Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
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| Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar | |
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| Date of birth | September 26, 1820 |
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| Place of birth | Midnapore,West Bengal, India |
| Date of death | July 29, 1890 |
Ishwar Chandra Vidyāsāgar (Bengali: ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগর Ishshor Chôndro Biddāshagor) (1820-1891), born Ishwar Chandra Bandopādhyāya (Bengali: ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়, Ishshor Chôndro Bôndopāddhae), was a Bengāli polymath and a pillar of the Bengal Renaissance.
Vidyasagar was a philosopher, academic, educator, writer, translator, printer, publisher, entrepreneur, reformer, and philanthropist. His efforts to simplify and modernize Banglā prose were significant. He also rationalized and simplified the Bengali alphabet and type, which had remained unchanged since Charles Wilkins and Panchanan Karmakar had cut the first Bangla types in 1780.
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[edit] Teaching Career
In 1841, Vidyasagar took the job of a Sanskrit pundit (professor) at Fort William College in Kolkata (Calcutta). In 1846, he joined the Sanskrit College as Assistant Secretary. A year later, he and a friend of his, Madan Mohan Tarkālankār, set up the Sanskrit Press and Depository, a print shop and a bookstore.
While Vidyasagar was working a the Sanskrit College, some serious differences arose between him and Rasamoy Dutta who was then the Secretary of the College, and so he resigned in 1849. One of the issues was that while Rasamoy Dutta wanted the College to remain a Brahmin preserve, Vidyasagar wanted it to be opened to students from all castes.
Later, Vidyasagar rejoined the College, and introduced a far-reaching change in the College's syllabus.
Vidyasagar was one of the first persons in India to realize that modern science was the key to India's future. He translated into Bengali English biographies of some outstanding scientists like Copernicus, Newton, and Herschel. He sought to inculcate a spirit of scientific inquiry among young Bengalis. A staunch anti-Berkeleyan, he emphasized the importance of studying European Empiricist philosophy (of Francis Bacon) and Inductive Logic (of John Stuart Mill). He categorically stated that some of the old Indian philosophical systems, including the Sāmkhya and the Vedānta, were "false systems of philosophy". Though this view of Vidyasagar antagonized orthodox Sanskrit scholars, he held it steadfastly, and after debates with the Orientalist scholar J. R. Ballantyne and others at the Sanskrit College, he won them over to his views. At his behest, Mill's Logic and Bacon's Novum Organum got included in the College's syllabus.
In the face of opposition from the Hindu establishment, Vidyasagar vigorously promoted the idea that regardless of their castes, both men and women should be receiving the best education.
[edit] Reform Concerning Widow Remarriages
In an unflinching manner, Vidyasagar championed the uplift of the status of women in India, particularly in his native Bengal. Unlike some other reformers who sought to set up alternative societies or systems, he sought, however, to transform orthodox Hindu society from within.
With valuable moral support from people like Akshay Kumar Dutta, Vidyasagar introduced the practice of widow remarriages to mainstream Hindu society. In earlier times, remarriages of widows would occur sporadically only among progressive members of the Brahmo Samāj. The prevailing deplorable custom of Kulin Brahmin polygamy allowed elderly men --who might sometimes be in their advanced ages-- to marry teenage girls or even prepubescent girls, supposedly to spare their parents the shame of having an unmarried girl attain puberty in their house. After such marriages, those girls would usually be left behind in their parental homes, where they might be cruelly subjected to orthodox rituals. Many of those most unfortunate girls would then turn to prostitution.
Vidyasagar took the initiative in proposing and pushing through the Widow Remarriage Act XV of 1856 in India.
[edit] Alphabet Reform
Vidyasagar was a first-rate linguist . He reconstructed the Bengali alphabet and reformed Bengali typography into an alphabet of twelve vowels and forty consonants.
Vidyasagar contributed significantly to Bengali and Sanskrit literature.
Rectitude and courage were the hallmarks of Vidyasagar's character, and he was certainly ahead of his time.
In the final years of life, he chose to spend his days among the Santhāls, an old tribe in India.
Shortly after Vidyasagar's death, Rabindranāth Tāgore reverently wrote about him: "One wonders how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced a man!"
A fair named Vidyāsāgar Melā which is dedicated to spreading education and increasing social awareness has been held annually in West Bengal since 1994. Since 2001, it has been held simultaneously in Kolkata and Birsingha.
[edit] External Links
[edit] Notes
Benoy Ghosh, Vidyasagar O Bangali Samaj, Orient Longman, Kolkata Indramitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, Ananda Publishers, Kolkata ISBN 81-7215-040-7 Asok Sen, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones, Riddhi, Kolkata. Gopal Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, People's Publishing House, New Delhi
