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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2013
This paper charts the linguistic shifts in a popular iteration of the story of Lord Ram, commonly known as the ‘Radheshyam Ramayan’ (composed in the first quarter of the twentieth century), across four versions of the text published in the devanāgarī script, between 1939 and 1969. It argues that the author, Radheshyam Kathavachak, likely revised his text over the course of many years, in large part to bring its language closer to śuddh (pure) Hindi on the Hindi-Urdu spectrum—a labour that was in the service of the Hindi language movement, if not also Hindu nationalism. Whilst the language in the 1939 printing is a mixed register of Hindi-Urdu, by 1959, the language has undergone a process of ‘Sanskritization’. That is, much of the vocabulary of Persian and Arabic origin, and also much vocabulary associated with the Braj tradition, have been replaced with words from Sanskrit. The progressive editing of text also shows a deep concern for the standardization and occasionally, elevation of literary Hindi, and simultaneously, the correction of defects in meter and style. The example of Kathavachak's ‘many Radheshyam Ramayans’ offers insight into the timing and pace of the Sanskritization of Hindi letters, suggesting that for some, the process may have been more protracted and anguished than is often thought.
1 Nagendra says of Mahavirprasad Dwivedi: ‘
’ (He is foremost among those who purified and stabilized Khari Boli [Nagendra, ed., Hindī sāhitya kā itihās (Delhi: National Publishing House, 2001), p. 497.] Francesca Orsini sums up Dwivedi's influence when she suggests that he formalized ‘the redefinition of Hindi’ and ‘“standardized” Hindi into a sober written language’ in the early twentieth century. Under his editorship of Sarasvatī (1903–1920), ‘it was central to Dwivedi's agenda that a grammatically fixed, standard print language should be unequivocally established’, Orsini, Francesca, The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 5–6, 53–54Google Scholar. Sujata Mody similarly writes that ‘Dwivedi oversaw the standardization of Khari Boli Hindi and established it as the singular medium for both poetry and prose. . .’, Sujata Mody, ‘Literature, Language, and Nation Formation: The Story of a Modern Hindi Journal 1900–1920’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2008, p. 75.
2 The process whereby writers self-consciously infused their language with purely Sanskrit vocabulary, at the expense of the Persian and Arabic vocabulary (perceived as alien), as well as the lexicon of deśī bhāṣā (indigenous language) of unknown pedigree, I here refer to as ‘Sanskritization’ of Hindi-Urdu, though not in the sense of M. N. Srinivas’ sociological usage. Whilst a move towards Sanskritization may be observed even earlier, the process intensified in the late nineteenth century with the rise of the Hindi language movement.
3 Dwivedi himself was not entirely opposed to Persian and Arabic vocabulary, but tended to be more forgiving of it in ‘practical’ prose discourse, such as that found in journal articles and informative essays.
4 King, Christopher, One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India (Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), p. 182Google Scholar.
5 Wakankar, Milind, ‘The Moment of Criticism in Indian Nationalist Thought: Ramchandra Shukla and the Poetics of a Hindi Responsibility’, The South Atlantic Quarterly 101.4 (2002): 987CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Rai, Alok, Hindi Nationalism, Tracts for the Times Ser. 13 (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), p. 109Google Scholar.
7 Rai, Hindi Nationalism, p. 88. Formal debate on Braj versus Khari Boli poetry was initiated in 1887–1888, in a series of articles in Hindustān, then under the editorship of Madanmohan Malviya. Here eminent writers Shridhar Pathak and Radhacharan Goswami, squared off, the former defending Khari Boli verse, and the latter, Braj verse in Hindi letters. But debate about the merits of Khari Boli poetry continued for decades, so much so that Braj verse was not really extinguished until the 1920s.
8 Siṃh, Nāmvar, ‘Maithilīśaraṇ Gupt aur ādhunik Hindī kāvya bhāṣā kā vikās’ (Maithilisharan Gupt and the development of modern Hindi poetic language) Ālocanā 35, no. 79 (1986): 138Google Scholar.
9 Ritter, Valerie, ‘The Language of Hariaudh's Priyapravās: Notes toward an Archaeology of Modern Standard Hindi’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 124, no. 3 (2004): 417–438CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Ritter, ‘The Language of Hariaudh's Priyapravās’, p. 418.
11 I have avoided the terms ‘edition/publication’ and instead opted for ‘printing’ given the complicated serial publication of the text, explained below. Also, the imprint of books published at the author's press, Rādheśyām Pustakālay, do not use the designation ‘saṃskaraṇ’ (edition), but rather, ‘bār’ (time),’ for example, āthvīṃ bār (eighth time).
12 Ritter, ‘The Language of Hariaudh's Priyapravās’, p. 423. Ritter implies that this list may not be exhaustive.
13 Besides his Ramayan, Kathavachak also wrote two other long epic poems, Kṛṣṇāyaṇ and Mahābhārat, as well as many shorter poems and songs, many of which are in the form of bhajans (devotional songs).
14 Parsi Theatre is so named due to the fact that Parsi businessmen in colonial Bombay were responsible for initiating the theatrical tradition, which blends elements of English and Indian folk theatre. The designation persisted even as non-Parsis took on managing roles in companies based in various North Indian cities, particularly Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. Faramji Gustadji Dalaji is conventionally attributed with starting the first such theatrical company in Bombay in 1853, Hansen, Kathryn, ‘Parsi Theatre and the City: Locations, Patrons, Audiences’, in The Cities of Everyday Life, Sarai Reader Ser. 2 (Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 2002), p. 44Google Scholar.
15 Jaykrishna Sharma, personal interview, Bareilly, December 2012. Sharma is a great-grandson of Kathavachak.
16 Ritter, ‘The Language of Hariaudh's Priyapravās’, p. 436.
17 Titles of the first seven kāṇḍs are identical, and in keeping with those of Valmiki's Ramayan. An eighth kāṇḍ is called Uttar Rām-carit in the original Radheshyam Ramayan, and Lav-Kuś in the Rāmcaritmānas, though the title of the former was subsequently changed and the latter is considered an interpolation.
18 These two metrical patterns are common in middle and modern Indo-Aryan languages. The caupāī is a quatrain determined by 16 mātrās or rather, a combination of weighted syllables equalling 16 per line (‘light’ syllables counting as ‘one’ and ‘heavy’ syllables counting as ‘two’). The dohā is a couplet determined by 24 mātrās (13/11) per line. Both utilize end rhyme: AABBCC, etc.
19 Atul Sharma, personal interview, Bareilly, July 2009.
20 Ramgopal Sharma, personal interview, Bareilly, July 2009.
21 Atul Sharma and Ramgopal Sharma, personal interviews, Bareilly, July 2009.
22 I would like to thank Anil Mishra, a Ramlila actor and historian, for first mentioning to me that there were, as he said, ‘two Radheshyam Ramayanas—a Hindi one and an Urdu one’ [personal interview, Bareilly, September 2006]. Mishra has assisted me immensely in conducting research, both archival and ethnographic in Bareilly and beyond. I am deeply indebted to him.
23 Anil Mishra, personal interview, Bareilly, July 2009.
24 In Bareilly, these included Ramlilas held at Chaudhuri Talab near Hartmann College, Vankhandinath Mandir in Jogi Nawada, B. A. Bazaar in Cantt, and the Ramlila grounds in the neighbourhoods of Subhashnagar and Madhinath. Outside Bareilly, these included Ramlilas held at Linepar near Company Bag (Gandhi Park) in Moradabad, Lavela Chauk in Badaun, the Ordinance Factory in Shahjahanpur, Khirni Bagh in Shahjahanpur, the Ramlila grounds in Nawab Ganj, and the Parmath Temple/Ramlila grounds in Pilibhit.
25 Kathavachak, Merā nāṭak-kāl, p. 68.
26 Vijaysundar Pathak, personal interview, Agra, December 2012.
27 It is likely that the renaming of this book happened after Kathavachak's death in 1963. The intent was probably to make its title consistent with that in the corresponding, though interpolated, book of Rāmcaritmānas.
28 Kathavachak, Merā nāṭak-kāl, p. 41.
29 I was able to confirm the existence of this rare book on a visit to Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library in Patna in May 2011. (It lacks 13 of the 25 bhāgs, including those of the last three books, which at the time of publication, may not have yet been written.) This text is also cited in Mālvīya, Ajay, Urdū meṃ Hindū dharm (Lucknow: Nusrat Publishers, 2000), pp. 116–129Google Scholar. I would like to thank Robert Phillips for bringing Malviya's bibliography and this Urdu printing to my attention, as well as Anil Mishra and a kind anonymous patron for perusing the Urdu printing over two days at the library. For hours, the anonymous patron read aloud verses in nastalīq, whilst Mishra mentally checked them against the same verses in devanāgarī. Thanks to his immediate recall of many verses from the text (both early and late printings), Mishra discovered that the language of this text in nastalīq was even more inflected towards Urdu and also that its narration was more compressed than in the earliest known printings in devanāgarī (1939–1942, 1962).
It is interesting to note that Kathavachak's own press also used to publish the Radheshyam Ramayan in the Urdu script [Kashinath Sharma, personal interview, Bareilly, September 2006, and Vijaysundar Pathak, Agra, December 2012].
30 These statistics are based on the 1959–1960 printings. Two more chapters, the first two in Uttar Rām-carit Kāṇḍ are 31 and 30 pages respectively. It should be noted that all the chapters in this atypical book are rather long, the last two each comprising 32 pages, and this may be due to the fact that they were written by Kathavachak's brother, Madanmohanlal Sharmma. The four 32-page chapters composed by Kathavachak himself feature emotionally-charged scenes like the breaking of the bow (Chapter 3), the slaying of Vali (Chapter 12), the slaying of Meghanad (Chapter 17), and the slaying of Ravan (Chapter 20).
31 Jaykrishna Sharma, personal interview, Bareilly, December 2012.
32 Ibid.
33 Only the first bhāg of this edition is dated 1962. It was very likely inserted after the original from 1939 or 1940 had become damaged or lost. Also, this volume lacks the first seven pages of Rām-Sugrīv kī mitratā. (I would like to thank the Subhashnagar Ramlila Association for helping me acquire a photocopy of this text.)
34 This volume lacks the first three and last two chapters (and various other random pages). (Again I would like to thank the Subhashnagar Ramlila Association for allowing me to make a photocopy of this text.)
35 I would like to thank Afroz Taj for helping me acquire a photocopy of this text.
36 Kashinath Sharma, personal interviews, Bareilly, July 2009 and November 2012; and Vijaysundar Pathak, personal interview, Agra, December 2012.
37 All citations from the Radheshyam Ramayan follow the pattern of (kāṇḍ: bhāg: page number[s]).
38 I would like to thank Dalpat Rajpurohit for his assistance on questions relating to Braj.
39 By 1960 ‘Ahirāvaṇ-vadh’ and ‘Rāj-tilak’ have been totally rewritten, and Kathavachak is now credited as their author. However, Vijaysundar Pathak disputes that Kathavachak ever wrote or rewrote any parts of ‘Ahirāvaṇ-vadh’ and the chapters in books 7–8, claiming that Balram Sharma, Kathavachak's son, falsely removed both Pathak's and Madanmohan Sharma's names from these chapters in order to avoid paying royalties after the author's death—a plausible explanation, but one that I was unable to independently verify (Vijaysundar Pathak, personal interview, Agra, December 2012).
40 Since the text held by the Subhashnagar Ramlila Association lacks the first three, and last two bhāgs of the text, I was unable to determine if these chapters had been revised by 1946–1947.
41 The three extant chapters of the 1941–1942 printing of Uttar Rām-caritra already contain a significant amount of śuddh Hindi compared with the rest of the text printed in the same period, and probably for this reason, underwent less Sanskritization later.
42 Vijaysundar Pathak stated that he personally remembers his father working closely with Kathavachak whilst the latter was revising his text around 1959–1960, but had no knowledge of any such work, at least involving his father, prior to that time. According to his account, Ramnarayan Pathak would sit with Kathavachak as the latter sang aloud different versions he was considering. Pathak's job was to listen, offer advice (particularly on technical questions of grammar and meter at which he excelled), and record all approved changes. Although his father worked closely with Kathavachak, Vijaysundar Pathak was adamant that the revisions should be credited to Kathavachak as he was the creative force behind them (Vijaysundar Pathak, personal interview, Agra, December 2012).
43 Madhuresh, personal interview, Bareilly, May 2011.
44 Bhāgs dated 1968–1969 largely conform to those published in 1959–1960, and so have not been cited in this section. Most of the edits in the 1968–1969 printings are trivial, some involving minimal rewording (not towards Sanskritization), and more relating to spelling and punctuation. It is not clear whether these were made before or after Kathavachak's death in 1963.
45 I would like to thank Jack Hawley for his thoughtful comments on this paper, particularly those relating to this section.
46 Apparently, in order to meet the requirements of meter, Kathavachak used 
instead of 
.
47 Overall, there are 7.8 songs per bhāg, but 8.4 per bhāg, if we only consider those bhāgs in the 1959–1960 printings composed by Kathavachak himself.
48 The printing consulted lacks a title page for this bhāg, but adjacent bhāgs are dated 1942.
49 Regarding the use of Braj in this passage, we may note that the Braj imperative 
(bring) disappears by the 1960 printing, while the Braj noun 
(eyes) which falls at the end of a line, is retained in all three printings.
50 Although the corresponding passage from 1947 departs slightly from the 1942 printing, I have not included it here because about one-third of the text is illegible due to damage.
51 The ‘hunch-backed woman’ refers to Kaikeyi's maidservant, Manthara.
52 The corresponding excerpt from 1968 departs from the 1960 one in minor ways:
53 In Shurpanakha's speech, for example, we find the following lexical items have been retained in revised printings: 
(as if), 
(estate), 
(breath), 
(worthless [vocative]), 
(complete), 
(born), 
(power), 
(death), 
(clear), and 
(curse). At the same time, more Persian and Arabic words have been added: 
(co-traveller), 
(but), 
(distressed), 
(but), 
(alive), and 
([in] the world), while others formerly in the original have been removed: 
(disgrace), 
(disgraced), 
(sister), 
(distressed), 
(road), 
(little while), and 
(miserable wretch). One Urdu form Kathavachak seemed determined to excise, 
(if), here four times in two pages (3.2:6–7).
54 Two local scholars gave me very different explanations as to why Kathavachak engaged in Sanskritizing his text. Mahashweta Chaturvedi, a professor of Hindi literature at Bareilly College, gave the response: ‘Because Hindi is so rich and scientific, Pandit Radheshyam removed the Urdu words (alfāz) and added Hindi words (śabd).’ More to the point was Anil Mishra's response: ‘The Ramayan is so sacred (pavitra), Kathavachak probably felt that only śuddh Hindi would be appropriate, given its [as opposed to Urdu's] greater proximity to Sanskrit’. Personal interviews, Bareilly, July 2009.
55 In the 1860s, we find the first public pronouncements associating language and religion (Hindi with Hindus and Urdu with Muslims), and also a growth of clubs and professional societies in North India, dedicated to contemporary issues, including that of language and script, King, One Language, pp. 18, 126.
56 After Ghaneshyam Sharmma died due to complications of diabetes, Kathavachak withdrew from public life and lived virtually as a sanyāsī in an ashram at Garhmukteshwar for two to three years, Kathavachak, Merā nāṭak-kāl, p. 67; and Kashinath Sharma, personal interview, Bareilly, October 2010.
57 King, One Language, p. 48.
58 Ibid., p. 180.
59 This article was found amongst newspaper clippings in the archive of Kashinath Sharma. The reviewer and title of the newspaper were not indicated.
60 These amounted to unfinished drafts of the play Vīr Abhimanyu and his Ramayan.
61 Kathavachak, Mera nāṭak-kāl, pp. 42–44.
62 Malviya, a major figure in the Indian National Congress, the Nāgarī Pracāriṇī Sabhā and the Hindū Mahāsabhā worked tirelessly to petition the colonial government to grant official status to Hindi written in devanāgarī. To that end, he wrote a persuasive treatise, Court Character and Primary Education in NWP and Oudh (1897), and led a delegation under the auspices of the Nāgarī Pracāriṇī Sabhā that successfully lobbied the colonial government of the Northwest Provinces and Oudh to grant, in 1900, the use of Hindi/devanāgarī in courts and offices of the provincial government, King, One Language, pp. 149–150.
63 Rai, Hindi Nationalism, pp. 44–45; and King, One Language, pp. 150–151. On Malviya as ‘the first Hindi politician’, see Orsini, The Hindi Public Sphere, pp. 342–347.
64 Anil Mishra, personal interview, Bareilly, July 2009.