Bihar Languages and Literature: Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi

Bihar is one of the most linguistically layered states of India. Hindi is its official language, Urdu has the status of second official language, and in everyday speech people use Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Angika, Bajjika and Surjapuri. Examiners like this chapter because it joins three things they can test in one line each: which language is in the Eighth Schedule, which region speaks which tongue, and which writer wrote which book.

How the languages of Bihar are classified

Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magahi belong to the eastern branch of the Indo-Aryan family. George Abraham Grierson, who served in Bihar and later directed the Linguistic Survey of India, grouped them together as the Bihari languages, and the name has stuck in textbooks ever since. All three descend from the Prakrits of the middle Gangetic plain, which is why Magahi is traced to Magadhi Prakrit, the speech of ancient Magadha. Ardhamagadhi, a close relative, is the language in which the Jain canon preserves the sermons of Mahavira, and Pali, the language of the Buddhist canon, grew out of the same regional speech.

Maithili and its literature

Maithili is spoken in the Mithila region of north Bihar, in districts such as Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur, Saharsa and Supaul, and across the border in the Terai of Nepal. It is the only language of Bihar listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution: it was added by the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, 2003, along with Bodo, Dogri and Santhali, taking the number of scheduled languages to twenty-two. Its own script is Tirhuta, also called Mithilakshar, although Maithili today is printed mainly in Devanagari.

The towering name in Maithili is Vidyapati, the fourteenth and fifteenth century poet of the court of Mithila who is remembered as Maithil Kokil, the nightingale of Mithila. His Maithili padavali of Radha and Krishna songs is still sung, and he also wrote in Sanskrit and in Avahattha, the literary speech of his day, in works such as Kirtilata, Kirtipataka and Purusha Pariksha. Earlier than his songs stands Varna Ratnakara by Jyotirishwar Thakur, counted as the first prose work in Maithili. Chanda Jha rendered the Ramayana into Maithili, Harimohan Jha turned Mithila society into satire in Khattar Kaka and Kanyadan, and Baidyanath Mishra wrote in Maithili as Yatri while writing in Hindi as Nagarjun.

Bhojpuri, Magahi and the smaller tongues

Bhojpuri takes its name from Bhojpur in the old Shahabad country and is spoken in Bhojpur, Buxar, Rohtas, Saran, Siwan, Gopalganj and the Champaran districts, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, and by the descendants of indentured labourers in Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Trinidad and Guyana. It was written in the Kaithi script in old land records. It is not in the Eighth Schedule, and the demand that it be added is a standing question in the news. Its literature is overwhelmingly a performed literature: Bhikhari Thakur, called the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, wrote and staged Bidesiya, Beti Bechwa, Gabarghichor and Bidhwa Vilap, and Mahendra Misir is remembered for his purvi songs.

Magahi is the speech of the old Magadha country, that is Patna, Gaya, Nalanda, Nawada, Jehanabad and Aurangabad. Angika belongs to the Anga country around Bhagalpur and Munger, Bajjika to the Vajji country around Muzaffarpur, Vaishali and Sitamarhi, and Surjapuri to Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnia. In the census these are returned as mother tongues grouped under Hindi, which is why the Hindi figure for Bihar is so large.

Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit from Bihar

Bihar has given Hindi two of its best known modern writers. Ramdhari Singh Dinkar of Simaria in Begusarai, honoured as Rashtrakavi, wrote Kurukshetra, Rashmirathi and Parashuram ki Prateeksha, received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sanskriti ke Char Adhyay and the Jnanpith Award for Urvashi. Phanishwar Nath Renu of Aurahi Hingna in the Purnia country wrote Maila Anchal, the novel that gave Hindi its regional, or anchalik, tradition, along with Parti Parikatha and the story that became the film Teesri Kasam. Shiva Pujan Sahay and Raja Radhika Raman Singh belong to the same Hindi prose line.

In Urdu, Patna wrote as Azimabad, and the city produced Shaad Azimabadi and Kalim Ajiz; the famous ghazal beginning Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna is attributed to Bismil Azimabadi of Patna. In Sanskrit, Mithila was the home of Navya Nyaya logic: Gangesha Upadhyaya wrote the Tattvachintamani there, and Vachaspati Mishra and Mandan Mishra belong to the same tradition. The Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library at Patna, founded in 1891, preserves the Persian and Arabic manuscripts of this heritage and is an institution of national importance.