Prof. Rebecca Manring
Text: Rūparām’s Dharmamaṅgala
Thibaut d’Hubert
Session 1: Middle Bengali grammar—grammatical sketch based on Harivallabha’s Kṣaṇadāgītacintāmaṇi (KGC) and Ālāol’s Saẏphulmuluk Badiujjāmāl (SB)
In this opening session we will read a skeleton grammar with examples based on two specific works representative of lyric and narrative poetry. The purpose is to give a general overview of the main features of the language of the texts that we will read afterward. In addition to providing a brief introduction to the language of the texts, it should also be the occasion to discuss issues pertaining to the methods used to describe Middle Bengali, either diachronically or synchronically.
Session 2: Reading padas now and then: three poems from Harivallabha’s Kṣaṇadāgītacintāmaṇi
The idea is to read three padas from KGC and observe how they have been anthologized in other works, commented upon in Sanskrit by Rādhāmohan Ṭhākur and translated into modern Bengali and English by scholars in the twentieth century. We will discuss how the structure and sequencing of the poems may inform the interpretation of individual padas, observe how Rādhāmohan Ṭhākur’s Sanskrit commentary spells out those connections and what modern philological approaches brought to our understanding of the poetics of Brajabuli lyrics.
Session 3: Bengali manuscript reading: Ālāol. “Saẏphulmuluk Badiujjāmāl.” Ms. no. 185 / ā 32, maghi 1216/1854. Bāṃlā Ekāḍemī Saṃgr̥hīta. Bangla Academy, Dhaka
After grammar and poetics, I propose to look at the methods of manuscript reading. Through a series of short exercises of transcription we will survey some of the main features of premodern Bengali paleography and orthography. We will go through each step of the establishment of a text, from transcription to emendation, focusing on the obstacles created by the use of continuous script, the recourse to alternative orthographic systems, and the various ways to approach formatting and emendation.
Session 4: “The story of the Goldsmith’s Wife” from Ālāol’s Saẏphulmuluk Badiujjāmāl”
In order to apply our philological skills, we will read a story taken from Ālāol’s Saẏphulmuluk Badiujjāmāl. Each participant will be assigned a short section. Participants who want to focus on textual criticism will prepare a section directly from the manuscript. Those willing to focus on grammar and poetics may use the new edition prepared by myself and Saymon Zakaria.
Session 5: Reading Bengali manuscripts in Arabic script: “The story of the Goldsmith’s Wife” (part 2)
In this final session we will continue reading the same story, but from a different manuscript written in the Arabic script. After a short introduction to the use of Arabic script to transcribe Bengali texts, we will resume our reading based on the text of this manuscript. The text will be available in the Arabic, Roman, and Bengali scripts. A short online-tutorial will be made available ahead of time for those willing to familiarize themselves with Bengali in Arabic script.
Ishan Chakrabarti
Session One: Prologue to the Kr̥ṣṇakarṇāmr̥ta
When Caitanya went to the South on his pilgrimage in 1510, he was mesmerized by the Kr̥ṣṇakarṇāmr̥ta, a century (śataka) of Sanskrit poems dedicated to Kr̥ṣna by the 14th-century southern author Līlāśuka Bilvamaṅgala. Caitanya had them copied and taken back to Bengal, where Kr̥ṣnadāsa Kavirāja wrote a Sanskrit commentary on these poems at the end of the 16th century. Soon after, Yadunandana Dāsa translated Bilvamaṅgala and Kavirāja’s work into Bangla by writing his own commentary. Here we will read Yadunandana’s prologue (an adaptation of Kavirāja’s prologue). The prologue presents a hagiographical account of Bilvamaṅgala’s conversion at the hands of a prostitute named Cintāmaṇi; it also outlines the hermeneutic method that Kavirāja and Yadunandana use to explicate Bilvamaṅgala’s poems. I am particularly interested in the construction of the narrative and what it means for a reading of the poems; I would also like to discuss the place of this text as an important document in building the connection between the bhakti traditions of the north and the south. I will supplement our discussion with the story of Bilvamaṅgala as found in Nābhadāsa’s 17th-century Hindi (Braja Bhāṣā) Bhaktamāla and its 18th-century Hindi commentary by Priyadāsa.
Session Two: Ten Verses from the Kr̥ṣṇakarṇāmr̥ta
We will read ten verses from the aforementioned text along with Yadunandana and Kavirāja’s commentaries. The focus will, of course, be on Yadunandana’s Bangla work. I am interested in the hermeneutic methods used in unpacking the Sanskrit poems: the prologue states that each verse has an antardaśā (internal state) and a bāhyadaśā (external state); the person of Bilvamaṅgala is also said to have these two states. How do these layers relate to each other and to the author of the poems?
Session Three: Rāmānanda Rāya’s Jagannāthavallabhanāṭaka and its Translations
Rāmānanda Rāẏa (~1480-1550) composed a Sanskrit play entitled the Jagannātha-vallabha-nāṭaka in perhaps the late-15th or early-16th century before he met Caitanya. During this time, Rāẏa wrote for the Gajapati king Pratāparudra’s court in Orissa; he also had some administrative and governing functions under the king. Later, Rāẏa would resign from this position; later still, the Gauḍīyas cast him as Caitanya’s closest confidant – in the Caitanyacaritāmr̥ta, it is through a dialogue between Caitanya and Rāẏa that Caitanya’s true nature as both Rādhā and Kr̥ṣṇa is revealed. Rāẏa’s play presents the familiar narrative of Rādhā and Kr̥ṣṇa falling in love in its central acts; this is bracketed by scenes showcasing Pratāparudra and Kr̥ṣṇa’s martial prowess in the play’s first and last acts. After Caitanya’s death, several bhaktas translated and adapted Rāẏa’s play into Bangla. First came Locanadāsa in the mid-16th century; then Yadunandana Dāsa in the early-17th century; and lastly the sahajiyā Ākiñcana Dāsa also in the early-17th century. We will read some selections from the middle acts of the play along with their descendants in these three Bangla translations. The translations are all quite different from each other and allow us to zoom in and get a close and subtle look at the transformations that occurred as Vaiṣṇava literary culture moved from courtly to devotional.
Saymon Zakaria
Rahimā Khātun, Svāmir vilāp (5 sessions) – a bāromāsi (song of the twelve months) poem written by Rahimā Khātun from Chittagong. This text is a fascinating example of the cultivation of Middle Bengali poetic forms in later periods. The author uses the traditional genre of the song of the twelve months in a singularly personal tone, and she weaves together a rich set of references drawn from Indic and Islamicate love narratives as well as elements of popular Islamic cosmology. We will read the transcription of the unique manuscript of this poem that was collected in the sub-district of Raozan in Chittagong.