Assamese literature is the entire corpus of poetry, novels, short stories, documents and other writings in the Assamese language. It also includes popular ballads in the older forms of the language during its evolution to the contemporary form. The literary heritage of the Assamese language can be traced back to the 6th century in the Charyapada, where the earliest elements of the language can be discerned.
History:
The history of the Assamese literature may be broadly divided into three periods:
1. Early Assamese (6th to 15th century AD)
The Charyapadas are often cited as the earliest example of Assamese literature. The Charyapadas are Buddhist songs composed in 8th-12th century. These writings bear similarities to Oriya and Bengali languages as well. The phonological and morphological traits of these songs bear very strong resemblance to Assamese some of which are extant.
After the Charyapadas, the period may again be split into (a) Pre-Vaishnavite and (b) Vaishnative sub-periods. The earliest known Assamese writer is Hema Saraswati, who wrote a small poem "Prahrada Charita". In the time of the King Indranarayana (1350-1365) of Kamatapur the two poets Harihara Vipra and Kaviratna Saraswati composed Asvamedha Parva and Jayadratha Vadha respectively. Assam is known as the state of Ekasarana Dharma. Because two great apostles, Srimanta Shankardeva and Madhabdev had undertaken pivital roles in Assamese literature. The Kirtan Ghosa, Dasham, Ankia Nat, Gunamala, Namghosa are the most popular and widely held books in Assam. Srimanta Sankardeva And Madhabdev has changed the literature of Assam by writing these books. The Borgeet written by both Sankardev And Madhabdev is known as the soul song of Assam. The Ankia Nat and Jumura are the first Indian cultural drama and these are acts that came before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Another poet named Rudra Kandali translated Drona Parva into Assamese. But the most well-known poet of the Pre-Vaishnavite sub period is Madhav Kandali, who rendered Valmiki's Ramayana into Assamese verse (Kotha Ramayana, 14th century) under the patronage of Mahamanikya, a Kachari king of Jayantapura.
2. Middle Assamese (17th to 19th Century AD)
This is a period of the prose chronicles (Buranji) of the Ahom court. The Ahoms had brought with them an instinct for historical writings. In the Ahom court, historical chronicles were at first composed in their original Tibetan-Chinese language, but when the Ahom rulers adopted Assamese as the court language, historical chronicles began to be written in Assamese. From the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards, court chronicles were written in large numbers. These chronicles or buranjis, as they were called by the Ahoms, broke away from the style of the religious writers. The language is essentially modern except for slight alterations in grammar and spelling.
3. Modern Assamese
Effect of British rule
The British imposed Bengali in 1836 in Assam after the state was occupied in 1826. Due to a sustained campaign, Assamese was reinstated in 1873 as the state language. Since the initial printing and literary activity occurred in eastern Assam, the Eastern dialect was introduced in schools, courts and offices and soon came to be formally recognized as the Standard Assamese. In recent times, with the growth of Guwahati as the political and commercial center of Assam, the Standard Assamese has moved away from its roots in the Eastern dialect.
Influence of Missionaries
The modern Assamese period began with the publication of the Bible in Assamese prose by the American Baptist missionaries in 1819. The currently prevalent standard Asamiya has its roots in the Sibsagar dialect of Eastern Assam. As mentioned in Bani Kanta Kakati's "Assamese, its Formation and Development" (1941, Published by Sree Khagendra Narayan Dutta Baruah, LBS Publications, G.N. Bordoloi Road, Gauhati-1, Assam, India) – " The Missionaries made Sibsagar in Eastern Assam the centre of their activities and used the dialect of Sibsagar for their literary purposes". The American Baptist Missionaries were the first to use this dialect in translating the Bible in 1813.
The Missionaries established the first printing press in Sibsagar in 1836 and started using the local Asamiya dialect for writing purposes. In 1846 they started a monthly periodical called Arunodoi, and in 1848, Nathan Brown published the first book on Assamese grammar. The Missionaries published the first Assamese-English Dictionary compiled by M. Bronson in 1867. One of the major contributions of the American Baptist missionaries to the Assamese language is the reintroduction of Assamese as the official language in Assam. In 1848 missionary Nathan Brown published a treatise on the Assamese language[1]. This treatise gave a strong impetus towards reintroducing Assamese the official language in Assam. In his 1853 official report on the province of Assam, British official Moffat Mills wrote:
“ | ...the people complain, and in my opinion with much reason, of the substitution of Bengalee for the Vernacular Assamese. Bengalee is the language of the court, not of their popular books and shashtras, and there is a strong prejudice to its general use. …Assamese is described by Mr. Brown, the best scholar in the province, as a beautiful, simple language, differing in more respects from, than agreeing with, Bengalee, and I think we made a great mistake in directing that all business should be transacted in Bengalee, and that the Assamese must acquire it. It is too late now to retrace our steps, but I would strongly recommend Anandaram Phukan’s proposition to the favourable consideration of the Council of Education, viz., the substitution of the vernacular language in lieu of Bengalee, and completion of the course of the Vernacular education in Bengalee. I feel persuaded that a youth will, under this system of tuition, learn more in two than he now acquires in four years. An English youth is not taught in Latin until he is well grounded in English, and in the same manner, an Assamese should not be taught in a foreign language until he knows his own...." Beginning of Modern Literature: The period of modern literature began with the publication the Assamese journal Jonaki (1889), which introduced the short story form first by Laxminath Bezbarua. Thus began the Jonaki period of Assamese literature. In 1894 Rajanikanta Bordoloi published the first Assamese novel Mirijiyori. The modern Assamese literature has been enriched by the works of Jyoti Prasad Agarwalla, Hem Barua, Atul Chandra Hazarika, Nalini Bala Devi, Navakanta Barua, and others. In 1917 the Oxom Xahityo Xobha was formed as a guardian of the Assamese society and the forum for the development of Assamese language and literature. Padmanath Gohain Baruah was the first president of the society. |
Assamese is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based creole is widely used in Nagaland and parts of Assam. Small pockets of Assamese speakers can be found in Bhutan. The easternmost of Indo-European languages, it is spoken by over 13 million people.
Assamese has derived its phonetic character set and its behaviour from Sanskrit. It is written using the Assamese script. Assamese is written from left to right and top to bottom, in the same manner as English. A large number of ligatures are possible since potentially all the consonants can combine with one another. Vowels can either be independent or dependent upon a consonant or a consonant cluster.
The English word "Assamese" is built on the same principle as "Japanese", "Taiwanese", etc. It is based on the name "Assam" by which the tract consisting of the Brahmaputra valley was known. The people call their state Ôxôm and their language Ôxômiya.
Formation of Assamese:
Assamese and the cognate languages, Maithili, Bengali and Oriya, developed from Magadhi Prakrit According to linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji, the Magadhi Prakrit in the east gave rise to four Apabhramsa dialects: Radha, Vanga, Varendra and Kamarupa; and the Kamarupa Apabhramsa, keeping to the north of the Ganges, gave rise to the North Bengal dialects in West Bengal and Assamese in the Brahmaputra valley. Though early compositions in Assamese exist from the 13th century, the earliest relics of the language can be found in paleographic records of the Kamarupa Kingdom from the 5th century to the 12th century. Assamese language features have been discovered in the 9th century Charyapada, which are Buddhist verses discovered in 1907 in Nepal, and which came from the end of the Apabhramsa period. Early compositions matured in the 14th century, during the reign of the Kamata king Durlabhnarayana of the Khen dynasty, when Madhav Kandali composed the Kotha Ramayana. Since the time of the Charyapada, Assamese has been influenced by the languages belonging to the Sino-Tibetan and Austroasiatic families. Assamese became the court language in the Ahom kingdom by the 17th century.
Writing system:
Assamese uses the Assamese script, a variant of the Eastern Nagari script, which traces its descent from the Gupta script. There is a strong tradition of writing from early times. Examples can be seen in edicts, land grants and copper plates of medieval kings. Assam had its own system of writing on the bark of the saanchi tree in which religious texts and chronicles were written. The present-day spellings in Assamese are not necessarily phonetic. Hemkosh, the second Assamese dictionary, introduced spellings based on Sanskrit which are now the standard.
Kirtan Ghoxa:
The Kirtan Ghoxa (Assamese:) is collection of poetical works primarily of Srimanta Sankardeva meant for community singing in the Ekasarana religion. Its importance in the religion is second only to the primary text, the Bhagavat of Sankardeva.
The text of the kirtan ghoxa consists of twenty six sections and thirty one kirtans (or narratives of Krishna) (Barman 1999:118-119). The kirtans were originally compiled into a single text by Ramcaran Thakur, the nephew of Madhabdev. All the kirtans were composed by Srimanta Sankardeva, except for one by Ratnakar Kandali and another by Madhabdeva. Two of Sankardeva's kirtans were later additions to Ramcaran Thakur's compilation. In some versions, there is an additional kirtan composed by Sridhar Kandali.
Each kirtan consists of a ghoxa or refrain followed by a number of verses written in different meters.
The Kirtans:
- Caturvimsati avatara varnana
- Pasanda mardana
- Namaparadha
- Dhyana Varnana
- Ajamilopakhyana
- Prahrada carita
- Haramohana
- Balichalana
- Gajendropakhyana
- Sisulila
- Rasa krida
- Kamsa vadha
- Gopi udhava samvada
- Kujir vancha purana
- Akrurar vancha purana
- Jarasandhar yuddha
- Kalyavana vadha
- Mucukunda stuti
- Syamanta harana
- Naradar krishna darsana
- Vipra putra anayana
- Damodara upakhyana
- Daivakir putra anayana
- Veda stuti
- Krishna lilamala
- Srikrishnar vaikuntha prayana
- Bhagavatar tatparya
- Uresa varnana
Naam Ghosa is a poem in praise of Lord Krishna and of Vaishnavism or the bhakti cult. Written is Assamese in the sixteenth century by Shree Shree Madhabdev, it extols the practice of devotion to the deity and chanting hymns in praise of the Lord as the only way to attain moksha or salvation.
Asam Sahitya Sabha:
The Asam Sahitya Sabha (Assamese: Ôxôm Xahityô Xôbha or "Assam Literary Society") was founded in 1917 in Assam, India to promote the culture of Assam and Assamese literature. Presently it has about one thousand branches all over Assam and also outside the state. The central office is at Jorhat a city of historical importance. The branches and the district units also have their offices in their respective places.
However , the history of modern Assam, modern Assamese language and literature and culture found their starting points in the early part of the 19th century. Since 1872 some efforts were made to build up some organisations to work for the development of Assamese language, literature and culture of the modern period.
Ôxôm Xahityô Xôbha was the final results of all those efforts. In 1917 it came into being. The first conference was held in the month of December 1917 under the presidentship of Padmanath Gohain Baruah, a big name in the history of modern Assamese literature. Since then the annual conference, nowadays biennial, is held with great pomp and grandeur, and a writer of high reputation is elected to the presidency of the Society.
The conference of the Society become a big literary festival, unique in its character, which is attended by thousands of people. The writers of the state assemble, exchange their views and address the people. Currently, the 69th convention is being held at Chapar.
List of presidents:
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