Phakir Lālan Sã̄i: Deś kāl evaṃ śilpa by Śaktināth JhāReview by: Carol SalomonJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1998), pp. 128-132Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/606338 .

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.1 (1998) Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.1 (1998)

Kurumba mara-jenu may correspond to Irula mucurandenu. Of great value for the comparative study of the verbal art of

Nilgiri tribal population is the honey-song (jen-paduma) quoted by the author in original and translation on pp. 148-

52, and the honey-narrative (jen-parasaiga), on pp. 154-58. In my recent paper on Irula songs,6 I quote a verep.ttu 'song of steep slope' (ex Ar. Periyalvar) which used to be sung when Irula men went to collect honey: the forest creeper rope (kadukodi) is addressed as tande father, and the steep slope (vere) is addressed as tayi mother. This can be compared with what Demmer says on p. 152: "Wie man sieht, konstruieren die Sammler mit diesem Lied einen Kontext, in dem sie sich, narrativ, eine gemeinsame Identitat als affinale Verwandte schaffen. Die Sammler sprechen die Bienen als potentielle affinale Heiratspartner und die Mutter der Bienen als Mutter dieser affinalen Partner an."

There is one matter which I find striking. In 1978, in my search for surviving tribal languages of the area in question, I came across Jenu Kurumbas, alias Kadu Nayakar, at Teppa- kadu, the main elephant-camp of the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanc-

tuary, who were there employed as mahouts. In fact, apart from

honey-gathering,7 they revealed as their special skill precisely elephant-taming (consisting of catching and taming wild ele-

phants, training of the animals for forest work, and riding tame

elephants as mahouts; in my repeated elephant-rides through the jungle the mahouts were always Jenu Kurumbas). I find it inexplicable that Demmer, who conducted his research into the Jenu Kurumba community in practically identical envi-

ronments, "bei Masinagudi," next to the Mudumalai Sanctuary, in 1987-1991, does not mention, not even once, this very spe- cialized and rather striking occupation of Jenu Kurumba men.8

KAMIL V. ZVELEBIL

CABRESPINE, AUDE

6 PILC Journal of Dravidic Studies 5.1 (1995): 67-95. 7 In the paper cited below I have mentioned a few JKu words

connected with this activity: jenu 'honey', jenu tuppa 'honey as food for bee larvae', jenu i.ttu 'pollen', alimari 'bee-larva' (edi- ble), dod.dajenu 'large honey-comb', and tudejenu 'honey-comb found inside trees'. Compare with these terms Demmer's terms found on pp. 135 ff., e.g., tude, tuppa.

8 "Elephant Language" of the Mahouts of Mudumalai Wild- life Sanctuary," JAOS 99 (1979): 675-76.

Phakir Lalan Sai: Des kal evam silpa. By SAKTINATH JHA. Calcutta: SAMBAD, 1995. Pp. [9] + 359. Rs 150.

Fakir Lilan Sai (d. 1890), better known as Lalan Fakir, is celebrated throughout Bengal as the best of the Baul poets. The

Kurumba mara-jenu may correspond to Irula mucurandenu. Of great value for the comparative study of the verbal art of

Nilgiri tribal population is the honey-song (jen-paduma) quoted by the author in original and translation on pp. 148-

52, and the honey-narrative (jen-parasaiga), on pp. 154-58. In my recent paper on Irula songs,6 I quote a verep.ttu 'song of steep slope' (ex Ar. Periyalvar) which used to be sung when Irula men went to collect honey: the forest creeper rope (kadukodi) is addressed as tande father, and the steep slope (vere) is addressed as tayi mother. This can be compared with what Demmer says on p. 152: "Wie man sieht, konstruieren die Sammler mit diesem Lied einen Kontext, in dem sie sich, narrativ, eine gemeinsame Identitat als affinale Verwandte schaffen. Die Sammler sprechen die Bienen als potentielle affinale Heiratspartner und die Mutter der Bienen als Mutter dieser affinalen Partner an."

There is one matter which I find striking. In 1978, in my search for surviving tribal languages of the area in question, I came across Jenu Kurumbas, alias Kadu Nayakar, at Teppa- kadu, the main elephant-camp of the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanc-

tuary, who were there employed as mahouts. In fact, apart from

honey-gathering,7 they revealed as their special skill precisely elephant-taming (consisting of catching and taming wild ele-

phants, training of the animals for forest work, and riding tame

elephants as mahouts; in my repeated elephant-rides through the jungle the mahouts were always Jenu Kurumbas). I find it inexplicable that Demmer, who conducted his research into the Jenu Kurumba community in practically identical envi-

ronments, "bei Masinagudi," next to the Mudumalai Sanctuary, in 1987-1991, does not mention, not even once, this very spe- cialized and rather striking occupation of Jenu Kurumba men.8

KAMIL V. ZVELEBIL

CABRESPINE, AUDE

6 PILC Journal of Dravidic Studies 5.1 (1995): 67-95. 7 In the paper cited below I have mentioned a few JKu words

connected with this activity: jenu 'honey', jenu tuppa 'honey as food for bee larvae', jenu i.ttu 'pollen', alimari 'bee-larva' (edi- ble), dod.dajenu 'large honey-comb', and tudejenu 'honey-comb found inside trees'. Compare with these terms Demmer's terms found on pp. 135 ff., e.g., tude, tuppa.

8 "Elephant Language" of the Mahouts of Mudumalai Wild- life Sanctuary," JAOS 99 (1979): 675-76.

Phakir Lalan Sai: Des kal evam silpa. By SAKTINATH JHA. Calcutta: SAMBAD, 1995. Pp. [9] + 359. Rs 150.

Fakir Lilan Sai (d. 1890), better known as Lalan Fakir, is celebrated throughout Bengal as the best of the Baul poets. The

first part of the book under review is an edition of his songs based on a manuscript that has recently come to light. The second part is divided into an introduction and four untitled

chapters.1 Previous scholars, such as Upendranfth Bhattfacrya, em-

phasized the overall similarity of the beliefs and practices of the Biuls. In the introduction to the second part of the book, Jha argues that their differences should not be glossed over.

First, there is no single sampraday called Baul. Rather, the Bauls are a loose aggregate (samabdy) of different Hindu and Muslim groups (gosthi) and subgroups (upagosthi) which, how-

ever, are not divided strictly along sectarian lines. Thus, it is not uncommon for a Hindu guru to have Muslim disciples and vice versa. The Bauls even include individuals who defy classification and do not fit into any particular group. Second, while Bauls practice the same basic woman-centered sddhana, there are also significant variations in the specific practices that need to be considered. To make the matter more complicated, not all practitioners of the sadhana consider themselves Bauls. The introduction also includes a discussion about whether it is accurate to call Lilan a Baul, since he never refers to him- self by the term. Jhfi concludes that Lilan was indeed a Baul. Two of the reasons he gives for reaching this conclusion are that Lalan's disciple Duddu Sa identified his own group as darbeshi Baul, and more important, that the Bauls consider him to be their best poet and use his songs to explain their own beliefs and practices.

In chapter one of part two Jhi discusses the manuscript, its

history and importance, and gives an overview of research on Lalan. He also describes the popularization of the Bauls by Harinath Majumdair, who was known as a sakher (amateur) Baul and who was a prolific composer of Biul songs, as well as a friend of Lalan; by the writer Mukundadfs, who idealized the Biuls in his plays and wrote Biul-like patriotic songs; and by Rabindranath Tagore, among others. In chapter two he places Lilan's songs in the social, cultural, historical and economic contexts in which they were composed, and gleans from them details about Lalan's life and times. Jha also describes Lalan's

path (pantha), emphasizing that he did not pass his mantle to

any particular disciple, nor did his disciples form a sampraday around him or write hagiographies that made him into a super- human being. As Jha explains, the reason this happened is that the Bauls place emphasis on what is present (bartaman) and what they can directly see and experience. Chapter three is a detailed study of Lalan's poetry, and chapter four discusses the

interpretation of the songs for their esoteric significance re-

lating to sadhand, and some of the difficulties involved in

doing so. For example, Jha notes that not only may a word be

explained differently by different Baul groups, but its mean-

1 Although the chapters are not titled, most of the sections

within them are; however, these are too numerous to list.

first part of the book under review is an edition of his songs based on a manuscript that has recently come to light. The second part is divided into an introduction and four untitled

chapters.1 Previous scholars, such as Upendranfth Bhattfacrya, em-

phasized the overall similarity of the beliefs and practices of the Biuls. In the introduction to the second part of the book, Jha argues that their differences should not be glossed over.

First, there is no single sampraday called Baul. Rather, the Bauls are a loose aggregate (samabdy) of different Hindu and Muslim groups (gosthi) and subgroups (upagosthi) which, how-

ever, are not divided strictly along sectarian lines. Thus, it is not uncommon for a Hindu guru to have Muslim disciples and vice versa. The Bauls even include individuals who defy classification and do not fit into any particular group. Second, while Bauls practice the same basic woman-centered sddhana, there are also significant variations in the specific practices that need to be considered. To make the matter more complicated, not all practitioners of the sadhana consider themselves Bauls. The introduction also includes a discussion about whether it is accurate to call Lilan a Baul, since he never refers to him- self by the term. Jhfi concludes that Lilan was indeed a Baul. Two of the reasons he gives for reaching this conclusion are that Lalan's disciple Duddu Sa identified his own group as darbeshi Baul, and more important, that the Bauls consider him to be their best poet and use his songs to explain their own beliefs and practices.

In chapter one of part two Jhi discusses the manuscript, its

history and importance, and gives an overview of research on Lalan. He also describes the popularization of the Bauls by Harinath Majumdair, who was known as a sakher (amateur) Baul and who was a prolific composer of Biul songs, as well as a friend of Lalan; by the writer Mukundadfs, who idealized the Biuls in his plays and wrote Biul-like patriotic songs; and by Rabindranath Tagore, among others. In chapter two he places Lilan's songs in the social, cultural, historical and economic contexts in which they were composed, and gleans from them details about Lalan's life and times. Jha also describes Lalan's

path (pantha), emphasizing that he did not pass his mantle to

any particular disciple, nor did his disciples form a sampraday around him or write hagiographies that made him into a super- human being. As Jha explains, the reason this happened is that the Bauls place emphasis on what is present (bartaman) and what they can directly see and experience. Chapter three is a detailed study of Lalan's poetry, and chapter four discusses the

interpretation of the songs for their esoteric significance re-

lating to sadhand, and some of the difficulties involved in

doing so. For example, Jha notes that not only may a word be

explained differently by different Baul groups, but its mean-

1 Although the chapters are not titled, most of the sections

within them are; however, these are too numerous to list.

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Reviews of Books

ing may also depend on whether the practitioner is at the first

(sthfl), second (prabarta), third (sadhak), or fourth (siddha) stage of sadhana. The chapter also contains a discussion of some metaphors used by Lalan, such as the "bee" symbolizing the male, the male organ, or the male's tongue, and the "two- mouthed snake" signifying the female, with the two mouths

representing her vagina and mouth. It ends with an explanation of the number symbolism in Lalan's songs.

As recorded by a number of scholars, Lalan-panthi fakirs have long charged that the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore took Lalan's dsal khatd, the original notebook of his songs, from his akhra in Cheuriya in present-day Kushtia District,

Bangladesh, and never returned it. They further claimed that these songs helped Tagore write Gitanjali, for which he re- ceived the Nobel Prize in 1913. It was well known that Tagore had possessed two undated notebooks with a total of 285 songs by Lalan (Rabindra Bhavan MS 138 A 1 and 2), but they were

generally believed to have been written down by Bamacaran

Bhat.tacarya, a clerk who was in Tagore's employ at his family's estate in Shilaidah, located only a few miles from Cheuriya, which fell within the purview of the Tagore family's zamindari.

Sanatkumar Mitra was the first to cast doubts on this the-

ory. In his book Lalan Phakir: Kabi o kabya (1386 B.s. ["Ben- gali Era"]), which includes an edition of the notebooks, he

argues that there is some factual basis to the fakirs' complaints. According to Mitra, the songs could not have been written down by someone with Bhattacarya's level of education. The nonstandard and inconsistent orthography of the manuscripts, reflecting the dialectal pronunciation of Kushtia, and the type of corrections made to the manuscripts indicate that the scribe had to have been someone from Lalan's ashram, presumably one of Lalan's disciples (p. 265). The notebooks, Mitra con- cludes, were somehow removed from the ashram and found their way into Tagore's hands.

Mitra's view concerning the scribe of the notebooks has been corroborated by Abul Ahsan Caudhuri in his recent biog- raphy Lalan Sdh (1990: 20 and 85). Mitra's further conclusions, however, were wide of the mark. He claimed that the two note- books were Lalan's dsal khata and that they contained the entire Lalan corpus, thereby excluding some of Lalan's most famous songs, such as "Khacar bhitor acin pakhi" and eleven of the twenty songs that Tagore himself published in the liter-

ary journal Prabdsi in 1322 B.s. (1915-16). Recently, another notebook of Lalan's songs that had be-

longed to Tagore has come to the attention of scholars. The

manuscript had been in the personal collection of Krishna Kripalani, who was the husband of Tagore's granddaughter Nandita and author of an excellent biography of the poet. It is on this manuscript (now also in Rabindra Bhavan, acq. no. 182, 2/4/95, MS 480) that Jha based his edition. The notebook, con-

taining 317 separate songs with Lalan's name in the signature verse, is dated 1299 B.s. (1893), making it the oldest dated

manuscript of his songs that has been discovered thus far. It is in an entirely different hand from MS 138 A; most of the

songs recorded in it were written down by one Jagat Bisvas.

Manuscripts of Lalan's songs are treasured by Lalan-panthi fakirs who pass them down from guru to disciple, noting the

parampara or sijradnma (line of succession) in each of them. The names of the fakirs who owned this notebook include some of Lalan's closest disciples: Bholai Sa, who was its first owner, as well as Sital Sa and Manik Sa.

After Jagat Bis'vs finished the major portion of the manu-

script in 1299 B.s. (1893), other scribes continued to add songs until 1316 B.S. (1909-10), the last recorded date. Jha be- lieves that Bholai Sa's manuscript came into Tagore's hands sometime after 1316 B.S., but before 1322 B.s. (1915-16), when the songs he collected appeared in Prabasi. He is able to

prove conclusively that Bholai a's manuscript was used by Tagore to constitute the texts of the songs he published. In Jha's

opinion, Tagore consulted MS 138 A, but relied most heavily on Bholai Sa's notebook. All twenty songs that Tagore pub- lished are included in this manuscript, whereas only nine ap- pear in 138A. Moreover, the readings of these songs also most

closely agree with those of Bholai Sa's manuscript. For exam-

ple, one version of "Cad ache cgde ghera" appears in MS 138 A: 1 song 28, and two versions in Bholai Sg's manuscript (songs 115 and 272), the first of which is corrupt and incomplete. It is this anomalous version that Tagore published.

Jha holds that Bholfi ai's manuscript is a copy of Lalan's

original notebook. He bases his assertion on a colophon which is given after the portion transcribed by Jagat Bisgvs (see the facsimile on p. 100), reading: "a copy of Lalan gai was written in 1299 Bengali Era, on the 7th of Phalgun" (san 1299, 7 phal- gun likhitam srichato [yuto] nalan sai phakir nakalah). The

colophon is elliptical; it does not make explicit what it is a

copy of. I think that it is more probable that "songs" should be understood here rather than "notebook." An analogous line but without the ellipsis is written on the title page of a copy of an old notebook that a disciple of the late Lalan-panthi fakir Khoda Baksa Bis'vs made in 1986 with his help. It reads: "a

recopy of Lalan's songs" (ldlan gitir punahanulipi). No men- tion is made of the exemplar. When Bholai Sa complained that

Tagore took Lalan's asal khata (see, for example, Ray 1385 B.S.: 42), it is likely that he was referring to the very manu-

script under discussion and that he was using the word asal

loosely or metaphorically to indicate the importance of the

manuscript to him. Perhaps, however, the search for a single asal khata is misguided. Evidence indicates that Lalan was illiterate and that the task of recording his songs was carried out by his disciples. The fact that the notebooks edited by Mitra and Jha were written down by different scribes suggests that no one disciple had this job. Contrary to what Jha be- lieves, Tagore's reliance mainly or perhaps solely on Bholai Sa's manuscript for the texts of the songs he published in

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.1 (1998)

Prabasi does not mean that he considered it to be more author- itative than MS 138A or that he was dissatisfied with the read-

ings of the latter manuscripts. In fact, it is disputable whether

Tagore even compared the texts for, as in the case of the song "Cad ache cade ghera," he sometimes published the least reli- able text. Unlike Mitra, Jha correctly maintains that Bholai Sa's

manuscript does not include the entire Lalan corpus, since

songs continued to be added after Jagat Bigvas finished his por- tion of it, and it is reasonable to assume that there were addi- tional songs that had not been recorded.

Jha published the manuscript without standardizing the or-

thography and thereby sanskritizing the vocabulary. This makes

good sense, first because dialectal pronunciation is retained and second because it avoids introducing new errors. In cases where the standard Bengali form of a word is not readily apparent, Jha often gives it in brackets in the text or places it in the notes. Thus the reader can decide for himself whether the edi- tor has understood the word correctly. In fact, there are several words that Jhf has misinterpreted. To cite two examples: in

song 203 sojya is not sarya 'sun' but sayyd 'bed', and in song 270 chista is not srsta 'created' but srestho 'best'. Occasionally, he also gives the esoteric interpretation of a song in the notes.

Manuscripts of Lalan's songs are difficult to read for sev- eral reasons. Not only is the orthography nonstandard and in-

consistent, but words are often run together. Moreover, Lalan uses some difficult vocabulary, including obscure dialectal words and technical terms, as well as Persian and Arabic words which are often garbled in the manuscripts. In addition, the

songs are esoteric and their meanings can be difficult to under- stand even for a scholar who knows the tradition well. Unless the version of a song given in a manuscript is compared to an oral one obtained from a Lalan-panthi fakir such errors are hard to avoid. The songs have been passed down orally from

guru to disciple with little change. As Jha notes (p. 158), among Lalan-panthi sadhus "it is considered a heinous sin to alter the words of a Lalan song." For this reason the oral versions they sing today are remarkably close to those in the old manuscripts.

Among the most common errors are the confusion of ka and pha and na and la, due to the similarity of their forms, and the missegmentation of words. A few of the misreadings in Jha's edition that caught my eye are the following:2

42-43 kar mene for pharmane. 46/(47) ain for ail. 76-78: sei rabete for sourabhete.

2 Numbers refer to the songs and are given as they appear in the book. Corrections are generally spelled as in standard

Bengali. Since I was not able to check the manuscript, some errors may be scribal rather than editorial, or a combination of the two.

92/94 mahdkal baSeche rdnay for mahakal base cheranay (i.e., siranay "at the head of someone lying down"; vide 296 siore saman bage).

116 mene for mele. 154 katarar (corrected to katardy) for phdtarar (the edition

of Dag and Mahapatra 1958 also have this error) and kulci

phere for kil dhake re. The line is a tricky one. The word be-

ray occurs twice in it with different meanings: 'he wanders' and locative or instrumental of bera 'fence' Moreover, phdtara is an East Bengali dialectal word meaning 'dried banana leaves'. The line translates: "Lalan wanders around, but he keeps his

family hidden behind a fence of dried banana leaves" and ex-

presses the conflict a Baul may feel when renouncing worldly life, severing family ties.

175 ba ki for baki (the word preceding baki should read ahad not dhammad. This is probably a scribal error); phdk tdmogei (corrected to phaki tdmada)for phakrdmo sai, which is the reading of MS 138A. Phdkramo (probably Ar. fiqra and

Bengali suffix -ma) means "prattle." Sai may be an error for bai

"except" which is the variant in Khoda BakSa's oral version.

(177 kha) kdjil for phajil. 215 samla for mamld. 219 bad oka for bad opha (Ar. wafa) 'unfavorable'. 272 dleph lame for alek name. 336 ordle and ordy for tarale and taray.

There are also a number of errors that seem to be due to

corruptions in the manuscript. The corrupt version of "Cad ache cade ghera" which Tagore published has already been mentioned. Here are a few more examples: In song 39 (kha)

kapay is given instead of pakay. Song 259 contains several mistakes: in the opening verse (ganer mukh), which is the re-

frain, the phrase dhoro re was omitted after dhrad; the entire first foot of the first verse was left out (arasiker bhole bhule

majis [or namis in some versions] ne kup nadir jale); in the second foot of that verse after madde [i.e., madhye], the word sthale was deleted and instead of sei phute ye phul the text should read phuteche phul. These emendations are necessary both for the meaning and rhyme scheme. Also in song 328 in the opening verse, kimd is an error for ki maya and in the first verse ghatpena aold bani, which makes no sense, is a

corruption of khatbe nd bhold elo bani. It is interesting to note that in a few songs, a word or phrase garbled in all the manu-

scripts that I have checked is transmitted intact in oral ver- sions sung by Lalan-panthi fakirs. For instance, the version of

"Madinay rasul name ke elo bhai" in Bholfi Sa's manuscript, song no. 188, has the words tao uhdri and MS 138A, song no. 2, has tao ohaki. None of these readings makes any sense. Oral versions sung by Laila Begam and Khoda BakSa Bigvas,

however, have tar hokiki (Ar. haqiqa) "his true nature" which fits the context and is clearly the correct reading.

Jha states that some of the songs appear as many as three times in the manuscript. This happens when the song was writ-

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Reviews of Books

ten down incompletely the first time, or when there are vari- ants. Often, however, only one version is published in the book

though the numbers of all versions appear in the table of con- tents. With one or two exceptions, no notes indicating the vari- ants in the deleted songs are given, despite the fact that they may be important for an understanding of the song. For exam-

ple, does the second version of "Ar amare maris ne ma" con- tain the bhanita omitted from the first version?

The second part of the book covers a lot of ground. It has some sections that are rather weak, as well as others that are

insightful. The high point is Jha's fine study of Lalan's poetry in chapter three. Though many have praised Lalan's poetic ge- nius, no one before has analyzed the songs in any detail to determine what makes them good poetry. Jha notes that Lalan's

style is deceptively simple. He creates a poetic language based on conversational Bengali, but at the same time uses words

rarely found in everyday speech, including poetic words such as min and bijari, and technical terms drawn from the Naths, Vaisnavas, Sufis and other traditions. Lalan also invents new words and expressions. He may lengthen words, adding affixes for the sake of meter or rhyme, e.g., alaspana (= alasya) and mulluki (= mulluk); or shorten them, dropping affixes or clip- ping words, e.g., anase < anayase. He sometimes even creates new words, e.g., dobhadsa in the expression dobhasd bhebe

'thinking in two languages' to connote indecision. In addition, he freely mixes literary and colloquial forms of verbs and

pronouns, and inverts the syntax. Despite all this, however, Lalan still manages to maintain a natural conversational style.

Jha finds that Lalan's creativity also lies in his use of

complex phonetic, syntactic, and semantic parallelism, unusual

rhymes, similar sounding words in compounds and phrases (e.g, tanbhuban 'world of the body' bisaybise 'the poison of

possessions'), and paired opposites (e.g., jalanal 'water and

fire'). Lalan often adds an unexpected element by breaking the

rhyme scheme or parallelism. His use of alliteration and pa- ronomasia is more restrained than was the trend in the poetry of the nineteenth century, which, as Jhi notes, is characterized

by an overuse of these literary devices. This is one of the most original books on Lalan that has

been published in a long time. It breaks out of the usual mold of studies which tend to repeat the same material and offers fresh insights into the meaning of Lalan's songs and into his remarkable creativity. The book also contains new information

gleaned from extensive fieldwork and from Vaisnava texts, particularly Krsnadas Kaviraj's seventeenth-century biography Caitanya Caritamrta and various Vaisnava Sahajiya karcas, many of which are unpublished.

The weakest part of the book is in chapter two, in the sections that use the songs as a source of information about Lalan's life and times. Jha takes a biographical sketch of Lalan that is based on hearsay and reads it into his songs, particu- larly the narrative songs about Krsna and Caitanya. Thus when Yasoda beats Krsna for stealing butter, in the song "Ar amare

maris ne ma," it indicates, according to Jha, that Lalan was a willful child and that his mother was cruel to him. In Jha's

opinion, it also expresses the resentment that he felt as a

grown man when he returned to her after recovering from

smallpox and she rejected him because, though a Hindu, he had eaten in the house of a Muslim. In addition, the absence of any description of a loving father in Lalan's songs leads him to conclude that Lalan lost his father either before he was bom or when he was an infant. Jha adds the following disclaimer at the end of the section on Lalan's life (p. 215): "I will be beholden to the reader if s/he [sic] does not take this discus-

sion, which is conjectural, as based on truth." But then why include it at all?

While the songs tell us more about Lalan's times than about his life, some of the information Jha extracts is so obvious that it does not warrant mention, as when he states that (p. 219) "dead bodies were burned in cremation grounds" and "people drank well water." In some cases here also, he reads too much into a song. For example, he interprets song 34, in which Lalan berates himself for not taking the kavirdj's advice as indicat-

ing that Ayurvedic medicine was being supplanted by Western medicine.

Another frustrating feature of the book is that songs are often identified by the wrong number. Since the titles of the

songs are not usually given, it is hard to figure out which songs are being discussed. In addition, there are some inaccuracies, as in these two examples: One of the lines Jha cites (p. 186) in

support of his contention that Tagore purposely altered the texts of the Lalan songs he published in Prabasi to make them

agree with his own beliefs is the signature line to the song "Emon manab janam ar ki habe." In Jha's opinion Tagore changed this line from adhin lalan tai bhabe "so obedient Lalan thinks" to lalan kay katarbhabe "says Lalan plaintively," because he could not accept subservience to a guru. However, there are actually two different versions of the song, one with mdnus in the opening line and the other with manab. The text of the song published by Tagore closely matches the former version "Emon manus janam...," which is song 4 in Bholai Sg's manuscript. And the spelling of Lalan's name as nalan in the manuscript does not indicate that lalan is a Sanskritiza- tion of nalan derived from nal 'fertile ground', as Jha contends

(p. 285). Rather, lalan becomes nalan by dissimilation, a com- mon feature of village Bengali (cf. nile for lila).

The production of this book is rather poor. It is not easy to

figure out how it is organized as there is only a table of con- tents for the songs, not for the book as a whole, and the layout is haphazard. The header on the recto page, "ganer paryay o arthasafiket," is the same throughout the book although it only applies to the first part. Chapter two of the second part is di- vided into five sections but has no section four. Moreover, some material is out of order. For instance, the notes to songs 141-58 appear on page 118 whereas the notes to songs 130-40 are on the following page.

131

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.1 (1998) Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.1 (1998)

My criticisms notwithstanding, this is an important book and a welcome addition to the rapidly growing editions of Lalan's

songs and studies of him as poet and sadhak. Several times in the book Jha refers tantalizingly to discussions in his disserta- tion on Muslim Bauls, "Murgidabad jelar bastubadi musalman Baul sampradayer samaj, darsan o sahitya" (Calcutta Univer-

sity, 1985). I look forward to its publication and anticipate that it will fill in many of the gaps in our knowledge of the Bauls.

REFERENCES

Caudhuri, Abul Ahsan. 1990. Lalan Sah. Dhaka: Bangla Academy.

Das, Matilal and Piyuskanti Mahapatra, eds. 1958. Lalan-

gitika. Calcutta: Calcutta University. Mitra, Sanatkumar. 1386 B.s. [1979]. Lalan Phakir: kabi o

kabya. Calcutta: Pustak Bipani. Ray, Annadasafikar. 1385 B.s. [1978]. Lalan o tar gan. Cal-

cutta: Saibya: prakasan bibhag.

CAROL SALOMON UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Mind, Body, and Society: Life and Mentality in Colonial

Bengal. Edited by RAJAT KANTA RAY. Calcutta: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. 486. $35.

This easily overlooked collection of essays written on occa- sion of honoring distinguished professors of history who have been members of the Department of History at Presidency College, Calcutta, represents the most convincing evidence yet that Bengali historiography, though dormant the last twenty years or so, is far from dead. It is not without significance that the high quality of scholarship in several of the articles is

related to the fact that they are dedicated to truly great Indian historians such as Kuruvila Zacharia (1916-30), Susobhan Chandra Sarkar (1933-56), Amales Tripathi (1954-69), and Ashin Das Gupta (1960-72), all of whom were trained in the British scholarly tradition.

This reviewer, for one, has waited impatiently over the last two decades for the return of a free, open and balanced ap-

proach to history. For years, we have been made to feel guilty for writing about Bengalis who fraternized with the British, or for celebrating British-built Calcutta as the "City of Pal- aces" or as the setting for the Bengal Renaissance. For almost a generation now, articles have been written on nineteenth-

century Bengal based not on primary, indigenous sources but on foreign theoretical presuppositions on the varieties of "colo-

nialist discourse." And to this day, all too often, we must hack

My criticisms notwithstanding, this is an important book and a welcome addition to the rapidly growing editions of Lalan's

songs and studies of him as poet and sadhak. Several times in the book Jha refers tantalizingly to discussions in his disserta- tion on Muslim Bauls, "Murgidabad jelar bastubadi musalman Baul sampradayer samaj, darsan o sahitya" (Calcutta Univer-

sity, 1985). I look forward to its publication and anticipate that it will fill in many of the gaps in our knowledge of the Bauls.

REFERENCES

Caudhuri, Abul Ahsan. 1990. Lalan Sah. Dhaka: Bangla Academy.

Das, Matilal and Piyuskanti Mahapatra, eds. 1958. Lalan-

gitika. Calcutta: Calcutta University. Mitra, Sanatkumar. 1386 B.s. [1979]. Lalan Phakir: kabi o

kabya. Calcutta: Pustak Bipani. Ray, Annadasafikar. 1385 B.s. [1978]. Lalan o tar gan. Cal-

cutta: Saibya: prakasan bibhag.

CAROL SALOMON UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Mind, Body, and Society: Life and Mentality in Colonial

Bengal. Edited by RAJAT KANTA RAY. Calcutta: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. 486. $35.

This easily overlooked collection of essays written on occa- sion of honoring distinguished professors of history who have been members of the Department of History at Presidency College, Calcutta, represents the most convincing evidence yet that Bengali historiography, though dormant the last twenty years or so, is far from dead. It is not without significance that the high quality of scholarship in several of the articles is

related to the fact that they are dedicated to truly great Indian historians such as Kuruvila Zacharia (1916-30), Susobhan Chandra Sarkar (1933-56), Amales Tripathi (1954-69), and Ashin Das Gupta (1960-72), all of whom were trained in the British scholarly tradition.

This reviewer, for one, has waited impatiently over the last two decades for the return of a free, open and balanced ap-

proach to history. For years, we have been made to feel guilty for writing about Bengalis who fraternized with the British, or for celebrating British-built Calcutta as the "City of Pal- aces" or as the setting for the Bengal Renaissance. For almost a generation now, articles have been written on nineteenth-

century Bengal based not on primary, indigenous sources but on foreign theoretical presuppositions on the varieties of "colo-

nialist discourse." And to this day, all too often, we must hack

our way through the verbal jungle and ascend mountains of "historical discourse" before we can reach the threshold of an idea. We have become saturated with jargon meant to decon- struct our "feeble" and "mythic" conception of the true nature of British India. It is so refreshing that the Ray volume con- tains not a single reference to such terms as the "hermeneutics of colonial tropologies" or to the "altertistic fallacy in post- colonial discourses."

We must be thankful that Oxford University Press has seen fit to publish a volume of historical papers which actually raise

questions, probe deeply into available sources, reason objec- tively and honestly without total submission to irrelevant ideol-

ogies external to the material, and arrive at conclusions which are derived refreshingly from the evidence or what we un-

ashamedly once called "facts." Incredible as it seems, Mind,

Body, and Society contains hundreds and hundreds of endnotes and an impressive list of bibliographical sources in English and

Bengali. There are thirteen articles-including a brilliant introduc-

tion by Rajat Kanta Ray, which, though intended to survey the

topics raised by the contributors, is, in fact, one of the most

thought-provoking essays ever written summarizing the field of Bengali intellectual history. The first four articles deal with what may be called the sociology of knowledge, or mentality and class, both on the intellectual and popular levels. The next two articles address childhood and adolescence in the nine- teenth and twentieth centuries. Four articles cover different

aspects of women's history during the same periods. And the last two studies are on literature and "mentalities."

The wealth of subject matter amply researched suggests that Bengali history has rich deposits waiting to be mined. Sakti Nath Jha's article on the "Cari-Candra Bhed" (Use of the Four Moons) religions and literature represents a skillful

blending of interviews with sadhaks (practitioners) and texts

(published and unpublished). Jeanne Oenshaw weds history with anthropology in her study of a twentieth-century "guru" known as Raj Krishna, who composed Baul songs in the town of Nadia. John Berwick's study on the Chatra-Samaj (Student

Community in Bengal) 1870-1922 is a lengthy, well-docu-

mented history of Bengali college students, focusing on their

formative influences-everything from cricket to professors. Berwick breaks new ground among his contemporaries in

treating British educators such as Henry Rosher James of Pres-

idency College (1907-16) as human beings rather than as con-

spiratorial villains in an Edward Said melodrama. The women

historians have selected equally innovative topics such as

"Conjugal Relations in Nineteenth Century Bengal" (Sambud- dha Chakrabarti), "Female Rivalries and the Joint Family... 1900-1947" (Bharati Ray), and the "Emergence of the Muslim

Bhadramohilaa in the Early Twentieth Century" (Sonia Nishat

Amin). The one article which is quite disappointing is "The Pursuit

of Reason in Nineteenth Century Bengal," by Tapan Ray-

our way through the verbal jungle and ascend mountains of "historical discourse" before we can reach the threshold of an idea. We have become saturated with jargon meant to decon- struct our "feeble" and "mythic" conception of the true nature of British India. It is so refreshing that the Ray volume con- tains not a single reference to such terms as the "hermeneutics of colonial tropologies" or to the "altertistic fallacy in post- colonial discourses."

We must be thankful that Oxford University Press has seen fit to publish a volume of historical papers which actually raise

questions, probe deeply into available sources, reason objec- tively and honestly without total submission to irrelevant ideol-

ogies external to the material, and arrive at conclusions which are derived refreshingly from the evidence or what we un-

ashamedly once called "facts." Incredible as it seems, Mind,

Body, and Society contains hundreds and hundreds of endnotes and an impressive list of bibliographical sources in English and

Bengali. There are thirteen articles-including a brilliant introduc-

tion by Rajat Kanta Ray, which, though intended to survey the

topics raised by the contributors, is, in fact, one of the most

thought-provoking essays ever written summarizing the field of Bengali intellectual history. The first four articles deal with what may be called the sociology of knowledge, or mentality and class, both on the intellectual and popular levels. The next two articles address childhood and adolescence in the nine- teenth and twentieth centuries. Four articles cover different

aspects of women's history during the same periods. And the last two studies are on literature and "mentalities."

The wealth of subject matter amply researched suggests that Bengali history has rich deposits waiting to be mined. Sakti Nath Jha's article on the "Cari-Candra Bhed" (Use of the Four Moons) religions and literature represents a skillful

blending of interviews with sadhaks (practitioners) and texts

(published and unpublished). Jeanne Oenshaw weds history with anthropology in her study of a twentieth-century "guru" known as Raj Krishna, who composed Baul songs in the town of Nadia. John Berwick's study on the Chatra-Samaj (Student

Community in Bengal) 1870-1922 is a lengthy, well-docu-

mented history of Bengali college students, focusing on their

formative influences-everything from cricket to professors. Berwick breaks new ground among his contemporaries in

treating British educators such as Henry Rosher James of Pres-

idency College (1907-16) as human beings rather than as con-

spiratorial villains in an Edward Said melodrama. The women

historians have selected equally innovative topics such as

"Conjugal Relations in Nineteenth Century Bengal" (Sambud- dha Chakrabarti), "Female Rivalries and the Joint Family... 1900-1947" (Bharati Ray), and the "Emergence of the Muslim

Bhadramohilaa in the Early Twentieth Century" (Sonia Nishat

Amin). The one article which is quite disappointing is "The Pursuit

of Reason in Nineteenth Century Bengal," by Tapan Ray-

132 132

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 15:09:46 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions