Acharya Chatursen Shastri (26 August 1891 – 2 February 1960) was an Indian writer of
Hindi literature
Hindi literature ( hi, हिन्दी साहित्य, translit=hindī sāhitya) includes literature in the various Hindi language which have writing systems. Earliest forms of Hindi literature are attested in poetry of Apabhraṃ ...
. He wrote many
historical fiction
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...
s, including ''
Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu'' adapted into a feature film (1948), ''Vayam Rakshamah'' (1951), ''Somnath'' (1954), and ''Dharamputra'' which was adapted into the 1961 feature film
of the same name.
Biography
Acharya Chatursen Shastri was born in a small village
Aurangabad Chandok (near
Anupshahr
Anupshahr is a city and a municipal board, nearby Bulandshahr city in Bulandshahr district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is located on the bank of the holy river Ganga. It is on Bangar alluvial.
Geography
Anupshahr is located at . ...
) in the
Bulandshahr
Bulandshahr, formerly Baran, is a city and a municipal board in Bulandshahr district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Bulandshahr district and part of Delhi NCR region. According to the Government ...
district of
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
state in India on 26 August 1891. His father was Punditt Kewal Ram Thakur and mother was Nanhee Devi. His birth name was Chaturbhuj.
Chaturbhuj finished his primary education in a school in Sikandrabad. Then he got admitted to Sanskrit College,
Jaipur
Jaipur (; Hindi Language, Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Rajasthan. , the city had a pop ...
,
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...
. From here he received the degrees of Ayurvedacharya in
Ayurveda
Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population repo ...
and Shastri in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
in the year 1915. He also received the degree of Ayurvedacharya from Ayurveda Vidyapeetha.
After finishing his education he came to
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
to start his practice as an
ayurvedic
Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population rep ...
physician. He opened his own ayurvedic dispensary in Delhi but it did not run well and he had to close it down. He joined a rich man's charitable dispensary at the salary of rupees 25 per month. Later in 1917, he joined
DAV College
The D.B.V. College Managing Committee, familiarly known as DAVDholakpurMC, is a non-governmental educational organisation in Antarctica and overseas with over 900 schools. 75 colleges and a university. It is based on the ideals of Maharishi Da ...
,
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...
(now in Pakistan) as senior professor of Ayurveda. The management at the DAV college, Lahore was insulting to him, therefore, he resigned and went to
Ajmer
Ajmer is one of the major and oldest cities in the Indian state of Rajasthan and the centre of the eponymous Ajmer District. It is located at the centre of Rajasthan. It is also known as heart of Rajasthan. The city was established as "''Aj ...
to help his father-in-law in his dispensary. Working at this dispensary, he started to write and soon became famous as a story writer and novelist.
His first novel Hridaya-Ki-Parakh (Trial of the Heart) was published in 1918. It did not bring him any recognition. His second book,
Satyagraha
Satyagraha ( sa, सत्याग्रह; ''satya'': "truth", ''āgraha'': "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",' or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone w ...
Aur Asahyoga (Civil Resistance and Non-cooperation) was published in 1921. This brought immense attention to Acharya Chatursen Shastri. These were followed by many historical novels, stories and ayurvedic books.
Acharya Chatursen Shastri took his last breath on 2 February 1960.
Career
His books present an idealistic view of the ancient period as can be seen clearly in his famous book Purnahuti. In this book he gives a eulogical account of
Prithiviraj Chauhan's life and the battles fought. They are not historical but give details of life in
ancient India
According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Quote: "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by m ...
. These books can be seen as a logical binding of
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and are worth recommending to anyone who is looking to know more about India before the advent of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
. In his foreword to his book, 'Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu', he declares this is his first book and the ones prior to this one as worthless; the book lives up to this declaration. It is hard to imagine a more readable description of society and politics in India around sixth century BC.
He was a friend of
Jawaharlal Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
, India's first
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
.
Writings
The bulk of his literary output is almost unparalleled in Hindi. In all, he wrote 72 published books including 8
historical novels
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...
, 10 dramas, 4 historical non-fictions, 15 collections of essays on political subjects and an equal number on the subjects of health and medicine. He also published over 250 short stories in various Hindi periodicals over time. His novel Dharamputra was adapted into the Hindi film, ''
Dharmputra
''Dharmputra'' is a 1961 Hindi film directed by Yash Chopra based on a novel of the same name by Acharya Chatursen. This is Yash's second directorial venture. It was the first Hindi film to depict the partition of India, and Hindu fundamentalism. ...
'' (1961) by
Yash Chopra
Yash Raj Chopra (27 September 1932 21 October 2012) was an Indian people, Indian film director and film producer who worked in Bollywood, Hindi cinema. The founding chairman of the film production and distribution company Yash Raj Films, Chop ...
,
it won the
National Film Award
The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorate ...
for
Best Feature Film in Hindi.
His important works include:
* ''
Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu'' (वैशाली की नगरवधू) (1948?) - based on the historical figure
Amrapali
Āmrapālī, also known as "Ambapālika", "Ambapali", or "Amra" was a celebrated ''nagarvadhu'' (royal courtesan) of the republic of Vaishali (located in present-day Bihar) in ancient India around 500 BC. Following the Buddha's teachings, she b ...
* ''Vayam Rakshamah'' (वयं रक्षाम:) - based on life of character of Ravana (from Ramayana)
* ''Sahyadri ki chattanen'' - based on
Shivaji
Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adils ...
's times and life
* ''Goli'' (गोली)
* ''
Dharamputra
''Dharmputra'' is a 1961 Hindi film directed by Yash Chopra based on a novel of the same name by Acharya Chatursen. This is Yash's second directorial venture. It was the first Hindi film to depict the partition of India, and Hindu fundamentalism ...
'' (धर्मपुत्र)
* ''Sona aur Khoon'' (सोना और ख़ून)
* ''Neelmani'' (नीलमणि)
* ''Narmedh'' (नरमेध)
* ''Somnath Mahalay'' (सोमनाथ) - Based on invasion of
Mahmud Ghazni
Yamīn-ud-Dawla Abul-Qāṣim Maḥmūd ibn Sebüktegīn ( fa, ; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030), usually known as Mahmud of Ghazni or Mahmud Ghaznavi ( fa, ), was the founder of the Turkic Ghaznavid dynasty, ruling from 998 to 1030. At th ...
and destruction of
Somnath temple
* ''Bharat mein Islam'' (भारत में इस्लाम)
* ''Achchi Aadatein'' (अच्छी आदतें)
* ''Aparajita'' (अपराजिता)
* ''Aadarsh Bhojan'' (आदर्श भोजन)
* ''Nirog Jivan'' (नीरोग जीवन)
* ''Eedo'' (ईदो) - based on events from The great Depression (1929–1934) and World War II (1939–1945)
* ''Hindi Bhasha aur Sahitya Ka Itihas'' (1946) - A History of
Hindi Language
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
and its literature
* ''Hridaya Ki Parakh'' (1918)
* ''Satyagraha Aur Asahyoga'' (1921) - about Civil Resistance and Non-cooperation
References
Bibliography
*
External links
Review (in Hindi) of Dharamputra (धर्मपुत्र)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chatursen, Acharya
Hindi-language writers
People from Bulandshahr district
1891 births
1960 deaths
Indian male novelists
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male essayists
Ayurvedacharyas
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
Novelists from Uttar Pradesh
20th-century Indian male writers