Page:History of Asamiya Literature.pdf/12

 x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS understood in India Itself. But ...... when the full text of her poll- tical, social and cultural history, comes to be recorded, we may be sure, ber ancient glories will awaken the admiration, her eroic adven- tures will fire the imagination and her present struggles will enlist the sympathy not only of India, but of the world outside." Foreword to Neog's Introduction to Assam--the Country, the People, the Speech, 1917. Edward Gait regretted: "In the histories of India as a whole Assam is barely mentioned, and only ten lines are devoted to its analysis in the historical portion of Hunter's Indian Empire." Even after a yuga of political independence of India, conditions are not much improved. Asam, as Kimarüpa or Prasiyotişa does not appear to find its place among the ancient kingdoms of India in the History and Culture of the Indian People, Vol. I. Vedle Age, published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1951-52, as though Assam were not a part of, but apart from, India. It is also a fact that Asamiya people have always fought shy of presenting their case properly; hence they have usually lost by default and have ever been decrced exparte. In a quite few instances where they brought in their case at all, they did it hall-heartedly, with hearsay evidence and no eye-witnesses even if there were lots. The so-called histories of Asam are, as a rule, mere chronicles of post-thirteenth century events, and the so-called histories of Asamiya language and literature sheer talks about post-fifteenth century books and authors. Even an alleged scientific work on Assamese language begins by fits and starts at the middle and is not a full fledged formation and development" as the author himself confesses. It is because it is now a race of lost self-confidence who cannot believe their own glorious past and are rather frightened by their own shadows. They pride in repeating what has been thought or said of them even wrongly, and think so doing to be scholarship. On the other hand, as a humble worker for over forty years, I feel constrained to note that even this calm and sacred field of literary re- search has become of late too vociferous and vitiated by the influx of over ambitious careerists. Far from disciplining themselves to serious studies and minute observation of facts, they appear to aim at bursting forth overnight by "research literally searching again what were als ready searched and found). It is a pity that even the law court has really no shelter against open piracy: copying of an entire plan of new classifications and sub-classifications, of fresh grouping of authors for discussion, of novel conclusions and findings on toples, and even of copying exact construction of sentences with or without colourable imt-