Banarasidas ARDHAKATHANAK (A Half Story) Read online

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  Banarasidas seems to have written the Ardhakathanak for a small circle of friends and acquaintances, all of whom would be familiar with the people and places he mentions.40 Often, he gives only the most cursory introduction to an important person in his story, and as for the minor characters, they do not merit even that. Tihuna Sahu, Champsi, Baccha, Tripurdas—the modern reader can only guess who these people might be.

  There are only two instances in the Ardhakathanak when Banarasi deliberately refuses to give us details. The first instance is his silence on the causes and circumstances of his business success.41 The second is an ‘indiscretion’, a result of past karma, that he committed while living alone in the village of Azizpur where he had gone to escape the plague that had broken out in Agra.42 Both are ‘secret matters’, he says, and cannot be told. We, his readers, have by now become used to his frankness, and find this reticence both frustrating and curious. His silences make us ask ‘What is Banarasi hiding?’ and ‘Why?’

  We have no means of knowing the ‘what’, but can perhaps venture to answer the ‘why’. When Banarasi wrote the Ardhakathanak, he knew that it would be read by his friends and associates, people he came into contact with daily. Revealing the secrets of his business success, or confessing to the details of an indiscreet or unwise act, may not, in such circumstances, have been the wisest thing to do.

  The Ardhakathanak is different from all his other works43 because the subject of this poem is the poet Banarasidas himself. Apart from its considerable literary merit and importance as a historical document, it deserves recognition for its unique position in Hindi literature as the first, full-fledged autobiography in the Indian tradition.

  Banarasi himself emerges as a complex and fascinating individual. Upon completing the story of ‘the five and fifty years of his life’, Banarasi provides the reader with a list of his ‘present virtues and faults’. There is none, he says, to surpass him in the composition of poetry on Adhyatma in the spoken tongue, he is accomplished in words and language, and is not ‘easily swayed by the sorrows of this world’. He is a firm believer in Jainism, friendly and sweetspoken to all, and gives wise counsel where it is needed. But, he confesses, he lacks self-restraint, and performs no ritual or puja. His greed for wealth is great, he is irrestistibly drawn to the funny and the comic, does not hesitate to speak of that which is unspeakable, and tells of matters that should not be told. Sometimes, feelings of great dread overtake him; sometimes, finding himself alone, he breaks into a dance.

  Finally, the Ardhakathanak is a personal document, the story of a man who charms us by his intensity, his passion, his love of life and his very human frailties. Most importantly, he charms by his openness, his frankness in telling us the ups and downs of his life, and revealing to us as much of himself as possible. He confesses that there were some matters that were too depraved or too foolish, that he has not been able to speak of; but, he says, he has related as accurately as he can, all that which he remembers, all that which is openly known.44 At the end of his ‘half a story’, Banarasi becomes as intimate to us as an old friend, the ups and downs of whose life we know almost as well as we know our own, and whose intellectual and spiritual struggles we identify with, and perhaps even share.

  Notes

  1. Ardhakathanak 664.

  2. Jains are those who follow the path preached by the Jinas, literally ‘conquerors’ of earthly passion and desire. The religion of the Jains is known as Jainism.

  Jainism was once regarded as a breakaway reformist strand of Hinduism, or at best, an offshoot of Buddhism. It is neither. It is an ancient faith, probably one of the oldest in the world. Its origins are non-Vedic, and predate even the Indus Valley civilization which flourished in the north and western parts of the Indian subcontinent some five thousand years ago. The principles and tenets of Jainism are based on the teachings of twenty-four great teachers, or tirthankars, ‘ford-makers’, so called because they help us ford the river of existence.

  The first tirthankar was Rishabhdev; he spread the message of non-violence and taught that the way to salvation or moksha was through the conquest of passion and desire. The last tirthankar was Mahavira. He has often been called the ‘founder’ of the Jain faith, but in reality, his teachings were the culmination of the teachings of the twenty-three tirthankarswho had preceded him.

  By the end of first century CE, Jainism had split into its two main traditions: the Digambara or ‘sky-clad’ and the Svetambara or ‘white-clad’.

  The Digambaras believe themselves to be the followers of the original teachings of Mahavira. Their monks follow a more austere path to salvation, and practise nudity (hence ‘sky-clad’) which they believe is necessary for the attainment of moksha. The Svetambaras do not believe that absolute nudity is essential for the attainment of moksha, and their monks wear white robes (so ‘white-clad’). Out of these two main divisions, the Digambaras and the Svetambaras, have sprung all others that exist today.

  Today, the Jains form only 0.5 per cent of India’s population; but they are an educated and rich community.

  3. Ardhakathanak 665.

  4. Ardhakathanak 672.

  5. A couplet, the two lines of which rhyme. Each line consists of twenty-four matras which are distributed into two ‘feet’ of 6 + 4 + 3 and 6 + 4 + 1 matras respectively, with a caesura.

  6. A verse of four ‘feet’, where each quarter verse has fifteen matras or beats. This is different from the more common chaupaaii, in which each quarter verse has 16 matras.

  7. Ardhakathanak 13, 14.

  8. A town near Gwalior, in modern Madhya Pradesh in central India.

  9. Ardhakathanak 39, 40.

  10. Ardhakathanak 76.

  11. Ardhakathanak 70.

  12. Ardhakathanak 46–47.

  13. Ardhakathanak 98–99.

  14. Ardhakathanak 200.

  15. Ardhakathanak 648.

  16. Ardhakathanak 171.

  17. Ardhakathanak 178–79.

  18. Ardhakathanak 265–67.

  19. Ardhakathanak 282, 286.

  20. Ardhakathanak 318.

  21. Ardhakathanak 459.

  22. Ardhakathanak, 394–95.

  23. Ardhakathanak 142.

  24. Ardhakathanak 353, 354.

  25. Interestingly, we come to know this fact not through the Ardhakathanak, but through the Samaysar Natak, Banarasi’s most important work on Jain doctrine. Banarasi mentions both men in his epilogue to the Samaysar Natak (stanzas 27, 29) as two of five close friends with whom he spends many long hours discussing doctrine. Dharamdas seemed to have undergone a transformation later in life for, says Banarasi, he is a man immersed in religion. Bhagwatidas, says Banarasi, is a man of sound understanding. The three other friends whom Banarasi mentions in the Samaysar Natak are Pandit Rupchand, Chaturbhuj and Kunwarpal. Unlike his other friends, Rupchand was probably a scholar, not a merchant. Kunwarpal was Dharamdas’s nephew, and somewhat of a poet himself. His full name was Kunwarpal Choradia, and like Dharamdas, he was an Oswal and a Jain. (Lath 1981: xxx). Together with Banarasi, these five men—Bhagwatidas, Dharamdas, Rupchand, Chaturbhuj and Kunwarpal—formed the core of the Jain reformist movement, known as ‘Adhyatma’ or ‘Adhyatma Saili’, in Agra.

  26. Ardhakathanak 273.

  27. Ardhakathanak 271.

  28. Ardhakathanak 608.

  29. Ardhakathanak 592.

  30. The Samaysar was written sometime in the second century ce, by Acharya Kundkund, a Jain monk and scholar. Kundkund is the author of several important works on Jain thought and philosophy, the most revered of which is his Samaysar. Pande Rajmalla, a sixteenth-century scholar, wrote his commentary on Kundkund’s Samaysar in contemporary Hindi, or Bhasha, and made the text more accessible. According to Pandit Nathuram Premi, Rajmalla’s commentary was written sometime around 1587. Later, Banarasi wrote his Samaysar Natak, based on Kundkund’s Samaysar, as well as on the commentaries written by Acharya Amritchand in ce 1000 and by Rajmalla. />
  31. Ardhakathanak 593.

  32. Ardhakathanak 606–07.

  33. Ardhakathanak 635.

  34. Ardhakathanak 638–39.

  35. Ardhakathanak 671.

  36. See Introduction to Half a Tale: A Study in the Interrelationship between Autobiography and History by Dr Mukund Lath (Rajasthan Prakrit Sansthan, Jaipur, 1981), p. xxxi.

  37. Meghavijaya probably wrote this sometime towards the end of the seventeenth century, almost sixty years after Banarasi’s death.

  38. Ardhakathanak 110–14.

  39. Ardhakathanak 467.

  40. Of course, there are moments in the Ardhakathanak when Banarasi lists and records and describes moments that do not seem to be for his friends, but for a wider audience, for posterity. His listing of the rulers of Jaunpur (Ardhakathanak 32–35), of the thirty-six castes (29) who settled in the city, and his description of the city itself (30–31), are examples of such ‘wider’ moments, which we, his readers in the twenty-first century, can only wish we had more of.

  41. Ardhakathanak 459–61.

  42. Ardhakathanak 574–75.

  43. Banarasidas’s works, concerned mainly with Jain thought and philosophy, lacked universal appeal and never became very popular. Several of his works have been lost, but many remain. The best known of his works is, of course, the Samaysar Natak, which he wrote in 1636, based on the second-century Jain Adhyatmi text, Samaysar by Acharya Kundkund. Of his extant works, the earliest is probably the composition known as the Moh Vivek Yudh—a debate, discourse, battle between the two protagonists moh (the darkness of mind that accompanies attachment to the delusion that is this world) and its opposite, vivek (true knowledge or discernment). Another available work by Banarasi is his Namamala. It is a lexical text, a dictionary in verse, based on the Sanskrit Namamala by Dhananjaya. Banarasi wrote this upon the request of his friends Narottamdas and Thanmal Badaliya. He completed the Namamala in 1613. Many of his shorter works can be found in the Banarasivilas, a collection of his works put together by his friend and associate Pandit Jagjivan, in 1644, a year or so after his death.

  44. Ardhakathanak 657–59.

  Ardhakathanak

  A Half Story

  With folded hands upon my forehead,

  And adoration in my heart,

  I, humble devotee of Parshva and Suparshva,

  Salute them.(1)

  The Baruna and the Asi, two rivers, flow into the Ganga;

  Between them lies Banaras, a city known far and wide.

  It lies in the land of Kasiwar, and so is also called Kashi.

  The birthplace of Suparshvanath and Parshvanath,

  This is where the two revealed the shiva path.1

  Since then the city has been known as Shivpuri in the world of men.

  In this manner did the city of Banaras acquire its many names.

  Those who say otherwise speak falsely and in ignorance.(2)

  He who bears the name of the birthplace of the Jinas,

  Stamped upon him like the seal of a signet ring,

  That same Banarasi will now relate

  His own story to you.(3)

  A Jain from the noble Shrimal family,

  That prince among men, that man called Banarasi,

  He thought to himself,

  ‘Let me make my story known to all.(4)

  ‘All that I have heard, and seen with my own eyes,

  Let me tell of those matters in my own words.

  Let me tell of my past faults and virtues,

  Keeping in mind the limits of custom and decorum.(5)

  ‘That which will happen in the future,

  Only those who can see the future know.

  Therefore, let me recall only the events that are past

  And describe them in broad outline.(6)

  ‘I shall tell my tale in the common speech of Madhyadesh.

  I shall reveal that which is hidden

  And describe my past life and character.

  Listen carefully, my friends.’(7)

  In this good land of Bharat

  In the fair region known as Madhyadesh,

  Lies the town of Rohtak

  And near it the village of Biholi.(8)

  In Biholi village there had settled

  In times past, Rajput warriors of royal descent.

  Receiving the mantra from a guru, they had become Jains

  And given up their strange and warlike ways.(9)

  They adopted the mala2 to repeat the high mantra of Jainism;

  Thus they earned the surname, Shrimal.

  They took upon themselves the gotra, Biholia—

  Guardians and protectors of Biholi.(10)

  Banarasi’s genealogy is very long,

  Not much will be gained by relating it all.

  So let it begin with the two, Ganga and Gosal,

  Who came and settled in the town of Rohtak.(11)

  From them was descended Basta,

  A man praised and respected by one and all.

  Bastapal’s son was Jethmal,

  Jethmal’s was Jindas.(12)

  Muldas was Jindas’s

  Eldest son.

  He studied Hindugi and Farsi

  And was a man both fortunate and strong.(13)

  Muldas Biholia,

  Pursuing a bania’s way of life

  Became steward to a Mughal officer

  And went away to Malwa.(14)

  Malwa was a peaceful and prosperous land,

  And Narwar a pleasant and beautiful city.

  It was there that the Mughal officer had been given his jagir—

  Being one of the chosen ones among Emperor Humayun’s soldiers.(15)

  The Mughal treated Muldas with great favour.

  Muldas ran a moneylending business, giving the Mughal all he made.

  Know that when from Samvat3 1600,

  Eight more years had passed,(16)

  On the fifth day of the bright half of the month of Sawan, on Sunday,

  In Muldas’s home, a son was born.

  There was joy and great rejoicing. Muldas spent large sums of money.

  And named his son, Kharagsen.(17)

  Two years went by in peace and joy.

  Another son, Ghanmal, was born.

  When three years more had passed,

  In Narwar, Ghanmal died.(18)

  Time and Destiny carried Ghanmal away

  As the wind blows clouds away.

  His mother and father were left, two trees

  Scorched in the fierce sun of their grief.(19)

  Muldas mourned his younger son unceasingly,

  And in his grief he died.

  Thus in Samvat 1613,

  Death came to both father and son.(20)

  Kharagsen, the older son, with his mother now remained.

  Orphaned and helpless, mother and son were distracted with grief.

  The Mughal was away in some village,

  It was there that he heard the news.(21)

  The Mughal returned forthwith

  Upon hearing of Muldas’s death.

  He seized his house and sealed it shut,

  And snatched away all Muldas had owned.(22)

  Mother and son, wretched and miserable,

  Lamented loud and long.

  Somehow, great suffering and many difficulties later,

  They found their way to the land that lay to the east.(23)

  In that eastern land, the city of Jaunpur lies

  At a vantage point on the Gomti’s banks.

  There the Gomti flows in such a manner

  As may best be described in a poet’s words.(24)

  At first towards the south it flows,

  Then to the east it turns,

  And again, to the north it flows—

  The Gomti River, deep and fathomless.(25)

  The Gomti River thus in three directions flows.

  Its banks are wide and pleasant.

  In times past, a Pathan named Jauna Shah,

  To th
at spot came and founded a city.(26)

  He declared himself king, assumed the insignia of royal power,

  And mounting the throne, proclaimed his rule and authority.

  He named his new capital Jaunpur,

  And made it into a strong and impregnable city.(27)

  All the four castes came and settled there

  Including thirty-six paunis of the lower caste;

  Thus brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya were there

  And thirty-six shudra subcastes.(28)

  Glassworkers, tailors, betel-leaf sellers, dyers, milkmen, carpenters, stone-cutters, oil-press workers and oil sellers, washermen, cotton carders,

  Confectioners, water carriers and palanquin bearers, vegetable growers and vegetable sellers, wine sellers, potters, sellers of flowers and flower garlands, fullers, paper-makers, farmers, weavers,

  Painters, workers in pearls and precious stones, makers of platters and containers from leaves, lac workers, coppersmiths, builders, weavers of gold and silver threads, thatchers, barbers, grain-parchers,

  Goldsmiths, blacksmiths, knife-sharpeners, firework makers, fishermen, leatherworkers—these were the thirty-six paunis.(29)

  The city of Jaunpur was magnificent and splendid

  With its lofty temples, pavilions, palaces

  And its many grand houses with seven floors,

  Bedecked with canopies and innumerable flags.(30)

  Within the city were fifty-two sarais;

  Fifty-two parganas surrounded it.

  In the city were fifty-two marketplaces,

  And fifty-two great mandis.(31)

  One after another, nine kings ruled the city.