Raja Rajendralal Mitra (16 February 1822 – 26 July 1891) was among the first Indian cultural researchers and historians writing in English. A polymath and the first Indian president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he was a pioneering figure in the Bengali Renaissance. He was hired in 1846 as a librarian in the Asiatic Society of Bengal, for which he then worked throughout his life as second secretary, vice president, and finally the first native president in 1885. Mitra published a number of Sanskrit and English texts in the Bibliotheca Indica series, as well as major scholarly works, including The Antiquities of Orissa (2 volumes, 1875–80), Bodh Gaya (1878), Indo-Aryans (2 volumes, 1881), etc..
Early life
Raja Rajendralal Mitra was born in Soora (now Beliaghata) in eastern Calcutta (Kolkata), on 16 February 1822 to Janmajeya Mitra. He was the third of Janmajeya's six sons and also had a sister. Rajendralal was raised primarily by his widowed and childless aunt.
The Mitra family traced its origins to ancient Bengal; and Rajendralal further claimed descent from the sage Vishvamitra of Adisura myth. The family were members of the Kulin Kayastha caste and were devout Vaishnavs. Rajendralal's 4th great-grandfather Ramchandra was a Dewan of the Nawabs of Murshidabad and Rajendralal's great-grandfather Pitambar Mitra held important positions at the Royal Court of Ajodhya and Delhi. Janmajeya was a noted oriental scholar, who was revered in Brahmo circles and was probably the first Bengali to learn chemistry; he had also prepared a detailed list of the content of eighteen puranas. Raja Digambar Mitra of Jhamapukur was a relative of the family, as well.
Due to a combination of the spendthriftness of his grandfather Vrindavan Mitra and his father's refusal to seek paid employment, Rajendralal spent his early childhood in poverty.
Education Rajendralal Mitra received his early education in Bengali at a village school, followed by a private English-medium school in Pathuriaghata. At around 10 years of age, he attended the Hindu School in Calcutta. Mitra's education became increasingly sporadic from this point; although he enrolled at Calcutta Medical College in December 1837—where he apparently performed well—he was forced to leave in 1841 after becoming involved in a controversy. He then began legal training, although not for long, and then changed to studying languages including Greek, Latin, French and German, which led to his eventual interest in philology.
Marriages In 1839, when he was around 17 years old, Mitra married Soudamini. They had one child, a daughter, on 22 August 1844 and Soudamini died soon after giving birth. The daughter died within a few weeks of her mother. Mitra's second marriage was to Bhubanmohini, which took place at some point between 1860 and 1861. They had two sons: Ramendralal, born on 26 November 1864, and Mahendralal.
Asiatic Society Mitra was appointed librarian-cum-assistant-secretary of the Asiatic Society in April 1846. He held the office for nearly 10 years, vacating it in February 1856. He was subsequently elected as the Secretary of the Society and was later appointed to the governing council. He was elected vice-president on three occasions, and in 1885 Mitra became the first Indian president of the Asiatic Society. Although Mitra had received little formal training in history, his work with the Asiatic Society helped establish him as a leading advocate of the historical method in Indian historiography. Mitra was also associated with Barendra Research Society of Rajshahi—a local historical society.
Influences and methodology During his tenure at the Asiatic Society, Rajendralal came in contact with many notable persons and was impressed by two thought-streams of orientalist intellectualism. Noted scholars William Jones (the founder of Asiatic Society) and H.T. Colebrooke had propounded a theory of universalism and sought to make a comparative study of different races by chronicling history through cultural changes rather than political events whilst James Prinsep et al. sought greater cultural diversity and glorified the past. Mitra went on to utilize the tools of comparative philology and comparative mythology to write an orientalist narrative of the cultural history of the Indo-Aryans. Although Mitra subscribed to the philosophies of orientalism, he did not subscribe to blindly following past precedents and asked others to shun traditions, if they hindered the progress of the nation.
Historiography Mitra was a noted antiquarian and played a substantial role in discovering and deciphering historical inscriptions, coins, and texts. He established the relationship between the Shaka era and Gregorian calendar, thus identifying the year of Kanishka's ascent to the throne, and contributed to an accurate reconstruction of the history of Medieval Bengal, especially that of the Pala and Sena dynasties, by deciphering historical edicts. He studied the Gwaliorian monuments and inscriptions, discovering many unknown kings and chieftains, and assigned approximate time spans to them. He was also the only historian among his contemporaries to assign a near-precise time frame to the rule of Toramana. Mitra's affinity for factual observations and inferences and dislike for abstract reasoning, in contrast with most Indian historians of those days, has been favorably received in later years.
Cataloging, translation and commentary As a librarian of the Asiatic Society, Rajendralal was charged with cataloging Indic manuscripts collected by the Pandits of the Society. He, along with several other scholars, followed a central theme of the European Renaissance that emphasized the collection of ancient texts (puthi) followed by their translation into the lingua franca. A variety of Indic texts, along with extensive commentaries, were published, especially in the Bibliotheca Indica series, and many were subsequently translated into English. Mitra's instructions for the Pandits to copy the texts verbatim and abide by the concept of varia lectio (different readings) has been favourably critiqued. Mitra was also one of the few archivists who emphasized the importance of cataloguing and describing all manuscripts, irrespective of factors like rarity.
Archaeology
Mitra did significant work in documenting the development of Aryan architecture in prehistoric times. Under the patronage of the Royal Society of Arts and the colonial government, Mitra led an expedition to the Bhubaneswar (now the capital of Odisha) in 1868–1869 to study and obtain casts of Indian sculptures. The results were compiled in The Antiquities of Orissa, which has since been revered as a magnum opus about Odia/Kalinga architecture. The work was modelled on Ancient Egyptians by John Gardner Wilkinson and published in two volumes consisting of his own observations followed by a reconstruction of the socio-cultural history of the area and its architectural depictions. Along with Alexander Cunningham, Mitra also played an important role in the excavation and restoration of the Mahabodhi Temple. Another of his major works is Bodha Gaya: the Hermitage of Sakya Mani which collated the observations and commentaries of various scholars about Bodh Gaya.
These works, along with his other essays, contributed to a detailed study of varying forms of temple architecture across India. Unlike his European counterparts, who attributed the presence of nude sculptures in Indian temples to a perceived lack of morality in ancient Indian social life, Mitra correctly hypothesized the reasons for it.
A standard theme of Rajendralal's archaeological texts is the rebuttal of the prevalent European scholarly notion that India's architectural forms, especially stone buildings, were derived from the Greeks and that there was no significant architectural advancement in the Aryan civilisation. He often noted that the architecture of pre-Islamic India is equivalent to the Ancient Greek architecture and proposed the racial similarity of the Greeks and the Aryans, who had the same intellectual capacity. Mitra often came into conflict with European scholars regarding this subject, such as his acrimonious dispute with James Fergusson. After Mitra criticized Fergusson's commentary about Odia/Kalinga architecture in The Antiquities of Orissa, Fergusson wrote a book titled Archaeology in India With Especial Reference to the Work of Babu Rajendralal Mitra. While many of Mitra's archaeological observations and inferences were later refined or rejected, he was a pioneer in the field and his works were often substantially better than those of his European counterparts.
Linguistics Rajendralal Mitra was the first Indian who tried to engage people in a discourse of the phonology and morphology of Indian languages, and tried to establish philology as a science. He debated European scholars about linguistic advances in Aryan culture and theorized that the Aryans had their own script that was not derived from Dravidian culture. Mitra also did seminal work on Sanskrit and Pali literature of the Buddhists, as well as on the Gatha dialect.
Vernacularization Mitra was a pioneer in the publication of maps in the Bengali language and he also constructed Bengali versions of numerous geographical terms that were previously only used in English. He published a series of maps of districts of Bihar, Bengal, and Odisha for indigenous use that were notable for his assignment of correct names to even small villages, sourced from local people. Mitra's efforts in the vernacularisation of western science has been widely acclaimed.
As a co-founder of the short-lived Saraswat Samaj—a literature society set up by Jyotirindranath Tagore with help from the colonial government for publication of higher-education books in Bengali and enrichment of Bengali language in 1882—he wrote "A Scheme for the Rendering of European Scientific terms in India", which contains ideas for the vernacularization of scientific discourse. He was also a member of several other societies, including the Vernacular Literature Society, and Calcutta School-Book Society, which played important roles in the propagation of vernacular books, esp. in Bengali literature, and in Wellesley's Textbook Committee (1877). Many of his Bengali texts were adopted for use in schools and one of his texts on Bengali Grammar and his "Patra-Kaumudi" (Book of Letters) became widely popular in later times.
Publication of magazines From 1851 onward, under a grant from the Vernacular Literature Society, Mitra started publishing the Bibhidartha Sangraha, an illustrated monthly periodical. It was the first of its kind in Bengal and aimed to educate Indian people in western knowledge without coming across as too rigid. It had a huge readership, and introduced the concept of literary criticism and reviews into Bengali literature. It is also notable for introducing Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Bengali works to the public.
Mitra retired from its editorship in 1856, citing health reasons. Kaliprasanna Singha took over the role. In 1861, the government compelled the magazine to withdraw from publication; then in 1863, Mitra started a similar publication under the name Rahasya Sandarbha, maintaining the same form and content. This continued for about five and a half years before closing voluntarily. Mitra's writings in these magazines have been acclaimed. He was also involved with the Hindoo Patriot, of which he held editorial duties for a while.
Socio-political activities