Shedding light upon the history of Japan and undivided Bengal

Dr. Pratyay Banerjee

Bengal i.e. India has a long cultural relation with Japan; this dates back to 6th Century AD, the time when Buddhism got transplanted in Japan from India, through China and Korea. A more vibrant exchange between Japan and India started in the late 19th Century. Japan in the late 19th century underwent a drastic phase of modernization that drew the attention of the world. Since the middle of 19th century many educated Indians have paid visit to the Land of the Rising Sun; further, many of them have penned down their experiences in the form of diaries, memoirs, travelogues etc. Rabindranath Tagore’s maiden voyage to Japan, his receptiveness in responding to a culture of a nation markedly different from us, is well illustrated in the text ‘Japan Jatri’. However, present research indicates that there had been at least three people who had authored books on Japan, prior to Tagore’s first visit to Japan in 1916. They are Manmathanath Ghosh and Suresh Chandra Bandyopadhyay and Hariprova Takeda. The books which they have written are ‘Japan Probash’, ‘Japane’ and ‘Bongomohilar Japan Jatra’ respectively. Viewed from this perspective, the publication of two books edited by Subrata Kumar Das, entitled as, ‘Japan Probash’ and ‘Sekaler Bangla Samoyikpotre Japan’, the first being a travelogue on Japan written by Manmothonath Ghosh, reprinted after a span of 100 years, and the second one, a compilation of newspaper articles on Japan of the last decades of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth centuries, turn out to be a milestone in the field of Japanese Studies.

The preface of the new edition of the book ‘Japan Probash’, gives us the biographical details of the author, Manmathanath Ghosh who was born in the year 1882 in a village named Mathurapur, presently in Jessore in Bangladesh. Manmathanath Ghosh got involved in the Swadeshi movement and later on went to Japan to acquire industrial training. His voyage began on 1st April, 1906. There had been 16 learners altogether who boarded the ship for Japan and America; Rathindranath, Rabindranath Tagore’s son had been among them too. The first few chapters of the texts give us an arresting description of the sea voyage to Japan and a brief stops at cities and harbors like Shingapore, Rangoon and Penang. The travelogue represents Manmathanath’s deep admiration for Japanese people. It is also interesting to note that the writer has referred to some racial virtues of Japanese people which is relevant even today. On the second day of his stay in Japan he was helped by an unknown Japanese who guided him to the Commercial Museum. The unique civil administration which included a Police booth at every major crossing providing assistance to citizens and foreigners had been a wonder for the writer.

In Japan he first arrived at Tokyo from where he went to Kobe and Osaka. There the writer took industrial training in celluloid and in button making. His experiences in working as an apprentice at a button-making factory in Kobe gave him the opportunity to know about the life and customs of Japanese more vividly. His description of his employer’s daughter’s funeral is worth remembering. The poise with which the employer and his wife faced their daughter’s death reminded him how Indians become restless and scream on the occasion of their loved one’s demise. Japanese food, especially tea, known as ‘Ocha’, life of old age people there, custom of bathing in communal baths known as ’Ofuro’, their ideas about India, description of their lunch boxes, called ‘Obento’, being ferried at railway stations, etcetera provide a minute description of Japanese life and culture in the early 20th century. The text can be of great help to a foreign learner of Japanese language who understands Bengali, the prodigy of conversational Japanese that we find in this travelogue is a unique feature of this text. Manmathanath Ghosh has also described in details common Japanese greetings and the occasion of using these vocabularies. There is a passage narrating the author’s visit to a person whom he has described as, KanoSan, (the word ‘San’, in Japanese is used for both Mr. and Mrs.). Here the character is a male one; the passage contains a good deal of common Japanese expressions, used in everyday life. The text comes to an end with the author bidding good bye (Sayonara) to Japan and returning to his motherland. The book went into oblivion and so no historian on Japan-Bengal relations did mention of ‘Japan Probash’. The editor has dug deep and discovered it and has taken the necessary initiatives to republish with a new cover by emerging artist Mostafiz Karigor. The editor has also included some reviews of the text that had been published in the following years in Manmathanath’s other books and thus has performed a praiseworthy job.

The other book, Sekaler Bangla Samoyik Potre Japan, as early noted, is a compilation of articles published in different Bengali magazines in late 19th century to early 20th century. The book contains two introductory articles by the editor to throw light upon the history of cultural linkage between Japan and undivided Bengal. The different magazines of which articles have been taken include, Bharati, Bongo Darshan, Probashi and others. This publication contain essays on Japanese life and culture by eminent writers as Jadunath Sarkar, Benoy Kumar Sarkar, Mukul De along with some essays by unknown writers too. The merit of these essays differs, some contain misspell Japanese words too, but quite a few are erudite and provide a lot of information about Japan of that time.

Now coming back to the text, we find in the compilation some essays having factual errors or wrong usages, yet many of them are quite scholastic and had been written by essayists who had not only visited Japan, but had been quite informed about Japanese culture. For instance, in the article ‘Japan Kahini’, the word Geisha, has been wrongly spelt. However, these are only a few blemishes. The three travelogues that had been included are ‘Japanese Delhi’ by Benoy Kumar Sarkar, ‘Dai Nippon’ by Jadunath Sarkar, ‘Japaner Kotha’ by Mukul Chandra De. These are all wonderful depiction of Japanese life, society and art in the early 20th century, by eminent people who had visited Japan during that time.

Another astonishing fact is that the compilation contains two translated texts;  an essay by Shitoko Hari, the first international student at Shantiniketan, translated from English and published in the magazine Bharati and another translation of Okakura’s Book of Tea, by Priyambada Bandyopadhyay, the lady who developed an epistolary relationship with Okakura. It must be noted that Shitoko Hari’s essay was published in a Bengali magazine is altogether a new information, we did not get any reference of it even in any of the books of Professor Kazuo Azuma, who himself had translated Shitoko Hari’s diary. But before finishing my comment on the book, I must say, it could be more helpful for the researchers if an index would have been added.

The new edition of Japan-Probas has been published from Divya Prokash, and Sekaler Bangla Samoyik Potre Japanfrom Nabajug Prokashani Dhaka, Bangladesh. The publishers deserve appraisal.

The article was published in 2012.

Dr. Pratyay Banerjee is an English Language Instructor. His book Japan and Bengal: Exchange and Encounter (1893 –1938), published from Monohar, New Delhi in 2023 has been hugely acclaimed. He has co-edited Tagore and Japan: Dialogue, Exchange and Encounter.