Lomaharshini

Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi’s versatility and achievements were in a way unique. He was an eminent lawyer, one of the framers of India’s Constitution and a seasoned statesman. Coming under the inspiring influence of Sri Aurobindo during is student days, Munshi had been an ardent fighter for India’s freedom, working at different stages in close association with Jinnah, Tilak, Besant, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Rahagoplachari and Pandit Nehru. His achievements as Home Minister of Bombay in 1937, as India’s Agent-General in Hyderabad before the Police Action, as India’s Food Minister and as Governor of Uttar Pradesh had been characterized by rare courage and decisive energy.

Acknowledged as the foremost writer in modern Gujarati literature, he has to his credit a vast and varied literature including novels, drams, memoirs and history in Gujarati, as also several historical and other works in English, notably Gujarat and Its Literature, Imperial Gurjaras, Creative Art of Life, To Badrinath, The End of an Era, Krishnavatara, Bhagavad Gita and Modern Life, Saga of Indian Sculpture, Bhagawan Parashurama, Tapasvini, Prithvi Vallabh and The Master of Gujarat.

Kulapati Munshi’s Gujarati novel Lomaharshini (in Gujarati) was first published in 1945 and it had been very warmly welcomed by the readers. 9th edition if this book has recently been published by the Bhavan in association with Gujar Prakashan.

The gripping narratives and dialogues of Lomaharshini give true and graphic images of Aryavarta as India was Known 4500 years ago providing the western readers, a glimpse of the life and times of that dim remote past.

Kulapati Munshi’s Gujarati novel Lomaharshini (in Gujarati) was first published in 1945 and it had been very warmly welcomed by the readers. 9th edition of this book has recently been published by the Bhavan in association with Gurjar Prakashan.

Shri Atul Kumar Jam’s translation into English is not only faithful but also vibrantly presents the culture and life of people in Aryavarta of Vedic Age. We are sure, this English Edition will enlighten the readers who seek to peep into our ancient ethos.

(1) Rig Veda, the first of the four Indian Holy Scriptures is considered the earliest book of mankind. Written in Sanskrit, having a large number of words and roots common to the Indo European language group, its age is put, by the noted German Indologist, Professor Max Muller and other western and eastern research scholars, at around 1500 years! 2000 years B.C. The latest Carbon- 14 analyses of the ancient structures at Mehrgarh (Baluchistan, Pakistan), indicate the age of the Indus Valley civilization beyond 6000 B.C.

(2) All the white Aryan and dark native Dasyu characters and many of the situations of this novel have been adapted and enlivened by the renowned writer late Dr. K. M. Munshi from the verses of the primordial Rig Veda and allied scriptures.

(3) The adventurous Aryans, migrated to India, then known as Aryavarta, during the above period from somewhere in Mid-Asia, or probably from Kashmir itself, which lies at the southern tip of the above region and gradually settled as rulers in the fertile valleys of the rivers Indus, Ganges, Saraswati, Yamuna and Narmada displacing the native Dravidians, Dasyus, Negroes and Naag tribes.

(4) During the same period and the following centuries, hordes of the same Mid-Asian stock including Mongols and Huns, percolated to Iraq, Iran and Egypt during the fifth-fourth millennia B.C. Syria, Asia Minor and Greece during the third-second millennia B.C., spreading further westward to Rome, France and Germany, finally the Scandinavian countries and England centuries later while they were still leading nomadic existence. The Americas, Australia and southern regions of Africa away from the warm waters of the Mediterranean were unknown in those times to history. Europe in that era meant only north eastern Africa and the other regions around the Mediterranean Sea.

(5) Surprisingly and happily, therefore, it appears that this inter-movement of the Mid-Asiatic aggressive migrants between the then India, the middle east and the western world during thousands of years, has bequeathed to all of us in these parts of the world, recognized as the Indo-Iranian white race, a common ancestry, “giving birth to peoples of various shades of colors, shape and sizes, speaking different languages with common etymological origins professing almost identical faiths having basically the same forms of civilization and culture all subject to geographical and gender mutations Viewing globally, in millennial time scale, the fact emerges that no group of people originally belongs to a particular place, everyone comes from somewhere else, and everyone has been a migrant. Likewise in the same frame of perception, every region and age has developed its own way of life which governs its culture and civilization but the basics are the same everywhere. (6) The gripping narratives and dialogues of Lomaharshini give true and graphic images of Aryavarta as India was known 4500 years ago providing the western readers, a glimpse of the life and times of that dim remote past.

(7) The following quotation from Will Durant’s epic work entitled “The Story of Civilization” in eleven volumes is relevant to the submissions made above: “India was the motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages. India was the mother of our philosophy, of much of our mathematics, of the ideals embodied in Christianity... of self government and democracy. In many ways, Mother India is the mother of us all.”