Assamese

Vaikunthanātha Bhattadeva : The Father of AssameseAssamese prose was truly born in the hands of another bright star of the Sankaradeva Movement, Vaikunthanātha Bhattācāryya or Bhattadeva as he is popularly known. Bhattadeva was the last great Vaisnavite writer of genius whose contributions give him a unique place in the history of literature. True it is that Assamese prose began about a century before him (in the dramas of Sankaradeva). But he must be credited with using Assamese prose as a regular vehicle for essays and for making the vehicle popular enough for the use of his posterity. Bhattadeva was also called Kaviratna Bhāgavata Bhattācāryya in recognition of his profound scholarship in the Bhāgavata learning.

Vaikunthanātha Bhattadeva (1558-1638) was the second son of Kavi Saraswati and grandson of Candra Bhārati (not to be confused with the illustrious poets having the same titles), who resided in the village Bhara of Barnagar. Little is known about the early life of Bhattadeva. According to the account of Rāmacarana, Vaikunthanātha was at first a Tāntric and anti-Vaisnavite, but was influenced by Sankaradeva's personality and sought initiation from him. Sankaradeva sent him to Dāmodaradeva saying that there was little difference between himself and Dāmodara. So he came to be initiated by Dāmodaradeva. Other biographers give a slightly different version.

Bhattadeva abided and finished the work. It was not an easy task as there was no regular prose vehicle before him. However, he rendered the venerable text with exemplary precision into a prose (Sri-Bhāgavata-Kathā) laden with Sanskrit, harnessing a little of spoken Assamese of his time. He gave a summary of each and every chapter of the 12 Cantos of the Bhāgavata. Scholars assign 1593-97 as the period of composition of Bhattadeva's Sri-Bhāgavata-Kathā, popularly referred to as the Kathā (prose) Bhāgavata. There is nothing to inform us as to the exact date of composition of the Kathā Gitā - the other monumental prose work of his - but that he began it soon after the composition of the Kathā Bhāgavata can be inferred from the caritas.

According to Rāmrāya, Bhattadeva sent the Book I of the Bhāgavata extensively taking into hand the original and the commentary by Sridhara Svāmin and showed it to Dāmodaradeva. But Dāmodaradeva did not prefer the elaborative nature of the work and asked his disciple to be more precise as the elaborate work will need more time and paper (bark leaves). Bhattadeva was very much disappointed as to cut short his work. However, he obeyed his Guru's direction. And after Dāmodaradeva left for Koch Behār, Bhattadeva completed the work of rendering of the Bhāgavata with exemplary precision as we find it today.

Though Bhattadeva's works are popularly known as Kathā-Bhāgavata and the Kathā-Gitā, Bhattadeva calls them as Sri-Bhāgavata-Kathā and Sri-Bhagavad-Gitā-Kathā respectively.

Besides these two works, Bhattadeva is known to have rendered Bhakti-Ratnāvali and Sātvata Tantra into Assamese prose. He also compiled 3 works in Sanskrit, Bhakti-Sāra, Bhakti-Viveka, and Sarana Sangraha. Two other works, Prasanga Mālā and Guru-Vamsāvali in Assamese verse, more or less, of sectarian type, are also attributed to him.

The Bhakti-Viveka is considered to be Bhattadeva's last work.

Bhattadeva's prose style reveals a magnificent display of variety, flexibility and persuasiveness. While reading his Sri-Gitā-Kathā, one feels as if one were in the midst of a religious congregation with a Bhāgavati (Bhāgavata reader or interpreter) explaining the texts with comments on and answers to possible queries to his interpretation. On the other hand, no one can fully appreciate the compositional skill of the Sri-Gitā-Kathā without entering into the atmosphere of dialogue that prevails throughout. Bhattadeva also adopted the same style in the Sri-Bhāgavata-Kathā in which the famous Saint theologian and devotee Suta explained the Bhāgavata to the large congregation in the Naimisa forest, and he was singularly successful.

While applying himself to the task of evolving a new prose medium, Bhattadeva must have felt that retaining the dignity of religious texts and the adequate expression of the subtle and philosophical ideas of the originals were not feasible if the exact replica of the spoken dialect were adopted for the purpose. He therefore adopted a via-media course by judiciously blending the forms of the spoken dialect with those of the literary forms of the verse-translations of the epics and Purānas. In such a light, the complaint of certain scholars that Bhattadeva's language is over-loaded with Sanskrit words seems to be unwarranted. More so when one judges the simpler narration and comparatively homelier diction in the Sri-Bhāgavata-Kathā.

"The judicious use of Sanskrit words has only invested these religious writings with dignity and grace. In syntactical structure also, his writings are disciplined by Sanskrit grammar. In his Sri-Gitā-Kathā, however, the sentences hobble at places running to complex lengths due to the piling up of clause on clause for illustrating the knotty points. In spite of these, the syntax is regular, the verb is not dropped or shifted at will, the infinitive is not split, and clauses are not thrown in in a higgledy-piggledy fashion with the utter disregard of the principles of clarity and precision.

The way paved by Bhattadeva for the use of prose was followed by a host of religious writers of the 17th and the 18th centuries. Bhattadeva set the ball rolling by boldly adopting prose as the medium of his literary works in the 16th century itself. Since then, prose became one of the principal vehicles of expression of the early Assamese writers. From the advent of Bhattadeva till the British occupation, we notice the emergence and use of 3 distinct styles of prose in early Assamese literature. These were the prose of the religious texts, the prose of the hagiographies of the Vaisnavite saints (caritas) and the political chronicles known as the 'buranjis'.