Tagore's Essay on Indian History
145 views
Skip to first unread message
Sreejit Datta
Jan 24, 2023, 11:33:00 AM1/24/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Namaskar,
If you're interested in understanding the insider perspective on Indian history, you can read Rabindranath Tagore's essay "Bharatbarsher Itihas", now available in English translation as "India's History (Part I)". It comes surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly) close to the contemporary critique of Indian history curricula in our schools and colleges, and it offers a fresh approach to studying and writing India's history without carrying around the defeatist colonial baggage.
Read • Discuss • Share
Thanks and regards,
-- Sreejit Datta
Fellow, Rajeev Circle Scholars (RCS) Program
Former Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Mysore
Former Assistant Professor, Rashtram School of Public Leadership, Rishihood University, Delhi NCR
Former Director, Centre for Civilisational Studies, Rashtram School of Public Leadership
Former Associate Editor, International Journal of Studies in Public Leadership
Former Faculty Associate, American Institute of Indian Studies, Kolkata
Jay Jina
Jan 24, 2023, 10:41:02 PM1/24/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Thank you Sreejit, for translating and sharing this!
Reading it brought goose pimples. Tagore truly captures the void, which still remains largely unfilled.
It is an inspirational essay that should instil more of us to reflect and see ourselves, live life, and simply become, rom the inside.
Regards Jay
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CA%2B1pLqNO3xSyW-qXsV7x9hoAK-tidDwXWnUmykSGVjsO855zgg%40mail.gmail.com.
Nagaraj Paturi
Jan 25, 2023, 1:11:57 AM1/25/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Sri Sreejit is bringing out many such new aspects from the known figures like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Rabindranath Tagore .
Adds very good value.
Thanks and best wishes for all such future work.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CACOB9msy7u80tqmHvbgcs_KpAsBu%3Df0WTuKTWH8fY6kL1psB6Q%40mail.gmail.com.
Nagaraj Paturi
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
Senior Director, IndicA
BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra
BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek, Maharashtra
BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru.
Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam, Bengaluru
BoS Rashtram School of Public Leadership
Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Studies in Public Leadership
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies,
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of Liberal Education,
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
Sreejit Datta
Jan 25, 2023, 3:11:53 AM1/25/23
to भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Thank you very much, Jay Sahab and Dr. Paturi Sir. Your words encourage me to work more on these lines. I'm very glad you took out the time to read the translated essay. I'd request you to kindly share it in your respective circles _/|\_
Pranam-s,
Sreejit
Jay Jina
Jan 25, 2023, 10:59:29 AM1/25/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Absolutely! I have shared among friends, Sreejit ji. Thanks 🙏
Jay
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/d406b370-db5c-40b8-b681-5d0e8fb9d30en%40googlegroups.com.
kenp
Jan 27, 2023, 10:30:25 PM1/27/23
to भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Is this the book that has been translated ?
https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.352820/2015.352820.Itihas_djvu.txt >>> ( can be read through translation and transliteration )
https://ia802908.us.archive.org/18/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.352820/2015.352820.Itihas_hocr.html >>>> ( can be read through translation and transliteration )
G S S Murthy
Jan 27, 2023, 10:59:25 PM1/27/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Perhaps Tagore's aristocracy and cultural background came in the way of his understanding what Gandhiji so correctly understood, namely, that India lived in its villages.
Thanks and regards,
Murthy
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/a10b9ff1-a64b-4241-b651-6ccd1eb89ad0n%40googlegroups.com.
Sreejit Datta
Jan 28, 2023, 1:38:46 AM1/28/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
To
drk...@gmail.com:
Dear Sir,
I thank you for sharing all these links. However, I'm afraid I could not find either a translation or even a transliteration of the text in question in any of the three links given above unlike what you've indicated. Could you please help me and the other members of this list find out the specific place where the said translation/transliteration might be located?
Also, let me clarify a point about the text itself. The translation that I have undertaken and shared at the beginning of this thread (i.e., the one available thru this link--> https://pragyata.com/indias-history-part-i-by-rabindranath-tagore/) is of a single essay, and not of a complete book. The essay I am translating here is titled "Bharatbarsher Itihas" (literally, "India's History"), which was published in the form of a book for the first time in 1905, under the title Bharatbarsha. This anthology is a remarkable one both for its contents and for its historical location in time, appearing at the head of what Dr. Benoy Kumar Sarkar describes as "the glorious Bengali revolution". All the essays included in this particular anthology were written around this time (1901-1905) and have a certain commonality of theme, namely, India's history, society, politics, religion, and spirit - and the collection captures the zeitgeist of the Swadeshi Movement quite well, coming from one of the foremost leaders of that movement.
On the other hand, there's the other book entitled simply Itihas which you've shared, and it was published in 1955, more than a decade after Tagore's passing. It is a collection of his essays written on historical subjects, including the idea of historiography or writing of history. These essays are somewhat disparate in the sense that they are products of both a less-developed stage and a very advanced stage in Tagore's thinking life.
A final remark on translation; and I promise I'll stop thereafter:) There's a consensus growing among practitioners and theorizers in the field of Translation Studies, succinctly summarised by Weinsheimer and Marshall in their preface to Hans Georg Gadamer's magnum opus on hermeneutics, Truth and Method: "Gadamer teaches us that the idea of a perfect translation that could stand for all time is entirely illusory. Even apart from the inevitable mistakes that reflect limits of erudition or understanding, a translation must transpose a work from one time and cultural situation to another." In view of this, I think the existence of prior translations of a text is hardly of any consequence to the production of a fresh one.
With best wishes,
S Datta
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/bvparishat/UCEbShywNF4/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CADi6ZRj9H%3D03EPrQtBCxxKL%3Dr4GJjae%3DCkxqCDt0cfe5gV9HUA%40mail.gmail.com.
Sreejit Datta
Jan 28, 2023, 2:01:48 AM1/28/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
To
murt...@gmail.com:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for writing. Your remark on India & her villages in connection with some apparent dichotomy between Tagore's understanding of India and Gandhi's understanding of India is quite interesting, especially in view of what Tagore, in this essay itself, says on this very matter:
"And yet, even in those times of trouble, these fightings and killings were by no means the most important happenings in India. Despite its roars, the storm cannot be considered the most important event of a stormy day; even on such a day when the skies are obscured by the rising dust, what is of paramount importance for the people is the incessant flow of birth and death and joys and sorrows that continues within every household in the countryside, despite these being hidden from view. But to the foreign traveller, this storm is the most important thing; to his eyes the clouds of dust seem to be all-pervading – because he is not inside the house, he is outside. This is why, in the historical accounts written by foreigners, we only get to read about this dust and this storm, but nothing about the affairs of our home. Reading that history, it seems that India did not exist then, only a raucous whirlwind of Mughals and Pathans wandered from north to south and from west to east, carrying a banner of dead leaves. But when the foreign came to our shores, our country was still here – or else who gave birth to the likes of Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, and Tukaram amidst all that oppression and disturbance? Not only were there Delhi and Agra at that time, but Kashi and Nabadwip were there too. No description is found in this history of the current of life that was flowing, the wave of effort that was rising, the social change that was taking place at that time in the Real India."
I would like to draw your attention to what Tagore has dubbed "Real India" and "the essence/spirit of the country" throughout this essay which I am translating. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter once you've had a chance to go through the published part of the translation.
With best wishes,
S Datta
G S S Murthy
Jan 28, 2023, 7:10:11 AM1/28/23
to bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Many thanks for your detailed reply, Sir. By hindsight, we can say that Kabi,.Nanak, Chaitanya and other religious leaders only provided a soporific of religion for an ailing society suffering from feudalism and other social ills.While the contribution of Tagore to the freedom movement is significant, it is only Gandhiji who comprehensively diagnosed the ills of India.
I read your articles with interest.
Regards,
Murthy
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CA%2B1pLqMyynNgTOG9rTgTqpeMZ-JNpW8UT9TrJVFDwyyShqQC6w%40mail.gmail.com.
kenp
Jan 28, 2023, 9:49:08 PM1/28/23
to भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Shreejit Ji,
This link https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.352820/page/n5/mode/2up can be downloaded with the mentioned options. The HOCR option can be read through transliteration in local languages and the Bengali text can be translated into English (or into local languages) through Google translate in the browser . The given translation may not be exactly what you want but it may help the translator .
DOWNLOAD OPTIONS
https://ia802908.us.archive.org/18/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.352820/2015.352820.Itihas_hocr.html >>>> ( can be read through translation and transliteration )
Transliteration: https://readmylanguage.com/readmylanguage/regional_reader.php
৫
ভারতবর্ষের ইতিহাস
ভারতবর্ষের ঘে ইতিহাস আমর! পড়ি এবং মুখস্থ করিয়! পরীক্ষা! দিই, তাহ! ভারতবর্ষের নিশীথকালের একট দু'স্বপ্নকাহিনী মাত্র। কোথা হইতে কাহার! আসিল, কাটাক|টি মারামারি পড়িয়|! গেল, বাপে-ছেলেনর ভাইয়ে-ভাইয়ে সিংহাসন লইয়] টানাটানি চলিতে লাগিল, এক দল যদি বাঁ যায় কোথ। হইতে আর-এক দল উঠিয়৷ পড়ে_- পাঠান মোগল পর,গিজ ফরাসী ইংরাজ সকলে মিলিয়! এই স্বপ্নকে উত্তরোন্তর জটিল করিয়। তুলিয়াছে।
भारतबर्षेर इतिहास
भारतबर्षेर घे इतिहास आमर! पड़ि एबं मुखस्थ करिय़! परीक्षा! दिइ, ताह! भारतबर्षेर निशीथकालेर एकट दु'स्बप्नकाहिनी मात्र। कोथा हइते काहार! आसिल, काटाक|टि मारामारि पड़िय़|! गेल, बापे-छेलेनर भाइय़े-भाइय़े सिंहासन लइय़] टानाटानि चलिते लागिल, एक दल जदि बाँ जाय़ कोथ। हइते आर-एक दल उठिय़। पड़े_- पाठान मोगल पर,गिज फरासी इंराज सकले मिलिय़! एइ स्बप्नके उत्तरोन्तर जटिल करिय़। तुलिय़ाछे।
৫
History of India
We are the history of India ! Read and memorize ! Test! Give , tah! Only two dream stories of India 's past . Who from where ! Come on , cut the fight ! It went, the father-son brother-brother took the throne ] The tug - of-war started , if a group is left , where is it ? Another group rose from Read_- Pathan after Moghul , Geez French and English all meet! This dream is further complicated . picked up
kenp
Jan 29, 2023, 12:03:05 PM1/29/23
to भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages