History of Sylheti Nagri Script

 Sylheti  Nagri

ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ ꠘꠣꠉꠞꠤ

History of  Sylheti Nagri script

Origin

                

Sylheti Nagari or Syloti Nagri (Silôṭi Nagôri) is the original script used for writing the Sylheti language.It is an almost extinct script, this is because the Sylheti Language itself was reduced to only dialect status after Bangladesh gained independence and because it did not make sense for a dialect to have its own script,its use was heavily discouraged. The government of the newly formed Bangladesh did so to promote a greater "Bengali" identity. This led to the informal adoption of the Eastern Nagari script also used for Bengali and Assamese. The Sylheti-Nagari Script is more older than The Bengali Language ,which history is just 1000-1200 years old.

The traditionally story of the origin of the Syloti-Nagri alphabet is about 5000 years back. In the time of Mahabharata,when Sylhet or Sreehatta was a part of  Bhagadatta's Kingdom  and also traces of Sylheti-Nagari Script can be found in Puranas.According to a late text, Kalika Purana (c.7th–8th AD), the earliest ruler of Assam was Mahiranga Danav of the Danava dynasty, which was removed by Naraka who established his the Naraka dynasty. The last of these rulers, also Naraka, was slain by Krishna. Naraka's son Bhagadatta became the king, who, it is mentioned in the Mahabharata, fought for the Kauravas in the battle of Kurukshetra with an army of kiratas, chinas and dwellers of the eastern coast.In the late 17th century, Persian became the official language of

the Delhi Sultanate and the Perso-Arabic script was used in all official documents. 

According to  Professor Clifford Wright, the script descends from Kaithi script, a script predominantly used in Bihar.

The specific origin of the script is debated. Though most popular in Sylhet, the script was historically also used in Greater Mymensingh, Northeast India and West Bengal. One hypothesis is that the Muslims of Sylhet were the ones to invent it for the purpose of mass Islamic education, which is thought to have taken place during the 15th-century, when Bengali Hindus led by Krishna Chaitanya, started a Sanskrit and Vaishnavist reawakening movement. On the other hand, Ahmad Hasan Dani believes that it was invented by the Afghans during their rule of Bengal, since Nagri letters resemble Afghan coin symbols and the large number of Afghan inhabitants in Sylhet at the time. Another theory dates the script's origin as late as the seventeenth—eighteenth century; claiming that it was invented to facilitate the Muslim sepoys coming from the joint state of Bihar and other immigrant Muslims.

Though almost solely used by Muslims, there are other theories which point the script's origins to Buddhists and Hindus who later converted to Islam. A popular theory is that it was brought to the region via Nagar Brahmins. This is a Hindu caste known for travelling and settling across the subcontinent, adopting the local language but writing in their own Nagari-variant of Kaithi instead.The Brahmins converted to Islam though retained the practice of the Nagri script for poetry.This is also the case in other parts of South Asia such as Sindh, Multan and Varanasi. Baitali Kaithi was a former script used to write Hindustani at a similar time, and it was identical to Sylhet Nagri with the exception that the latter had a matra (upper horizontal line used in Brahmic scripts). Others say that the script was invented by immigrant Bhikkhus (originally Buddhist in faith) from neighbouring countries such as Nepal.

Usage

The simplistic nature of the script inspired a lot of poets, though the bulk of Sylheti Nagri literature was born in the late 19th century. Abdul Karim, a munshi who was studying and completing his education in London, spent several years in the English capital to learn the printing trade. After returning home in  1869, he designed a woodblock type for the script and founded the Islamia Printing Press in Bandar Bazar, Sylhet in 1870.

Padmanath Bhattacharjee Vidyabinod, who wrote the first scholarly article on the script, is of the opinion that Abdul Karim's standardisation marks the start of the script's reawakening  period. Prior to Abdul Karim's intervention, not much is known about the popularity and usage of the script. The manuscripts were of prosaic quality, but poetry was also abundant.

Other Sylheti Nagri presses were established in Sylhet, Sunamganj, Shillong and Kolkata. Some include the Sarada Printing and Publishing in Naiyorpul, Sylhet; and Calcutta's General Printing Works in 16 Gardner Lane, Taltala as well as the Hamidi Press in Sealdah. It has been asserted from scholarly writings that the script was used as far as Bankura, Barisal, Chittagong and Noakhali. From the description of Shreepadmanath Debsharma:

The script in prior times was used in Srihatta. With the advent of printing the script now has spread to all of the Srihatta district, Kachar, Tripura, Noakhali, Chittagong, Mymensingh and to Dhaka, that is, to the Muslims of the entire region of Bengal east of Padma.

The script, never having been a part of any formal education, reached the common people with seeming ease. Although it was hardly used in comparison to the Bengali script, it was common for lower-class Muslims in eastern Sylhet to sign their names in this script. Many Sylheti Nagri presses fell out of use during the Bangladeshi Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, including Islamia Press in Sylhet town which was destroyed by a fire.

Present status 

This structure, namely "Nagri Chattar" (Nagri Square), built near Surma river in the city of Sylhet, Bangladesh consists of characters of this script.

Many Sylheti Nagri presses fell out of use during the Bangladeshi Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, including Islamia Press in Sylhet town which was destroyed by a fire. It gradually became very unpopular the script is used mainly by linguists and academics. Research on the script multiplied to its greatest extent in post-colonial Pakistan and independent Bangladesh. In the late 20th century, Munshi Ashraf Hussain, a researcher of Bengali folk literature, contributed immensely to Sylheti Nagri research.

In 2009, the publication of literature in the Nagri script recommenced in Bangladesh through the efforts of Mostafa Selim, who founded a publishing company called Utsho Prokashon based in Dhaka, and Anwar Rashid's New Nation Library in Puran Lane, Sylhet. By 2014, a collection of 25 manuscripts, known as Nagri Grantha Sambhar, was published by Utsho Prokashon's Muhammad Abdul Mannan and Selim. The government enabled free circulation of books about Nagri to be distributed to schools and colleges in Sylhet. The Bangla Academy, an institution funded by the Government of Bangladesh to serve as the official body regarding the Bengali language, has begun hosting Nagri bookstalls at the Ekushey Book Fair.The Sylhet City Corporation and Sylhet District Council funded the establishment of a circular mural at Surma Point known as the Nagri Chattar in 2018, which was designed by Shubhajit Chowdhury. The official building of Sylhet District's Deputy Commissioner has also installed Nagri signboards. Last, but, not the least

in the United Kingdom,] the New Testament was successfully transcribed into Sylheti Nagri by James Lloyd Williams and others on 2014 Christmas Day and titled Pobitro Injil Shorif.

Source : Different online  sources.

Toru Dutt : Keats of India

   Toru Dutt:  Keats of India 

Toru Dutt or Tarulatha Dutt was an Indian poet born in the Bengal province in 1856 to the well-known Rambagan Dutt family. Her short life and unparalleled literary work earned her fame, postumously, to be compared with John Keats, the English poet. 

Short lived Toru Dutt although, started with prose in very early age,but later on it is her poetry that gave her worldwide recognition.

Toru was born in a unorthodox Hindu Bengali family. As the youngest child of Govind Chandra Dutt and Khestramoni Mitter, she belonged to a family of writers. The father worked for government Was a linguist and published some poems of his own. Mother Khestramoni Mitter loved Hindu mythology and translated the book Blood of Christ in Bengali.

The family later converted into Christianity in the year in 1862 and baptized. At the age of six it was a major event in her life. Although from that onwards she was a devout Christian till her doomsday, but faith on her Hindu origin diprooted inside and that has reflected many of her works. 

Her literary genius first blossomed after 1869 when she shifted to France with her parents and other siblings. 

Toru Dutt was a natural linguist. Barring her mother tongue Bengali, she was proficient in English, French and later on Sanskrit. In 

France, she was educated in language, history, and the arts. Toru, along with her sister Aru, mastered the French language during their short stay in France. This fascination with the French language and culture would be sustained through Toru's life, and her favorite authors were the French writers Victor Hugo and Pierre-Jean de Béranger.

Toru started publishing her work when she was only 18.Her first published work, an essay on Henry Derozio and leconte de lstle in Bengal Magazine on 1874.

Her first novel Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (The Diary of Mademoiselle D’Arvers) was written in French. She also started to write another novel, Bianca or The Young Spanish Maiden, which remains incomplete due to her young and untimely death. Both these novels were set outside of India with non-Indian protagonists. 

Despite of working on prose ab initio, she soon switched to the world of poetry and Her first collection, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields, was a volume of French poems that she and her deceased sister Aru translated into English. The first edition of her book was published in 1876 by the Saptahik Sambad Press, located in Bhowanipore, Calcutta. Although first her collection was not a hit, because it lacked a preface, was printed on low-quality paper, and the publisher was little known. However, in 1877 the poetry collection gained publicity after it was favorably reviewed in The Examiner by Edmund Gosse.

Sadly, Toru Dutt did not live to see her success. She, like her siblings, died from consumption in 1877, at the age of 21. Her book of poetry named Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, a collection of translations and adaptations from Sanskrit literature, was published posthumously in 1882. Edmund Gosse wrote the introductory memoir for the collection. He said, describing Toru, "She brought with her from Europe a store of knowledge that would have sufficed to make an English or French girl seem learned, but which in her case was simply miraculous." Her more popular poems include "Sîta," "The Lotus," "Lakshman," "Our Casuarina Tree," "The Tree of Life," and "Buttoo."

The story of Toru does not end after her untimely mortal death. She became immortal in twentieth century.

In the early twentieth century, author Harihar Das came across "Buttoo." He was so taken with the poem that he set out to find out more about Toru. After failing to discover much information about her, he decided to write a Toru Dutt biography himself. He got in touch with her remaining family, and with Mary Martin, who provided him with her letters from Toru. In 1921 he published her biography, "Life And Letters Of Toru Dutt."

In spite of her untimely death, Toru Dutt remains an exemplary poet, and her works are widely regarded as being among the best of Indian-English writings. She was a powerhouse of knowledge in French , English and also. Sanskrit. In particular, critics have paid much attention to Toru Dutt's lyric focus on the complexity of individual emotions, especially in light of her mixed religious heritage and her encounters with death from a young age. Much critical attention has also been paid to Toru Dutt's successful combination of European and Indian cultural influences, linking her identity as a cosmopolitan and multicultural figure to her poetic synthesis of English verse forms (such as the ballad) with Indian inspirations and legends.

Toru had made immence contribution in  Anglo French literature during her short stay in this world, that is truly compared with English poet of nineteenth century John Keats. Both has many similarities common. First, both are best known for their poetry. Work of both was not acclaimed during their life time. Both lived and worked in nineteenth century. Both received recognition after their death. And last the sad part both died in very tender age. Toru died at the age of 21 while Keats died at 25. Surprising similarity that both died of consumption.

Every Indian must read Toru's work parallel to John Keats. Hope, one day both name will be spelt in same bracket.