parlance. T he only m ajor publisher to use hot metal technology— m onotype in this case— was Poom puhar Prasuram, established in the mid-1970s by the owners o f Eagle Press, the market leaders in the production o f diaries and calendars. Printing establishments such as M aruthi Press, which had its own foundry, would employ this luxury occasionally to use freshly cast types for printing. Another major im pedim ent to the adoption o f hot metal techno­ logy was the unwieldy nature of Tamil characters, which necessitated a vast num ber of types difficult to accom m odate on a keyboard (a difficulty digital technology also had to encounter at the outset). Even when phototypesetting (with bromide print-outs) had made its entry in the 1980s— apart from the prohibitive costs involved both

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due to the process itself as well as the compulsory recourse to offset printing that this process necessitated— it was only rarely used— for instance by Cre-A publishers; Kanthalakam was one of the few firms to provide phototypesetting facilities in Tamil. Even when big pub­ lishers opted to print by the offset m ethod, they often preferred to do the typesetting in letterpresses, taking an art puli’ on the machine, which was then translated to printing film. By the early 1990s the PC revolution was very m uch at the Indian doorstep. In the initial years progress in Tamil typesetting was tardy because good D T P software using WYSIWYG was still in the future. O nly w ith its advent did D T P come to be entrenched. This m eant the gradual folding up o f type foundries such as Nelson Type Foundry and M odern Type Foundry, which were reduced to casting a limited quantity o f types for small letterpresses doing job work, especially in the mofussil areas. C om puter typesetting m ade it im perative to switch to offset printing. Well until the mid-1990s, offset printing cost twice as m uch as regular mechanical printing. In a very inelastic book market this posed an insurm ountable problem. In the first instance, therefore, publishers took to offset printing only for the printing o f book wrappers and jackets. Earlier, artists and illustrators had designed wrap­ pers and covers that would be printed in two or three colours via metal blocks. Emphasis was usually placed on stylistic and calligraphic writing. This did not work once offset printing could be used. Given the then prohibitive costs o f scanning, plate-making, and printing, the pioneers in this field used single-colour wrappers and jackets, which were quite a novelty. Elegant black-and-white photographs were used with un-stylized typefaces. It would take a decade before m ulti­ colour jackets adorned Tamil books. Even then, such book wrappers were printed four at a time to cut down costs— it would be no exag­ geration to say that printing single m ulti-colour wrappers is still commercially unviable for Tamil books. Initially many publishers, rather than generate original wrapper designs, used pictures from the N a tio n a l Geographic M agazin e w ithout acknowledgement, whether they were relevant to the contents o f the book or not. The dom inant trend now is to download images from the web!

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Com posing text using digital technology had its share o f teething trouble. The prime problem was the availability o f suitable wordprocessing and D T P software. Despite various governmental and non-state initiatives, Tamil digital technology is still faced w ith a m ultiplicity o f keyboards (typewriter, phonetic, and standard), with the standard keyboard accepted’ in an international Tamil com put­ ing conference being one of m any available options. A Unicode is yet to gain acceptance in Tamil, even though it seems inevitable in the foreseeable future. There is presently a plethora o f encoding systems: TAM, TAB, TSCII, with each D T P software developer opting for their own encoding system. If the efforts o f the Indian government s Pune-based C-DAC for Indian languages was too Devanagari-centred and im per­ vious to Tamil needs, efforts by Tamils themselves have taken two dif­ ferent trajectories. If the pioneering efforts by Tamils abroad were techno-saw y in keeping with the demands of technology and the net, the fonts developed were far from aesthetic. O n the other hand the development of D T P software in Tamilnadu was almost exclusively propelled by publishing needs where the elegance o f fonts was given priority. After a certain stage o f development, interests had become so entrenched that no compromise could be effected between the two. The long history of Tamil fonts from the days when the earliest types were cut in Goa, Q uilon, and even Halle was forgotten. In the first instance the new fonts in Tamil D T P software did not gel w ith existing fonts in the letterpress to which Tamil readers had been socialized for m ore than half a century. Even some first lessons were forgotten. The character o f Tamil orthography lends itself to a slight tilt to the right, unlike roman letters, and straight typefaces do not work well. (A corollary, given this natural tendency to the right, has been the persistent difficulty o f fashioning suitable and workable italics for Tamil fonts.) In the initial stages there was a medley o f in­ elegant and unreadable fonts in use, a problem that has subsided only recently. A nother outcom e o f the evolving digital Tamil typefaces was their independent development in Tam ilnadu and Sri Lanka, not to speak o f Malaysia and Singapore. W hile an alm ost universal set o f typefaces had evolved in the movable type era, fonts diverged again. So m uch so, books produced in Tam ilnadu and Sri Lanka have

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developed distinct appearances, a situation further complicated by the wider varieties of paper available in Sri Lanka. T he other problem that cropped up w ith the advent o f D T P was the redundancy of compositors and the resultant new recruitm ent of keying-in personnel. Even though traditionally composition was a skilled manual job pursued by people with little formal education, compositors often acquired skills through their long years of appren­ ticeship and training. There are for instance legendary stories about M.P. Sivagnanam and Vindhan, who started their lives as composi­ tors and later emerged as not insignificant writers. There are also many instances of compositors gaining political consciousness by reading the material they composed. Through such a training process composi­ tors produced decent galley and page proofs even when authors— as was their w ont— had not subm itted acceptable press copy. Well versed in standard page layouts and elem entary proofing skills, some compositors could make a page even w ithout going through the galley stage. Such craftsmanship is virtually absent among the new’ generation o f com puter typesetters. Basically, they get trained only in the quick keying-in of text. The falling standards o f school and even college education in Tam ilnadu are evident in the mess they make o f the copy they key in. T he absence o f even elementary, useable spellcheck­ ing software for Tamil, a still persistent problem, com pounds the confusion. The limited num ber o f fonts that can be used for text composition, the non-standardization o f leading, inter-word spacing, hyphenation (being an agglutinative language w ith a syllabary rather than a phonetic alphabet, Tamil words do not require hyphenation), etc., made for some grotesque books in the 1990s. T he entire aesthe­ tics o f the Tamil book which had evolved over a period of about a century— from about the time of W orld War I when Tamil books began to be produced for a larger, impersonal market— nearly col­ lapsed. T he alm ost innum erable ways in w hich fonts could be manipulated created more confusion rather than being put to effective use. A new aesthetic based on digital technology emerged only by the turn o f the new m illennium and is far from having stabilized even now.

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If the new digital technology played such havoc in printing proto­ cols, it also provided a variety of conveniences. Theoretically at least it made proofreading a more effective and less time- and place-bound activity. Given the m agnitude o f the publishing industry, letterpress printing establishments were small and had very little type. Conse­ quently it was practically impossible and commercially unviable for printers to keep the types locked up for long. T he customary practice was to set the page— galleys being read at the press itself, usually by the owner— at the end of the day and deliver the page proofs to proofreaders’ homes at night, then collect the corrected proofs in the m orning before the press opened for the day. Few presses had the wherewithal to compose m ore than, say, ten formes. Legendary printing presses such as Kabeer Printing Works, Progressive Printers, and Diocesan Press which could deliver the entire m anuscript in proof were few and invariably too expensive. Over the last century Tamil book publishing and printing had converged in the city of Chennai. N ot only U.V. Swaminatha Iyer the great editor o f Tamil classics, but also Veeresalingam Pantulu the Telugu reformer, had preferred to come to f in de siecle Chennai so that their publishing activities could be carried on m ore effectively. T he centrality o f Chennai began to be somewhat eroded w ith the rise o f digital techno­ logy as publishers did not have to flock there to meet their print­ ing needs. W ith digital technology, any num ber o f pages can be composed without worrying about locked-up type. Further, the proofs of a whole book are handled not in instalments but in full. Consequently, the tiresome task o f proofreading is not bound by place or time (the contingency of the com puter system crashing is o f course a different matter). Even though m any have been like the sorcerer’s apprentice in the handling o f this convenience, there is no doubting its usefulness for serious pursuits such as critical editions. This has also had a very perceptible impact on the average size of books. W hile until the advent o f digital technology the publishing of tomes was dreaded by Tamil publishers, they have more easily taken to it since. Com bined with a perceived if not actual expansion in the book market, more bulky volumes are being published in Tamil than ever before. This has also exposed the paucity o f real content in

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the books. How m uch can even a society which is fast changing and throwing up new talent produce? O ne recourse to offset the dearth was the republication o f old and out-of-print books with cultural value. T he bane o f Tamil publishing— that very few books were reprinted— was almost wiped out overnight. In fact there are some publishers who print only out-of-print and out-of-copyright books. This process has been strengthened by the peculiar Tamil tradition of the state taking over the copyright of the works of many cultural icons and putting them in the public dom ain, thus unleashing a huge corpus of texts for unrestricted and even irresponsible use. Offset printing for text m atter became the norm only after it had become normal procedure for jackets and wrappers. W ith offset print­ ing cylinder machines became completely redundant and, from the late 1990s, many printing presses began to dispose their machines off as scrap. (The opportunity this afforded for setting up a printing m useum was missed.) As a result of all these changes the face o f Tamil publishing, as well as the physical aspect of the Tamil book, has changed perceptibly, if not drastically. John B. Thom pson, in his comprehensive study of books in the digital age, has established that the digital revolution at least in the West is not so m uch a revolution in the produ ct as a revolu­ tion in the process . ’4 This is evidently untrue in the Tamil context. The Tamil book, in its physical aspect— bulk, layout, typeface, etc.— has greatly changed. This has gone hand in hand w ith an explosion in the num ber of books published. Unfortunately there is no data, reliable or unreliable, on the volume o f book production in India.5 No bibliometric analysis 4 John B. Thompson, Books in the Digital Age: The Transformation o f Academic and Higher Education Publishing in Britain and the United States (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), p. 405, original emphasis. 5 Publishers in India are legally mandated, under the Registration of Books Act 1867, to submit one copy of every publication to the four national de­ posit libraries, including the National Library, Kolkata, a provision observed more in the breach. The National Library is expected to register the books and prepare annual bibliographies which are intended to also provide statistics regarding books published in India. These bibliographies are woefully behind schedule.

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is therefore possible. But the phenom enal growth in Tamil publishing is unmistakable. An im portant trend in international publishing over the last two decades has been the rise of huge publishing conglomerations which have with gargantuan appetite gobbled up m any independent pub­ lishing houses via huge corporate mergers. As a result m any venerable publishing houses have become little m ore than im prints.6 Even though Tamil publishing is marked by the very palpable absence of corporate organization, the trend in the last decade has been the prolife­ ration of dozens o f independent publishing houses which have been riding the digital wave and that have in the process brought in fresh talent, consolidating earlier gains. The spatial rupture between typesetting establishments and printing shops first led to the m ushroom ing of D T P firms all over Tamilnadu. Considering the relative cheapness o f typesetting there was a major boom in such establishments in the late 1980s; Puducherry for instance catered to international publishing to a great extent. Ultim ate­ ly this also paved the way for the establishment o f publishing houses all over Tamilnadu— rather than these being clustered in Chennai, especially in Broadway until the early 1980s and then in Pondy Bazaar since. Until then M ercury Puthaka Nilaiyam based in Coim batore and Annam based in Sivagangai were the major exceptions. But in the late 1990s trendsetting publishing in Tamil was spearheaded by a publishing house not in Chennai but in far-off Nagercoil, Kalachuvadu Pathippagam. Another sign of growth is the entry o f major media companies into what could be called quasi book publishing. There was o f course a trend in the 1970s and 1980s towards the periodical press publishing m onthly novels in newsprint. There was even a crime novel revolu­ tion in the later 1980s, when there was a surfeit o f pulp novels. The qualitative difference in the last few years has been the publication o f well-produced works printed on mechanical glazed newsprint, often in colour, but recognizable as books and marketed as books. 6 Andre Schiffrin, The Business o f Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read (London: Verso, 2000).

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The major players in this field are Nakkeerany A n an da V ikatan , and Kumuda.m. In 2004 the New Horizon M edia was set up with the pro­ ceeds of a thriving cricket website. Never in living m em ory has so m uch capital been infused into Tamil publishing. The attem pt of some publishers to negotiate rights for publication, a virtually non-existent practice, also shows the growing m aturity o f Tamil publishing as well as the impact o f globalization. The m aturity and confidence of Tamil publishers is also materially premised on the growth and expansion o f the market. Even though the expansion is somewhat exaggerated, it is not to be discounted. The crowds throng­ ing the annual Chennai Book Fair are only one indication o f growing reader interest as well as market expansion. Even though the physical network of bookselling is still weak, digital technology has extended the book market. The Tamil diaspora in the wrake o f the political violence in Sri Lanka and the software boom have m eant that read­ ers for Tamil books— wdth significant disposable incomes— are now spread across the world. There are now m any online booksellers cater­ ing to their needs. The book scene in Tamilnadu thus presents not a picture o f gloom but o f great promise. Tamil publishing— producers and consumers— have never had it so good. Undoubtedly, digital technology has been an enabling factor. This is o f course not to push forward a m onocausal explanation for a very complex phenom enon that has to take into account the effects o f globalization, the structural adjustm ent of the Indian economy, a burgeoning middle class with considerable cultural anxiety, the unleashing of fresh talent from hitherto margi­ nal social groups, and other such things. T he book, certainly its Tamil avatar, is far from dead. The next decade may prove to be crucial to its future.

[18] The Practices of Reading and Writing Laura M. Ahearn

Reading and writing are social activities, even when a person is alone while en­ gaging in them. Here, I analyze the ideologies embedded in several of Junigau s new literacy practices, concentrating on the contexts in which villagers read the texts discussed in the previous chapter. New structures of feeling can be de­ tected in the texts themselves and in the reading practices of the villagers that emphasize the right of the individual to act according to her or his own wishes, and there is a strong desire to become “developed.” And yet at the same time some long-standing cultural values and hierarchical relationships are being re­ inforced. Even as new ideas link romantic love with development, economic success, nationalism, and individual rights, old ideas about unequal gender and age relations are being reinforced. In this chapter, I describe some of the literacy practices in which Junigau villagers have engaged over the years besides writing love letters, for love letter writing does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it takes place alongside other acts of reading and writing that are just as socially embedded. It is important, there­ fore, to note the various contexts in which these practices take place— in set­ tings as diverse as schools, tea shops, bookstores, youth clubs, and movie the­ aters— and to indicate changes in practices and contexts over time. To begin with, I provide an overview of literacy trends in Junigau over time.

Patterns o f Literacy in Junigau

There is a wide range of literacy skills among Junigau women and men, mak­ ing any kind of measurement of literacy rates extremely challenging. Never­ theless, a sense of the overall distribution of literacy skills and formal educa­ tion among Junigau residents can be seen in table 5, which is based on a survey I conducted in 1993 of all 161 ever-married people in Junigau s central ward.1

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TABLE 5. Rates of Literacy and Schooling among All Ever-Married Individuals in Junigau’s Central Ward, 1993 (N = 161)

Sex Female Male

Illiterate

Some Informally Acquired Literacy Skills

65.4% 6.9%

13.6% 43.1%

Some Formal Education 18.5% 20.8%

High School Graduate 2.5% 25.0%

Some College 0% 4.2%

For the purposes of this survey I defined literacy as being able to sign one’s name (a common point of reference in Junigau discussions of literacy).2 The survey demonstrated that, according to this definition, 65.4 percent of Junigau married women were illiterate, whereas only 6.9 percent of Junigau married men were. Because of evening female literacy classes, 13.6 percent of married women had some literacy skills (ranging from being able to sign their names to being able to read and write letters). In contrast, the 43.1 percent of married men with informally acquired literacy skills gained them in the military. Over­ all rates of high school graduation in Junigau also differed greatly by sex, with married men being ten times as likely to have graduated from high school as married women (25.0 vs. 2.5 percent).3 There were no married women in Juni­ gau who had gone on to college as of 1993, b u t m 1997 one woman with a cou­ ple of years of college education married into the village. Literacy and formal education rates in Junigau vary significantly by age as well. Tables 6 and 7 show the distribution by age of these rates among married women and men, respectively. While over 95 percent of Junigau married women born before 1951 were illiterate in 1993, in the most recent birth cohort, those born after 1963, almost two-thirds had some formal schooling or had even graduated from high school, and only 8.7 percent were illiterate. The same trend of increased literacy and formal education can be seen in TABLE 6. Rates of Literacy and Schooling among All Ever-Married Women in Junigau’s Central Ward, 1993 (N = 81)

Year of Birth Before 1937 1937-51 1952-62 1963-93

Illiterate

Some Informally Acquired Literacy Skills

Some Formal Education

95.5% 95.2% 66.7% 8.7%

4.5% 0% 26.7% 26.1%

0% 4.8% 6.7% 56.5%

High School Graduate 0% 0% 0% 8.7%

Some College 0% 0% 0% 0%

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TABLE 7. Rates of Literacy and Schooling among All Ever-Married Men in Junigau’s Central Ward, 1993 (N = 72)

Year of Birth Before 1937 1937-51 1952-62 1963-93

Illiterate

Some Informally Acquired Literacy Skills

Some Formal Education

26.7% 5.9% 0% 0%

73.3% 58.8% 41.7% 0%

0% 29.4% 29.2% 18.8%

High School Graduate 0% 5.9% 25.0% 68.8%

Some College 0% 0% 4.2% 12.5%

the birth cohorts of married men in Junigau. Whereas over a quarter of such men born before 1937 were illiterate in 1993 and none had any formal educa­ tion, all of those born from 1963 to the present had at least some formal edu­ cation and more than three-quarters of them were high school graduates or had some college education. As these figures demonstrate, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women and men who have at least some literacy skills and/or for­ mal schooling. Taken by themselves, however, these numbers cannot illuminate the types of literacy practices in which Junigau residents engage or the mean­ ings and values they attribute to them. This is the task of the remainder of this chapter.

Literacy Practices before i960 Prior to 1950, when Nepal was ruled by an elitist, isolationist series of Rana prime ministers, there were very few schools in the country. Almost all of them were located in Kathmandu and were for the purpose of educating elite, highcaste boys (Bista 1991:118-21). In Junigau, there was no school until 1939, when a small school for boys was opened. This created the uneven distribution we have just seen of literacy skills across the Junigau population according to gender and age. Before a school was opened in Junigau, most of the social practices requir­ ing literacy skills involved official documents. The process of creating, receiv­ ing, and storing official documents pertaining to birth, death, taxes, citizen­ ship, and army service was gendered. Junigau men were not only much more likely to be literate at that time and therefore able to participate in the social processes surrounding documents; they were also the only villagers involved in the military and in local leadership roles. The government administrator in the village, or sachip, who was in charge of recording births and deaths, was always

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a man, as was the head of the village council, the pradhän punch. Women some­ times attended village meetings but only when there were no men present who could represent the family. According to villagers who remember these meet­ ings, the women rarely participated in the discussions and never took part in the writing of resolutions that occasionally resulted from the meetings. (In­ deed, this was still the case as recently as 1998.) Aside from records of birth and death, tax receipts, resolutions, military discharge papers, citizenship papers, and other sorts of official documents, Ju­ nigau residents also participated in the creation and reading of papers associ­ ated with moneylending. In the past, most moneylenders were upper-caste men from other villages, and the borrowers of money were Magar men from Junigau acting on behalf of their joint families. (This continues to be the case.) It was always the moneylender who drew up the document, while the man from Junigau who was borrowing the money would add only his signature (or thumbprint if he could not write). Sometimes villagers would call upon the as­ sistance of more highly educated neighbors or relatives in order to make sure the moneylender did not charge too much interest, but again all these activi­ ties were— and continue to be— considered the province of men. According to Junigau residents, men have also always been in charge of drawing up lists of invitees for feasts associated with life cycle rituals. Senior male relatives are still the ones who write down the names of the heads of households (all men, except in the case of widows living alone) to be invited to the feast, and boys or young men have the responsibility for personally deliv­ ering each invitation. Unlike in Kathmandu or Tansen, the invitations to wed­ dings and other events have never been written, although the list of invitees is almost always put in writing. It is carefully noted on the list whether the entire family is invited (chulo nimtä— everyone who eats at the same hearth) or just one representative of the family (nimtä). During the feast, senior male kin write down who actually attends in order to have a better sense of future social obligations. Women sometimes keep careful track of this in their heads, but they have never been the ones doing the reading or writing. A few of the older men in Junigau have specialized literacy skills that have enabled them over the years to read astrological calendars for the purpose of choosing an auspicious date to commemorate a relative’s death or hold a mar­ riage. Complex astrological calculations, however, have always been conducted by hämro bäun (our Brahman), the Brahman priest from a neighboring village who officiates at all the Hindu life cycle rituals in Junigau. While a couple of Magar families in Junigau have Hindu calendars and copies of Hindu scrip­ tures in Nepali or Sanskrit, these materials are rarely intelligible to ordinary vil­ lagers, even to those who can read and write Nepali.

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Another sphere of life associated with literacy in the past in Junigau was the military, where most men acquired and used their literacy skills in earlier times. Retired Gurkha soldiers from Indian or British regiments described to me how they learned to read and write Nepali, Hindi, and sometimes English in order to be able to read training manuals. One Junigau man, a former mem­ ber of a British Gurkha regiment, participated in deciphering secret codes dur­ ing World War II. By far, the most common literacy practice of soldiers before i960, however, was writing letters home. Because very few married women were literate at that time, men or boys received and answered most of the let­ ters to and from soldiers. Women sometimes participated actively by suggest­ ing things to include in letters to their husbands, or even dictating entire let­ ters. (Older women still do this at times.) Women were also occasionally the recipients of letters, even though they usually had to call upon a male relative to read them, but most often a soldier would address letters to his father or other senior male relatives. From the few older letters I have seen, and from what Junigau residents report, letters to and from soldiers in the past almost al­ ways contained only prayers for the well-being of everyone and occasional re­ ports on crops, weddings, childbirths, or deaths. According to everyone I con­ sulted in the village, there were no love letters, or even any written expressions of love, in Junigau before the late 1980s. While explicit expressions of emotion were not part of letters in the past, however (cf. Besnier 1995), the reading aloud of soldiers' letters reportedly served to communicate implicit feelings of affection and strengthen family bonds. Other than soldiers' letters, official documents, and Hindu scriptures, there were very few reading materials in the village twenty or more years ago—no novels, few if any magazines or newspapers, no songbooks, no literacy texts, and only a few school textbooks, most of them based on models of religious learning conducted by Brahman pandits. Villagers did use their literacy skills to handle money, especially as the economy became increasingly monetized from the 1960s onward, and some report being grateful they could read the occa­ sional signboard on stores or buses in Tansen or elsewhere. Again, however, these activities were gendered, as it was mostly men who traveled and con­ ducted trade, although women often went along as porters on the weeklong treks to Butwal or Pokhara for supplies. Before i960, therefore, literacy practices in Junigau were mainly activities engaged in by men. Furthermore, these practices mainly involved the govern­ ment, commerce, religion, or the military. Completely absent from these liter­ acy practices were expressions of romantic love (or any other emotion), ex­ hortations to become developed or modern, or rhetorical tropes emphasizing individual rights and identity.

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Emergent Literacy Practices in Junigau, 1960-90

As Nepal emerged from a century of oppressive rule by the Rana family in the 1950s, the government began to accept massive amounts of development aid from the United States and Europe, much of it for the purpose of setting up an educational system.4 By the 1960s, some of this money was making its way out to villages like Junigau, where new literacy practices began to appear once the Nepal Rastriya Primary School was opened up in the village in 1959. This first school had only one teacher, a Brahman pandit from a neighboring village, and its goal was to teach the Magar boys of Junigau basic literacy and numeracy skills using traditional Hindu texts. Three years later, in 1962, the school was moved and renamed the Sarvodaya Primary School. It offered only three grades of schooling until 1969, when grades four and five were added. In 1980, Sarvodaya became a middle school offering grades one through eight, and in 1982 it became a full high school by adding on grades nine and ten. In the early 1980s, there were not enough Junigau residents with sufficient formal education to staff the high school, so, although there were a few local Magar teachers (former soldiers) in the lower grades, most of the teachers in the upper grades were high-caste Brah­ mans or Chhetris from distant villages. Exceptions to this were an Indian science teacher, the headmaster of the school (a Junigau Magar), and myself. At a time when the vast majority of Junigau residents were illiterate, the headmaster had obtained a masters degree in education from an Indian uni­ versity. Instead of remaining in India or moving to Kathmandu, where he could probably have secured a well-paying job despite egregious discrimina­ tion against Magars, he returned to Junigau and took on the task of improving the quality of education at Sarvodaya High School. One of his first decisions, in consultation with the School Management Committee, was to request a Peace Corps volunteer. The headmaster and village leaders assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that the presence of a volunteer (who turned out to be me) would help them achieve the status of a fully accredited and therefore fully funded government school. My presence also helped the school obtain a Peace Corps Partnership grant, which, after long delays, funded the building of an addition to the school. The new school building remains one of the most visible long-term effects of my Peace Corps service in Junigau. People still occasionally refer to it in my presence as 4my” building. No amount of explaining or reminding will dis­ abuse them of the idea that I single-handedly caused the addition to be built. Sure, they helped by carrying sand up from the river for cement, carrying rocks for the walls, mixing mud with their feet—but the building is still “mine.” This sentiment, along with learning more about the local politics of the village that helped to delay the projects completion, led me to question whether any “de-

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Plate 25

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Sarvodaya High School students line up for class in the early 1980s

velopment project” can result in an avowal rather than an eschewal of agency on the part of the people affected by the project (cf. Pigg 1992). We were told in the Peace Corps that the best kind of help is that which leads people after­ ward to say, “We did it ourselves.” I found it virtually impossible, however, to get the villagers to acknowledge their own contributions. Once the school became accredited in 1983, primary education became free to all villagers, and Junigau families began to send their daughters as well as their sons to school in greater numbers, as the school, now funded by the gov­ ernment, no longer had to charge prohibitively expensive monthly fees. Still, throughout the 1980s relatively few of the students were girls. In 1983, only thir­ teen of class 4s forty-five students and only three of its twenty-seven class 10 students were girls (and all three of the class 10 girls were Brahmans from neighboring villages). The number of girls increased significantly as the years passed and as the number of students as a whole doubled, but well into the 1990s, the majority of the school’s students in the upper grades remained boys and many were high-caste Brahmans and Chhetris from neighboring villages. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s Sarvodaya High School was regularly graduat­ ing a handful of Magar girls from Junigau each year. In the late 1990s, overall enrollments at Junigau s high school began to fall. Neighboring villages had built their own high schools, thereby siphoning off

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Plate 26

Junigau girl on her way to school in the early 1980s

many high-caste students who would have attended Junigaus school. Further­ more, as an increasing number of Junigau families had disposable income from family members with jobs in the military or overseas, and as villagers became aware of the benefits of strong English skills more and more of them were sending their children to private English-medium schools in Tansen. The chil­ dren either walked three hours each way to and from Tansen every day or, more commonly, stayed with relatives in Tansen during the week, returning to the village for weekends and holidays. In 1997, a private English-medium primary school opened up in Junigau itself, offering only the first couple of grades. As of my most recent visit in 1998, the school was extremely successful, enrolling between twenty and thirty students per class. Staffed by local Magars, many of whom were once my students, the new English-medium school is likely to at-

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Plate 27 Students attend an outdoor class in Junigau’s new English-medium school in 1998

tract all but the poorest villagers in the coming years, and if it continues to add grades it may very well trigger a crisis for Sarvodaya High School. Indeed, dur­ ing the summer of 1999 my Nepali family and friends told me by phone of a re­ markable event: at a village meeting about the problems Sarvodaya was facing with enrollments, discipline, and national test scores, village leaders expelled most of the high-caste Brahman and Chhetri teachers from outside of Junigau and replaced them with Junigau Magars. The advent of formal schooling in Junigau was accompanied by the head­ master's institution of female literacy classes in the school beginning in the early 1980s. In the early years, one of the local primary school teachers, a Brah­ man (though not the same man who taught in Junigau’s first school in 1959) taught the class, then Junigau high school graduates took over as instructors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I know of only one female beside myself who ever taught the class: a young woman who had recently graduated from Sarvo­ daya High School in Junigau taught the class briefly in 1995. My own involve­ ment as an assistant teacher in the female literacy classes lasted for about six months during my Peace Corps years in 1983-84. During this time, the class was held in the winter evenings from 6:30 to 8:30, when because of the season local girls and women were less likely to be busy with farm work. There were about a dozen students in the class, ranging in age from twelve to twenty-five.

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Plate 28 Tulsi Kumari Rana weaves a bag, having learned the skill at a special train­ ing course for women

M ost were unm arried daughters o f families w ho lived close to the school; a few were daughters-in-law o f those same families. The m ain teacher in those years was a local Brahm an m an, and while he focused on teaching the girls and w om en how to read and w rite in Nepali using New Path, the textbook that was analyzed in the previous chapter, I had the responsibility for teaching them basic num eracy skills (how to read and write num bers and how to add and subtract). Toward the end o f my stint, upon the request of the students, I switched from teaching num eracy to teaching English. The girls and w om en in the class recognized the status associated w ith being able to speak, read, and write English, and they often told m e that they enjoyed showing the m em bers o f their families, especially the m en, their notebooks containing English words. For m any reasons, the female literacy classes were at best a mixed success. First of all, they were held in the evening, which m eant that the students were tired after a full day o f work th at had often begun before dawn. As a result, at­ tendance was sporadic, and m any o f the students who did attend regularly were too exhausted to learn. Second, there was an extremely wide range of abilities in the class. Some o f the students had attended a year or two o f formal school, while others had never tried to grasp a writing utensil in their lives. At one

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point, we wanted to split the class in half to address the ability groups separately, but we had insufficient kerosene to do so. As it was, the kerosene lamp we used often malfunctioned and was never bright enough for all the students to write at the same time. The final obstacle to the female literacy class was cultural: many senior men and women would not allow their daughters or daughters-inlaw to leave the house at night even if they did acknowledge the benefits of lit­ eracy for women (which, in 1983, many did not). Some of the village elders who did initially permit their daughters or daughters-in-law to attend the class re­ scinded their permission when they heard rumors (some of them true) that young men were hanging around the school hoping to see or talk to some of the young women in the class. Näyä Goreto (New Path), the literacy textbook described in the previous chapter, was inspired by the emancipatory philosophy of Paolo Freire (cf. Freire 1972; Freire and Macedo 1987). During Peace Corps training, our trainers intro­ duced New Path to us and urged us to take on female literacy as a secondary project. We were told about Freire’s philosophy of education and encouraged to put it into practice in our own female literacy projects. One of the most impor­ tant Freirean aspects of New Path was the picture at the beginning of each chap­ ter. Depicting various social ills, these pictures were designed to stimulate dis­ cussion of inequitable conditions and encourage collective action to fight oppression. Neither the female literacy students in the class nor the Brahman man who taught them were at all interested in using the text this way, however. Even when I tutored individual women using New Path, which I did from time to time, the women became impatient with any attempts I made to use the pic­ tures as consciousness-raising tools. The women in the class wanted a “real” ed­ ucation, which to them meant learning the way their little brothers learned: by rote, without any explicit messages of social reform, and from the beginning of the alphabet to the end rather than starting with the easiest letter to form, as New Path does. Ironically, therefore, or perhaps not so ironically, Junigau women actively resisted the very elements of the New Path textbook that at­ tempted to involve them as agents in the process of their own “development”— even as they absorbed many of New Path's messages about development.

Junigau’s Literacy Practices in the 1990s

Junigau s literacy practices from the 1990s on have become far more complex and numerous than they were thirty or more years ago. Many more villagers are reading and writing, and they are reading and writing different kinds of materials than in the past. Social practices surrounding literacy have also changed, although many of the older practices have continued and are for the

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most part still considered to be the responsibility of men. The social dynamics involved in producing and consuming literacy materials, as well as the contents of the materials themselves, have had a profound impact on the younger gen­ eration in Junigau. New structures of feeling are emerging that communicate novel sensibilities about how one should live, what gender relations should look like, and what it means to be a person in Junigau in the 1990s. One very important new social context for literacy practices was created in 1990 when a group of young (in their late teens and early twenties) and un­ married villagers decided to create a “youth club” (yuvä kalab). In the spring of 1990, there was a democratic revolution in Nepal led largely by an active stu­ dent movement. While no Junigau villagers participated in any of the demon­ strations that eventually ushered in a constitutional monarchy, those students who were studying at the Tansen campus of Tribhuvan University at that time were undoubtedly influenced by rhetoric highlighting the importance of indi­ vidual rights, economic development, and education. Because student strikes closed the campus in Tansen for months, several young men from Junigau, in­ cluding Vajra Bahadur, whose courtship was featured in chapter 6, found themselves home in Junigau with little besides farming tasks to keep them busy. They decided to use their free time to start a youth club, which would raise money for various development activities in Junigau. During festivals, the youth club raised money by organizing bhailo singing during Tihar and games for the fair held on Dashain Purniya each year. Eventually, the club members succeeded in constructing a small meeting place for club activities, buying hundreds of stainless steel plates for villagers to borrow when they had feasts5 and acquiring reading materials from charities for a youth club library. They also received permission to move many of the books from the schools “li­ brary” (actually a locked cupboard in the headmaster’s office, inaccessible to students) into the youth club’s library. These books included several dozen dated textbooks in English that I had procured from a charity in Darien, Con­ necticut, while I was in the Peace Corps and another dozen or so Time-Life sci­ ence books that the Peace Corps had distributed to its education volunteers in the 1980s. I remember watching youth club members marvel over the TimeLife book’s photos of the astronauts landing on the moon. Very few of the youth club members were able to (or even wanted to) read the books’ difficult English prose, but almost all of them enjoyed looking at the pictures of “devel­ oped” Westerners engaged in science and everyday life. While the club leaders were all young, highly educated men, they attempted to involve other young people in Junigau, including young women and other young men who had dropped out of school or joined the army. Many villagers still speak with admiration of the hard work the young men and women did in constructing the club building and meeting regularly to plan activities. After the

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initial construction of the building and the celebratory inaugural picnic (where Shila Devi and Vajra Bahadur first “exchanged glances”), however, the club­ house essentially became a young men s space. Young women were still involved but only peripherally. For one thing, it was the young men who had much more time on their hands, as they were not expected to do as much work around the house or in the fields as were the young women. So, it was the young men who were able to congregate in the clubhouse, playing carom board games, making plans, and perusing the books and magazines the club had managed to purchase or have donated. Even after the campus reopened in 1991-92 and the club lead­ ers only returned home on vacations, the clubhouse continued to be a meeting place for young, educated men in the village who engaged in “development talk” (,bikäsko kurä ), gossiped about who was courting ( mileko ) with whom, and flipped through the types of magazines I described in the previous chapter. Reading magazines became a central activity in the clubhouse. The magazines that club members were able to acquire were circulated so that the entire club— and even some nonmembers, including women—were able to read (or at least look at) the magazines. After just a couple of years, however, the club began to suffer from a lack of conscientious leadership. Club funds were misplaced, the number of activities dwindled, and the clubhouse remained locked more often than not. During 1992, I attended several youth club meetings at which there was considerable discord, mostly surrounding the (mis)management of funds and the purpose of the organization. At one of those meetings, members decided that because some young men had been responsible the year before for losing or stealing (it was never resolved which) the proceeds from the games they organized at the Dashain Purniya this year they would put the female members (including my­ self, as an honorary member) in charge of handling the money at the fair. All day long several other young women and I supervised the bottle toss, bingo, and other games at the fair, handing over several thousand rupees’ (roughly three hundred dollars’) worth of proceeds by the end of the day. Youth club members agreed to give half of the money they had raised to the village development fund. The other half they kept in order to throw a feast for their members. The young women who had spent all day overseeing the fair games felt this was a poor use of the money, preferring instead to spend the money on development projects and supplies rather than on a feast, and subsequently they became even less involved in the youth club. By the mid-1990s, the youth club had disinte­ grated, its former members having joined the military or taken on other re­ sponsibilities. Nevertheless, for a period of time in the early 1990s, the clubhouse provided an important space for some Junigau residents, especially young men, to engage in literacy and other social practices that both reflected and reinforced novel ways of thinking and behaving.

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OtfTO-tW S

BFTER THAU THO toMORR«-

Plate 29 Tea shop patrons (Pashupati Rana, Hum Bahadur Rana, and Bijaya Thapa) with posters on the wall behind them

Many of the social reading practices that went on in the clubhouse moved to the half-dozen tea shops that sprang up in Junigau in the mid-1990s. The few that were opened by former members of the club became especially popular sites for the congregation of young people in Junigau. Young men were still the primary consumers of magazines, but young women told me that they, too, would sometimes sit in the tea shops looking at the magazines, occasionally borrowing copies to take home to look at and share with family members. Not only did Junigau s tea shops become places in which villagers read; they also be­ came reading material themselves. Several of the shop walls featured posters and excerpts from magazines, and two even displayed signs written out by hand by the proprietors. These slogans emphasized the efficacy of hard work, even as they urged readers to trust in God. As such, they mixed older values with newer structures of feeling, indicating the emergence of a stronger sense of individual agency. O ne magazine advertisem ent posted in a Junigau tea shop (and seen in a K athm andu billboard) embodies a num ber of the newer ideologies that are ap­ pearing m ore and m ore frequently in the texts and images the villagers con-

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Billboard in Kathmandu

sume. In this ad for Shikhar (“Sum m it”) cigarettes, a m an and a wom an dressed in Western garb are em bracing in a way that suggests m ore physical intimacy than is usually considered appropriate to display publicly in Nepal. They are both light-skinned, and he is holding a briefcase. The slogan, w ritten in English, reads “The taste o f success.” This striking image, along with the accompanying slogan, which is echoed in Junigau love letters, point to new structures of feel­ ing that link rom antic love w ith economic success and Westernization.

In addition to the spaces in Junigau in which literacy practices took place, such as the clubhouse and the tea shops, I will describe several venues in Tansen (pop. 16,169),6 the district center of Palpa District that is three hours’ walk from Junigau. Like the sites in Junigau itself, the locations in Tansen that I will men­ tion have facilitated the emergence of new practices surrounding reading and writing. By the early 1990s, a dozen or more Junigau young people—including Vajra Bahadur, Bir Bahadur, and Sarita—were attending college classes in Tan­ sen. Some, such as Bir Bahadur and Sarita, lived in small, rented rooms in Tan­ sen while attending classes at Tribhuvan University’s campus there, while oth­ ers, such as Vajra Bahadur, walked there and back daily (a four- to six-hour round trip, depending on how fast one walks). Even those residents of Junigau

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not attending classes at the Tansen campus went into Tansen frequently to buy goods at the bazaar and to attend Hindi and Nepali films at the cinema hall. Be­ cause Tansen was an increasingly important location for literacy practices in the 1990s, I will describe four specific spaces in which Junigau residents engaged in new forms of literacy: the college campus, the bazaar’s bookstores and tea shops, students’ rented rooms, and Tansen’s cinema hall. The Tansen campus of Tribhuvan University (TU), the only governmentsponsored university in Nepal, offers students courses of study leading to in­ termediate (similar to our associate’s degree) or bachelor’s degrees in com­ merce (business) or nursing. Other courses of study available at Tribhuvan University’s campuses elsewhere in Nepal (such as medicine, political science, or anthropology) are not available in Tansen. All of the Junigau students who studied at TU’s Tansen campus in the 1990s chose commerce as their field. In their curriculum, they were required to take courses such as rural economics, math, accounting, and English. From my observations and from what Junigau residents attending TU told me, classes at the Tansen campus in the 1990s were huge (hundreds of students squeezed into cramped benches), only sporadically in session, and often taught by Indians whom Junigau students could not un­ derstand. Students relied on rote memorization of the textbooks, and profes­ sors rarely attempted to do anything more than read aloud the textbooks in class. When yearly exams approached, many professors offered expensive tyusan (tuition) classes on the side, and for many Junigau students these sessions were the only chances they had to listen to someone explain the material; most considered regular classes to be a waste of time. The campus buildings in Tansen are bleak, uninviting, concrete structures that are cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Tansen’s campus has no building comparable to a student union. As a result, most college students in the 1990s spent as little time there as possible, lingering instead in bookstores, tea shops, or their own rented rooms. It was in these spaces that new literacy practices emerged. As of my most recent visit to Nepal in 1998, Tansen had a half-dozen book­ stores. Most were small and stocked only the required textbooks for local schools. One, however, the Shrestha News Agency, has been around for decades, and in the 1990s it expanded to carry thousands of titles in Nepali, Hindi, and English, many of them concerning development. Magazines and newspapers were also available there, as were love letter guidebooks. Even after it expanded, the Shrestha News Agency was still a cramped space unsuitable for browsing; in­ deed, customers had to stand at the front desk and ask the clerk to get whichever reading materials they were considering buying. As a result, very little reading took place in the store itself, but the displays, the vast number of books and magazines available, and the mere fact of the store’s existence (and expansion)

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Plate 31 Tansen

in the middle of the bazaar conveyed messages about the increasing centrality of reading as an activity important for the country’s— and each persons— de­ velopment. Reading materials sold in the Shrestha News Agency and elsewhere were not cheap, however; most Junigau college students could barely afford to buy required textbooks. Whenever a student did buy something extra, such as a magazine, therefore, it was passed around from friend to friend. Most of the casual reading and serious studying that Junigau college stu­ dents did in Tansen took place either in their own rented rooms or in tea shops in the bazaar. In the tea shops, the scene was very similar to that described ear­ lier for tea shops in Junigau itself. Tea shops were mainly, though not exclu­ sively, a masculine space. On countless occasions, I witnessed male college stu­ dents poring over magazines in Tansen tea shops. Poor lighting and constant disruptions must have dissuaded the students from studying in tea shops; I never saw any student open a textbook in one. Tea shops were therefore pri­ marily spaces for informal perusing of magazines.7 Most Junigau students attending Tansen s TU campus in the 1990s studied either alone or in small groups in their rented rooms. As mentioned, formal education in Nepal requires a lot of rote memorization, so students’ study tech­ niques, which I witnessed frequently as I attempted to tutor Junigau college students, consisted mainly of reading and rereading (often aloud) the textbook

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for a particular class. Usually study partners would be same-sex, same-caste friends, but occasionally young people romantically involved with each other would find enough privacy in their Tansen rooms to “study together.” Even though young people (especially young women) studying at the Tansen cam­ pus most often lived with relatives, many of them were not supervised as closely as they would have been in the village, and thus in their own rooms they were able to meet with, or write letters to, their sweethearts. Controversy over exactly what took place during Sarita and Bir Bahadur’s “study sessions” com­ prises part of the next chapter. The final Tansen space I want to discuss here is the cinema hall (cf. Liechty 1998). While very little, if any, reading or writing took place in the cinema hall, a different type of literacy, which we could call cultural or visual literacy, en­ abled viewers of Hindi and Nepali movies to absorb, contest, or merely be ex­ posed to emerging structures of feeling surrounding romantic love, develop­ ment, success, and Westernization. Moreover, the cinema hall was not only a place where young people were able to observe new patterns of behavior on the screen; it was also a site for young people to act out some of what they saw in the films.8 While young Junigau residents are not allowed to date openly, many Junigau college students and noncollege students, including many couples whose courtships are described in this ethnography, managed to meet their sweethearts secretly at the cinema hall. Although Tansen s one cinema hall has existed since the 1970s, Junigau res­ idents only began attending movies there regularly in the 1980s once Nepalilanguage films began to be shown, and even then most did so surreptitiously, since filmgoing was considered a disreputable activity, especially for women, well into the 1990s. Attitudes have changed dramatically in recent years, how­ ever, as a result of the wide-ranging social changes occurring in the village. Whereas some of Junigaus older residents have never attended a film in Tansen, most younger residents now attend movies frequently and openly. Col­ lege students from Junigau who live in Tansen are even better situated to take advantage of Tansen s cinema hall. They generally attend as many films as they can afford— and since some seats are extremely cheap, and the films change only once every few weeks, most Tansen students and many village residents are able to attend virtually every movie that comes to Tansen. I remember vividly my first experience attending a film in Tansens cinema hall. It was October 1984, and the women in my Nepali family and I had been trying for months to persuade my Nepali father to allow us to go to a movie to­ gether. Finally, just before I was to leave the village for other parts of Nepal, he relented. The women (my Nepali mother, twelve-year-old sister, and seventeenyear-old sister-in-law) did their early morning chores as quickly as possible, and by 8:00 a . m . we were headed to Tansen on foot. We arrived just before the daily

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showing and fought our way through the crowd to buy balcony tick­ ets to a new Hindi movie. All the while, Didi, my Nepali mother, who had never before attended a film, was regaling me with stories of “ignorant villagers” she had heard about who, when seeing a film for the first time, assumed that when it was raining in the movie it was also raining outside. She would not be so foolish, she assured me. After the three-hour film full of song and dance num­ bers, fights, and chaste romantic interludes, I asked my companions what they thought. None of us had fully understood the plot, since the sound quality was horrible and the dialogue was in Hindi. Still, the three of them enjoyed the film. I was less enamoured of it. The hot, claustrophobic firetrap of a cinema hall made me nervous, and the extremely unlikely plot twists prevented me from being able to identify with the characters. My companions felt differently, however. Didi was amazed at how frequently the actors changed clothes, my lit­ tle sister was taken by the Indian-style “disco” dancing, and Bhauju was still choked up by what were for her extremely emotional scenes. We talked as we walked the three hours back to the village, arriving home just before dark. I took many such trips with Junigau friends and family to see films over the en­ suing years. One Nepali film I saw with Bhauju at the cinema hall in Tansen in Sep­ tember 1993 contained many of the messages common to Nepali and Hindi (but especially Nepali) films. I will describe it briefly here, therefore, to give readers a sense of how themes surrounding development and romantic love often come together in the movies Junigau residents so frequently viewed in the 1990s. Like the novel, Love Letters, described in the previous chapter, Kanyädän requires a suspension of disbelief. Junigau viewers are not troubled by such unrealistic plots, however; many have told me that they enjoy movies for the song and dance routines, the depiction of “developed” lifestyles, or the lessons in fashion they invariably provide. Kanyädän (Gift of a Virgin) opens with scenes depicting two eight- or nineyear-old high-caste children being married off by their parents. The little bride, Agati, is taken to her new home, but she soon becomes homesick for her natal home. Her mother-in-law, extremely supportive at this point, allows her to re­ turn for a visit to her mother and father s house. There all her friends admire her new clothes and jewelry. While Agati is at her natal home, her husband falls from a tree, and because the cut is not washed or shown to a doctor but just blown on by a shaman—the film is explicitly judgmental on this point— the boy dies. Thus, Agati very quickly becomes a child widow, forbidden to remarry and considered by all to be a sign of bad luck. At first Agati resists her status and is allowed to return to her natal home even though the mourning period is not yet over, but she becomes too much for her parents to handle, so she is soon sent back to her marital home. Agati’s mother-in-law, embittered by the loss of her 1 1 :0 0 a . m .

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son, takes out her anger on her daughter-in-law. From then on, Agati submits to her fate and becomes an unhappy, uncomplaining young woman dressed plainly in a white sari to convey her permanent state of widowhood. The film then jumps forward ten or so years. Agati is beautiful but without the spirit or spunk of her youth. Vikram, an old playmate of Agati’s husbands, comes back from India and begins to harass Agati. She righteously refuses his advances but says nothing about them to her in-laws. At the same time, a doc­ tor, whose name, unsubtly enough, is Bikas (development), arrives in the vil­ lage. Bikas sets up shop and starts curing people immediately, dispensing med­ icine and giving injections left and right. Agati comes by to deliver milk to him and sees him cure a little boy whose leg had the same kind of injury that killed her husband. She cries. Bikas sees her crying and asks about her circumstances. From then on, he does his best to make her happy whenever he sees her. But Vikram has not given up his scheming. When Agati accompanies a group of women on a pilgrimage to Kathmandu, she just happens to lose her way and just happens to be nearly run over by Bikas, who also just happens to be in Kathmandu. Vikram finds out and returns to the village to spread evil ru­ mors about the two of them. Meanwhile, a cast is placed on Agati’s leg and she is put up at Bikas’s house in Kathmandu, where he lives with his widowed mother. Enter the competition— a woman named Bina who has an M.A. and dresses in scandalously short, Western-style clothing. Bina tries to eliminate Agati from contention by reminding her of a widow’s place. This almost works, but the doctor insists that Agati accompany him to his birthday party (an event foreign to Junigau residents, who do not celebrate birthdays). Agati is the one who lights the candles on the cake instead of a fuming Bina. All of Bikas’s Kath­ mandu friends speak English with one another, but they still need to be con­ vinced by a speech from Bikas that a widow is a worthy wife and person. Once Agati’s leg is on the mend, she and Bikas return to the village, where, because of Vikram’s rumors, Agati is almost not allowed back into her in-laws’ house. Bikas insists, however, and this later emboldens Agati to fight with her mother-in-law over work and win. Meanwhile, Bikas’s reputation has also been damaged, and he is asked to leave the village. He asks Agati to meet him secretly in the forest to tell her he is leaving and to ask her to go with him. Before she can answer him, though, Vikram and his cronies ambush Bikas and a violent fistfight ensues. After the fight, Bikas is left injured on the ground, while Vikram takes Agati back to her in-laws’ house, where her mother-in-law ties her to a beam in the cowshed and starts to beat her. Vikram stops her but re­ turns later to threaten Agati. When she spits in his face, he starts a fire in the cowshed, where she is still tied to the beam. Just in time, Bikas recovers from his beating and learns of Agati’s plight. He rushes to save her from the flames, but when he finds her body he assumes (without taking her pulse or perform-

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ing CPR) that she is dead. He delivers a speech to the crowd of villagers who have assembled, telling them that widows are people, too, and that early mar­ riages and a ban on widow remarriage are wrong. Society must change, he pas­ sionately proclaims. Just then, Agati awakens. On the spot, Bikas’s mother, who just happens to be present, suggests a makeshift marriage ceremony. Agati’s contrite mother-in-law agrees, announcing to all that she is going to stage a kanyädän right there. She places Agati’s hand in Bikas’s, and the film ends. As Bhauju pointed out to me on the walk back to the village after viewing Kanyädän , two of the films messages were quite clear to her: (1) that child mar­ riage is bad and (2) that it is not good to hate widows. But the movie conveyed other messages as well. Bina, the one educated woman in the film, is an un­ pleasant schemer. Agati as an adult passively submits to her fate, having to be rescued by Bikas, the male hero. The in-laws still get to “give away” their wid­ owed daughter-in-law, and nowhere does Agati seem to make a choice on her own, except to exercise negative agency when she spits in Vikram’s face.9 Thus, when development (bikäs) arrives in the village in the form of Dr. Bikas, resi­ dents can expect better health care, an end to child marriage, new possibilities for widows—but no fundamental restructuring of gender or age hierarchies. As to how Junigau residents reacted to the film, none of the people I asked about it liked it very much. It was too dukha lagdoy they said; it caused them to be too sad. Still, many women admired Agati. Bhauju said, “She was so good, poor thing.” Films have an undeniable impact on structures of feeling in Junigau. They are arguably more influential in setting fashion trends and providing models for gender relations than any real life or written material. In one naturally oc­ curring conversation I recorded between two young village women in 1992, one of them urges the other to go to more films in order to learn how to wear more fashionable attire. She exclaims: “philim herera sikinchha ni /” (One learns from watching films, you know!). And when the film Gopi/Krishna was popular dur­ ing the summer of 1993, many boys in Junigau took to wearing their hair like the hero of the movie and playing a flute as he did. These are only some of the more obvious ways in which films had an impact on the behavior and attitudes of Junigau residents. Some of the same influences and changing structures of feeling can be seen in the courtship of Sarita and Bir Bahadur, the subjects of the following chapter.

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NOTES

Notes 1. The figures that follow are all for ever-married villagers. Among unmarried vil­ lagers (both male and female), virtually all are literate as a result of formal schooling. 2 . According to UNESCO, Nepal’s overall adult literacy rate in 1995 was 27 percent, while for women it was 14 percent and for men 41 percent (World Bank 1996 :188 , 20 0 ). The UNESCO definition of literacy differed, however, from that used by Junigau vil­ lagers. A literate person, according to UNESCO’s definition, had to be able to read and comprehend a paragraph on the subject of everyday life. 3 . The World Bank states that 85 percent of all appropriately aged Nepali girls were in primary school in 1993 , as opposed to 100 percent of appropriately aged Nepali boys. The rates for high school enrollment in 1993 were 23 percent for girls and 46 percent for boys. The analogous figures for Junigau high school enrollment are somewhat higher. (Countrywide statistics for Nepal should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as there are considerable logistical obstacles involved in conducting a national survey.) 4 . Because of nonexistent infrastructure, however, Nepal was only able to spend 65 percent of the allocated development budget in the first five year plan from 1956 to 1961 (Bista 19 91 :134 ). On the history of education in Nepal, see Dor Bahadur Bista’s contro­ versial book, Fatalism and Development: Nepal's Struggle for Modernization ( 19 91 ). On the history and politics of Nepal during the Rana regime, see Regmi (19 78 ). On state for­ mation in Nepal and the impact of British rule in nearby India, see English ( 1985 ). Vincanne Adams’s chapter, “History and Power in Nepal,” provides an excellent overview of Nepali history from the eighteenth century to the 1990 s (Adams 1998 :30 - 8 1 ). For more information on Nepal during the panchäyat era, see Burghart (19 9 4 ). On Nepal during and after the 1990 democratic revolution, see Adams (1998 ); Kondos (19 94 ); and Hutt (i 9 9 4 )- On nationalism, Hinduism, and ethnicity in Nepal, see Burghart (19 84 ); Gellner et al. (1997 ); and Höfer (1979 ). There is a vast literature in the Nepali language on edu­ cation, development, and the history of Nepal; interested readers should consult the journal Studies in Nepali History and Society as a starting point. 5 . The stainless steel plates were intended to prevent the villagers from further de­ nuding the nearby forest in order to make thousands of leaf plates every time there was a feast. Deforestation is one of Nepal’s most serious problems, and it is constantly the focus of development programs on Radio Nepal. It is also featured in school textbooks. Even before the youth club was started, Junigau residents planted an entire eroded hill­ side with pine seedlings in an attempt to reforest their village. 6 . National Planning Commission Secretariat (1992 :12 ). 7 . Newspapers were quite unpopular among Junigau college students. They were

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written in prose that was difficult for villagers, even those attending college, to under­ stand. Junigau young people on the whole evinced far more interest in the types of mag­ azines described in the previous chapter (especially film magazines and those containing information about science and development) than they did in politics or current events. 8 . Liechty writes of cinema viewing in Kathmandu: As people’s daily lives become more and more deeply invested in media consump­ tion, the narratives, narrative logics, and images of media serve more and more as interpretive resources for life, ways to make sense out of life, and eventually meth­ ods to interpret and even represent life. This is the power of media realism: not to make media images real but to make lived-reality an increasingly mediated experi­ ence. (1998 :12 2 ) 9.

See Kratz (1995 ) on the negative agency of women.

References Besnier, Niko. 1995 . Literacy, Emotion, and Authority: Reading and Writing on a Polyne­ sian Atoll. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bista, Dor Bahadur. 1991 . Fatalism and Development: Nepal's Struggle for Modernization. Calcutta: Orient Longman. Freire, Paolo. 19 72 . Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum and Penguin. Freire, Paolo, and Donaldo Macedo. 1987 . Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey. Liechty, Mark. 1998 . The social pattern of cinema and video-viewing in Kathmandu. Studies in Nepali History and Society 3 (1 ): 87- 126 . Pigg, Stacy Leigh. 1992 . Inventing social categories through place: Social representations and development in Nepal. Comparative Studies in Society and History 34 (3 ): 491 - 513 .

Name Index Abbott, Saunders A. 243, 245 ‘Abdallah, Mir 46 ‘Abd as-Samad 44, 47, 48, 49 ‘Abdul ‘Ali Muhammad ‘Bahr al-‘Ulum 284 Al-‘Abidan, Zain 286 Äcärya, Gunasamudra 39 Ackermann, Rudolph 199 Adarkar, Priya 540 Adigal, Maraimalai 306, 308-9, 329 Adigal, Ramalinga 314 Adithan, Si.Pa. 338 Advani, Rukun 539 Aesop 144, 146 ‘Afsos’, Mir Sher ‘Ali 194 Ahad, ‘Abdul 231 Ahearn, Laura M. xxiv, 555-77 Ahmad, Amir 283, 286 Ahmad, Maulvi Husain 286 Ahmad, Maulvi Majub 253, 255, 271-2 Ahmad, Maulvi Sayyid Manzur 287 Ahmad, Nazir 187, 193, 203, 223, 243, 282, 292-5 passim Ahmadullah, Miyam 280 Ahmed, Nazir xviii Ainsworth, William Harrison 454, 455 Akbar, Emperor 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51-2, 54, 203 Akbar, Maulana Muhammad 229 Akbarabadi, Batin 287 Alexander, Tsar 170 Alfred, King 11 ‘Ali, Faiz 181,200 ‘Ali, Hakim Amanat 284 ‘Ali, Khvaj a Ashraf 286 ‘Ali, Masahib 212 ‘Ali, Maulvi Hadi 209, 291 ‘Ali, Maulvi Ikram 195 ‘Ali, Mir Hashmat 246 ‘Ali, Mirza Agha 207 ‘Ali, Muhammad Khurram 287 ‘Ali, Muhammad Nasir 286 ‘Ali, Muhammad Sadiq 284 ‘Ali, Munshi Raunaq 254

‘Ali, Sayyid Muhsin 286 ‘Ali, Shaikh Amir 246 ‘Ali, Shaikh Nisar 245, 253 Allah, Shah Wali 230 Allee, Fyz 180 Allemand, T.F. 245 Allon, Mark xii Altbach, Philip G. 532 Altick, Richard D. 443, 459 Amiruddin, Muhammad 287 Ammal, Ki. Savithiri 324 Ammal, Vai.Mu. Kothainayaki 306, 326 Amman, Mir 194, 195, 210 Amritarao 80 Anand, Mulk Raj 428-9 Anand, S. 538 Ananthamurthy, U.R. 536 Anderson, Benedict xx, 3, 11, 433 Anderson H.C. 457 Andronicus, Fivius 9 Anis, Mir Babar ‘Ali 295 Annamalai, E. 107 Archer, Henry 174, 176, 200, 208 Arnold, Thomas 487 Arunagirinathar, S.S. 306 Asari, Srinivasa 335 ‘Ashk’, Muhammad Hadi ‘Ali 246 ‘Ashraf’, Munshi Ashraf ‘Ali 246 Asoka, King 5 ‘Auj’, Mirza Muhammad 296 AvasthI, R. 511 Ayyamuthu, C.A. 322 ‘Azad’, Muhammad Husain 229, 255 ‘Azim, Munshi Muhammad 230 Bäbur, Prince 43, 47, 48, 50 Badley, B.H. 274 Bahadar, Bir 569, 572 Bahadur, Vajra 566, 567, 569 Bahubhüti 33 Baijnath, Pandit 212, 244 Bakhsh, Hafiz ‘Ali 246 Baksh, Maula 361

580

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Balfour, Francis 190 Bandyopadhyay, Nabin Chandra 377 Baqir, Maulana Muhammad 229 Barnett, L.D. 458 Barns, Margarita 443 Barrier, N. Gerald 256 Basak, Baishnabcharan 364 Basak, Kartik Chandra 377 Basävan 47-8 Bhattacharya, Tithi xx Bayly, Christopher A. 232, 251, 297, 516 Bayly, Susan 111 Beal, S. 477 Beg, Farrukh 46 Beg, Rajab 4Ali ‘Surur’ 221, 283, 284, 286 Belnos, Jean-Jacques 162, 164, 199 Bendall, Cecil 33 Bennett, Scott 264-5, 269 Bentinck, William 273 Bentley, Eric 464, 466 Bently, Lionel xix Beschi, Costanzo Giuseppe xvii, 107, 121, 123-9, 131, 132-6, 138-41, 143, 144-51 Besnier, Niko 559 Bhabha, Homi 115 Bhagat, Chetan xxiv Bhandarkar, Ramkrishna Gopal 58, 61 Bhandarkar, S.R. 58, 62 Bharati, Suddhananda 336 Bharatidasan 322, 336 Bhargava, Dularelal 299 Bhargava, Govind Prasad 299 Bhargava, Lala Kanhaiyalal 250-51 Bhargava, Manoharlal 256, 298 Bhargava, Munshi Ram Kumar 300 Bhargava, Munshi Tej Kumar 300 Bhargava, Ramji Das 256 Bhargava, Vamshidhar 250 Bharati, A. Subramania 328 Bharati, Subbu 317 Bhärgava, Babu Bisnunäräyan 508 Bhärgava, Duläreläl 503, 504, 506-10 passim, 523-4, 528 Bhatt, Badrlnäth 504 Bhatt, Balkrishna 235, 500 Bhattacarya, Benimadhab 377 Bhattacarya, Gangakishore 273, 349, 350, 351, 378 Bhattäraka, Ahunakunda 35 Bhavabhuti 331

Bhoja (Bhojadeva), King 6, 33 Bichitr 53 Biharilal 195 Bihzäd 47, 48 Bilgrami, Maulvi Haidar ‘Ali Khan 287 Bilgrami, Mir Ghulam Hasnain ‘Qadr’ 290-91 Bilgrami, Muhammad Zahiruddin 287 Billon, Emile Louis Ligard 164, 177 Bindraban, Acarya 287 Birkerts, Sven 543 Bishndäs 46, 48,51,53 Bista, Dor Bahadur 557 Biswas, Tinkari 358 Black, Thomas 174 Blackburn, Stuart xii, xiv, xvii, 94, 105-58, 190, 226 Blochmann, H. 46 Blumhardt, J.F. 458 Boccaccio, Giovanni 457 Boehmer, Elleke 429 Boileau, John Theophilus 178 Bolton, C.W. 374-5 Braarvig, Jens xii Brae de la Perriere, Eloi'se xvi Braddon, Mary Elizabeth 454, 455 Braga, Timothy 407 Braudel, Fernand 13 Breton, Peter 170-71 Brooks, Peter 462 Browning, Colin 254 Bryce, David 485-6 Buchanan, Francis Hamilton 312 Bühler, Georg 57, 59, 61, 62, 63 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward 454, 455, 457, 462 Bunyan, John 460 Burnell, A.C. 313 Butalia, Urvashi 540 Byramji, Nusserwanji 485 Cabral, B.F. 404 Caitanya 14, 15 Callewaert, Winand 75 Camöes, Luis Vaz 391 Cannan, Edwin 479, 481, 482-3, 488, 490 Carey, Felix 347 Carey, William 191, 265, 346-7, 362, 531 Carrington, Noel 480-81 Carter, Thomas F. 161 Carvalho, Joao Luis 401 Carvalho, Jorge 111

The History o f the Book in South Asia Caturvijay, Pannyäs 60 Cervantes, Miguel 457 Chakrabarty, Kalikrishna 360 Chandilyan 327 Chandra, I.C. 361 Chandra, Moti 39 Chandra, Pramod 46 Chandra, Sudhir 228 Charles I, King 53 Chartier, Roger 3, 326, 543 Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra 440, 467 Chatterjee, Partha 435 Chatterjee, Renuka 539 Chatterjee, Rimi xxi, 475-97 Chattopadhyay, Gurudas 364 Chattopadhyay, Ratnabali 385 Chattopadhyaya, Bankim Chandra xxi, 475 Chaturvedl, Banärsldäs 508 Chaturvedl, Mäkhanläl 508 Chaturvedi, Parasuräm 505 Chiraghuddin, Miyam 280 Choya, Sayyid Muhammad ‘Ali 285 Clive, Robert 136 Cobb, A.H. 482, 483 Colebrooke, Henry T. 197, 346, 349 Collins, Wilkie 427, 454, 455, 457, 461 Combridge, A.J. 479 Cook, Andrew S. 200 Cooper, Joseph 190 Coote, Sir Eyre 137 Corelli, Marie 428-9, 454, 455, 461, 463, 465 Cort, John E. xi, xiv, xv, 55-65 Cortez, Juvenal 407 Cox, Whitney xii Craven, R. 245 Crawford, F. Marion 454, 455, 456, 459, 460, 461, 463, 465, 466 Crowquill, Alfred 148 Cumberlege, Geoffrey 487 Dabir, Mirza Salamat ‘Ali 296 Da Cruz, Thome 111 Da Gunha, Gerson 393 Da Cunha, Vicente Bragan£a 390 Dähyäbhäi, Vakil Lehrubhäi 60, 61 Dalal, C.D. 59, 60, 61, 62, 63 Dalgado, S.R. 390 Dalmia, Vasudha 186, 192, 194 Daniyal, Prince 53 Dante 391

Darnton, Robert 441-2, 543 Das, Babu Akshay Coomer 438 Das, Raj ani Kanta 191 Das, Ramkanai 361 Das, Shrinivas 234 Das, Sisir Kumar 195, 460-61, 531 Das, Syämsundar 520 DasGupta, Kalpana 447 Da Silva, Peres 403 Datt, Harihar 197 Datt, Tarachand 197 Datta, Nrityalal 377 Daud, Maulana 12 Dauri, Maulänä (Sultan Bäyazld) 46 Davidar, David 540 Davidson, Cathy 435, 436 Davis, Emmett 273 Dayal, Ravi 539 Dayävijay, Räjvijay 62 Deb, Bishwanath 350 De Barros, Joam 113 De, Benimadhab 361 Debiprasad, Pandit 271 De Bustamente, Joao 112 De Certeau, Michel 92, 95, 98 De Conde, Joao Villa 111 De Faria, Joao 117 Defoe, Daniel 457, 459 De Fonseca, Jose Nicolau 392-3 De Gama, Vasco 110 Dehlavi, Hakim ‘Inayat Husain 286 Dehlavi, Hakim Qutbuddin 286 Dehlavi, Shah ‘Abdul Qadir 185 Dehlavi, Shah Rafiuddin 185 De Kloguen, Cottineau 392 De Körös, Csomo 161 De Menezes, Luis 390, 400-401 De Nazareth, Vicente 111 Denison Ross, Edward 484 Denning, Michael 436 De Nobili, Roberto 118, 119-22, 123, 126, 132-3, 136, 141, 151 De Proenca, Antem 120, 122, 126, 138, 139 Desäi, M.D. 62, 63 Desai, Thakorelal M. 428, 429, 467 De Sao Pedro’, Manuel 117 De Savighnac, Philippe 162-5, 177, 199 Desigar, Ambalavana 312 De Souza, Eduardo Jose Bruno 390-91, 398 De Souza, EX. 404

581

582

The History o f the Book in South Asia

De Souza, J.C.F. 397 De Souza, Joäo Manuel 399 Deva Raya, King 8 Devasundarasüri, Äcärya 62 Devasüri, Äcärya Vijay 61 Devasüri, Vädi 25, 31 Devi, Shila 567 Devy, G.N. 537 Dharmadasa, K.N. xx Dharmapäla, Emperor 35 Dickens, Charles 443, 454, 455, 456 Diehl, Katherine Smith 209, 210, 211 Dignum, A. 480 Dihlavi, Amlr Hasan 47 Disraeli, Benjamin 454, 455, 459 Doniger, Wendy 94 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 454, 455, 459 D ’Oyly, Charles 177, 200 Dufferin, Lord 257 Dumas, Alexandre 409, 454, 455, 457, 459, 527 Düngara, Jasä 56 Dutta, K. 443 Dvij, Mannalal Sharma 234 Dvivedi, D.R 512 Dvivedi, MahävTr Prasäd 501-5, 508, 510, 520 Dyson-Perrins, Charles William 46 Eco, Umberto 58 Eisenstein, Elizabeth 3, 14, 97-8 Eknath 8, 79, 85, 86, 91 Eliade, Mircea 65 Eliot, George 454, 455 Ellis, F. W. 127, 208 Epstein, Jason 543 Fabricius, J. 137, 138, 142 Fakhruddin, Maulana 231, 284, 287 Falk, Harry xii Farquhar, A. 174 Farquhar, J.N. 487-92 passim Fazl, Abu’l 46-7, 48,51,52 Feldhaus, Anne 94 Fenger, J. Fred 310 Fernandes, Joäo Agostinho 406 Ferrando, Justin 407 Fielding, Henry 457 Figueiredo, Alberto 390 Finck, Jonas 130 ‘Fiza’, Munshi Govind Parshad 246 Fletcher, William 347

Flueckiger, Joyce 94 Forrester, Alexander 163 Forster, E.M. 427, 428 Fortunio, Giovanni Francesco 11 Foucher, A. 33, 34 Francisco, A.C.J. 410 Freire, Paolo 565 Frowde, Henry 478-9, 480, 485-6 Gandhi, L.B. 63, 532 Garcin de Tassy, Joseph Heliodore Sagesse Vertu 225, 250, 257, 288 Garde, Laksmlnäräyan 511 Garibullah, Munshi 371 Garvice, Charles 326, 428 Gaur, Krsnadev Prasäd 505 Gell, Frederick 479, 480 Gerard, J.G. 161 Ghaffur, Maulvi ‘Abdul 280 Ghafoor, Sayyid ‘Abdul 229 Ghalib, Mirza Asadullah Khan 206, 229, 283, 288-92 passim Ghosh, Anindita xxvi, xx, 233, 274, 343 Ghosh, Arunodoy 361 Ghosh, Babu Kedarnath 215 Ghosh, Chintamani 501, 510, 520 Ghosh, Harikeshav 510 Ghosh, Indranarayan 361 Gilchrist, John Borthwick 190, 193-5, 349 Ginzburg, Carlo 436 Gip, Francisco Joäo da Costa 411 Girdhardas, Gopalchand 234 Giulani, P. 130 Gladwin, Francis 190 Goldsmith, Oliver 457 Gomez, Jeff 543 Goncalves, Joao 113, 117, 126 Goody, Jack 92-3, 94, 95 Gopal, Madan 235 Gopäla, King 30, 35 Gorachand 169 Gosvämi, Kisorlläl 521 Goswami, B.N. xvi Govardhan 53 Govindapäla, King 27, 28, 30, 36 Grant, Charles 460 Greenway, W. 204 Grierson, George A. 191, 226, 389-90 Griffith, William 180 Grundier, Johann 128

The History o f the Book in South Asia Guha-Thakurta, Tapati 385 Gujarati, Wali Allah 190, 221, 292, 406 Gupta, Abhijit xi Gupta, Babu Sivaprasäd 506, 524 Gupta, Balmukund 235, 500, 511 Gupta, Maithilisaran 502, 522, 523, 527 Gupta, Mataprasad 187 Habermas, Jürgen 69 Haidar, Ghaziuddin 196, 208 Haidar, Kamaluddin 210 Haidar, Nawab Ghaziuddin 247 Haidar, Sayyid Ghulam 284 Halbwachs, Maurice 92 Haidar, Nilmani 350 Halhed, Nathaniel B. 190, 345, 532 Hamvira, Vira 15 Hamza, Syed 371 Al-Haq, Maulvi M. Aman 284 Hardinge, Lord 210 Hargopal, Munshi 206 Harishchandra, Bharatendu xxi, 188, 202, 234, 235, 500 Harivarman 26, 30, 37 Harivamshlal 216 Hart, Horace 485, 487 Hart, James D. 443 Harte, Bret 454, 455, 460 Hasan, Abu‘l 48, 51, 53 Hasan, Mir 194, 270 Hashkafi 221 Hastings, Warren 189 Hawley, J.S. 94 Hay, Sidney 247 Hedayetullah, Munshi 350 Heilman, Robert 464 Hemacandra, Acharya 14, 56, 60, 63 Hemcand, Dipcand 61 Henriques, Henri 107, 110, 111, 112-13, 114, 116, 117-19, 120, 122, 126, 139, 183 Himmatvijay, Yati 62 Hoernle, Rudolf 204 Hoey, William 251, 253, 262-3 Hofmeyr, Isobel xxi Hogarth, William 146 Homer 9 Horst, Henry 140 Howsam, Leslie 257 Hugo, Victor 457 Humäyün 43, 44, 45

583

Hume, R.E. 484 Hunter, William 195, 349 Hurst, John F. 248, 250, 256, 262, 268, 274, 281 Husain, Anvar ‘Taslim’ 286 Husain, ‘Inayat 284 Husain, Muhammad 208, 286 Husain, Munshi Imdad 246 Husain, Sayyid Fakhruddin ‘Sukhan’ 286 Husain, Sayyid Mehdi 284 Husain, Shaikh Vilayat 280 Husain, Tassaduq 295 Ibn Hasan, Mir 254, 284 Ibrahim, Haji Muhammad 280 Ihsan, Hakim 285, 286 Imam, Ghulam 285 Islam, Khurshidul 289, 290, 291 Ismail, M.M. 323, 326 Isma‘il, Maulvi Muhammad 253 Ismä‘Il, Shäh Muhammad 43, 186 Iyengar, Vaduvur Duraiswamy 306, 325, 326 Jah, Muhammad Husain 286 Jahangir 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53-4 Jambüvijay, Muni 62, 64 James, G.RR. 454, 455, 460 Jameson, Frederic 538 Jamieson, James 163 Jankiparshad, Fala 246 Jat, Jivanram 288 Jayasimha Siddharaja, King 14 Jay si, Malik Muhammad 275 Jeffrey, Robin xxv Jijnäsü, Chandrikä Prasäd 526 Jinendrasüri, Sripüjyaöl Jnandev 69, 76, 85, 86, 88, 91, 96, 99 Jog, V. 77 Johnson, Donald Clay 55, 63 Johnson, Samuel 457, 459, 460 Jones, Kenneth xvii Jones, Sir William 466 Jorge, Marcos 113 Joshi, Priya 427-73 Jüql, Muhammad 43 Jesudasan, Hephzibah 339 Jvalaparshad, Munshi 246 Kakori, Maulana Ahsan 244 Kalicaran, Pandit 288 Kaliprasad, Babu 267

584

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Kalki 324, 325, 326, 327 Kamil, Maulvi Muhammad 280 Kämrän, Prince 43 Kanhaiyalal, Pandit ‘Ashiq’ 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288 Kannusamy, A.R. 335 Käntivijay, Pravartak 60, 62 Karaka, Dosabhai Framji 485 Karim, Hakim Muhammad Nur 285 Karimuddin, Maulvi 229 Karlekar, Malavika 435 Karmakar, Gungadhar 369 Karmakar, Hiralal 377 Karmakar, Krishna Chandra 369, 377 Karmaker, Manohar 347, 377 Karmaker, Panchanan 190, 345, 346, 347, 377 Karnad, Girish 535, 536, 540 Karyalayam, Sakti 546 Kashmiri, Agha Hasra 523 Kashmiri, Moti Lai 232 Al-Kashmlrl, Muhammad Husayn 46 Katre, S.M. 93 Kaufman, Paul 441-2, 453 Kaviraj, Krsnadasa 8, 14 Kavirayar, Cuppiratipa 146 Kavirayar, Mambala 318 Kavirayar, Thirikudarasappa 317 Keith, A.B. 487 Kempson, M. 233-4 Kern, H. 483 Kerr, Ian J. 227 Kesavan, B.S. 187, 531 Khan, Ahmad 207 Khan, ‘Ali Baksh 209, 212 Khan, Doust-ali 136 Khan, Genghis 43 Khan, Haji Muhammad Zardar 284 Khan, Hakim Muhammad Hadi Husain 285 Khan, Hakim Muhammad Haidar 285 Khan, Maulvi Basharat ‘Ali 284, 287 Khan, Mehdi ‘Ali 286 Khan, Muhammad ‘Abdul Qayyam 287 Khan, Muhammad Sujan 287 Khan, Muhammad Zardar 286 Khan, Munshi ‘Ali Muhammad 246 Khan, Munshi Qamaruddin 205 Khan, Mustafa 209, 211 Khan, Nadir ‘Ali 187, 209, 211, 215, 216, 220 Khan, Navab Muhammad Haidar ‘Ali 287 Khan, Nawab Mardan ‘Ali Khan ‘Ra‘na’ 292

Khan, Nawab Ziyauddin Ahmad 289 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad 229 Khan, Sayyid Fazl Rasul ‘Wasti’ 283, 286 Khan, Sayyid Ghulam Haidar 286, 287 Khan, Sayyid Muhammad 229 Khan, Sayyid Safdar Husain 286 Khan, Shihab ud Din 291 Khan, S.Q. 243, 260, 262 Khan, Wajid ‘Ali 200, 205, 284 Khani, Mullah Majruddin 284 Khatri, Devkinandan 235, 521 Khatri, Virsingh 216 Khurd, Mädhü (the younger) 46 Khusraw, Amir 46, 50 Khwändamlr 270 Kielhorn, F. 61 King, Christopher R. 219, 224, 517 Kingsley, Charles 454, 455 Kinturi, Ghulam Hasnain ‘Allamah 287 Kipling, Rudyard 427 Kishen, Radha 233 Kishore, Pandit Jugal 198 Koenig, Friedrich 219 Kol, J.J. Cicilia 392 Kothari, Rita xxiv, 531-41 Krishnacarya 188 Krishnaji, Ganpat 221 Krishnan, 533, 538, 539 Kumar, Narendra 532 Kumärapäla, Emperor 56 Kumudhini 325, 326, 328, 329 Laha, Biswambhar 358, 361, 372 Lakshmlkämadeva, King 33 Lai, Bihari 244 Lai, Lallu Ji (Lalloo Jee) 188, 195, 197, 198, 349, 350 Lai, Munshi Ganesh 207, 256 Lai, Munshi Sadasukh 198, 206-7 Lai, P. 532 Land, Charles 273 Lane, John 484 Lath, Mukund 75 Lazarus, E.J. 218 Lesage, Alain-Rene 457 Lever, Charles James 454, 455, 460 Levi-Strauss, Claude 64-5, 93 Liechty, Mark 572 Lobo, J.L. 407 Lodi, Ibrählm 43

The History o f the Book in South Asia Lohiya, Krishnadas 85-6, 87, 89, 98 Long, James 192, 204, 219, 273-4, 352, 353-5 passim, 359, 370-71, 375, 434-5, 467-8 Losty, Jeremiah P. xvi, 21-42, 43-54, 200 Lowe, W.H. 265 Luis, Pero 113, 117 Lutgendorf, Philip 94 Luther, Martin 129 Macaulay, Thomas Babington 430 Macdonell, A.A. 487, 488-9, 490 MacDowell, Robert 164 Macedo, Donaldo 565 McLane, J.R. 298 McLuhan, Marshall 92, 543 Macmillan, Alexander 478 Macmillan, Frederick 478 MacNicol, N. 489 Madanapäla, King 36 Madhaviah, A. 324, 338 Maheta, Narasimha 9 Mahlpäla I, King 28, 33, 34 Mahlpäla II, King 28, 30, 33, 34 Mahipati 87, 88-90, 91 Mahon, George 140 Majid, Khvaja ‘Abdul 287 Makkhanlal 287 Mälavlya, M.M. 511 Malhotra, D.N. xxiii Mallik, P. 480 Mänek, Vastä 60 Manik, Haridäs 523 Mänikyasüri, Äcärya Vijay 62 Mann, Gurinder Singh xv, 69 Manohar 48, 53 Mansingh, Maharaja 246 Mansür 50, 53 Maraicar, S.M.N. 335 Markby, Sir William 479, 486 Marryat, Frederick 454, 455, 460, 462 Marshman, Joshua 191, 202, 531 Marzban, Fardunji 196, 221 Marzolph, Ulrich 201 Matthews, Basil 491 Mendes, L. 161, 176 Menon, O. Chandu 459 Menon, Ritu 532, 534-5, 540 Metcalf, Barbara Daly 186, 207, 230, 231, 297 Metcalf, Charles 443, 444 Milford, H.S. 479, 481, 482-4, 486-92passim

585

Minault, Gail 229 Mir Sayyid ‘All 44, 46, 47 Mirza, Kämrän 44 Mishra, Krishna Bihari 299 Mishra, Lakshmishankar 218 Mishra, Pankaj 540 Mishra, Pratapnarayan 235, 500 Mishra, Sadal 197 ‘Miskin’, Mir ‘Abdullah 194 Misra, Guläbräi 505 Mitra, Kashidas 215 Modi, Makä 61 Mohani, Hakim Vajid ‘Ali 285 Mohanläl, Hemcand 60 Mohanty, Gopinath 536 Molesworth, J.T. 221 Monius, Anne 108 Morris, William 476 Moticand, Mohanläl 60 Moulton, J.H. 491 Mudaliar, Arani Kuppuswamy 305, 306, 323, 326 Mudaliar, Pammal Sambanda 326 Mudaliar, T.K. Chidambaranatha 327 Muhammad, Qabul 208 Muhammad, Qazi Fateh 280 Muhammad, Qazi Salih 280 Muhammad, Wali 209 Mukherjee, Meenakshi 536 Mukherjee, Sujit 539, 540 Mukhopadhyay, Tarun K. xxi Müller, Friedrich Max 475, 476-9 passim, 485 Munir, Maulvi 287 Munisami Nayudu, C.V. 321 Munshi, K.M. 60 Murdoch, John 317 Murlidhar, Pandit 282 Murray, John 491 Mustapha, Haji 189 Nachiaramma 337-8 Nagarkar, Kiran 535 Naik, Pundalik 536 Namdev 67-72 passim, 74, 75, 76, 77-8, 80-81, 83, 85, 86-7, 88, 90-92, 96-7, 99 Nanak, Guru xv Nanautavi, Mamluk ‘Ali 230 Nanautavi, Muhammad Munir 230 Nanautavi, Muhammad Qasim 230 Nanautawi, Muhammad Ahsan 221, 230-31, 285, 287

586

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Nandi, Harihar 361 Nandy, Ashis 432 Narayan, Bishan 299-301 passim Narayan, Kirin 94 Narayan, Prag 256, 267, 297-9, 301 Narayan, R.K. 328 Narayanan, A. 335 Naregal, Veenaxx, 197, 220, 226 Nasiruddin Haidar, King 208 Nasiruddin, Shaikh 280 ‘Nassakh’, ‘Abdul Ghafur Khan 283, 286, 288 Natarajan, D. 434 Nath, Babu Shivchandar 206 Naval, Kishore 210, 211, 213, 220, 227, 231, 236-7, 242-5 passim, 246, 247-8, 250, 251, 253, 254-7, 259, 261, 262, 264, 266-8, 270, 274-5, 276, 277, 278, 281, 282-3, 288, 289-94passim, 295-7, 298, 506 Navalar, Arumuga 316, 320 N avalar, Arumukam 141 Navalar, Sabapathy 312 Nayakkar, Nunnakonda 339 Nayapäla, King 27, 33, 34 Nehru, Jawaharlal xxii Niezen, R.W. 93 Ninan, Sevanti xxv Nikte, P.D. 76 Noronha, Socrates 399-401 passim Novetzke, Christian Lee xiii, xiv, 67-102 Nurani, Amir Hasan 241, 246, 250, 263, 267 Nuruddin, Mullah 280 Ohdedar, A.K. 273 Oldenberg, Hermann 486 Oldenburg, Veena 247 Ong, Walter 92 Op de Beeck, Bart 75 Orsini, Francesca xviii, xix, 223, 232, 235, 300, 499-528 Orwell, George 427 Otto, Rudolf 65 Padma, V. 538 Padmasani 327 Pädo, Limbdi 60 Pai, Vidya 536 Pal, Gouricharan 358, 361, 372 PälTväl, K.D. 511 Palmers, E.H. 484

Pändey, Lochanprasäd 504 Pandey, Rup Narayan 299, 508 Pantulu, Veeresalingam 550 Parärkar, B.V. 511,513 Parry, Jonathan 94-5 Parshad, Debi 284, 285 Parshad, Gokul 285, 286 Parshad, Munshi Shiv ‘Wahbi’ 246 Parshad, Pandit Ajodhya 284 Parthasarthy, Indira 535 Paterson, W. 491 Pathak, Gopinath 218 Päthak, Sridhar 522 Pathasarathy, Indira 326 Pearson, George 172, 174 Pemble, John 211 Percival, Peter 317 Peterson, Indira 109 Peterson, Peter 57, 63, 65 Pfänder, Karl Hermann 185, 205 Phillimore, R.H. 177 Pigg, Stacy Leigh 561 Pillai, Anandaranga 143 Pillai, C.W. Damodaram 313, 316 Pillai, Meenakshisundarum 313, 314-15, 317, 318 Pillai, Muttusami 127-8, 131 Pillai, Namakkal Ramalingam 322 Pinto, C.M. 407 Pinto, Jose Manuel 397, 402-3 Pinto, Rochelle xx, 389-425 Pollock, Sheldon xii-xiii, xiv, xv, 3-20 Powell, Avril A. 185, 191, 204, 208 Prasäd, Jaysankar 502, 504, 509, 527 Prasad, Kali 215 Prasad, Madhav 288 Prasäd, Mahävir 505 Prasad, Shiva 188, 227, 246, 264, 286, 292, 296 Prashad, Munshi Lalta 253 Pratt, H. 467 Premchand 299, 300, 508, 512, 527, 535 Prinsep, Henry Toby 177 Pritchett, Frances W. 194, 195, 229 Pudumaippithan 330 Punyavijay, Muni 57, 60, 62, 64 Pyarelal, Lala 246, 285, 288 Qadir, Suleiman 246 Qayyam, Maulvi ‘Abdul 284 Qutbuddin, Maulvi 250

The History o f the Book in South Asia Radway, Janice 435, 436 Rahbar, Daud 290 Ar-RahTm, ‘Abd 46, 50 Rahman, Shah ‘Abdul 257 Rahmatullah, Miyam 280 Rai, Harsukh 227, 231 Rajagopalachari, C. 546 Rajanarayanan, Ki. 337, 338 Rakesh, Mohan 535 Ram, Babu 349 Ram, Kanhaiyalal 232-3 Ram, Mukund 232-3 Ramanujan, A.K. 94 Rämapäla, King 27, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36 Ramasami, E.V. 141 ‘Ra‘na’, Nawab Mardan ‘Ali Khan 292 Ranganathan, S.R. 330 Ranganathan, Thi.Ja. 333 Ranganathaswami 79 Rangarajan, Ra.Ki. 325 Rangaraju, J.R. 305-6, 324 Rao, V.K.R.V. 323 Rao, Velcheru Narayan 94 Rashid ad-Dln 50 Ratanvijay, Yati 61 Ray, Gobinda Chandra 377 Ray, Pranabranjan 380 Raya, Nandalal 361 Reade, Charles 454, 455 Redwell, John M. 484 Reid, Henry Stuart 206-7, 245 Reynolds, George W.M. xxi, 407, 428-9, 445, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462-3, 464-7 Rhys Davids, Thomas Willim 487 Rider Haggard, Henry 428 Rieu, Nellie 484, 486, 487, 488, 489-90 Rind, James Nathaniel 160-61, 162^1 passim, 166, 169, 170, 172-3, 176-7, 178, 180, 199,219 Rivara, J.H. Da Cunha 389-90, 391 Rizä, Äqä 46, 48, 51 Rizvi, Maulvi Vahiduddin Muhammad 287 Rizvi, Sayyid Mahboob 231 Robinson, Francis 184, 186, 201 Roy, Rammohan 197, 349 Roy, M.N. 532 Roy, Tapti 219, 352, 366 Rudradeva, King 33 Russell, Ralph 289, 290, 291, 292

Rusva, Hadi ‘Ali 282 Sabiri, Imdad 187, 257, 261, 267 Sadanha, J. 393 Sadasukhlal, Munshi 232 Sa’di, 174, 175, 194, 205, 221 Sadiq, Muhammad 195, 284 Safdar, Mufti Ghulam 284 Sägar, Bhäv 61 Säha, Chaddu 61 Sahai, Jagannath ‘Khushtar’ 287 Saharanpuri, Ahmad ‘Ali 230 Sahäy, Sivpüjan 508, 510 Sahgal, Rämrakh Simh 506-7, 510 Sahib, Chanda 126, 127, 136 Sahib, Muhammad Nazir Husain 294-5 Sahib, Talattuf Husain 294 Sahni, Bhisham 535 Sahranpuri, Girdhari Lai 287 Saint Pierre, J.B.H. 457 Sale, George 484 Salim, Prince 46, 48, 51-2 Salomon, Richard xii Sanehi, Gayäprasäd Sukla ‘TrisüT 504 Sankaranarayanavadivu 338 Sanyal, Subhadra xviii Sarita 569, 572 Sarmä, Bälkrsna ‘Navin’ 504 Sarshar, Ratan Nath 282, 295 Sarvar, Ghulam 296, 285, 286, 287 Sastri, Natesa 324, 329 Sastri, Vedanayakam 117, 135, 142, 143 Satyamurti, S. 331-2 Satyavijay, Pannyäs 61 Saunders, K.J. 490-91 Scheglova, Olga P. 199, 210, 270 Schultze, Benjamin 130, 137, 142, 189, 311 Scott, J.B. 176 Scott, Sir Walter 454, 455, 456, 457, 459 Sen, Mandira 539 Sen, Ram Comul 349 Senefelder, Alois 163, 164, 199 Serfoji II, Raja 196 Seyller, John xvi Shäh, Jahän 43, 52, 53-4 Shah, Kalyanji Padamji 59, 65 Shäh, Nädir 54 Shah, Nawab Amjad ‘Ali 247 Shah, Wajid ‘Ali 210 Shakespeare, William 331, 404

587

588

The History o f the Book in South Asia

Shakir, ‘Abdul Rahman 211 Shankardayal ‘Farhat’ 287 Sharar, ‘Abdul Halim 209-10, 242-3, 272, 282 Sharif, Muhammad 48, 49 Sharifain, Haji Harmain 208, 209, 271 Shastri, RJ. xv Shaw, Graham xi, xii, xiii, xviii, 111, 113, 114, 119, 159-81, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 196, 199, 200, 201, 202, 265, 359, 434 Shevan, Maulvi Hamid ‘Ali 286 Shil, Jaharilal 358 Shil, Nrityalal L. 358, 361, 370 Shivnarayan, Munshi 207, 231, 233, 289 Shukla, Mahesh Datt 288 Shulman, David 94 Siddiqi, Ansar al-Hasan 254, 293 Siddiqi, Muhammad ‘Atiq 187, 205, 206, 215, 216,217 Singh, Anand Shankar 188, 234 Singh, Bhagat 334, 335 Singh, Dhirendranath 188, 232, 235 Singh, Gulab 236 Singh, Kumvar Jagat 286 Singh, Lachman 180-81 Singh, Raja Pratap 287 Singh, Ramdin 235 Singh, Sheokumar 522 Sircar, Badal 535 Sivagnanam, M.P. 549 Smith, George 265 Smith, Jonathan Z. 67, 93 Smith, Lewis Ferdinand 161 Smith, R. 245 Smith, Robert 176, 178, 179, 180 Sobti, Krishna 535 Somasundarasüri, Äcärya 62 Spalding, Peter 190 Sprenger, Alois 160, 208, 209, 211-12 Srivastava, Navjädikläl 508 Stanhope, Earl 219 Stapleton, G.H. 174 Stark, Ulrike xviii, 183-240, 241-303 Steinberg, S.H. 219 Stephens, Thomas 119 Stevenson, Robert Louis 454, 455 Stevenson, Sinclair 489, 491 Stewart, Tony Stocking, George 92 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 457 Stuart, Daniel 190

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay 94 Subramania Mudaliar, V.P 321 Subramanyam, Ka.Naa. 323, 324, 325, 326, 327 Sue, Eugene 457, 459 Sukla, Devidatt 508, 510 Sukla, Mätädin 505 Sukla, Rämchandra 505 Sukthankar, S.V. 94 Sundaram, V.A. 299 Sür, Shir Shäh 43, 44 Süri, Jinadetta 25, 39 Süri, Jinavallabha 39 Suriyanarayana Shastri, V.G. (Parithimal Kalaignar) 320 Suryasiddhanta, Madhavchandra 369 Al-Suyuti, Djal ad-Din 208 Svamidayal, Lala 286, 287 Swamigal, Dandapani 314 Swamigal, Sivaprakasa 314 Swaminatha Iyer, U.V. 139, 312, 313, 314, 336, 550 Swarnakar, Ramdhan 377 Swift, Jonathan 457 Tagore, Dwarkanath 443 Tagore, Rabindranath 437, 443, 459, 541 Tahmäsp, Shäh 43, 44, 48, 50, 52 Takru, Sri Kishan 233 Talwar, Vir Bharat 435 Taraporevala, D.B. 485-6 ‘TaslinT, Munshi Amirullah 246 Tassin, Jean-Baptiste 164, 177-8, 179, 180 Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad 242 Taylor, G.P 490 Taylor, Philip Meadows 454, 455, 457, 460, 462 Telang, Kashinath Trimbak 477 Tendulkar, Vijay 535, 536 Thackeray, William Makepeace 454, 455, 460 Thatte, Govind Raghunath 214 Thibaut, G. 482 Thomason, James 204 Thompson, John B. 551 Tilak, Bai Gangadhar 483 Tilhi, Vijhi 56 Timür 43, 48, 49, 50 Tivari, Rataneshwar 214 Tivärl, V.N. 511 Tod, James 59, 63 Tolstoy, Leo 527 Totaram, ‘Shayan’ 284, 286, 287 Toulmin, William Maintrue 162

The History o f the Book in South Asia Trimmer, Sarah 144 Trivedi, Harish 432, 538 Trübner, Nicholas 257, 487 Tukaram 8, 80, 81, 85, 86, 91-2, 96, 99 Tulsidas 15, 197, 203, 218, 255, 282, 331 Tüsl, Näsir ad-Dln 47 Twain, Mark 543 Udayasimha 35 Uddäkä, Queen 33, 34 Urquhart, W.S. 490 Väjpeyl, Ambikäprasäd 511 Väjpeyl, Kisoridäs 510 Vajpeyi, Pandit Ramratan 288 Valignano, Alessandro 113 Vallabhsüri, Äcärya Vijay 60, 62 Van der Veer, Peter 94 Varma, Balagopal 460, 461 Varma, Ramkrishna 218 Varma, Rashmi xxiii Varma, Ravi 502 Vedalankar, Sharda 187, 198, 207 Vellachami, C. 336 Venkatachalapathy, A.R. xvii, xix, xxii, xxiii, xxv, 305-39, 543-53 Venkatasamy, Mylai Seeni. 313 Verne, Jules 457 Vidyanidhi, Shri Chunder 369 VidyärthI, G.S. 511, 513 Visakaperumalaiyar, Thiruthanikai 312 Viswanathan, Gauri 430-33 passim Vivekananda, Swami 397 Vrddhicandrasüri, Äcärya 62 Vyas, Ambikadatt 235 Waliullah, Shah 186

589

Wallace, Paul 256 Wallich, Nathaniel 169, 171 Walther, C.T. 139 Ward, William 191, 220, 346, 347, 531 Watt, Ian 92-3, 95 Watt, George 220 Webb, Edward 174 Wellesley, Marquess 189 Wenger, J. 374 Whitehead, H. 491 Wilkins, Charles 190, 192, 345, 346, 347, 532 Williams, Monier 476 Williams, T.H. 245 Williams, Walter 245 Wingfield, Charles 243 Winslow, Miron 149 Wood, Charles 265 Wood, George 170, 172-3, 176, 199-200 Woolf, Leonard 428, 429 Woolf, Virginia 428, 429 Xavier, St Francis 110-11, 113, 116, 126, 396 Ya'qub, Muhammad 231 Yar Khan, Maulvi Haji ‘Ali 280 Yar Khan, Maulvi Haji Hidayat 280 Yearlee, Basil 491 Yusuf, Malvi Muhammad 231 'Z afar, Bahadur Shah 283 Zakaria, Baha’uddin 296 Zamani, A. 241 Zamindari, Pradesh 300 Zardchop, Kishan Narayan 233 Ziegenbalg, Bartholomaeus xvii, 128-30, 131-2, 134, 139, 142, 310, 311, 319, 531 Zupanov, Ines 121