Page:History of Asamiya Literature.pdf/8

1 PREFACE Tripadi or Lachari in Bengali. In both form and content, there is not much diversity. Slight orthographie changes will male passages of Early Assamese pass as good as Early Bengali and vice-ursa, and pass- ages of Bengali or Assamese can be made to pass as Oriye. It is the fact that the Brahmins of Orissa and those of Bengal and of Assam did not form a single inter-marrying community combined with the political situation in Assam and Orissa as independent Hindu lands as contrasted with Bengal as being under Mohammadan rule, that was largely responsible for the gradual establishment of the local speeches of Bengal, Assam and Orissa as separate languages. Assam was under the rule of the vigorous and masterful Ahom people (who were kinsen of Slamese) from 1228. By 1650 the Ahoms became very largely Hinduised. They contributed a great deal in the evolution of Assamese culture, and one of their gifts to Assam was the writing of History, The Xhom word for history, "Buranji", a word of Tai or Tibeto Chinese origin, has been adopted in the Indo-Aryan Assamese as the equivalent of what would be called in Sanskrit 'Itihasa!. Following the Ahom histories, a good many of which are extant, the Aryan Assamese come to be possessed of a number of very remarkable historical works, which form the most distinctive contribution of Assamese to Indian literature. Apart from the burunjis, Assamese literature, whether in Early Assamese or in Modern Assamese, is of a plece with Bengali or Oriya or Hindi literature. The older literature is mainly in poetry, and is religious in its main genres. The modern literature in an Indian lan- guage is more secular and is largely a reflex of English literature. The tremendous influence of English in the domain of literature in present-day India is apparent everywhere and Assamese has not been able to escape it. Mr. Dimbeswar Neog is a versatile scholar of Assam, who is a student of science, a poet, an eduentionist and a historian of the lite- rature and culture of his province, all in one. His studies in Assamese literature have been very fruitful; his megtum opus running up to several hundred pages (which we hope it will be possible to publish soon) will form one of the most comprehensive histories of the lite- rature of a Modern Indian language attempted so far. The University, Calcutta 25th June, 1948. SUNETE KUMAS CHATTE