Remembering Krishna Kanta Handiqui (20 July 1898-7 June 1982)

Remembering Krishna Kanta Handiqui (20 July 1898 -7 June 1982)

Sanjeev Kumar Nath

(This write-up is almost entirely based on the book Krishna Kanta Handiqui : Celebrated Indologist an English translation of the Assamese book Pracyavidyarnava Krishna Kanta Handiqui by Ahalya Gogoi, daughter of K K Handiqui. Mrs Gogoi, an established author in her own right, has produced a number of valuable books and articles about the extraordinary scholarly work of her illustrious father.)

To remember Krishna Kanta Handiqui (20 July1898—7 June 1982), world-renowned polyglot Comparatist from Assam, is to be filled with wonder at the kind of man he was and the quality of scholarly work he did.

The three books of translation and critical analysis that brough him great international fame are Naiṣadhacarita of Śriharṣa (1934), Yaśastilaka and Indian Culture : Somadeva’s Yaśastilaka and Aspects of Jainism and Indian Thought and Culture in the Tenth Century (1949) and Pravarsena’s Setubandha (1976).

Working from Jorhat and Guwahati, which may perhaps still be seen as “marginal” places in certain ways, Handiqui was able to attract positive critical acclaim from scholars from top-notch institutions in Europe, America and India because of his grounding in traditional Vedic learning and Sanskrit studies (as a distinguished alumnus of Sanskrit College, Kolkata), his postgraduate study of one of the most sought after courses—Modern History—at Oxford, and his immersion in the study of the languages and literatures of Europe for several years.

It is perhaps a measure of the man that whatever Handiqui undertook to do both as a student and an independent scholar, he chose to do something difficult or out of the ordinary.  His choice of Vedic Sanskrit for postgraduation proves his liking for difficult enterprises, because a postgraduation course in Vedic Sanskrit is indeed considered very difficult.

And then he was not just another student of Vedic Sanskrit. His brilliance as a student of this difficult subject prompted Vice Chancellor Ashutosh Mukherjee to invite Mahamahopadhyaya Sitaram Sastri, a traditional Vedic scholar of immense learning, from Maharashtra to teach him.

As the sole student of the Vedic Sanskrit Honours course, Handiqui would visit Sastri in the house allotted to the scholar by the university, and both teacher and student would sit on mats on the floor in the traditional way during the scholarly exposition of the Vedas by the teacher. Handiqui learnt a lot from the vibrant academic atmosphere of Calcutta University at that time.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Harendranath Mukherjee and Suniti Kumar Chatterjee were all university professors at that time, and Handiqui would later maintain very friendly and intimate relationships with these famous educationists.

Even as an M.A. student, Handiqui published a very long and highly scholarly essay entitled Prācīn Bebilanar Ved [‘The Vedas of Ancient Babylon’] in which he has referred to the work of eminent scholars on ancient Babylonian culture and civilization.

The essay shows his extensive knowledge of ancient Hebrew and ancient Sumerian. Introducing his readers to the culture and civilization of ancient Babylon, ‘the land of books’, he breaks his discussion into ten parts: (1) the geographical location of Babylon, (2) a brief history of Babylon-Assyria, (3) the relation of the Babylonian Vedas with Babylonian history, (4) what the Babylonian Vedas are, (5) the subject matter of the Babylonian Vedas and their teaching, (6) an outline of the comparative study of rituals, (7) the spread of Babylonian literature, (8) the gods of the Babylonian Vedas, (9) the religion of the Babylonian Vedas, (10) the language and script of the Babylonian Vedas.

When Handiqui went to London in 1920, he first tried to enrol for PhD in Vedic Sanskrit because his teachers in Kolkata had suggested that he should do that, but there were certain problems including the paucity of specific books in Europe, and he decided to work for the Honours degree in Modern History, instead. Even before getting admitted to the university, he studied linguistics at the British Museum and the Language School in London.

Earlier, he was learning French and Latin in Kolkata. In London, he attained expertise in French, German, and Latin in some eight months. In October 1920, he enrolled in the Modern History (Honours) course of Oxford University. He also continued to learn Italian and Russian in the British Museum. he could do all this because of his habit of studying 12 to 13 hours daily.

His choice of Modern History as the subject of his second postgraduation also shows his propensity to deal with the difficult because at that time, the Modern History course at Oxford was considered one of the toughest, and of course a very sought after course in the Humanities. In 1923 he completed this course with a first class.

While in Europe, he kept himself updated with the literary scene in Assam. When the president of the third convention of Asom Sahitya Sabha at Barpeta, Kaliram Medhi said that translations should be avoided by Assamese authors, Handiqui wrote a longish essay, “Anubadar Katha” (On Translation) and published it in the Assamese periodical Chetana.

In this essay, Handiqui argues vigorously for having more and more translations into Assamese from English and other languages. He gives many examples of languages and literatures across the world going through difficult times and then reviving through translations. Quite possibly, it is one of the earliest Indian language texts on the theoretical-practical aspects of translation.

            After three years of stay in England, Handiqui moved to Paris where he lived for two and a half years, reading in libraries and studying German, Italian and Russian literature with the help of professors (from the University of Paris) he engaged to teach him privately. Handiqui could speak in all the European languages he had learnt except Spanish, and was especially fluent in German.

He also studied Latin and Greek literatures. He practised writing French and German with help from a French teacher named Vezier from the Paris Language School. This teacher, a simple old man, was a devout Roman Catholic, and seeing Handiqui studying Christianity, he thought his student wanted to be converted, and invited Handiqui to church, after having made all arrangements for the ceremony of conversion.

Of course, Handiqui explained that his interest in Christinaity was only in connection with his studies of European languages and literatures.

After completing his studies in Paris in the middle of 1925 Handiqui went to Germany, staying there for one and a half years and studying Greek linguistics and the history of European literature at the Staatsbibliothek, one of the best libraries in Europe. In Berlin, He also bought some two thousand books, mostly on European literatures and languages, which he would later ship home. Most of these books were later donated by him to Gauhati University.

One of his teachers in Paris once told him a story illustrating the different temperaments of French, English and German researchers : There was a competition on writing an essay on a camel, and a Frenchman, an Englishman and a German took part in it. The Frenchman didn’t do any research, but wrote a beautiful essay using very fine language. On reading the essay, however, one wouldn’t know anything about a camel.

The Englishman went to the deserts of Arabia with all necessary camping gear, including his golf equipment, stayed there, studied the camel very closely and wrote his essay based on his observation. The German entered a library and started reading and researching on the camel. He is still there in the library, for his research isn’t complete yet.

Handiqui’s admiration for the German educational system, particularly its scientific method of research, found expression in an Assamese article, “jārmānir jñān sādhanā” (“Germany’s Dedication to the Pursuit of Knowledge”) and the English article “German Academic Ideals”. Assamese articles that he wrote during this period  include ‘grīk bhāṣā’ (‘Greek Language’) and ‘sakretisar mate kabir prakriti’ (‘The Nature of the Poet According to Socrates’) published in Bãhī and the Asom Sahitya Sabha journal respectively.

When Handiqui returned home in 1927, he gave up his European clothes before touching the Indian shore. His father Radha Kanta Handique had supported him throughout his long period of stay in Europe, hoping that Krishna Kanta would now be a true gentlemen in European style, but to his dismay he found his son returning home in traditional Assamese clothes and busying himself with his books rather than showing any interest in making money.

When Jagannath Barooah College was established at Jorhat in 1930, Handiqui became the principal of the new institution and worked in that capacity for 17 years without drawing any salary for himself.

His first book, Naiṣadhacarita of Śriharṣa, published from Lahore in 1934, created a furore of appreciation in the international community of Sanskrit scholars because what he had accomplished had long been considered almost an impossible task. Sriharsa is known for his difficult style, and in fact he challenged Sanskrit scholars to unravel the meanings of certain difficulties he had deliberately created in the text.

While working on Naiṣadhacarita of Śriharṣa, Handiqui corresponded regularly with Dr Parashuram Gode of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, and obtained a large number of unpublished commentaries, rare books and manuscripts which threw light on the difficult text.

From page 553 to page 647 of his book, Handiqui presents an extremely useful list of 613 Sanskrit words and their meanings. These are words generally not found in Sanskrit dictionaries, and Sanskrit scholars have expressed their indebtedness to Handiqui for this contribution.

Senior professor of Sanskrit Dr. A. N. Jani of the University of Baroda, who worked on “A Critical Study of Śriharṣa’s Naiṣadhiya Caritam” for his PhD from the Univeristy of Mumbai, said in the preface to his thesis : “The Naiṣadhiya Charitam is the most difficult of all the epics in Sanskrit literature and as such it is generally neglected in modern times.

There is only one scholarly translation of the poem into English by Prof. Handiqui who made the poem intelligible not only to Indian students but also to the Western world for which the poem would otherwise have become a hard nut to crack.”

Prof. M. B. Emeneau, a professor of Sanskrit at the University of California published an article entitled “Notes on Śriharṣa’s Naiṣadhacarita” in a research journal (University of California Publications in Semitic Philology, Volume XI, 1951).

For this, Prof Emeneau was entirely dependent of Handiqui’s work : “In this paper my indebtedness to Handiqui’s work will be seen at every point; I cannot claim to have read the Sanskrit work completely. My translations lean heavily on Handiqui.” He sent that article as a gift to Handiqui, “with the compliments and gratitude of M. B. Emeneau”.

The publication of Handiqui’s book also prompted Ananda K Coomaraswamy, famous art historian and the Curator in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to correspond with Handiqui to ascertain whether some of the miniature paintings in the museum were indeed based on the Nala Damayanti story as depicted in Naiṣadhacarita.

Prof. M. Winternitz of Prague said about Handiqui’s book :  “The translation will be a great help to readers of this difficult Mahakavya. The critical Notes and the Extracts from the unpublished commentaries are very important for the restoration of the Text and its interpretation. The vocabulary is a highly valuable contribution to Sanskrit Lexicography.”

The principal of the Government Sanskrit College, Benares, Mahāmahopādhyāya Gopi Nath Kaviraj,  Mahāmahopādhyāya S. Kuppuswami Sastri, Dr. C. Kunhan Raja, the Head of the Department of Sanskrit, Madras, University and other Indian Sanskrit scholars praised Handiqui’s work in very high terms and said that the book clearly showed his profound scholarship and brilliant research. Several newspapers and magazines also carried articles praising Handiqui’s book.

After serving Jagannath Barooah College for 17 years since its inception in 1930, Handiqui served as the Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University, the first university of Northeast India, for three 3-year terms since its inception in 1948. Then, a year after he became the Vice Chancellor, he published Yaśastilaka and Indian Culture.

To complete this work of encyclopaedic dimensions, Handiqui collected and studied unpublished and rare manuscripts, from the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Pune, the Provincial Museum of Lucknow, and the Rajputana Museum of Ajmeer. As a part of his research, he also visted famous ancient temples, particularly in South India. In 1941 he visited the Rajputana Museum at Ajmeer to observe the sculptural details of a particular type of Shiva lingam described in the Skanda Purāṇa.

            In 1949, the Jaina Saṁskṛti Saṁrakshaka Sangha, Sholapur, Maharashtra, published Handiqui’s Yaśastilaka and Indian Culture as the second book to in the series “Jīvarāja Jaina Granthamālā.” The founder of Jīvarāja Jaina Granthamālā Dr. Jivaraja Gautam Chand said that if they had published nothing else but only Handiqui’s book, even then the research organization would have succeeded in fulfilling its goals.

Dr. Adi Nath Upadhye, professor of Jaina archaeology and Prakrit at Mysore University who had gone through the proofs of the book said, “No Jaina kāvya has received such sharp critical attention. I consider myself lucky to be able to read the proofs of this book. The book has set a standard for how a book of Sanskrit verse should be studied in detail. I have learnt a lot of things from the book, and I had the opportunity to observe Handiqui’s profound scholarship in every page of the book.”

In the year of its publication, 1949, the Fifteenth All India Oriental Conference held at Mumbai discussed Handiqui’s book, and he was praised for his profound scholarship. Besides, the Conference elected Handiqui as president of the Classical Sanskrit section of the sixteenth All India Oriental Conference. Yaśastilaka continued to receive critical accolades in India, Europe and America.

            Dr. V. Raghavan, the president of the Classical Sanskrit section of the fifteenth All India Oriental Conference (1949) said in his speech, “The name of Prof. K. K. Handiqui, now Vice Chancellor of the Gauhati University, will be familiar to all students of Sanskrit literature; for few are those who have not used and profited by his exhaustive study of Naiṣadhacarita.

He has now given us an even more elaborate study of the Jaina Yaśastilaka campu….This sumptuous Volume of 539 pages which is only just now to hand is so full of material and discussion that, despite my interest and touch with the theme, I have been able to peruse only select sections…………It must be accepted that in the hands of Prof. Handiqui, the work, like Somadeva’s original, has become a mine of information, literary, historical, social, religious, and archeological, the collection of which must have involved prodigious labour.”

            The 18 chapters of Yaśastilaka contain:

(1) Somadeva and his times, (2) Synopsis of Yaśastilaka, (3) The Story of Yaśodhara and Its Sources, (4) Yaśastilaka as a Prose Romance, (5) Yaśastilaka as a Socio-Political Record, (8) Philosophical Doctrines, (9) Schools of Thought, (10) Jaina Dogmatics and Moral and Spiritual Discipline, (11) The Anuprekṣās and Jaina Religious Poetry, (12) A Controversial Dialogue, (13) Jainism and Faiths, (14) Jaina Criticism of Vedic Sacrifices, (15) Non-Jaina Cults, Customs and Beliefs, (16) Jaina Religious and Moral Stories, (17) Myths and Legends, (18) Quotations and References.

            The Appendix contains (1) Somadeva and the Pratihāra Court of Kanauj, (2) The Verses on the Courtesan’s Corpse and a Buddhist Legend, (3) Śaiva Temples and their Geographical Distribution, (4) the Kālāmukha Sect.

Somadeva’s Yaśastilaka is a Sanskrit campu consisting of both prose and poetry. Mirroring the political and social life of tenth century India, the text attempts to establish the rule of ahiṁsa or non-violence. A Jaina religious story is used to emphasize the supremacy of non-violence. The protagonist of the tale is a young, religious king.

His queen’s illicit love for an ugly mahout becomes the pretext around which moral lessons are provided. Also, the concept of a welfare state is sought to be presented, although indirectly, through satirical and harsh statements made about dishonest, corrupt government officials.

Professor Louis Renou of the University of Paris said about Handiqui’s book : “It required the remarkable zeal of Mr Handiqui, which had already found expression fifteen years ago in a vastly learned work on Śriharṣa’s Naiṣadhacarita, to incorporate the Yaśastilaka in the general current of Hinduism. …… The Yaśastilaka, properly interpreted, is a sort of encyclopaedia of Jainism, and Mr Handiqui has overlooked nothing for explaining the facts of dogmatics, discipline and ethics which are described or alluded to in the work.

With the help of the Yaśastilaka and a vast amount of information literary and epigraphic, Mr Handiqui describes the position of Jainism in the tenth century and records the controversies or the conflicts with diverse Hindu sects and eventually with the Buddhists. Here is a study which had not been made before, at least on such an extensive scale…….”

Dr. Hiralal Jain (professor of Prakrit literature at Jabalpur University) and Dr. Adi Nath Upadhye (professor of Jaina archaeology and Prakrit at Mysore University) the publishers and editors of Yaśastilaka and Indian Culture said : “……….It is indeed very happy that such a masterpiece of literature as the Yaśastilaka is thoroughly studied in its various aspects by an eminent and versatile Sanskritist of the status and standing of Professor Handiqui. ……. Somadeva for his literary rehabilitation has found a worthy scholar in Professor Handiqui who possesses rare qualities of sympathetic and judicious understanding, wide and rich information and deep and critical learning.

He undertook and completed the study of Yaśastilaka while he was the Principal and Senior Professor of History and Sanskrit at J. B. College, Jorhat (Assam). Very few Sanskrit works have been studied as thoroughly as the Yaśastilaka in this work; and Professor Handiqui deserves every praise for his steady labours and painstaking researches. Sanskrit studies have become richer by his present contribution……”

Writing to Dr. Mukunda Madhava Sarma, editor of the Krishna Kanta Handiqui felicitation volume [Krishna Kanta Handiqui Abhinandan Grantha, 1983], A. L. Bashm, Australian National University Professor, said: “His studies of Sanskrit texts can hardly be bettered and it is hardly believeable that he could have produced such masterly works as Yaśastilaka and Indian Culture, while directing first a young college and then an even younger university. The flourishing state of Gauhati University at present is in large measure due to this fine scholar who was its founder Vice Chancellor.”

Handiqui’s third monumental work, Pravarasena’s Setubandha was published in 1976. Although earlier scholars believed that this text was composed in the seventh century C.E., Handiqui put forward reasonable arguments to prove that it was in fact composed in the fifth century C.E. It is a Prakrit epic based on the Rāmāyaṇa, and was composed by Pravarasena, a king of the Vakataka dynasty.

Through his research Handiqui has proved that the present rural area named Pavanar six miles from Wardha was the town Pravarpur established by king Pravarasena. From archeological tablets it is known that the sacred hills — 28 miles from Nagpur city — now known as Ramtek were the Ramgiri hills mentioned in Kalidasa’s Meghdoot.

King Pravarasena built a Ram temple on this hill and it was believed that Ram’s sandals used to be housed in this temple. As a devotee of Lord Ram, Pravarasena composed the epic to glorify his Lord. Setubandha was once famous throughout South-east Asia and quite popular in India.

The story of the epic concentrates on the building of the causeway between the Indian mainland and Laṅka, and ends with the death of Ravana. It describes the technical skills of the monkey army building the causeway with mountains. Besides describing the heart-chilling bloodshed in the battlefield, the epic also describes the beautiful scenes of mountains, streams and the sea.

In this epic, Rāvaṇa is presented as a failed lover, and there is an attempt at creating an atmosphere of sadness despite all the horror involved in the tale. Abundance of imagination and extraordinary description are special features of this epic. Through his critical reading and translation of this difficult Prakrit epic, Handiqui has established Pravarasena’s creative genius before modern scholars.

In the very long scholarly introduction of the book, Handiqui provides elaborate discussion on the three ancient editions and the commentaries of Setubandha concerning issues like the structure of the Prakrit epic, translation and the text of Setubandha, the question of the real author of Setubandha, relation of this epic with Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, Setubandha as an epic, the rhymes of Prakrit poetry, the language of Setubandha, etc.

He has also mentioned the different varieties of Prakrit such as Maharashtri, Shauraseni, Paishachi, Chulika-Paishachi, and Magadhi. Setubandha was written in Maharashtri Prakrit, considered to be the best since ancient times.

According to H C Bhayani, “The Setubandha can fairly compare with the Saptasataka of Hala in points of age, importance and a continuous tradition of high literary esteem. The latter work had quite early received thorough attention it deserved from a scholar of Weber’s stature. The Setubandha it seems, was reserved for Prof. Handiqui’s mature scholarship.”

Handiqui gave the copyright of his book, Pravarasena’s Setubandha to the Prakrit Text Society without imposing any conditions. He gave the copyrights of his three books in this manner to help researchers in the future, and he trusted the organizations to whom he gave the copyrights to use the same for the benefit of scholars.

When Handiqui died, the Prakrit Vidya Mandal and the Prakrit Text Society of Ahmedabad said in their condolence note that “………Dr. K. K. Handiqui was a great Indologist and one of the few topmost scholars of Prakrit literature. His constributions to the cultural study of classical Sanskrit texts and the interpretation of classical Prakrit texts have a permanent value.”

When the Setubandha was published in 1976, Handiqui was 78. He was working hard to see the book in the published form, and after its publication his health took a turn for the worse. He experienced a lot of dizziness and stomach ailments. In May 1982, he was suffering from intestinal obstruction, and was operated on in the Assam Medical College Hospital, Dibrugarh.

There was a big malignant tumour in his colon, but it was not removed because that would further complicate the problem. A few days later, at 10 am on June 7, this extraordinary scholar with a sage-like personality, breathed his last.

When Handiqui was only 39 years old, he had become the president of the 17^th convention of the Asom Sahitya Sabha held at Guwahati in December 1937. To observe just one small portion of his speech as the Sabha president is to understand his great love for his mother tongue and also his concern for cultural cohesion in the region : “It is time we thought about making everyone a part of this convention—not only the Assamese Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities, but also the communities around Assam.

Popularizing the Assamese language among these communities around us should be the foremost responsibility of the Asom sahitya Sabha. In this time of crisis for the Assamese people, it is extremely necessary to establish a publicity committee of the Sahitya Sabha and try to increase, through education, the number of people who speak Assamese…..It will be very good indeed if the Sahitya Sabha authorities can ensure the participation of the hill tribes of Assam in the annual conventions of the Sabha. ….If this literature (sahitya) convention turns into a language convention, that will certainly not be bad. If we cannot attract those people who do not know the Assamese language, we cannot expect them to be automatically drawn towards our language and culture.”

Introducing his last scholarly book, Handiqui wrote that Setubandha is in fact like a setu, a causeway between the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages and also among the ideals of the epics of Kalidasa, Magha and Bharavi. It is interesting to observe that Krishna Kanta Handiqui himself was a setu, a link between many great languages, literatures, cultures and his people, the Assamese.

Even the meaning of the word “Handiqui”, designating a distinguished Ahom aristocratic family, is “bridge-builder”. Krishna Kanta Handiqui was a heroic bridge-builder across cultures. It is salutary to ask whether his people have paid adequate respect or even attention to what he had said in his books, articles, speeches and through his exemplary life.

(Sanjeev Kumar Nath, English Department, Gauhati University, sanjeevnath21@gmail.com)

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