Jadunath Sarkar
Indian historian From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Jadunath Sarkar, CIE, FRAS (10 December 1870 – 19 May 1958) was a prominent Indian historian and a specialist on the Mughal dynasty.
Sarkar was educated in English literature and worked as a teacher for some time but later shifted his focus to history research writing. He had vast knowledge of Persian language and all his books he wrote in English. He was vice-chancellor (VC) of University of Calcutta from 1926 to 1928 and a member of Bengal Legislative Council between 1929 and 1932. In 1929 the British knighted him.[2]
Early life and education
Jadunath Sarkar (যদুনাথ সরকার) was born in Karachmaria village in Natore, in a Bengali Kayastha[3][4] family to Rajkumar Sarkar, the local Zamindar on 10 December 1870.[5] In 1891, he graduated in English from Presidency College, Calcutta.[5] In 1892, he topped the Master of Arts examination, in English at Calcutta University and in 1897, he received the Premchand-Roychand Scholarship.[5]
Academic career
In 1893, he was inducted as a faculty of English literature at Ripon College, Calcutta (later renamed Surendranath College).[5] In 1898, he was appointed at Presidency College, Calcutta after getting selected in the Provincial Education Services.[5] In between, from 1917 to 1919, he taught modern Indian history in Benaras Hindu University and from 1919 to 1923, both English and history, at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack.[5] In 1923, he became an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society of London. In August 1926, he was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University. In 1928, he joined as Sir W. Meyer Lecturer in Madras University.
Historiography
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Perspective
Reception
He has been called the "greatest Indian historian of his time" and one of the greatest in the world, whose erudite works "have established a tradition of honest and scholarly historiography" by E. Sreedharan.[6] He has also been compared with Theodor Mommsen and Leopold von Ranke.[6] Arthur Llewellyn Basham calls him "the greatest Indian historian of his generation."[7] He has also been described as "a star historian of modern India on medieval Indian history, who brilliantly caught the spirit of the age and devoted himself to the neglected field of Indian historiography."[8] He has also been appreciated as "unquestionably the greatest Indian historian of his time and one of the greatest in the world".[9]
Sarkar's works faded out of public memory, with the increasing advent of Marxist and postcolonial schools of historiography.[10]
Academically, Jos J. L. Gommans compares Sarkar's work with those of the Aligarh historians, noting that while the historians from the Aligarh worked mainly on the mansabdari system and gunpowder technology in the Mughal Empire, Sarkar concentrated on military tactics and sieges.[11]
His treatment of Shivaji was however criticised by N.S.Takakhav; as "his sympathies lay with the Moguls and the commanders of Mogul empire and the British factors of Surat and Rajapur."[12] Also in a letter dated 25 November 1945 to historian Dr. Raghubir Sinh of Sitamau, Sarkar says, "Aurangzib is my life's work; Shivaji is only an incidental off-shoot of it."[13]
Honours
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In 1904, Sarkar was given the Griffith Prize by the University of Calcutta (Kolkata, Bengal). He was elected as a member of the Indian Historical Records Commission in 1919. In 1923, he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Hon. MRAS) and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (Hon. FRASB).[14]
Sarkar was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1926 New Year Honours[15] and knighted in the 1929 Birthday Honours by King George V, then also Emperor of India.[16] On 22 August 1929, he was invested with his knighthood at Simla by the acting Viceroy of India, George Goschen, 2nd Viscount Goschen.[17]
In 1935, he became a corresponding member of the Royal Historical Society (London, UK) and honorary member of the American Historical Association (Washington, D.C., USA). In 1936 he received an honorary D.Litt. degree from the University of Dhaka and in 1944 from the University of Patna. When he reached his eightieth year, he was honoured in 1949 and 1950 by the literary associations Bangiya Sahitya Parishat and the Bangiya Itihas Parishad (both in Kolkata, West Bengal) for his lifetime achievements.[14]
Legacy
The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, an autonomous research center, has been established in his house, which was donated to the state government by Sarkar's wife. CSSC also houses the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre, a museum-cum-archive of primary sources.[18]
List of works
Published works by Sarkar include:
- Economics of British India (1900)
- The India of Aurangzib (1901)
- Anecdotes of Aurangzib (1912)
- History of Aurangzib (in 5 volumes), (1912–24)
- Chaitanya's pilgrimages and teachings, from his contemporary Bengali biography, the Chaitanya-charit-amrita: Madhya-lila (translation from the Bengali original by Krishnadasa Kaviraja, 1913)
- Shivāji and his times (1919)
- Studies in Mughal India (1919)[19]
- Mughal Administration (1920)[19]
- Nadir Shah in India (1922)
- Later Mughals by William Irvine (in 2 volumes), (edited by Jadunath Sarkar, 1922)
- India through the ages (1928)
- A Short History of Aurangzib (1930)
- The Fall of the Mughal Empire (in 4 volumes), (1932–38)
- Studies in Aurangzib's reign (1933)
- The House of Shivaji (1940)
- The History of Bengal (in 2 volumes), (1943–1948)
- Maāsir-i-ʻĀlamgiri: a history of the emperor Aurangzib-ʻl̀amgir (translation from the Persian original by Muḥammad Sāqī Mustaʻidd Khān, 1947)[20]
- Military History of India (1960)
- A History of Jaipur, c. 1503–1938 (1984)[21]
- A History Of Dasnami Naga Sanyasis
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
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