Sukumar Sen

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Great Bengali linguist. He had also vast knowledge in Pali, Prakrit,Sanskrit. He wrote the famous book History of Bengali Literature. (Foreword by: Jawaharlal Nehru ). Visnu Pala’s Manasa Mangala edited by Sukumar Sen is another great work. The legend of Manasa, the snake Goddess, became a popular literary theme in Bengal from the 16 century. Interestingly the theme has local and regional variations. The present edition of Visnu Pala’s Manasa Mangala was prepared by Prof. Sukumar Sen for Bibliotheca Indica on the basis of the Asiatic Soceity manuscript no. 4993 (government collection). The interesting point is that the manuscript prepared from that were used by the singers who came from the common people; was written sometimes between 1775 and 1825. Despite the late character of it, its linguistic importance cannot be gainsaid. This is a veritable source of material for a student of Bengali philology. Apart from its linguistic importance this is a perfect sample of folk treatment of ‘mangal’ poetry. Hence it is of some interest to folklorists. Sen was born in the year 1900. Their original home was at Gotan, near Bardhaman. He got his education from Burdwan Municipal High School. He got divisional scholarship in Matriculation examination in 1917.He passed F.A. from Burdwan Raj College. He got first class honours mark in Sanskrit. Then he studied comparative literature in Kolkata in which he got highest record marks. Famous linguist Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay was his teacher here. Thereafter he received prestigious Premchand Roychand Scholarship and P.H.D. degree. London Asiatic Society honoured him with a Gold medal. He published numerous articles and research papers in his life. He died in 1992.

He showed gradual emergence of the Bengali language from Prakrit and Apabhramsa. As usual, we find at the beginning devotional and lyric songs and mystical poetry, followed by narrative poetry. Gradually literary prose develops, and drama, and finally, fiction. Professor Sen gives many details about past writers and a broad sweep of the progress of the Bengali language, especially in its development during more or less recent times when it was reacting to Western influences.