339 (Bharatvarsh):
Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla can be said to be one of the foremost language-literature-scienists Hindi has ever seen. His contributions are three-fold. But before that we should understand the time he lived and worked in. In early 1900s, Hindu Rivival was gaining momentum all over India, and national-awakening was the shade in every walk of life in all regions.
Progress of Hindi language was no different. There were scores of brilliant writers, poets, journalists foraying into the creation of a "new language". But their efforts were in all directions - whichever a writer wanted to take, and there was minimal 'collective literary vision' or standards or even a good, educated evaluation of traditions from which to build further.
Acharya Shukla was not so much creator of literature himself, but a brilliant scholar of languages, historiographer and critic.
1. He was probably the first to have invented and adopted the modern means of collecting and writing the hisory of Hindi languages. Today we recognize Hindi history by 4 yuga-s/kAla-s: veer-gatha, bhakti, rIt, Adhunik - this classification and related authentic history was Shukla's contribution.
With his scholarship into progress of pR^Akrit-s, he was probably the first one to reject that Hindi (or skt-nisTha Khadi Boli - of which he was a devotee) is a 'new' language. He made enthusiastic discoveries of 6th-7th century pkt works of lesser known authors to show that khadi-boli's strains go back at least that far in history. Later I shall try to post some of the examples he sited in ancient northern pR^Akrit-s to show its affinity to modern khadi-boli.
2. He developed novel methodologies to critique a work of literatre, and built 'Quality Assurance' in the Hindi world - which eventually saw the rise of great works and nipped in the bud mediocricity which was just beginning to creep in.
3. Thirdly, with Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya discovering in him a brilliant and youthful scholar, and bringing him to lead the literature departments of BHU, he got all the resurces he needed to institutionalize his thought. With this he worked with many other scholars, of many Indic languages, to help revive the traditions, and build a solid sccientific platform of literature.
With his team, he even traveled all the remote rural and tribal parts of India to collect and repositorize the works of literature which were otherwise lost. Many pre-medieval and middle-ages works, lost songs of Kabir, vriants of Bhakta-maal, some pada-s of Mira, some works about Nath-yogi literature etc came to light due to his efforts.
His contemporary and contributor was Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi who was at the same time leading the Hindi dept of Allahabad Univ, and contributed on the similar lines. Both are of the tallest stature in the history of Hindi critics and scholarship.
Swamy G thanks for the link.
Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla can be said to be one of the foremost language-literature-scienists Hindi has ever seen. His contributions are three-fold. But before that we should understand the time he lived and worked in. In early 1900s, Hindu Rivival was gaining momentum all over India, and national-awakening was the shade in every walk of life in all regions.
Progress of Hindi language was no different. There were scores of brilliant writers, poets, journalists foraying into the creation of a "new language". But their efforts were in all directions - whichever a writer wanted to take, and there was minimal 'collective literary vision' or standards or even a good, educated evaluation of traditions from which to build further.
Acharya Shukla was not so much creator of literature himself, but a brilliant scholar of languages, historiographer and critic.
1. He was probably the first to have invented and adopted the modern means of collecting and writing the hisory of Hindi languages. Today we recognize Hindi history by 4 yuga-s/kAla-s: veer-gatha, bhakti, rIt, Adhunik - this classification and related authentic history was Shukla's contribution.
With his scholarship into progress of pR^Akrit-s, he was probably the first one to reject that Hindi (or skt-nisTha Khadi Boli - of which he was a devotee) is a 'new' language. He made enthusiastic discoveries of 6th-7th century pkt works of lesser known authors to show that khadi-boli's strains go back at least that far in history. Later I shall try to post some of the examples he sited in ancient northern pR^Akrit-s to show its affinity to modern khadi-boli.
2. He developed novel methodologies to critique a work of literatre, and built 'Quality Assurance' in the Hindi world - which eventually saw the rise of great works and nipped in the bud mediocricity which was just beginning to creep in.
3. Thirdly, with Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya discovering in him a brilliant and youthful scholar, and bringing him to lead the literature departments of BHU, he got all the resurces he needed to institutionalize his thought. With this he worked with many other scholars, of many Indic languages, to help revive the traditions, and build a solid sccientific platform of literature.
With his team, he even traveled all the remote rural and tribal parts of India to collect and repositorize the works of literature which were otherwise lost. Many pre-medieval and middle-ages works, lost songs of Kabir, vriants of Bhakta-maal, some pada-s of Mira, some works about Nath-yogi literature etc came to light due to his efforts.
His contemporary and contributor was Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi who was at the same time leading the Hindi dept of Allahabad Univ, and contributed on the similar lines. Both are of the tallest stature in the history of Hindi critics and scholarship.
Swamy G thanks for the link.