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HIS BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 95 LIFE OF BABU SHYAMA CHURN SIRKAR, THE AUTHOR OF BYABASTHA DURPANA, ' BYABASTHA CHANDRIKA AND OTHER WORKS. CHAPTER I. HIS BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. The life of this great Brahmin scholar and eminent jurist is pregnant with valuable lessons which every Indian student ought to lay to heart and profit by. If in the pages of European biographical litera- ture, hosts of eminent men are to be found who have risen from low circumstances in life to the proud position of a scholar, lawyer, and jurist, we have our own Shyama Churn who, from dire poverty rose to a very high position in the service of the Government, and achieved great renown as a scholar of no ordinary repute. Like every self-made man, he had to pass through the "apprenticeship of difficulty," privations and poverty which called forth all his latent powers and energies, chastened and disciplined him to rise as a great man. Babu Shyama Churn Sirkar was born in March 1 8 14, not in his own ancestral village of Mamjoani, situated on the river Mathabkanga (otherwise called Churni) in the district of Nuddea, but in the town of Purneah, where his father Babu Hur Narain Sirkar (alias Hur Chunder) held the office of Dewan of the Estate of Rani Indravaty. The little beautiful village of Mamjoani is situated, some seven miles to the south-east corner of the town of Krishnaghur, the head-quarters of the Nuddea District. The family title " Sirkar " (Superintendent, or Dewan, a title- of respect bestowed on a person of high rank) is said to have been conferred upon his ancestors who serv-