**4. Seeley's** *Ecce Homo* **and Its Demythologising Strategies**

Seeley's *Ecce Homo* and Bankim's *Krishnacarit* are comparable in the sense that both deploy generic forms of 'lives' and '*carits*' respectively. These are forms that can accommodate semiotic slippages, and within which transactional dialogues between god 'life' and human 'life' may be conducted. The authorial intentions of historicising gods, naturalising such divine figures for 'secular times', and

<sup>18</sup> Refer to Georg Buhler's English annotation and introduction of Dandin's Sanskrit*, Da´sakumaracarita ¯* (Buhler 1873), and pshita Chanda's *Tracing Charit as a Genre* for more on this (Chanda 2003).

<sup>19</sup> Refer to Sushil Kumar De's essay "The Akhyayika and the Katha in Classical Sanskrit" for more on this (De 1924).

authenticating their cultural relevance and iconicity in times of national resurgence is made possible within the specificity of these generic contexts. The mutating life-writing, *carit*-writing narrative forms, along with their evolving-expanding reading-interpretative community in times of subjectivity formation, is vital to the understanding of *Ecce Homo* and *Krishnacaritra*20. To these one must add Bankim's special burden as the representative of a subjected, culturally beleaguered people, obliged to repeatedly defend his culture/religion's gods and texts from charges of "absurdity", "obscenity" and cultural irrelevance21. The essay addresses these four distinct but interconnected issues in some detail with suitable textual references.

Consider Seeley's use of the biography form in *Ecce Homo* to make true his intent to historicise and demystify the Christ figure;

those who feel dissatisfied with the current conceptions of Christ might be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the beginning, and placing themselves in imagination at the time when he whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as St. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with those who knew him and appearing to enjoy the Divine favor, *to trace his biography from point to point*, and accept those conclusions about him, not which church doctors or even apostles have sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to warrant (Seeley [1865] 1912, "Preface" 3, *emphases mine*).

The conflation of biography with history and empirical historical tools as intrinsic to biography writing is apparent when Seeley admits that, he "undertook to" write *Ecce Homo* "because, after reading a good many books on Christ" he discovered that "there was no *historical character* whose motives, objects, and feelings remained so incomprehensible to" modern readers like him. Seeley's interpretation of the miracles that Jesus wrought is again worth considering, also because of the generic point that he makes at the end;

Miracles are, in themselves, extremely improbable things, and cannot be admitted unless supported by a great concurrence of evidence. For some of the Evangelical miracles there is a concurrence of evidence which, when fairly considered, is very great indeed; for example, for the Resurrection, for the appearance of Christ to St. Paul, for the general fact that Christ was a miraculous healer of disease. The evidence by which these facts are supported cannot be tolerably accounted for by any hypothesis except that of their being true. And if they are once admitted, the antecedent improbability of many miracles less strongly attested is much diminished. *Nevertheless nothing is more natural than that exaggerations and even inventions should be mixed in our biographies with genuine facts* (Seeley [1865] 1912), Chapter two, 16, *emphases mine*).

Seeley proceeded to express his definitive view of history in *The Expansions of England: Two Courses of Lectures* when he was the Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, and had established History as an independent discipline and organized its Tripos examination format. Seeley defines connections between England and India as organic-enduring, and not as the strained-tenuous to be expected in a relationship between the possessor and possessed. Noting that the Indian empire was as precious, if not more, than the acquisition of a European one, Seeley hints at India "choosing" British rule over Muslim anarchy. Strangely this is the view expressed by Satyananda, the leader of virile Hindu sannyasis of *Anandamath ¯* at the end of this novel by Bankim. This is also the explanation that the omniscient author of *Debi Chaudhuran¯ ¯ı* advances for Bhabani Pathak, the leader of

<sup>20</sup> The Darwinian analogy is deliberate as both Seeley and Bankim were influenced by Darwinian ideas of evolution.

<sup>21</sup> Bankim was also egged on to define and defend Hinduism as a contemporary and viable religion by Reverend Hastie and the epistolary battle between them is recorded in the "Letters to the Editor" section of the newspaper, *The Statesman* from October of 1886, and in the Jogesh Bagal edited, *Bankim Rachanavali* volume 3.

a robust nationalist army of Barendrabhum or North Bengal, for the latter's willing surrender to the British order at the end of the narrative.

Seeley opines that India might, in the future, evolve into a mature polity, and derive autonomy by retaining an organically symbiotic relation with England. The hints of an emergent, independent Indian/Hindu empire with Krishna's ideals as its guiding force are apparent in *Krishnacaritra*. The actual operations of a Hindu kingdom (albeit defeated at the end) is to be seen in a less read novel, *S¯ıtar¯ am¯* . Bankim's historiographical worldview owes some debts to Seeley's writings, cleverly calibrating as Seeley does, the ideas of a historicised Christ. The naturalized Christian ideals are now camouflaged as cultural mileposts, and such mileposts serve to direct the expansion of a just ethical (Christian?) empire. The connections between history writing and biography writing, while masking majoritarian religions as ethico-political positions, could not have been better established. A closer examination of the intellectual trajectory of Seeley's oeuvre, and not just *Ecce Homo*, is vital for a surer understanding of Bankim's *Krishnacaritra*.

#### **5.** *Krishnacaritra* **as Refuting Indological Allegations against** *The Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* **and the Krishna Figure**

*Krishnacaritra* begins as a kind of dialogue, like most of Bankim's novels, where the reader is imagined as an intelligent, thinking entity who, like the author, is produced by Enlightenment-informed epistemic structures. Bankim proposes an acceptable methodology regarding the inscription of such an empirically verifiable *carita* (historical narrative) of a god;

[ ... ] *Am¯ ar nij ¯ er j ¯ ah¯ a bisw ¯ as, p ¯ athak k ¯ e t ¯ ah¯ a grahan karit ¯ e boli n ¯ a,¯ ebang Krishn ¯ er i´ ¯ swaratwa sangsthapan kar ¯ a¯o¯ am¯ ar udd ¯ e´¯sya nahe.¯ Ei granth ¯ e¯ ami k ¯ ebal m ¯ anab caritr ¯ eri sam ¯ al¯ ocon ¯ a kariba. Tab ¯ e¯ ekhan Hindu dharm ¯ er¯ and ¯ olan kichu prabalat ¯ a l ¯ abh kari ¯ ach ¯ e. Dharm ¯ and ¯ olon ¯ er prabalat ¯ ar¯ ei samaye ¯ Krishna caritrer sabist ¯ ar¯ e sam ¯ al¯ ocon ¯ a pray ¯ ojon ¯ ¯ıo.¯*

[It is not my intention to make my readers accept my beliefs, and nor do I intend to establish the godliness (divine essence) of Krishna. I will only explore some human characteristics in this book. However, of late, the Hindu codes of behavior has gathered considerable strength. There is a need to narrate Krishna's life in the utmost detail, in times of such revivalist movements (Chattopadhyay 1886, Part one, "Chapter One", p. 10).

Like the Romantic propagators of 'natural religion', Bankim debunks the miraculous dimensions of a Jarasandha ¯ *vadha*, a Si´ ´ supala ¯ *vadha* or the creating of *may¯ a¯* darkness to assist Arjun ¯ a's killing ¯ of Jayadratha at the appointed hour in *Mahabh ¯ arata. ¯* He translates each of these acts of Krishna as strategies of a highly skilled general of an armed force deployed to win a war. Bankim also quotes from John Muir's retelling of Lassen's *Indian Antiquities* in support of his position, "these heroes [Ram and Krishna] are for the most part exhibited in no other light than other highly gifted men [ ... ]". (Muir 1868, in Chattopadhyay 1892)22. Bankim defines miracles in a Deist fashion, as happenings within a world which the creator has made according to certain rules and which will run independent of his presence or intervention. Events often do not appear so miraculous once their causes have been discovered (Chattopadhyay 1886).

Bankim scienticises the incarnation of Krishna by deploying Darwinian evolutionary logic to explain *avatara tatwa ¯* , tracing progression from the lower forms of life to its godly perfection, from Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, V ¯ amana, Nrisingha, Para´ ¯ suram, R ¯ am, Balar ¯ am to the ultimate manifestation ¯ of evolutionary splendour—Krishna. *Avatarv ¯ ad¯* is of course the most popular Hindu way of explaining

<sup>22</sup> The reference is to John Muir's *Original Sanskrit texts on the Origin and History of the People of India* in which he translates Lassen's German *Indische Altertumskuunde* into English, as *Indian Antiquities.* Parts of Lassen's *Indian Antiquities* is to be found anthologised in the 4th volume of Muir's book.

gods who assume a natural form, but Bankim's melding of such ideologies with Darwinian theories of evolutionary progression, as well as with Indological theories of racial evolution, is significant23.

Bankim must, however, wield generic *gand ¯ ¯ıva* (Arjuna's weapon) far more adroitly than Seeley ever had to do when the latter wrote a 'biography' of Christ, the moment he proceeds to establish Krishna's historical authenticity and primacy:

*Krishnacaritrer maulikat ¯ a ki ¯* ? *Krishna nam¯ e k ¯ on¯ o byakti prith ¯ ¯ıbi te kakhan ¯ o ki bidyam ¯ an chil ¯ en t ¯ ah¯ ar¯ praman ki ¯* ? *Jadi chilen, tab ¯ e t ¯ ah¯ ar caritra jath ¯ artha ki prak ¯ ar chilo, t ¯ ah¯ a j ¯ anib ¯ ar k ¯ on¯ o up ¯ aye ¯ ache ki ¯* ? [What is the authenticity of a Krishna figure? What is the proof that there ever existed an actual person named Krishna in this world? And if he did exist, then what are the means by which, one could determine his true nature?] (Chattopadhyay 1886, Part one, Chapter two, p. 11).

Bankim cites his sources, of which the most historically authentic, he claims, is the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* . He also mentions *Harivansha*, and nine out of a total of eighteen extant *Purana ¯* s. However, if the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* is defined as an epic poem or a *kavya ¯* , it cannot be, by generic definition, called a historical document. Establishing the human authenticity of a figure called Krishna is fraught with risks, not because he, Bankim, will be condemned by the orthodox (as in the case of Seeley's life of Christ) but because the very European scholars, Christian Lassen, Albrecht Weber, Theodor Goldstuecker, and a host of Indologists that Bankim refers to in his Preface to *Krishnacaritra*, had also used the generic weapon of *kavya ¯* or imaginative writing to dehistoricise the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* in its present state.

In their reading of the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* , German Indologists, who were also primarily philologists by training, had begun positing a critical distinction between the original *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as 'authentic history' and *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* in its present state as a corrupted 'epic poem.' Central to this generic distinction is Christian Lassen, the formidable Indological scholar and author of *Indidische Amarkunde* (Indian Antiquities). Lassen affirms that the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* tale is valuable as a historical document, as it represents the historical conflict between the lighter-skinned Aryan races and the darker-skin Dravidian races. It is "unavoidable" in its present (corrupted?) state however, that the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* can be regarded as anything but "as a collection of old epic poems."24 The problem with such typological labelling of *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as an epic poem or collection of epic poems is that the text as found in its present form is a clear case of generic takeover. Nothing of the original heroic poem (*heldensage, heldengedichte*)—matters of an undivided Indo European *ur epos* that the *Iliad* and the *Nibelungenlied* had shared with the original *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* —now remains in the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* 's present and corrupted form. The present *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* "in the course of oral transmission unconsciously fused other legends into itself". The entire *Ad¯ ¯ıparvan* matter is described by Lassen as an accretion from a later period. He, and Adolf Holtzmann Jr. who enriches this idea, accuses the "priestly class" or the Brahmans of taking over of a heroic epic and deliberately corrupting and reducing its *ur epos* matter. The *heldensage* that "actually constitute the literature of the *ksatrija*" is now overlaid with didactic, philosophy, theosophy laden, pseudo epical matter.25 The *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* in its present form is thus "not a collection of the historical songs in the genuine sense." In other words, the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* in its present state, though having many commendable qualities, fails both the generic tests, that of being either authentic 'history' or a pure heroic 'epic'.

Bankim's *Krishnacaritra*, then, must fight a pitched battle to establish the very existence of Krishna in the original narrative. It must debunk the theory of the Krishna figure as a *prakshep¯* , an interpolation

<sup>23</sup> Refer to Adliuri and Bagchee's *The Nay Science* for more on relations between Indological studies and theories of Aryan evolution into a superrace.

<sup>24</sup> Cited from the English translation by Adluri and Joydeep (2014) of Lassen's essay "Beitrage zur kunde des Indichen Alterthums aus dem Mahabh ¯ arata I, from ¯ *Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes,* I, 1837, in *The Nay Science* p. 61.

<sup>25</sup> Cited in "The Search for an Urepos" in *The Nay Science* and is Adluri and Bagchee's English translation of Lassen's essay "Beitrage zur kunde des Indichen Alterthums aus ddem Mahabh ¯ arata I, in ¯ *Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes*, I, 1837, p. 85.

into the original historical matter at the behest of a cunning priestly class. The task of Bankim's *Krishnacaritra* is thus multifarious—to reinstitute the Indologically-informed 'absent or minor Krishna' to a position of ethical centrality, to re-establish Krishna within an 'original recounting of a historic conflict', and within an 'ur-record of astounding heroism by warrior- raconteurs like Sanjaya'. Such a *caritra* or life narrative must contest the imputation of *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as having degenerated, at the behest of the Indian priestly classes, into a dull, theologico-philosophical discussion laden, low grade epic poem. The Krishna of Bankim's biography—the heroic leader of men, the sage administrator, and an icon of a triumphant Hindu empire—answers every such imputation and more.

*Krishnacaritra* must also prove that the Krishna figure is neither obscene nor absurd; he is a historically authenticated top class military mind, a general who leads the virtuous, and is not the cunning ally of the undeserving, interloping, and thieving tribal group from the hills called the Pandavas ¯ <sup>26</sup> to their legitimate victory.

Even if such nineteenth century German Indological interpretations have little purchase today, Lassen's 'genealogical reading27' gained considerable support among later generations of Indologists such as Albrecht Weber, Theodore Goldstuecker, and especially Adolf Hortzmann junior who developed Lassen's suggestions ideas into a full-fledged theory of Krishna's venal and cunning essence. Great Indian scholars of the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* such as Romesh Chandra Dutt (Dutt 1898), and V.B. Sukthankar were left to repeat these charges and restitute the Krishna figure, even when they continued to agree with many of the readings of Lassen28. Rabindranath Tagore's charge of Krishna as lacking in ethics, is often construed as having been conceived to debate Bankim's argument in *Krishnacaritra*, but is more like an eager reception and repetition of the Indological position.

It is this generic interpretation of *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as a corrupted epic poem and the debunking of Krishna as cunning and unheroic that leads Bankim to constitute his defence in generic terms. *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* had to be defined as *itihasa ¯* , or more specifically a *puran¯ aitih ¯ asa ¯* , or a culturally specific, untranslatable in European languages kind of 'history' that was both empirically verifiable, as well as central to a culture's belief system. It is here that a reiteration of Bhamaha's description of *Harshacarita* as an example of the *akhy ¯ aik ¯ a¯*, or truthful record, as a constituent of the *carita* genre might be useful.

As Bankim notes in his *Letter to the Editor of The Statesman* entitled "European Versions of Hindoo doctrines," "[y]ou can translate a word by a word, but behind that word is an idea you cannot translate, if it does not exist among people in whose languages you are translating" (Chattopadhyay [1882] 1953). He must then create new generic categories that have the weight of Sanskrit aesthetics as well as a distinct semiotic contemporaneity to engage with European scholars.

Bankimchandra posits in *Krishnacarita* a vital distinction between the genres of what he calls '*upanyas' ¯* and '*itihasa ¯* .' *Upanyas* for him would be closer to *katha,¯* as it is an imagined narrative, and therefore somewhat different from the *itihasa ¯* . Significantly, Bankim's last novel, *S¯ıtar¯ am¯* , ends with a generic discussion as well, what with the commoners Ramachand and Shyamachand speculating about the vanished S¯ıtar¯ am figure, and describing such speculations as ¯ *upanyas*-like, unfounded fabrication (*S¯ıtar¯ am¯* "Parishista", p. 154). In the "Preface" to *S¯ıtar¯ am¯* , the editors Banerjee and Das, also note that Bankim considered *Anandamath ¯* , *Debi Chaudhuran¯ ¯ı* and *S¯ıtar¯ am¯* as a trio that were meant to function as *itihasa ¯* or histories, rather than as *upanyas* or imaginative works.

Bankim's description of *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as *itihasa ¯* , in the European sense of an empirically verified series of facts, and not the original Sanskrit sense of 'what-has-happened', or 'thus-it- is', is not born out of Bankim's ignorance of Sanskrit aesthetics but out of necessity. Bankim must create new generic categories that are peculiarly Indic but whose semiotic charge may be evident to Indological scholars.

<sup>26</sup> I draw this description of the Pandavas from the claims of the Indologists. ¯

<sup>27</sup> While 'genre studies' has emerged as a more popular definition, 'genealogy' was originally used in Europe to indicate study of literary types.

<sup>28</sup> V.S. Sukthankar's *On the Meaning of the Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* , acknowledges Lassen's work but defends the Pandavas as virtuous, heroic and Krishna as godlike as late as (Sukthankar 1957).

He calls such a category as a *puraneitih ¯ asa ¯* . This category is ancient, as the word *purana ¯* indicates what is ancient but true, as it is *itihasa ¯* or that which is recorded. This is utterly unlike what the Europeans (imbued by ecriturial cultures) had imagined the *puranas ¯* to be, namely, unreliable simply because they were orally composed and orally handed over by many personages. Bankim notes;

*Am¯ ar jata dur s ¯ adhya, ¯ ami pur ¯ aneitih ¯ as¯ er¯ al¯ ocon ¯ a kari ¯ achi. T ¯ ah¯ ar phal ¯ ei p ¯ ai¯ achi j ¯ e, Krishna ¯ sambandhia je sakal p ¯ apokhyan janasam ¯ aj¯ e prachalita ¯ ache, t ¯ ah¯ a sakali ¯* [10] *amulak balia j ¯ anit ¯ e¯ pari ¯ achi, ¯ ebang ¯ upanyaskarkrita. Krishna sambandhiya upanyassakal bad dil ¯ e j ¯ ah¯ a b ¯ aki thake, t ¯ aha ¯ ati bisuddha, parampabitra, atishoye mahat, ihao janit ¯ e p¯ ari ¯ achi. ¯*

[I have, to the best of my ability, attempted to read ancient texts as history. As a result of such an attempt, I have been able to identify all the sinful tales (*upakhyan*) associated with Krishna in the popular consciousness as false, fabricated and novelistic (*upanyaskrita*). What remains, after we have discarded all that is novelised about Krishna, is unadulterated, pure, and absolutely noble] (Chattopadhyay 1886, Chapter one, p. 10).

He condemns European commentators for marking out *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* and the *Ram¯ ayana ¯* as 'epics' and *kavya ¯* and not *purana ¯* or *itihasa ¯* :

*Bilati bidyar ekta lakshan ei je, tahara swadeshe jaha dekhen, mone karen bideshe thik tai ache. Tahara Moor bhinna kono a-gaurabarna kono jati janiten na., ejannya edeshe asiya Hindu dig eke "Moor" balite lagilen.*

*Sei rup swadeshe Epic kavya bhinna padye rachita akhyangrantha dekhen nai, sutarang Europio ¯ panditera Mahabharat o Ramayanar sandhyan paiyai oi dui grantha ke Epic kavya baliya siddhanta ¯ karilen. Jadi kavya tab ¯ e uh ¯ ar aitih ¯ asikata kichu rahil ¯ o na, sab ek kathae bh ¯ ashi ¯ a gel ¯ o.¯* [ ... ] *Greek der madhye Thucydides ¯ er granth ¯ e¯ ebang onayany ¯ o itih ¯ as granthe k ¯ avy ¯ er moto saundarya ¯ ache] M ¯ anabcaritra i k ¯ avy ¯ er shrestha upadan; ititih ¯ asbett ¯ a¯o manushyacaritrer barnana kar ¯ en; bh ¯ alo ¯ karia tini jadi ¯ apan ¯ ar k ¯ arya s ¯ adhan karit ¯ e p¯ ar¯ en, tab ¯ e k ¯ aj¯ ei t ¯ ah¯ ar itih ¯ as¯ e k ¯ aby ¯ er soundaraya ¯ ashiy ¯ a¯ upasthita hoibe.*

[One sure sign of European learning is that they see everything in foreign lands as mirror images of things in their country. They had never seen any non-white race except the Moors, and so when they saw Hindus in this land, they began calling Hindus, Moors. Similarly, European scholars, unexposed to any narrative poem other than the epic in their own cultures, were quick to designate the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* and the *Ramayana* as 'epics' as soon as they located these texts. And if they were *kavya s ¯* then it could not have any *aitihasik* (historical) authenticity. So every other logic is washed away by this method of definition [ . . . ]

Among the Greeks, the writings of Thucydides, and other historical writings, possess great poetic beauty. Human nature is the chief ingredient of *kavya ¯* -literature, the historian also describes human beings, and if the historian succeeds in his task, he may achieve the beauty of literature-kavya in his work] ( ¯ Chattopadhyay 1886, Part One, Chapter four, p. 12).

Bankim's pointing to the overlapping of generic categories is not postmodern but symptomatic of the tragic inbetweeness that the colonised subject must suffer, having to use the European language to connote Indic aesthetic categories. Bankim also militates against the facile translation of *The Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as an 'epic', and an equally facile translation of the epic genre by Europeans as *mahak¯ avya ¯* . Firstly, in the Sanskrit aesthetical order a *mahak¯ avya ¯* indicates an epyllion, or a longish poem, and the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* is defined as *itihasa in the sense of ¯* something far more profound, something that will remain forever. Bankim rues the European scholars' lack of sensitivity when they translate ideas that are essentially untranslatable. He has to find the culture specific generic label, a conflation of the *puranas ¯* or ancient, orally transmitted texts, and *itihasa ¯* in the sense of a verifiable history. Defining

*Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as *puranaitih ¯ asa ¯* is Bankim's way of establishing the historicity as well as aesthetic essence of the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* in its present state.

Bankim collapses the ideas of historical authenticity and empirically verifiable biography—*carita*—while distinguishing between ordinary, mundane, and ahistorical lives of mere 'wolves and dogs', and record worthy lives of the great or god like lives:

*Mahabh ¯ arat ¯ er aitih ¯ asikata kichu ¯ ach ¯ e ki ¯* ? *Mahabh ¯ arata k ¯ e itih ¯ asa bol ¯ e, kintu itih ¯ as balil ¯ ei ki History ¯ bujhail ¯ o¯*? *Itihas k ¯ ah¯ ak¯ e bol ¯ e? Ekhan k ¯ ar din ¯ e ´ ¯ srigal kukkur ¯ er galpo likhi ¯ a¯o l ¯ ok¯ e t ¯ ah¯ ak¯ e 'itih ¯ as' n ¯ am di ¯ a¯ thak¯ e. Kintu bastuta j ¯ ah¯ at¯ e p¯ ur¯ abritta, arth ¯ at p ¯ urb ¯ e j ¯ ah¯ a ghati ¯ ach ¯ e t ¯ ah¯ ar¯ abbriti ¯ ach ¯ e, t ¯ ah¯ a bhinn ¯ o¯ ar kichui itih ¯ as bol ¯ a j ¯ ait ¯ e p ¯ ar¯ e n ¯ a.¯* [ ... ] *Ekhon, Bharatbarsh ¯ er pr ¯ ach ¯ ¯ın granther madhy ¯ e k ¯ ebal ¯ Mahabh ¯ arata i athab ¯ a k ¯ ebal Mah ¯ abh ¯ arata o R ¯ am¯ ayana itih ¯ as n ¯ am pr ¯ apto hoi ¯ ach ¯ e¯* [Does *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* have anything like historicity? Now does defining the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* as *itihasa ¯* mean that it connotes history in the European sense? What is *itihasa ¯* ? These days, people also define the narratives about dogs and wolves as *itihasa ¯* . However, in reality, nothing apart from that is a record of ancient happenings, that has happened in the past, can be called *itihasa ¯* . [ ... ] Now, among the ancient texts of Bharatbarsha only the ¯ *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* or only the *Mahabh ¯ arata ¯* and the *Ramayana* have deserved the definition of *itihasa ¯* . (Chattopadhyay 1886, Part One, Chapter three, pp. 14–15).

He also has to, by the same coin, prove Krishna's exceptionality as an *adar´ ¯ sa* (ideal) for a new India to follow. Bankim's debt's to Seeley's *Expansions of the Empire: Two Courses of Lectures* (1886) lies in the former's projection of *Krishnacaritra* as the text for a future Hindu empire where Hindu ideals would no longer be demeaned as primitive, absurd, and obscene, but be naturalized into cultural and ethical codes of a Bharatbarsha. The preeminent figure that would preside over such a place would be ¯ both god and human29.

Bankim's distinct and contemporary use of the *carit* genre is central to this argument as it conceptually coalesces god 'life' writing forms with historically verifiable life writings. The *carit* allows Bankim this interpretative latitude. The evolution and growing popularity of the genre in the modern languages of nineteenth century India provides that fertile interpretative community where his *Krishcharitra* may be read.

#### **6. Secularism and Rise of Global Empires**

Let me end this essay by pointing towards the contradictions embedded in Seeley's and Bankim's greater projects. Seeley argued that such a demystified Christ's life "should provide the foundation of a new science of politics and for a Christian state governed by a universal positive morality" and that would "embrace the blessed light of science, a light [ ... ] dispersing every day some noxious superstition, some cowardice of the human spirit" (Seeley [1865] 1912). The conflation of science, Christianity, and universal values is quite complete!

The very word 'secular' has a peculiar etymological history and Talal Asad in the *Formations of the Secular* (Asad 2003) deconstructs Charles Taylor's positing the 'secular' as 'religion's' obverse in Anglophone cultures (Taylor 2007). Asad restores the original connotation of the term 'secular' as a critical position within Christianity; "[t]he term 'secularism' and 'secularist' were introduced into English by freethinkers in the middle of the nineteenth century in order to avoid the charge of their being 'atheists' and 'infidels,' terms that carried suggestions of immorality in a still largely Christian society [ ... ]". In endnote number six of the same page (23), Asad quotes an encyclopaedia of secularism; "the word 'secularism' was coined by George Jacob Holyoake in 1851 and intended to differentiate Holyoake's anti-theistic position from Bradlaugh's atheistic pronouncements"

<sup>29</sup> Pitching Nabinchandra Sen's three- part verse-epic recounting stages of Krishna's life *Raibatak*, *Kurukshetra* and *Prabhas* besides *Krishnacaritra* is useful, as Sen too conjures up a lost Hindu-Indian empire that could be revived at Shri Krishna's behest.

(Asad 2003). By deploying the word secular to mean a-religious, when it connotes the 'Christian,' the majoritarian religion spirits itself away into an invisible a-religious cultural-ethico category, and identifies minority faiths by the same logic as pre-modern, non-secular, and 'religious!'

In India, the *Queen's Proclamation* (a post Mutiny manifestation) represents the culmination of developments related to the Europe's 'secularisation' project30. The *Proclamation* indicates Europe's coping with her increasing contact with other societies and religions within an expanding world. The 'secularisation project' is an extension of broader efforts to diffuse religious conflicts within Christianity in Europe and locating Christianity within this-worldly activities. The affirming the operations of Protestant Christianity as the 'laws of nature' was central to such a secularizing project. The English context of 'naturalising' religion, of 'humanising' Christ, and finding scientific bases for religious truths is particularly relevant for Seeley and Bankim life writings of godly figures31.

The *Queen's Proclamation* (and Seeley refers to it severally in his *The Expansion* lecture) could be read as a companion piece to Seeley's *Natural Religion* and *The Expansion of England* for its outright condemnation of religion's hierarchisation and forcible conversions, or for any coercion in matters of religious belief.<sup>32</sup> The *Proclamation*'s acceptance of religions' multiplicity and their equal valence renders it as a watershed document in history of religious toleration. However, as Peter van der Veer notes, "the recognition of a multiplicity of religions, [ ... ] in no way prevents the identification of *the essence of religion with Christianity* (emphases mine)" (Van der Veer 2001). Modern Hinduism like Protestant Christianity "is full of attempts to identify [the majoritarian religion] as the highest form or the essence of religion". Outright attacks on other religions are now replaced by "more subtle attempts at conversion by recognizing elements in them that resemble [the majoritarian religion]" (Van der Veer 2001). As in modern Europe where attempts to convert, say Catholics to Protestantism diminished, attempts to convert—say, marginal sects, such as *dalits* in India—become irrelevant, and all religions in the emergent nation of Bharatbarsha were now seen as forms of Hinduism ¯ 33. The choice of a religious figure and his transformation into a politico cultural epicentre in a projected empire is what *Krishnacaritra* attempts.

#### **7. Conclusions**

Within a wider Indian context, it would be quite useful to situate Bankim's *Krishnacaritra* in relation to the entire tradition of Krishna *carit* writing in the Assamese tradition, from Sankaradeva and ´ his much admired *Rukm¯ıni haran kavya ¯* and *Rukm¯ıni haran nat*. Padmanath Gohain Baruah (1871–1946) departs from this *bhakti* tradition in his *Sri Krishna ´* and depicts an adult, pragmatic Krishna, who is a diplomat, often tired and dejected and very human. It is not entirely coincidental that P. Gohain Baruah

<sup>30</sup> Refer to *The Proclamation by the Queen in Council to thee Princes, Chiefs, and People of India* (Victoria 1858) (Published by the Governor-General at Allahabad, 1 November 1858) and para 6 where it notes that "[ ... ] We disclaim alike the Right and Desire to Impose our Convictions on any of Our Subjects" and that all British authority shall be enjoined "on the pain of Our highest Displeasure" to practice such tolerance and absolutely "abstain from interference with Religious Belief of any of Our Subjects [ . . . ]".

<sup>31</sup> Rabindranath like most Indian nineteenth-century intellectuals, was responsive to the British-Romantic tradition of naturalizing religions, thus rendering them scientific, and 'modern'. For more on this refer to my work on Tagore's *Gora* (Bhattacharya 2015) Robert Seeley's *Natural Religion* (Seeley 1882) that suggests the implicatedness of Positivist science and Protestant Christianity- is something that Rabindranath translates (partially) and deploys to strengthen his argument in the essay "Hindu Bibaha" (Tagore [1887] 1988, p. 654).

<sup>32</sup> Seeley's *The Expansion* is almost comic in its repeated rejection of 'coercion' as a principle of governance, and in its insistence that the Indians 'chose to be ruled by the British', impressed by latter's superior governance abilities, and repulsed by the chaotic ruling style of Mughals and Pathans.

<sup>33</sup> Refer to Rabindranath's essay *Atmaparichaya* (Our Identity) that is translated as Appendix I to *Rabindranath Tagore's Gora: New Critical Interpretations*, 2015) for the definition of 'Hindu' as *jati* (nation); as inclusive of all other faiths; and as the very equivalent of 'India. Rabindranath's posing and answering a question is telling: "Can you then remain a Hindu, even though you have joined the Musalman or Christian sects? But of course! There can be no question regarding this". Citing examples of Gyanendramohan Tagore, and Krishnamohan Bandopadhaya (both of whom converted to Christianity), Rabindranath declares that they are "Hindu by *jati* (nationality) and Christian by religion. Christian happens to be their colour but Hindu is their essence". ("*Atmaparichaya*", Tagore 1912, *RR vol* 9, tr. mine, p. 597).

was also the writer of the first Assamese novel, *Bhanumoti* published in 1890 and *Lahori*, published the following year, and the editor of *J¯ıvani Sangraha*. His investment in realism as an ideology naturally helped him to depict a historically accessible Krishna figure. Barua's stay in Kolkata in an imagined cosmopolis of the *mess bari ¯* 34, also helped him to formulate a distinct Assamese identity. This cultural identity was produced in dialogue with Bengali, in dialogue with domesticity, and with regionalism. Such regionalism was paradoxically produced within a cosmopolitan public space and public field of action. The *sabhas¯* and *samit¯ıs*<sup>35</sup> that Gohain Baruah created became metonymic of those cosmopolitan spaces and where a degree of secular literature could be produced by straddling worlds of bhakti and human culpability.

Some of the significant ways in which Indian modernity in the nineteenth century came to be constituted was not through an uncomplicated internalization of a desacralized, reason-sanctioned worldview or its outright rejection, an equally simple partitioning off of the sacred and the secular, or even a wholesale conversion to the colonial masters' religion, but through a renewed focus on Indic creedal faiths that were powerful and majoritarian. It would perhaps not be too far from the truth to assert that the colonial intervention produced Hinduism and Islam as we see them today in contemporary South Asia. In turn, the 'secular' nationalist politics—that included notions of science, technology, pedagogy—and all that is considered modern was produced by such majoritarian religions. It is these religions that are now assuming avatar(s) of 'contesting' national cultures in the Indian subcontinent. *Krishnacaritra's* relevance lies in looking towards such possibilities.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

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<sup>34</sup> Shared apartment, usually hostel-like and occupied by professionals and students.

<sup>35</sup> Broadly speaking, meetings and groups.


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