In 2014, the Government of Odisha declared March 11 as Classical Odia Language Day, and since then, it has been observed every year. Following the example of UNESCO with respect to International Mother Language Day, the Government of Odisha should consider, in my opinion, declaring the theme for the Classical Odia Language Day celebration for each year. This would inform the Odia speech community about various aspects of the classical period of the Odia language, which is also the classical period of Odia literature. When a theme is chosen for International Language Day for a particular year, it is chosen, keeping in view the main objectives of International Mother Language Day. Likewise, within the primary objective of the promotion of the classical period of Odia literature (which, the experts seem to have decided, extends from Charya Pada poems of the tenth century to Bhima Bhoi’s poetry of the nineteenth century), the theme for Classical Odia Language Day for a particular year should be chosen. This should be done sufficiently in advance so that serious work can go into uncovering the material to be disseminated among the speech community.
In general, in public and in private, we mention our celebrated literary works of the classical period with pride, but not many today, barring very few specialists, really read any of these. Bhagabata and Lakshmi Purana are exceptions, but these are read for ritual purposes. The fact is that we are really disconnected from our classical literature. We need to get connected with it. Getting connected with it means becoming aware of our cultural heritage. How to make that happen is the specialists’ job. Some thoughts about this here.
Generally speaking, traditionally, it is the major works of poetry that have been the subject of scholarly study of classical literature in Odia. The same, in all probability, would hold for the literature of the classical period of the other classical languages of our country. My submission here is that lesser-known works and minor works in prose and poetry—imaginative literature and knowledge-based literature both—must also be studied seriously. For instance, loka sahitya (folk literature), in particular, folk tales, in my opinion, must be viewed as a body of fine artistic creations. Now, sometimes, folk sayings and tales become part of major literary works. For instance, one cannot miss the folk flavour in Sarala Mahabharata, and some popular proverbs in our language (like asamayare gadha pada dhariba – holding the donkey’s feet when in a difficult situation) have their roots in episodes in this classic. Our folk tales, which can be viewed as important cultural narratives, tell us about the way our forefathers lived at another time, in a world different from ours. Ignoring our folk literature would amount to ignoring our cultural roots. If one is looking for non-religious, non-spiritual, and non-metaphysical compositions written in the language of the common people in our ancient and medieval compositions, one would find them in our folk tales, folk songs, folk sayings, etc.
Not many know about pre-Sarala literature, nor has it received much scholarly attention. Neither have the minor Puranic compositions, such as osha and brata kathas. These may not have literary value, but they express the local lived culture more prominently than our great Puranic compositions. One reason for the general lack of serious interest in the former could be that we ignore what is not monumental, spectacular, or profound in our literary tradition or culture. But we must appreciate that by ignoring the “small,” we are missing out on interesting dimensions of our culture and our discourse forms.
Distinguished poet, literary critic, and academic Mayadhar Mansingh makes the important observation that prose predates poetry in Odia, which is not usually the case in many languages. Prose writings during the classical period of Odia—inscriptions, commentaries on the couplets in Shishubeda, Madalapanji, Sarala Das’s Nityani Gurubara Katha, Jagannath Das’s Tulabhina, among others—need to be studied from both the linguistic and cultural perspectives. In our view, it is not the right attitude to ignore what we think lacks literary value.
In order to make our heritage literature accessible to people in general, certain projects must be undertaken. These require the involvement of scholars, but the outcome of the effort would certainly interest and benefit general readers and academicians alike. Let us choose just one text, namely, Sarala Mahabharata, for illustrative purposes. In this text, there are, intuitively speaking, about three thousand words that are difficult to understand today. Some of these have gone out of use, and some have undergone semantic change. For instance, the word “krodha” in Sarala Mahabharata means anger and sorrow. The word has lost its second meaning in modern Odia. The word “koyara” (the synonym of which is “koyaru”) meant servant then. This word is no longer in use. In modern Odia, “gurubara (Thursday)” is not referred to as “pandita bara.” The word “samsara” no longer means “cremation of the dead body.” Both for the general readers and for linguistic research on word loss and semantic change, a Sarala Mahabharata Abhidhana (Sarala Mahabharata dictionary) is greatly needed. It would be an annotated dictionary. In each entry in the proposed dictionary, in addition to the conventional information (its meaning, its grammatical category, whether it is a tatsama, tadbhava, desaja word, or a borrowed word from a foreign language, etc.), it must be mentioned in which form it is used today, i.e., whether there is a change in its spelling, whether it is a lost item and, if so, the possible reasons for its non-existence today, whether it has undergone a change in meaning, and whether it is used formally, informally, or semi-formally today, and the like. Such a dictionary would be a great deal more informative than the conventional dictionary. The information could be fruitfully used not just by linguists but also by those interested in culture. Most importantly, the general readers would find it useful when they read the text. This apart, they would find the semantic and cultural history of words interesting. Don’t you think how the proper noun “Babana Bhuta” of Sarala Mahabharata has become a common noun in today’s usage would be of interest to them? At least I think it would!
There is a need for an annotated dictionary of the most often used cultural terms and practices in a classical text. This would help us understand the classical text better. As for cultural terms, consider dana, dakshina, and chanda. Many today would not know what chanda means. In Sarala Mahabharata, it refers to what the receiver of dana leaves for the giver of dana. Maybe the word has become obsolete because dana as a ritual act is no longer a social practice. The distinction between dana and dakshina in a ritual giving is not there today. We give dakshina without giving dana. Then, the attitude of giving, sometimes under oath, whatever the seeker asks for, is unacceptable in the present day. The very popular Odia food items “pakhala (water rice)” and “sagabhaja (fried leaves)” do not find mention in Sarala Mahabharata, and no sweet today bears the name “rasakora.” No sweet had the name “nadiakora (finely grounded coconut-based sweet)” in Sarala Mahabharata. Virtuous Vidura did not offer the humble sagabhaja to Krishna in this text.
We need yet another annotated dictionary—a dictionary of the terms that have stylistic significance: onomatopoeia, reduplicative, echo compounds, vocatives (terms of address and of call), euphemisms, dysphemisms, emotionally triggered utterances (interjections, exclamations, exclamatory clauses), and pragmatic particles, among such others. Each entry must provide information from a comparative perspective (the way it is used in the text and the way it is being used today). The comparative information would be important for the study of the change in the style of discourse. General readers and specialists alike would find the information interesting. A study of what we mean to say is incomplete without an associated study of how we say it.
An ancient work is difficult to read today mainly because (a) it contains words that are no longer in use or have undergone semantic change and (b) the cultural practices and specialized cultural terms occurring in the text are unfamiliar to present-day readers. The suggested dictionaries would break the barriers and make the works more accessible to general readers. And as already mentioned, that should be one of the main objectives of classical language scholars.
(The views expressed are the writer’s own)
Prof. B.N.Patnaik
Retd. Professor of Linguistics and English, IIT Kanpur
Email: [email protected]
(Images from the net)