Fort William College: A Pioneer of Urdu Literature
Fort William College was an institution established in Calcutta (now Kolkata) by Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General of British India, in 1800. The college was meant to train the British civil servants in Indian languages and cultures, especially Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Sanskrit and Arabic. The college played a significant role in the development of Urdu literature, as it patronized many Urdu poets and writers and published several books in Urdu.
Urdu was a language that emerged from the interaction of Persian, Arabic and Turkish with the local languages of northern India, especially Hindi. It was widely spoken and understood by people of different religions and regions. It was also the language of the Mughal court and administration. However, after the decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of British power, Urdu faced many challenges and threats. The British favored Persian as the official language of administration and education, and later promoted Hindi as a rival to Urdu. Urdu also suffered from a lack of standardization and codification.
Fort William College was one of the first institutions that recognized the importance and potential of Urdu as a language of literature and communication. The college hired many native speakers of Urdu as teachers and translators, and encouraged them to write original works in Urdu on various subjects such as history, geography, religion, ethics, medicine, law, etc. The college also commissioned translations of Persian and English works into Urdu, and published them in elegant scripts and formats. Some of the famous Urdu writers who worked for or were associated with Fort William College were Mir Amman, Mirza Muhammad Hasan Qateel, Mir Bahadur Ali Husaini, Lala Srinivas Das, Munshi Insha Allah Khan Insha, etc.
Fort William College In Urdu Pdf Download
The most notable contribution of Fort William College to Urdu literature was the publication of Bagh-o-Bahar (Garden and Spring), a collection of four stories written by Mir Amman in 1804. It was based on a Persian work called Qissa-e-Chahar Darvesh (The Tale of Four Dervishes), which itself was derived from an Arabic work called Alf Layla wa Layla (The Thousand and One Nights). Bagh-o-Bahar is considered to be one of the first prose works in modern Urdu, and it introduced many new words, idioms and expressions to the language. It also set a standard for Urdu storytelling and style that influenced many later writers.
Another remarkable work published by Fort William College was Tota-Kahani (The Parrot's Tale), a collection of 52 stories written by Mirza Muhammad Hasan Qateel in 1808. It was based on a Sanskrit work called Suka Saptati (The Seventy Tales of the Parrot), which itself was derived from an ancient Indian work called Brihatkatha (The Great Story). Tota-Kahani was one of the first works that brought Sanskrit literature to the attention of Urdu readers, and it also enriched Urdu with many words and phrases from Sanskrit.
Other notable works published by Fort William College include Mirat-ul-Urus (The Mirror of Brides), a novel by Lala Srinivas Das in 1810; Dastan-e-Amir Hamza (The Adventures of Amir Hamza), a translation of a Persian epic by Munshi Insha Allah Khan Insha in 1801-1803; Tarikh-e-Hind (The History of India), a translation of an English work by Alexander Dow by Mir Bahadur Ali Husaini in 1803; Majalis-ul-Ushshaq (The Assemblies of Lovers), a collection of biographies of Sufi saints by Mirza Muhammad Hasan Qateel in 1810; etc.
The college also published several dictionaries, grammars, textbooks and manuals for teaching and learning Urdu. Some examples are A Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language, by John Gilchrist in 180 29c81ba772
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