Christianity, The Bible and the Development of the Indian Languages:
Rajen Barua
In spite of critical observation of disdain against religion of philosophers like Bertrand Russell and many others, we must admit that religion is, after all, responsible for some of the good things of our civilization. Besides astronomy and mathematics, the two prominent areas where religion had contributed indirectly, we may add that religion has also contributed immensely, to the development and spread of languages in general in the world. We may even say that religion was also mainly responsible for the spread of culture itself. From earliest times, people travelled to far off places mainly for two basic reasons: for business and for belief. Starting from the Hindu Vedas down to the Bible and the Koran, religion had been making a great impact on language and culture. Buddha did not name any of his followers to take his place after his death. Instead, he left his disciples only with one basic axiom: In my absence, the Law (Dharma) will be your guiding light; follow the Law, be a light unto yourself, and travel and spread the Law in unknown lands.
True to the Law, the Buddhist monks from India travelled far and wide to unknown countries to spread Buddhism. The same Silk Road, which brought Chinese silk and Chinese noodles to the West, also was used to carry Buddhist sutras from India into China. It was with a religious zeal that King Ashoka adopted Buddhism and not only sent Buddhist monks all over Asia and the West to spread the Law, but he built hundreds of stone pillars, in a land spreading from India to Afghanistan, where he wrote his royal decree in Brahmi script to spread the Law. Today, it is these written words of Ashoka in Brahmi script which throw the first light on writing in India. We read of many Buddhist monks from India who went, lived and died in China only with one goal in mind: to translate the Buddhist sutras into Chinese language for the purpose of spreading the Law. We read of the prolific Indian writer Kumarajiva, who travelled to China in 401 AD, lived there, learned Chinese and wrote a total of about 47 books on Buddhist sutras in Chinese. Jinagupta, another Indian monk, went to China in the sixth century AD, and translated about 37 original Sanskrit works into Chinese. His great knowledge was so admired by the emperor of the T’ang dynasty who became his ardent disciple. Today, these Chinese books written by the Indian monks are considered jewels of Chinese Buddhism.
In similar line, Hindu priests went to many countries in southeast Asia and established the basic structure of local languages based on Sanskrit and Pali. From Burma (Myanmar) to far off Korea, religion carried the Devanagri script based on which the local scripts were developed. Religion also carried the popular story of Rama to all these southeast Asian countries. With the development of written words, the Sanskrit Ramayana was translated in almost all these southeast Asian countries — Ramakien (Thailand), Hikayet Seri Rama (Malayasia), Ravana Badham (Indonesia), Ramakavacha (Bali), Phra-Lak/Phra-Lam (Laos), Kakawn Ramayan (Java), Maradia Lawana (Philippnes), Yama Zatdaw (Burma), etc. Today, many of these countries have different religions. However, whether it is Islamic Indonesia or Christian Philippines, all these countries owe it to Hinduism and Buddhism for the development of their languages.
It was with the same religious zeal that we saw a new revolution of travel activities from the West to spread the words of Jesus Christ in the eighteenth century. Along with the British East India Company, came the Christian missionaries to India to spread the words of Christ. They came from different parts of the Christian West including America. Some important assumptions of the missionaries had been that non-Christian peoples must be approached in their own language; the missionaries must be persevering to acquaint themselves with the mind and customs of the people among whom they dwell; and in a country like India, where the vast majority of the inhabitants are illiterate, the spread of Christianity can be achieved only by oral proclamation. These basic principles led to the Christian missionaries not only to learning the local languages but also to writing the languages in Roman script or vernacular so that they can read it to the people.
If we have to name a single person who is responsible for the total revival of Indian languages in writing, we must name Dr William Carey. Carey was born in England in 1761. It is his love of Jesus for which he arrived in India in 1793 and started the Baptist Mission in Serampore, a former Danish colony, near Kolkata. Carey died in Serampore in 1834. Along with Carey, several other missionaries joined the Mission from England, other parts of Europe and America. Over the years, their love for the people and Jesus prompted them to learn several Indian languages besides enabling them to translate the Bible into many languages of India.
The missionaries acted with diligence and love. They soon realized that while Sanskrit is the mother language, the Indian vernaculars were yet to be fully developed as vehicles of learning. But Carey and his team had ambitious plans. As a first step, Carey not only learned Sanskrit, but also translated the Bible (New Testament) into Sanskrit in 1808. He hoped that after the translation of the Bible into Sanskrit, “the work could now be extended to all the languages”. From Serampore, they travelled all over India. Eventually, Carey was instrumental in translating the Bible into Marathi, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, and Gujarati. Carey also learned Telugu and Kannada to bring out the translations of the Bible in these languages. Later on, work on Pashto and Khasi were undertaken. On a rough estimate, we may say that Carey either worked or influenced heavily the translation of the Bible into as many as 35 languages.
It, however, remained a great question whether these translations actually helped the spread of Christianity at all. Because there was also another school of thought that the translations were not only imperfect but distributing the translated copies of the Bible among the Hindus and Muslims often actually stopped the Hindus from wanting to know more about Jesus because they did not find anything therein that would make them to give up their religion in preference to Christianity. In fact, they found that the stories of Ramayana and the Mahabharata were much more exciting and romantic compared to the story of Jesus Christ. In fact probably the same logic went against the Buddhist Jatakas compared to the stories of Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Anyway, the Christian missionaries were not very successful in converting the Hindus and Muslims to the Christian faith in large numbers. In fact, Carey’s personal score on this count is next to nothing! That however did not deter him an iota from finding other avenues of service to His Lord and to the people he came to serve.
However, in the process, the missionaries achieved something in Indian regional languages, which was not achieved before. Their efforts have started the important process of modern prose writing in the vernacular languages. Although prose writing was not uncommon in the vernacular languages, till then the traditional practice of saying profound things was through the medium of poetry. It is Carey, more than any other European scholar-missionary, who really showed to the natives of India that prose could be an effective medium. They chose the medium of prose for his translation much against the traditional practice of saying profound things through the medium of poetry. It was the necessity to preach the goodness of Jesus Christ to all, not just the educated or upper classes that made him to choose the medium of prose for the translation of the Bible. It was the very same necessity that forced these translators to base their translation on the colloquial language rather than on the formal style of the language. Just this act of choosing prose as the preferred form for expressing messages in long texts enabled the modern Indian vernaculars to cross the traditional boundaries and break into a new world and establish their identity. It enabled every literate Indian to compose his thoughts in writing without the cultivated sophistication of poetry and express himself in much easier way.
Through the translation of the Bible and through various other publications the missionaries enriched modern Indian languages, encouraged prose as the preferred medium of expression for education, introduced a strategy of translation based on Sanskrit, and established procedures of translation as a team work. And in all these languages and dialects, Carey was breaking new grounds and laying the path for the development of these languages as a vehicle of education. It is no wonder than that Rabindranath Tagore, himself a master of Bengali, wrote: “I must acknowledge that whatever has been done towards the revival of the Bengali language and its improvement must be attributed to Dr Carey and his colleagues. Carey was the pioneer of the revived interest in the vernaculars.”
We may now look closely how the missionaries’ work helped in the revival of the Assamese language. The mission in Assam was opened in 1836 by Nathan Brown, Miles Bronson and OT Cutter. Nathan Brown, who was an American missionary, was born in the year 1807 in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. He was associated with the Haystack Movement that began unofficially at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He attended Williams College at the age of 16, graduating at the top of his class in 1827. After finishing missionary training, he travelled with his wife to Burma, with an intent of translating and publishing the Bible in Burmese. However, as fate would take them, he along with Rev Oliver Cutter and Rev Miles Bronson was asked to go to Assam.
The first station of the mission was in Sadiya. They selected Sadiya mainly for geographical reasons; located on the eastern part of Assam, Sadiya is only 400 miles north of Ava, the old capital of Burma, near present Mandalay, and about 200 from Yunnan in China, on the borders of China. In Assam, the Christian missionaries began a much more successful mission at least so far as publication work was concerned. A printing press was established by Cutter, and the translation of the New Testament into Assamese was begun by Dr Brown in 1838. Miles Bronson published the first Assamese-English Dictionary in 1846, and Nathan Brown published an Assamese grammar in 1848, and a translation of the New Testament in Assamese in 1850. In 1851, the second edition of the New Testament was issued, and a revival of religion, with large additions to the churches, followed.
Mr Bronson then took initiative to open a mission amongst the Nagas, in their hills, but on account of the unsuitability of the climate, he changed his residence to Nowgong (Nagaon), where he baptized the first Assamese convert on June 13, 1841. The Nowgong Orphan Institution was for several years a fruitful part of the mission work, for in it many were converted and trained for usefulness. The school was dispersed after twelve years, but more native helpers were brought out of this school than from any other source. Other stations were occupied in succession by new missionaries — Ward, Whiting, Danforth and others, whose labours were crowned by abundant blessings. In 1857, at the time of the Sepoy Mutiny, much apprehension was felt; but the storm passed, and not a hair of the head of any missionary was touched. Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the mission was the association of the Assamese writer-philosopher Dr Hemchandra Barua, who studied English at the mission. Dr Barua later became editor of the mission’s local language magazine Orunodoi and went on to become the publisher of The Assam Times, wherein he did much crusading for equal education of women and men, elder rights and other issues. As a reformer, Dr Barua was an influence and inspiration for Nathan Brown. In the process, the Christian missionaries did two great services to the Assamese language. First, the missionaries along with many Assamese educated people convinced the British that Assamese is not a sibling of Bengali. Most probably, Dr Nathan Brown was the first grammarian to dismiss the idea that Assamese could be a dialect of Bengali. It was at their insistence and convincing arguments that the British finally lifted Bengali from the schools of Assam and introduced the Assamese language.
The second great contribution the missionaries did was to revive the Assamese language itself from its deathbed in the wake of the Burmese aggression. They did it with the simple act of
translation of the Bible into Assamese in prose. The prose they used was the conversational prose which was not used for literary purpose in Assamese before. A review of the text will prove the point. Dr Brown edited Dr Carey’s translation of the New Testament and published the first Bible in Assamese in Roman script in 1837.
Following is an excerpt from this Bible in Assamese (Sermon on the Mount — in Ásámese. Yéshu Khrístor Upadehor Kothá) in Roman script.
“Olubhimani manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu horogor raijy h’ibilakor. H’uk kora manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilake h’antona pabo. Namro manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilakor prithibir odhikar hobo. Jibilak poromarthor nimitte bhuk and aru piah lagishe, h’ebilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilakke trpti pabo. Daialu manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilake daia pabo. H’uddh-sit manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilake Ishworok dekhibo, don bhanguta bilak h’ukia; kionu h’ibilake Ishworor lorahout buli prokhyat hobo. Jibilak poromarthor nikune bipokhyato pai, h’eibilak h’ukia; kionu sorogor raijy h’ibilakore. Jetia manuhonte tumalokok ninda kore, aru khede, aru mur nimittr tumalakor falor atai beya kotha misakoi bule, tetia tumalak h’ukia; h’e bela anondit hua, aru bor rong kora, kionu sorogot tumalakor bor fol ase. Jibilak bhobishyad-bokta tumalakor agoi asil, h’ebilakok h’ibilake enekoie bipokhyota korisil...”
যিশু খৃষ্টৰ উপদেসৰ কথা
"অলুভিমানি মনুহবিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সৰগৰ ৰজ্য সিবিলাকৰ। শোক কৰা মানুহবিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকে সান্তনা পাব। নম্ৰ মানুহবিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকৰ পৃথিবীৰ আধিকাৰ হʼব। যিবিলাক পৰমাৰ্থত কাৰনে ভোক আৰু পিয়াহ লাগিছে, সেইবিলাক সখু ীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকে তৃপ্তি পাব। দয়ালু মানুহ বিলাক সুখীয়া কিয়নো সিবিলাকে দয়া পাব। শুদ্ধ চিত মানুঅহ্বিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকে ঈশ্চৰক দেখিব। দন ভঙা মানুহবিলাক সুখীয়া কিয়নো সিবিলাক ঈশ্চৰৰ লʼৰাহত বুলি প্ৰখ্যাত হʼব। যিবিলাকে পৰমাৰ্থৰ নিকুনে বিপখ্যাতো পাই, সেইবিলাক সুখীয়া সৰগৰ ৰাজ্য সিবিলাকৰে হʼব। যেতিয়া মনুহহতে তোমালোকক নিন্দা কৰে. আৰু খেদে, আৰু মোৰ নিমিতৃ তোমালোকৰ ফালৰ আতৈ বেয়া কথা মিছকৈ বোলে, তেতিয়া তোমালোক সুখীয়াঃ সে বেলা আনন্দিত হোৱ, আৰু বৰ ৰঙ কৰা, কিয়নো সৰগত তোমালোকৰ বৰ ফল আছ। যিবিলাক ভৱিষ্যত বক্তা তোমালোকৰ আগত আছিল, সেইবিলাকক সিবিলাকে এনেকৈয়ে বিপখ্যতা কৰিছিল ..."
The missionaries tried to use the colloquial pronunciation of the Assamese language as spoken by the common people. Among other sounds, they used the letter ‘h’ to denote the Assamese sound: xa.
In order to understand the impact of this prose writing in Assamese, we must understand that although prose writings were there in Assamese long before, those were in Guru Charit and other books, and the language was different. The Christian missionaries were the first who started Assamese prose in colloquial conversational style. This simple pioneering act of writing Assamese prose in colloquial language freed the language and brought it to the common people. Till then the literary works were the exclusive property of the Assamese scholars who knew Sanskrit too. This process of writing prose in conversational language started the great revival of the Assamese literary writings through the newspaper Orunudoi, published from Sivasagar. The impact of this revolution may be seen in the creation of the Assamese novel. A great literary form, the novel is a western tradition. Before the Christian missionaries, most Indian writings were in poetry. The first Indian novel was written in Bengali, and it was due to the foundation of prose established by the missionaries. It was again due to the Christian missionaries that Assamese did not lag far behind. The Christian missionaries wrote a book in Assamese 1860s titled Kaminikanta. Many consider that book to be the first Assamese novel. It is also due to such writings that eventually we find Rajani Kanta Bordoloi who wrote the first full-fledged Assamese novel titled Miri Jiori in 1892 only 25 years after the first Indian novel Kapalkundala in Bengali.
Those were the critical times for the Assamese language, and this achievement itself seems amazing, especially when we consider that Assamese language has been suppressed for fifty years by the Bengali language. I think in case of the Assamese language, we should go a bit beyond crediting the Christian missionaries for revival of the language, because it is almost impossible to imagine what fate would have been for the Assamese language without the active participation of them.
(Article published in The Assam Tribune, Guwahati, Assam, India, 11 June, 2005)
Rajen Barua
In spite of critical observation of disdain against religion of philosophers like Bertrand Russell and many others, we must admit that religion is, after all, responsible for some of the good things of our civilization. Besides astronomy and mathematics, the two prominent areas where religion had contributed indirectly, we may add that religion has also contributed immensely, to the development and spread of languages in general in the world. We may even say that religion was also mainly responsible for the spread of culture itself. From earliest times, people travelled to far off places mainly for two basic reasons: for business and for belief. Starting from the Hindu Vedas down to the Bible and the Koran, religion had been making a great impact on language and culture. Buddha did not name any of his followers to take his place after his death. Instead, he left his disciples only with one basic axiom: In my absence, the Law (Dharma) will be your guiding light; follow the Law, be a light unto yourself, and travel and spread the Law in unknown lands.
True to the Law, the Buddhist monks from India travelled far and wide to unknown countries to spread Buddhism. The same Silk Road, which brought Chinese silk and Chinese noodles to the West, also was used to carry Buddhist sutras from India into China. It was with a religious zeal that King Ashoka adopted Buddhism and not only sent Buddhist monks all over Asia and the West to spread the Law, but he built hundreds of stone pillars, in a land spreading from India to Afghanistan, where he wrote his royal decree in Brahmi script to spread the Law. Today, it is these written words of Ashoka in Brahmi script which throw the first light on writing in India. We read of many Buddhist monks from India who went, lived and died in China only with one goal in mind: to translate the Buddhist sutras into Chinese language for the purpose of spreading the Law. We read of the prolific Indian writer Kumarajiva, who travelled to China in 401 AD, lived there, learned Chinese and wrote a total of about 47 books on Buddhist sutras in Chinese. Jinagupta, another Indian monk, went to China in the sixth century AD, and translated about 37 original Sanskrit works into Chinese. His great knowledge was so admired by the emperor of the T’ang dynasty who became his ardent disciple. Today, these Chinese books written by the Indian monks are considered jewels of Chinese Buddhism.
In similar line, Hindu priests went to many countries in southeast Asia and established the basic structure of local languages based on Sanskrit and Pali. From Burma (Myanmar) to far off Korea, religion carried the Devanagri script based on which the local scripts were developed. Religion also carried the popular story of Rama to all these southeast Asian countries. With the development of written words, the Sanskrit Ramayana was translated in almost all these southeast Asian countries — Ramakien (Thailand), Hikayet Seri Rama (Malayasia), Ravana Badham (Indonesia), Ramakavacha (Bali), Phra-Lak/Phra-Lam (Laos), Kakawn Ramayan (Java), Maradia Lawana (Philippnes), Yama Zatdaw (Burma), etc. Today, many of these countries have different religions. However, whether it is Islamic Indonesia or Christian Philippines, all these countries owe it to Hinduism and Buddhism for the development of their languages.
It was with the same religious zeal that we saw a new revolution of travel activities from the West to spread the words of Jesus Christ in the eighteenth century. Along with the British East India Company, came the Christian missionaries to India to spread the words of Christ. They came from different parts of the Christian West including America. Some important assumptions of the missionaries had been that non-Christian peoples must be approached in their own language; the missionaries must be persevering to acquaint themselves with the mind and customs of the people among whom they dwell; and in a country like India, where the vast majority of the inhabitants are illiterate, the spread of Christianity can be achieved only by oral proclamation. These basic principles led to the Christian missionaries not only to learning the local languages but also to writing the languages in Roman script or vernacular so that they can read it to the people.
If we have to name a single person who is responsible for the total revival of Indian languages in writing, we must name Dr William Carey. Carey was born in England in 1761. It is his love of Jesus for which he arrived in India in 1793 and started the Baptist Mission in Serampore, a former Danish colony, near Kolkata. Carey died in Serampore in 1834. Along with Carey, several other missionaries joined the Mission from England, other parts of Europe and America. Over the years, their love for the people and Jesus prompted them to learn several Indian languages besides enabling them to translate the Bible into many languages of India.
The missionaries acted with diligence and love. They soon realized that while Sanskrit is the mother language, the Indian vernaculars were yet to be fully developed as vehicles of learning. But Carey and his team had ambitious plans. As a first step, Carey not only learned Sanskrit, but also translated the Bible (New Testament) into Sanskrit in 1808. He hoped that after the translation of the Bible into Sanskrit, “the work could now be extended to all the languages”. From Serampore, they travelled all over India. Eventually, Carey was instrumental in translating the Bible into Marathi, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, and Gujarati. Carey also learned Telugu and Kannada to bring out the translations of the Bible in these languages. Later on, work on Pashto and Khasi were undertaken. On a rough estimate, we may say that Carey either worked or influenced heavily the translation of the Bible into as many as 35 languages.
It, however, remained a great question whether these translations actually helped the spread of Christianity at all. Because there was also another school of thought that the translations were not only imperfect but distributing the translated copies of the Bible among the Hindus and Muslims often actually stopped the Hindus from wanting to know more about Jesus because they did not find anything therein that would make them to give up their religion in preference to Christianity. In fact, they found that the stories of Ramayana and the Mahabharata were much more exciting and romantic compared to the story of Jesus Christ. In fact probably the same logic went against the Buddhist Jatakas compared to the stories of Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Anyway, the Christian missionaries were not very successful in converting the Hindus and Muslims to the Christian faith in large numbers. In fact, Carey’s personal score on this count is next to nothing! That however did not deter him an iota from finding other avenues of service to His Lord and to the people he came to serve.
However, in the process, the missionaries achieved something in Indian regional languages, which was not achieved before. Their efforts have started the important process of modern prose writing in the vernacular languages. Although prose writing was not uncommon in the vernacular languages, till then the traditional practice of saying profound things was through the medium of poetry. It is Carey, more than any other European scholar-missionary, who really showed to the natives of India that prose could be an effective medium. They chose the medium of prose for his translation much against the traditional practice of saying profound things through the medium of poetry. It was the necessity to preach the goodness of Jesus Christ to all, not just the educated or upper classes that made him to choose the medium of prose for the translation of the Bible. It was the very same necessity that forced these translators to base their translation on the colloquial language rather than on the formal style of the language. Just this act of choosing prose as the preferred form for expressing messages in long texts enabled the modern Indian vernaculars to cross the traditional boundaries and break into a new world and establish their identity. It enabled every literate Indian to compose his thoughts in writing without the cultivated sophistication of poetry and express himself in much easier way.
Through the translation of the Bible and through various other publications the missionaries enriched modern Indian languages, encouraged prose as the preferred medium of expression for education, introduced a strategy of translation based on Sanskrit, and established procedures of translation as a team work. And in all these languages and dialects, Carey was breaking new grounds and laying the path for the development of these languages as a vehicle of education. It is no wonder than that Rabindranath Tagore, himself a master of Bengali, wrote: “I must acknowledge that whatever has been done towards the revival of the Bengali language and its improvement must be attributed to Dr Carey and his colleagues. Carey was the pioneer of the revived interest in the vernaculars.”
We may now look closely how the missionaries’ work helped in the revival of the Assamese language. The mission in Assam was opened in 1836 by Nathan Brown, Miles Bronson and OT Cutter. Nathan Brown, who was an American missionary, was born in the year 1807 in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. He was associated with the Haystack Movement that began unofficially at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He attended Williams College at the age of 16, graduating at the top of his class in 1827. After finishing missionary training, he travelled with his wife to Burma, with an intent of translating and publishing the Bible in Burmese. However, as fate would take them, he along with Rev Oliver Cutter and Rev Miles Bronson was asked to go to Assam.
The first station of the mission was in Sadiya. They selected Sadiya mainly for geographical reasons; located on the eastern part of Assam, Sadiya is only 400 miles north of Ava, the old capital of Burma, near present Mandalay, and about 200 from Yunnan in China, on the borders of China. In Assam, the Christian missionaries began a much more successful mission at least so far as publication work was concerned. A printing press was established by Cutter, and the translation of the New Testament into Assamese was begun by Dr Brown in 1838. Miles Bronson published the first Assamese-English Dictionary in 1846, and Nathan Brown published an Assamese grammar in 1848, and a translation of the New Testament in Assamese in 1850. In 1851, the second edition of the New Testament was issued, and a revival of religion, with large additions to the churches, followed.
Mr Bronson then took initiative to open a mission amongst the Nagas, in their hills, but on account of the unsuitability of the climate, he changed his residence to Nowgong (Nagaon), where he baptized the first Assamese convert on June 13, 1841. The Nowgong Orphan Institution was for several years a fruitful part of the mission work, for in it many were converted and trained for usefulness. The school was dispersed after twelve years, but more native helpers were brought out of this school than from any other source. Other stations were occupied in succession by new missionaries — Ward, Whiting, Danforth and others, whose labours were crowned by abundant blessings. In 1857, at the time of the Sepoy Mutiny, much apprehension was felt; but the storm passed, and not a hair of the head of any missionary was touched. Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the mission was the association of the Assamese writer-philosopher Dr Hemchandra Barua, who studied English at the mission. Dr Barua later became editor of the mission’s local language magazine Orunodoi and went on to become the publisher of The Assam Times, wherein he did much crusading for equal education of women and men, elder rights and other issues. As a reformer, Dr Barua was an influence and inspiration for Nathan Brown. In the process, the Christian missionaries did two great services to the Assamese language. First, the missionaries along with many Assamese educated people convinced the British that Assamese is not a sibling of Bengali. Most probably, Dr Nathan Brown was the first grammarian to dismiss the idea that Assamese could be a dialect of Bengali. It was at their insistence and convincing arguments that the British finally lifted Bengali from the schools of Assam and introduced the Assamese language.
The second great contribution the missionaries did was to revive the Assamese language itself from its deathbed in the wake of the Burmese aggression. They did it with the simple act of
translation of the Bible into Assamese in prose. The prose they used was the conversational prose which was not used for literary purpose in Assamese before. A review of the text will prove the point. Dr Brown edited Dr Carey’s translation of the New Testament and published the first Bible in Assamese in Roman script in 1837.
Following is an excerpt from this Bible in Assamese (Sermon on the Mount — in Ásámese. Yéshu Khrístor Upadehor Kothá) in Roman script.
“Olubhimani manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu horogor raijy h’ibilakor. H’uk kora manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilake h’antona pabo. Namro manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilakor prithibir odhikar hobo. Jibilak poromarthor nimitte bhuk and aru piah lagishe, h’ebilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilakke trpti pabo. Daialu manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilake daia pabo. H’uddh-sit manuhbilak h’ukhia; kionu h’ibilake Ishworok dekhibo, don bhanguta bilak h’ukia; kionu h’ibilake Ishworor lorahout buli prokhyat hobo. Jibilak poromarthor nikune bipokhyato pai, h’eibilak h’ukia; kionu sorogor raijy h’ibilakore. Jetia manuhonte tumalokok ninda kore, aru khede, aru mur nimittr tumalakor falor atai beya kotha misakoi bule, tetia tumalak h’ukia; h’e bela anondit hua, aru bor rong kora, kionu sorogot tumalakor bor fol ase. Jibilak bhobishyad-bokta tumalakor agoi asil, h’ebilakok h’ibilake enekoie bipokhyota korisil...”
যিশু খৃষ্টৰ উপদেসৰ কথা
"অলুভিমানি মনুহবিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সৰগৰ ৰজ্য সিবিলাকৰ। শোক কৰা মানুহবিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকে সান্তনা পাব। নম্ৰ মানুহবিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকৰ পৃথিবীৰ আধিকাৰ হʼব। যিবিলাক পৰমাৰ্থত কাৰনে ভোক আৰু পিয়াহ লাগিছে, সেইবিলাক সখু ীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকে তৃপ্তি পাব। দয়ালু মানুহ বিলাক সুখীয়া কিয়নো সিবিলাকে দয়া পাব। শুদ্ধ চিত মানুঅহ্বিলাক সুখীয়া; কিয়নো সিবিলাকে ঈশ্চৰক দেখিব। দন ভঙা মানুহবিলাক সুখীয়া কিয়নো সিবিলাক ঈশ্চৰৰ লʼৰাহত বুলি প্ৰখ্যাত হʼব। যিবিলাকে পৰমাৰ্থৰ নিকুনে বিপখ্যাতো পাই, সেইবিলাক সুখীয়া সৰগৰ ৰাজ্য সিবিলাকৰে হʼব। যেতিয়া মনুহহতে তোমালোকক নিন্দা কৰে. আৰু খেদে, আৰু মোৰ নিমিতৃ তোমালোকৰ ফালৰ আতৈ বেয়া কথা মিছকৈ বোলে, তেতিয়া তোমালোক সুখীয়াঃ সে বেলা আনন্দিত হোৱ, আৰু বৰ ৰঙ কৰা, কিয়নো সৰগত তোমালোকৰ বৰ ফল আছ। যিবিলাক ভৱিষ্যত বক্তা তোমালোকৰ আগত আছিল, সেইবিলাকক সিবিলাকে এনেকৈয়ে বিপখ্যতা কৰিছিল ..."
The missionaries tried to use the colloquial pronunciation of the Assamese language as spoken by the common people. Among other sounds, they used the letter ‘h’ to denote the Assamese sound: xa.
In order to understand the impact of this prose writing in Assamese, we must understand that although prose writings were there in Assamese long before, those were in Guru Charit and other books, and the language was different. The Christian missionaries were the first who started Assamese prose in colloquial conversational style. This simple pioneering act of writing Assamese prose in colloquial language freed the language and brought it to the common people. Till then the literary works were the exclusive property of the Assamese scholars who knew Sanskrit too. This process of writing prose in conversational language started the great revival of the Assamese literary writings through the newspaper Orunudoi, published from Sivasagar. The impact of this revolution may be seen in the creation of the Assamese novel. A great literary form, the novel is a western tradition. Before the Christian missionaries, most Indian writings were in poetry. The first Indian novel was written in Bengali, and it was due to the foundation of prose established by the missionaries. It was again due to the Christian missionaries that Assamese did not lag far behind. The Christian missionaries wrote a book in Assamese 1860s titled Kaminikanta. Many consider that book to be the first Assamese novel. It is also due to such writings that eventually we find Rajani Kanta Bordoloi who wrote the first full-fledged Assamese novel titled Miri Jiori in 1892 only 25 years after the first Indian novel Kapalkundala in Bengali.
Those were the critical times for the Assamese language, and this achievement itself seems amazing, especially when we consider that Assamese language has been suppressed for fifty years by the Bengali language. I think in case of the Assamese language, we should go a bit beyond crediting the Christian missionaries for revival of the language, because it is almost impossible to imagine what fate would have been for the Assamese language without the active participation of them.
(Article published in The Assam Tribune, Guwahati, Assam, India, 11 June, 2005)
