User:TanSin21/sandbox

Pundit Mrityunjay Vidyalankar (1762-1819) was First Pundit at Fort William College of Kolkata. Owing to his immense contribution to literature, he was called the ‘first conscious artist’ of Bengali prose. On the recommendation of William Carey, he was appointed as the head pundit in Bangla Department at the Fort William College on 4 May 1801. Later in 1805, again on Carey's recommendation, he was given the responsibility of the head pundit in Sanskrit Department. He worked at this college until July 1816, when he resigned his post and worked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as his judge-pundit. He was a Sanskrit scholar in the beginning and started writing in Bengali as per the requirements of the college but he could not speak in English. He published Batris Singhasan (1802), Hitopodesh (1808), Rajabali (1808) and wrote Vedantachandrika (1817). Ranjabali is also known to be the first published history of India. He also authored some of the earliest printed books in Bengal.

Early Works
His book, Rajabali (1808) is considered to be the first book on the history of India in the Bengali language, commissioned by the Fort William College for use by the officials of the Company who were interested in learning the local vernacular. It was published by Biharilal Chattopadhyay from Raja Rajballabh Street. When he was writing about "the Rajas and Badshahs and Nawabs who have occupied the throne in Delhi and Bengal," it seemed as if was recycling the already prevalent narratives among the Bengali literati. It served as a renowned memoir of the elite Bengali society as exemplified in contemporary scholarship. He gained fame not just for the number of publications but also for his prose style, which was "highly Sanskritised" but retained a characteristic Bengali rhythmic structure.He also gave a unique, formal structure to the written language which distanced it from how it was used colloquially. Rajabali is the history of those who ruled over the earth in which there are seven islands of which the one called Jambudvipa has nine parts of which India is one.

Gaurasdeshiya Samaj and beliefs in dharma
Mrityunjay Vidyalankar, saw the restoration of dharma, i.e. the practice of rajdharma [the dharma of the king] as the divine purpose behind British rule. The Samaj used the concept for a summarised manual for both the land and the country as well as for the supervision of order and rule for the "moral community". It is made in accordance with the hegemonic and competitive European discourse of "civilisation." However, Mrityunjay Vidyalankar's writings on the concept are in stark contrast to the perceptions of the samaj. They anticipated many characteristics of nationalism much earlier than they arrived, that is, the desire for development within the country and the establishment of a public sphere, comprising "elections, votes, resolutions, the recording of minutes and other related practices" but not an explicit want of a "nation-state". However, Mrityunjay's writings on the concept are in stark contrast to that of the Samaj, especially in terms of the decline of the nation, expressed in units of dharma as it is represented through a method of comparison with European countries and their history. Thus, the desire for unity among Hindus was perceived as an emulative desire on the part of the colonised. These pro-national tendencies in writing were countered actively by Vidyalankar while he was writing in the 1800s.

His manual dictated that the rulers on earth were appointed by the Divine Will. They occupy the position of that privilege till as long as they gained and retained powers of righteousness. By attaining the highest level of dharma, one could rule the entire earth. His Puranic accounts and his histriographic allegiences, written at the behest of his colonisers were mostly pre-colonial.He also explored the historical reasons for the downfall of the dynasties in India, including the Chauhan dynasty and wrote accounts on the Sultanate and the Mughal period. On Aurangzeb,Mrityunjay says: He became very active in spreading the Muhammadi faith. And he destroyed many great temples. Many ceremonies of the Hindus such as the worship of the sun and of Ganesa had been performed in the fort of the Badshah since the time of Akbar; [Aurangzeb] discontinued these practices and issued new rules invented by himself.

Calcutta School-Book Society, Calcutta, 1817
The growing trend of the Bengali community to learn English and tenets of Western sciences finds its origin at the establishment of the Fort William College in 1800 by Marquis Wellesley. Being the language of the British Raj, learning English helped in garnering professional acclaim. This trend led to the establishment of the Hindu College, the Oriental Seminary in the early 19th century and eventually, the School Book Society in 1817 in Kolkata.It was the first institution of its kind and the first managing committee (1817-1818)included orthodox Hindus like Pundit Mrityunjay Vidyalankar, Radhakanta Deb, Ramkamal Sen and Tarinicharan Mitra. William Carey and the Rev. J. Parson and the Rev. T. Tomason represented he missionaries and churchmen, while W.B. Bayley, who was elected President of the Society, Sir Edward Hyde East and J H Harrington served as officials of the society. The institution played a crucial role in Vidyalankar's life for it was supported by the Governor-General Lord Hastings, his wife, English officials and business and several Hindu and Muslim zamindars.

Views on Women's Rights
He wrote against the practice of sati even before Rammohun Roy. When the latter first published his pamphlet in favour of banning the custom, he cited the same shastric endorsement, follwing Vidyalankar's footsteps. However, Jashodhara Bagchi argues that in spite of his views on Sati and his opposition towards widow immolation, he preferred the purity of a life-long abstinence and penance, performed by upper-caste Hindu widows: I regard a woman's burning herself as an unworthy act, and a life of abstinence and chastity as highly excellent. In the shastras appear many prohibitions of a woman's dying with her husband, but against a life of abstinence and chastity there is no prohibition.