M. Mizanur Rahman :
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad (1871-1953) was a great researcher and collector of Bengali literary manuscripts of early ages. His exceptional erudition in this respect earned him a great fame in Bengali literary arena since he started his career as an industrious collector of old and most valuable Bengali manuscripts (Punthi) of neglected and obscured litterateurs of Bengal almost unknown to the world of ours today. The very foundation of wealthy Bengali literature was emanated from our old culture and tradition irrespective of castes and creeds. Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad brought us to the fore introducing those obscured but old Bengali literature of various trends. His undaunted spirit of perseverance made him a man of letters though he could not precede much in academic university level education.
Mainly he engaged in discovering Bengali literary manuscripts (Punthis) of ancient litterateurs of Bengal lying scattered beyond cities and towns and in remote villages of Bengal. The savants, researchers at home and abroad have since been appreciating his various essays, and well-edited works on rich Bengali Punthis.
According to him, “One of the most important ingredients of literature is human. One who gets into the human soul is a litterateur, a creator. The only regal way to human soul is love. It is love’s way. So the first and foremost religion of the litterateur is to love human beings whole-heartedly. That litterateur, who has his endless love for his country, people, natural ambience and its topography, I can say with great confidence, he must earn respect from everybody for his literary works.” (Prachin Bangiya Punthi Sahitya, Mahe Nou, 2nd year, No.10, January 1951, page 16-17)
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad put his best endeavour to discover ancient Bengali Punthi Literature that was regarded as the priceless treasures of Bengali literature.
However, his pecuniary condition was absolutely meagre, as he had to live hand to mouth. Because he lost his father before his birth and the mother at an early age. His college education had to be stopped owing to financial stringency. Somehow he managed to eke out his living, sometimes doing some odd jobs in government and non-government establishments. Never he found fortune that smiled in his life. Later he became a schoolteacher. He also edited some newspapers and periodicals of those days.
It is not out of sight now that Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad could decipher a lot of obscure ancient Bengali writings in poetry (punthi) and prose of our poets and litterateurs of early ages, date back to about three and four hundred years. He made their annotations, transliterations, and meaningful copies and edited them properly so that future researchers would carry on further works. He ran from village to village of almost entire undivided Bengal to collect those valuable works of our pioneer Bengali litterateurs. In all, he considered his collection of those old literary works without any discriminatory communal feelings. Such rapprochement to secular ideals made him unique of his age when communal narrowness was prevalent in Bengal i.e between 19th and 20th century.
He had a great fascination to his mellow and sweet Bengali mother tongue and its far-reaching imaginary and visionary of eternal aspects. Hence he took such arduous and costly job of research works of his own tirelessly without having help or aid from any concerned authority.
He authored some eight hundred essays and fifteen books of considerable literary values in Bengali language. He left behind huge research works unpublished.
The concerned authorities must take note of it and do the needful in order to enrich Bengali language and literature.
Dr Mahmud Shah Qureshi in his article ‘Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad : Somokaler poriprekxit ebong Bhabikaler Bhabona (Contemporaneous perspectives and aspects of its future thought), Dainik Naya Diganta, Dhaka Friday, 30th September 2011’ has commented that the works of Sahityabisharad can be divided into the following parts :
1. Edited old books. 2. Descriptions of punthis (manuscripts). 3. Fundamental research works and 4. Collection of essays.
Mainly towards editing those unpublished old punthis Sahityabisharad had shown his erudite theoretical discussions on sweetness of Bengali poetics directly and indirectly. On his edited article, ‘Radhikar Manbhongo by Noruttom Tagore (BS.1308)’ as published in the Bongiyo Sahitya Porishad Potrika, Haraprasad Shastri wrote, “While editing this rare book his (Sahityabisharad) diligence, tact, wholeheartedness, acute discernment can hardly be found not only among authors of Bengal but also of India ; rather as it appears that a German editor has edited it.” Thus Sahityabisharad got appreciations of his works from all the scholars of Bengal in his time.
The historians of Bengali literature are indebted to Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad for their vivid descriptions. He started collecting these punthis from his student life.
Thereafter all through his career he took this job as a hobby. Bongiya Sahitya Porishad published those descriptive chapters in several volumes. After 1947, he contributed six hundred punthis to Dhaka University written by the ancient Muslim authors. In 1958 the Dhaka University, duly edited by Professor Ahmad Sharif, published it. These ancient Bengali punthis need to have been evinced thoroughly for research onward.
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad devoted his life to collect those punthis and writing on those and that created many other Bengali researchers and authors like . Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah, and Dr. Mohammad Enamul Hoque. Most glare example is ‘Arakan Rajsovay Bangala Sahitya’ (Bengali Literature in the Royal Court of Arakan)’ edited by Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad in collaboration with Dr. Mohammad Enamul Hoque. Bangla Academy published ‘Islamabad (1964)’ edited by Syed Murtaza Ali that enlightens us with Bengali philology and its historical events of early periods of Bengal Muslims. Sahityabisarad meant Chittagong as Islamabad because many Muslim saints and savants firstly set their feet on this seaport of Bengal and some of them settled here and started preaching Islam.
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisarad wrote about eight hundred essays in connection with his collected Bengali punthis and related episodes. No doubt, they are eruditely rich.
‘Alaol choritre mithya 0 Kolponar songjojon’ (falsehood and imaginary tales added to the character of Poet Alaol) was Sahityabisharad’s comment put forward in an essay against Dr. Sukumar Sen, Dr. Mohammad Sahidullah and Dr. Abdul Gafur Siddique for Karim was confident about the truth that he made clear. (Dilruba, 3rd year, No.5. BS. Bhadro, 1358, P.352).
We salute our wise great litterateur Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad who worked all his life for devoted service towards development of Bengali language and literature. His contribution will remain ever memorable to all who love Bengali language and literature. n
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad (1871-1953) was a great researcher and collector of Bengali literary manuscripts of early ages. His exceptional erudition in this respect earned him a great fame in Bengali literary arena since he started his career as an industrious collector of old and most valuable Bengali manuscripts (Punthi) of neglected and obscured litterateurs of Bengal almost unknown to the world of ours today. The very foundation of wealthy Bengali literature was emanated from our old culture and tradition irrespective of castes and creeds. Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad brought us to the fore introducing those obscured but old Bengali literature of various trends. His undaunted spirit of perseverance made him a man of letters though he could not precede much in academic university level education.
Mainly he engaged in discovering Bengali literary manuscripts (Punthis) of ancient litterateurs of Bengal lying scattered beyond cities and towns and in remote villages of Bengal. The savants, researchers at home and abroad have since been appreciating his various essays, and well-edited works on rich Bengali Punthis.
According to him, “One of the most important ingredients of literature is human. One who gets into the human soul is a litterateur, a creator. The only regal way to human soul is love. It is love’s way. So the first and foremost religion of the litterateur is to love human beings whole-heartedly. That litterateur, who has his endless love for his country, people, natural ambience and its topography, I can say with great confidence, he must earn respect from everybody for his literary works.” (Prachin Bangiya Punthi Sahitya, Mahe Nou, 2nd year, No.10, January 1951, page 16-17)
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad put his best endeavour to discover ancient Bengali Punthi Literature that was regarded as the priceless treasures of Bengali literature.
However, his pecuniary condition was absolutely meagre, as he had to live hand to mouth. Because he lost his father before his birth and the mother at an early age. His college education had to be stopped owing to financial stringency. Somehow he managed to eke out his living, sometimes doing some odd jobs in government and non-government establishments. Never he found fortune that smiled in his life. Later he became a schoolteacher. He also edited some newspapers and periodicals of those days.
It is not out of sight now that Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad could decipher a lot of obscure ancient Bengali writings in poetry (punthi) and prose of our poets and litterateurs of early ages, date back to about three and four hundred years. He made their annotations, transliterations, and meaningful copies and edited them properly so that future researchers would carry on further works. He ran from village to village of almost entire undivided Bengal to collect those valuable works of our pioneer Bengali litterateurs. In all, he considered his collection of those old literary works without any discriminatory communal feelings. Such rapprochement to secular ideals made him unique of his age when communal narrowness was prevalent in Bengal i.e between 19th and 20th century.
He had a great fascination to his mellow and sweet Bengali mother tongue and its far-reaching imaginary and visionary of eternal aspects. Hence he took such arduous and costly job of research works of his own tirelessly without having help or aid from any concerned authority.
He authored some eight hundred essays and fifteen books of considerable literary values in Bengali language. He left behind huge research works unpublished.
The concerned authorities must take note of it and do the needful in order to enrich Bengali language and literature.
Dr Mahmud Shah Qureshi in his article ‘Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad : Somokaler poriprekxit ebong Bhabikaler Bhabona (Contemporaneous perspectives and aspects of its future thought), Dainik Naya Diganta, Dhaka Friday, 30th September 2011’ has commented that the works of Sahityabisharad can be divided into the following parts :
1. Edited old books. 2. Descriptions of punthis (manuscripts). 3. Fundamental research works and 4. Collection of essays.
Mainly towards editing those unpublished old punthis Sahityabisharad had shown his erudite theoretical discussions on sweetness of Bengali poetics directly and indirectly. On his edited article, ‘Radhikar Manbhongo by Noruttom Tagore (BS.1308)’ as published in the Bongiyo Sahitya Porishad Potrika, Haraprasad Shastri wrote, “While editing this rare book his (Sahityabisharad) diligence, tact, wholeheartedness, acute discernment can hardly be found not only among authors of Bengal but also of India ; rather as it appears that a German editor has edited it.” Thus Sahityabisharad got appreciations of his works from all the scholars of Bengal in his time.
The historians of Bengali literature are indebted to Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad for their vivid descriptions. He started collecting these punthis from his student life.
Thereafter all through his career he took this job as a hobby. Bongiya Sahitya Porishad published those descriptive chapters in several volumes. After 1947, he contributed six hundred punthis to Dhaka University written by the ancient Muslim authors. In 1958 the Dhaka University, duly edited by Professor Ahmad Sharif, published it. These ancient Bengali punthis need to have been evinced thoroughly for research onward.
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad devoted his life to collect those punthis and writing on those and that created many other Bengali researchers and authors like . Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah, and Dr. Mohammad Enamul Hoque. Most glare example is ‘Arakan Rajsovay Bangala Sahitya’ (Bengali Literature in the Royal Court of Arakan)’ edited by Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad in collaboration with Dr. Mohammad Enamul Hoque. Bangla Academy published ‘Islamabad (1964)’ edited by Syed Murtaza Ali that enlightens us with Bengali philology and its historical events of early periods of Bengal Muslims. Sahityabisarad meant Chittagong as Islamabad because many Muslim saints and savants firstly set their feet on this seaport of Bengal and some of them settled here and started preaching Islam.
Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisarad wrote about eight hundred essays in connection with his collected Bengali punthis and related episodes. No doubt, they are eruditely rich.
‘Alaol choritre mithya 0 Kolponar songjojon’ (falsehood and imaginary tales added to the character of Poet Alaol) was Sahityabisharad’s comment put forward in an essay against Dr. Sukumar Sen, Dr. Mohammad Sahidullah and Dr. Abdul Gafur Siddique for Karim was confident about the truth that he made clear. (Dilruba, 3rd year, No.5. BS. Bhadro, 1358, P.352).
We salute our wise great litterateur Munshi Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad who worked all his life for devoted service towards development of Bengali language and literature. His contribution will remain ever memorable to all who love Bengali language and literature. n
