Kamrupi dialect

Kamrupi dialect, formerly Kamrupi language^[2] is the first ancient Aryan literary language spoken in Brahmaputra valley and North Bengal,^[3][4][5] developed primarily in the Kamrup and North Bengal.^[6][7] It is one of two western dialect groups of the Assamese language, the other being Goalpariya.^[8] The Kamrupi is heterogeneous with three dialects: West, Central and South Kamrupi.

In medieval times, it is used by scholars and saints of Brahmaputra Valley and its adjoining areas for literary purposes in parallel with Sanskrit both for prose and poetry as against practices of literary figures of mid India like Vidyapati who uses Sanskrit for prose and Maithili for poetry.^[9] Recent times, the South Kamrupi dialect has been used in the works of author Indira Goswami with dramatic effects. Poet and nationalist Ambikagiri Raichoudhury used Kamrupi in his works to great extent.^[10]

Definition of the region

Modern Kamrupi-speaking region

The Kamrup between Manas and Barnadi rivers,^[11] where Kamrupi is spoken, formed the capital area of two of three dynasties of the ancient Kamarupa kingdom (4th–12th century), with Pragjyotishpura (Guwahati)^[12] and Durjaya (North Guwahati).^[13] Kingdom existed as parallel to Davaka of central Assam.^[14] Absorption of Davaka by Kamrup marks eastward expansion of latter,^[15] which ultimately covered area from the Karatoya in the west to the temple of Dikkaravasini at Sadiya in the east, Bhutan in north and Northern Bangladesh in south.^[16][17]

Ancient

Kamrup Kingdom

In the first half of seventh century, Yuan Chwang (Hiuen Tsang) visited Kamrup Kingdom then ruled by Bhaskar Varman, and noticed language spoken there is little different from mid India, which marked early Assamese or Kamrupi. This evidence convinced Upendra Nath Goswami that "Assamese entered into Kamarupa or western Assam where this speech was first characterised as Assamese. This is evident from the remarks of Hiuen Tsang who visited the Kingdom of Kamarupa in the first half of the seventh century A.D., during the reign of Bhaskaravarman."^[18] Suniti Kumar Chatterji notes that "One would expect one and identical language to have been current in North Central Bengal (Pundra-vardhana) and North Bengal and West Assam (Kamarupa) in the 7th century, since these tracts, and other parts of Bengal, had almost the same speech."^[19]

Kamrupi is initially spoken in Kamrup and areas later covered by Kamrup kingdom, spreading from its traditional boundary with the virtue of conquest.^[20]

Medieval

Mughals established four sarkars (administrative units): Bangalbhum, Dhekeri, Dakkhinkul and Kamrup; placing Kamrup in "Sarkar Kamrup",^[21] an area which according to some scholars is in harmony with ancient Shakti Pitha named Kamapitha. The Kamrupi is currently prevalent in Mughal Sarkar of Kamrup.^[22] In late medieval times, Kamrupi literary style passed to eastern Assam.^[23] The examples of medieval Assamese or middle Kamrupi are obtained from the 14th century from North Bengal, Western Assam and fewer in central Assam, and this was followed by a deluge of literary activity in the 16th century that accompanied the growth of Srimanta Sankardeva's Vaishnavite movement. The literary activities occurred throughout Assam and North Bengal, and influence of Kamrupi remain strong throughout.

Kamrupi forms (in italics) are easily discernible in the samples:^[24]

• "manusya sahasrar madhyato kono janase punyabase gyanak lagi yatna kare" (Katha-Gita 16th-17th century)

During the 17th century western literary language reached eastern Assam, and the western dialectal influence on the literary forms continued.

• "ake suni lakshminarayan ghila khedi ahil. bangale khaibak napai garar bhitarate sukhai mare" (Kamrupar Buranji, 17th century)
• "barphukane maharajat janova rup kari sihatar manuhak maharajar thaik anai..." (Tripura Buranji, 18th century)

Colonial

Kamrup passed to the British in 1824, and the colonial district, largely congruous to the Kamapitha and Mughal Sarkar became the Undivided Kamrup district in the post-colonial period. Form spoken in Eastern Assam, come to notice due to translation of Bible in 1838 by American Baptist Missions, as part of conversion process. British adopted Eastern Assamese as the standard official language in 1873, due to recommendations of Christian missionaries.^[25][26] Whereas the Kamrupi was non-uniform, the eastern dialect was uniform over a large territory.^[27][28]

Modern

Since the center of literary activity has moved back to Guwahati in Kamrup, the standard based on eastern dialects has started acquiring Kamrupi dialectal elements in recent decades. For example, the instrumental case is -di in Kamrupi (hatedi, "with hand") and -re in eastern Assamese (hatere),^[29] and the Kamrupi form is increasingly common in the Standard.

These dialects are now spoken in the present districts of Kamrup, Nalbari, Barpeta, Darrang, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon. The name is derived from the ancient Kamrup Kingdom^[30][31] that existed from the fourth to the twelfth century, ruled by three major dynasties.

Scholarly views

Furthermore, the modern Bengali scholars like Suniti Kumar Chatterjee and Sukumar Sen^[32] have named the dialect of Bengali spoken in North Bengal as Kamrupi. Chatterjee wrote, Assamese Kamrupi and Bengali Kamrupi is quite similar, the division possibly occurred due to political reasons and two forms dialect continuum.^[33][34] According to him, Magadhi Prakrit, keeping north of the Ganga river, gave rise to the Kamarupa Apabhramsa dialects of Western Assam and North Bengal. He divides Magadhan dialects regionwise as Radha, Varendra, Kamarupa^[35] and Vanga^[6][28][36]

Sukumar Sen says, "Oriya and Assamese have intimate relations with Bengali. All three were the same language initially. There is not much difference between Kamrupi dialect of Bengali and Assamese. Assamese has differed from Kamrupi in the modern period because of inclusion of innumerable Deshi words."^[37] He referring to ancientness of Kamrupi, wrote, "Assamese, or more appropriately the old Kamarupi dialect entered into Kamrup or western Assam, where this speech was first characterized as Assamese."^[38]

Upendra Nath Goswami wrote, "The Assamese language, coming from the west was first characterized in Kamrup or Western Assam whose boundary comprised in early times the whole of North-Bengal, including Cooch-Behar, Rangpur and Jalpaiguri districts of Bengal".^[39]

According to Kanak Lal Barua, the Kamrupi dialect was originally a variety of eastern Maithili and it was, no doubt, the spoken Aryan language throughout the kingdom which then included the whole of Assam valley and whole of North Bengal with the addition of the district of Purnea. The language of the Buddhist Dohas is described as belonging to the mixed Maithili Kamrupi language.^[40]

Features

Phonology

• The treatment of ks as kh which is a notable feature in Early Assamese and the Kamrupi dialect has been found in Kamarupa inscriptions, such as inscriptions of Ratna Pala where ksitimatha>khimatha was used.^[41][42]
• One of the most prominent features of Kamrupi is the use of initial stress, as opposed to penultimate stress in the eastern dialects, which effectively shortens the word^[43] (komora, Eastern dialect; kumra, Kamrupi dialect^[44]). Though standard Assamese follows the pan-Indian system of penultimate, Kamrupi shares the initial stress, with some difference, with the Bengali,^[45] where the initial stress system established itself as the dominant feature in the 16th century.^[46] In Kamrupi dialect too, the initial stress is a later development which is a result of contact with some linguistic group.^[47] Initial stress is typical to eastern Indo-Aryan languages, though eastern Assamese uses pan-Indian feature in penultimate stress.
• Medial vowels are thus rarely pronounced or largely slurred over.
• In standard Assamese if a word has two /a/ sounds side-by-side, the first /a/ turns into an /ɔ/ or /ɛ/, a feature that became prominent in writings of Hema Saraswati, Harivara Vipra, Kaviratna Saraswati etc.^[48] In Kamrupi, two consecutive /a/ are tolerated (star: /taɹa/ (Kamrupi), /tɔɹa/ (Standard)).^[49] The early Assamese used pan Indian system of tolerance of both the parallel /a/.^[50] In disyllabic words, the second /ɔ/ becomes an /a/ (hot: /gɔɹam/, Kamrupi; /gɔɹɔm/, St. Assamese).^[51]
• Epenthetic vowels are the rule in Kamrupi dialects, with even diphthongs and triphthongs appearing in initial syllables (haula Kam; haluwa St) (keuila Kam; kewaliya St), and a complete absence of diphthongs in the final syllables.^[52]
• High vowels are feature of Kamrupi, in contrast to predominance of medial vowels in east Assamese. Kapur, tule, mul, tamul and khalu in eastern Assamese as against Kapor (cloth), tole (raises), mol (worth), tamol (betel-nut) and khalo (i have eaten) in Kamrupi.^[52]

Morphology

• Western Assamese shares morphological peculiarities with North Bengali. The plural suffixes in Western Assamese -hamra and -gila have parallel forms in North Bengali -amrah, the remote demonstrative plural and -gila, -gla.^[20] The plural suffixes of Kamrupi are very different from the eastern Assamese (Kamrupi: -gila, -gilak; Standard: -bor, -bilak). Kamrupi plural suffixes has continuity from ancient times, as opposed to late medieval appearance of bor and bilak in Eastern Assam.
• Standard uses -loi in the dative case ending, Kamrupi uses the dative-accusative case ending -k or the locative -t (Kamrupi: gharot/gharok zau; Standard gharaloi zao).^[53]
• The instrumental sense -di in Kamrupi is increasingly accepted in the Standard now (Kamrupi:hatedi; Standard: hatere).
• Kamrupi has large variety of adverbial formations such as - ita, - ethen, - enke and - kahai, which are quite different in Eastern Assamese.
• Pleonastic suffixes of East Assamese are distinct from those of Kamrupi like - ni, - na, - holi.
• The enclitic definites are separate in both the languages.
• In the Eastern variety - heten is used for past conditional, as against Kamrupi - hoi.
• Formation of verbs from nouns and participles are more common in Kamrupi than Eastern Assamese.
• Kamrupi has - lak and - ilak for third personal affix while East Assamese uses - le and - ile for the same (Kamrupi: xi khalak; Standard: xi khale).

Similarities with Eastern Assamese

Though Kamrupi has special features that distinguishes it from Eastern Assamese, there are many commonalities—case endings, conjugational affixes, pronominal roots, derivatives and vocabulary—that underscore a fundamental unity.^[54]

Dr. Nirmalendu Bhowmik, while discussing similarity of Kamrupi with Eastern Assamese, observes that despite some similarity in morphology, there is absolutely no similarity in terms of phonology, though both languages shares few common words.^[55]

Comparison with Eastern Assamese and Sylheti

Kamrupi, Eastern Assamese and Bengali particularly Sylheti share a common phonological structure. An example of this similarity:

Glossarial

There is differences in vocables of Kamrupi and Eastern Assamese, such that even common objects are denoted by different words. In eastern variety there are no generic terms to such English words like brothers and sisters, Kamrupi do have, such as bhak and bainak. Kamrupi also uses /soli/ for both boys and girls collectively for children, East Assamese lacks such forms.^[56]

Old Indo-Aryan words

Kamrupi retained many Old Indo-Aryan words.

History

Irrespective of dialect status today, Kamrupi is directly separated from Magadhi Prakrit, along with other middle eastern Indo Aryan languages like Radhi, Vanga and Varendri.^[33] This form of Apabhramsa, further gave rise to modern Assamese in east.^[59] All ancient and medieval Assamese literature is written in Kamrupi,^[60] before usage of eastern variety by American Christian missionaries, to translate bible in middle 19th century.^[61] Upendra Nath Goswami wrote, Politically, socially and culturally Kamrup formed a separate unit and its speech also was compelled to take a shape to form a distinct dialect. It is only by chance that this dialect had to lose its prestige and had to remain as a dialect.^[62]

Literature

The early examples of Kamrupi writings and literature are copper plate seals of Kamrupi kings, issued in different parts of eastern and Northern India and the Charyapada, which is a collection of 8th-12th century Vajrayana Buddhist caryagiti, or mystical poems. Being caryagiti (songs of realization), the Charyapada were intended to be sung. These songs of realization were spontaneously composed verses, that expressed a practitioner's experience of the enlightened state. A manuscript of this anthology was discovered in the early 20th century, by Hariprasad Shastri in Nepal. It provides the examples of the Kamrupi and other eastern Indo-Aryan languages.

The writers of the Charyapada, the Mahasiddhas or Siddhacharyas, belonged to the various regions of Kamrup (Assam), Gauda (Bengal), Kalinga (Orissa) and Mithila (Bihar). A Tibetan translation of the Charyapada was also preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.^[63]

The notable medieval Kamrupi literary figures are Rama Saraswati, Ananta Kandali, Sridhara Kandali, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, Kalapachandra Dvija and Bhattadeva, the father of Assamesc prose.^[64] Hema Saraswati and Haribara Vipra are two other well known Kamrupi poets. Hema Saraswati composed the "Prahlad Charitra" based on the Vamana Purana, while Haribara Vipra translated the Aswamedha Parva of the Mahabharata. Kaviratna was the author of the "Jayadratha Vadha". His home was at Sila, a village within the Barpeta district. The writings of all these three poets are still extant. To a some what later period belonged Madhava Kandali and Rudra Kandali. The former versified portions of the Ramayana and the latter composed, in Kamrupi verse, portions of the Mahabharata.

Sankara Deva who was born in 1449 A.D., refers to Madhava Kandali as one of the reputed poets belonging to an earlier age. It may therefore place both Madhava Kandali and Rudra Kandali towards the end of the fourteenth century. In his Ramayana, Madhava Kandali himself states that his other name was Kaviraj-Kandali and that though he could easily compose verses in Sanskrit he composed the Ramayana in Assamese verse for the benefit of the people at large. Madhava Kandali wrote also another poem entitled "Devajit." Sixteenth century, witnessed a great development of the vernacular literature of Kamarupa. The Yogini Tantra, a well-known Sanskrit work which gives the boundaries of the kingdom of Kamarupa, as it existed during the rule of the Pala kings, probably written in Kamarupa during the first pact of the sixteenth century. To this period it must also assign the compilation of the Behula Upakhyana by Durgabar Kayastha, a native of Kamakhya.^[65]

See also

• Kamrup
• Kamrupi

References

Bibliography