Indian Histories of India trans.
Madhav Deshpande
mmdesh at umich.edu
Fri Jul 12 14:02:00 UTC 1996
In connection with Indian historians of India, I realize that not
too many members of this list can read materials written in the modern
vrnaculars of India. However, it needs to be noted that some of the best
'Indian' points of view come across only through the vernacular
writings. For example, V.K. Rajwade was one such historian from
Maharashtra who wrote almost exclusively in Marathi. However, his
voluminous contributions represent a distinct point of view on Indian
history.
Within my own field of Sanskrit grammar, there are some
monumental works of scholarship in modern vernaculars, e.g. the only
complete translation of Patanjali's Mahabhashya in seven volumes by
Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar and the equally fascinating volume of
introduction by his son, K.V. Abhyankar. The Bengali work Byaakara.n
Dar"saner Itihaas by Guruprasaad Haldar is another such monumental
contribution.
Some of these monumental vernacular works need to be made
available to wider audiences. For example, Bhatkhande's multi-volume
work on North-Indian music was originally written in Marathi. It is now
widely read and used in India through its Hindi translations. Some works
of this monumental category need to be rendered into English. For a
number of years, I have been thinking of translating K.V. Abhyankar's
Introductory volume to the translation of the Mahabhashya from Marathi
into English. It has enormous amount of localized info about the
specific continuities of the grammatical traditions from Bhattoji till
now in various centers such as Varanasi, Pune, and Satara. None of this
info is available in any English language materials. Similarly, there
are Marathi works by N.C. Kelkar on the history of Sanskrit traditions
during the last century. Professor Varnekar's extensive history of
modern Sanskrit literature (written in Marathi) is another such
monumental work.
Madhav Deshpande
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