Bhai Girish Chandra�s Home in Ruins
Nafees Rahman
A little further from the Panchdona crossing, on the way to Narsingdi, one cannot miss the light blue sign, pointing to the house of Girish Chandra Sen. But arriving there, immediately behind the row of shops, one cannot but feel frustrated, disgusted and angry! To say that the house of this scholar is in ruins would be the worst understatement!
The plasters on the walls of this two-floor house have almost completely fallen off, baring the brick work, which is covered in a thick moss. The ceilings on both the floors have entirely caved in. Trees have grown all over the walls, thereby creating large cracks. The wood work from doors and windows is completely stolen. It is difficult to hold back tears standing in these ruins, of what once was the home of such a great scholar.
Girish Chandra Sen, also known as Bhai Girish Chandra Sen, a Brahmo Samaj missionary, was the first person to produce the complete translation of the Holy Quran into Bangla in 1886. It was his finest contribution to Bengali literature.
Born in the village of Panchdona of Narsingdi in 1835 in the famed Dewan Baidya clan, he learnt Farsi (Persian) and Sanskrit in early life and started working as a copywriter in the court of the deputy magistrate in Mymensingh. He also taught for a short while at the Mymensingh Zilla School before engaging wholeheartedly in journalism and literary activities. He was attracted to the Brahmo Samaj under the influence of Keshub Chunder Sen and Bijoy Krishna Goswami and joined it as a missionary in 1871. He travelled through India and Burma (now Myanmar) to propagate his new faith.
In 1869, Keshub Sen chose from amongst his missionaries, four persons and ordained them as professors of four old religions of the world. Girish Chandra was selected to study Islam. The others selected to study different religions were Gour Govinda Ray for Hinduism, Protap Chandra Mazoomdar for Christianity, and Aghore Nath Gupta for Buddhism.
This was a time when even translating religious scripts was considered as desecration of the sanctity of the scripts. The Quran was considered too sacred for translation, and as such, most Muslim scholars refrained from even trying.
A firm believer in the basic unity of all religions, Girish immersed himself in his studies and later went to Lucknow in 1876 to study Arabic, Islamic literature and the Islamic religious texts. He was involved in intense studies for about five years. His keen interest in different religions and his liberal outlook earned him the respect of followers of other religions.
On completion of his studies, he returned to Calcutta and engaged in translation of Islamic scriptures. After labouring hard for six years, from 1881-1886, he produced an annotated Bengali version of the Quran via Persian.
Girish Chandra wrote and published a total of 42 books in Bangla. He published the Bengali translation of almost half of Mishkat al-Masabih under the title Hadith-Purba Bibhag (1892). Another important work of his was Tattvaratnamala (1907), which contains moral lessons and words of wisdom in the form of short tales from two famous Persian books _ Sheikh Farid Uddin Attars Manteq at-Tair and Jalal-ad-Din Muhammad Rumis Masnavi. He translated Persian religious books such as Gulistan, Bostan and Diwan-e-Hafiz. He also translated the Hadith (189298).
Girish Chandra Sen wrote several biographies of Muslim personalities, including Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the Prophets grandsons Imam Hasan and Imam Hussain and the four Khalifas in Mahapurus charita (188287), Mahapurush Mohammad O Tat-parabartite Islam Dharma, Imam Hasan O Husainer Jibani (1911), Charijon Dharmaneta, Charti Sadhvi Musalman Nari and Khalifabarga.
His famous book Tapasmala (18801895), based on Sheikh Farid Uddin Attars Persian book Tazkiratul Awliya, contains biographies of 96 Muslim saints. These books were greatly appreciated by the Muslim community which referred to him as Bhai Girish Chandra. The Muslim society, in his days, respected him enormously and gave him the title of a maulavi.
Girish Chandra Sen spoke Bangla, Urdu and Farsi fluently. A simple soft-spoken person, he endeared himself to all those who came in contact with him. His autobiography, Atmajivani, was published in 1906. He passed away in 1910.
