Un-hintered access: The Book of Bihari Literature holds many surprises
Poems of rebellion by Buddhist nuns, culinary treats, an excerpt from the first book published by an Indian in English... a new anthology offers a rare tour.
Magadhi-Prakrit was the official language of emperors’ courts, as far back as the 4th century BCE. It was the language in which Gautama Buddha preached, and in which the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (r. 268 BCE to 232 BCE) composed most of his edicts.
Its modern-day variant, Magahi, is spoken by millions.
Abhay K, poet, translator and editor of The Book of Bihari Literature, grew up speaking it at home. But most of Bihar’s languages are so ignored — as is the rest of that state’s rich cultural history — that he grew up thinking there was no written literature in his mother tongue. Even growing up in Nalanda, he simply hadn’t seen any, he says.
As a student at Delhi University, then as Indian ambassador to Madagascar and Comoros and, in recent decades, as deputy director general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Abhay would seek out and discover rich stores of Magahi folk tales, short stories and novels.
This prompted him to dig deeper, into the written literature of some of Bihar’s other neglected languages — Angika, Bajjika, Maithili, Pali, Farsi, Bhojpuri.
He brings some of his finds together in The Book of Bihari Literature (2022; HarperCollins India), a rich collection of 61 short stories, poems and biographical accounts, originally written in 10 languages, between 600 BCE and 2014 CE, and now translated into English.
Expect peeks into early rebellion by Buddhist nuns, powerful Dalit poetry, tales centered on beloved meals and stories of transformational love.
Abhay is far from done. Next month, he will release the first English translation of Jainath Pati’s Magahi novel, Fool Bahadur (Penguin Random House). Originally published on April Fool’s Day, 1928, it is the story of the downfall of a sycophantic public servant in British-ruled India.
Through these works and more to come, says Abhay, 43, he hopes to offer the reader a new lens through which to view his state, its culture and its people. Take a tour of a few highlights from the anthology.
“Free from that whimsical man”
A number of Buddhist nuns contributed to the Therigatha, an ancient anthology of poetry compiled c. 600 BCE. Among these, the Magadhi poetry written in the Pali script by two women stood out to Abhay as particularly strident. Mutta and Sumangalmata write of hunger and patriarchy, and other chains that fetter women. In the poem Peace at Last, translated by Abhay and the Irish writer Gabriel Rosenstock, Sumangalmata writes:
A woman set free at last,
how free, how gloriously free I am from drudgery
of the kitchen, harsh hunger pangs,
the sound of empty pots,
free from that whimsical man...
The way to the heart…
Various short stories in the collection capture nuances of Bihari cuisine, blended into tales of love and kindness. A Bowl of Sattu, by Chandramohan Pradhan (written c. 1980-90; translated from the Hindi by Ram Bhagwan Singh and Chaitali Pandya), tells of a thief who is offered this dish by a kind teacher who takes pity on him. Sattu is gram flour topped with salt, chilli and onion, a comfort food that is often craved in winter.
In the short story Deception by Maithili writer Ashok, from the collection Daddy Gaam (2017), a range of little-known foods find mention, including olak sanna, a mash of elephant-foot yam; the thick rice-flour chapatis called sohari, eaten with non-tel (a mix of salt and mustard oil); and kutcha achar, a pickle made from grated raw mango. The tale is an interesting one, of a Hindu man who poses as a Muslim, determined to convince people in Patna that the two communities can live in harmony, as they do in his village.
On the road
The first Indian to publish a book in English was born in Patna. A traveller, surgeon and businessman, Sake Dean Mahomed (1759–1851) wrote the autobiographical narrative The Travels of Dean Mahomet, in 1794, recalling his years in the armed platoons of the East India Company. An excerpt in The Book of Bihari Literature contains his observations of extravagant parties attended by European officers in Patna, held in marquees laid with luxurious carpets. In addition to music and dancing, there were fireworks displays, he writes, and astonishing varieties of birds and animals presented as part of the entertainment.
Tales of love
Most of the stories and poems in the anthology have been written by men for male readers, Abhay admits. But he has made an effort to include writing by women, as well as stories in which women protagonists exhibit agency.
In Transformation (2011) by Kavita, translated from the Hindi by Manisha Chaudhry, an aged, lonely widow who hopes to remarry faces opposition from her family. Only her daughter stands by her.
Mridula Sinha’s Nameless Relationship (written c. 1992-2002) shows a different facet of tender love through an undefined relationship between two older people who share a secret spanning 25 years.
The Invisible Bond, by Bajjika writer Surendra Mohan Prasad (written c. 1965-75), is a love story set in the face of caste and class oppression in rural Bihar. Written decades apart, all three spotlight journeys of love, amid hope and despair, Abhay says.
A Dalit prayer
Acchut kee Shiqayat (The Untouchable’s Complaint), by the legendary Heera Dom, is known as the first Bhojpuri poem by a Dalit to feature in an influential Hindi magazine. It was published in the periodical Saraswati, in 1914.
Dom was born in Danapur near Patna in 1885, into the low-ranked caste engaged in cremation rites. “The poem raises questions about equality, and also about a life of labour without due respect or compensation. It is one of those that lingers with you long after you have read it,” says Abhay, who also translated the work. An excerpt:
You killed Ravana and protected Bibhisana,
lifted the mountain on your finger.
Where are you asleep now callously,
are you afraid of touching us Doms?...
Churning mud, our hands and legs are broken,
Why is our condition so miserable, why are we forsaken?
