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Part 1 of 2

Krishnakanta Basu, Rammohan Roy and Early 19th Century British Contacts with Bhutan and Tibet
by John Bray
Kumamoto
The Tibet Journal
Vol. 34/35, No. 3/2, Special Issue: THE EARTH OX PAPERS, pp. 329-356 (28 pages)
Autumn 2009-Summer 2010
Published by: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives 

In mid-1815 Krishnakanta Basul and Rammohan Ray -- later famous as one of the leading figures of the 19th century Bengali renaissance -- set out from Rangpur in northern Bengal on a sensitive diplomatic mission. In late 1814, the East India Company had declared war against the Gorkha state in Nepal: the task of the two emissaries was to brief Bhutan's Deb Raja ('Brug sDe srid)2 on the background to the war, and to assure him that the Company had no designs on his own country. If possible, they were to convey a similar message to the Tibetan authorities in Lhasa.

In the event, the main military theatres of the 1814-1816 war with Nepal took place far to the west, and the mission to Bhutan proved to be of no more than minor diplomatic significance. It is therefore mentioned in standard accounts of the war,3 but in a peripheral manner. The purpose of this paper is to bring the mission and its two main India protagonists to centre-stage, and to place them in their wider political and cultural context.

Rammohan Ray returned to India after delivering the initial message to the Deb Raja, and had no further contact with Bhutan, but Krishnakanta Basu stayed on for more than a year. Although he had scant success in his diplomatic role, he used his time to good effect by collecting information on the language and culture of Bhutan. His literary legacy includes a detailed "Account of Bhutan", which was first published in 1825 in Asiatic Researches, the journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; as well as a manuscript "Grammar and Vocabulary of the Bhotan Language". Although his main role was to serve as a Company official, he arguably can be regarded as an early forerunner of modern Indian scholarship on Bhutan and Tibet. His struggles and achievements deserve to be more widely recognised.

This paper draws on archival sources at the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collection in London.4 It begins with an introductory review of the Company's relations with Bhutan in Tibet in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with a particular focus on the Indian intermediaries who facilitated communications on both sides. The second part of the paper analyses the political circumstances of the 1815 mission to Bhutan in some detail. The paper concludes with a discussion of Krishnakanta's contributions to Western knowledge of the Himalaya.

British diplomacy and Indian intermediaries

The 1815 mission took place some 40 years after the opening of the first substantive British contacts with Bhutan and Tibet, and the challenges that Krishnakanta and Rammohan faced reflect the legacy of this period.

The common themes include first a continuing sense of suspicion on the part of both Bhutan and Tibet concerning British ambitions in the region. The leaders of both countries feared that the Company's commercial expansion might serve as a prelude to political and military intervention, as had already happened in Bengal. A second theme is the role played by Indian intermediaries. No more than a handful of British emissaries were able to visit Bhutan and Tibet in person. During these visits, and still more in the long intervals when no British official was able to visit either country, Indian intermediaries played an essential interpreting role to both sides. These intermediaries fell into three categories: Gosains, Kashmiris and, in due course, the two Bengali officials that are the main subject of this paper.

Hastings, Bogle and Purangir

The first diplomatic opening came in 1774 when the Company intervened on behalf of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar in a conflict with Bhutan. The Third Panchen Lama, Blo bzang gpal ldan ye shes (1738-1780), sought to mediate on Bhutan's behalf. Governor-general Warren Hastings (1732-1818), took advantage of the opening to send George Bogle (1747-1781), a young Scottish official, via Bhutan to Tashi Lhunpo where he was to make direct contact with the Panchen Lama.

Hastings had two broad strategic objectives. The first was to develop a trade route from India via Bhutan to Tibet: this was to serve as a replacement for the hitherto more important route via Kathmandu which had been blocked as a result of the expansion of the Gorkha state under Prithvi Narayan (1723-1775). His second, more distant aspiration was to explore the possibilities of establishing communications via Tibet with China.

Bogle's main guide and mentor in Tibet was Purangir, a member of the north Indian Gosain community, which had an extensive network of contacts on both sides of the Himalaya.5 The Gosains were religious devotees, who combined regular pilgrimages with trade, and were of service to the Tibetans -- as well as the British -- as a source of knowledge and advice on developments on either side of the Himalaya. As Bogle reported following his return from Tibet:

The Gosseines, the Trading Pilgrims of India, resort hither [i.e. to Tashi Lhunpo] in great numbers. Their humble deportment, and holy character heightened by the merit of distant Pilgrimages, their accounts of unknown countries, and remote Regions, and above all their possession of high veneration for the Lamas, procure them not only a ready admittance but great favours. Tho' clad in the garb of poverty there are many of them possessed of considerable Wealth. Their trade is confined to articles of great value and small bulk. It is carried on without noise or ostentation, and often by Paths unfrequented by other merchants.6


The Kashmiri community, many of whom had intermarried with Tibetans, constituted a second group of Indian origin that was well-represented in Tashi Lhunpo. Kashmiri traders operated an extensive personal and commercial network from Ladakh, Nepal, and Bengal right across Tibet as far as Xining and beyond.7 According to Bogle, the Tibetan merchants of Tashi Lhunpo believed that the Kashmiris and Gosains had an advantage over them in that they were better suited to the Indian climate:

They [the Tibetans] said that being born in this country they were afraid of going into a hot one; that their people would die in Bengal; that they had heard from tradition that about eight hundred years ago the people of this country used to travel into Bengal, but that eight out of ten died before their return; that the Kashmiris and Gosains travelled into different countries, but that they could not.8


Bogle himself had to contend with suspicions that he had come to "spy out the nakedness of the land,''9 but he was nonetheless able to establish a warm personal relationship with the Panchen Lama. Both he and Hastings hoped that these beginnings would prepare the way for an eventual expansion of British trade with Tibet, and in due course for a new communications route with China.

On Bogle's return journey from Tashi Lhunpo, he opened negotiations with the Deb Raja of Bhutan on a possible trade agreement with the Company. Bogle reported that:

Foreign merchants have always been excluded [from Bhutan] except the Kashmiri houses who in consideration of a large sum of money are permitted to transfer otter skins, chank [conch shells] and a few other articles through the country.10


He added that, having been cut off by the mountains from the rest of the world, the Bhutanese were "averse from innovations and ignorant of all the advantages which flow from a free and extensive commerce."11

As in Tibet, a major factor impeding the negotiations was the Deb Raja's fear that the presence of British merchants in his country might turn out to be a precursor of military conquest. The eventual compromise was that the Deb Raja agreed to allow Hindu and Muslim traders to pass and repass through his country between Bengal and Tibet. At the same time Bhutanese traders were to be allowed special privileges at an annual fair in Rangpur, and the Deb Raja sent the first of a series of vakils (envoys) to represent his interests in Calcutta. However, he did not reciprocate to the extent of allowing the Company to station its own vakil in Bhutan, and the country remained closed to European merchants.

The late 18th and early 19th centuries

Despite these promising beginnings, the Company's relationship with Bhutan and Tibet did not develop as had been hoped. One factor was the demise of two of the most important personalities: in 1780 the Panchen Lama died of smallpox while on a visit to Peking (with Purangir in his entourage). Bogle, who meanwhile had been appointed Collector of Rangpur, died in a drowning accident the following year. Hastings sent Samuel Turner to Bhutan and Tibet in 1783, and he was able to meet the infant Fourth Panchen Lama in Tashi Lhunpo. Turner was greatly taken with the child's dignity and composure but was unable to enter substantive diplomatic negotiations either with the new Panchen Lama or his regent.

A second, even more serious factor was a shift in overall policy under Lord Cornwallis, who succeeded Hastings as Governor-General in 1786. Cornwallis was more preoccupied with developments in southern India than with the Himalaya, and may have missed diplomatic opportunities as a result. In 1788, the Regent in Tashi Lhunpo sent two Kashmiris, Mohammed Rajeb and Mohammed Wali, to carry letters to Cornwallis in Calcutta seeking British assistance to repulse a Gorkha assault on Tibet.12 Cornwallis refused to intervene, and his offer of mediation following a second Gorkha war with Tibet in 1792 came too late to be of practical assistance.

The outcome of the 1788 and 1792 Gorkha wars with Tibet was a strengthening of Manchu authority over Lhasa, and the tightening of border controls of the Himalayan passes, making it all but impossible for Europeans to visit the country.13 Cornwallis's slow and heavily-qualified response to Tibetan appeals for assistance had raised suspicions in Lhasa that the Company had actually supported the Gorkhas, and it seems that the Gosains were caught in the backlash against the British. In 1800 Turner wrote of Tibet that:

A most violent prejudice prevails even against the Hindoo Goseins, who are charged with treachery against their generous patrons, by becoming guides and spies to the enemy [i.e. the British], and have in consequence, it is said, been proscribed their accustomed abode at Teshoo Loomboo, where they had been ever patronised in great numbers by the Lama, and enjoyed particular favour and indulgence.14


Meanwhile, the Company's relations with Bhutan fared little better. Again, the main underlying reason is likely to have been fear of possible British military expansion. The annual fair in Rangpur continued to take place but was poorly attended, and overall trade with India was limited in scale. For example, in 1796, the Baptist missionary Dr. John Thomas reported:

I went to a great Fair ... toward Bootan where the natives come down yearly & having found only two real Bootanese, I enquired the reason & find, they have suffered losses by thieves which have discouraged them from coming to the Fair. These 2 Persons were a Merchant and his servant, with woollen Blankets, Elephants' Teeth etc for sale ... 15


A further reason for poor relations was a series of disputes along the boundary between Bhutanese territory in the Duars and the princely state of Cooch Behar which had been under British protection since 1774.16 Hastings had tended to favour Bhutan in these disputes, perhaps taking the view that minor territorial concessions were worthwhile if they served the Company's wider diplomatic and commercial interests. However, Hastings' successors and their local representatives tended to take a more legalistic view, and frequently ruled against Bhutan.

British and Indian officials in Rangpur

On the British side, the frontline management of these boundary disputes fell to the Commissioners in Cooch Behar and the Collectors in Rangpur. The key protagonists in the early decades of the 19th century include: James Morgan, who was Collector of Rangpur from 1807 to 1809; John Digby, who succeeded him from 1809 until 1814; and David Scott who was successively Collector in Rangpur from 1814 to 1816, and then Commissioner in Cooch Behar.17

Krishnakanta Basu and Rammohan Ray

All three men were of course supported by an extensive Indian staff. Among these were Krishnakanta Basu who joined government service as a junior official in the Rangpur Faujdari 'Adalat (criminal court) in 1807,18 and Rammohan Roy who first came with Digby to Rangpur in 1809. Rammohan had been born into a wealthy Bengali family in 1774, and had entered Digby's service in 1805, initially as a private munshi (secretary) and then as temporary sar-ristadar (head clerk) of the Ramgarh Faujdari 'Adalat in northern Bihar.19 He moved with Digby successively to Jessore (Bengal), Bhagalpur (Bihar) and finally to Rangpur.

Digby evidently held Rammohan in high regard. In November 1809 he wrote to the Board of Revenue describing Rammohan as a "man of very respectable family and excellent education" and seeking the Board's approval of his appointment as his diwan.20 However, the Board rejected the appointment, arguing that Rammohan was insufficiently qualified. When Digby sought to protest, citing Rammohan's excellent qualifications and references, the Board confirmed its original decision and reproved him for the style in which he had addressed them.21 Despite this setback, Rammohan remained in Rangpur. Two Bengali-language letters from 1812 and 1814 refer to him as diwan,22 and it therefore appears either that he was reappointed to the post, or that he continued to hold the title unofficially.


The Maraghat boundary dispute

The most important of the Bhutan/Cooch Behar boundary disputes in the period under review concerned the Maraghat district, some 25 miles from Jalpaiguri. Maraghat was awarded to Bhutan in the 1774 treaty with the Company, and this was confirmed by a Council at Dinajpur in 1777. However the Raja of Cooch Behar claimed the southern part of the district, which was known as Gird Maraghat.23 In 1807 Morgan conducted an on-the-spot enquiry and decided in favour of Cooch Behar. In 1809 Digby confirmed Morgan's ruling awarding Gird Maraghal to Cooch Behar, and the Maharaja took possession of the territory two years later.

The Bhutanese never accepted these decisions. For example, in 1811 a letter to the Company from 'Penlow Sahib, a chief of Bhutan', complained that an officer of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar had been causing trouble over the boundary for the previous three years, and expressed fears that war might ensue.24 Similarly in 1812 a letter from the Deb Raja again referred to Maraghat, appealed for assistance in resolving the dispute, and said that 'Diwan Rammohan' knew all the facts of the case.25 In May 1814 the Maharaja of Cooch Behar appealed to Norman McLeod, the Commissioner of Cooch Behar, asking him to arrange for the deployment of 50 sepoys to protect the Maraghat frontier from Bhutanese infringements.26

The Maraghat dispute was therefore far from being resolved in late 1814 when it was overtaken by the outbreak of the Company's war with Nepal. At that point Maraghat became one factor in a much wider set of strategic calculations on the part of the British, and it was these that in due course led to Krishnakanta's and Rammohan's mission to Bhutan.

The Nepal war and the mission to Bhutan

In the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries both the East India Company and the House of Gorkha had extended their control over vast new swathes of territory. In the Gorkha case these included much of Sikkim as well as Kumaon, Garhwal and the Himalayan foothills as far west as the river Sutlej. The immediate cause of the Nepal war was a boundary dispute in northern Bihar. However, the rival interests of these two expanding South Asian powers arguably were bound to lead to conflict sooner or later.27

British policy in the war was formulated in Calcutta by the Governor-General, Francis Rawdon Hastings (1754-1826). who was then known as Lord Moira and from 1817 became the First Marquess of Hastings. Moira had two concerns with regard to Sikkim and Bhutan. The first was to ensure that they either remained neutral or joined the Company's cause. Sikkim was to be encouraged to join forces with the Company in the hope of regaining territory that had earlier been lost to the Gorkhas.28

At a wider geostrategic level, Moira was concerned about the potential conflict's impact on British relations with China, which since 1792 had claimed Nepal as a tributary.29 He therefore hoped that it would be possible to send a message via either Sikkim or Bhutan to the Chinese authorities in Lhasa, emphasising that the Company's quarrel was solely with Nepal.

The Company's prospects of achieving these objectives were impeded by its weak diplomatic connections and poor intelligence sources for all the Himalayan kingdoms, including Nepal as well as Bhutan and Tibet. One of its first tasks was therefore to review the sources that were in fact available. Eager to be of service, the veterinary surgeon and explorer William Moorcroft (1770-1825) reviewed his own contacts at the outset of the war, and these evidently included "fakirs" (Gosains) as well as a Kashmiri merchant named Ahmed Ali.30 However, none of these traditional sources were available for Bhutan and Tibet, and the Company therefore had to find other means of making contact.

Alarms in the north-east

In the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of war, British officials in the north-east were primarily preoccupied with local concerns. In early November 1814, Norman Mc Leod, the British Commissioner in Cooch Behar, reported rumours that the Gorkhas had sent a vakil to incite the Deb Raja to join forces with them against the British, and that he was mobilising armed forces along his western frontier.31 Captain Barre Latter, who commanded the Company forces in the north-east, expressed the "decided opinion that no time ought to be lost in preparing to repel the first aggression on the part of the Deb Raja."32 If he had possessed any firm information regarding the reported Bhutanese mobilisation, he would on his own initiative have occupied the Bhutanese post of Kyrantie.33

Scott's view from Rangpur was more balanced: on 28 November he wrote to Calcutta suggesting that the Deb Raja's deployment of troops on the Western Passes might be "merely precautionary, to prevent our attempting to enter Nepaul [i.e. the parts of Sikkim then controlled by the Gorkhas] by the roads leading from Bhutan."34 In any case, he thought that Bhutan's lack of military capability rendered it "highly improbable that the Deb Raja should seriously think of engaging in a war, in which he can gain nothing, and may lose, without an effort on the part of his enemy, the whole his territories below the hills [i.e. the duar's]."35 Two days later he reported that a party of Bhutanese merchants had arrived with horses and other products or the hills for sale. He had made secret enquiries but could not find any evidence of preparations of a warlike nature in Bhutanese territory.36

The British authorities in Calcutta ultimately agreed with Scott's assessment, noting that Latter's proposed occupation of Kyrantie might have involved the British Government "in a state of hostility with an unoffending, friendly neighbouring chief."37 The conflict with Nepal made it all the more important to maintain good relations, and on 26th November 1814, John Adam, the Secretary to the Government of India, wrote to Scott requesting him to make contact with both Tibet and Bhutan:

His Excellency [the Governor-General] further desires that you will be pleased to endeavour to open a channel of communication with the administration of Lassa, in order to afford the means of conveying to the authorities there such an intimation of the origin and objects of our proceedings towards the Nepaulese, and the encouragement which it is proposed to afford to the Raja of Siccim, as shall enable them to appreciate the justice and moderation of our conduct. A similar communication might also be conveyed to the Deb Raja.38


He added that the deputations to these countries need not be particularly grand:

It is not necessary that either of these communications should assume the appearance of a regular mission. The deputation of a decent person to each court, furnished with the necessary information, and known at the same time to proceed from an English authority, will enable you to convey the communication in an authentic and satisfactory manner, without the parade of a formal mission.39


The letter to the Deb Raja, which was composed by the Government's Persian Department,40 duly emphasised that:

The utmost harmony and friendship have always subsisted between the British Government and you; and I am perfectly satisfied of your disposition to maintain those relations in the true spirit of cordiality.41


The letter went on to request the Deb Raja to refuse entry to any Gorkhas seeking to enter his country "for the purpose of exciting disturbance in the British territories."42

Scott initially had difficulty in forwarding the letter. On 10 January he reported that he had had to apply for permission to the Deb Raja for permission to send a person to his court because of the "jealousy of the Bootan government inducing it to refuse admission to strangers into the interior of the country."43 He commented:

The precautions taken to prevent the entrance of strangers into Bootan rendered it necessary for me to choose between making a formal application of this nature, and sending a person in disguise; and the latter was a mode of procedure which was neither likely to prove agreeable to any person duly qualified for the duty in question, nor appeared to me to be compatible with the dignity and views of the British Government.44


While waiting for the Deb Raja's response, he had sent a message to Bhutan via the Raja of Bijni, a small territory on the borders of Bhutan.45 Meanwhile, he also reported difficulties in opening communications with Tibet:

I have hitherto been prevented from forwarding a letter to the Court of Lassa, from not being able to find a person who could write it in the language of Tibet. I however expect that a man who understands that dialect will arrive in the course of a few days, and his Lordship may depend upon every precaution being taken to ensure its safe and speedy conveyance to that Capital.46


Scott added that if the Deb Raja agreed to his request to send a person to his court, then "the obstacles which at present oppose themselves to the journey to Lassa will be removed."

The Deb Raja eventually replied to Scott in a letter received on 20 March 1815.47 He insisted that there was no truth in the report that the Gorkhas had sent a request for military aid. At the same time, he referred to the continuing boundary disputes -- which evidently were his own principal concern -- and duly enclosed a passport for a trustworthy British representative to come to Bhutan so that both sides should be informed of each other's affairs.

Selecting the messengers

Scott now had the task of selecting a suitable representative, and eventually decided on Krishnakanta Basu. Krishnakanta himself described the background in an application for a pension (translated from Bengali by Scott) which he wrote in 1821. Like Bogle's Tibetan merchants, he observed that the contrasting climates of the plains of India and the Himalaya presented a major obstacle:

.... no person at Rungpore could be found to undertake the duty, the Climate of the hilly Country being from the snow and extreme cold exceedingly hostile to the Constitutions of the natives of Bengal .....48


Religious ritual concerns were another major factor. Bengali Hindus were:

... further deterred from proceeding into those Countries by the difficulty and occasional impossibility they experience in selling those articles of provision to which they are accustomed, as well as by the manners and impure habits of the people which are so repugnant to the customs of the Hindoos that few persons of the latter religion will venture into Bhootan from fear of losing their Caste.49


Krishnakanta nevertheless decided to take on the task, partly for material reasons:

Notwithstanding the above considerations your petitioner being grateful for the subsistence afforded by the Government and hopeful for future advancement and eventual benefit, bound himself with the girdle of courage and regardless of the consequences, not to say despairing of returning alive, agreed to undertake the journey.50


It seems that he received an immediate benefit in that his salary was raised from Rs. 14 per month as a 'Mohurrer' (a writer in local languages) to Rs. 70 when he was in Bhutan. However, Scott confirmed that Krishnakanta had not been exaggerating when he referred to the difficulty of finding someone to undertake the journey:

For the accuracy of such parts of his petition which relate to the unwillingness displayed by the natives at Rungpore to undertake the journey to Lhassa and the danger attending to it, I can safely vouch, as no capable person but himself could be found to undertake the business and the risk from the climate at the particular season was such that thinking it not improbable that the petitioner who was ill at the time of his departure might die on the way, I sent another man to go along with him as far as Bhootan in case of the occurrence of such an accident.51


From the Deb Raja's subsequent correspondence, it is clear that Rammohan Roy was this 'other man' and -- particularly since he would have been senior to Krishnakanta -- it is odd that Scott does not mention him by name. Very speculatively, one wonders whether this was because he was no longer in formal government service by the time he travelled to the Deb Raja's court, and therefore had no official status.52

Krishnakanta's stay in Bhutan

Krishnakanta gives a vivid description of the journey in his 'Account of Bootan'. Before reaching the hills, he had to pass through the Bhutanese Duars, and he describes a series of perils in the jungles:

The jungle is of such height that an elephant or rhinoceros cannot be seen in it when standing up, and it is so full of leeches that a person cannot move a hundred yards without having his body, wherever it has been scratched by the grass, covered with these animals, so that a single man cannot get rid of them without assistance. In this jungle, when the sun shines, the heat is intolerable, and when the sun ceases to shine a person cannot remain in it without a fire on account of innumerable musquitoes [sic] and other insects with which it is filled.53


His account of the terrain once he reaches the hill is more matter-of-fact, noting the various habitations that he encountered en route, the degree to which they were cultivated, and the extent to which the roads would be passable for horses or elephants.

At all events, the two men duly arrived in 'Wandipoor' (Wangdi Phodrang), and presented their credentials. The Deb Raja responded by sending a letter to Scott in Rangpur in which he acknowledged a present of five pieces of broadcloth, five coats and a telescope.54 He said that Scott's letter to the two representatives of China -- presumably the two Ambans -- had been forwarded to Lhasa: The two emissaries had explained that one of them was to stay in Bhutan while the other -- Rammohan Ray -- was to return to Rangpur.

The rest of the letter is a clear indication of the Deb Raja's priorities inasmuch as it mainly concerns his grievance over the continuing boundary disputes with Cooch Behar and Baikunthapur. He only refers to the Nepal war -- which from Scott's point of view was by far the most important matter at a hand -- in a postscript. There he notes the Gorkhas had wronged the Company, according to what he had learnt from Rammohan and Krishnakanta, and he will therefore reject any Gorkha approaches in connection with the war. He then returns to the boundary disputes, requesting that Scott either come to the frontier for a local enquiry, or send Rammohan back with a clear decision in the matter.

In the event, rather than returning to Bhutan, Rammohan moved to Calcutta where he soon achieved prominence as the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, and one of the leading Bengali intellectuals of his generation.55
Krishnakanta was therefore left to fulfil his role as the resident Company vakil in Bhutan as best he could. According to his own account, this was far from being a pleasant experience:

During the period of your petitioner's residence in Bhootan, he as well as all the people who accompanied him, remained almost constantly sick, and one of the latter died from the cold and unhealthiness of the climate and owing to the want of their accustomed food, and on account of the impure habits of the people and their hostility to the Hindoo Religion, your petitioner also passed the time in a most disagreeable manner.56


Scott later noted that Krishnakanta did not seem to "possess all the discretion requisite for such an employment."57 However, he went on to say that Krishnakanta's diplomatic role was in any case limited by the fact that the Bhutanese watched him with "extreme jealousy", and he therefore had "little opportunity of learning anything except what the Bootan Government wish him to know, and which they would probably communicate at any rate".58 The Deb Raja had repeatedly prevented Krishnakanta from sending messengers to India, a practice which naturally limited his value as an intelligence source.59

While Krishnakanta was in Bhutan the main events of the Nepal war unfolded elsewhere. The Company's armies met fierce Gorkha resistance in the first campaign which took place in late 1814 and early 1815.60 However, the British General David Ochterlony had rather greater success in the second campaign which began in the autumn of 1815. By early November British and Gorkha representatives were negotiating a draft treaty at Segauli. Fighting briefly resumed in early 1816 before the treaty was signed and ratified in March, thus bringing the conflict to an end.

Krishnakanta spent all this time in Bhutan. In June 1816 Scott reported to his superiors that he was "now exceedingly desirous of returning home in consequence of continued and severe sickness", and requested instructions as to how he should respond.61 John Adam, the Government Secretary, duly replied that Krishnakanta could now return from Bhutan "agreeably to his own desire"62 However, it seems that the Deb Raja prevented Krishnakanta from receiving Scott's message, which was sent via a Bhutanese official since it did not contain anything of consequence, and he was still in Bhutan two months later.

After Scott had sent a further message in August, the Deb Raja responded on his own account, explaining that Krishnakanta had now recovered from his illness. Since the roads were now impassable anyway because of the rains, he requested that Krishnakanta should stay a little longer until the Maraghat border dispute had been settled.63

A Chinese army in Tibet

By this time a new diplomatic crisis was beginning to unfold following news that a Chinese army led by Sai-Ch'ung'a, a senior Manchu official from Sichuan, had arrived in Tibet with orders to investigate the outcome of the Nepal war.64 Lord Moira had been long feared that the conflict might lead to a dispute with China, which claimed Nepal as a tributary, thus imperilling Britain's growing economic interests in East Asia. Now it seemed as though his worst fears were about to be realised. The crisis therefore reinforced the need for accurate intelligence from the Himalayan states, and the information that Krishnakanta might be able to gather in Bhutan took on a new importance.

Krishnakanta's main contribution was a detailed report of a conversation in September 1816 with the Deb Raja's brother which touched on developments in Tibet. The conversation was wide-ranging, but selective in that -- to echo Scott's earlier observation -- the brother was presumably telling Krishnakanta what he wanted the British to know. He began with the ingratiating observation that "the Goorkha Raja was a Villain" who had "wantonly made war on the British Government". Having found himself unsuccessful, the Raja had appealed to China for assistance, and the commander of the Chinese army had in his turn called on Bhutan to provide aid.

The Deb Raja's reply was reportedly to the effect that ..... his army consists of Bhotiahs who would die if they were sent into the plains, and that his Country is quite destitute of supplies".65 He went on to suggest to the Chinese general that "it is not proper to make war on the Company as many lives will be lost on either side, and that is therefore advisable for him to make peace."66 In his own analysis, the Deb Raja's brother commented that:

We will give not assistance at all for there is a close friendship between the Company and Dhurum Raja, & as our country affords no supplies we are enabled to subsist only by means of the traffic carried on with the Company's territories.67


If the Chinese tried to exact Bhutanese assistance by force, he would appeal to the British for aid. Playing the diplomat in his turn, Krishnakanta assured him that such aid would be forthcoming, although it is highly unlikely that the Company would in fact have risked a confrontation with China over Bhutan.

Krishnakanta's despatch also contained an amalgam of information on Chinese forces in Tibet compiled from various "persons of credit." According to his sources, the Chinese had designs on both Calcutta and Assam. Indeed, an army of about ten or twelve thousand men had already set out from Lhasa in the direction of Assam. Another army of nearly twenty thousand men had advanced towards Nepal. Making the most of all available information, he concluded with an analysis of the military implications of local market prices:

In consequence of the number of troops which have marched from Lassa to the westward, Tea has become scarce here, for this place is supplied from Lassa, and the consumption there has been greatly increased. The price is accordingly double what it was before. From this circumstance I infer that the army is of considerable strength.68


In forwarding the report to Calcutta on 24 September, Scott commented that there was no doubt that there had been a great increase in the strength of the Chinese army in Tibet.69 However, he rightly added the cautionary note that Krishnakanta's accounts "do not appear to be probable or consistent" in all respects, and he doubted that China really had designs in Assam. He nevertheless observed that there had recently been a dispute between the Dharma and Deb Rajas, and there was still a risk that this would lead to civil war. If that happened:

... it seems not improbable that that one or other of the parties may call in the Chinese to their assistance and that the authority of that Government may finally be established in Bootan to the same extent as it is at present in Thibet.70


Fortunately for all parties, the threat of Chinese intervention in both Nepal and Bhutan was soon averted. Already on 13 September, Captain Latter had been able to report that he had received favourable news from Lhasa via Sikkim to the effect that the Gorkha envoys to Sai-chung'a had been put under constraint and were now in close confinement.71 It seems that the Chinese general took a sceptical view of Gorkha claims, and blamed them rather than the British for the outbreak of the conflict. The British were able to send a series of messages explaining their view of the war, and Sai-chung'a in due course responded that he was "perfectly satisfied" with the British response.72

In those circumstances there was from the British perspective no further need for Krishnakanta to remain in Bhutan, and in October 1816 -- no doubt much to his own relief -- he was duly recalled.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Part 2 of 2

The settlement of the Maraghat dispute

There remained the unfinished business of the Maraghat dispute. In 1816 the Deb Raja sent agents to Rangpur to explain the nature and ground of his claims to the territory.73 At the same time, the authorities in Calcutta instructed Norman McLeod, the British Commissioner in Cooch Behar to conduct an enquiry concerning his claims.

The enquiry was eventually carried out on the orders of Scott who by that time had succeeded McLeod as Commissioner. In 1817 he decided the main part of the disputed territory had -- with the exception of twenty-six isolated and very inconsiderable villages -- been in the undisturbed possession of Bhutan from 1780 to 1811. Important government documents from the 1770s, which were not taken into account in 1809, expressly stated that the territory belonged to Bhutan, and it was duly returned to the Deb Raja.74 This relatively generous attitude may in part have been a reflection of the Company's gratitude at Bhutan's neutrality during the Nepal war.

In 1818 year Krishnakanta was given the task of staking out the new Maraghat boundary with bamboos and transferring the disputed land to a Bhutanese official, thus bringing the affair to a close.75

Krishnakanta's contribution to Himalayan studies

Krishnakanta remained in the service of the East India Company until 1821, still working for Scott in his capacity as Commissioner in Coach Behar. At this point he announced his desire to resign "on account of urgent private affairs" and, as noted above, applied for a pension.76 Scott duly forwarded Krishnakanta's application to Calcutta along with two of the products of his stay in Bhutan. These were his 'Account of Bootan' , which Scott had himself translated from Bengali, and his 'Grammar and Vocabulary of the Bootan Language'. Scott's accompanying letter vouched for the facts of the case, as represented in Krishnakanta's letter.

The Governor-General in Council eventually decided that Krishnakanta's length of service did not entitle him to a pension. However, the Council nevertheless decided to present him with a "pecuniary donation" as a "recompense for his trouble" and "in consideration of the zeal and industry displayed by him in compiling the vocabulary and interesting account of Bhootan".77

The 'Account of Bhutan'

Krishnakanta's report gained a wider audience in 1825, when it was published under the title "Some Account of the country of Bhutan" in Asiatic Researches, the journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The Asiatic Society was the leading learned society in India, and played a major role in the development of Western scholarship on the region.78

The only previous published description of Bhutan in English had appeared in Turner's Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet, which had come out in 1800. Turner's book is written with a degree of literary flourish, and represents one of the earliest examples of Western romantic travel writing on the Himalayan region. Krishnakanta's Account on the other hand is a much more workaday document, crammed with economic and political detail: it is more of a proto-gazetteer than a literary text.

The Account begins with a short summary of the arrival from Tibet of the first 'Dhurma Raja' (Zhabdrung), the foundation of the Bhutanese state, and the Zhabdrung's subsequent reincarnations. The descriptions of the court summarise the roles of the main officials, togelher with their sources of income -- information that would have been important to Krishnakanta in his official capacity. Examples include the specialists who are responsible for the court's external correspondence in Bengali and Persian, and are seen as people of high status:

Kaiti are the Bengal and Persian Secretaries. They get each 2 lbs of rice and have each two Poes [described elsewhere as 'fighting messengers' ], and receive from the Soubahs and Pillos about 1,000 Rupees, and also something for causes and liberty in the lowlands.79


Krishnakanta took a critical view of Bhutanese politics noting that:

The intestine broils, which so frequently occur in Bootan, are usually occasioned either by the Deb Raja doing something contrary to custom, or by his remaining too long in his office, in which case the Zimpens, Pillos, & c., assemble and require him to resign, and in the event of refusal a battle ensues.80


As Scot had noted, these internal disputes at the top of the government made Bhutan potentially vulnerable to Chinese intervention. The lower ranks of the administration were unstable for similar reasons:

When a person gets a good appointment he is not allowed to keep it long, but at the annual religious festivals frequent removals and arguments take place. The Deb Raja himself after a time is liable to be thrust out on some such a pretence as that of his having infringed established customs, and unless he have either Tongso or Paro Pillo on his side, he must, if required to do so, resign his place or risk the result of a civil war: on this account the Deb Raja strives, by removals and changes at the annual festivals, to fill the principal offices with persons devoted to his interest. The Booteahs are full of fraud and intrigue ... 81


In his capacity as a Company official, Krishnakanta naturally was interested in the country's imports and exports:

Bootan produces abundance of tangun horses, blankets, walnuts musk, chowries or cow tails, oranges and manjeet (madder) which the inhabitants sell at Rungpore; and thence take back woollen cloth, pattus, indigo, sandal, red sandal, asafoetida, nutmegs, cloves, nakhi and coarse cotton cloths, of which they use a part in Bootan and send the rest to Lhassa, and from the latter country they import tea, silver, gold and embroidered silk goods ... Besides the Officers of Government and their servants no person can trade with a foreign country, nor can any of the inhabitants sell tangun mares without the Deb Raja's permission.82


As discussed above, Krishnakanta felt that the Bhutanese lifestyle was incompatible with Hindu ritual requirements, but he nevertheless thought that he detected similarities with his own religion:

The religion of the Booteahs assimilates in some points with that of the Hindoos; they worship the images of the deities, count their beads at prayers, and offer clarified butter to the gods by throwing it on the fire ... The image of Laberem buche [Lama Rinpoche?) resembles that of Ram; his countenance is similar, and he holds in his hands a bow and arrow; the Bootan deity is, however, made of copper and gilt. There are also many images of deities with four arms, the manufacture of which is constantly going on in the palace, and together with the subsequent ceremonies, occasion the chief expense of the government.


Overall, the Account naturally reflects the time at which it was written, and must be read with the particular political and religious preoccupations of the author in mind. At the time, it represented a significant advance of Western knowledge of the Himalaya. In 1865, some 40 years after it was first composed, it was still considered to be of sufficient merit to justify republication under the slightly different title "Account of Bootan" in a collection of reports on Political Missions to Bootan. Clearly it needs to be balanced by additional sources from Bhutan itself,83 but it is still of value as an important historical record.

The Grammar and Vocabulary of the Bootan Language

Scott placed a high value on Krishnakanta's Grammar and Vocabulary commenting that:

The chief merit of the performance is the perfect accuracy with which the pronunciation of the Letters and words has been marked, being likely to be impaired by being transposed into the European Character by a person not conversant in such matters.84


At the time Tibetan studies was in its infancy, and Krishnakanta was studying the language entirely on his own. However, rudimentary his researches may have been, they amounted to a work of true originality.

A manuscript copy of the Grammar and Vocabulary survives in the National Library in Calcutta.85 It bears the title in Bengali, Bhot Deshiya Bhashar Vyakarana O Shabda, and consists of 216 pages, of which the first 40 are an introduction to the Tibetan alphabet and grammar. The remainder list Tibetan words in Tibetan script with their equivalent in Bengali. A bibliographic note at the library states that this version was a copy made under the superintendence of the Baptist missionary William Carey (1761-1834) in 1821 /22. The original had been sent back to the Political Department in 1834, and may therefore still exist in the Indian National Archives.

According to Scott, an earlier copy had been sent to Rev Friedrich Christian Gotthelf Schroeter.86 Schroeter was a German Lutheran in the service of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) who studied Tibetan in Titalia from 1816 until his death in 1820, and started work on a Tibetan dictionary.87 His main source was an earlier manuscript Tibetan-Italian dictionary prepared in Lhasa by the Capuchin missionary Orazio della Penna (1680-1745). However, he supplemented della Penna's work with his own enquiries, and therefore presumably made use of Krishnakanta's vocabulary.

After Schroeter's death his unfinished manuscript came into the hands of the government, which had paid his salary while he was working on the dictionary. The Governor-general in council appointed Carey to evaluate Schroeter's draft: he duly recommended publication, and was given the task of revising the text for the press together with his younger colleague John Clark Marshman (1794-1877). In 1826 the final version was published in Serampore with the title A Dictionary of the Bhotonta, or Boutan Language. Despite the title, the work is explicitly a dictionary of Tibetan.

The Serampore dictionary is a composite work bearing the mark of at least four contributors: della Penna, Schroeter, Carey and Marshman. It is entirely possible that at least some of Krishnakanta's contributions may have found their way into the final text either via Schroeter or via Carey, both of whom had copies of his manuscript.

One feature of the Serampore dictionary is that it contains repeated references to the Hindu equivalents of Buddhist deities. To take a random example, page 142 contains the definitions 'Krishna' for dgra po, 'Indra' for dgra mtshing 'dzin and 'Ganesha' for dgra lta can. These definitions could scarcely have come from della Penna from his time in Lhasa. It is possible that they might have been introduced by Schroeter, Carey or Marshman, all of whom worked in India. However, since Krishnakanta was a devout Hindu, he is perhaps the more likely candidate. A definitive answer can only come from a careful comparison of Krishnakanta's manuscript with the Serampore dictionary. At all events, it is clear that his pioneering linguistic researches deserve further study.

Conclusions

In his 1821 pension application, Krishnakanta presented his own achievements in the self-effacing manner of a lowly supplicant seeking the munificence of his superiors. Even if we take this humility at face value, it is clear that he deserves respect for -- as he puts it -- binding himself with the 'girdle of courage" and travelling to territories that were then considered remote and inhospitable. Despite the apparent discomforts of his stay in Bhutan, he proved to be a keen and diligent observer. He merits an honourable place in the lineage both of officials and of scholars who worked in the Himalayan region.

In placing him within this lineage, it is appropriate to look both forward and back. As a source of intelligence, Krishnakanta was in many ways a successor to the 18th and early 19th century Gosains and Kashmiri merchants who travelled between India and Tibet, and provided news and information to officials, traders and ordinary people on both sides of the Himalaya. However, he contrasts with them in that he had no previous experience or personal contacts in the region, and was a full-time government servant. In many respects, he was as much of an outsider in Bhutan as a British official would have been.

His Account, though originally written in Bengali. addressed the kinds of question that a European observer would have asked, and was readily adapted to the purposes of the Asiatic Society. Similarly, his Grammar and Vocabulary was compiled at a time when Western scholars, officials and missionaries were in the early stage of developing a more systematic understanding of other Asian languages. Like Rammohan Ray, he belonged to the first generation of Bengali intellectuals who were both influenced by and contributed to Western learning.


References

Archival sources


British Library, Oriental and India Office Collection (OIOC). Records of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India: Board's Collections. F/4/551/13382. Narrative of Proceedings connected with the advance of a Chinese force towards the frontier of Nepaul. June 1814-November 1816.

OIOC F/4/552. Papers regarding the advance of a Chinese force towards Nepal.

OIOC F/4/ 771/20906. The Bengal Government sanction the claim of the Deb Raja of Bhutan to the district of Maraghat, which had been occupied by the Raja of Cooch Behar.

OIOC. F/4/810/21274. Grammar and Vocabulary of the Bootan Language compiled by Kishun Kunt Bose. Remuneration to him on this account and for his Services in 1815/16.

Regent's Park College, Oxford. Baptist Missionary Society papers. IN/16. Letters to the Society from Dr John Thomas.

Published primary sources

Bose, Kishen Kant [Krishnakanta Vasu]. 1825. "Some Account of the country of Bhutan, by Kishen Kant Bose." Translated by D. Scott, Esq. Asiatic Researches 15 , pp. 128-156.

Bose, Kishen Kant [Krishnakanta Vasu]. 1865. "Account of Bootan." In Political Missions to Booton. Comprising the Reports of the Hon 'ble Ashley Eden etc ... . pp. 187-206. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Office. Reprint ed.: New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 2001.

Chanda, Rai Bahadur Ramaprasad & Majumdar, Jatindra Kumar. Eds. 1938 Selections from Official Letters and Documents relating to the Life of Raja Rammohun Roy. vol. I. 1791-1830. With an introductory memoir. Calcutta: Calcutta Oriental Book Agency.

Papers Respecting the Nepaul War ['PRNW' in footnotes] 1824. Printed in conformity to the resolution of the Court of Proprietors of East India Stock of 3rd March 1824. London, 1824.

Political Missions to Bootan, Comprising the reports of The Hon 'ble Ashley Eden, 1864; Capt. R.B. Pemberton. 1837, 1838, with Dr W. Griffith's Journal and the Account by Baboo Kishen Kant Bose. Calcutta: Printed at the Bengal Secretariat Office, 1865; reprint ed., New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 2001.

Prinsep, Henry Thoby, 1825. History of the Political and Military Transactions in India during the Administration of the Marquess of Hastings. London.

Sen, S.N. (Ed.) 1942. Pracinii Bangala Patra Sarikalana. A Collection of Old Bengali Letters. Records in Oriental Languages. Vol. I. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press.

Schroeter, Frederic Christian Gotthelf. 1826. A Dictionary of the Bhotanta, or Bouton Language. Serampore.

Turner, Samuel. 1800. An Account of on Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet. London: Messrs G. and W. Nicol.

White, Adam, 1832. Memoir of the Late David Scott, Esq. Agent to the Governor General, on the North-east Frontier of Bengal, and Commissioner of Revenue and Circuit in Assam. Edited by Archibald Watson. Calcutta: Printed at the Baptist Mission Press.

Secondary sources

Ads, Michael. 1994. The Raven Crown. The Origins of Buddhist Monarchy in Bhutan. London: Serindia.

Barooah, Nirode K. 1910. David Scott in North-East India. 1802-1831. A Study in British Paternalism. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

Bayly, C.A. 1996. Empire and Information. Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bray, John. 2005. "Early Protestant Engagement with the Himalayan Region and Tibet," in Ladakh; Histories: Local and Regional Perspectives, pp. 249-270, John Bray (ed.), Leiden: Brill.

Bray, John. 2008. "Missionaries, Officials and the Making of the Dictionary of Bhotanta, or Bouton Language." Zentralasiatische Studien 37, pp. 34-75.

Bray, John. 2010. "Trader, Middleman or Spy? The Dilemmas of a Kashmiri Muslim in Early 19th Century Tibet," In Islam and Tibet. Interactions along the Musk Routes. Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett. and Ronit Yoeli Tlalim (eds.), Aldershot: Ashgate.

Bray, John. Forthcoming. ''Captain Barre Latter and British Engagement with Sikkim during the 1814-1816 Nepal War." In Sikkim History. Proceedings of the Golden Jubilee Conference of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology. Gangtok, Sikkim. 1-5 October 2008. Edited by Alex McKay and Anna Balicki. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology.

Camman, Schuyler. 1951. Trade through the Himalayas. The Early British Attempts to Open Tibet. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Chattopadhyaya, Alaka. 1984. "Introduction." In: Sarat Chandra Das, Tibetan Studies, Edited by Alaka Chattopadhyaya. Delhi and Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Company.

Cohn, Bernard S. 1963-1964. "The Role of the Gosains in the Economy of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Upper India." Indian Economic and Social History Review I, pp. 175-182.

Collet, Sophia Dobson. 1962 The Life and Letters of Raja Rammohun Roy. 3rd ed. Edited by Dilip Kumar Biswas and Prabhat Chandra Ganguli. Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj.

Deb, A. 1971. "George Bogle's Treaty with Bhutan (1775)." Bulletin of Tibetology 8, No.1, pp. 5-14.

Deb, Arabinda. 1976. India and Bhutan. A Study in Frontier Political Relations (1772-1865). Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Ltd.

Engelhardt, Isrun. 2002. "The Closing of the Gates: Tibetan-European Relations at the End of the Eighteenth Century." In Tibet. Past and Present, pp. 229-245. Edited by Henk Blezer. Leiden: Brill.

Fu, Lo-Shu (ed). 1996. A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Wesern Relations 1644-1820). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Gaborieau, Marc. 1973. Recit d'un voyageur musulman au Tibet. Paris: Klincksieck.

Gupta, Shantiswarup. 1974. British Relations with Bhutan, Jaipur: Panchsheel Prakashan.

Kejariwal, O.P. 1988. The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Lamb, Alastair. 1986. British India and Tibet. 1766-1910. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Lamb, Alastair. 2002. Bhutan and Tibet. The Travels of George Bogle and Alexander Hamilton. 1774-1777. Hertingfordbury: Roxford.

Mandhar, Vijay Kumar. 2004. A Comprehensive History of Nepal-China Relations up to 1955 A.D. New Delhi: Adroit Publishers.

Michael, Bernardo A. 1999. "Statemaking and Space on the Margins of Empire: Rethinking the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-1816." Studies in Nepali History and Society 4, No.2, pp. 247-294.

Pemble, John. 1971. The Invasion of Nepal. John Company at War, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pommeret, Francoise. 2000. "Ancient Trade Partners: Bhutan, Cooch Bihar and Assam (17th-19th centuries)." Journal of Bhutan Studies 2, No. 1.

Potts, E. Daniel. 1967. British Baptist Missionaries in India. 1793-1837, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richardson, H.E. 1973. "A Ch'ing Missive to Tibet", Alia Major 18 (1) 1973, pp. 79-87; reprinted in: Hugh Richardson, High Peaks, Pure Earth, Michael Aris (ed .), London: Serindia, 1998.

Robertson, Bruce Carlisle. 1995. Raja Rammohan Ray. The Father of Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Rose, Leo.1971. Nepal. Strategy for Survival, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Sarcar, S. C. 1931. "Some Notes on the Intercourse of Bengal with Northern Countries in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century." Bengal Past and Present 41 , pp. 119-128.

Singh, Amar Kaur Jasbin. 1988 . Himalayan Triangle. A Historical Survey of British India's Relations with Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan. London: British Library.

Stiller, Ludwig. 1995. The Rise of the House of Gorkha. 2nd ed., Kathmandu: Human Resources Development Research Center.

Teltscher, Kate. 2007. The High Road to China. London: Bloomsbury.

Tuladhar, Kamal. 2004. Caravan to Lhasa. Newar Merchants of Kathmandu in Traditional Tibet. Kathmandu: Tuladhar family.

_______________

Notes:

1 In contemporary texts his name is transliterated as Kishen Kant Bose.

2 The Deb Rajas or 'Drug sDe srids were the senior lay officials of Bhutan during this period in contrast to the Zhabs drungs, or 'Dharma Rajas' in British parlance, who were the main source of spiritual authority. The Deb Rajas typically were chosen from among the region's ruling families, and served for a defined period of years. In this paper I have chosen to stick to the term 'Deb Raja' as this was the term most used in contemporary British archival sources.

3 E.g. Pemble (1971), Lamb (1986), Singh (1988). The mission likewise appears in historical accounts of Bhutan such as Gupta (1974), Deb (1976) and Aris (1994), but again in a somewhat peripheral manner.

4 More detailed records may be available at the National Archives of India in New Delhi, but I have not to date been able to consult them. It is conceivable that still further records survive in Bhutan and in Rangpur, which is now in Bangladesh.
 
5 On the Gosains see in particular Cohn (1963).

6 Bogle's report of 1775-1776. Cited in Sarcar (1931).

7 On the Kashmiri network in Tibet see in particular Gaborieau (1973) and Bray (2010).

8 Bogle's journal, 29 March 1715. In Lamb (2002), p. 260. On Bogle see also Teltscher (2007)

9 Lamb (2002), p. 238.

10 Bogle to Hastings, 9 June 1715, Cooch Behar. In Lamb (2002), p. 315. On the treaty see also Deb (1971).

11 Ibid.

12 Sarcar (1931), p. 126; Lamb (2002), p. 470. On the diplomatic repercussions of the 1788 and 1792 conflicts between Nepal and Tibet, see also Engelhardt 2002.

13 The one exception was Thomas Manning who managed to visit Lhasa in 1811.

14 Turner 1800, p. 422.

15 Thomas to the Society. 25 April 1796. Baptist Missionary Society Papers. IN/16. Regent's Park College Archives, Oxford. On the Baptists in early 19th century Bengal, see in particular Potts (1967).

16 The Duars were lowland tracts analogous to the Nepali terai that were then under Bhutanese control. They were annexed by the British after the 1865 war with Bhutan. On the boundary disputes, see in particular Gupta (1974), pp. 57-69.

17 On David Scott (1786-1830) see in particular White (1832) and Barooah (1970). Scott came from Dunninald, near Montrose in the north-east of Scotland. His connection with India came via his uncle, another David Scott (1746-1805) who had served in the East India Company and eventually became its Chairman. The younger David came to India in 1802 and served first in Gorakhpur and Purnea. By the time he reached Rangpur he was still only 28.

18 The Petition of Kishun Kunt Bose inhabitant of Baluakoudee purgannah Kassinnuggar in Zillah Idalopore. OIOC. F/4/810/21274, p, 17.

19 Robertson 1995. p. 20

20 Digby to Board of Revenue, 5 November 1809. In Chanda & Majumdar 1938, p. 41.

21 Board of Revenue to Digby, 8 February 1810. In Chanda & Majumdar 1938, p. 44

22 Letter from tile Deb Raja, received 18 August 1812, in Sen (1942), p. 50; letter from the Raja of Cooch Behar to the Commissioner, received 9 May 1814, in Sen ( 1942) pp. 55-56.

23 Gupta (1974), p. 63.

24 Letter from 'Penlow Sahib', received 26 November 1811. In Sen (1942). pp. 48-49.

25 Letter from Deb Raja, received 18 August 1812. In Sen (1942). p. 50.

26 Raja of Cooch Behar to McLeod, received May 1814. In Sen ( 1942), p. 58.

27 This argument was in fact made by Henry Prinsep, one of Moira's senior officials. See his account of the Nepal war in Prinsep (1825). On the events leading so the war, see also Pemble (1971), Stiller (199S) and Michael (1999).

28 For Sikkim's role in the war, and the eventual success of Moira's strategy, see Bray (forthcoming).

29 Nepal's quinquennial tribute missions to China continued until the early 20th century. See Mandhar (2004).

30 For a far-ranging analysis of the Company's intelligence limitations see Bayly (1996). On Ahmed Ali, see Bray (2010).

31 See Papers Respecting the Nepaul War (hereafter PRNW), pp. 410-412.

32 Latter to MacLeod, Tilalia. 19th November 1814, PRNW. pp. 411-412. See Bray (forthcoming) for an account of Latter's part in the Nepal war and his alliance with Sikkim.

33 Ibid.

34 Scott to J. Monckton, Acting Secretary to Government in the Political Department, Rangpur, 28th November 1814, PRNW, pp. 411-412.

35 Ibid.

36 Scott to Moncklon, Rangpur, 30th November 1814, PRNW, p. 412.

37 Monckton to Scott, Fort William, 6 December 1814. PRNW, p. 413.

33 Adam to Scott, 26 November 1814, Papers relating to the Nepaul War (hereafter 'PRNW') , p. 266.

39 Ibid.

40 Persian was still the main language of diplomatic exchange in South Asia, although it seems -- as will be seen below -- that the Deb Raja's response was in Bengali.

41 To the Deb Raja, from his Excellency the Vice-President, 29th November 1814. PRNW, p. 414.

42 Ibid.

43 Scott to Adam, Rangpur, 10 January 1815, PRNW, pp. 430-431.

44 Ibid.

45 On the status of Bijni see Deb (1912), pp. 49-51.

46 Scott to Adam, Rangpur, 10 January 1815, PRNW, pp. 430-431.

47 Sen 1942. pp. 60-61.

48 The Petition of Kishun Kunt Bose inhabitant of Baluakoudee purgannah Kassinnuggur in Zillah Idalopore. OIOC. F/4/810/21274, p, 17.

49 Ibid., p. 8. The Gosains evidently did not share these ritual concerns. However, it is interesting to note an echo of similar preoccupations in the case of early 20th century Newar traders returning from Tibet to Nepal.  
According to Taladhar (2004, p. 18), returnees were kept in 'ritual quarantine' for two weeks. He adds: "The family kitchen and chapel were off-limits to them. They had only one meal a day and washed the dirty dishes themselves. They had to gel a note from the royal priest detailing the procedure they had to follow to cleanse themselves. At the end of the period, they performed a purification ceremony and invited their relatives and friends to a feast."

50 Ibid, pp. 18-19.

51 Ibid, pp, 12-13.

52 for a discussion of Rammohan's status during this period see also pp. 39-41 of the 'supplementary notes' by Biswas and Ganguly in Collet (1962).

53 Kishen Kant Bose [Krishnakanta Basu], 'Account of Bootan', 1865 edition, p. 203.

54 Deb Raja to Scott, received 12 November 1815. In Sen (1942), pp. 64-65.

55 There is of course an extensive literature on Rammohan's subsequent career. Classic texts include Collet (1962), and Chanda & Majumdar (1938). For a more recent study, see Robertson (1995).

56 OIOC. F/4/810/21274, pp. 19-20.

57 Scott to Adam, Rangpur 24 Sept 1816. OIOC. F/4/552, p. 112.

58 Ibid.

59 Scott to Adam, Rangpur 24 Sept 1816. OIOC. F/4/552, p. 110.

60 For a detailed account of military developments in the war see Pemble 1971.

61 Scott to Adam, Rangpur, 10 June 1816. OIOC. F/4/551 13382, p. 110.

62 Adam to Scott, 22 June 1816. OIOC. F/4/551 13382. p. 115.

63 Scott to Adamm Rangpur 24 Sept 1816. OIOC. F/4/552, p. 111.

64 Fu (1966). pp. 401-402 and pp. 618-619. This episode is also discussed in Rose (1971), pp. 75·95; Lamb (1986), pp. 34-38; Richardson (1973) and Manandhar (2004), p. 196 ff. British archival sources refer to Sai-Chung'a variously as 'Shea Chanchoon', 'Teo Chang Chan' and 'Thee Chanchan'.

65 Translation of Enclosure in a letter from the Magistrate of Rungpore to the Political Department, dated 24th September. OIOC. F/4/552, pp.121-123.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid., pp. 123-124

68 Ibid., p. 128.

69 Ibid, p. 110.

70 Ibid. pp. 114-115.

71 Latter to Adam, Titalia, J3 September 1816. OIOC F/4 552.

72 Latter to John Adam, Titalia, 30 October 1816. OIOC, F/4/552, p. 175.

73 OIOC F/4/771/20906.

74 Ibid.

75 Gupta (t974), pp. 67-70.

76 Scott to George Swinton, Cooch Behar, 21 September 1821. OlOC. F/4/810/21274, pp. 15-16.

77 Swinton to Scott, Calcutta, 24 November 1821. Ibid, pp, 130-131. Scott was invited to state his opinion "as to the extent of the remuneration which it might be proper to grant him". I have not been able to find Scott's answer in the British Library archives but Gupta (1974, p. 68), perhaps drawing on records available in India, says that the figure was Rs 2,000.

78 On the scholarly contributions of the Asiatic Society see Kejariwal (1988).

79 'Account' (1865), p. 192.

80 'Account' (1865), p. 196.

81 'Account' (1865), pp. 201-203.

82 'Account' (1865), p. 198.

83 For a study making use of such sources see Aris (1994).

84 Scott to Swinton, Cooch Behar, 21 September 1821. OIOC. F/4/810/21274, pp. 13-14.

85 Chattopadhyaya 1984, p. iii. I am grateful to Geza Bethlenfalvy for drawing this reference to my attention. I have not myself been able to examine the manuscript, and the details that follow come from the same reference.

86 Swinton to Captain Lockett, Secretary to the Council of the College of Fort William, 24 November 1821. OIOC. F/4/810/21274, pp. 132-133.

87 On Schroeter and the Serampore dictionary, see Bray 2008. Titalia is now known as Tetulia, and is in northern Bangladesh.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:32 am

Remembering Rammohan: An Essay on the Re‐emergence of Modern Hinduism [Excerpt]
by Brian A. Hatcher
History of Religions Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 50-80 (31 pages)
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
August 2006

[...]

RAMMOHAN THE FOUNDER

[...]

Rammohan promoted a version of monotheism he hoped would restore the rational and moral basis of Hinduism; he translated the ancient Upanishads into Bengali and English; he publicly debated the truths of Hinduism and Christianity with a variety of interlocutors, Hindu and Christian; he supported the spread of English education in India; and he campaigned to suppress the practice of widow immolation, known to the British as suttee. But in the present context, Rammohan's most relevant accomplishment was the founding of a society in 1828, the Brahmo Samaj, to foster his vision of Hindu monotheism.

Though born a Brahmin, Rammohan's spiritual development took him down a number of intellectual avenues. Early in life he is said to have studied in both Patna and Benares, centers for Arabic and Sanskrit learning, respectively. His first published essay was a lengthy rationalistic appeal for monotheism, written in Persian, Tuhfat al-Muwahhidin (A present to the believers in one god).33 Much of his most mature work would focus on mastering and translating Sanskrit texts on Vedanta from the Upanishads to the Brahma Sutras. In addition to his immersion in Indo-Persian and Vedantic learning, Rammohan also studied Tantra and had worked in close contact with the English collector, John Digby, for a dozen years in the outlying districts of Bengal. Thus, by the time he settled in Calcutta in 1815, he had amassed the kind of experience that would earn him acclaim as a polymath scholar and polemicist.

A further reason for poor relations was a series of disputes along the boundary between Bhutanese territory in the Duars and the princely state of Cooch Behar which had been under British protection since 1774.16 Hastings had tended to favour Bhutan in these disputes, perhaps taking the view that minor territorial concessions were worthwhile if they served the Company's wider diplomatic and commercial interests. However, Hastings' successors and their local representatives tended to take a more legalistic view, and frequently ruled against Bhutan.

British and Indian officials in Rangpur

On the British side, the frontline management of these boundary disputes fell to the Commissioners in Cooch Behar and the Collectors in Rangpur. The key protagonists in the early decades of the 19th century include: James Morgan, who was Collector of Rangpur from 1807 to 1809; John Digby, who succeeded him from 1809 until 1814; and David Scott who was successively Collector in Rangpur from 1814 to 1816, and then Commissioner in Cooch Behar.17

Krishnakanta Basu and Rammohan Ray

All three men were of course supported by an extensive Indian staff. Among these were Krishnakanta Basu who joined government service as a junior official in the Rangpur Faujdari 'Adalat (criminal court) in 1807,18 and Rammohan Roy who first came with Digby to Rangpur in 1809. Rammohan had been born into a wealthy Bengali family in 1774, and had entered Digby's service in 1805, initially as a private munshi (secretary) and then as temporary sar-ristadar (head clerk) of the Ramgarh Faujdari 'Adalat in northern Bihar.19 He moved with Digby successively to Jessore (Bengal), Bhagalpur (Bihar) and finally to Rangpur.

Digby evidently held Rammohan in high regard. In November 1809 he wrote to the Board of Revenue describing Rammohan as a "man of very respectable family and excellent education" and seeking the Board's approval of his appointment as his diwan.20 However, the Board rejected the appointment, arguing that Rammohan was insufficiently qualified. When Digby sought to protest, citing Rammohan's excellent qualifications and references, the Board confirmed its original decision and reproved him for the style in which he had addressed them.21 Despite this setback, Rammohan remained in Rangpur. Two Bengali-language letters from 1812 and 1814 refer to him as diwan,22 and it therefore appears either that he was reappointed to the post, or that he continued to hold the title unofficially.


The Maraghat boundary dispute

The most important of the Bhutan/Cooch Behar boundary disputes in the period under review concerned the Maraghat district, some 25 miles from Jalpaiguri. Maraghat was awarded to Bhutan in the 1774 treaty with the Company, and this was confirmed by a Council at Dinajpur in 1777. However the Raja of Cooch Behar claimed the southern part of the district, which was known as Gird Maraghat.23 In 1807 Morgan conducted an on-the-spot enquiry and decided in favour of Cooch Behar. In 1809 Digby confirmed Morgan's ruling awarding Gird Maraghal to Cooch Behar, and the Maharaja took possession of the territory two years later.

The Bhutanese never accepted these decisions. For example, in 1811 a letter to the Company from 'Penlow Sahib, a chief of Bhutan', complained that an officer of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar had been causing trouble over the boundary for the previous three years, and expressed fears that war might ensue.24 Similarly in 1812 a letter from the Deb Raja again referred to Maraghat, appealed for assistance in resolving the dispute, and said that 'Diwan Rammohan' knew all the facts of the case.25 In May 1814 the Maharaja of Cooch Behar appealed to Norman McLeod, the Commissioner of Cooch Behar, asking him to arrange for the deployment of 50 sepoys to protect the Maraghat frontier from Bhutanese infringements.26

The Maraghat dispute was therefore far from being resolved in late 1814 when it was overtaken by the outbreak of the Company's war with Nepal. At that point Maraghat became one factor in a much wider set of strategic calculations on the part of the British, and it was these that in due course led to Krishnakanta's and Rammohan's mission to Bhutan...

Selecting the messengers

Scott now had the task of selecting a suitable representative, and eventually decided on Krishnakanta Basu. Krishnakanta himself described the background in an application for a pension (translated from Bengali by Scott) which he wrote in 1821. Like Bogle's Tibetan merchants, he observed that the contrasting climates of the plains of India and the Himalaya presented a major obstacle:

.... no person at Rungpore could be found to undertake the duty, the Climate of the hilly Country being from the snow and extreme cold exceedingly hostile to the Constitutions of the natives of Bengal .....48


Religious ritual concerns were another major factor. Bengali Hindus were:

... further deterred from proceeding into those Countries by the difficulty and occasional impossibility they experience in selling those articles of provision to which they are accustomed, as well as by the manners and impure habits of the people which are so repugnant to the customs of the Hindoos that few persons of the latter religion will venture into Bhootan from fear of losing their Caste.49


Krishnakanta nevertheless decided to take on the task, partly for material reasons:

Notwithstanding the above considerations your petitioner being grateful for the subsistence afforded by the Government and hopeful for future advancement and eventual benefit, bound himself with the girdle of courage and regardless of the consequences, not to say despairing of returning alive, agreed to undertake the journey.50


It seems that he received an immediate benefit in that his salary was raised from Rs. 14 per month as a 'Mohurrer' (a writer in local languages) to Rs. 70 when he was in Bhutan. However, Scott confirmed that Krishnakanta had not been exaggerating when he referred to the difficulty of finding someone to undertake the journey:

For the accuracy of such parts of his petition which relate to the unwillingness displayed by the natives at Rungpore to undertake the journey to Lhassa and the danger attending to it, I can safely vouch, as no capable person but himself could be found to undertake the business and the risk from the climate at the particular season was such that thinking it not improbable that the petitioner who was ill at the time of his departure might die on the way, I sent another man to go along with him as far as Bhootan in case of the occurrence of such an accident.51


From the Deb Raja's subsequent correspondence, it is clear that Rammohan Roy was this 'other man' and -- particularly since he would have been senior to Krishnakanta -- it is odd that Scott does not mention him by name. Very speculatively, one wonders whether this was because he was no longer in formal government service by the time he travelled to the Deb Raja's court, and therefore had no official status.52

Krishnakanta's stay in Bhutan

Krishnakanta gives a vivid description of the journey in his 'Account of Bootan'. Before reaching the hills, he had to pass through the Bhutanese Duars, and he describes a series of perils in the jungles:

The jungle is of such height that an elephant or rhinoceros cannot be seen in it when standing up, and it is so full of leeches that a person cannot move a hundred yards without having his body, wherever it has been scratched by the grass, covered with these animals, so that a single man cannot get rid of them without assistance. In this jungle, when the sun shines, the heat is intolerable, and when the sun ceases to shine a person cannot remain in it without a fire on account of innumerable musquitoes [sic] and other insects with which it is filled.53


His account of the terrain once he reaches the hill is more matter-of-fact, noting the various habitations that he encountered en route, the degree to which they were cultivated, and the extent to which the roads would be passable for horses or elephants.

At all events, the two men duly arrived in 'Wandipoor' (Wangdi Phodrang), and presented their credentials. The Deb Raja responded by sending a letter to Scott in Rangpur in which he acknowledged a present of five pieces of broadcloth, five coats and a telescope.54 He said that Scott's letter to the two representatives of China -- presumably the two Ambans -- had been forwarded to Lhasa: The two emissaries had explained that one of them was to stay in Bhutan while the other -- Rammohan Ray -- was to return to Rangpur.

The rest of the letter is a clear indication of the Deb Raja's priorities inasmuch as it mainly concerns his grievance over the continuing boundary disputes with Cooch Behar and Baikunthapur. He only refers to the Nepal war -- which from Scott's point of view was by far the most important matter at a hand -- in a postscript. There he notes the Gorkhas had wronged the Company, according to what he had learnt from Rammohan and Krishnakanta, and he will therefore reject any Gorkha approaches in connection with the war. He then returns to the boundary disputes, requesting that Scott either come to the frontier for a local enquiry, or send Rammohan back with a clear decision in the matter.

In the event, rather than returning to Bhutan, Rammohan moved to Calcutta where he soon achieved prominence as the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, and one of the leading Bengali intellectuals of his generation.55


-- Krishnakanta Basu, Rammohan Ray and Early 19th Century British Contacts with Bhutan and Tibet, by John Bray


After settling in Calcutta, Rammohan created one firestorm after another, attacking both Christian Trinitarian doctrine and what he took to be the idolatry of Hindu religious life. Whether drawing upon Muslim mutazilite theology or Enlightenment ideals of reason, Rammohan was a quintessential rationalist. That his rationalist critique of religion could build upon Hindu and Muslim intellectual traditions suggests the degree to which his work challenges any neat dichotomy of tradition/modernity...

Rammohan's rationalist critique was at times Deistic in its tone (this is most noticeable in his English works) and at others it retained its indebtedness to sacred Hindu scripture (something made very clear in his Bengali writings). What was central to his vision was what he once referred to as a "simple code of religion and morality."35 This simple code could be found at the heart of all religions, and Rammohan worked to explicate both its Christian and its Hindu articulations. The core of authentic religion -- which for Rammohan would need to be disentangled from the fanciful myths and idolatrous rites of his own day --- was belief in one ultimate Being who is "the animating and regulating principle of the whole collective body of the universe" and who is the "origin of all individual souls." All that was required to worship such a Being was compassion or "benevolence towards each other."36

This was the theological and moral bedrock upon which Rammohan established a new religious organization, the Brahmo Samaj, or the "society of the worshippers of the absolute," that met for the first time in north Calcutta on August 20, 1828 (6 Bhadra 1750 Saka). At this point there was "no organization. no membership. no creed."37 Those gathering with Rammohan were encouraged to know the Supreme God according to Rammohan's reading of the Upanishads, which he referred to as the Vedant (i.e., Vedanta). Following the classical Hindu tradition, acquisition of such knowledge would require study, meditation, and diligent restraint of the passions. But Rammohan also insisted that everything done in this world should be done in a spirit of dedication to God.38 He was just as opposed to renunciatory forms of Hindu worship as he was to idolatry and polytheism. His ideal was the brahmanistha grhastha, the "godly householder."39


On January 23, 1830 (11 Magh 1752 Saka), meetings of the Brahmo Samaj were shifted to a new building on Chitpur Road in north Calcutta. This date marked a new level of organization and self-awareness for the group, as evinced by the publication of the Brahmo Trust Deed. This document testifies to Rammohan's desire to create a public form of worship open to all people "without distinction" and dedicated to worship of the "Immutable Being who is Author and Preserver of the Universe."40 We shall see below that the 1830 date would assume great liturgical significance in the later Brahmo movement.

The year 1830 was also significant insofar as it was in November of this year that Rammohan set off on a mission to England. There he had many supporters, chiefly among the Unitarians, who saw in him a fellow rationalist and theist. While in England, Rammohan had an opportunity to deepen his Unitarian contacts while completing a mission on behalf of the Mughal emperor in Delhi, Akbar II. However, his visit ended in his untimely death in 1833, while staying with friends in Bristol...

To return to Rammohan's world, we can note that early nineteenth-century Calcutta witnessed the rapid emergence of any number of voluntary associations or "elective fraternities." The earliest of these is usually said to have been Rammohan's Society of Friends (Atmiya Sabha), which he formed in 1815.46 Over the next three decades, a wide variety of other voluntary associations were formed in Calcutta: the Indian Agricultural and Horticultural Society (1820), the Gaudiya Samaj (1823), the Dharma Sabha (1830), the Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge (SAGK. 1838), the Landholders Society (1838), and the Hindu Theophilanthropic Society (1843), to name but a few of the most prominent organizations in the first few decades of the century.47...

Rammohan's strategy was to retrieve the Vedanta of the Upanishads from oblivion and to identify in it a religion that could both answer the challenges of modernity and provide new norms of collective identity. Toward this end he created the conditions for a small group to meet, discuss, and worship according to this Vedantic monotheism... Initially that space was filled by Unitarianism, but this was a tradition to which Rammohan and his associates could not fully commit. Instead, a contemporary account tells us that two of Rammohan's closest associates, Candrasekhar Deb [Sib Chandra Deb] and Tarachand Chakravarti, suggested to him that rather than attending Unitarian services as they had been doing, they should establish their own place of worship analogous to what the Christians had...

Tarachand Chukraburtree/Chakravarti (1806-1857) was born into a poor Brahmin family and educated at Hindu College. He was one of the leaders of Young Bengali, and a lieutenant of Rammohun (Ram Mohan Roy), of whose Brahma Samaj he became the first secretary. Chakravarti was proficient in English, Sanskrit, Persian, and Hindustani. He joined the Calcutta Journal as its English translator in 1822, and started working with HH [Horace Hayman] Wilson to translate the Puranas into English a year later. He founded the Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge in 1838 and became its first president. He was a founding member of the British Indian Society and a major contributor to the Bengal Spectator. He advocated for equal rights for all, and the abolition of polygamy and early marriage. He was the first Bengali to compile an English-Bangla dictionary in 1832.

-- Tarachand Chukraburtree, by Middlebury.edu


The question to be asked is... after Rammohan's departure for England in 1830 and his death there in 1833 -- a mere five years after the creation of the Brahmo Samaj ... How did the movement fare in those subsequent years? Can we rightly speak of a movement at this point? Had the elective fraternity acquired in those early years the requisite sense of its own story, its own identity, to warrant calling it a religious association?

The argument of this essay is that the Samaj had not by this time realized itself as a religious association, let alone a movement. The evidence indicates, in fact, that after Rammohan's departure for England, the affairs of the Samaj suffered greatly. More importantly, as Benoy Ghosh once remarked, during the 1830s the Brahmo Samaj was little more than a group of people who gathered to worship God.53 Ghosh was implying that something else had to happen before it could become a religious organization, properly speaking (what he called, in Bengali, a dharma-gosthi). He provides 1843 as the date for this transformation. We shall see presently what makes 1843 such a special year. For now, what is important is Ghosh's insight into the fact that the birth of the Brahmo Samaj as religious movement should perhaps not be dated to Rammohan's founding act of 1828.... the creation of the Brahmo Samaj as a religious movement can be identified with the moment when ... the members created a narrative about themselves that included reference to a founding figure. That figure was, of course, Rammohan Roy.

THE BRAHMO SAMAJ AFTER RAMMOHAN

In the wake of Rammohan's departure and death, the energy and activities of the Brahmo Samaj were severely weakened. "The death of the Founder was almost fatal to the infant society," remarked J. N. Farquhar in his influential early study of the period.54 Attendance dwindled at its weekly meetings. To those familiar with the association it must have seemed as if Rammohan's vision and his Samaj would both soon fade from memory. Such might well have been the case, were it not for the dedicated work of Rammohun's closest associates. None was more instrumental in keeping the Brahmo Samaj alive than Ramacandra Vidyavagisa (1786-1845). As first preceptor, or acarya, of the Samaj, Ramacandra had delivered the inaugural discourse before the Samaj in 1828. After Rammohan's departure he faithfully presided over weekly meetings, continuing to deliver discourses on the Upanisadic theology first enunciated by Rammohan. As one later Brahmo commented: "Only the faithful Ram Chandra Vidyabagish remained steadfast; and for seven years he regularly and punctually conducted the weekly service, as directed by Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, often alone like the solitary watcher by the dim-burning pyre at the burning ghat."55 We should note that the image evoked here is one of the death of a movement, rather than its birth. For the Brahmo Samaj to survive would clearly require the agency of men such as Ramacandra.

Like Rammohan, Ramocandra was a Brahmin by birth. Unlike Rammohan, he had trained as a Sanskrit pandit.56 However, his world was drawn close to Rammohan's in many ways, not least because Rammohan had studied under Ramacandra's older brother, who had renounced worldly life and become a tantric ascetic known as Hariharananda Tirthasvami. It may even be that Rammohan and Ramacandra met one another through Hariharananda.

Clearly the two formed a powerful intellectual friendship. Ramacandra's mastery of Sanskrit literature was a valuable asset to Rammohan. In fact, Rammohan sent Ramacandra to study Vedanta, which he is said to have mastered in very little time.57 Sources indicate Rammohan also gave Ramacandra funds with which to open a Sanskrit school for teaching Vedanta. In some respects it is remarkable that a rationalist reformer like Rammohan could find common cause with a custodian of Brahmanical tradition. But this should only serve to remind us how difficult it is to generalize about ideological orientations in colonial Calcutta. It is not that one man was more modern than the other; rather, both men worked creatively within a modern context to reinterpret the traditions most meaningful to them.

Having said this, it should be noted that Calcutta society was at this time fractured by competing ideologies -- religious, social, economic and political. We must attend to these fractures if we are to appreciate why the Brahmo Samaj went into decline following Rammohan's death. The Samaj faced intellectual challenges on at least three fronts: (1) from English-educated Hindu youth, (2) from Christian missionaries, and (3) from advocates of existing forms of Hindu orthodoxy.58...

Attendance at the Samaj fell off drastically. In such a climate, even if one were sympathetic to the goals of the Samaj, it would have been far easier simply to stay out of public view. As Amiya Kumar Sen has noted, many members of the Samaj at this time "simply accepted its principles intellectually and did not follow them in their daily lives and activities."62 Sen also notes that what was lacking was the institutional means to counter the charges leveled at the Brahmo Samaj by each of these opposing constituencies. Most important, Sen observes. "There was nothing in the Samaj itself to unite them into a community. Even the works of Raja Rammohan Roy became scarce and did not wield that influence which they did when he was alive. There was thus a void in the social and religious thought in the country."63...

BRAHMOISM WITHOUT RAMMOHAN

Ironically, the means to save the Brahmo Samaj came neither through aggressively recruiting new members nor through more active advocacy of the Samaj in print, but inadvertently by the creation of yet another voluntary association. This new association would take up Rammohan's cause, but it would do so under the terms of a new synthesis.65 The name of this new association was the Tattvabodhini Sabha, or the Society for the Propagation of Truth. It was established in 1839 under the leadership of Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905).

The creation of the Tattwabodhini Sabha was to become, in retrospect, a defining moment in Brahmo history. It has claimed the attention of readers of Bengali literature for over a century and a half. In the simplest of terms it is a story about the meeting of two men, Rammohan's old friend Ramacandra and Debendranath -- the latter anxiously seeking God, the former faithfully tending to the legacy of Rammohan. Their encounter would not only mark an upswing in the fortunes of the Brahmo Samaj, it would also contribute significantly to the areas of Bengali literature, social reform, and scientific learning. We can only summarize the story of the creation of the Sabha here.66

Debendranath was the eldest son of Dwarkanath Tagore, patriarch of the Tagores of Jorasanko, a family whose history is intimately bound to the history of the Brahmo movement in particular and the "renaissance" of Bengali culture more generally. Dwarkanath was a businessman with extensive contacts with European traders and a wide range of commercial interests.67 Dwarkanath had also been a great friend and patron of Rammohan. He was a trustee of the Brahmo Samaj and one of the few stalwarts who attended meetings of the Brahmo Samaj after Rammohan's death. He paid the bills to keep the Samaj afloat during those lean years.68

When Debendranath was eighteen, his father went on a journey to north India. While he was away, Debendranath's grandmother died. Debendranath was close by throughout this period. Sitting near her on the night before her death, he felt his worldly concerns melt away, along with his desire for worldly power. In their place, he experienced a profound sense of bliss that led him to ask about the meaning and purpose behind life. Finding no earthly cause for such bliss, Debendranath concluded it was a gift from God. Subsequently Debendranath fell into extended meditation on the religious life.

Around this time he remembered the work of Rammohan Roy. Rammohan's books on religion had been stored in his father's library and his father had also arranged for Debendranath to attend the school Rammohan had established in north Calcutta. Debendranath even remembered playing in Rammohan's garden as a boy, picking fruit and being pushed on the garden swing by the great reformer himself. Recalling that Rammohan "did not take part in any image-worship or idolatry," Debendranath vowed to adopt the same practices.69


It was at this point that Debendranath chanced upon a stray page of Sanskrit text. Although he had studied Sanskrit, he could not decipher it. He sought help from the family's pandit. Recognizing it as the kind of wisdom popular among the Brahmos, the pandit referred Debendranath to Rammohan's friend Ramacandra, When Ramacandra was shown the page, he was instantly able to identify the passage as the first verse of the Isa Upanisad.70 He read the passage for Debendranath and explained its meaning.

Of this moment, Debendranath would later write, "nectar from paradise streamed down upon me."71 He had found the Brahmo God. Suddenly the position he held at his father's bank meant nothing to him. Instead, Debendranath now saw a divine presence (and purpose) behind creation. And he saw a new purpose for his own life. Henceforth, he would work to translate the content of his awakening into a coherent spiritual message. Indeed, he spoke of "a strong desire to spread the true religion."72

This desire was manifested in the creation of the Tattwabodhini Sabha in 1839. Debendranath described the goals of the Tattwabodhini Sabha: "Its object was the diffusion of the deep truth of all our shastras and the knowledge of Brahma as inculcated in the Vedanta. It was the Upanishads that we considered to be the Vedanta, -- we did not place much reliance on the teachings of the Vedanta philosophy."73 At this point, Debendranath and the other members of the new Sabha were not thinking of themselves as Brahmos, nor do the goals of the Sabha yet make explicit reference to Rammohan. This, despite the fact that the knowledge of God, or brahmajnana, sought by members of the Tattwabodhini Sabha was understood in precisely the terms Rammohan had understood it -- as a "monistically oriented monotheism," to borrow Wilhelm Halbfass's characterization.74 The path described is one based on both reason and scripture. Worship was understood as knowledge and love of God coupled with the performance of those deeds that are pleasing to God.


The absence of Rammohan from the picture at this point is made strikingly clear in a little-known set of discourses delivered by members of the Tattwabodhini Sabha in Calcutta in its inaugural year, 1839-40, and subsequently published as a small volume in 1841.75 In these discourses, a range of different members present their interpretations of what it means to live according to a rational, monotheistic theology of this-worldly worship that is accountable both to the sastras and to reason. In their recourse to Upanishadic scriptural emblems (e.g., passages from the Katha and Mundaka Upanisads), in their attempt to balance the demands of reason and scripture (or sastra), in their marvel at the purpose behind God's creation, in their rejection of the renunciatory ethic, and in their call to an active expression of moral diligence and spiritual reflection, these discourses remind us in concrete ways of the teachings of Rammohan. However, at no point in the published collection of these discourses is any mention made of the Brahmo Samaj or Rammohan Roy. This is Brahmoism without Rammohan...

In an interesting turn of events, the revival of the fortunes of the Brahmo Samaj -- indeed its real constitution as a religious body -- would come only when the members of the Tattwabodhini Sabha remembered the one man to whom their vision could be traced, Rammohan.
As the discourses from 1839-40 reveal, this had not happened in the first years of the Sabha's existence. But within a few short years this would change.

REMEMBERING RAMMOHAN

The discourses printed in Sabhyadiger vaktrta were published in 1841. The very next year, Debendranath attended a meeting of the Brahmo Samaj. He tells us that it was on this visit that he witnessed how far the Samaj had declined.77 In response. he pledged to revive the Brahmo Samaj by arranging for the Tattwabodhini Sabha to begin managing its affairs. Simultaneously, he mandated that the spiritual activities of the Sabha would henceforth be carried out by the Brahmo Samaj. In this moment, the Tattwabodhini group acquired a representation of themselves; they became Brahmos...

Now, under Debendranath's new arrangement, the Tattwabodhini Sabha abandoned its own monthly Sunday meetings in order to meet during the Brahmo's regular worship time. In a final mark of the absorption of the Sabha into the Samaj, it was decided that henceforth anniversary meetings would be held on the date of January 23 (11 Magha). In time this date would acquire an aura of great sanctity, thanks in large part to the work of the Tattwabodhini group.80

In this way the dynamism of the Sabha began to contribute to the revitalization of Brahmo worship. Under Debendranath, the Brahmo Samaj would begin a new phase of self-definition -- liturgical, theological, and social. The process of redefinition was marked by two further developments during the following year, 1843.

First, the Tattwabodhini Sabha launched a new Bengali periodical, the Tattvabodhini Patrika. As with the original Sabha, it was dedicated to the goal of propagating Vedanta. However, the Patrika also announced its commitment to republishing the writings of Rammohan Roy, which it noted had fallen into near obscurity since his death.81 In a second major development, four months after the publication of the Patrika, Debendranath joined twenty-one other members of the Tattvabodhini Sabha in taking formal initiation (diksa) into the Brahmo Samaj. The old Brahmo stalwart Ramacandra presided over the ceremony as acarya. As Debendranath later wrote: "This was an unprecedented event in the annals of the Brahma-Samaj. Formerly there had existed the Brahma-Samaj only, now the Brahma Dharma came into existence."82 As this comment indicates, by this point Debendranath had come to see the Brahmo path as dharma, a code, a religion, a way of life. And as the explicit commitment to republishing the works of Rammohan suggests, this dharma was clearly traced to the founding efforts of Rammohan...

Preserving the memory and propagating the vision of the group's "father" now became the mission of the Sabha. Ironically, the decision made by the Tattwabodhini group to embrace Rammohan and the Brahmo path would also mark the beginning of the end of the Sabha. While the Sabha continued to meet independently until 1859, it was eventually dissolved, its identity and its mission by then synonymous with the Brahmo movement.

It is as if the followers of Debendranath had originally been moved by a vision, but could not conceptualize themselves as standing in a tradition....

Once the Tattwabodhini group began to think of themselves as Brahmos carrying on the work of Rammohan, the integrity and plausibility of their religious movement was secured. At this point, members began to say explicitly, as they did in an English-language proclamation from 1844, "We follow the teachings of Rammohan Roy."86

Rammohan could now clearly be called a "founder."87 A report for the year 1843-44, composed in English and published in the Tattwabodhini Patrika, shows the Sabha in the process of rewriting the story of their establishment to include explicit mention of their newly remembered founder: ''The TUTTUVOADHINEE SUBHA was established ... by a select party of friends, who believed in god as 'the One Unknown True Being, the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer of the Universe,'... The avowed object of the members was to sustain the labours of the late Rajah Rammohun Roy." However, the conclusion of the report makes it clear not only that there had been a hiatus in the collective memory brought on by Rammohan's departure and death, but also that the revitalization of the Brahmo movement was dependent upon the work of the Sabha:

The members are fully aware of the extent, to which the cause of religion was carried during the time of the celebrated Rammohun Roy. But it is no less a fact that, in his lamentable demise, it received a shock from which it was feared it could hardly have recovered. The exertions of the Tuttovoadhinee Society, however, have imparted renewed energies to the cause. They have led a large number of the educated and respectable members of society, to appreciate the knowledge of God. The meetings of the Braumhu Sumauj are now attended by overflowing congregations, and religious discussion are extensively maintained in Native society.88


Further evidence of the elevation of Rammohun to the status of founder is given in a passage from an annual report of the Sabha for 1846, which describes Rammohan as having descended (avatirna semantically akin to the concept of avatara) into Bengal to establish the Brahmo Samaj,89

This is the background against which we should also read an English-language passage written by Debendranath in 1846 in which he outlines the moral and theological tenets of his new dharma. While Rammohan is not explicitly invoked, the concept of the "godly householder" (brahmanistha grhastha) -- to which we have seen Rammohan gave pride of place -- is clearly emphasized: "As spiritual worshippers of our All-Benevolent Legislator and followers of the Vedant -- of Ooponeshud .... we are Bhrummunistha Grihustha, or monotheistic householders .... The object of our humble exertions is not merely a negative reformation in the religious institutions of our countrymen, but a positive one too, -- not merely the overthrow of the present systems, but the substitution in their place of more rational and proper ones."90

Clearly Rammohan's Brahmo ideals provided the Tattwabodhini Sabha with the means to ratify their own identity as a movement. This rearticulation of the group's self-understanding was made clear at a meeting held on May 28,1847. Hitherto the Tattwabodhini Sabha had defined its goal as the propagation of the "true religion as taught by Vedanta" (vedanta pratipadya satyadharma). At the May 1847 meeting it was resolved to formally replace this language with the explicit rubric of brahmadharma; the Sabha would now propagate the Brahmo religion of Rammohan.91

Years later, in 1864, Debendranath gave a Bengali address in which he looked back over the previous twenty-five years of the Brahmo Samaj. In that address, Debendranath clearly identified Rammohan as the founding father of the movement, referring to him as "the country's first friend" (deser prathama bandhu).92 Indeed, Debendranath crafted a virtual creation myth that depicts Rammohan appearing in the midst of darkness and lethargy to plant the seeds of monotheistic worship. In this evocation of Rammohan as pioneer, father, and founding guru, Debendranath offered the Brahmo Samaj a representation of itself as an ongoing lineage of belief traced to a founder whose memory now served to unite them as a religious association. And, as Debendranath remarked toward the close of his address, it was not as if he and Rammohan had different visions; their goals were one and the same.93

What is equally striking about this address is that while it takes us back to the time of Rammohan and his founding of the Brahmo Samaj in 1828, if read carefully, it also becomes clear that the scope of this twenty-five-year retrospective really only takes the reader back to 1839, the year the Tattwabodhini Sabha was founded. We are thus led to see in rather graphic terms the very time lag -- the lapse of memory, if you will -- between Rammohan's creative action and the birth of the organization that was to revive his vision.

Of course, this was not the end of the process. As J. N. Farquhar remarked laconically, "there were difficulties."94 The pressures of colonial modernity would continue to threaten the plausibility structures that supported the Brahmo movement. In the decades after Debendranath's adoption of the Brahmo faith, it was repeatedly forced to review and revise its store of memories. Space permitting, one could go on to explore the way the movement struggled in the coming years with such issues as the proper weight that should be accorded to scripture versus reason, as well as with the authority of personal intuition. At critical junctures new developments were accommodated to new memories. What is more, in time the creative agency of other "father" figures would need to be invoked to integrate and commemorate the evolving sense of group continuity. In time Debendranath himself would become one such "father," as would Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-84) later still, when he founded the New Dispensation (nava vidhana) in 1879.95

In fact, Keshub's views on Rammohan from the mid-1860s are particularly interesting. While he recognized Rammohan as the "great man" who brought his fellow citizrns together to worship the One God, Keshub did not credit Rammohan with founding a religious movement. His views in this respect seem to anticipate Benoy Ghosh's observation about the early Samaj. As one scholar has remarked, "Keshab especially emphasized that Roy did not found the Brahmo community of the decades to come," emphasizing only that he created a place and reason for people to worship.96

At this point, Keshub was clearly less interested in historical observation than in the ongoing validation of the movement, its memories, and its leaders. Chief among his concerns around this time was the question of leadership. Who would be granted creative agency? Even as he broke with Debendranath to form the Brahmo Samaj of India, Keshub could praise the role of his former patron and spiritual mentor, Debendranath: "When the patriotic, virtuous, great-souled Raja Ram Mohun Roy established a public place for the holy worship of God in Bengal, the true welfare of the country began .... But that great man being within a short time removed from this world, the light of Divine worship kindled by him came very nearly to be extinct."97 Referring to Debendranath, Keshub went on to say, "God raised you, and placed in your hands the charge of the spiritual advancement of the country .... Thus have you generally served the Brahma community after the ideals of your own heart, but you have specially benefited a few among us whom you have treated as affectionately as your children. These have felt the deep nobleness of your character, and elevated by your precept, example, and holy companionship, reverence you as their father."98

Keshub's break with Debendranath and his subsequent move to form the New Dispensation are striking illustrations of the very fluid process that was the construction of Brahmo religious identity throughout the nineteenth century.
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Sib Chandra Deb
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Accessed: 3/25/21

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Sib Chandra Deb
শিবচন্দ্র দেব
Born: 20 July 1811, Konnagar, Hooghly District, West Bengal[1][2]
Died: 12 November 1890 (aged 79)
Nationality: Indian
Occupation: Deputy Collector

Sib Chandra Deb (Bengali: শিবচন্দ্র দেব Shib Chôndro Deb) (also spelt Shib Chandra Deb, Shibchandra Deb, Shib Chander Deb) (20 July 1811 – 12 November 1890) was one of the leading Derozians, virtually the first generation of English-knowing Indians. He had joined Hindu College in 1825 and was subsequently drawn towards Derozio. Sivanath Sastri recalls that even in his old age he fondly recalled in detail what Derozio used to say. A brilliant student he won a scholarship while studying at Hindu College. As a student, he occasionally attended the meetings of the Brahmo Sabha established by Raja Rammohun Roy. Initially, he joined the survey department as he had acquired proficiency in higher mathematics but changed over to general administration to become a deputy collector in 1838. The English allowed Indians to be promoted/ posted as deputy collectors in 1833. He was one of the early English-knowing Indian officials in government service.

Brahmo Samaj

He joined the Brahmo Samaj in 1843, around the same time as Debendranath Tagore, and rose to be one of its prominent leaders by the 1850s. He established the Medinipur Brahmo Samaj in 1846 and the Konnagar Brahmo Samaj in 1863. At the time of founding of the Brahmo Samaj of India, he was with the progressives and assisted the movement in many ways. At the time of establishment of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, his sympathies were with the protesting party. He was one of the leaders of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, along with Sivanath Sastri, Ananda Mohan Bose, Umesh Chandra Dutta and Durga Mohan Das, when it was established in 1878 and was its first president and subsequently for many years.

After the second break-up of the Brahmo movement, his house at Konnagar became a place of pilgrimage to the members of the new samaj. They would often flock there so that his example of earnest piety, inborn humility, wide range of knowledge, methodical performance of the smallest duties of life, moderation in speech and conduct and constant attention to the good of others could inspire them. Indeed, he was the living embodiment of an ideal Brahmo life.

He was one of strongest proponents of women's education because he was convinced that society could not progress unless women were educated. He admitted his daughters into Bethune School. In 1860, he opened a girls' school in his own house. It later shifted to a building of its own. He wrote a book Sishupalan (child care) for use by women.

Posted for sometime in 24 Parganas, he participated actively in the social life of Kolkata during the period. He contributed considerably to the development of Konnagar, including the inauguration of Konnagar railway station in 1856 and a post office in 1858. He was commissioner of Serampore municipality from 1865 to 1878. His father Braja Kishore Deb was in government service and was considered to be a moneyed man.


Brahmo marriage consternation

Satyapriya Deb, son of Sib Chandra Deb, was married, in 1876, to Saratkumari, daughter of Kalinath Bose, a close friend and devotee of Keshub Chunder Sen. Trouble started with a notice in the Indian Mirror about performance of the marriage as per the reformed ceremonies of the Brahmo Samaj. It was to be organised without the presence of Brahmin priests and without any salagram shila (family stone deity) or the traditional hom or fire witnessing (agni sakshi). Many considered it a challenge to traditional Hindu society and systems. There was considerable public consternation about the marriage and the possibility of large-scale demonstrations against the proposed marriage rites loomed large over the occasion. The danger of people coming and physically disrupting the marriage ceremony was a distinct possibility.

Kalinath Bose rushed to Keshub Chunder Sen. He took personal interest to find a suitable alternative place of wedding on Circular Road. Almost everything had to be organised afresh. The groom's party came by boat under police guard. There was a distinct fear that somebody could attack the groom en route. The marriage took place under extremely difficult circumstances. Many of those who came to attend the wedding were jeered.

Sivanath Sastri mentions this marriage as one of the notable social incidents of that period in his book Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj. Saratkumari Deb has given vivid details of the wedding ceremony in her book Amar Sansar.

References

1. Shastri, Shibnath, Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj, 1904, p 134, S.K.Lahiri & Co.
2. Lethbridge, Roper, Sir, Ramtanu Lahiri-Brahman and Reformer, published 1907, p. 189, Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Limited, London
• Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj in Bengali by Sivanath Sastri
• Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Biographical dictionary) in Bengali edited by Subodh Chandra Sengupta and Anjali Bose
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:52 pm

James Silk Buckingham [Calcutta Journal]
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Accessed: 3/25/21



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James Silk Buckingham
James Silk Buckingham by Clara S. Lane
Born 25 August 1786
Flushing, Cornwall
Died 30 June 1855 (aged 68)
London, England
Nationality British
Occupation author, journalist, traveller

James Silk Buckingham (25 August 1786 – 30 June 1855) was a Cornish-born British author, journalist and traveller, known for his contributions to Indian journalism. He was a pioneer among the Europeans who fought for a liberal press in India.

Early life

Buckingham was born at Flushing near Falmouth on 25 August 1786, the son of Thomasine Hambly of Bodmin and Christopher Buckingham (died 1793/94) of Barnstaple. His father, and his ancestors, were seafaring men.[1] James was the youngest of three boys and four girls and his youth was spent at sea. The property of his deceased parents consisted of houses, land, mines and shares, which was left to the three youngest children.[1] In 1797 he was captured by the French and held as a prisoner of war at Corunna.

Career

In 1821, his Travels in Palestine was published, followed by Travels Among the Arab Tribes in 1825.[2] After years of wandering he settled in India, where he established a periodical, the Calcutta Journal, in 1818. This venture at first proved highly successful, but in 1823 the paper's outspoken criticisms of the East India Company led to the expulsion of Buckingham from India and to the suppression of the paper by John Adam, the acting governor-general in 1823. His case was brought before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1834, and a pension of £500 a year was subsequently awarded to him by the East India Company as compensation.

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James Silk Buckingham, by Henry William Pickersgill

Buckingham continued his journalistic ventures on his return to England; he settled at Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park,[3] and started the Oriental Herald and Colonial Review (1824–9) and the Athenaeum (1828) which was not a success in his hands, Buckingham selling to John Sterling after a few weeks.

Between 1832 and 1836 Buckingham served as MP for Sheffield. He was a strong advocate of social reform, calling for the end of flogging in the armed services, abolition of the press-gang and the repeal of the Corn Laws.[4]

During his time as an MP, Buckingham served as Chair of the select committee charged with examining "the extent, causes, and consequences of the prevailing vice of intoxication among the laboring classes of the United Kingdom" devise a solution. Campaigner for the working class Frances Place concluded that the lack of “parish libraries and direct reading rooms, and popular lecture that were both entertaining and instructive” were drawing individuals to frequent “public houses for other social enjoyment.” [5] With this in mind, Buckingham introduced the Public Institutions bill in 1835. Buckingham’s bill allowed boroughs to charge a tax to set up libraries and museums. This bill never became law but would serve as inspiration for William Ewart and Joseph Brotherton, who introduced a bill that would "[empower] boroughs with a population of 10,000 or more to raise a ½d for the establishment of museums".[6] Ewart and Brotherton’s bill would become the basis for the Museum Act of 1845.

Following his retirement from parliament, in October 1837, Buckingham began a four-year tour of North America. In 1844 he was central to the foundation of the British and Foreign Institute in Hanover Square.[4]

BRITISH AND FOREIGN INSTITUTE, George-street, Hanover-square, was formed by James Silk Buckingham, under the patronage of Prince Albert, who was present at the opening in 1844. The leading object of the Institute was to afford a point of union for literary and scientific men from all quarters of the globe, without distinction of nation, politics, or creed; to give facilities of introduction to strangers visiting the metropolis from the country; and to add the attractions of literature, science, and art, the refinements and grace of female society. The Club-rooms had the accommodations of a family hotel. The Institute did not long exist.

Curiosities of London, 1867, by John Timbs


Buckingham was the former editor of The Asiatic Mirror.

He was a prolific writer. He had travelled in Europe, America and the East, and wrote many useful travel books, as well as many pamphlets on political and social subjects. "In 1851, the value of these and of his other literary works was recognized by the grant of a Civil List pension of £200 a year. At the time of his death in London, Buckingham was at work on his autobiography, two volumes of the intended four being completed and published (1855)".[7] This work is important as it mentions in detail the life of the black composer Joseph Antonio Emidy who settled in Truro.

Personal life

In February 1806, Buckingham married Elizabeth Jennings (1786–1865), the daughter of a Cornish farmer.

Buckingham died after a long illness at Stanhope Lodge, Upper Avenue Road, St John's Wood, London, on 30 June 1855.[4] Buckingham is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.[8]

His youngest son, Leicester Silk Buckingham, was a popular playwright.

Works

• Contribution For the Commemoration of the Fourth of July, 1838. Contribution For the Commemoration of the Fourth of July 1838. Written on a couch of sickness. By J S Buckingham, of England, Albany, N.Y., 3 July 1838.
• America, historical, statistic, and descriptive. Jackson, Fisher, Son, London, 1841.
The Slaves States of North America, VI. Fisher, Son, and Co. London, 1842.
The Slaves States of North America, VII. Fisher, Son, and Co. London, 1842.
• National Evils and Practical Remedies. With the Plan of a Model Town. Jackson, Fisher, Son, London, 1849.
• (1821): Travels in Palestine Through the Countries of Bashan and Gilead, East of the River Jordan, Including a Visit to the Cities of Geraza and Gamala in the Decapolis In two volumes (only volume I).
• (1825): Travels among the Arab Tribes Inhabiting the Countries East of Syria and Palestine. The full text, google-books.
• (1827): Travels in Mesopotamia Including a Journey from Aleppo to Bagdad By the Route of Beer, Orfah, Diarbekr, Mardin, and Mosul; With Researches on the Ruins of Nineveh, Babylon, and Other Ancient Cities.

References

1. "The Flushing Boy Who Became A Great Traveller". The Cornishman (212). 3 August 1882. p. 6.
2. Shepherd, Naomi, The Zealous Intruders: the Western Rediscovery of Palestine, London 1987, p. 59.
3. "Cornwall Terrace". Archived from the original on 12 October 2012.
4. "Buckingham, James Silk (1786–1855), author and traveller". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3855. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. Select Committee on inquiry into drunkenness, Report (1834)
6. Thomas, Kelly (1977). Books for the People: Illustrated History of the British Public Library. Britain: Harper Collins. p. 77. ISBN 0233967958.
7. Santanu Banerjee (2010). History of Journalism : A Legend of Glory. Suhrid Publication. ISBN 978-81-92151-99-1.
8. "Term details". British Museum. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Buckingham, James Silk". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• G. F. R. Barker, ‘Buckingham, James Silk (1786–1855)’, rev. Felix Driver, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 11 Oct 2007

External links

• Cornwall portal
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by James Silk Buckingham
• Portraits of James Silk Buckingham at the National Portrait Gallery, London

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James Silk Buckingham and his Contribution to Indian Journalism
by Harpreet Singh

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Table of Contents

James Silk Buckingham________________________________________________________ 1 Contribution to Indian Journalism ________________________________________________ 2 Buckingham vs. Hicky ________________________________________________________ 6 Buckingham vs. Raja Ram Mohan Roy ____________________________________________ 8 References _________________________________________________________________ 9

James Silk Buckingham

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James Silk Buckingham

The newspapers came to India as an alien product, as one the benefits of British colonialism. The initial strength and power for launching of newspapers was directly fostered in England. James Augustus Hicky has the distinction of starting the press in India. Later, James Silk Buckingham got the title for being called the Pioneer of true Indian Journalism. He infused a new light to Indian Journalism. He was the trailblazer among the Europeans who fought for liberal Press in India.

In 1821, his Travels in Palestine were published, followed by Travels Among the Arab Tribes in 1825. After years of wandering he settled in India, where he established a periodical, the Calcutta Journal, in 1818. This venture at first proved highly successful, but in 1823 the paper's outspoken criticisms of the East India Company led to the expulsion of Buckingham from India.

Buckingham continued his journalistic ventures on his return to England. He started the Oriental Herald and Colonial Review (1824) and Athenaeum there. He was a prolific writer. He travelled in Europe, America and the East, and wrote many useful travel books, as well as many pamphlets on political and social subjects.

At the time of his death in London, Buckingham was at work on his autobiography, two volumes of the intended four being completed and published.

Contribution to Indian Journalism

On September 22, 1818 the prospectus of a newspaper was published


Buckingham was born in 1784 near Cornwell in England. Son of Christopher Buckingham, his was a chequered career-- as a jailor, printer, book-seller, mariner and editor. In 1813 he offered his services to the Pasha of Egypt to explore the Isthmus of the Suez to trace as far as possible the course of the ancient canal. Thereafter he was given a commission by the Pasha to establish a trade between India and Egypt. But the venture did not succeed owing to unwillingness of the Bombay merchants. In June 1818 he commanding the Humayoon Shah when he was asked to sail to Madagascar coast for the purpose of giving convoy to some ships carrying slaves. Rather than embark on such an obnoxious quest, he surrendered his command. This gesture, widely applauded in Calcutta, did not escape the notice of the Company authorities and the other leaders of the society in Calcutta. It inspired the public to read the journal in which he had recorded some impressions of his travel in Palestine. His literary ability caught the imagination of John Palmer, head of the well-known mercantile house of that name, Palmer felt that the merchants of the city should have their own paper to air their problems. He requested Buckingham to accept the editorship of the newspaper. Buckingham gave his consent. On September 22, 1818 Buckingham published a prospectus of a newspaper to be entitled the Calcutta Journal or Political or Literary Gazette.

The Calcutta Journal appeared as bi-weekly with eight pages on Oct 2, 1818.


The prospectus announced: "The state of the Press has been a subject of surprise, of disappointment, and of regret to all strangers on their first arrival in India: and the impression of its imperfections gradually loses its force after a long residence in the country, yet some of its ablest apologists and most zealous supporters acknowledged its reform to be desideratum."

The motto of the newspaper was stated as, A forward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as innovation and they that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the new.


The Calcutta Journal appeared as bi-weekly with eight pages on Oct 2, 1818. The first issue came out with a quotation from Bacon in bold letters, which was declared to be the motto of the paper. It stated, "A forward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as innovation and they that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the new." The paper presented a wide selection of news and drew the attention of the people and the authorities to such prevailing grievances as the insufficient state of the police and the allegations that certain persons in European dress were making the streets of Calcutta unsafe at night. The correspondence columns were thrown open to any who had grievances to air.

As an editor, Buckingham considered it his Sacred right to admonish Governors of their duties, to warn them furiously of their faults and to tell disagreeable truths through his newspaper.


As an editor, Buckingham said, "he considered it his Sacred right to admonish Governors of their duties, to warn them furiously of their faults, and to tell disagreeable truths." He courageously faced all odds, followed the motto scrupulously, and performed his duties fearlessly. The paper was a success from its very first issue.

The paper, "well conducted," "independent" and "clever," became the talk of the town in no time. Buckingham was a Whig, and most of his reprints from the British papers were in condemnation of the Tories. He also gave a proof of his literary bent of mind by introducing Byron's Childe Harold and Don Juan and Scott's Ivanhoe to Calcutta readers1.

As a sailor he was interested in development of new means of communication. He drew attention in his columns to the North-west passage, Red sea route, steam navigation, and the possibility of a voyage by air from Bombay to London.

A champion of free trade, Buckingham campaigned for the abolition of East India Company's monopoly. In his view, the whole continent of Asia should be opened to the unrestricted competition of whoever was willing to risk his health and fortune.

On May 1, 1819 the Calcutta Journal was converted into the First Daily of Calcutta.


The government and the papers which he criticized in his prospectus now joined hands to crush him. Undaunted, Buckingham soon converted his bi-weekly into "the first daily of Calcutta" on May 1, 1819 under all the disadvantages of a combined opposition.1 [Modern History of Indian Press, p 42 (Sunit Ghosh)]

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The Asiatic Mirror, Commercial Advertiser, October 9, 1793

Quite expectedly, the existing newspapers in Calcutta received this newspaper with violent opposition. Rev Samuel James Bryce, who owned the Asiatic Mirror, openly cast doubts on the moral standard of the new editor. His allegations were based on the fact that Buckingham had demonstrated the steps of a quadrille on Sunday -- apparently a heinous offence against Bryce's ideas of Sabbath. But the counter statements given by Buckingham resulted in the death of the Asiatic Mirror.

The financial success of the journal enabled it to have its own building constructed, a new improved Columbian Press imported from England together with English, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic fonts. The value of the enterprise in 1822 was estimated at 40,000 pounds. According to Margarita Barns, Buckingham's yearly income was about eight thousand pounds, he may be called one of the leading pioneers of modern journalism in India.2 [The Indian Press, p 96 (Barns).]

Buckingham late emphasized on news of local conditions rather than talking about fashion, social elites or criticism of popular people. He was fearless in writing against certain Indian customs like Sati system, Parda and child marriages. He started giving prominence to news and views published in Bengali and Persian and started printing the summary into Calcutta Chronicle. He advocated the policy of freedom press & expression. He was of an opinion that free press is required to keep a check on the working of the government.

In 1819 he again targeted corrupt system of East India Company by making adverse comments on the appointment of Hugh Elliot as the Governor of Madras. An infuriated Elliot asked the Calcutta authorities to punish the editor. The Government at Fort William sent a warning to the editor with which enclosed a copy of Press Rules of 1818. But Buckingham carried on his tirade and spared none in his attacks. Not even the Chief Justice, the Governor of Madras or the Lord Bishop of Calcutta [could stop him].

Libel suits were filed against him. He was also threatened and physically assaulted. Despite heavy odds, Buckingham had so long held aloft his ideal of press freedom. But his fortune suffered a jolt after the Hastings regime came to an end. John Adams became the officiating Governor-General on January 13, 1823. He was also against Buckingham and his newspaper. He revoked Buckingham's license to stay in India. And, finally, he was deported back to England in 1823. In England, he filed a case against East India Company and was awarded 500 pounds as a compensation every year in 1834.


In 1823, Buckingham's license to stay in India was revoked and he was deported back to England.


Buckingham vs. Hicky

James Silk Buckingham versus James Augustus Hicky

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James Augustus Hicky

James Augustus Hicky was an Irishman who is considered as the birth giver of Indian press. He is the person who started a newspaper which was called as Hicky's Gazette, or Bengal Gazette; even it was aliased as Calcutta General Advertiser which came into being on January 29th 1780. It declared itself as weekly Political and commercial paper open to all parties but influenced by none. It is very important to observe the statement which implicates that the newspaper was not influenced by the Government or other party, but to the interest of people, which although proved to be a tool used by James Augustus Hicky's personal contention with the British rule or its representative -- East India Company.

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Hicky's Bengal Gazette: Or the Original Calcutta General Advertiser, March 3-19, 1781

The content was mainly for criticizing the East India Company. But to make it more catchy and readable, Hicky added other things [in the] four-page Gazette, like a Gossip column, a poet's corner, news related the European scandals, and most importantly the advertisement. The thing to be noted here is that the content was used to put more emphasis on criticizing the men in power like Warren Hastings, and even people related to the rulers like Lady Hastings. The content of "Hicky's Gazette" was used more for acting as a tool of criticism and not for the benefit of the general masses and public. A severe criticism can be done to Hicky's Gazette as it lacked the ethics of Journalism and was more slang -- using nicknames of people, and also wasn't a benefactor to the common public.

If we compare and set a contrast between Hicky's contribution to the contribution of James Silk Buckingham, there is no doubt that Hicky provided and initiated a platform for Indian press, but we cant deny and defy the fact that Buckingham's contribution is more legendry and praiseworthy. Buckingham was an Anglo-Indian who is titled as "the Father of true Indian Journalism." He in a true sense can be termed as pioneer of ethical Journalism of India. It is said that in the early years of 19th century, Calcutta saw the emergence of a first real and outstanding journalist. Jawaharlal Nehru has described him as "the earliest champion of the freedom press in India and one who is still remembered in this country."

Although, he came to India as an editor of the "Calcutta Chronicle," which was started by the Calcutta merchants to safeguard their vested interested, but Buckingham laid more emphasis and meant his content for uplifting the issues of common public, news of local conditions, and purified his content from making criticism, fashion, advertisement, gossip, and Anglo Social Scandals. He was more concerned about the social reforms, and that is the reason he was more liked by the public. He was also coordinate by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, as he became a pioneer of not only the freedom of speech and expression but a social reformer as well. The reason can be drawn as he was more accustomed to the rituals, cultures, beliefs and values of Indian masses in particular, and the world in general. He was a prolific writer and was more successful in influencing the hearts of suppressed people of British India.

In conclusion, it can be said that James Augustus Hicky is the pioneer of Indian press; but the title of Pioneer of True Indian Journalism, must be given to James Silk Buckingham.

Buckingham vs. Raja Ram Mohan

Roy James Silk Buckingham versus Raja Ram Mohan Roy

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Raja Ram Mohan Roy

In late 18th century two eminent personalities appeared in the field of journalism in Calcutta. They were James Silk Buckingham, an Englishman, and Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Both fought energetically against any bureaucratic encroachment on freedom of press and suffered for it, but left the impress of their vision and character on contemporary journalism. Both played a significant role for the freedom of the press. Both attracted the staunchest supporters from among their countrymen, and at the same time provoked bitterest antagonism. Ties of friendship and mutual admiration brought them closer, and they waged relentless fights for the right of the press simultaneously in England and in India.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy was on Indian scene from 1772-1823. He was born in a Brahmin family. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was also credited for laying the foundation of Indian Journalism. He was perhaps the first Indian journalist. He is remembered for bringing social change in India. He brought a renaissance in Hindu society. The prime focus of Buckingham was to promote open trade across the Middle East, whereas Roy wanted to eradicate the social evils from Indian society. Buckingham started Calcutta Journal with a motive to promote trade, and was fully devoted to mercantile class. Roy started Sambad Kamumdi (moon of intelligence), and Mirut-ul-ukbar, to bring a social change in the Indian society. Later on, they both fought for the freedom of the Press. Buckingham also published some articles against Hindu costumes like Parda system, Sati System and Child Marriages.

References

Textual Books

1. Modern History of Journalism (Sunit Ghosh)
2. Handbook of Journalism & Mass Communication (Vir Bala Aggarwal & VS Gupta)
3. History of Press, Press Laws and Communications (B.N. Ahuja)

Electronic Books & Websites

1. History of Media and Media Legislation in India
2. Blogger
3. Media in India (N Ananth Padmanabha)

Photographs

1. Google images
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:41 am

James Augustus Hicky
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/25/21

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James Augustus Hicky
Printer of Hicky's Bengal Gazette
In office: 29 January 1780 – 30 March 1782
Personal details
Born: 1740, Ireland
Died: October 1802
Nationality: Irish
Residence: Kolkata, India

James Augustus Hicky was an Irishman who launched the first printed newspaper in India, Hicky's Bengal Gazette.[1]

Early life

Hicky was born in Ireland around the year 1740. While young, he moved to London to apprentice with William Faden, a Scottish printer. However, Hicky never took his freedom from the printers' guild, and instead secured a clerkship with an English lawyer, Sarjeant Davy. At some point Hicky quit his career in law, and, after a brief attempt practicing as a surgeon in London, he boarded an East Indiaman as a surgeon's mate bound for Calcutta in 1772.

Upon landing in Calcutta, Hicky practiced as both a surgeon and a merchant, shipping and trading goods along India's coast. But, by 1776, his shipping business collapsed as his vessel returned to port with its cargo badly damaged. Unable to reassure his creditors, Hicky entered debtors' prison in October 1776.


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James Augustus Hicky's Bill to the East India Company for a printing job

While in jail, Hicky acquired a printing press and types and by 1777 began a printing business from jail. In 1778, Hicky hired Lawyer William Hickey (who, confusingly, was not related to Hicky) to get rid of his debts and free him from jail.

Hicky's Bengal Gazette

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Front page of Hicky's Bengal Gazette, 10 March 1781, from the University of Heidelberg's archives.

Main article: Hicky's Bengal Gazette

Hicky began publication of Hicky's Bengal Gazette on 29 January 1780. Hicky first maintained a neutral editing policy but after he learned that other men were about to bring a rival newspaper, The India Gazette, to market, he accused an East India Company employee, Simeon Droz of supporting the India Gazette's editors because he had refused to pay a bribe to Droz and Marian Hastings, Warren Hastings' wife. In retaliation for Hicky's accusation, Hastings' Supreme Council forbid Hicky from mailing his newspaper through the post office. Hicky claimed Hastings' order violated his right to free expression, and accused Hastings of corruption, tyranny, and even erectile dysfunction.[2] Hicky also accused other British leaders in Calcutta of corruption, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, Elijah Impey, and the leader of the Protestant Mission, Johann Zacharias Kiernander. Hicky's editorial independence was short-lived as Hastings and Kiernander sued him for libel. After four dramatic trials in June 1781, the Supreme Court found Hicky guilty and sentenced him to jail. Hicky continued to print his newspaper from jail and continued to accuse Hastings and other of corruption. He was finally shuttered when Hastings instituted fresh lawsuits against him. Hicky's Bengal Gazette ceased publication on 30 March 1782 when its types were seized by an order of the Supreme Court.

John Zachariah Kiernander
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/25/21

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John Zachariah Kiernander (1711–1799), also known as Johann Zacharias Kiernander, was a Swedish Lutheran missionary in India.[1]

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Beth-Tephillah Church founded 1770 by John Zachariah Kiernander, later the Old Mission Church, Calcutta

He was the first Protestant Missionary to establish a base in Bengal. He built the Old Mission Church in Calcutta and founded one of the first printing presses in Calcutta. In 1781, he accused James Augustus Hicky, the editor and publisher of Hicky's Bengal Gazette of libel. He won the trial. He is the author of The Trial and Conviction of James Augustus Hicky.

Notes

1. Edward Cave; John Nichols (1824). The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle. Edw. Cave. pp. 105–10.


Johann Zacharias Kiernander
by Paul Tyson
onewaytheonlykway.com
Accessed: 3/25/21

Johann Zacharias Kiernander was born in Sweden in the year 1710. Kiernander was the first missionary to establish a base in Bengal even before William Carey and Henry Martin arrived. He studied theology at Hale University and served as a teacher in Latin.

In 1739 he received the call of God to serve in India and reached Tharagambadi. Kiernander worked as a Tranquebar missionary in Cuddalore in Tamilnadu. But, after the French had taken over this city in 1758, Kiernander had to leave the city and move to Calcutta.

He reached Calcutta in 1759 and accomplished a great work for God in that place.

Ministry in India

His keen interest in expounding the Bible, his enthusiasm, and his straight forwardness attracted many people there. many were saved and baptized. Sunday services were held in a rented room and he preached to the English and local people in their own languages respectively. Hundreds of non-Christians were saved through him.

His marriage earned him a good fortune. He used this as an opportunity to help the Christian people who were living in poverty and built several schools. He built the Old Mission Church in Calcutta and the living quarters for missionaries.

He is also credited for founding one of the first printing presses in Calcutta. Meanwhile, he lost his wife to Cholera but yet continued to labor in God’s vineyard amidst many hurdles. He stayed true to his call and finished his race on this earth fulfilling God’s divine purpose.


Later life

Hicky was freed from jail about Christmas 1784, when Warren Hastings, about to embark to England to face impeachment, forgave his debts. Little is known about Hicky's later life, except that his health was ruined after three years in jail, and that he lived in poverty. Hicky died on a boat to China in October 1802.

Legacy

Although his newspaper was disliked by the then Governor-General of India, Warren Hastings, Hicky paved the way and influenced multiple Indians to start newspapers. Hicky's printing office was the training ground for many later printers who went on to found their own newspapers, leading to a vibrant newspaper scene in Bengal. [3] No images of Hicky survive to this day. However, his signature and handwriting can be found on old documents.

References

1. Andrew Otis, Hicky's Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India's First Newspaper, New Delhi: Westland Publications, 2018.
2. Jane Borges, The journalist who accused Warren Hastings of erectile dysfunction, Mid-Day India, 6 May 2018.
3. Abhijit Ganguly, Raging Against The Raj: The First Newspaper in Asia, Business Economics Magazine, 30 June 2014.

External links

• Newspaper copy from British Library
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:10 am

Elijah Impey
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/25/21

[Robert Chambers (English judge)] was one of the judges in the notorious case of Maharaja Nandakumar...

-- Robert Chambers (English judge), by Wikipedia


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Sir Elijah Impey
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal
In office: 22 October 1774[1] – 3 December 1783 (Effectively). Resigned 1 November 1787[2]
Sole Justice of the Sadr Diwani Adalat
In office: 24 October 1780[3] – 5 November 1782[4]
Member of Parliament for New Romney
In office: 1790–1796

Sir Elijah Impey (13 June 1732 – 1 October 1809) was a British judge, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal,[5] Chief Justice of the Sadr Diwani Adalat and MP for New Romney.

Life

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Image
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Painting by Johan Zoffany of the family of Elijah and Mary Impey in Calcutta in 1783

He was born the youngest son of Elijah Impey and his wife Martha, daughter of James Fraser and was educated at Westminster School with Warren Hastings, who was his intimate friend throughout life. He proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1752, graduating in 1756 as the second Chancellor's classical medallist.[6]

Having been called to the bar in 1756, he was appointed the first chief justice of the new supreme court at Calcutta in March 1774[7] and knighted later that month.[8]

En route to India he learned Bengali and Urdu, and once there studied Persian.[9] with his wife Mary (née Reade), from 1777, he hired local artists to paint the various birds, animals and native plants, life-sized where possible, and in natural surrounds. The collection is often known as the Impey Album.[9]

In 1775 he presided at the trial of Maharaja Nandakumar,[5] who was accused of forging a bond in an attempt to deprive a widow of more than half her inheritance. As a result of the trial he went down in history, because in 1787 he was subjected to impeachment, along with Warren Hastings, for their conduct of the case. He was accused by Macaulay of conspiring with Hastings to commit a judicial murder[5] by having unjustly hanged Nandakumar; but the whole question of the trial of Nandakumar was examined in detail by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who stated that "no man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than Nuncomar, and Impey in particular behaved with absolute fairness and as much indulgence as was compatible with his duty."[5] According to Macaulay, Impey later applied English law so aggressively as to "throw a great country into the most dreadful confusion", until in effect bribed by Hastings to desist.

Maharaja Nandakumar (also known as Nuncomar) (1705? – died 5 August 1775), was an Indian tax collector for various regions in what is modern-day West Bengal. Nanda Kumar was born at Bhadrapur, which is now in Birbhum. He was the first Indian to be executed by hanging. Nandakumar was appointed by the East India Company to be the dewan (tax collector) for Burdwan, Nadia and Hoogly in 1764, following the removal of Warren Hastings from the post.[1]

In 1773, when Hastings was reinstated as governor-general of Bengal, Nandakumar brought accusations against him of accepting bribes that were entertained by Sir Philip Francis and the other members of the Supreme Council of Bengal. However, Hastings overruled the council's charges. Thereafter, in 1775, he brought charges of document forgery against Nandakumar. The Maharaja was tried under Elijah Impey, India's first Chief Justice, and friend of Warren Hastings, was found guilty, and hanged in Kolkata on 5 August 1775.

Later Hastings, along with Sir Elijah Impey, the chief justice, was impeached by the British Parliament. They were accused by Burke (and later by Macaulay) of committing judicial murder.


-- Maharaja Nandakumar, by Wikipedia


In 1790 Impey was returned to Parliament as the member for New Romney constituency and spent the next seven years as an MP before retiring to Newick Park near Brighton. He died there in 1809 and was buried in the family vault at St Paul's, Hammersmith, London. With his wife he is commemorated in the church with a wall monument by Peter Rouw. He had married on 18 January 1768 Mary, daughter of Sir John Reade, 5th Baronet, of Shipton Court, Oxfordshire; they had five sons.

In 1795 his application for a fellowship of the Royal Society was rejected.

Legacy

A portrait of Impey, by Johan Zoffany hangs in Kolkata High Court.[9] Thomas Lawrence also painted him.[10]

His wife, Mary Impey, is commemorated in the name of the Impeyan pheasant (Lophophorus impejanus).

Further reading

• James Fitzjames Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey (1885).
• Memoirs of Sir Elijah Impey, Knt ... with anecdotes of Warren Hastings, Sir Philip Francis, Nathaniel Brassey Hallhed, Esq., and other contemporaries; (1846)

Sources

• The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (includes photo)

References

1. Curley p 194
2. Curley p 485
3. Curley p 313
4. Curley p 344
5. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Impey, Sir Elijah" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 342–343.
6. "Impey, Elijah (IMY752E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
7. "No. 11441". The London Gazette. 19 March 1774. p. 1.
8. "No. 11444". The London Gazette. 29 March 1774. p. 4.
9. Jump up to:a b c "The forgotten Indian artists of British India". BBC News. 30 November 2019. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
10. Levey 2005: 49–59

External links

• The story of Nuncomar and the impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey[permanent dead link] Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection. {Reprinted by} Cornell University Library Digital Collections
• Exhibition of "Lady Impey’s Indian Bird Paintings" at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (until 14 Apr 2013)
• "Memoirs of Sir Elijah Impey: Knt., First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature, at Fort William, Bengal; with Anecdotes of Warren Hastings, Sir Philip Francis, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Esq., and Other Contemporaries; Comp. from Authentic Documents, in Refutation of the Calumnies of the Right Hon. Thomas Babington Macaulay" (Google eBook), Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, 1846
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:38 am

Maharaja Nandakumar
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/25/21

[Robert Chambers (English judge)] was one of the judges in the notorious case of Maharaja Nandakumar...

-- Robert Chambers (English judge), by Wikipedia


Image

Maharaja Nandakumar (also known as Nuncomar) (1705? – died 5 August 1775), was an Indian tax collector for various regions in what is modern-day West Bengal. Nanda Kumar was born at Bhadrapur, which is now in Birbhum. He was the first Indian to be executed by hanging. Nandakumar was appointed by the East India Company to be the dewan (tax collector) for Burdwan, Nadia and Hoogly in 1764, following the removal of Warren Hastings from the post.[1]

In 1773, when Hastings was reinstated as governor-general of Bengal, Nandakumar brought accusations against him of accepting bribes that were entertained by Sir Philip Francis and the other members of the Supreme Council of Bengal. However, Hastings overruled the council's charges. Thereafter, in 1775, he brought charges of document forgery against Nandakumar. The Maharaja was tried under Elijah Impey, India's first Chief Justice, and friend of Warren Hastings, was found guilty, and hanged in Kolkata on 5 August 1775.

Later Hastings, along with Sir Elijah Impey, the chief justice, was impeached by the British Parliament. They were accused by Burke (and later by Macaulay) of committing judicial murder.

Early life

Nandkumar was born in a Brahmin family. He held posts under Nawab of Murshidabad. After the Battle of Plassey, he was recommended to Robert Clive for appointment as their agent to collect revenues of Burdwan, Nadia district and Hooghly.[2] The title "Maharaja" was conferred on Nandakumar by Shah Alam II in 1764.[1] He was appointed Collector of Burdwan, Nadia, and Hugli by the East India Company in 1764, in place of Warren Hastings. He learnt Vaishnavism from Radhamohana Thakura.[1][3]

Charges against Hastings

Maharaja Nandakumar accused Hastings of bribing him with more than one-third of a million rupees and claimed that he had proof against Hastings in the form of a letter.[4][3]

Hanging

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Warren Hastings was then with the East India Company and happened to be a school friend of Sir Elijah Impey. Some historians are of the opinion that Maharaja Nandakumar was falsely charged with forgery and Sir Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of Supreme Court in Calcutta, gave a false judgement to hang Nandakumar.[5][self-published source] Nandakumar's hanging has been termed a judicial murder by certain historians.[5] Macaulay also accused both men of conspiring to commit a judicial murder.[5] Maharaja Nandakumar was hanged at Calcutta, near present-day Vidyasagar Setu, on 5 August 1775.[6] During that period the punishment for forgery was hanging (as mandated by the Forgery Act 1728 passed by the British parliament), although some legal scholars have said that the law was only applicable in Britain and not British territories in India.[7][3]

Books

• Sir James Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar (2 vols., 1885)
• H Beveridge, The Trial of Nanda Kumar (Calcutta, 1886).

Legacy

• A school in his honor, Bhadrapur Maharaja Nanda Kumar High School, was established on his birthplace at Bhadrapur village on Birbhum District.
• A temple was established by him on Akalipur Village near Bhadrapur village. The temple was built for Hindu deity Ma Kaali.This is a very popular temple and thousands of visitors came by. It is situated near the banks of the Brahmani River.
• A college in his honor, Maharaja Nandakumar Vidyalaya, was established in purba medinipur in 2007, and the college is affiliated with Vidyasagar University.[8]
• A road in Baranagar, Kolkata is named Maharaja Nandakumar Road.[9]
• Nandakumar is also the name of a locality in the West Bengal district of East Midnapur.[10]
• Nandakumar was established in Tamluk–Digha branch line of Kharagpur railway division.

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Akalipur Kali Temple (Gujjya Kali)

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The turban of Nanda Kumar-Now it has been kept at Victoria Memorial-Museum

External links

• The story of Nuncomar and the impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection. {Reprinted by} Cornell University Library Digital Collections
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nuncomar". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Charges against Sir Elijah Impey

References

1. "The Kunjaghata Raj family". Murshibad.net. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2019-02-06. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
3. Lion Feuchtwanger und Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger (1927). Kalkutta, 4. Mai: drei Akte Kolonialgeschichte. Dr.PLISCHKA Hans Peter. p. 12.
4. Barbara Harlow, Edited by Mia Carter (2003). From the East India Company to the Suez Canal. Durham, North Carolina [u.a.]: Duke Univ. Press. p. 132. ISBN 9780822331643.
5. Bhattacharya, Asim (2010). Portrait of a Vancouver Cabbie. USA: Xlibris Corporation. p. 141. ISBN 9781456836078.[self-published source]
6. Mandal, Sanjay (9 November 2005). "History that hangs fire – Nandakumar neglect". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Retrieved 10 June 2013.
7. The History of Court by Prof. Pithawala
8. "Affiliated Colleges". Vidyasagar University. Archived from the original on 25 February 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
9. Your local guide. "INDRANI DUTTA KALA NIKETAN IN MAHARAJA NANDAKUMAR ROAD". Bharat Desi. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
10. "Floods result in epidemic threat". The Statesman. 20 October 2013. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.

*********************************

Maharaja Nandakumar, also called Nuncomar (1705? - died 5 August 1775), was a collector of taxes, a dewan, for various areas in what is now West Bengal. Nanda Kumar was born at Bhadrapur, which is now in Birbhum. He was India's first victim of hanging under British rule. He was appointed by the East India Company to be the collector of taxes for Burdwan, Nadia and Hoogly in 1764, following the removal of Warren Hastings from the post.

In 1773, when Warren Hastings was re-instated as governor-general of Bengal, Nandakumar brought accusations of Warren Hastings accepting bribes
that were entertained by Sir Philip Francis and the other members of the Supreme Council of Bengal. However, Warren Hastings could overrule the Council's charges. Thereafter, in 1775 Warren Hastings brought charges of document forgery against the Maharaja. The Maharaja was tried under Elijah Impey, India's first Chief Justice, and friend of Warren Hastings, was found guilty, and hanged in Kolkata on 5 August 1775.

Later Hastings, along with Sir Elijah Impey, the chief justice, was impeached by the British Parliament. They were accused by Burke (and later by Macaulay) of committing judicial murder...


He held posts under Nawab of Murshidabad. After the Battle of Plassey, he was recommended to Robert Clive for appointment as their agent to collect revenues of Burdwan, Nadia and Hooghly. The title "Maharaja" was conferred on Nandakumar by Shah Alam II in 1764. He was appointed Collector of Burdwan, Nadia, and Hugli by the East India Company in 1764, in place of Warren Hastings. He learnt Vaishnavism from Radhamohana Thakura.

Maharaja Nandakumar accused Hastings of bribing him with more than one-third of a million rupees and claimed that he had proof against Hastings in the form of a letter...

Warren Hastings was then with the East India Company and happened to be a school friend of Sir Elijah Impey. Some historians are of the opinion that Maharaja Nandakumar was falsely charged with forgery and Sir Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of Supreme Court in Calcutta, gave judgement to hang Nandakumar. Nandakumar's hanging was called a judicial murder by certain historians. Macaulay also accused both men of conspiring to commit a judicial murder. Maharaja Nandakumar was hanged at Calcutta, near present-day Vidyasagar Setu, during Warren Hastings' rule on 5 August 1775. In those days the punishment for forgery was hanging by the Forgery Act, 1728 passed by the British Parliament in England (United Kingdom), but the law was construed for the people committing forgery in England due to the then prevailing conditions in England and there was no provision in the law that it is applicable in India too.

-- Maharaja Nandakumar, by Wikipedia, Accessed: 8/31/20
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:25 am

Tarachand Chukraburtree [Tarachand Chakravarti] [Tarachand Chakraborty] [Trachand Chakrabarti]
by Middlebury.edu

Tarachand Chukraburtree/Chakravarti (1806-1857) was born into a poor Brahmin family and educated at Hindu College. He was one of the leaders of Young Bengali, and a lieutenant of Rammohun (Ram Mohan Roy), of whose Brahma Samaj he became the first secretary. Chakravarti was proficient in English, Sanskrit, Persian, and Hindustani. He joined the Calcutta Journal as its English translator in 1822, and started working with HH [Horace Hayman] Wilson to translate the Puranas into English a year later. He founded the Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge in 1838 and became its first president. He was a founding member of the British Indian Society and a major contributor to the Bengal Spectator. He advocated for equal rights for all, and the abolition of polygamy and early marriage. He was the first Bengali to compile an English-Bangla dictionary in 1832.

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Tarachand Chakraborty
Translated from Bharat Kosh, by Bangiya Sahitya Parishad

Tarachand Chakraborty (c. 1806-57) was one of the leaders of ‘Young Bengal’. He was a brilliant student of the Hindu College and a scholar of English. In 1822 he was engaged to assist Raja Rammohun Ray for his work in the Calcutta Journal of translating from the Chandrika [Chandrika Bindu of Satyapriya Tirtha?] ...

Chandrika Bindu (Sanskrit:चन्द्रिका बिंदु), is a Sanskrit work on Dvaita philosophy written by Satyapriya Tirtha. It is a lucid adaptation of the well-known commentary on Vyasatirthas Tatparya Chandrika or Chandrika, which is a commentary on Tattva Prakasika by Jayatirtha, which in turn is a commentary on Madhva's Brahma Sutra Bhashya.

-- Chandrika Bindu, by Wikipedia


and the Koumudi [Samkhyatattva-Kaumudi of Vachaspati Misra?].

The lucid writing of Vachaspati Misra does not stand in need of much in the shape of an Introduction. But under the cover of this title, I propose to give a brief synopsis of the cardinal doctrines of the Sankhya Philosophy, in the hope that a reading of this resume would prepare the mind of the student for the reception of the abstruse truths, in which the ‘Tattvakaumudi abounds. Any corrections or suggestions for alteration &c., will be most gratefully received.

To begin with, the Sankhya lays down a fourfold division of categories based on their respective causal and productive efficiency. This division is into—(1) Productive—(2) Productive and—Produced—(3) Produced—(4) Neither Productive— nor—Produced. This classification includes all the twenty-five Principles—called Tattwas,—Prakriti or Nature being the productive, since the Sankhyas allow of no other purely productive agency. The Productive—and—Produced are the other Principles—Buddhi &c. These partake of the nature of both—thus Buddhi is productive in as much as out of it evolves Ahankdra and it is produced in as much as it itself evolves out of Prakriti. The purely non-productive Principles are the eleven sense-organs and the fivé elements. These are purely non-productive because none of these can give birth to a substance essentially different from them. The Purusha (Spirit) is neither productive nor produced. In fact it is without attributes. All accessories are the effects of the three Gunas, and the Spirit is by its very nature free from these and as such without any accessories.

Having thus classified the various principles, we now turn to the consideration of the various principles separately.

First of all then we must examine the nature of the all-powerful creative agent of the Sankhyas or, more properly, the creative force of the Universe. Then first of all—how is this force constituted? It is naturally made up of the three Gunas—Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas; and when the Pradhaua is in its natural state, lying dormant, these three attributes are in an equilibrium. When occasion presents itself ¢. e. when the Adrishta of the soul acts upon the Pradhana, the equilibrium. is disturbed, and it is this disturbance that gives rise to the various kinds of creations. The diversity of created objects is thus rendered quite explicable. As already mentioned, all accessories are due to the predominance of one or other of the three Gunas—the predominance of Sattwa giving rise to the kind of creation in. which that attribute predominates, and so forth. Without proceeding any farther, we must stop to consider the nature and properties and the Modus operandi of these Gunas.

The three attributes—Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas have respectively the character of Happiness, Unhappiness and Delusion; and have their operations characterised respectively by enlightenment, activity and restraint ; and are so constituted that the one always operates in suppression of the other, and at the same time depending upon this latter. To explain this contrariety of properties-—The universe would be in an unceasing round of activity, if the only operating force were the Rajas; in order to provide against this, Nature provides herself with a restraining agency in the shape of the Tamoguna which by its nature is dull and passive. The natures of the different objects of the universe are thus ascertained in accordance with the excess of one or the other of these attributes. Again, if there were no enlightening agency in the shape of Sattwa, Nature would be nothing better than a mass of blind force acting in a haphazard manner. Thus we have established the necessity of the three Attributes.

Here an objector comes forward and says—How can the attributes, endowed as they are with mutually counteracting properties, cooperate and bring about such a grand and stupendous stracture as our Universe? The reply is that it is a very common fact that. two or more substances though mutually contradictory, do cooperate towards a single end—e. g. the wick and the oil—both taken separately are as much against the action of one another as towards fire, but when they are together they help to brighten the fire. In the same manner, though the Gunas are mutually counteractive, yet when combined, they act towards a single end, supplying each other’s deficiencies.

The necessity of postulating three different forces is further supported by another reason. We see that in nature there are three distinct properties—of pleasure, pain and dulness. All other properties are reducible to these three heads. Again we find that these are properties so much opposed to one another that all could never be the effect of a single agency. Thus then we must postulate three different forces or constituent elements of Nature, to which severally we could trace the three distinct properties. To these three constituents of Nature we give the names—Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. We find in the universe the above three properties, and as all the properties of the effect must be a direct resultant of a like property in its cause, so we at once arrive at the conclusion that the cause of the Universe—the Pradhana—must be endowed with the three Attributes.

So much for the action of the Gunas. We must now turn our attention towards the all-important Prakriti—the Key- stone of the Sankhya Philosophy.

What, then, is this Prakriti? Does it stand for the Theistic God? Or for the Banddha "Sensations"? Or does it correspond to the Vedantic "Maya"? To all this we reply—It is all these, and It is neither of these. It resembles the Vedantic Maya in as much as it is the one root of the Universe, which is asserted of Maya also though, as of an illusory world. But the fact of its being the root of the Universe is akin to that of the Sankhya-Prakriti. It is not the God. Since it is said to be without intelligence, a mere dead Matter equipped with certain potentialities due to the Gunas. In short, Prakriti is the one rootless Root of the Universe (objective as well as subjective)—-endowed with the three Gunas and evolving through these, every kind of existence—save of course, the Purusha—Spirit.

-- Samkhyatattva-Kaumudi of Vachaspati Misra (Sanskrit Text with English Translation), by Mahamahopadhyaya and Dr. Ganganath Jha


Tarachand also actively helped [Horace Hayman] Wilson for the English translations of Sanskrit literary works. He was the Headmaster of David Hare’s Pataldanga School (Hare School) for some time. He compiled an English-Bengali dictionary for the Calcutta Book Society in 1827.

The Calcutta School-Book Society was an organisation based in Kolkata during the British Raj. It was established in 1817, with the aim of publishing text books and supplying them to schools and madrasas in India.

-- Calcutta School-Book Society, by Wikipedia


Tarachand published in several volumes an annotated English translation of Manu Samhita along with Biswanath Tarkabhusan, father of Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay. In 1828, Tarachand was appointed the first secretary of the Brahma Samaj.

Image
Tarachand Chakraborty

For some time Tarachand was a Munsef in Jahanabad (Hoogly district), but following a conspiracy, he had to resign. Around 1837 he started a business venture with Pyarichand Mitra. In 1838, Tarachand became the permanent president of Sadharan Jnanoparjika Sabha. Since he was a leader of the New Bengal, the English newspapers humorously referred to that outfit as ‘Chakraborty faction’. In April, 1842, Tarachand joined the Bengal Spectator as one of its main writers. Under his leadership, the new group established the British India Society with the patronage of George Thomson. When the Bengal Speactator wound up, he began editing the Quill. For some time, Tarachand also served as a minister under the Maharaja of Burdwan.

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Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge
from Young Bengal
by Wikipedia

The Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge was established on 20 February 1838. It had 200 members in 1843.[10] Trachand Chakrabarti was its president, Ramgopal Ghosh its vice president and Peary Chand Mitra its president. The society elected David Hare as honorary visitor. Some of the prominent papers it published were: Nature of Historical Studies and Civil and Social Reform by Krishna Mohan Banerjee, Interests of the Female Sex and the State of Hindustan by Peary Chand Mitra, Sketch of Bankuja by Hara Chandra Ghosh, Notice of Tipperah, A New Spelling Book, Notices of Chittagong by Gobinda Chandra Basak.[11]

These associations of the Young Bengal group were forerunners of later organisations such as the Landholders’ Society, British India Society, and British Indian Association with all of which the Young Bengal group had links.[12]
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Calcutta School-Book Society [Calcutta Book Society]
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Accessed: 3/25/21

The Calcutta School-Book Society was an organisation based in Kolkata during the British Raj. It was established in 1817, with the aim of publishing text books and supplying them to schools and madrasas in India.

Background

In 1814, four years before the establishment of the Calcutta School Society and three years before the formation of the Calcutta School-Book Society, the London Missionary Society, under the supervision of Robert May, set up 36 elementary schools in Chinsurah, West Bengal, India (now Chunchura).[1]

Fort William College was created in 1800 by Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General at the time. A growing eagerness and enthusiasm towards education led to the translation and printing of the Bible in Sanskrit, Bengali, Assamese and Oriya. Scholars like Mrityunjay Vidyalankar and Ramram Basu did the work with foreign language experts and alongside, the Ramayana, Mahabharata and other Indian epics were skilfully translated into different languages. The Calcutta School-Book Society followed a similar path and helped Bengali prose writers achieve national and international acclaim. As a result of rise of widespread higher education, journalism became a major component of British society, with magazines like the Magazine for Indian Youth and newspapers like the Samachar Darpan (The News Mirror) becoming a widespread phenomenon. Mass education, however, came much later in 1885 with the Hunter Education Commission, which ended James Long's and other missionary organisations' zealous ideas of dissipating education among the masses, in an expression of the continuing battle for superiority of the British over the natives.

To strengthen their political colonisation of India, the British strategised emotional and intellectual colonisation and, in the Charter of 1833, announced English as the official language of British India. This ideology had at its fulcrum, Thomas Babington Macaulay’s assertion of the British ideology that Western learning was superior to Oriental languages and indigenous Sanskrit and other vernacular knowledge. The setting up of several colleges in Calcutta, India, namely the Hindu College in 1816 and the Sanskrit College in 1824, portrays this shift of emphasis from the study of Oriental languages in Fort William College to the establishment of the English language, ensuring that all Indian students studying in these new colleges and schools, which were developed under the Calcutta School Society (1818), had to learn English whether they liked it or not.

In the shadow of this shift in cultural paradigm, the Calcutta School-Book Society also known as the Calcutta Book Society, was instituted on 4 July 1817, in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), the then capital of the British Empire. The society was set up under the patronage of Lord Marquess of Hastings who was Governor-General at that point of time. The School-Book Society was set up with the coming of Western methods in education to India and henceforth, the rising demand for textbooks and dictionaries. The society also encouraged the establishment of new elementary schools. The Calcutta School Society, an educational institution independent from the School-Book Society was set up on 1 September 1818. The government established it with a sole aim 'to endorse education beyond the curriculum' and to introduce similar teaching techniques at different schools and to develop, build or reconstruct old and new schools. The Calcutta School-Book Society on the other hand aimed at publishing textbooks for these new schools and other institutions of higher learning.

People

The Calcutta School-Book Society in the years after being set up in 1817, constituted of a managing committee of sixteen Europeans members and eight Indians. Some eminent people included amongst others were Mrityunjay Vidyalankar, Tarini Charan Mitra, Radhakanta Deb, Ram Comul Sen [Ramkamal Sen] and Moulvi Aminullah. Mrityunjay and Tarini Charan, who was also one of the secretaries along with Mr. F. Irving, were teachers at the Fort William College and Radhakanta Deb was a philanthropist from Calcutta. These few people shaped what would be the beginning of the "Bengal Renaissance".

Mrityunjay Vidyalankar (c. 1762 – 1819) was a pundit and scholar, born in Midnapore district and studied initially in Natore district,[2] now in Bangladesh and also in Calcutta. He was fluent in both Sanskrit and Bengali and after being recommended by Sir William Carey, one of the foremost Protestant missionaries to have come to India in the early 19th century, joined the Department of Bengali at Fort William College as the head pundit. He was appointed professor of Sanskrit in 1805, four years after he joined the college. In 1813 he resigned from his job and signed himself under Justice Sir Francis Mackonton as a judge pundit. He was a committee member that was constituted to formulate the rules for the Hindu College in 1816 before becoming the member of the governing body of the Calcutta School-Book Society in 1817.

Tarini Charan Mitra (c. 1772 – 1837) was a famous Bengali prose writer and the head munshi at the Department of Hindoostanee Language at Fort William College.


Munshi (Urdu: مُنشی‎; Hindi: मुंशी; Bengali: মুন্সী) is a Persian word, originally used for a contractor, writer, or secretary, and later used in the Mughal Empire and British India for native language teachers, teachers of various subjects, especially administrative principles, religious texts, science, and philosophy and were also secretaries and translators employed by Europeans.

Munshi (Persian: منشی‎) is a Persian word used as a respected title for persons who achieved mastery over languages, especially in British India. It became a surname to those people whose ancestors had received this title and some of whom also served as ministers and administrators in the kingdoms of various Royals and are regarded as nobility. In modern Persian, this word is also used to address administrators, head of departments.

Administrators, head of departments, accountants, and secretaries hired by the government in British India were known as Munshies. The family name Munshi was adopted by families whose ancestors were honoured with this title and were responsible for administering various offices etc. and these families (selective) were and are regarded as nobility. Abdul Karim, known as "The Munshi", was a valued and respected Indian attendant or aide-de-camp of Queen Victoria.

-- Munshi, by Wikipedia


Tarinicharan taught in Fort William College from 1801 to 1830. He was fluent in several languages like Persian, English, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic and Bengali. He was the secretary and a managing committee member of the Calcutta School Book Society. Tarinicharan Mitra worked against the anti-Sati movement for a conservative organisation called Dharma Sabha (1830). He wrote favourably about the Sati Pratha. Radhakanta Deb and Ram Comul Sen [Ramkamal Sen] collaborated with him to produce a translation of Aesop’s fables, titled Nitikatha, into Bengali.

Dharma Sabha was formed in 1829 in Calcutta by Radhakanta Deb. The organization was established mainly to counter the ongoing social reform movements led by protagonists such as Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Henry Derozio. More specifically, the impetus of forming the organization came from a new law enacted by the colonial British rule which banned the practice of sati in the country; the focus of the new association was to repel the law which was seen as an intrusion by the British into the religious affairs of the indigenous people by some sections of the Hindu community. Dharma Sabha filed an appeal in the Privy Council against the ban on Sati by Lord William Bentinck as it went against the assurance given by George III of non-interference in Hindu religious affairs; however, their appeal was rejected and the ban on Sati was upheld in 1832.

The Dharma Sabha campaigned against the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1856 and submitted a petition against the proposal with nearly four times more signatures than the one submitted for it by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. However Lord Dalhousie personally finalized the bill despite the opposition and it being considered a flagrant breach of Hindu customs as prevalent then, and it was passed by Lord Canning.

The organization soon morphed into a 'society in defense of Hindu way of life or culture' which then turns as a think tank for RSS. [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]

-- Dharma Sabha, by Wikipedia


Ram Comul Sen [Ramkamal Sen] (1783–1844) was born in Hooghly district and was the son of a Persian scholar. Famous as a scholar, writer and lexicographer, Ram Comul Sen [Ramkamal Sen] worked in Dr William Hunter’s Hindustanee Printing Press as a compositor in 1804 before becoming its manager in 1811. He was also an accountant at both the Asiatic Society and the Sanskrit College. Ram Comul [Ramkamal Sen] became the secretary of the Asiatic Society and also held the post of superintendent of the Sanskrit College in 1835. Amongst his other illustrious posts, he was the principal of the Hindu College in 1821 and a dewan at the Royal Calcutta Mint in 1828. He was one of the founders of the Calcutta Medical College, the only Bengali on the committee and he was the president and founding father of the Zamindar Sabha [Landholders' Association] in 1838. With the permission of Dr William Carey, Ram Comul set up the Agricultural and Horticultural Centre and was influential in setting up the Calcutta Museum with the help of Dr Wallich, a Danish botanist. Apart from these, Ram Comul Sen was instrumental in the systematic eradication of social traditions like drowning dying people in the Ganges and impaling others during Chadak. He made significant contributions to the Bengali language with his compilation of a dictionary from English to Bengali working for over one and a half decades on its two volumes. His grandson, Keshav Chandra Sen, was one of the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj.

Radhakanta Deb (1784–1867) was the grandson of Maharaja Nabakrishna Deb, who was a trusted munshi to the East India Company and had received the decoration of the Knight Commander of the Star of India and his title of 'Raj Bahadur', based on merit for his service under Sir Warren Hastings and Robert Clive. Radhakanta was an accomplished scholar, and like his father Gopimohan Deb, was one of the foremost leaders of the Calcutta Hindu society. Radhakanta was fluent in Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit and also developed a good knowledge of English. He published an eight-volume dictionary of the Sanskrit language called Shabdakalpadruma, between 1822 and 1856, which met the needs of educational institutions, the court of law and students learning Sanskrit. He was also the recipient of several international awards including honours from the Royal Asiatic Society, London. Radhakanta Deb also had a keen interest in promoting elementary education and was involved as director of the Calcutta Hindu College, 1817. He was involved in establishing the Calcutta School-Book Society in 1817 and Calcutta School Society in 1818. He worked towards improving and reforming primary schools. In 1851, he was appointed the President of the British Indian Association. Radhakanta Deb was also founded the Dharma Sabha (Association in Defence of Hindu Culture), a social conservatism body that opposed Lord Bentinck’s abolishing of Sati by a government law in 1829. Radhakanta’s attitudes toward culture and intellectual development are reflected best in his publications for the Calcutta School-Book Society.[3]

Moulvi Aminullah was a madrasa instructor at the Calcutta Madrasa which was renamed Aliyah Madrasa (or Aliah University), founded by Sir Warren Hastings in 1780.

Achievements

The Calcutta School-Book Society was open to all people and the payment of a minor subscription fee was all that was needed to be a member. It had around 225 subscribers, a majority being European and a minority of them being Hindu. This lack of enthusiasm in the subscribers to the Society meant the publishing and writing of textbooks for the growing college and school market was funded by the government. By 1821, the Calcutta School-Book Society had published as many as 1,26,464 books and pamphlets in several languages which included Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Sanskrit and English. In 1862, the society was merged with the Vernacular Literature Society where the Muslim members were assigned books and pamphlets to be written in Persian, Urdu or Arabic and Hindus were assigned Bengali and Sanskrit works. The boundaries of the Calcutta School-Book Society were however limited to the confines of the city itself.

See also

• Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg
• Early Phase of Printing in Calcutta
• List of Urdu language book publishing companies

References

1. Google Maps, Chinsurah, West Bengal, India.
2. Google Maps, Natore, Rajshahi Division, Bangladesh.
3. "Radhakant Deb: Biography from Answers.com". answers.com. Retrieved 5 February 2014.

External links

• Ahmed, Wakil (2012). "Calcutta School-Book Society". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
• The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register of British Books [1]
• Baptist Mission Press [2]
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