Banarasidas ARDHAKATHANAK (A Half Story) Read online

  The tale then switches from this domestic scene to a broader one depicting the marketplace and the town. Here the narrative picks out several details that give a graphic account of the widespread anxiety that befalls when an emperor—the essential keystone of the arch of social cohesion—is suddenly removed from the picture. Motivated by fear of what might happen, rather than by any observable acts of crime or unrest, wealthy folk began dressing as paupers, merchants shut up shop and spirited away their wealth and their ledgers, leaving the marketplace deserted, and ordinary people barricaded themselves in their houses. By picking out these details, Banarasi conveys to us the public dread of the disruption that so often accompanied rivalries of imperial succession, when the dramatic antagonism of pretenders to the throne would lead to bloodshed and more. In Banarasi’s account, however, the panic soon proved unfounded, and ten days after the traumatic news of Akbar’s death, ‘a letter came from Agra saying that all was well’ (verse 256).

  In Banarasi’s tightly composed verse narrative, a few well-chosen details stand for the whole picture, and readers are left to work out for themselves such matters as cause and effect, implication, and moral. Thus it is not the poet who describes the emperor as ‘the essential keystone of the arch of social cohesion’—the poet does not bother to explain the terrors that an interregnum held in a political system where the entire matrix of governance depended upon a strong central figure, and where an empty throne spelt disaster for the populace; instead, such literalist explanations are the job of a plodding commentator such as the writer of this preface, who earns his supper by pointing out the obvious, or by making plain what the more intelligent poet had deliberately left as a matter of inference. In terms of poetry, less is more, and much of the aesthetic pleasure of reading a poem comes from the echoes and counter-echoes of meaning that flow from ambiguity. Like all poetry worth the name, Banarasi’s is rich with allusion: and although allusive wording may often prove to be also elusive in terms of our understanding all this detail, the need to read between the lines can only deepen the significance of the narrative itself.

  Literal-minded explanation of the subtext of poetry can kill it dead, as with the redundant explanation of a joke. Nevertheless, there can be some advantage in having some of Banarasi’s narrative techniques laid out for inspection, especially as they may be lost or concealed by the process of translation into English, the sensibilities of the two languages being radically different. In the paragraphs below, we shall look at some more of the ways in which Banarasi brings his story alive.

  Perhaps the most obvious difference between the conventions of Banarasi’s time and of our own is the choice of medium—prose or verse. Whereas prose was frequently used in Sanskrit literature, its appearance in the vernacular languages of the pre-modern or ‘medieval’ period was generally restricted to ‘secondary’ genres such as commentaries.6 Today, we are accustomed to thinking of the verse medium as being something that aspires to artistic expression, or as something called ‘creative writing’ as the contemporary term has it; but in pre-modern Hindi, verse was simply the standard medium for writing any kind of text, and even such functional works as handbooks of veterinary medicine would be couched in tightly-composed rhyming couplets and quatrains. To some extent, then, we need to distinguish between ‘verse’ (in the sense of a ‘writing composed in a metrical measure, and usually rhyming’) and ‘poetry’ (as a more self-consciously literary kind of writing, deliberately exploiting various rhetorical devices as a means of expressing feeling).

  In these terms, was Banarasi a poet or just a composer of verse? We could ask further: was he a true poet, at home with the conventions of his chosen genre and able to touch our hearts with lines of grace and beauty, or was he a mere poetaster, a rhymester who churned out lines by the yard as he told his tale? To answer this question through the medium of translation is impossible, since even the most sympathetic and skilled English-medium translator cannot preserve subtle literary qualities of a kind that had been moulded and refined over millennia in the courts, temples and academies of India. So if we want to know where to place Banarasi in respect of his writing, we must look directly at his own words.

  Of all the many moments in which Banarasi bares his heart to us, none is more moving than his accounts of the death of his several children. To outlive one’s own offspring is, of course, one of the cruelest of all experiences that a person can face in this world; and although the untimely death of children was very much more commonplace than it is today, Banarasi was surely uncommonly unlucky (or egregiously fated, as he saw it) to lose all his children in infancy. Here is the verse in which he summarizes this dreadful fact:

  nau baalaka huue mue, rahe naari nara doi

  jyaun taravara patajhaara hvai, rahain thuuntha-se hoi.

  Nine children were born and died.

  The husband and wife remained, two alone,

  Like trees that shed their leaves in autumn,

  And are left bare and leafless.

  Here is a literal translation that maintains the word order and the composition of the original:

  nine children became [and] died, remained man woman two

  as trees autumn befallen, remain stump-like becoming

  Of course, this makes little sense and less poetry, and the translator must dress the verse in new syntax and idiom to make it meaningful in English. But the comparison between the original and the translation is instructive for several reasons. Firstly, it shows the extreme economy of the Braj verse, which uses just fifteen words; Rohini Chowdhury’s translation is itself succinct, sensitive, and crisply to the point, and yet it requires a full twenty-seven words—nearly twice the number of the original—to deliver the poem’s burden to the reader. Poetic Braj is a language that achieves phenomenal concision by managing without certain words that are essential in translation. Here is the English version again, with such words underlined:

  Nine children were born and died.

  The husband and wife remained, two alone,

  Like trees that shed their leaves in autumn,

  And are left bare and leafless.

  This exercise breaks down in the fourth line, where the translator has, quite reasonably, substituted an adjectival phrase ‘bare and leafless’ for the stumpy ‘stump-like’ of the original; but even so it is clear that the Braj has a poetic intensity in which every word counts towards the highly affective imagery of the verse.

  What are we seeing here, and how does it help us address the question of Banarasi’s artistic achievement or lack of it? Well, the elliptical character of Braj verse is certainly not peculiar to Banarasi: it features in virtually all verse from the sublime to the mundane, and of course some linguistic features such as the absence of the definite article are common to South Asian languages generally. This means that we cannot attribute the general feature of word economy to Banarasi’s individual genius. But if we look closely at the way in which he marshals his words in a sentence or poetic line, we do see his true poetic talent clearly revealed. Look back at the eight words of his first line, and consider how they are deployed. Two aspects of the line’s construction are perfectly designed to maximize the plangency of the context. The first is that the mathematical contrast between the nine children and the two parents is emphasized by the positioning of the two numbers at the two opposite ends of the line; the second, an almost diametrically opposite feature, is that the line’s three verbs come in a straight sequence (huue mue rahe, ‘became, died, remained’), emphasizing the short-livedness of the ill-fated children, with the structural caesura separating the living from the dead.

  Details of this kind are too frequent in the text, and too sublime in their effect, to be attributed to mere chance. What we are seeing here is the genius of a poet who knows how to arrange his words in such a way as to deliver sentiment as well as meaning; and this goes to the heart of the matter, confirming that this is indeed ‘poetry’ and not merely ‘verse’. This is not the place for a detaile
d analysis of Banarasi’s craft, but in reading the fine translation provided by this volume, the reader should be aware of the skill shown by Banarasi in the telling of his tale.

  What would Banarasi have made of an approach like the one adopted in this preface? Does it reflect his own preoccupations, does it identify qualities in his poetry that he himself considered significant enough to attract comment? Almost certainly not: Banarasi would see in my too-many paragraphs an inarticulate groping for meanings that his own poetry would convey in a few concise couplets, and the pretensions of latter-day scholarship would ring hollow in his ears. Better, then, to abandon such meanderings, and move straight to the poem itself, to the words of a poet whose ‘half-story’ speaks to us across the centuries with deep humanity, timeless wisdom, and limitless wit.

  Rupert Snell

  October 2008

  Austin, Texas

  1This essay draws on my earlier article, ‘Confessions of a seventeenth-century Jain merchant: the Ardhakathanak of Banarasidas,’ in South Asia Research vol. 25, no. 1 (May 2005): 79—104.

  2 See Manjhan, Madhumalati: An Indian Sufi Romance, trans. Aditya Behl et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  3 Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas, Balkand 1.

  4 In fact the long and short versions of this metre are distinguished in spelling—chaupaaii and chaupaii respectively.

  5‘Narottam’ is in fact a poor choice of name as the basis of an acrostic in Hindi, since no word in the language can begin with a double‘tt’! For once, the translator is better equipped to handle the literary conventions than the author of the original. Here, for comparison with Rohini Chowdhury’ neat working-out of the verse, is my own freer version, in which I have allowed myself a generous helping of translator’ licence:

  —————

  Ninefold prayer and praise of his dear Lord,

  As all know well, dwell ever in his mind.

  Radiant-limbed, e’er pious in his heart, an

  Ornament of form, Love’ likeness eulogized!

  Transcending body’ pride, so bountiful…

  To track his fame, trace canopies of praise.

  Abode of glory, bosom friend of Banarasi—

  May this octet initially rehearse his name.

  6 A rare exception in Hindi is the so-called varta literature, a kind of devotional hagiology describing incidents in the lives of historical and ahistorical devotees; but this sectarian genre would hardly have recommended itself as a model for Banarasi’s purposes, and in any case it barely predates the Ardhakathanak, if at all.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I was introduced to the Ardhakathanak in April 2004 by Dr Rupert Snell, then head of South Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Dr Snell gave me Dr Mukund Lath’s excellent English translation of the text, which also contained Banarasidas’s original composition.

  I began reading the Ardhakathanak, first out of curiosity, and then with growing interest and excitement. I realized that here was a unique and wonderful work, but which was known only to a handful of scholars and enthusiasts.

  I met Ravi Singh of Penguin India in 2005, and in the course of conversation, mentioned the Ardhakathanak and suggested that perhaps Penguin India should be the ones to make this text better known. Ravi deftly transferred the burden on to my shoulders, and asked me to translate the text into Khari Boli, modern Hindi, as well as into English.

  Translation into modern Hindi provided its own challenges, the biggest of which, surprisingly, were the similarities between Banarasi’s language and the Hindi of today. Translation into English made demands of a completely different order—for not only were the languages involved completely different, but so were the respective cultural contexts of those languages. I found it impossible to always convey accurately and completely every meaning and nuance of Banarasi’s words, though I have tried to adhere to the spirit of his verses.

  During the course of my translation, I repeatedly consulted three texts. These were:

  1. The Ardhakathanak translated, introduced and annotated by Mukund Lath, Half a Tale: A Study in the Interrelationship between Autobiography and History (Rajasthan Prakrit Bharati Sansthan, Jaipur, 1981). A new edition of Dr Lath’s English translation of the Ardhakathanak has been recently published by Rupa, New Delhi.

  2. The second edition of the text edited by Nathuram Premi, Ardhakathanak (Hindi Granth Ratnakar, Bombay, 1957).

  3. Dr Ravindra Kumar Jain, Kavivar Banarasidas: Jivani aur Krititva (Bharatiya Jnanpith, New Delhi, 1966).

  To Dr Mukund Lath, my special gratitude, for graciously granting me permission to use his work and to cite it as a reference source.

  My thanks too, to Yashodhar Modi and Manish Modi, of the Hindi Granth Karyalay, for giving me their permission to use Pandit Nathuram Premi’s book, and to Bharatiya Jnanpith, for their permission to use Dr Ravindra Kumar Jain’s book, during the course of my work, and to cite these as reference sources. To Manish Modi, my gratitude for the patient and thorough explanations he provided on Jain doctrine, and the insight he gave me into Banarasidas and his place and importance in the history of Jain thought.

  I also consulted several books on Jainism, to understand and clarify the many Jain concepts that Banarasi mentions in the Ardhakathanak. My thanks to M.S. Abhinandan, who gave me permission to consult and cite his book A Journey through Jainism (Indialog Publications, New Delhi, 2005).

  I would also like to thank Ravi Singh of Penguin India, who gave me the opportunity to be part of this enriching and exciting project, and R. Sivapriya, my editor at Penguin, who took this book through the stages of editing and production.

  To Dr Rupert Snell, my very special thanks—for introducing me to Banarasidas and the Ardhakathanak, for generously making available to me his writings on Braj poetry and the Ardhakathanak, for answering all my queries with patience and good humour, for reading my Hindi translation and pointing out my gaffes and mistakes with kindness and tolerance, for giving so generously of his time, his thoughts and his knowledge, and most of all, for his continuous and unflagging encouragement and support.

  My grateful thanks too, to Usha Bubna—for her many trips to the National Library, Kolkata, in search of books and material, for her patient and enthusiastic research and response to my many queries related to Banarasidas and Jainism, and her detailed and careful reading and editing of my drafts.

  To Dr Asha Maheshwari, and to Dr Urmi Sen, again my gratitude, for their suggestions and comments on my translation.

  Many other friends stood by me in many ways, silently and good-humouredly tolerating my preoccupation with the Ardhakathanak and Banarasidas for one-and-a-half long years. To Atul Pradhan, Piyali Sengupta, Bishnupriya Ghosh and Stephan Clarke, my sincere and grateful appreciation.

  And finally, to my husband Atul Bansal, and my daughters, Vipasha and Vidisha, for their encouragement and support, my gratitude.

  Rohini Chowdhury

  July 2008

  London

  INTRODUCTION

  It was more than three hundred and sixty-five years ago, in the winter of 1641, in Agra, that Banarasidas, poet, philosopher and merchant, completed the writing of a unique and remarkable text. The Ardhakathanak, as this text is known, is the story of Banarasidas’s own life.

  When he wrote his story, Banarasidas was fifty-five years old. He believed that another fifty-five years of life remained1 to him since according to Jain tradition:2

  A hundred and ten years

  Is the span of a man’s life.3

  He therefore called his story his ‘aradh kathan’, his ‘half a story’. Banarasidas died two years after the completion of his Ardhakathanak, so that ironically, his half a story becomes in reality his full story.

  The Ardhakathanak is also, possibly, the first autobiography in an Indian language. Banarasi had no precedent in literature or tradition that might have inspired him to write his life’s story, or guided him in his task. His motivation to write his story seeme
d simple. As he explains towards the end:

  He thought to himself,

  ‘Let me tell my story to all.’

  Of the five and fifty years of his life

  He then related his tale.4

  The result is an account that is more modern than medieval in tone, and which transcends the formulaic conventions and stylized ornamentation that characterize other biographical works of the time. Banarasi’s account of his life, which he relates in the third person, is very personal, straightforward and open; he examines not only his virtues but his faults as well. His candour makes the Ardhakathanak unusual and unique, and sets it far ahead of its time.

  At first glance, the Ardhakathanak seems a simple text, as simple as the reason Banarasi gives for writing it. But another look makes us pause and consider: perhaps part of Banarasi’s purpose in writing his story, in setting down the main events of his life and pondering cause and effect and the workings of karma, was an attempt to understand better the nature and meaning of human existence.

  Banarasidas composed the Ardhakathanak in 675 stanzas, mainly in the doha5 and chaupai6 metres. His language is simple, the spoken language of northern India in his time, a mixture of Braj Bhasha and Khari Boli.