Ramkrishna Bhattacharya
The publication of Lokayata: A
study in Ancient Indian Materialism (People’s Publishing House, New Delhi,
1959) by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (1918-1993) ushered in a new era in the
cultivation of Indian philosophy. Although some academics in India were
taken aback by the range of topics covered in this 678-page work (excluding
bibliography and index), classical scholars and historians of ideas all over
the world acclaimed its publication with unconcealed jubilation. Joseph
Needham, best known for his multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China , wrote to
the author: “Your book will have a truly treasured place on my shelves. It is
truly extra-ordinary that we should have approached ancient Chinese and ancient
Indian civilisations with such similar results....” Louis Renou, the then doyen
of French Indologists, said: “The book is of definite value and deserves to be
carefully studied by Indologists and sociologists.” George Thomson, Professor
of Greek, University of Birmingham ,
UK
 |
| Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya |
It is now a fitting occasion to
remember Debiprasad Chattopa-dhyaya and his works. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya
was born in Kolkata on 19 November, 1918. He had his early schooling in the
Mitra Institution, Bhowanipur, Kolkata and studied philosophy in the Presidency College ,
Kolkata and Calcutta
University
An indefatigable worker and
prolific writer, Chattopadhyaya has more than fifty volumes (some of which are
quite bulky) and a considerable number of edited works to his credit. Long
before he shot into fame for his philosophical works both in Bangla and
English, he was already recognised as a promising litterateur in Bengal , distinct from all others for his extremely
down-to-earth style and lucid way of exposition. He was active in the
Progressive Writers’ Association (later renamed Anti-Fascist Writers’
Association) in the early 1940s, working with Bishnu Dey, an eminent poet of Bengal . The warm relations between the two can be seen
from the letters written by Dey to his protégé over the decades. In the late
1940s and early ‘50s Chattopadhyaya was better known as an author of children’s
literature in Bengal , writing stories, novels,
popular science titles and biographies for school-goers. He also collaborated
with his elder brother, Kamakshiprasad in editing and running Rangmashal, a
journal for children and Sanket, a short-lived but promising literary
periodical. He edited a series of small books for adolescent Bengali readers,
touching on various topics such as Janbar Katha (Book of Knowledge), Amrao Hote
Pari (We too can become), Vijnan Vichitra (Various sciences) and the like. His
own Bangla booklets on Anthropology, Biology, Psychology, etc. are marvels of
popular-science writing. Along with Subhash Mukhopadhyaya he too should be
credited with giving Bangla prose a rare élan.
Earlier still, in his
undergraduate days he was a budding poet, associated with an avant-garde group
which sounded a new note in Bengali poetry after Tagore. Kayekti Nayak (A Few
Heroes), a slim book of verse (never reprinted in his life time since its first
publication in 1942) remains the only testimony to his youthful ventures. He
also edited ‘Modern Bengali Poems’ (1945) in English translation (Martin
Kirkman, a British soldier then stationed in Calcutta , bore the burden of translating most
of the poems). This anthology is long out of print but deserves to be
resurrected as an interesting document. Second-hand copies are still sold in
the US
at fancy price, as a search in the net will reveal. He also edited a selection
of Manik Bandyopadhyaya’s short stories in English, Primeval and Other Stories
(1958).
Samar Sen, the poet and later
founder-editor of Frontier, introduced him to the Manifesto of the Communist
Party by Marx and Engels sometime in the early 1940s. Chattopa-dhyaya’s
life-long friendship with Samar Sen, based on mutual love and respect, is proverbial;
it is evinced in the letters written by Sen to the Chattopadhyaya brothers
(published in two Bangla journals, Anushtup and more recently in Ebong Ei
Samay).
Association with Bankim
Mukho-padhyaya, the labour leader and Radharaman Mitra of Meerut Conspiracy
Case fame, extended his acquaintance with the theory and practice of Marxism.
After a brief stint in the Labour Party with Ramakrishna Maitra and Subhash
Mukhopa-dhyaya, he finally joined the Communist Party of India in 1944.
It was Bhowani(sankar) Sen
(Gupta), the CPI leader, who in 1951 urged him to apply Marxism to the study of
ancient Indian philosophy. This suggestion actually changed the whole
orientation of his life. From then on he devoted himself single-mindedly to the
exploration of the rational and materialist currents in Indian philosophical
and scientific heritage and stuck to this task to the end.
Bhowani Sen had rendered another
seminal service. Chattopa-dhyaya has been oscillating between Marx and Freud
throughout the 1940s. By stringently criticizing Chattopadhyaya’s Bangla book
on sexology in 1949 Bhowani Sen exorcised the ghost of Freud in him and set him
firmly to the Marxist path for the rest of his life. His Bangla books written
in the early 1950s bear the mark of his final and total conversion and
unswerving commitment to Marxism. The primer, Marxvad (1952), is still
considered best suited for the uninitiated to the study of dialectical
materialism.
The first product of
Chattopa-dhyaya’s investigations into Indian philosophy is Lokayata, published
first in Bangla (1956) and then entirely rewritten in English (1959). Both have
been reprinted several times and have been translated into a number of Indian
and foreign languages, including Russian, Chinese and Japanese. To date this remains
his best-known work. As the reviews in leading journals and personal letters
from savants all over the world show, the work supplied a long-felt need and
opened a new vista in the study of materialism in India. It will be no
exaggeration to say that Lokayata has taught and will continue to teach
generations of scholars both at home and abroad how to view philosophy in a new
light. Chattopadhyaya eschewed all existing models of enquiry and searched for
the roots of materialism in anthropology, took a radical view of both Samkhya
and Tantra, and studied the evidence of the Vedas in a way never attempted
before.
A small ‘Popular Introduction’ to
Indian Philosophy came next. Published in 1964, the work provides a bird’s-eye
view of the major schools. Planned as a direct antithesis to Sayana-Madhava’s
fourteenth-century compendium, the Sarva-darsana-samgraha, which started from
the Lokayata and stopped at Vedanta, Chattopadhyaya’s book moves in a more
orderly manner, following the developments of different schools in terms of
their historical origin.
In ‘Indian Atheism’ (1969),
Chattopadhyaya discussed even the astika (pro-Vedic) schools of philosophy and
brought out the atheistic contents inhering in them. The Ur-Samkhya and
Ur-Nyaya, he demonstrated, were definitely atheistic as was Mimamsa itself.
This is a more erudite work than the preceding one, more closely argued and
profusely documented.
‘What is Living and What is Dead
in Indian Philosophy’ (1976) explores new grounds, covering a wider area.
Chattopadhyaya’s level-headed analysis helped resurrect a number of positive
elements in both early Buddhism and Nyaya. A work of stupendous scholarship and
meticulous research, the book is a sequel to Lokayata (at first it was
tentatively named Further Studies in Indian Materialism) and remains a classic
of its kind.
Chattopadhyaya was already making
forays into new territories as was evident in his Science and Society in
Ancient India (1977). In a sense it is a continuation of his previous work
where his endeavour was to excavate the scientific kernel out of the
theological mumbo-jumbo that marred the two basic works of Indian medicine and
surgery, the Caraka-samhita and the Susruta-samhita. Surendra-nath Dasgupta,
his teacher, had earlier said something about the ‘philosophical speculations’
of the medical schools in ancient India but Chattopadhyaya went much
further. He showed the forces of ‘counter-ideology’, the canonical Hindu
law-makers, in league with the powers that be, had compelled the scientists to
pay ransom to the state-approved orthodoxy, forcing them to include much that
is extrinsic and detrimental to science. This is why, he argued, medicine and
surgery in India
could not develop into a more exact science after a brilliant beginning.
Chattopadhyaya exhibited his true acumen as a historian of ideas in this work.
He was the first to point out how tangled up the basic Sanskrit texts of
medicine and surgery are, containing both science and its opposite. He
accounted for this odd mixture by pointing out the authoritarian intervention
of hide-bound religion. The opposition to medical science, he pointed out, is
most prominent in the so-called sacred books of India , particularly the Yajurveda
and later Smriti (law book) works like the Manu-samhita. Later he wrote a
booklet in Bangla (Prachin Bharate Chikitsavijnan, 1992) providing a synoptic
view of all this.
‘Science and Society in Ancient
India’ may very well be considered as the second turning point in
Chattopadhyaya’s career after Lokayata. His focus of interest now shifted to
the history and philosophy of science in ancient India . After retirement from his
teaching post in City College, Kolkata, in 1978 (where for more than two
decades he had taught rudiments of logic and philosophy to the undergraduates),
he started afresh as a student, teaching himself different branches of ancient
science. With the avid interest of an explorer, he now studied, besides
medicine and surgery, astronomy and geometry. His magnum opus, History of
Science and Technology in Ancient India in three volumes (1986, 1991, and 1996,
the third volume was published posthumously) differs from all other works of
its kind. Instead of taking off from the more convenient area of Vedic India,
he concentrated on the Indus
Valley India , he
created a new paradigm for the study of the history of science and technology
in the East. He rescued the discipline from the conventional cataloguing of
achievements without any reference to the socio-historical backdrop. At the
same time the way he linked the technique of brick-making and the geometry of
the Sulbasutra-s (the art of making sacrificial altars) also established the
continuity of the Indus
Valley
In spite of his preoccupation
with history of science, Chattopadhyaya never lost touch with his first love,
philosophy, particularly Marxist philosophy. He wrote Lenin the philosopher,
first in English (1979) and then in Bangla (1980). His last work in this field was
Bharate Vastuvad Prasange, a review of materialism in India , written
in Bangla (1987, revised second edition 1991) and its self-translation, In
Defence of Materialism in Ancient India (1989). Like some of his other works,
this too has also been translated into Hindi.
Chronic illness, lack of basic
amenities, inordinate delay in publication–all this dogged his footsteps
throughout his life. Yet over and above the works mentioned above, he brought
out and edited a scholarly journal, Indian Studies : Past and Present (1959
-1973), translated with Mrinalkanti Gangopadhyaya (whom he fondly mentioned as
“ my young friend and teacher”) the Nyayasutra and its commentary by Vatsyayana
along with the annotations by M M Phanibhushana Tarkavagisa (two volumes,1967-1968;
rest of the work was completed by Gangopadhyaya alone), edited the first ever
complete English translation of Lama Taranatha’s Tibetan work, History of
Buddhism in India (1970), History and Society (Nihar-ranjan Ray felicitation
volume) (1978), a three-volume collection of essays entitled Studies in the
History of Indian Philosophy (1978-1979), another two-volume anthology,
‘Studies in the History of Science in India’ (1980), and a collection of essays
entitled ‘Marxism and Indology’ (1981). Carvaka/Lokayata : An Anthology of
Source Materials and Some Recent Studies (1990), again in collaboration with
Mrinalkanti Gangopa-dhyaya, filled a long-felt need. It has been reprinted
several times and is a recommended reading for students in many universities , both
home and abroad. Chattopadhyaya ably planned and edited an eight-volume
populariser, Global Philosophy for Everyman (1990-1991), three of which written
by himself. His last editorial work, ‘Studies in Indian Culture’, was planned
on a grand scale but only the first volume (1992) could see the light of day.
The range is breath-taking, so is the grip over such diverse material.
Special mention must be made of
two other works. The first is the masterly abridgement of the revised version
of Rajani Palme Dutt’s India Today, renamed ‘India Today and Tomorrow’ (1955).
Done in collaboration with Dilip Bose, the abridged edition was translated into
German in 1958. The second is the re-issue of Romesh Chandra Datta’s Bangla
translation of the Rigveda-samhita with additional material provided by other
scholars and a synoptic view of the Vedic literature contributed by
Chattopadhyaya (1963). It is a pity that both are long out of print.
One reason why Chattopadhyaya
could achieve so much in a relatively short span of life is that he could
always form a team of collaborators, both young and old, around him and inspire
them with a sense of commitment. Planning, writing, copy-editing, proofreading–
everything went on smoothly and harmoniously with each member of the team
feeling himself or herself a part of the work, and equally responsible for the
outcome. Chattopadhyaya was never niggardly in acknowledging their service and
faithfully mentioned their names in the prefaces of his works.
Official honours came late in his
life, and those too first from abroad. He was made a Member of the Academy of
Sciences of the then German Democratic Republic in 1975 and awarded D. Sc.
honoris causa by the Academy of Sciences of the then USSR in 1981. Several
Indian institutions also granted him Fellowships and awards. However, he felt
more gratified when he found young activists making use of his works in the
ideological struggle against obscurantist forces. He edited a reader in Bangla
called Pratirodh (Resistance) in 1991 on behalf of a monthly, Utsa Manush,
which contained essays and excerpts from the writings of the illustrious men of
letters of Bengal , from Rammohun Roy to
Satyendranath Bose. The reader highlighted the age-old battle of reason against
the forces of conservatism and orthodoxy.
Besides, Marx, Engels and Lenin,
V Gordon Childe, George Thomson and Joseph Needham exerted enormous influence
on him. He was never reluctant to acknowledge his debts to them and always
mentioned them with gratitude. He used J D Bernal’s ‘Science in History’ as a
handbook. He had the highest regards for Walter Ruben, John Somerville and
Burrows Dunham. With D D Kosambi, Trevor Ling and Dale Riepe he was in terms of
warmest friendship. The personal archives of Chattopadhayaya contain records of
his correspondence with litterateurs, philosophers, historians and friends from
different countries. When published, they too will bring out another facade of
his amiable character.
Chattopadhayaya was associated
with several Encyclopaedia projects, both in Bangla and English. He was always
ready to assist young workers engaged in rationalist and people’s science
movement, and went out of his way to guide promising scholars in all possible
ways. A man of very strong likes and dislikes, he was, however, ever prepared
to revise his views. The fashionable trends of so-called Western Marxism and
the New Left never impressed him; in fact they left him cold. Similarly he was
totally out of sympathy with postmodernist pyrotechnics. A born polemicist, he
was never hesitant to call a spade a spade, however famous his opponent might
be. Many of his early Bangla essays remain uncollected (the work of editing
them has just begun) and a few English essays and studies, mostly unfinished,
await publication.
An unrepentant Marxist-Leninist
to the end of his life, a firm believer in human progress, science and reason,
Chattopadhyaya was overtaken by death on 8 May 1993. To say that the void
created by his absence can never be filled up is a statement of fact, not a
mere cliché.
[Acknowledgements : Amitava
Bhatta-charyya, Aditi Chatterjee, Siddhartha Datta and
Malayendu Dinda]
This essay was first
published in Frontier, Autumn Number, Vol.43 No.12-15, October 3-30, 2010
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