বাংলা সাহিত্যের ইতিহাস নির্মাণে রামগতি ন্যায়রত্ন : সীমাবদ্ধতা ও সমালোচনার আওতায়/ The Construction of Bengali Literary History by Ramgati Nyayaratna : Addressing Constraints and Scrutiny

Abstract

There is a distinctive difference between the Eurocentric notion of ‘history’ that is based on the idea of conservation, and the Indian concept of ‘Itihasa’, that sees the past as more than just a written archive. Recording events only through a faithful account of date and time has not been the end goal of studying history in India. Instead, it treats history as a philosophy of life that encompasses a range of holistic practices, including oral histories, Puranas, epics and so on. Indian history, as seen before the 19^th century, is mostly a political history that looked at the nation as a passive province attacked and plundered, time and again, by foreign invaders who stripped the nation of any form of pride. Bengal had a similar past. During this period, there developed among the educated people of Bengal, a need to search for an alternative history that would help them regain their lost dignity. Writing a history of literature became one such way that allowed the Bengali intelligentsia to redeem themselves of their humiliation by composing a chronicle of their creations. Among several scholars who attempted to document parts of Bengal’s literary history, Ramgati Nyayaratna was the first writer who sought to create a synthesised record that divided literature chronologically among different periods in history. This paper attempts to study how Nyayaratna conceives the history of Bengali literature and the implications of what he chooses (and does not choose) to include. It also seeks to understand the premises on which Nyayaratna builds his arguments and how these conjectures in the contemporary world, aid in consolidating an eclectic history of the roots of Bengali literature that elucidates the conditions that influenced both the literature and the construction of histories in 19^th century Bengal.