Wordsmiths
1928 saw two major events in Gujarat. One was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s successful protest in Bardoli, but the second one, a cultural milestone in Gondal is not as well known.
Multi-talented sovereign of Gondal, Maharaj Bhagavatsinhji and his dedicated senior officer Chandulal Behcharlal Patel inaugurated the state Office for the compilation and publication of Bhagavadgomandal, the planned lexicon-cum-encyclopaedia on 1st Oct. 1928! One may well consider it the establishment of Gondal’s “Word University” for Gujarati language. A library in Gujarat without a copy of this lexicon’s 9 volumes, may well be a considered a dead library.
These volumes contain priceless words, their meanings as well as etymological information, which give them a status akin to a dictionary and encyclopaedia combined. It is said that when ever Vinoba Bhave had a free moment or two, he loved to browse a dictionary. All people who like intellectual pursuits will be thrilled with interesting revelations on every page of these volumes. It may well be difficult to find a literate family who does not own a dictionary of some kind. Teachers and parents need to make it a point to inspire their children to develop an interest in dictionaries. Inheritors of the culture who value words as creators should ensure that their descendants also love dictionaries. Dictionaries are the foundations for alters of creation of words.
Gujarati’s often utter a pitiable sentence in casual conversations in spite of being socially courteous people, “We should make efforts to save the Gujarati language from extinction!”. It is not the Gujarati language that needs to be saved, it us! Our identity (as Gujarati’s) is at risk. A man without an identity is considered a lifeless person. Erik Erikson – a colleague of Anna Freud (Sigmund Freud’s daughter) – coined the term “identity crisis” in early twentieth century. He had psychoanalysed Gandhiji, and authored a book called “Gandhi’s Truth”. Roy Waldo Emerson is reputed to have said, a culture dies when its language dies. If Gujarati language dies, what else will die with it? Our own identity will die with it! Hence, it we who need to save ourselves. Harshad Pandit of Rajkot has started a movement to insist on Gujarati as the primary medium of communication.
I have never been disappointed in Bhagavadgomandal. One has to go through the pages of this lexicon multiple times a day, resulting in wear and tear of the pages, some who separate from the binding. Webster’s and Oxford English dictionaries are being expanded continuously with new words. Bhagavadgomandal is itself a university, and the university must be kept active constantly. I had to seek help from this lexicon when I was writing a commentary on Ramayan, and discovered many new pieces of information. I repeated that access when I was writing about Pandit Madan Mohan Mishra. I can quote innumerable such instances of accessing the Bhagavadgomandal.
Pravin Publishers of Rajkot took a great risk in publishing an edition of Bhagavadgomandal in 1986. Swami Sachchidanand launched the new publication on 12th May 2008. The Patel community of Gujarat have a significant contribution in the compiling of lexicons. Maganbhai Prabhudas Desai – a Patel by caste - compiled the Gujarati Word-Conjunction lexicon with meanings, as well as the Hindi-Gujarati lexicon. Gopalbhai Jivaabhai Patel compiled a annotated Gujarati-Sanskrit lexicon. Chandulal B. Patel supervised the preparation of the Bhagavadgomandal across all 26 years of it’s compilation. Such has been word-smithy labour to preserve our identity.
This story about Bhagavadgomandal would be incomplete without relating the contribution of Gondal’s Queen, Nandkunvarba. She had travelled the world extensively, and authored a travel diary called “Gomandal Parikram” – Circumlocution of the world, in 1899, and published in 1902. Exactly 86 years on, the Gujarat Sahitya Academy has reprinted that edition. Chandravadan Mehta has complemented Queen Nandkunvarba as the first authoress of Gujarati prose. Here is an interesting anecdote from that book. Young girls of a Danish village, ask a cuckoo “when will I get married?”, and in reply the cuckoo coo’s. Count the number of coo’s and wait that many years to get married is the belief in that village.
If the nation gets Prime Ministers and Chief ministers as dedicated to the welfare of their constituents as was the king of Gondal, duty-bound, and knowledge driven, then poverty will disappear in no time at all.
If your home does not have a copy of the Bhagavadgomandal, believe you me, that you are simply pretending to be a Gujarati.
