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Parīksāguru (1882): The First Hindi Novel and the Hindu Elite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

A. S. Kalsi
A. S. Kalsi
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Extract

This paper attempts to examine Śrīnivāsdās's Parīksāguru ‘Experience is the only teacher’ (1882) generally considered to be the first novel in Hindi,as a novel which draws its subject matter from the extravagant life-styles of the traditional Hindu elites, the rich Hindu bankers and traders, rather than from the peculiar traits of the middle class as is generally asscrted by Hindi scholars.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 763 - 790
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 The edition used in this paper: 2nd edn (Ganpat Press, Bombay, 1884).Google Scholar

2 See McGregor, R. S., Hindi Literature of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, ed. Gonda, J., VIII, 2 (Wiesbaden, 1974), 99.Google Scholar

3 In the year 1881, there were 3,200 English-educated Indians in the North Western Provinces and Oudh out of its total population of 44,107,869. See Bruce, Tiebout McCully, English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (New York, 1940), 178.Google Scholar

4 See the list in Gopālrāy, Hindī upanyās koś, pt I (Patna, 1968), 365 [pt II, Patna, 1969]. The first of the two English novels translated into Hindi prior to 1880, i.e. before the publication of Parīksāguru, was Daniel Defoe's ‘adventure novel’ Robinson Crusoe translated by Badrīlālguru, from a Bengali version as Rābinsan krūso kā itihās (Banaras, 1860; 2nd edn, Banaras, 1873); the second, Thomas Hardy's didactic work Saindford our martan (Banaras, 1877) translated by Śivprasādsinh from his earlier Urduversion.Google Scholar

5 See the list in Gopālrāy, , Hindī upanyās koś, I: 362ff, 369f.Google Scholar See also Gopālrāy, , ‘Bannkimcandra ke upanyāsō ke hindī anuvād aur unkī lokpriyatā’, Hindustānī 28, 1–4 (01.–12. 1967), 28–43. Translations before the publication of Parīksāguru included Gadādharsinnh's translation of Rameśdatt's historical novel Banngvijetā appeared partially in Sārsudhānidhsi in 1879 and book-form in 1886. The same translator also produced a translation of Bannkimcandra's historical novel Durgeśnandinī, I (1882); II (1884).Google Scholar

6 See the list in Gopālrāy, , Hindī upanyās koś, I; 367–8. Translations befores the publication of Parīkssāguru included ‘Alī Beg Sarūr's Fasāna-e-Ajā'ib, which was translated twice into Hindi:Google Scholar the first version was prepared by Prānnkrsn, titled Mohinīcaritra (Kanpur, 1873),Google Scholar the second by Vājpeyītitled, RāmratnaApūrvakathā (Lucknow, 1875).Google Scholar

7 See the list in Gopālrāy, , Hindī upanyās koś, I: 368–9.Google ScholarGadādharshinh's, translation of Kādambarī (Allahabad, 1879) from a Bengali version of the original Sanskrit carried the sub-heading: ‘An old Sanskrit novel’, which gave an early indication of the conservative reaction to the Western origin of the novel.Google Scholar This view was to be reiterated in many more works by some later Hindi novelists (see Gosvāmī, Kiśorīlāl (1865–1932), preface to Pranayanī parinay (Banaras, 1890);Google ScholarGahmarī, Gopālrām (1866–1946), ‘Nāttak aur upanyās’, in Pratham hindī sammelan kārya vivarn, II: 88Google Scholar cited in Badrīdās, , Hindī upanyās: prrststhūmi aur paramparā (Kanpur, 1966), 173.Google Scholar

8 For full text of the Notification, see North Western Provinces General Proceedings, Dec. 1868, Index no. 25. For details of the Notification and of the award-winning Urdu texts, see also Naim, C. M., ‘Prize-winning adab: a study of five Urdu books written in response to the Allahabad Government Gazette Notification’, in Metcalf, Barbara (ed.), in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley, 1984).Google Scholar

9 The Notification was received with great interest by Urdu literary figures. Altāf Husian Hālī, himself a poet of distinction and a biographer of Sir Sayyid Ahmad, described the Notification as one ‘for which Hindustan will always be grateful’. He adds: ‘Though the award stopped after a few years, the effect of the announcement itself was like a current of electricity. It galvanized all the people who possessed, to whatever degree, the talent to compose and compile in the vernacular, but did not know how to put it to good use.’ Hālī, Altāf Husian, Hayāt i jāved (Lahore, 1965), 323,Google Scholar cited in ibid., 293. Hālī further suggests that the inspiration for such awards may have come from Sir Sayyid Ahmad himself, who had referred to the subject in an address to Sir William Muir on behalf of the Scientific Society at Aligarh, on 9 May 1868, ibid.

10 Gaurīdatt's, Devrānī kī kahānī won an award of 100 rupees; Śraddhārām Phillaurī's Bhāgyavatī, though it won no award, was patronized by the Education Departments of Punjab and Central Provinces.Google Scholar

11 In fact, much of the fiction writing on female education in Hindi and Urdu and also in other languages of the subcontinent following Mir'āt al-'arūs was inspired by Mir'āt al-'arūs. See Schimmel, Annemarie, Classical Urdu Literature from the Beginning to Iqbāl, ed. Gonda, Jan, VIII: 3 (Wiesbaden, 1975), 232–3. In 1874, M. Kempson, Director of Public Instruction, Government of Mir'āt al-'arūs in the following words: ‘Maulvī Nazīr Ahmad' … Mir'āt al-'arūs, or Bride' Mirror, created a sensation, and has reached a third large edition. Many imitations were attempted, and it has become fashionable commencement of an Urdu tale to say in as many words that a certian man had two daughters, one wise and the other foolish. The Hindi versions I have seen are failures… North Western Provinces Educational Proceedings, October. 1874, Index no. 21.Google Scholar

12 Gopālrāy has argued Devrānī jethānī kī kahānī to be the first Hindi novel. He first put forward the idea in his work. Hindī kathā sāhitya aur uske vikās par pāţhakō kī ruci kā prabhāv (Patna, 1965), 212–16.Google Scholar A year later, he printed the story with his preface under the title Hindī kā pahlā upanyās: Devrānī jethānā (Patna, 1966).Google Scholar Vijay śannkar Mall, on the other hand, in his preface to the paperback edition of Bhāgyvatī (Banaras, 1960), introduced it as the first Hindi novel.Google Scholar His view is shared by Viśvambhar, ‘Mānav’, Unnīsvī śstābdī ke upanyāskār (Allahabad, 1970), 33–9;Google ScholarTribhuvansinnh, , Hindī upanyās aur yathārthvād, 4th edn (Banaras, 1965), 174, fn. 1;Google ScholarMandhāne, Dhanrāj, Hindī ke manovaijinānik upanyā (Kanpur, 1971), 107–8; et al.Google Scholar

13 On Devkīnandan Khatrī's life and works, see Kāśikey, Rudra, Devkinandan Khatrī: vyaktitva aur krttitva (Banaras, 1961);Google ScholarTripāthī, Girīś (ed.), Devkīnandan smrtigranth (Banars, 1963).Google Scholar

14 For a study of the relationship between the Hindi reading public and the development of the Hindi novel, see Gopālrāy, Hindī kathā aur uske vikās par pāthakō kī ruci kā prabhāv, 187ff.

15 This theme is pursued by Bayly, C. A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (Cambridge, paperback edn, 1988).Google Scholar See also Seal, Anil, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism (Cambridge, paperback edn, 1971), 32–4;Google ScholarStokes, Eric, review of The Indian Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times (London, 1961),Google Scholar by Misra, B. B., in The Historical Journal 5, 1 (1962), 100–2;Google Scholar implied also in Bayly, C. A., ‘The Development of Political Organisation in Allahabad Locality, 1880–1925’, D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1970;Google ScholarRobinson, Francis, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces’ Muslims (Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar For a similar view of the bhadralok in Bengal, see Broomfield, J. H., Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal (Berkeley, 1968).Google Scholar The Marxist view of the bhadralok and of the middle classes in India in general is expressed respectively in Mukherjee, S.N., ‘Class, Caste and Politics in Calcutta, 1815–38ā ā Mukherjee (Cambridge, 1970) and in Misra, The Indian Middle Classes. The former work also contains contributions on the development of elites, defined variously, in different Indian localities at different historical periods.Google Scholar

16 Sadādarś Press, Delhi. This edition is not generally available in libraries. But see the transcript of the title-page of this edition in Gopālrāy, , Hindī upanyās koś, I:37.Google Scholar

17 Brajratnadās, , Bhārtendu mandal(Banaras, 1947), 47;Google Scholar review of the novel in Hindīpradīp, Dec. 1882, partially quoted in Gopālrāy, , Hindīupanyās koś, I:37–8.Google Scholar

18 2nd edn, Ganpat Krsnājī Press, Bombay, 1884; 3rd end (Marwari Traders Association, Calcutta, 1918 [this edition is wrongly listed as 2nd])Google Scholar

19 Śrinivāsdās granthāvālŚrikrsnlāl (Banaras, 1953).Google Scholar

20 Rssabhcarann Jain evam Santiti (Delhi, 1974).Google Scholar

21 The author in his dedication in English dated 25 November 1884 [the 1st edn carried the dedication with the year 1882, see Gopālrāy, , Hindīupanyās koś I:37. In the second edn, 1884, ‘someone’ wrongly updated the dedication] to his friend Lala Sri Ram, M.A. Ulwar, describes his work as a ‘humble attempt at novel writing’. The dedication in full reads thus: ‘My dear Friend, I dedicate this book, my humble attempt at Novel writing, to you as a token of my genuine and sincere friendship which has existed between us for many years and as a tribute of the esteem I have always felt for you, for the deep interest you take in every thing connected with the weal of the people of India by showing them by your own example the best means of civilizing the country. yours sincerely, Sri Newas Dass. Delhi, The 25 November 1884.’Google Scholar

22 Māltī upanyās (anonymous author) published in the two issues of Hariścandra candrikā, Feb., March 1875 (probably the first piece of Hindi fiction to carry the appellation of upanyās); Bhārtendu Hariścandra, Kuch āpbītī a fragment of 646 words of prose, first appeared in Kavivacansudhā 8, 22 (1876), later reprinted in Bhārtendu granthāvalī, ed. Brajratnadās, (Banaras, 1950); Bālkrsn Bhatt, Rahasyakathāupanyās, published intermittently in Hindī pradīp, from Nov. 1879 to May 1882.Google Scholar

23 For example, Kailāśprakāśprakāś advances Kuch jagbītī (1876) as the first Hindi novel. Premcand pūrva hindī upanyās (Delhi, 1962), 66–7. Rājendra śarmā contends Rahasyakathā upanyās (1879–1882) to be the first Hindi novel.Google ScholarHindī gadya ke nirmātā Bālkrsn Bhatt (Agra, 1958), 44–5, 397.Google Scholar The exaggerated pronouncements made on these pre-Parīksāguru disjecta membra of fiction are based on conjectures as to what they would have been if they had been completed rather than what they are. Their underlying motive is clearly to lengthen the history of novel-writing tradition in Hindi.

24 Bhatt, Bālkrsn, Sau ajān ek sujān (Allahabad, 1906; first published in Hindī pradīp serially from 1890 to 1895);Google ScholarVaiśya, Rāmjīdās, Phūl mē kātā (Gwalior, 1906).Google Scholar

25 The report of the community and commented by way of explanation: ‘Muslims as a rule do not trade’. Report on the Administration of Income Tax under Act II of 1886 in the North Western Provinces and Oudh for the financial year ending 31st March 1889 (Allahabad, 1889), 10.Google Scholar

26 The religious edict against receiving usury forbade Muslims to enter into moneylending business. Only roving Pathān tribesmen lent money among menial workers. Jain, L. C., Indigenous Banking in India (London, 1929), 33–4.Google Scholar

27 ibid., 28–33.

28 See vol. 1, 6th edn (Lucknow, 1907). Fasāna-e-Āzād was first published serially in Avadh Akhbār, from Dec. 1878 to Dec. 1879.Google Scholar

29 Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars (see in particular, chs 10 and 11). See also the introductory remarks on the commercial raīs; in Bayly, ‘The Development of Political Organisation in Allahabad Locality’, 1ff. The literary evidence for the prominence of these people was furnished in Devrānī jethānī kī kahānī (1870) which in copying the plot of Nazir Ahmad's Mir'āt al-'arūs (1869) replaced the Muslim service community milieu of the original with that of the vaiśya trading communityGoogle Scholar

30 But it was to become a major issue later. A number of Hindi novelists took up a total defence of sanātan dharma and rejected all Western influences. In their works, they glorified the Hindu way of life in contrast to the Western way of life, which occasionally they depicted not only as inferior but also lacking in merit or value of its own. Comparatively, a large number of novels were written with this attitude, which attests to the essential conservatism of the Hindi region. Līlāvatī (1901) by Kiśorīlāl Gosvāmī and Hindū grhasth (1915) by Lajjārām Śarmā are representative of this trend. Other novelists, while accepting the premise of the general excellence of the sanātandharma, they were influenced by the Arya Samaj movement. Intellectually, they were the true precursors of Premcand. Debālā yā theth hindī kā thāth (1899) and Adhkhilā phūl (1906) by Ayodhyāsinh Upādhyāy are representative of this trend.Google Scholar

31 See below.

32 Rājā Śivprasād (1823–1895), Bālkrsn Bhatt (1844–1914), Bhārtendu Hariścandra (1850–1885), Rādhākrsndās (1865–1907), Bālmukund Gupta (1865–1907), Jagannāthdās ‘Ratn¯kar’ (1866–1932), āmsundardās (1875–1945) and others originated from banking and trading families. For the family lineage of these authors, see Bhandārī, Candrarāj, Agravāl jāti kā itihās, 2 pts (Bhanpura (Indore), 1937, 1938).Google Scholar See also Hindī sāhitya koīrendra Vermā, pt 2 (Banaras, 1963);Google ScholarPāndey, Rāmnāth, Bābū Śyāmsundardās vyaktitva aur krtitva (Banaras, 1961);Google ScholarBrajratnadās, Bhārtendu Hariścandra (Allahabad, 1962);Google ScholarGopal, Madan, The Bhārtedu:His Life and Times (New Delhi, 1972). The other castes which contributed greatly to the late nineteenth-century intelligentsia were, of course, the Brahmins and the Kaysaths.Google Scholar

33 See Gopal, Madan, ch. 15, ‘Extravagance-unlimited’, The Bhārtendu: His life and Times, 108ff.Google Scholar

34 Cf. The themes of his plays which dwell on mythological stories and historical romances. For the list of these plays, see below fn. 36; for their plots, see Brajratnadās, Bhārtendu mandal, 51–7.

35 A brief biography of Śrīnivāsdās in ibid., 45–8.

36 He wrote four plays: Prahlād caritra (his first play published posthumously in 1895); Taptasamvaran (first published in Hariścandra maigzīn, 14 Feb. 1874 to 15 March 1874; first in book form 1883); Randhār and premmohinī (1877) and Sāyogitā svayamvar (1885).Google Scholar

37 Parīksāguru is known to be his only work of fiction. To this may now be added a hitherto unknown Hindi translation by Śrīvāsdās of an original Urdu romance, Qiussā dallā kā or The story of dallā the crafty thief, by Mahārājlāl, Munśī Ambeprasād (Banaras, 1882), 40, lith. (B.M. Catalogue no. 14112.C.37).Google Scholar

38 He published an Anglo-Hindi weekly magazine, Sadādarś, Delhi, 4 Jan. 1875 to 28 Feb. 1876. These dates list the first and the last issue of Sadādarś as entered in the Selection from the Vernacular Newspapers published in the Punjab, North Western Provinces, Oudh and the Central Provinces (Allahabad, 1875, 1876), 11, 98. Brajratnadās gives the life-span of the magazine as from 1874 to 1876. Bhārtendu mandal, 48. In 1876, Sadādarś merged with Bhārtendu Harićandra's Kavivacansudhā.Google ScholarIbid.

39 Growse, F. S., Mathura: A District Memoir, 2nd edn (Allahabad, 1880), 24.Google Scholar

40 Drake-Drockman, D. L., District Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, vol. VII (Muttra, Allahabad, 1911), 220.Google Scholar

41 Growse, , Mathura: A District Memoir, 15, 241.Google Scholar

42 For a detailed discussion on the merchant ethic, see Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, 383ff.Google Scholar

43 Some sample works are cited: Manjulatāsinh, , Hindī upanyāsō mē madhyavarg (New Delhi, 1971), 62–6;Google Scholar Tribhuvansinh , Hindī upanyās aur yathārthvād, 162; Badaridās, Hindī upanyās: prsthbhūmi aur paramprā, 183; Baccansinh, ‘Madhyavargīy vastu-tatva kā vikās’, Ālocanā: upanyās viśesānk 4, 1 (Oct. 1954), 126; Vijayśankar Mall, ‘Udaykāl: Premcand ke āgman tak’, ibid., 66–7.

44 Some Hindi scholars see in the ostentatious extravagance of Madanmohan the essential theme of Goban (1931) by Premcand (see Badarīdās, Hindī upanyās: prsthbūmi aur paramprā, 171), which dwells on the life of a petty clerk, Ramānāth, who lives beyond his means to keep up with the Joneses. The crucial difference between the two is that whereas Madanmohan flaunts his real wealth, Ramānāth flaunts an image of his being a wealthy man; one is a projection of reality, the other of wishful thinking.Google Scholar

45 L. C. Jain maintains a distinction between the two. Whereas both made loans the former also received deposits or dealt in bills of exchange, the latter usually did not. Indigenous Banking in India, 1–3.

46 Moneylending business had no caste basis, ibid., 28ff

47 ibid., 3–15.

48 ibid., 18–19; Panandikar, S. G., Banking in India (London, 1934), 3.Google Scholar

49 See below.

50 Bayly, C. A. describes four stages of the economic evolution of indigenous bankers. The first stage, which began before 1800, showed them engaged in banking, riverine trade and boat insurance. They set up their kothīs (mercantile or banking house) at entrepôts on the Ganges and Jamuna. In the second stage, from such business some kothīs moved away to manage Government treasuries, currency offices or contract for Government arsenals. The third stage, which began after 1857 in the wake of declining banking business, showed them taking an interest in the acquisition of land, whose value had gone up with the advent of railways. In the fourth stage, by the 1930s, most of the late nineteen-century indigenous bankers with their unremitting interest in land ownership had turned into zamindars. ‘Local Control in Indian Towns: The Case of Allahabad 1800-1920’, Modern Asian Studies 5, 4 (Oct. 1971), 296.Google Scholar

51 Jain, , Indigenous Banking in India, 42ff.Google Scholar

52 Parīksāguru, 7.

53 ibid., 56–7.

54 ibid., 8.

55 ibid., 9.

56 See Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, 388–9.Google Scholar

57 ibid., 211–18, 231–4, 239–42.

58 For example, see the account of the lavish entertainment laid on for Jagat Seth (Fatehcand) by Mr Clive in 1759, in Rev. Long, J., Selections from the Unpublished Records of Government, 1748–1767 (Calcutta, 1869), i:xli, quoted in Jain, Indigenous Banking in India, 18.Google Scholar

59 Sleeman, W. H. writes: ‘There is no class of men more intersted in the stability of our rule than this of the respectable merchants; nor is there any upon whom the welfare of our Government and that of the people more depend. Frugal, first upon principle, that they may not in their expenditure encroach on their capitals, they become so by habit; and when they advance in life they lay out their accumulated wealth in the formation of those works which shall secure for them, from generation to generation, the blessings of the people of the towns in which they have resided, and those of the country around’. Rambles and Recollections (London 1844 [reprinted Karachi, 1973]), 409–10, cited in Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, 218.Google Scholar

60 Several references to the indigenous bankers' support for the British in the 1857 Rebellion can be found in Candrarāj Bhandārī, Agravāl jāti kā itihās. For the support of the Mathura Seths for the British, see below.Google Scholar

61 ibid., passim.

62 Jain, , Indigenous Banking in India, 29.Google Scholar

63 For a regional study of the activities of indigenous bankers in the field of politics, see Bayly, , ‘The Development of Political Organisation in the Allahabad Locality’.Google Scholar

64 ibid., 14.

65 Jain, , Indigenous Banking in India, 19–26, 140–1;Google ScholarPanandikar, , Banking in India, 3–4, 47–8.Google Scholar

66 See the news item in the Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers published in North Western Provinces, Oudh and Central Provinces (1873), 602.Google Scholar

67 See the case of Nihālcand, banker, who went bankrupt because of a false rumour of his death spread about. The Tribune III, 5 (3 Feb. 1883).Google Scholar

68 The material on the Mathura Seths presented below has been condensed. For full details, see the relevant sources cited in this section and elsewhere.

69 Bhandārī, Candrarāj, Agravāl jāti kā itih¯s, II: 172–3.Google Scholar

70 For the family-tree of the Mathura Seths, see Growse, , Mathura: A District Memoir, 14–15;Google ScholarDrake-Drockman, , Muttra District Gazetteer, 121–2.Google Scholar

71 Growse, , Mathura: A District Memoir, 15.Google Scholar

72 Parīksāguru, 12.Google Scholar

73 Growse, , Mathura: District Memoir, 15, 408.Google Scholar

74 ibid., 146, 166.

75 Drake-Drockman, , Muttra District Gazetteer, 247.Google Scholar

76 Growse, , Mathura: District Memoir, 41.Google Scholar

77 Drake-Drockman, , Muttra District Gazetteer, 248.Google Scholar

78 Ibid.

79 Growse, , Mathura: District Memoir, 16.Google Scholar

80 ibid., 15–16.

81 ibid., 16.

82 Ibid.

83 Jain Gazette, 1 Jan. 1899, in Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers published in North Western Provinces and Oudh, II (1899), 14–15.Google Scholar

84 Parīksāguru, 101.Google Scholar

85 ibid., 2.

86 ibid., 1–3.

87 ibid., 16.

88 ibid., 101.

89 ibid., 15–16.

90 ibid., 15, 101.

91 ibid., 15.

92 E.g. Lajjārām Śarmmā's Hindū grhasth (1903).Google Scholar

93 Parīksāguru, 1ff., 15, 16, 101.Google Scholar

94 ibid., 115.

95 ibid., 55.

96 ibid., 11.

97 ibid., 14, 89.

98 ibid., 10–13.

99 ibid., 55.

100 ibid., 56–7.

101 ibid., 4, 52–4, 56, 104–5.

102 ibid., 83.

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid.

105 ibid., 78ff.

106 Incidentally, these were precisely some of the reasons owing to which these indigenous bankers had failed to transform themselves into a modern entrepreneurial business class. See Stokes, review of The Indian Middle Class, by Misra, , in the Historical Journal, 5, 1 (1962),101.Google Scholar

107 Parīkāguru, 169.Google Scholar

108 ibid., 99.

109 ibid., 29–31, 115.

110 ibid., 9, 39, 60–2, 65–6.

111 ibid., 29.

112 See Seal, , The Emergence of Indian Nationalism, 129–30.Google Scholar

113 Bayly, , ‘Local Control in Indian Towns’ Modern Asian Studies, 5, 4 (10. 1971), 298–9.Google Scholar

114 See Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, 385.Google Scholar

115 Parīksāguru, 154.Google Scholar