Jadunath Sarkar

Sarkar was born on 10 December 1870 to a sadgop family in the village of Karachmaria in Chhatardighi, Singra, Rajshahi district, Bengal Presidency (now in Natore District, Bangladesh).{{cite book |last1=Bellenoit |first1=Hayden J. |title=The Formation of the Colonial State in India: Scribes, Paper and Taxes, 1760-1860 |date=17 February 2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-134-49429-3 |page=14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9TElDwAAQBAJ&dq=Jadunath+Sarkar+kayastha&pg=PA14 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=15 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240715165354/https://books.google.com/books?id=9TElDwAAQBAJ&dq=Jadunath+Sarkar+kayastha&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q=Jadunath%20Sarkar%20kayastha&f=false |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Kumar |first1=Dr R. K. Bhatt & Mr Manish |title=Development of Social Sciences: A Librarians Companion |date=10 September 2021 |publisher=K.K. Publications |page=152 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGJCEAAAQBAJ&dq=Jadunath+Sarkar+kayastha&pg=PA152 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=15 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240715165351/https://books.google.com/books?id=YGJCEAAAQBAJ&dq=Jadunath+Sarkar+kayastha&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q=Jadunath%20Sarkar%20kayastha&f=false |url-status=live }} His father, Rajkumar Sarkar, was a local zamindar and owned a large library. His mother Harisundari Devi had seven sons and three daughters, with Jadunath being the fifth child and third son.{{Cite web|date=19 March 2015|title=Sarkar, Jadunath|url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Sarkar,_Jadunath|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608164517/http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Sarkar,_Jadunath|archive-date=8 June 2020|access-date=30 November 2019|website=Banglapedia}} In 1891, he graduated in English from Presidency College, Calcutta. In 1892, he topped the Master of Arts examination, in English at Calcutta University and in 1897, he received the Premchand-Roychand Scholarship.

In 1893, he was inducted as a faculty of English literature at Ripon College, Calcutta (later renamed Surendranath College). In 1898, he was appointed at Presidency College, Calcutta after getting selected in the Provincial Education Services. In between, from 1917 to 1919, he taught modern Indian history in Benaras Hindu University and from 1919 to 1923, both English and history, at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. In 1923, he became an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society of London. In August 1926, he was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University. In 1928, he joined as Sir W. Meyer Lecturer in Madras University.

He has been called the "greatest Indian historian of his time" and one of the greatest in the world, whose erudite works "have established a tradition of honest and scholarly historiography" by E. Sreedharan.A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000, E. Sreedharan, p. 448 He has also been compared with Theodor Mommsen and Leopold von Ranke. Arthur Llewellyn Basham calls him "the greatest Indian historian of his generation."Basham, A. L. “Sir Jadunath Sarkar, C.I.E.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 3/4, 1958, pp. 222–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25202199 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417121317/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25202199 |date=17 April 2022 }}. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024. He has also been described as "a star historian of modern India on medieval Indian history, who brilliantly caught the spirit of the age and devoted himself to the neglected field of Indian historiography."Jha, Ajay Kumar. “PROFILE OF A HISTORIAN: SIR JADUNATH SARKAR (1870-1958).” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 65, 2004, pp. 880–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44144800 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240217160958/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44144800 |date=17 February 2024 }}. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024. He has also been appreciated as "unquestionably the greatest Indian historian of his time and one of the greatest in the world".{{cite book| title= SIR JADUNATH SARKAR| author= Moumita Datta | page= 11 [https://www.elearning.panchakotmv.ac.in/files/EA15973715968162540.pdf] | quote= "Sir Jadunath was unquestionably the greatest Indian historian of his time and one of the greatest in the world, Naturally, therefore, his powerful personality and erudite works could not fail to exert great influence on contemporary scholars and historians. There was hardly any sensitive an honest worker in the field of medieval Indian history who could remain immune from this healthy influence in some way or other, directly or indirectly."}}

Sarkar's works faded out of public memory, with the increasing advent of Marxist and postcolonial schools of historiography.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jpXijlqeRpIC&pg=PR10|title=India's Historic Battles: From Alexander the Great to Kargil|author=Kaushik Roy|publisher=Orient Blackswan|year=2004|isbn=978-81-7824-109-8|pages=10}}

Academically, Jos J. L. Gommans compares Sarkar's work with those of the Aligarh historians, noting that while the historians from the Aligarh worked mainly on the mansabdari system and gunpowder technology in the Mughal Empire, Sarkar concentrated on military tactics and sieges.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vA3YVOt9QZUC&pg=PA1|title=Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire, 1500-1700|author=Jos J. L. Gommans|author-link=Jos Gommans|publisher=Psychology Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-415-23989-9|pages=1}}

File:Jadunath sarkar.jpg

His treatment of Shivaji was however criticised by N.S.Takakhav; as "his sympathies lay with the Moguls and the commanders of Mogul empire and the British factors of Surat and Rajapur."{{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.63318 | title=The Life of Shivaji Maharaj | date=1921 }} Also in a letter dated 25 November 1945 to historian Dr. Raghubir Sinh of Sitamau, Sarkar says, "Aurangzib is my life's work; Shivaji is only an incidental off-shoot of it."{{Cite book |last=Sarkar |first=Jadunath |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tiQdAAAAMAAJ |title=Making of a Princely Historian: Letters of Sir J. N. Sarkar to Dr. Raghubir Sinh of Sitamau |publisher=Maharashtra State Board for Archives and Archaeology |year=1975 |pages=203}}

In 1904, Sarkar was given the Griffith Prize by the University of Calcutta (Kolkata, Bengal). He was elected as a member of the Indian Historical Records Commission in 1919. In 1923, he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Hon. MRAS) and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (Hon. FRASB).[https://jbmrc.cssscal.org/about/jadunath-sarkar/ About Jadunath Sarkar] - website of the Jadunath Bhavan Museum of the CSSSC

Sarkar was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1926 New Year Honours{{London Gazette |issue=33119 |date=29 December 1925 |pages=1–12 |supp=y }} and knighted in the 1929 Birthday Honours by King George V, then also Emperor of India.{{London Gazette |issue=33501 |date=31 May 1929 |pages=3665–3682 |supp=y |nolink=yes }} On 22 August 1929, he was invested with his knighthood at Simla by the acting Viceroy of India, George Goschen, 2nd Viscount Goschen.{{London Gazette|issue=33539|date=1 October 1929 |page=6245 |supp=}}

In 1935, he became a corresponding member of the Royal Historical Society (London, UK) and honorary member of the American Historical Association (Washington, D.C., USA). In 1936 he received an honorary D.Litt. degree from the University of Dhaka and in 1944 from the University of Patna. When he reached his eightieth year, he was honoured in 1949 and 1950 by the literary associations Bangiya Sahitya Parishat and the Bangiya Itihas Parishad (both in Kolkata, West Bengal) for his lifetime achievements.

The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, an autonomous research center, has been established in his house, which was donated to the state government by Sarkar's wife. CSSC also houses the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre, a museum-cum-archive of primary sources.{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/in-the-memory-of-jadunath-sarkar/cid/1610057|title=In the memory of Jadunath Sarkar|website=The Telegraph|language=en|access-date=30 November 2019|archive-date=16 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316093352/https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/in-the-memory-of-jadunath-sarkar/cid/1610057|url-status=live}}

Published works by Sarkar include:

• Economics of British India (1900)
• The India of Aurangzib (1901)
• Anecdotes of Aurangzib (1912)
• History of Aurangzib (in 5 volumes), (1912–24)
• Chaitanya's pilgrimages and teachings, from his contemporary Bengali biography, the Chaitanya-charit-amrita: Madhya-lila (translation from the Bengali original by Krishnadasa Kaviraja, 1913)
• Shivāji and his times (1919)
• Studies in Mughal India (1919){{cite journal |last=Moreland |first=W. H. |date=July 1921 |title=Studies in Mughal India by Jadunath Sarkar; Mughal Administration by Jadunath Sarkar |journal=The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=438–439 |jstor=25209765}}
• Mughal Administration (1920)
• Nadir Shah in India (1922)
• Later Mughals by William Irvine (in 2 volumes), (edited by Jadunath Sarkar, 1922)
• India through the ages (1928)
• A Short History of Aurangzib (1930)
• The Fall of the Mughal Empire (in 4 volumes), (1932–38)
• Studies in Aurangzib's reign (1933)
• The House of Shivaji (1940)
• The History of Bengal (in 2 volumes), (1943–1948)
• Maāsir-i-ʻĀlamgiri: a history of the emperor Aurangzib-ʻl̀amgir (translation from the Persian original by Muḥammad Sāqī Mustaʻidd Khān, 1947){{cite journal |last=Davies |first=C. Collin |date=April 1949 |title=Maāsir-i-'Ālamgīrī of Sāqī Must'ad Khān by Jadunath Sarkar |journal=The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=104–106 |doi=10.1017/S0035869X00102692 |jstor=25222314}}
• Military History of India (1960)
• A History of Jaipur, c. 1503–1938 (1984){{cite journal |last=Smith |first=John D. |author-link=John D. Smith |date=1985 |title=Jadunath Sarkar: A History of Jaipur, c. 1503-1938 |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |volume=48 |issue=3 |page=620 |jstor=618587|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00039343 |s2cid=161804789 }}
• A History Of Dasnami Naga Sanyasis

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book|title=The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and His Empire of Truth|last=Chakrabarty|first=Dipesh|year=2015|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-10044-9|location=Chicago and London|url=http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo8607679.html}}

• {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tLE5AQAAIAAJ|title=Sir Jadunath Sarkar Commemoration Volume.|publisher=Department of History, Panjab University|year=1957|editor-last=Gupta|editor-first=Hari Ram|editor-link=Hari Ram Gupta|volume=I|location=Hoshiarpur|oclc=251228572}}
• {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sr85AQAAIAAJ|title=Sir Jadunath Sarkar Commemoration Volume.|date=1958|publisher=Department of History, Panjab University|editor1-last=Gupta|editor1-first=Hari Ram|editor-mask=8|volume=II|location=Hoshiarpur|oclc=470654377|editor2-last=Kaushal|editor2-first=Paras Ram|editor3-last=Talwar|editor3-first=Shanti Swarup}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Jha|first=Ajay Kumar|date=2004|title=Profile of a Historian: Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958)|journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress|volume=65|pages=880–890|issn=2249-1937|jstor=44144800}}
• {{Cite book|title=Sir Jadunath Sarkar: A Profile in Historiography|last=Pawar|first=Kiram|year=1985|location=New Delhi|publisher=Books & Books}}

{{Commons category|Jadunath Sarkar}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• {{Cite book |last=Ray |first=Aniruddha |year=2012 |chapter=Sarkar, Jadunath |chapter-url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Sarkar,_Jadunath |editor1-last=Islam |editor1-first=Sirajul |editor1-link=Sirajul Islam |editor2-last=Jamal |editor2-first=Ahmed A. |title=Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh |edition=Second |publisher=Asiatic Society of Bangladesh}}
• [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/524365/Sir-Jadunath-Sarkar Sir Sarkar at Britannica Encyclopedia]
• {{Gutenberg author | id=39200| name=Jadunath Sarkar}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Jadunath Sarkar}}

{{University of Calcutta Vice chancellors}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarkar, Jadunath}}

Category:Presidency University, Kolkata alumni

Category:Bengali historians

Category:Bengali zamindars

Category:Academic staff of Presidency University, Kolkata

Category:Historians of South Asia

Category:19th-century Indian historians

Category:People from Natore District

Category:Rajshahi College alumni

Category:University of Calcutta alumni

Category:Academic staff of the University of Calcutta

Category:Vice-chancellors of the University of Calcutta

Category:1870 births

Category:1958 deaths

Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire

Category:Indian Knights Bachelor

Category:20th-century Indian historians

Category:Scholars from Kolkata

Category:Historians from British India

Category:Bengali knights