Page:History of Asamiya Literature.pdf/13

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi tations, taken as a whole, is not considered as clear proofs of piracy, as though it were a matter of course. Besides this, coterie leaders emerge every now and then thinking it a divine mandate to pose as authorities, self-constituted though, however pure their ignorance and poor their performance. For these and such reasons, there has been much movement as in a circus ring, but little progress in fact.. Against this background, I embarked on the enterprise of present- ing the true literary achievements of the Asamiyä people attempting at showing the manifestation of their national genius with a background. of intellectual and social history. Huge as the task had been, it was no sooner executed fifteen years ago than found mega bibilon mega kakon (a big book is a big evil). Vast vested interests, about which the lesser said the better, stood in the way and could not be surmounted eve. the best help offered by Prof. Chatterji. Then with the advice of Pi f. Bloch I have reduced the present volume rather to a history of authors and their books reserving the rest of the matter for a second volume where more will be said about movements and tendencies, cur rents and cross-currents of thoughts which tended to produce these authors and their books. As a matter of fact, no literature could ever be read in vacuum; for even a little, but that much real, knowledge of the historical and social surroundings is definitely a pre-requisite for a proper apprecia- tion of the literature, the more so when the atmosphere is dusty and the perspective is wronged already as in case of Asam. In order to secure the correct perspective I had to do the spade-work myself by reconstructing probable situations and fixing important dates; and whenever I had to refer to any of my predecessors in the field, it had been to differ more often than not-a troublesome and unplea- sant task which could not be helped. Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. Dear is Plato, but dearer is Truth. And while as a literary critic I am not entitled to any wages for these drudgeries, I have pro- bably myself paid their price already. Early history and geography of a country may have ordinarily little to do with the history of its literature, but when a vital portion of both the land and literature lies in adverse possession, certainly the historian cannot wink at it. By references to Vedie and pre-Vedic Aryan invasions of ancient Asam the historian may have been thought guilty of invading another's territory, but he is surely acquitted when facts of such invasions are found to have very important bearing on the history of the language and literature of the people. Similarly, it might be warned that origin of language may have no importance in