Hindi lovers are woefully aware of the fact that the tradition of writing on history, sociology, political science, philosophy, science or archaeology in Hindi has nearly been dead for many decades. This has resulted in a situation where books of dubious scholarly value, for example those written by Bhagwan Singh on the supposed identity of the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation and the Vedic people or on D. D. Kosambi, get to receive wide acclaim in the Hindi-speaking region primarily because they have been originally written in Hindi.
While many publishers have done a lot to publish important books in the disciplines of social sciences, the lack of terminological standardisation and specialised translators has created a peculiar situation where the Hindi-speaking readers find translated works as, if not more, difficult to follow as the original English ones.
Many people have commented on the near extinction of multilingual/ bilingual writers across Indian languages but the scenario is much more dismal in the case of Hindi. And the collective memory of the so-called Hindi jaati (community) is so awfully short that it has almost forgotten those great intellectuals of the recent past who were not only prolific in both English and Hindi but also accorded greater importance to writing in Hindi. Bhagawat Sharan Upadhyaya, Parmeshwari Lal Gupta, Vasudeva Sharan Agrawala and Moti Chandra, among many others, belonged to this tradition that was continued till not very long ago by social scientists such as Shyama Charan Shukla and P. C. Joshi.
Can we imagine a top historian to write a major work in Hindi and decide not to translate it himself or get it translated by others into English? But, this is exactly what Moti Chandra did when he wrote his monumental “Kashi Ka Itihas” (“The History of Kashi”). This classic, first published by Hindi Granth Ratnakar in 1962, remained unavailable for many years due to an inexplicable indifference of its publishers. Eminent art historian Vasudeva Sharan Agrawala had contributed a scholarly preface to it. In 1985, Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, Varanasi, resurrected it when it brought out its second edition while the third edition came out in 2003. The third edition contained a very useful appendix in the form of an article by O. P. Kejariwal titled “James Prinsep Aur Banaras” (James Prinsep and Banaras). By the way, Prinsep was a multi-faceted genius and is best remembered for deciphering the Brahmi script and immortalising the city as it existed in the first half of the 19th Century in his beautiful sketches.
“Kashi Ka Itihas” is the most authoritative history of Banaras written so far and contains a wealth of information about this ancient city that has been a centre of religions, learning, trade, literature and arts over several millennia. Moti Chandra tells us that the city came to be associated with various sects of the Hindu religion much later as treatises like the “Manusmriti” make a cursory mention about it. On the other hand, its association with the worship of non-Aryan Shiva, Yakshas and Nagas and later with Buddhism, was much older. The city came into full bloom in the Gupta period and rose to eminence under the Gahadwal rulers. Moti Chandra has traced the city’s history from its earliest days up to the present thus offering us a work, which does not have a parallel in any other language.
“Sarthvah: Prachin Bharat Ki Path-Paddhati” (“Caravan Leader: Route-System in Ancient India”) is another book that occupies a unique place among major works of history written in Hindi. It is a pioneering study of Indian merchants who travelled to distant lands as part of a caravan. Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad first published it in 1966. It seems that Moti Chandra himself translated it into English and Abhinav Prakashan published the English version in 1977, three years after his death, under the title “Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India”. When merchants got together and made a caravan, it was called “sarth”. Hindi word “saath” (with, or company) is derived from this Sanskrit word. The leader of the caravan was called “sarthvah”.
In 13 chapters of this path-breaking study, Moti Chandra has given detailed accounts as well as analyses of the trade routes and their systems both in the Northern as well as in the Southern parts of the country. We come to know about merchant travellers in the proto-historic and Vedic periods and in the age of the Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas. The book also tells us about merchants, conquerors and barbarians on the grand route from the 2nd Century BC to the 3rd Century AD and offers detailed information about the trade between India and the Roman Empire. The erudite historian has also delved deep into the Buddhist Sanskrit and later Pali literatures dating from the 1st Century AD to the 10th Century AD. Travellers and caravan leaders as depicted in Jain literature from the 1st to the 6th centuries as well as Indian fleet over the seas have also been given due attention, thus placing this book in a class of its own.
Moti Chandra was a scion of the family of Bharatendu Harishchandra, the founder of the modern Hindi prose, and was highly regarded for his work in art history. Will the Hindi world commemorate his memory on his 42nd death anniversary that falls on December 17?
