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The Ardhakathanaka by Banarasi Das: a Socio-cultural Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Eugenia Vanina
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Extract

Any researcher into the pre-modern history of India inevitably faces the problem of source material, and the creative genius of medieval Indians furnishes us with a wide range of sources; innumerable files of original documents, multi-volumed chronicles, bulky treatises, etc. A great number of travelogues enables us to view medieval India through the eyes of visitors from all parts of the globe. The source to be analysed in this article will hardly stand comparison with the above-mentioned materials. It is a biography of an insignificant man, a family history of modest middle-class people unconnected with court intrigues and political battles. And the title of the book is anything but serious. Ardhakathanaka means “Half a Tale”. The author, a Jain merchant named Banarasi Das, completed it in 1641, being fifty-five at that time; the ideal life span of the great Jain sages was believed to be one hundred and ten years. Thus Banarasi, who harboured no ambitions to equal the great sages, titled his autobiography “Haifa Tale”, displaying a somewhat bitter humour (he died shortly after completing the book).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , July 1995 , pp. 211 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1995

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References

1 Lath, Makund (ed., trans.), Half a Tale. Ardhakathanaka (Jaipur, 1981), p. 96 (English), p. 275 (Hindi).Google Scholar This article is based on the Hindi text as produced by Dr Lath. The quotations are translated by the present author and this translation in some cases differs from Lath's. Lath's English rendering is also referred to for the readers' convenience. The source is hereafter abbreviated to AK.

2 Gupta, Mataprasad (ed.), The Ardha-Katha (Allahabad, 1943)Google Scholar.

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5 Unfortunately, this book is inaccessible to the present author.

6 Indica, VII (1970), pt. 1–2Google Scholar.

7 The Cambridge Economic History of India (Cambridge, 1982), i, pp. 264, 341–3, 351Google Scholar.

8 Published in Chandra, S. (ed.), Essays in Medieval Indian Economic History. Indian History Congress, Golden Jubilee Series (Delhi, 1987), pp. 222–8Google Scholar.

9 AK, p. 224 (Hindi), Lath's English translation omits this date.

10 AK, pp. 38–40 (English), pp. 242–3 (Hindi). See also Lath's preface and commentaries.

11 See, for instance, Singh, M. P., Merchants and Local Administration and Civil Rights in Gujarat-Aligarh University. A Miscellany (Aligarh, 1964), p. 223Google Scholar; The English Factories in India. A Calendar of Documents in the India Office (Oxford, 1907), pp. 11, 148, 158Google Scholar.

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14 AK, p. 226 (Hindi). The list of castes was omitted in Lath's translation and reproduced in Sharma's article, Indica, VII, pt. I, pp. 22–6.

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18 Discussed at length in R. C. Sharma's paper.

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24 Tavernier, ii, p. 144.

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26 AK, p. 60 (English), p. 255 (Hindi).

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37 AK, p. 65 (English), pp. 257–8 (Hindi).

38 Rahim Rattuwati (Varanasi, 1950)Google Scholar. See also Naik, C. R., Abdur-Rahim Khan-i Khanan and his Literary Circle (Ahmadabad, 1966), pp. 230–232Google Scholar.

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41 AK, pp. 7, 63 (English), pp. 227, 256 (Hindi).

42 AK, pp. ii, 21 (English), pp. 230, 234. (Hindi).

43 AK, p. 16 (English), p. 231 (Hindi).

44 AK, p. 8 (English), p. 228 (Hindi).

45 AK, pp. 14, 30, 41 (English), pp. 231, 238, 245 (Hindi).

46 AK, pp. 11–12 (English), p. 230 (Hindi).

47 AK, p. 13 (English), p. 230 (Hindi).

48 AK, p. 56 (English), p. 253 (Hindi).

49 AK, pp. 35–6, 40 (English), pp. 240, 244 (Hindi).

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56 Quoted by Hillerbrand, H. J., The Reformation. A Narrative History Related by Contemporary Observers and Participants (New York, 1964), p. 293Google Scholar.

57 See, for example, Ozment, S. E., Mysticism and Dissent. Religious Ideology and Social Protest in the Sixteenth Century (New Haven and London, 1973), pp. 35, 50, 56, 85ffGoogle Scholar.

58 Dvivedi, Hazari Prasad, Kabir, pp. 262, 272Google Scholar.

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61 Bardai, Chand, Prithviraj-Raso (Udaipur, 1955), pp. 1, 23, 144, 223–225ffGoogle Scholar. See also Pandit, R. S. (trans.), Kalhana's Rajatarangini (Delhi, 1968)Google Scholar; Ambastha, B. P., Non-Persian Sources of Medieval Indian History (Delhi, 1984)Google Scholar.

62 See, for example, Brahmanadas, Charan, Bhagatmal (Jodhpur, 1959)Google Scholar; Sarkar, J., Chaitanya's Life and Teachings (Calcutta, 1988)Google Scholar; Abbott, Justin A., Eknath. A Translation from the Bhaktalilamrita (Poona, 1927)Google Scholar.

63 Prithviraj Raso, pp. I, 26–7; Allami, Abu-l Fazl, trans, by Beveridge, H., Akbar Nama (Delhi, 1979), i, pp. 39–49, 384–385ffGoogle Scholar.

64 Bhagavadgita, iii, 35, trans, by Radhakrishnan, S. (London, 1948), pp. 146–147Google Scholar.

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67 AK, p. 33 (English), p. 239 (Hindi).

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69 Nizami, Kh. A., Akbar and Religion (Delhi, 1989), p. 81Google Scholar.

70 Abidi, S. A., “Talib-i Amuli. His life and poetry”, Islamic Culture, XXXXI, pt. 2 (1967), p. 129Google Scholar.

71 See, for example, Ballala's, Bhojaprabandha. The Narrative of Bhoja (New Haven, 1950), pp. 32, 51Google Scholar.

72 Callewaert, W., pp. 33, 63–75 (English), pp. 91, 105–15 (Hindi)Google Scholar.

73 Compare, for instance, Ain-l Akbari, i, pp. 59, 162–70; iii, pp. 478–524Google Scholar.

74 Nikasī ghauṅghī sāgar mathā (Churned an ocean, obtained a snail). AK, p. 52 (English), p. 251 (Hindi).

75 AK, pp. 3–4 (English), p. 225 (Hindi). Lath translated “wind of time wafted him away unawares”. But the word kāl means not only “time” but “death”. The latter seems more correct in this case, since Ghanmal was only three years of age.