Introduction
Brijnandan Sahay 'Brijvallabh's novel Saundaryopasak, translated here as The Aesthete, occupies a special place among early Hindi novels. The most popular poet of the time, Maithilisharan Gupta, who was hailed later as the Rashtra-Kavi, writing in an issue of the leading literary journal Saraswati in 1911, said: "Among the novels written in Hindi I have read so far, I have not come across any novel more powerful than Saundaryopasak." It is noteworthy that on this occasion, the poet did not remember even Premchand, who had by then established his identity as a writer of fiction in Hindi. During this period, the creative works in fiction written in English and in Bangla were regarded as classics. While praising the novel, the poet Maithilisharan went on to add: "This novel alone has the good fortune of ranking with Bangla novels." It is worth remembering too that the Gujarati and Marathi were versions of Saundaryopasak edition of the original in 1910. published shortly after the first The first indication of the popular reception of the novel was the author's felicitation by the ruler of Chhatarpur, when he read it. The first fully edited version of the novel was published with an Introduction by Professor Ramesh Kuntal Megh and Dr Har Mahendra Singh Bedi in 1978. The learned editors expressed the view that the elements of Chhayavad and Swachhandatavad, ie. romanticism and freedom from convention, are abundantly present in the novel, especially manifested as "Imagination" and "Love". The presence of these elements is confirmed by most of the fourteen chapters opening with epigraphs from the great English Romantic poets. 'Brijvallabh's novel may indeed be seen as the harbinger of a new style of writing, a whole new idiom. There is no doubt at all that in its own time, Saundaryopasak was very much there as a work of fiction pointing to the future. These two elements in the novel have clearly left their stamp on fiction writers of days to come. There are many legends and sagas of worldly as well as spiritual love celebrated in folklore and literature; a great deal has been thought and written on it through the ages, with the love of Radha and Krishna as its pretext. However, Brijnandan Sahay 'Brijballabh' is clearly one of those who brought it to the fore in his own time. In his Dedication to Saundaryopasak, he has clearly enunciated the supremacy of Love. Prof. Megh and Dr. Bedi see the novel as constituting three forms of romantic anguish, viz., first in Malati's worldly suffering, second and third, in the struggle and sacrifice of the hero as aesthete, and the resolution of all these forms through spiritual transformation. Indeed, all the incidents in the novel revolve around the theme of love. The freedom of love transcending all bonds is seen in the agonised hero, while its sublimation is represented by the active intervention of the Mahatma, the Vaishnav Guru.
About The Author
Brijnandan Sahay "Brijvallabh" (1874-1956) was born at village Akhtyarpur near Arrah in the district of Shahabad in south-western Bihar, then part of the Bengal presidency. "Brijvallabh", a practising lawyer, but being widely read in English and European literature, decided to try his hand at writing fiction in Khari Boli, which had little prose literature at the time. He was certainly influenced by English writers of fiction, but he may have been influenced also by Bengalee novelists. He translated three novels of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee into Hindi. "Brijvallabh" himself wrote nearly ten novels in Hindi some of which were translated into Marathi and Gujarati languages during his own lifetime. His novel Saundaryopasak, translated into English here as The Aesthete, was one of the earliest novels to be written in Hindi and was first published in 1910. It was mentioned in A History of Hindi Literature by the eminent critic, Ramchandra Shukla, as having established Hindi, or Khari Boli, as a medium of serious literature. Later, the first fully edited version of the novel with a long Introduction was brought out by Professor Ramesh Kuntal Megh and Dr Har Mahendra Singh Bedi in 1978, which presented "Brijvallabh" as an exponent of Chhayavad. His novel certainly points to the future as suggested by Dr. Ganga Prasad Vimal in his learned Introduction to the English version presented here. His other notable novel, as mentioned by Ramchandra Shukla, is titled Radhakant.
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