Literature & Nationalist Ideology

WRITING HISTORIES OF MODERN INDIAN LANGUAGES

Literature & Nationalist Ideology

EDITED BY 1

HANS HARDER

SOCIAL SCIENCE PRESS

Published by Esha Beteille Social Science Press 69 Jor Bagh, New Delhi 110 003

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Contents

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ISBN 978-81-87358-33-6

Advisory Board T.N.Madan Dipankar Gupta Jonathan Parry C.J. Fuller Veena Das Bibek Debroy Kaushik Basu Abusaleh Shariff Alaka Basu Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Preface List of Contributors

1. Introduction HANS HARDER

vii lX

1

2. Shaping a Literary Space: Early Literary Histories in

UNtVE~srnrr LEIPZIG Univarsittitshthlic,tl,ek Bibfiothek Orieriwi"~;;Sen.c;choflen SchiU€:~6

041 09 lelf;zig

.JI'v- ol >Z r_;_;j', ) ) f13 - /] =tJ '1

Malayalam and Normative Uses of the Past UDAYAKUMAR

19

3. Drowning in the Ocean of Tamil: Islamic Texts and the Historiography of Tamil Literature ToRSTENTSCHACHER

51

4. From Scattered Archives to the Centre of Discourse: Histories of Telugu Literature in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century HEIKO FRESE

84

5. Beyond the Nation: A Comparatist's Thoughts on Set in Plantin 10/12 TjJpeset by Eleven Arts, Delhi 110 035 Printed by De Unique, Delhi 110 018

Some Foundational Categories in the Literary Historiography of South Asian Literatures IPSHITA CHANDA

99

Contents

Vl

6. Dineshchandra Sen's The Folk Literature of Bengal: The Canonisation of Folk and the Conception of the Feminine SOURAV KARGUPTA

126

7. Ethics or Aesthetics? Obscenity as a Category for Evaluating the Hindi Public Sphere in Colonial North India CHARU GUPTA

8. George Abraham Grierson's Literary Hindustan

149 176

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9. The Impact of Sectarian Lobbyism on Hindi Literary Historiography: The Fascinating Story of Bhagvadacharya Ramanandi PURUSHOTTAM AGRAWAL

209

10. The Politics of Exclusion? The Place of Muslims, Urdu and its Literature in Ramchandra Shukla's . Hinctz sahitya ka itihas NAVINA GUPTA

259

11. A Discourse of Difference: 'Syncretism' as a Category in Indian Literary History THOMAS DE BRUIJN

282

12. Unscripted: The People of Arunachal Pradesh in Literary and Other National Histories STUART BLACKBURN 13. Indian Literature in English and the Problem of Naturalisation HANs HARDER

305

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14. The Mahatma as Proof: The Nationalist Origins of the Historiography oflndian Writing in English SNEHAL SHINGAVI Index

353 376

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framework, and also demarcates for the first time a literary space for north Indian vernacular writings, establishing in his discourse geographically determinable centres and peripheries within a region called 'Hindustan'. In the following pages, we will examine the temporal and geographical axes determined in Grierson's work and reveal underlying ideas and conceptions. This will form the background for a discussion of how Grierson's work can be positioned within the enterprise of both the colonial and the Indian national project. How does the book feed into and draw upon the orientalist discourse of the time? Did Grierson provide any ideas and concepts suitable for incorporation into literary historiography as part of the Indian national project? The quote cited above from Chatterjee's letter indicates that the book was readily appropriated by Indian historiographers ofliterature; Chatterjee speaks of'Hindi' literature, thus substituting an ideologically and politically· heavily loaded term for Grierson's comparatively 'neutral' spatial category, 'Hindustan'. It remains to be seen, however, to what extent such an interpretation of Grierson's outline is motivated by the work.

8 George Abraham Grierson s Literary Hindustan 7

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n 28 March 1928, Suniti Kumar Chatterjee writes to George Abraham Grierson: 'Is there any likelihood of a second edition of your "Vernacular Literature ofHindustan" being taken in hand? [... ]The work is a fundamental one for the History ofHindi literature, and there is still some demand for it.' The text thus mentioned is Grierson's The Modern ~rnacular Literature of Hindustan, first published in 1888 as a special number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 1 Grierson himself variously speaks of this publicationas a mere 'compilation' or 'collection' of materials. 2 The work indeed presents itself at first sight as 'not more than a list'3 : it chronologically assembles the names of 952 writers-numbered all the way through-and gives information on their major works as far as available. Nevertheless, Grierson produces-through his very selection, presentation and authorial comments-a historiographical

The author George Grierson started to work systematically on a description of the vernacular literature of northern India in 1886, encouraged by the success of his paper on medieval vernacular writing delivered at the International Congress of Orientalists in Vienna in the same year. 4 By this time, Grierson had been working as an officer in the Indian Civil Service for thirteen years. Born in 1851 in Dublin, Grierson had entered the Service in 1871 and reached India two years later at the age of 22. 5 During his 24 years in India, Grierson worked chiefly in the Bengal Presidency and in Bihar. However, his time in India cannot 'be summarized in a record of official services',

1

Grierson, George A. ( 1888): The Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindus tan Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 57.1, special number; Calcutta, Asiatic Society. Hereafter: MVLH. 2

Letter to Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, 18 April 1928 (unpublished), and Grierson, MVLH, p. ix, respectively. All unpublished materials quoted herein are held by the India Office Collection, British Library, London. 3 Ibid., p. vii.

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4Grierson, G.A. (1888): 'The medieval vernacular literature ofHindustan, with special reference to Tulasl Das'; in: International Congress of Orientalists (Vienna, 1886), Verhandlungen des VII. internationalen Orientalisten Congresses (Arische Section); cf. Grierson, MVLH, p. vii. sFor a detailed account of Grierson's vita cf. the obituary by Thomas, F. W. and R.L. Turner (1943): George Abraham Grierson, 1851-1941 Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 28; London, Milford.

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as stated in the obituary of the British Academy. 6 Grierson established his reputation, first and foremost, as an eminent linguist and careful editor of the Linguistic Survey of India. Having taken a special interest in languages and linguistics early on during his studies of mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin, Grierson had learned both Sanskrit and Hindustani with Robert Atkinson, professor of Oriental Languages atTrinity at the time. 7 Grierson pursued his fascination with Indian literatures and linguistics in the realms of both classical languages and vernaculars with a lifelong zest; between 1877 and 1936 he had around 120 reviews and more than 250 short notes, articles and books published on topics as diverse as the question of the monogamy of Kalidasa's heroes (1877), Indian gypsies (1908), the mixture of Prakrits in Sanskrit plays ( 191 7), the root acch in modern India · (1927), or the Kashmiri Ramayana (1930). 8 After his return to Ireland, Grierson began to devote more time to specific aspects of Indian religion. An interest in the monotheistic nature of 'folkHinduism' can be discerned as early as 1888 in his Modern ~rnacular Literature; however, it was only from 1903 onwards that Grierson began to engage with the topic in individual articles, e.g. on Tulsidas as a religious reformer 9 or on the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity and the question of a personal God in Hinduism (both 1906). 10 Grierson's main area of interest, however, was the vernacular languages of northern India, both as vehicles of folk-literature and in the roles they played for the comparative view of Indian languages.

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6 Ibid.,

p. 3. JL.M. (1941): 'Sir George Abraham Grierson, O.M.; 7 January, 1851-7 March, 1941', Obituary; in: Man, 41 (May-June), 62-63; Lennon, Joseph (2004): Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History. Syracuse (N. Y.), Syracuse University Press. 8 For full bibliographica(details see White, Edith M. (1936): 'Bibliography of the Published Writings of Sir George A. Grierson ';in: Indian and Iranian Studies: PJysented to GeorgeAbraham Grierson on His Eighty-Fifth Birthday, 7'h January 1936, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 8.2/3; London, School of Oriental Studies, 297-318. 9Grierson, GeorgeA. (1903): 'Tulasl Dlisa, poet and religious reformer'; in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 11,447-466. 10 Grierson, G.A. (1906): 'Hinduism and early Christianity'; in: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in_ Foreign Parts (ed.): The East and the ~st, vol. 4; Westminster, 135-157; Grierson, G.A., 'Do the Hindus believe in a personal God? A letter'; in: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (ed.): The East and the~st, vol. 4;Westrninster,474-5. 7 Cf.

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Grierson was an enthusiastic gatherer of folk tales, songs, epics and commentaries and of the wisdom and scholarliness to be found therein. 'His delight was to hear of some orally current song or poem, to get it written, to find; if possible, an existing manuscript, to trace its tradition or authorship and date, and with any available help of local pandits or experts to establish or translate its text.' 11 On the other hand, the field-linguist Grierson could not help but virtually 'collect' languages and dialects en route through India----continuously moving westward both linguistically and geographically as his position as an administrator of the Civil Service demanded. Reading through the chronologically arranged bibliography of his publications we can see his progress, commencing with investigations on the Bengali Rangpur Dialect after he had been stationed in that region, then continuing with the description and analysis of Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magadhi and some sub-dialects of the 'Bihari Language' during his 'Bihari-Period', which according to Thomas and Turner started after Grierson's transfer to Bhagalpur in 1877. 12 This period petered out from around 1885, when his Bihar Peasant Life was published and Grierson began to focus in his publications on western Hindi vernaculars, including Chattisgarhi, Avadhi and Braj Bhasha, as well as on Gypsy languages. From 1895 onwards, Grierson temporarily reached his linguistically westernmost point of interest with research into the Kashmiri language (presumably after a holiday in the Kashmir region). At the same time his publications show a · growing interest in the comparative viewpoint; he increasingly focused on the ''Indo-Aryan' aspects of the vernaculars he had studied, arriving in 1901 at the controversially received hypothesis that the eastern languages were linked to the southern and southwestern languagesP This so-called 'Grierson hypothesis' will be discussed in more detail below in the context of the geographical axis of Modern ~rnacular Literature. llThomas and Turner, 'George Abraham Grierson', p. 5. ibid., p. 7. 13 Cf. Grierson, G. A. ( 1903): The Languages of India: Being a Reprint of the Chapter on Languages to the Report on the Census of India, 1901, Together with the Census Statistics of Language, Calcutta, Office -of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India; pp. 51ff. The argument is laid down in more detail in the foll?wing two articles: Grierson, G.A. (1918): 'Indo-Aryan Vernaculars'; in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 1.2, 47-81; and Grierson, G.A. (1920): 'Indo-Aryan Vernaculars (Continued)'; in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 1.3, 51-85. 12 Cf.

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It was certainly due to Grierson's intensive engagement with the comparative aspects of the Indian languages, as well as his firsthand knowledge of many of the northern vernaculars, that in 1898 he was designated editor and superintendent of the newly approved governmental project of a comprehensive linguistic survey of India, a task which would occupy him for the next 30 years. Grierson returned to his native Ireland in the same year, assessing, classifying and arranging the materials collected in the field through agents and interpreters and subsequently sent to him. On the basis of these data Grierson later also dealt with languages 'outside' the regions he had visited himself, such as the Rajasthani dialects (190 1), Gujarati (1902), Panjabi (1906) or the Pahari language (1914). The Linguistic Survey of India was a showpiece project of the colonial enterprise, aptly described byThomas and Turner as 'a great Imperial museum, representing and systematically classifying the linguistic botany of India'. 14 The colonial discourse of'measurement and classification' 15 manifests itself clearly in the work: in it are recorded 179 different languages and 544 dialects, and it includes, among other data, collections of three different kinds of specimens: these were, firstly, a standard passage that was to be translated into the respective dialects .or sub-dialects spoken in the area; secondly, a piece of folklore or otherwise orally delivered local speech; and, thirdly, a standard list of words and sentences; from the specimens grammatical sketches were prepared and, eventually, dialects were grouped into languages of which, as far as available, the history, context and literature were described. 16 Running into some ten thousand pages, the Survey was published in eleven volumes over a period of 25 years. Unsurprisingly, the magnum opus was readily hailed as monumental or massive. Even though it must be seen as a partial success since, as M.B. Emeneau states, 'an amazing amount of the gross features comes through, and the Survey does ro-ughly map out language and dialect areas, which can be visited to produce 14Thomas and Turner, 'George Abraham Grierson', p. 18. 15 Appadurai, Arjun (1993): 'Number in the Colonial Imagination'; in: Breckenridge, Carol A. and Peter van der Veer (eds): Orientalism and the Postcolonial. Predicament. Perspectives on South Asia; Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press; 314-339;p.322. 16 For a comprehensive account of the methods of compilation, see Grierson, George A. (ed.) (1911): The Linguistic Survey of India and the census of 1919, vol. 1, part 1; Calcutta, Superintendent Govt. Print., pp. 18-22.

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more adequate treatment', 17 it still epitomises exemplarily what David Ludden has termed 'oriental empiricism'-procedures carried out by the empire to make 'colonial knowledge into a set offactualized statements about reality' .18 Grierson himself was well aware of the problems involved in the classification of the linguistic materials collected for the Survey: Tbroughout the whole series of operations, one thing has been steadily borne in mind-that these results were not to be bundles of theories, but collections of facts. The languages had to be arranged in some order or other, and this necessitated grouping, and grouping necessitated the adoption of theories as to relationship. So much could not be helped; but beyond this every effort has been made to prevent the Survey becoming an encyclopaedia oflndian philological science. 19

Despite his own reservations regarding a possibly presumptive classificatory method of dealing with the materials, Grierson approaches the subject in line with Orientalism's urge to produce 'facts' or 'a verified representation of reality', as Ludden states. He elaborates: 'Orientalism as a body of knowledge drew material sustenance from colonialism but became objectified by the ideology of science as a set of [actualized statements about a reality that existed and could be known independent of any subjective, colonizing will'. · By putting the linguistic 'facts' on the map, Grierson established both linguistic and territorial 'realities', which could easily be incorporated into the imperial enterprise of producing a body of colol)ial knowledge that would ensure the preservation of'technologies of colonial rule'. 20 David Lelyveld accordingly criticises the Survey for the fact that 'each language was a contained entity with a demarcated geographic identity-as determined from administrative headquarters' . 21 However, Grierson was too discerning a scholar not to notice such 17Ludden, David (1993): 'Orientalist Empiricism'; in: Breckenridge, Carol A. and Peter van derVeer (eds): Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Perspectives on South Asia; Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 250-78; p. 258. 18Ludden, David, 'Orientalist Empiricism', p. 258. 19Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, vol.l, part 1, pp. 21-2. 20Ludden, 'Orientalist Empiricism', p. 252. 21LeJyveld, David (1993): 'The Fate ofHindustani: Colonial Knowledge and the Project of a National Language'; in: Bnickenridge, Carol A. and Peter van der Veer (eds): Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Perspectives on South Asia; Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 189-214; p. 198.

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pitfalls. In the introduction to the Survey he acknowledges that the boundaries between linguistic regions are floating: The identification of the boundaries of a language, or even of a language itself, is not always an easy matter. As a rule, unless they are separated by great ethnic differences or by some natural obstacle [... ] Indian languages merge into each other and are not separated by hard and fast boundary lines. When such boundaries are spoken of, or are shown on a map, they must always be understood as conventional methods of showing definitely a state of things which is in its essence indefinite. 22 ·

Grierson's commenting in this way on the method of defining linguistic areas, exemplifies a quandary underlying much of his work; bound to the Orientalist discourse and its patterns of thought and action, he nevertheless critically scrutinised many of the methods he seems to be employing so naturally. His handling of the literary history of northern India shows this.

The text 'I do not venture to· call this book a formal History of Literature', Grierson states in the preface of Modern ~rnacular Literature. Too vast, he says, is the subject and too scant his knowledge of it. literary history proper, Grierson seems to imply, requires a high degree of comprehensiveness. He consequently claims to present the reader merely with 'materials', which shall serve as a basis for future attempts at the subject. 23 In spite of Grierson's own reservations, his work must be considered a core text for the development of Hindi literary historiography, as it provides readers, for the first time, with a systematic and annotated account, in a historical and developmental context, of the literature of the Hindi-speaking regions. Histories of literature, Sheldon Pollock claims, 'are, like all histories, political stories, with particular relevance to the self-understanding of communities, regions, nations' 24 [my emphasis]. We will see to what extent Grierson's book makes provision for an incorporation of its 22Grierson, Linguistic Survey, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 30-1; cf. also Grierson, 'IndoAryan', p. 50. 23Cf. ibid., MVLH, p.ix. 24Pollock, Sheldon (1995): 'Literary History, Region, and Nation in South Asia: Introductory Note'; in: So.cial Scientist, New Delhi, 23.10/12, p. 1.

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information into the Indian national project, despite the fact that it was written by a foreigner for an audience foreign to the Indian socio-cultural realm. Grierson deals with a period of almost twelve hundred years from 700 to 1887, and covers an area of northern India that approximately extends from Jodhpur in Rajasthan to Patna in Bihar. The book opens with a preface in which the author roughly delineates the scope of his work and outlines his approach. 25 This is followed by an introduction in which he briefly discusses his sources and describes some of the problems he encountered while researching the data; he furthermore explains the principles according to which the contents have been arranged and finally gives a historical and in part evaluative overview of the literature covered. The introduction closes with a description of the plates included in the book. The main body of the text is divided into twelve chapters which follow a chronological order, an aspect to be discussed later in more detail. Grierson fmally presents three indices at the end of the book, which give the reader the opportunity to search for authors' names, titles of works and place names. We will~ in the following, initially look at the way the text is presented to the reader before .we examine in some detail the temporal and geographical realms Grierson introduces in his work.

Paratexts Upon opening the volume we encounter, first of all, a range of 'paratexts', 26 including an illustration, a motto, and the standard information of title, name of the author~ and place and date of publication (cf. fig.1). Such devices and conventions outside the m,airi body of the text mediate the book to the reader. Following Gerard Genette, a paratext is a commentary on the actual text; it adds information that prepares the reader for the act of reading. Genette distinguishes paratexts 25 This includes his choice of the languages covered and literary genres excluded, statements about his intention regarding the book's scope, generic nature and targeted audience, explanation of the spelling conventions he utilises, and a justification as to the choice of his non-traditional subject. All of these aspects will be referred to later in this article. 26 Cf. Genene, Gerard (1997): Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation; Cambridge, CUP.

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with regard to their proximity to the book. He establishes two categories: epitexts, i.e. information about the book that is given outside the book itself, such as interviews, letters, reviews etc., and peritexts, which are connected to the actual text rather closely, like, for example, a title, a foreword or the very cover of the book. . Such peritexts are important as 'thresholds of interpretation', as the subtitle of Genette's book states. The metaphor .'·illi ... ·---~~....."_..-.-.;.-..;1. ,.,..• Y.

"11.\~!Y~- r..~J.I.iHI.:\JilD,

27 Griel'l)on was anxious to have the given plai:e included in the book and considered it 'a worthy specimen ofHindü art' (Grierson, MVLH, p.xxiii). The illustrationwas taken from a 'magnificendy-illuminated' (ibid.) manuscript ofthe Ramayana in the possession of the hause of the Maharajas of Benares that had been 'written and painted at home by the Maharaja's own painters' at the cost of'thousands ofrupees' (Ietter by Sivaprasad to Grierson, 21 May 1988, unpublished). .

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from the very beginning, established as a centre of Hindustani Iiterature both in terms of spatial and literary significance-a notion that is corroborated by Grierson's critical evaluation, as we will see. The image corresponds with a second important paratext-the motto of the book, given in German on the page facing the frontispiece: 'Wer den Dichter will verstehen, muß in Dichters Lande gehen'-'Who the minstrel understand, Needs must seek the minstrel's land'. Particularly in the pointed interplay with the illustration the motto promises glimpses not only into a foreign land but into the innermost realms ~f this land, the private courtyards so to speak which-so the author hopes-will bestow to the reader some deeper understanding of the poetry. · Grierson took these lincts from Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Notes and Papersfora Retter Understanding ofthe mst-Bastern Divan (1819), a collection of short tracts intended to 'elucidate, explain, prove' the poems of the mst-Eastern Divan so that those readers who are not familiar with 'the East' should develop an 'immediate understanding' ('umittelbares Verstäri.dniß') of the verses, i.e. an understanding based on a direct'un-mediated' encounter. 28 Goethe elaborates elsewhere in his N otes on the relationship of the western reader and the 'oriental' writer; it is the readers' duty, Goethe declares, to know and appreciate every poet within his own language and to visit him in the precinct ofhis own peculiar time and customs: 29 'Ifwe want to participate in these productions of the most glorious minds we must orientalise ourselves, the Orient will not come to us'. 30 The direction of 28The full poem which precedes Goethe's 'Notes and Papers' reads as follows: Wer das Dichten will verstehen, Who the song would understand, Muß ins Land der Dichtung gehen; Needs must seek the song's own land. Who the minstrel understand, Wer den Dichter will verstehen. Muß in Dichters Lande gehen. Needs must seek the minstrel's land. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: 'Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständniß des west~ösdichen Divans'; cited from: Anon.(1998): 'Einleitung'; in: Richter, Kar! et al. (eds): Sämdiche ~rke nach Epochen seines Schaffens, Münchner Ausgabe. Band 11,1,2 ~st-östlicher Divan; München, C. Hanser; pp; 129-130. Translation: Bowring, Edgar Alfred (1953): The Poems of Goethe: Translated in the Original Metres; London, John W. Parker. 29 Goethe, 'Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständniß', p. 254 (LehrerAbgeschiedene, Mitlebende). 30 Goethe, 'Noten ~d Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständniß', p. 187 (Übergang von Tropen zu Gleichnissen). ('Wollen wir an diesen Productionen der· herrlichsten GeisterTheil nehmen, so müssen wir uns orientalisiren, der Orient wird nicht zu uns herüber kommen.')

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movement towards the original is indicated clearly in this approach and Grierson recapitulates these sentiments when, almost a'century later, he declares with regard to Modern ~rnacular Literature: All that I wished to do was to draw the attention of European Scholars to the beauties of Hindi literature, and to lead some of them to roam in that enchanted garden. 31 [my emphasis]

True to the chosen motto, Grierson advocates the western readers' perception oflndian culture from within, so that they should better understand its literature. Modern U!rnacular Literature he considers a door into this world. Grierson here appears in the garb of the academic orientalist who transforms India or aspects of her culture into 'objects of desire' for an audience of European scholars. 32 '[M]y book', Grierson confirms in the above-cited letter, 'was never intended to be read by Indian Scholars'. 33 Grierson's work shows itself to be contributing to the colonial project of making 'the unknown and the strange knowable' 34 to the colonisers so that they could better understand and thereby conciliate and control the Indian people. Ultimately, Bernard Cohn argues, India was conquered through a conquest of knowledge. 35 On the textual level this becomes apparent with regard to two aspects: the idiom of comparison and the modalities of collecting and presenting the information. As far as the idiom is concerned, Modern ~rnacular Literature predictably offers us a notably colonial register and set of evaluative patterns. Grierson compares, for example, Malik Muhammad to Milton, calls the Ram'caritmanas 'the one Bible of a hundred millions of people' and Tulsidas 'the great apostle'; a curious comparison is the classification of the BirbalNama (i.e. the tales ofBirbal andAkbar) as 'the IndianJoe Miller's Jest Book'. 36 The employment of such explanatory phrases of 31 Letter

to Shyam Bihari Mishra on 26 April 1915 (unpublished). Jenny (1993): 'The Violence of Light in the Land of Desire; Or, HowWilliam Jones Discovered India'; in: Boundary 2, 20.1, 26--46; p. 33. 33 Letter to Shyam Bihari Mishra on 26 April 1915. 34 Cohn, Bernard (1996): Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, Princeton (N. J.)/Chichester, Princeton University Press;.p. 53. 35 Cf. Ibid., pp. 46 and p. 16. 36 Grierson, MVHL, pp. xix, xx, 43, 36; Joe Miller's Jest Book, a collection of eighteenth century jokes and anecdotes, was originally published in 1739 (compiled by Joe Mottley) and remained immensely popular till the early twentieth century. 32 Cf. Sha~pe,

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comparison is not surprising considering that Grierson wants to tender Indian vernacular literature to a European audience which, as yet, knows little about the subject. By equating East and West in this manner, Grierson provides his readership with a blueprint for judging vernacular literatures and for positioning them within a familiar evaluative framework. An example is Grierson's description of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which he calls the 'Augustan age ofHindustani vernacular literatur~' _37 The term 'Augustan age' holds a special position within the British system of categorising cultural epochs, which typically uses a dynastic-political classification (ElizabethanJacobean-Restoration) or, more rarely, a classification according to literary personalities (Age of Shakespeare-Age of Milton-Age ofDryden). In the British context, the 'Augustan age' chronologically follows the Restoration but terminologically deviates from the dynastic-political classification. The term refers to a past epochthe era of Rome under the reign of the emperor Augustus, hence drawing a parallel between the cultural life of early eighteenth century England and first century Rome. The phrase suggests a period of urbane and classical elegance in writing, a time ofharmony, decorum and proportion. When Grierson calls the literary epoch of the sixteenth and sevente'enth centuries the 'AugustanAge ofHindustani literature' he therefore not only applies an evaluative term, he also establishes a direct connection between Hindi literature and 'classical' paragons of European literature: the classics. Hindi lit~rature becomes, through the employment of this term, incorporated into a system of world literature or 'classics' of general acclaim. Regardless of the question as to whether Grierson presents to his readership a 'formal History of Literature' or not, his idiom of comparison opens a door not only into literary Hindustan but also to the subjugation of the works to be found therein to a western system of evaluation and classification. The usage of one criterion (e.g. the claim of a particular 'golden age' of literary development) _automatically entails the adoption of others from within the same (Mottley, John and and Joe Miller (1739): Joe Miller's jest book and merry companion: containing lots of rare good fun ... some of the most and laughable blunders,funny sayings, whin_zsical conceits, strange adventures, merry thoughts and comical drolleries calculated to make dull mortals laugh and grow fat; London, Dean and Munday.) 37 Grierson, MVLH, p. xix. 00.

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system (e.g. the assumption of a decline). We will see below the extent to which this is significant for the construction of the historiography of Hindi literature. · The second level on which Modern Tkrnacular Literature manifests itself as part of the colonial project is what Cohn calls the 'investigative modalities' devised by the colonisers to collect knowledge that would enable them to control and rule the colonised subjects. Cohn explains: An investigative modality includes the definition of a body of information that is needed, the procedures by which appropriate knowledge is gathered, its ordering and classification, and then how it is transformed into usable forms such as published reports, statistical returns, histories, gazetteers, legal codes, and encyclopedias. 38

Of these investigative modalities, it is particularly the enumerative one that is noticeable in Modern Tkrnacular Literature. According to Cohn the enumerative modality arose from the view of many British officials that India could be seen as 'a vast collection of numbers' .39 The foreign world of the colony, he states, 'had to be classified, categorized, and bounded before it could be ordered'. 40 The prototypical enumerative project undertaken by the British in India was the census, which represented 'a model of the Victorian .. S urvey oif encyclopedic quest for total knowledge ' .41 The L'znguzstzc India, too, falls into this category. Correspondingly, in Grierson's work we find not only an underlying urge for completeness, 42 as the meticulously collected data are also presented in a numeric and therefore very mechanical fashion: Grierson numbers the 952 authors all the way through and adds a fixed set of information including (as far as available) the author's name in both Devanagari and transliterated form, the place of birth, the year of birth, death or 'flourishing', and the author's mention in the sources consulted. Only then does he give additional information on the writer's life and works. 38Cf. Cohn, Colonialism, pp. 5ff. 39Jbid., p. 8.The British obsession with numbering and classifying Indian society is discussed in Appadl.irai, 'Number in the Colonial Imagination', pp. 314-39, and Ludden, 'Orientalist Empiricism', pp. 250-78. 4°Cohn, Colonialism, pp. 21-2. 41 Ibid., p. 8. 42 Cf. Grierson, MVLH, pp. vii and 145.

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A significant consequence of this enumerative presentation is that Grierson establishes two basi~ criteria for a historiographical approach to the vernacular literatures ofHindustan: the assumption of a linearity of development and the idea that 'texts have authors' 43echoing what Cohn has identified as typical for the 'comparative method' of philology of the mid-nineteenth century. 44 Grierson introduces an author-centred understanding of literature insofar as it is the author who determines the inclusion of a set of data-true to the idea that what counts as literature is what has been produced by an individually identifiable author. Grierson even goes so far as to include in his chronological list authors of whom no works have been passed on. Literature is not that which is written but that for which a writer has been determined, even if the work itself has been lost. As stated above, Grierson endeavoured at · all times to 'get [an orally current song or poem] written' and preferably detect a manuscript whose 'tradition or authorship and date' could be ascertained. 45 Grierson's approach signifies a fixation on a definable physically existing text and hence disregards not only all orally transmitted anonymous works but also those which are part of performative traditions-he excludes, so to speak, 'the life of a text' from the outset. 46 'No Hindu ever reads the Mahiibhcirata for the first time', A.K. Ramanujan has famously stated 47-yet a whole tradition of fluid performative texts is per se neglected in Grierson's work, including the rich living traditions of the ever newly-created Hindu epics which are foundational texts of Hindu India. It has to be noted though, in Grierson's defence, that he explicitly regrets having been forced to omit 'the large number of anonymous folk.43 Cohn, Colonialism, p. 55. 44 Cf. ibid., ch.2, pp. 16-56 (esp. 53ff.). The comparative method of philology, according to Cohn, answered to the 'European quest for the origins of things' as it endeavoured to 'construct the original and pure versions which could then be used to establish a linear chronology' and thus a 'history' (p. 54). It was through this method that 'variety and difference' in the culture of the colonised could be classified, bounded and controlled (p. 55). 45 Cf. above. 46 Cf. Lutgendorf, Philip ( 1991): The Life of a Text: Performing the Riimcaritmiinas ofTulsidas; Berkeley, University of California Press. 47 Cf. Ramanujan,A.K. (1999): 'Repetition in the Mahiibhiirata'; in: Dharwadker, Vinay (ed.): The Collected Essays ofA.K. Ramanujan; New Delhi/Oxford, OUP; 161183; p. 161.

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epics and offolk-songs' because they had not yet been systematically collected 'on the spot from the mouths of the people' .48 Nevertheless, the result of this first attempt at composing a systematically arranged overview of the modern vernacular literature ofHindustan presents itself as author-centred and thus suggests this as a standard. As to the second criterion, the question of a general linearity of development, we see Grierson clearly proceed from the assumption that the world surrounding us can be seen as, in Cohn's words, 'progressing through stages to some end or goal'. 49 Grierson does not stop at providing an annotated and numbered list of writers; he also allocates those writers to particular chapters, 'each roughly representing a period?. 50 Both the chronological arrangement of the data and the numbered list prove his linear understanding of the course of the world. Moreover, the chronological framework gives his work a clear historiographical appearance. 51 Thus, underlying the enumerative modality is the historiographical one, which, according to Cohn, is 'the most complex, pervasive, and powerful'. In the eyes of the British, Cohn argues, a people's history informs us about how their world is constituted; it has 'ontological power'. 52 Grierson, as we will see in the following sections, not only provides criteria for histories of Hindi literature to come, but also makes assumptions about the very nature of the people who have produced the literature in question, thus feeding his data into the colonial discourse and vice versa.

The temporal axis When it comes to the question of the arrangement of information on a temporal axis it is important to bear in mind that the very decision about the dominance of specific norms at a specific time, a decision that justifies the determination arid labelling of a period, must be seen as an act of criticism. Only critical judgment can single out important literarytraits. As soon as such judgement has been 48 Grierson, MVLH, p. viii. 49 Cohn, Colonialism, p. 55. 5°Grierson, MVLH, p.xv. 51 It is therefore not surprising that the editors of the journal have chosen to label Grierson's work 'The Modern Literary History of Hindustan' in the volume's left hand side running header [my emphasis]. 52 Cohn, Colonialism, p. 5.

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made, the compiler turns cr1t1c and thus also, in a sense, historiographer. It is the compiler who decides 'which works present a break with tradition, are genuinely innovating, and which revive older stages of the literary development or present throwbacks, and which simply continue the accepted tradition'. 53 Through the act of purposeful periodisation, the compiler makes 'distinctions between epigones, dominant figures, and path-breaking avant-gardists'. 54 -Accordingly, Grierson's principles of organising his materials and his choices regarding the establishment of periods contribute to the positioning of the 'objects' of his research within not only a literary but also a wider socio-cultural context. 'Apologies for dealing with the Neo-Indian vernaculars are not so necessary as they would have been twenty years ago', Grierson states in the preface to his work, clearly aware of the fact that he deviates from the traditional field of oriental scholarship through his choice of subject: an extensive overview of modern vernacular literature-literature that is not written in Sanskrit, Pali or the classical Prakrits. 55 The temporal parameters of Grierson's work are thus laid down from the outset in the very title of the book. 56 Grierson a priori excludes the classical languages-and therewith the classical era-from his realm of study; his are the modern times. 57 53 Wellek, Rene (1973-7 4): 'Periodization in Literary History'; in: Wiener, Philip P. (ed.): The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, vol. 3.; New York; Scribner, 482-6; p. 485, available at http://etext.virginia.edulcgi-local/DHI/ dhi.cgi?id=dv3-59 (accessed 21 February 08). 54 Ibid., p. 486. 55Grierson, MVLH, p.x. 56 The peritext of the 'title', especially of an academic work, indicates the content of the text and positions this text in relation to research traditions; titles of historiographical works furthermore often point out a time frame and a region. We find all of these aspects covered in Grierson's 'The Modern Vernacular literature of Hindustan'. 57 Grierson feels, nonetheless, obliged to vindicate his decision by pointing out possible advantages for scholars who 'still cling to the old love for Sanskrit' (Grierson, MVLH, p.x) or those who are interested in inscriptions; they will find, so he asserts, countless works that may prove useful for the study of classical texts in that they provide the researcher with commentaries, technicai information on grammar, prosody etc. or even clues for the dating of manuscripts. Grierson's notion of the 'enchanted garden' of modern vernacular literature is cautiously adumbrated towards the end of the preface when the author praises the naturalness of expression of works in the vernaculars and emphasises that they 'have remained living voices in the people's hearts, because they appealed to the sense of the true and of the beautiful'. Cf. ibid., pp. x-xi.

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George Abraharn Grierson's Literary Hindustan

A systematic interest in contemporary Indian vernaculars, however, had already been developed a century earlier by John B. Gilchrist (1759-1841). Convinced that 'there was a market' for a systematic presentation of the lexicon and grammar of Hindustani, Gilchrist made this vernacular the object of his studies-first and foremost to find new ways of putting it to practical use. 58 Gilchrist built upon an attitude prevailing since the times of William Jones (1746-94): the 'ideology of languages as separate, autonomous objects in the world which could be classified, arranged and deployed as media of exchange'. 59 The knowledge of vernacular languages was supposed to serve ver_y practical needs-the exercise of power over a colonised people, but it also answered to the desire to explain the strange world of the colony in tangible terms: vernaculars-once they would be boxed in grammars and dictionaries-provided information about the histories of the people who spoke them and could therefore be studied comparatively in order to explain the variegated evolution of different nations. 60 Even though Grierson's terrain is that of philology rather than political territory, his periodisation cum evaluation, too makes assumptions, not only about the nature of the literary but also about the people who have produced it; along with a historiographical overview of vernacular literature, Grierson places at the disposal of the European orientalist a history of ideas--expediently feeding his information into the colonial discourse. The methodical and meticulous scholar that he is, Grierson takes care to present the literature of the chosen period and region systematically, consciously opting for a chronological organisation of the data, as has been stated above. We will now look at the choices Grierson makes regarding the periodisation of his materials and what these choices reveal about underlying concepts. As has been shown above, Grierson does not present his data in a vacuum; he provides various historical overviews as well as comments on writers and works. The first thing to notice is that Grierson claims to present his audience with a view of the literature ofHindustan 'from the earliest times to the present day', thus echoing nineteenth century philology's concern with 'the earliest period in recorded history' (my emphases). 61 The philological discipline, Vinay

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Dharwadker, has explained, considered the present state of a society or civilisation as comprehensible only as the direct outcome of its past. 62 Accordingly, in the 'Brief Account of the Vernacular Literature of Hindustan', which is incorporated in the introduction, Grierson repeatedly uses biological terms of development such as 'infancy' (p. xix), 'youth' (p. xix), 'young growth', 'shoot forth' and 'barren period' (p. xxi), 'decay' (p. xxii) and 'renascence' (p. xxii).63 This terminological grid is complemented by a nomenclature of rise and decline including 'degeneration' (pp. xvi, xvii), 'rise' (p. xvii), 'truest height' (ibid.), 'AugustanAge' (pp. xix), 'dearth' and 'transition' (p. xxii) etc. As Ronald Inden has argued, a consequence of the usage of metaphors of nature in Indological discourse is the identification of the political with the natural order; 64 likewise, Grierson's usage of metaphor shows that he assumes a natural order underlying the development of Hindustan's vernacular history. He offers his evaluations as self-evident. Professing both a point of earliest d~parture and a point of culmination of all literary artistry of Hmdustan, Grierson not only instructs his European readership as to the assessment of vernacular literature, but also provides ideas that later become important for the incorporation of the data into a nationally conceived history of Hindi literature. An aspect that leaps to the eye when regarding Grierson's attempt at periodisation is that no homogenous method of categorisation is used. Somewhat arbitrarily, Grierson subdivides his inventory of authors according to confusingly diverse criteria, each of which is deemed especially typical or significant for a particular period. These criteria include the dominant genre, the (religious) contents or affilia~on _o~ a group of authors, the period of production, the identity of an md1v1dual author, the region of production and, finally, the political ruler in place at the time of production.65 Grierson-or,

(ed~): Or_Wrzralism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Perspectives on South Asia; Philadelpia, Umversity of Pennsylvania Press, 158-88; p. 175. 62 Cf. ibid., p. 175. 63 Grierson, MVLH, pp. xvi-xxiii. 64 Cf. Inden, Ronald (1990): Imagining India; Oxford Blackwell pp 12f 65 ' ' . In a later work on the topic (Grierson, G. A. (1909): 'The Monotheistic Religion of Ancient India and Its Descendant, the Modern Hindu Doctrine of Faith'· in: Asiatic Quarterly Review, 28, 115-26) Grierson organises his overview on. Indian vernacular literature along the lines of religious schools (Rarna-, Krishna-, Shiva-/ Durga-Bhakti), that is, by firstly presenting the topic of the literary work, followed by a chronological 'survey' of other literary texts. 0

58Lelyveld,

'The Fate of Hindustani', pp. 195-6. p. 194. 6°Cf. ibid. 61 Grierson, MVLH, p.xvi, and Dharwadker, Vinay (1993): 'Orientalisrn and the Study of Indian Literatures'; in: Breckenridege, Carol A. and Peter van der Veer 59 Ibid.,

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Categories

Chapters

Grierson 's terms

Genre Religion/ Time Author Region Political place content ruler of production 1. The Bardic Period

X

2. The Religious Revival of the 15th Century

X

growth

X

apprenticeship, infancy

3 .. The Romantic

Poetry of Malik Muhammad (1540)

X

X

4. The Krishna~Cult ofBraj

X

X

5. The Mughal Court

X

6. Tulsidas

X

X

7. The Ars Poetica (1580-1692)

height X

8. Other Successors ofTulsidas (1600-1700) 9. The Eighteenth Century · 10. Hindustan u11der the Comparry (1800-1857) 11. Hindustan under the Queen (1857-1887)

youth, young Augustan growth Age truest

X

barren period, decay

X

X

X

X

X

renascence, transition from old to new

Fig. 2: Grierson's periodis·ation of Hindi literature

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paramount figure of Grierson's literary Hindustan. 66 He is the only author who lends a chapter a name and the only one who is presented in a chapter's title as an-albeit unreachable-touchstone for 'successors' (chapter IIX). A closer look at chapter VI on Tulsidas will show how the actual 'text' contributes to this picture. Grierson's handling of Tulsidas, his epoch and place, follows clear-cut lines: next to the employment of the above-mentioned metaphorical formula ofbiological evolution his idiom of comparison is marked by a striking preference for religious vocabulary. Naturally-in accordance with the general layout of the bookTulsidas is the 'greatest star in the firmament of mediaeval Indian poetry', who resides 'unapproachable and alone in his niche in the Temple of Fame'. More importantly, however, Grierson presents Tulsidas as a messiah-like figure, 'who firsdn India since Buddha's time taught man's duty to his neighbour' and who can be seen 'standing in [... ] [his] own pure light as the guide and saviour of Hindustan'. Unsurprisingly, Tulsi has 'disciples' and not 'imitators'. Following his spirit the printing press helps to spread 'literature of a healthy kind' over the land during the time of renaissance; the religion he preaches is 'a simple and sublime one,-a perfect faith in the name of God'; his Ram'caritmanas has 'saved the country fmm the tantric obscenities of Shaivism', while, 'in an age of immorality', his 'stern morality' prevailed. Thus is described what Griersonthrough the various paratexts-establishes as the heart of literary Hindus tan. 67 However, Grierson not only establishes Tulsidas as an exceptional author of Hindustan, but considers him the moral saviour of the whole of India: 'The importance of Tulasi Das in the history of India cannot be overrated', he states. 68 What are Grierson's criteria for celebrating Tulsi to such an extent? In an article froni 1893 Grierson considers 'the history of India [... ] a series of religious movements'. 69 Consequently, literary history, too, is inseparably 66

indeed, any literary historiographer for that matter-conceives literature as determined variedly by cultural, social or political history-an attitude reflected clearly in the principles of organisation (cf. fig. 2). Far from being neutral, such an uneven periodisation establishes--or rather confirms-a hierarchical order. Conspicuously, the hook's periodisation corroborates, amongst other things, what has been indicated by means of the frontispiece: Tulsidas is the

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The significance ofTulsidas is upheld by yet another visual mechanism in the book: once the readers have made their entry into the courtyard of Rama's house, they are presented with further glimpses into the 'enchanted garden' by way of three more plates which show facsimiles of the earlier-mentioned Ramayana manuscript and a photograph allegedly displaying 'a deed of arbitration in the handwriting of Tulsi Das'. (Grierson, MVLH, p. 51). 67 For the quotes cf. Grierson, MVLH, pp. xx, xxii and 42-43. 68 Grierson, MVLH, p. 42. 69 Grierson, George A. (1893): 'The Origins of the Vernacular Literature of Hindilstan'; in: The Chaitanya]ournal, 1.2; p. 55.

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connected to the history of religion. 70 Valid judgement of literary quality depends on the ethics which the writings demonstrate with regard to religious-i.e. Christian-values. InTulsi, but also in other Vaishnava bhakti poets, Grierson finds expressed, above all, the moral duty of devotion and charity. Only after the reformers of Hinduism have purged their religion of the 'debasing, corrupt, soul-destroying' aspects, Grierson finds elements therein that are 'elevating, pure, and[ ... ] partly based on Christianity'. 71 Consequently, the literary and moral periphery is 'Tantra-ridden Bengal'-which is peripheral also in the geographical sense-but also centrally located Braj, the country of the Krishna 'cult' that sees 'wanton orgies carried out under the name ofKrishna worship'. .Even 'at its best the Krishna cult is wanting in the nobler elements of the teaching of Ramanand' because 'its essence is almost selfish'. Accusingly Grierson states: 'It teaches the first and great commandment of the Christian law [i.e. 'And thou shalt love thy Lord God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and .with all thy strength. This is the first commandment', Mark 12, 30], but the second, which is like unto it-'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' [Mark 12, 31]-it omits'. 72 In the periphery even the press does not come off unscathed: 'as a rule the Hindi newspapers offer a favourable comparison with the more disloyal and scurrilous contemporaries which disgrace Bangali journalism', 73 while to the west Rajasthan, too, after the period of Bardic literature, has undergone some decline: witnessing Rajputana fall victim to bloody internal struggles for power the bards become speechless-'Such actions [they] could not approve, and so they remained silent'. 74 As Cohn explains, Grierson uses the linear directionality of the comparative method of philology in Modern ~rnacular Literature 'to establish regression, decay, and decadence, 7 0'Jbis attitude is furthermore conveyed through the layout of the table of contents of MVLH which not only elevates Tulsi by distinguishing 'The text ofTulasi Das' from 'Other versions of the Ram a legend' but also divides the writers in the following two chapters into 'Religious Poets' and 'Other Poets' (my emphases). 71 Grierson, George A., 'The Birth of a Nation's Soul', Rathfarnham, Camberley 1908, pp. 25-6 [unpublished]. 72 For the quotes cf. Grierson, MVLH, pp. xviif and xx. Kabir is explicitly excluded from this condemnation and acknowledged for his 'marvellous catholicity of sentiment' and his 'doctrine of eclecticisms in its best form'. Cf. p. xvii. 73 Ibid., p. 145. 741bid., p. 85.

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the movement through time away from some pristine, authentic original starting point, a golden age in the past'. 7 5 Twenty years later' in _1908, Grierson goes one step further by instituting this startin~ pomt as the cradle of a supra-regional Indianness: Before the reformation which I have described, India had been brooding through centuries of darkness, darkness. that. was all the darker because it preceded one of God's twilight's. [... ]Then came dawn. To India, lying crushed and almost lifeless under an alien conqueror's feet, came faith and love, ~nd from these two came hope. Truly may we call this reformation 'The Birth of a Nation's Soul'. 76

Even though in Modern ~rnacular Literature Grierson does not use the term 'nation' in a political sense and is far less explicit than he is in 'Bi~th of a Nation's Soul'_, he does contribute through such sce~~nos to the formation of the Indian national narrative in a very pohucal sense. In the latter text, Grierson's Hindus tan is very clearly supposed to be a Hindu-stan, a land of the Hindus, the direct descendents of 'our Aryan ancestors' as he formulates it, echoing the colonial philological discourse. 77 First traces of this attitude can be located in Modern ~rnacular Literature, even if primarily on the sub-or paratextuallevel. By banishing Urdu from this account 78 Grierson excludes from his literary Hindustan a whole field of the literary vernacular culture of northern India. Given the strong presence of poets fromAvadh and especially Lucknow in Grierson's work, the neglect of the pivotal role of Urdu culture in this city is even more striking. Furthermore, Grierson decides to use the Devanagari script throughout his work, even for those texts that had originally been written 'in the Persian character', like Malik MuhammadJayasi's Padmiivat (p. xviii). Grierson admittedly omits the 'Persian works' of some authors, 79 thus equating the literature of Hindustan with literature written in the 'Hindu' dialects and in ~e :Hindu' script. Small as such indicators may seem, they are s1gn1ficant, as Grierson's title purports to represent a geographically rather than a linguistically determined area. We have seen that 75

Cohn, Colonialism, p. 55. Grierson, 'The Birth of a Nation's Soul', p. 26. 77 Ibid., p. 1. 76

78

Urdu is only mentioned when poets writing 'in the vernacular' produced works in Urdu, too. 79 E.g. Abdur Rahim Khankhana Nawab, no. 108, MLVH, p. 37.

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Chatterjee in 1928 substituted the language 'Hindi' for the region. In the midst of the Hindi-Urdu controversy of the nineteenth century, Grierson paved the way for the reading of literary Hindustan as literary Hindu-stan.

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r

l

I

I

The geographi~al axis Naming his opus The Modern ~rnacular Literature of Hindustan, Grierson made a decision for space rather than language as the common denominator for his historiographical account of north Indian literature-an unusual choice as it is normally language that forms the basis for the integration of. a work into a literary history. However, the linguist that he is, Grierson avoids generalising terms like 'Hindi' or 'Hindustani' in his title-he prefers the neutral 'vernacular', which in his book interchangeably refers to any of the three languages, 'Mar'wari, Hindi:, and Bihari, each with its various dialects and sub-dialects'. 80 In the 1880s, the term 'Hindi' had not yet automatically denoted a territory. While in a 'history of German literature', for example, the spatial domain is self-evident because 'the adjective conflates language and nationality', 81 as the comparatist Cesar Domiguez states, in India it was only after the 1950s that the boundaries of the Indian states were drawn according to linguistic lines, thereby visually and ideologically fixing linguistic territories within the Indian Union. What today is called the 'Hindi belt', i.e. those northern states of the Union the official language of which has been determined as Modern Standard Hindi, was not perceived as a linguistically unified region in Grierson's times. In Modern Uirnacular Literature, Grierson demarcates a territory for a corpus ofliterary works which he himself still considers as too heterogeneous to have them designated by one single language name but which has in the course of time been subsumed under the umbrella term of 'Hindi'. We will see how Grierson's work has possibly provided a blueprint for such an understanding in the realm of literary history and thus contributed to the incorporation of the history of 'Hindi literature' into an Indian national narrative. 80 Grierson,

MVLH, p. viii. · BIDominguez, Cesar (2006): 'The South European Orient: A comparative Reflection on Space in Literary History'; in: Modern Language Quarterly, 67.4, pp. 419-49; p. 423.

I

I I

I·

Fig. 3: Area of Grierson's literary Hindustan as outlined in the introduction

The literary geography in Modern vernacular Literature is established in two ways: through the historiographical discourse and-indirectly-the very naming of places and regions throughout the text. A look at both these geographies will give us an idea of the layout of Grierson's literary Hindus tan. In the introduction to his work Grierson first of all outlines Hindus tan as 'Raj'putana and the valleys of the Jamuna and of the Ganges as far east as the river Kosl', excluding 'the Paiijab or Lower Bangal', 82 thus covering an area that corresponds roughly to what today is Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, as well as the east of Bihar and the northwestern half of Madhya Pradesh (cf. fig. 3). A more detailed picture of the region arises out of the historiographical discourse. In the above-mentioned 'Brief account of the Vernacular Literature of Hindustan' and the authorial comments scattered through the main body of the text, the territory 82

Grierson, MVLH, p. viii.

1 200


is laid out by making various names of places or regions the subject of discussion. Grierson commences by establishing 'Raj'puHina' as the place of the 'earliest' production of vernacular literature of Hindus tan and briefly describes the continuation of this tradition into the seventeenth century at the 'courts of Mewar and Mar' war'. Space, we can see, is deemed a more important category than time here, as the bards of the later periods are not treated in their temporal context but in connection with the Rajputana region. Grierson then moves analytically through both time and space, stating that 'we may now revert to the growth of vernacular literature in the Gangetic valley coincident with the rise of the Vaishnava religion at the commencement of the fifteenth century'. Briefly touching upon Ramanand, Kabir and Tulsi, Grierson addresses Krishna bhakti, which leads him to Braj, as we can gather from the title of the respective chapter, but geographically extends from 'Mi:ra Bar[ ... ] in the west', i.e. Mewar, to 'Bidyapati: Thakur', whom he finds flourishing after 'leaving for a time the Central Hindii.stan' and moving to the east, i.e. the Darbhanga district. From Braj the way leads to 'the not so distant Mughal court at Dilli' and then, finally, back to Banaras where the 'holy master', Tulsidas, resides. From there a brief glance towards the east shows Grierson 'Tantraridden Bengal'. Poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth century do not merit a textual geographical localisation, as they seem t6 be spread over Hindustan far and wide if we consider their respective entries in chapters VII-IX. It is only when Grierson turns to Hindus tan under the Company in the first half of the nineteenth century (chapter X) that the space of literature re-enters the limelight. The chapter is 'for convenience of classification' divided into four parts that refer to four selected regions 'and to other places', 83 implying a clear geo-hierarchical order. 'The star of literature during the half-century under notice', Grierson declares, 'shone brightest in Bundelkhand arid Baghelkhand, at Banaras and in Audh'. 84 The two cities of Panna and Rewa, in Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand respectively, 'each formed a centre from which issued well-known standard works on the art of poetry'. 85 Praising Benares and once more slandering Bengal, Grierson reconfirms by and large the picture so far drawn of the literary landscape of Hindustan. 83 Ibid.,

p. 109. p. 107. 85 Ibid., p. 108.

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--·-·--·-------·-·-- ,__ ___ ,__ ____ . --;..··-_,_ 11\i

·-·,

.--- ..

/~

.\.n.?,.,._~;\J';h'. • -------I)~~~f~~(!,:.·.?i

_.

R

1>'

C

A

f.,

{J,o:,r.-ll•·~'''''!:

Fig. 4: Sub-regions of literary production mapped on Constable's Hand Atlas of India (Presidencies}, 1893

Unsurprisingly, the period closest to his own times remains nebulous.