Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (Anglicizing also Chatterjee ; Bengali : বঙ্কিম চন্দ্র চট্টোপাধ্যায , Baṅkima Candra Caṭṭopādhyāẏa ; born June 26, 1838 in Kanthalpara , Naihati ; † April 8, 1894 in Kolkata ) was an Indian author from Bengal . The novelist, essayist and editor Chattopadhyay is considered to be the most popular writer of the Bengali Renaissance of the 19th century; His novels, which appear in magazines, were not only eagerly awaited and widely read in Kolkata in the 1870s, but are still considered milestones in Indian literary history because of their national tendencies and their linguistic form.

biography

Bankim Chandra was born in the village of Kanthalpara near the Naihati train station and attended the English school in Medinipur at the age of six , where his father, an Orthodox Kulin Brahmin, was the Deputy Collector (tax collector) of the English East India Company . Bankim Chandra was considered a brilliant student from an early age; he was particularly interested in Sanskrit . At the age of eleven, he was married to a five-year-old in 1849, who died early. Following school, Bankim Chandra attended Mohsin College in Hugli-Chunchura from 1849 , where seven of his teachers were European. In 1856 he moved to the Presidency College (formerly: Hindu College ) in Kolkata to study law. After graduating in 1858 - he was one of the first two to take their bachelor's degree at the newly founded university - he entered government service and was Deputy Collector (tax collector) a. a. active in Jessore , East Bengal . Bankim Chandra remarried after the death of his first wife; He had three daughters from his second wife, Rajlakshmi Devi Choudhuri, who came from a respected family from Halishahar , a district of Chittagong in what was then East Bengal, now Bangladesh , and who exerted a great influence on his work. His request to retire was rejected for a long time, but he was also not promoted to the higher service . In 1891 he retired with a pension of 400 rupees a month, but died in 1894 at the age of only 55.

Bankim's competence as an efficient administrator was undisputed; In 1892 he received the honorary title of Rai Bahadur , in the year of his death in 1894 he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE).

His demeanor was described as aristocratic, he himself as a strong personality, with a wealthy family background and a large group of Bengali friends, who u. a. Rabindranath Tagore belonged to.

The Rowlatt Report of 1918 considered the "well-known novel" to be one of the intellectual causes of the increasing political unrest in the country.

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In the course of his life, Bankim Chandra - unlike his contemporaries Dwarkanath Tagore , Rammohan Roy or Michael Madhusudan Dutt - never left Bengal. His knowledge of everyday life in the country, where he was in close contact with the population as a tax collector, especially the inaccessible marshes of the Sundarbans with their gangs of smugglers and robbers, and the urban life of Kolkata enabled him to overcome the social limits that he faced were set to exceed and a lively picture of everyday life in Bengal in the second half of the 19th century. to draw. His linguistic and content-wise approach to the present meant a break with the previously common fairy-tale-like narratives, which were also written in poetic and Sanskrit forms that were difficult to understand.

Bankim Chandra published after some poetic attempts and a first novel in English ( Rajmohan's Wife ) almost exclusively in his native Bengali; the mixture of classic Sanskrit and colloquial terms made it possible for the first time to depict everyday situations and worlds. The effect of the magazine Bangadarshan (“Bengalischer Spiegel”, since 1872) published by him and its literary impact on the following generations of writers can hardly be overestimated: “ Bangadarshan looked like the first rain at the end of the dry season” ( Rabindranath Tagore ). The first novel ( Durgeshnandini , 1865) caused a sensation immediately after its publication; he founded the literary genre of the modern Bengali novel. Bankim Chandra did not yet achieve the freedom in dealing with the Bengali like his student and successor Rabindranath Tagore, but his exciting, realistic depictions of everyday Indian life are unsurpassed to this day. Accordingly, Bankim Chandra's works are still widely read and reprinted in Bengal today; the names and characters of his heroes are common knowledge. His best-known work is the historical novel Kapalkundala , published in 1866 , which was translated into German 20 years later; he reveals influences from both Kalidasa's Sanskrit drama Sakuntala and Shakespeare's The Tempest .

The house at 218 Panchanantala Road in Haora , where Bankimchandra lived as Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector from 1881 to 1886.

As with Charles Dickens , the cause of Bankim Chandra's success (besides his stylistic skills) also lay in the fact that he took the attitude of his rather conservative audience into account; so he focused on change through understanding, education and rapprochement, not on uncompromising break, e.g. B. on the subject of widow burning , remarriage of widows or caste systems . Like Dickens, Bankim Chandra also focused on the effects of romanticism and sentimentality ; Victorian and Hindu morality went hand in hand, the renunciation of the individual took precedence over the fulfillment of individual desires and desires in cases of doubt, and in the conflict between passion and morality ( dharm ) he rated moral behavior as more important. Bankim Chandra's romantic streak soon earned him the reputation of a “Bengali Scott ” ( Ivanhoe ) , especially after Kapalkundala , and the influence of his novels on his mostly female readers raised eyebrows in conservative circles.

The experience as a customs and tax officer and his self-confident, colonial-critical attitude often brought Bankim Chandra into conflict with his British employers; However, he always had respect for the intellectual and scientific-organizational achievements of the Europeans. In order to keep his job and to pay off family debts, he was therefore forced to make many literary compromises. The hymn Bande Mataram ("I bow to you, mother [India]" ) listed in his political novel Anandamath (1882) quickly became the battle cry of the nationally minded Indians; Unlike later fanatics, Bankim Chandra always included Hindus and Muslims equally in his ideas of an Indian identity. However, he did not question the necessity of English rule.

Bankim Chandra's house in the northern district of Kolkata ( Sri Gopal Mullick Lane ), unlike the well-preserved Tagore family home, is still awaiting final renovation.

Works

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay published mainly novels, mostly in Bengali and English, as well as philosophical and religious treatises.

Novels

• Rajmohan's Wife (1864) - Original English
• Durgeshnandini (1865) - first novel in Bengali
• Kapalkundala (1866) - historical novel in the successor of Walter Scotts Ivanhoe , set at the time of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605); one of the very first Indian prose novels. The focus is on Kali worship and a Tantric form of Indian religiosity. German translation by Curt Klemm in 1886 under the title Kopal-Kundala.
• Mrinalini (1869)
• Bishabriksha (1873) - love, widow marriage, convention and tradition.
• Indira (1873, revised 1893)
• Jugalanguriya (1874)
• Radharani (1876, expanded 1893)
• Chandrasekhar (1877)
• Kamalakanter Daptar (1875) - Confessions and life views of a Bengali literary bohemian.
• Rajni (1877)
• Krishnakanter Uil (1878) - family novel that addresses the conflict between tradition and the individual using the example of widowed women.
• Rajsimha (1882)
• Anandamath (1882) - deals with the famine in Bengal in the years 1770–71 and the unrest that went with it.
• Devi Chaudhurani (1884)
• Kamalakanta (1885)
• Sitaram (1887)
• Muchiram Gurer Jivancharita

Religious writings

• Krishna Charitra (History of Krishna, 1886)
• Dharmatattva (Principles of Religion, 1888)
• Devatattva (Principles of Divinity) - published posthumously
• Srimadvagavat Gita (1902) - a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita , published posthumously

Poetry collection

• Lalita O Manas (1858)

Essays

• Lok Rahasya (Essays on Society, 1874, expanded 1888)
• Bijnan Rahasya (Essays on Science, 1875)
• Bichitra Prabandha (Collected Essays), Volume 1 (1876) and Volume 2 (1892)
• Samya (Equality, 1879)

Issues (in selection)

• Cattopadhyaya, Bankimacandra: The Bankimchandra omnibus / Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. Vol. 1. New Delhi: Penguin Books 2005. - 535 pp. ISBN 0-14-400055-5 . - Contains Kapalkundala, Bishabriksha, Indira, Krishnakanta's Will and Rajani in English.
• Chatterji, Bankim Candra: Anandamath. Transl. and adapted from Bengali by Basanta Koomar Roy. Delhi. Mumbai. Hyderabad: Oriental Paperbacks 2006. (Library of South Asian Literature). 168 pp. ISBN 978-81-222-0130-7 . - Extended and supplemented reprint of the edition published in 1941.

literature

• Walter Ruben : Indian novels. An ideological investigation. Volume 1: Some novels Bankim Chatterjees and Ranbindranath Tagores . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1964.
• Sisir Kumar Das: The artist in chains. The life of Bankimchandra Chatterji. New Statesman Publ., New Delhi 1984.
• Bhabatosh Chatterjee: Bankimchandra Chatterjee. Essays in perspective . Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi 1994, ISBN 81-7201-554-2 .
• Bhabatosh Dutta (with the assistance of Amalendu De): Chattopadhyaya, Bankimchandra . In Siba Pada Sen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography (DNB). 4 vols. Calcutta: Institute of Historical Studies 1972–74. Vol. 2, pp. 269-272
• Mohit K. Haldar: Foundations of nationalism in India. A study of Bankimchandra Chatterjee. Ajanta Publ., New Delhi 1989, ISBN 81-2020251-1 .
• Sudipta Kaviraj: The unhappy consciousness. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the formation of nationalist discourse in India . Oxford University Press, New Delhi et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-564585-5 , ( SOAS London studies on South Asia ), (first edition 1995).
• Rachel Rebecca van Meter: Bankimcandra Chatterji and the Bengali Renaissance. A dissertation in South Asia Regional Studies. UMI Dissertation Service, Ann Arbor MI 1997, (Also: Philadelphia, Univ. Of Pennsylvania, Diss., 1964).
• Ujjal Kumar Majumdar (Ed.): Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. His Contribution to Indian Life and Culture . Proceedings of a seminar. The Asiatic Society, Calcutta 2000, ISBN 81-7236-098-3 .
• Tapan Raychaudhuri: Europe reconsidered. Perceptions of the West in nineteenth century Bengal. 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, New Delhi et al. 2002, ISBN 0-19-566109-5 .

Web links

Commons : Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Literature by and about Bankimchandra Chatterji in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Poison Tree for download
• List of works with brief descriptions
• Biography at Banglapedia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to Dutta, DNB p. 269, the date of death was 1860, according to English Wikipedia 1859
2. ^ "His service book records his frequent transfers, mostly outside of Kolkata"; Dutta, DNB p. 270
3. ↑ According to Dutta, DNB p. 269, the wedding took place in 1860
4. ↑ Dutta, DNB p. 269
5. ^ Dutta in DNB, p. 269
6. ↑ "It is significant that at this stage there is no reference to violence or crime. The central idea as to a given religious order is taken from the well-known novel Ananda Math of Bankim Chandra. It is an historical novel having for its setting the sanyasi rebellion in 1774, when armed bands of sanyasis came into conflict with the East India Company and were suppressed after a temporary career of success. " Sedition Committee Report, 1918 , p. 147, quoted. after the output https://archive.org/details/seditionreport00indirich
7. ↑ The hymn seems to have been sung in Bankim Chandra's lifetime in 1886 in the second session of the Congress Party (according to Dutta in DNB, p. 270), although the invocation of a Hindu deity irritated the Muslims. Tagore's song Jana Gana Mana - the country's official national anthem since 1950 - is perceived as cross-denominational.
8. ↑ At the moment (spring 2017) the tenancy and ownership relationships are being clarified with the current "wild tenants" ( squatters ).