Prithwindra Mukherjee
Encyclopedia
Prithwindra Mukherjee retired in 2003 from a career as a researcher in the Human and Social Sciences Department (Ethnomusicology) of the French National Centre of Scientific Research
http://www.cnrs.fr/ in Paris
. He is the author of a number of books and other publications on various subjects.
, India
, in 1936, and educated at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School
(at present, the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education) in Pondicherry. He is the grandson of the Bengali
revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin).
, French
and English language
s and literature in Pondicherry. He was mentioned by the Sahitya Akademi
(New Delhi
) manuals and anthologies as a poet before he attained the age of 20. As a specialist in the French language
and literature, he translated works by such French authors as Albert Camus
, Saint-John Perse
, and René Char
directly from their originals.
He moved to Paris
with a French Government Scholarship (1966-70). He prepared and defended a thesis on Sri Aurobindo
at Sorbonne
. Later he served as a lecturer on Indian civilisation and philosophy, producer of several radio features on Indian culture and music for Radio France
, and he was also free-lancing as a journalist for the Indian and French press. His next thesis for Doctorat d’Etat (PhD
), was supervised by Raymond Aron
in University Paris IV, on the pre-Gandhian phase of India’s freedom fight
. His thesis discussed this movement from 1893 to 1918 and its spiritual roots.
In 1977, invited by the National Archives of India as a guest of the Historical Records Commission, he presented a paper on Jatindra Nath Mukherjee and the Indo-German Conspiracy in the presence of personalities like Arthur L. Basham
and Professor S. Nurul Hasan. Prithwindra's original contribution in this area has been recognised by Professor Amales Tripathi, Bhupendrakumar Datta, Dr Jadugopal Mukhopadhyay, Dr. M.N. Das (Utkal University),¨Professor A.C. Bose, Samaren Roy, Bhupati Majumdar, Basudha Chakravarty. Quite a few of his papers on the subject have been translated into major Indian languages.
Since his reaching Paris, for a number of years, invited by the literary magazine Desh of Calcutta he published his impressions of Paris
life (Paris'ér chithi - Letters from Paris ), as well as several cover features including Jatin Mukherjee
alias Bagha Jatin
, M.N. Roy, Tarak Nath Das
, Dhan Gopal Mukerji
, French Revolutionary and the Bengali intelligentsia and the poetry-cum-dance genre of the kîrtana
(on which he has also produced a documentary film
).
He went to USA as a Fulbright scholar and discovered, especially in the Wilson Papers, scores of files covering the Indian revolutionaries
. On returning to France in 1981, he joined French National Centre of Scientific Research in 1981. He was also a founder-member of the French Literary Translators' Association http://www.atlf.org/atlfenglish.html. He retired from there a few years back. He has published as much in Bengali
as in French
. One of his recent contributions is a documentary film on the musical pillars in the temples of South India
(CNRS-Audiovisual, Paris).
Since 1981, Prithwindra Mukherjee joined the LACITO of the CNRS (Department of Ethnomusicology) working on a comprehensive cognitive study of scales of North and South Indian music.
The eminent author Jacques Attali
in his French biography of Gandhi (Fayard, 2007) mentions his debt to PM for having revised the manuscripts and collaborated actively. Later Mr Attali has qualified Prithwindra Mukherjee as "the man of Franco-Indian Renaissance".
On 1 January 2009, the Minister of Culture of France has appointed Prithwindra Mukherjee to the rank of chevalier (Knight)of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....
http://www.cnrs.fr/ in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He is the author of a number of books and other publications on various subjects.
Early life
Prithwindra was born in KolkataKolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, in 1936, and educated at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School
Sri Aurobindo Ashram
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram was founded by Sri Aurobindo on the 24 November 1926 . At the time there were no more than 24 disciples in the Ashram...
(at present, the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education) in Pondicherry. He is the grandson of the Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin).
Professional and academic life
Prithwindra began his working life as a teacher of BengaliBengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
s and literature in Pondicherry. He was mentioned by the Sahitya Akademi
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...
(New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
) manuals and anthologies as a poet before he attained the age of 20. As a specialist in the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and literature, he translated works by such French authors as Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Saint-John Perse
Saint-John Perse
Saint-John Perse was a French poet, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry." He was also a major French diplomat from 1914 to 1940, after which he lived primarily in the USA until 1967.-Biography:Alexis Leger was...
, and René Char
René Char
René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
directly from their originals.
He moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with a French Government Scholarship (1966-70). He prepared and defended a thesis on Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...
at Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
. Later he served as a lecturer on Indian civilisation and philosophy, producer of several radio features on Indian culture and music for Radio France
Radio France
Radio France is a French public service radio broadcaster.-Mission:Radio France's two principal missions are:* To create and expand the programming on all of their stations; and...
, and he was also free-lancing as a journalist for the Indian and French press. His next thesis for Doctorat d’Etat (PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
), was supervised by Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron
Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
in University Paris IV, on the pre-Gandhian phase of India’s freedom fight
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
. His thesis discussed this movement from 1893 to 1918 and its spiritual roots.
In 1977, invited by the National Archives of India as a guest of the Historical Records Commission, he presented a paper on Jatindra Nath Mukherjee and the Indo-German Conspiracy in the presence of personalities like Arthur L. Basham
Arthur Llewellyn Basham
Professor Arthur Llewellyn Basham was a noted historian and indologist and author of a number of books. It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that two of the most renowned living historians of early India, Professors R.S...
and Professor S. Nurul Hasan. Prithwindra's original contribution in this area has been recognised by Professor Amales Tripathi, Bhupendrakumar Datta, Dr Jadugopal Mukhopadhyay, Dr. M.N. Das (Utkal University),¨Professor A.C. Bose, Samaren Roy, Bhupati Majumdar, Basudha Chakravarty. Quite a few of his papers on the subject have been translated into major Indian languages.
Since his reaching Paris, for a number of years, invited by the literary magazine Desh of Calcutta he published his impressions of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
life (Paris'ér chithi - Letters from Paris ), as well as several cover features including Jatin Mukherjee
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin , born Jatindranath Mukherjee was an Bengali revolutionary philosopher against British rule....
alias Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin , born Jatindranath Mukherjee was an Bengali revolutionary philosopher against British rule....
, M.N. Roy, Tarak Nath Das
Tarak Nath Das
Taraknath Das was an anti-British Bengali Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organizing the Asian Indian immigrants in favor of the Indian freedom movement...
, Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Dhan Gopal Mukerji was the first successful Indian man of letters in the United States and winner of Newbery Medal 1928...
, French Revolutionary and the Bengali intelligentsia and the poetry-cum-dance genre of the kîrtana
Kirtan
Kirtan or Kirtana is call-and-response chanting or "responsory" performed in India's devotional traditions. A person performing kirtan is known as a kirtankar. Kirtan practice involves chanting hymns or mantras to the accompaniment of instruments such as the harmonium, tablas, the two-headed...
(on which he has also produced a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
).
He went to USA as a Fulbright scholar and discovered, especially in the Wilson Papers, scores of files covering the Indian revolutionaries
Revolutionary movement for Indian independence
The Revolutionary movement for Indian independence is often a less-highlighted aspect of the Indian independence movement -- the underground revolutionary factions. The groups believing in armed revolution against the ruling British fall into this category. The revolutionary groups were...
. On returning to France in 1981, he joined French National Centre of Scientific Research in 1981. He was also a founder-member of the French Literary Translators' Association http://www.atlf.org/atlfenglish.html. He retired from there a few years back. He has published as much in Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
as in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. One of his recent contributions is a documentary film on the musical pillars in the temples of South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
(CNRS-Audiovisual, Paris).
Since 1981, Prithwindra Mukherjee joined the LACITO of the CNRS (Department of Ethnomusicology) working on a comprehensive cognitive study of scales of North and South Indian music.
The eminent author Jacques Attali
Jacques Attali
Jacques Attali is a French economist, writer and senior civil servant.Former adviser to President François Mitterrand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance and was nominated President of the Commission for...
in his French biography of Gandhi (Fayard, 2007) mentions his debt to PM for having revised the manuscripts and collaborated actively. Later Mr Attali has qualified Prithwindra Mukherjee as "the man of Franco-Indian Renaissance".
On 1 January 2009, the Minister of Culture of France has appointed Prithwindra Mukherjee to the rank of chevalier (Knight)of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Selected bibliography
- Danse cosmique - (trilingual collection of selected poems, published on the occasion of the creation of Correspondences voice (Dawn Upshaw) and orchestra (Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle) by the senior French composer Henri DutilleuxHenri DutilleuxHenri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...
: it contains as the first movement PM's 'Danse cosmique', in homage to Shiva Nataraja; Foreword by Jean BièsJean BièsJean Biès is a French philosopher and author. He is the recipient of the High Prize of the Society of French Poets , Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor , and a prolific modern proponent of the Traditionalist School...
, éd. Le Décaèdre/ Findakly, 2003 - Sri Aurobindo, 'Biographies', Desclée de Brouwer, 2000
- Nandî le Fou et autres nouvelles de BanaphulBanaphoolBanaphool is the pen name of the Bengali author, playwright and poet, Balāi Chānd Mukhopādhyāy .- Life:...
. Selection of texts, translation, introduction and notes. Gallimard, 1994. - Anthologie de la poésie bengalie, choix de textes, traduction, introduction et notes, 1991. 301p. Repr. in pocket book, 1992, L'Harmattan.
- Les écrits bengalis de Sri Aurobindo. Foreword by Olivier LACOMBE of the French Academy. Dervy-Livres, 1986.
- Chants bâuls, les Fous de l'Absolu, selection of texts, translation in French and English, introduction, notes on esoteric symbols. éd. Findakly/ Ministry of Culture, 1985.
- Maître Camkara, discours sur le bouddhisme, éd. Trédaniel, 1985
- Le sâmkhya, essai philosophique. Foreword by Professor Guy BUGAULT (University Paris IV). Epi/DDB, 1983.
- Serpent de flammes, poèmes. Foreword G. MOURGUE. éd. Estienne, 1981
- Chants Caryâ, a collection of Bengali sahaj-yâna texts, with introduction and notes, Le Calligraphe, Paris, 1981
- Poèmes du Bangladesh, a selection of poems, Publications Orientalistes de France, Paris, 1975 (with LP containing some poems recited by Madeleine Renaud, Jean-Louis Barrault and PM)
- Thât/Mélakartâ : The Fundamental Scales in Indian Music of the North and the South, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, 2004; foreword by Pandit Ravi Shankar
- prasanga bâul : kichhu durbhâvanâ ('About the Bâuls : Some Questions') in Ebong mushâyérâ, Kolkâtâ
- sri aurobindo ki samasâmayik ? ('Is Sri Aurobindo our contemporary ?') in Vasudhârâ, Kolkâtâ,
- Sri Aurobindo (biographie), Sri Aurobindo Institute of Culture, Kolkâtâ, 2003 [Sri Aurobindo Award]
- Cognitive Prototypes in Râgas of Indian Music .in Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Linguists, Palais de Congress, 1997, Elsevier Science, Oxford, 1998
- "Rabindranâth Tagore" in Les Prix Nobel de Littérature, éd. L'Alhambra, Paris, 1992, pp.185-191.
- "Rabindranath Tagore" in Encyclopédie Universalis (several editions since 1982)
- "Rabindranath tagore" in Dictionaire des littératures, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris
- Vishvéra chokhé Rabindranath, tributes to the Poet, Rupa & Co, Calcutta, 1991
- Undying Courage : Biography of Jatindranath Mukherjee (one of the founders of the Freedom Movement in India), Academic Publishers, Calcutta, 1992
- Sâdhak biplabi jatîndranâth : a comprehensive biography of Jatindranath Mukherjee, West Bengal Board of Books, Calcutta, 1991
- Bâghâ Jatîn, an abridged biography, Dey's Publishing, Calcutta, 4th Edition.
- Mélakartâ, Mukherjee, Prithwindra (auteur), Préface de Ravi Shankar, Editions Publibook Université, 2010, ISBN 9782748352351
- Les racines intellectuelles du mouvement d'indépendance de l'Inde (1893-1918), Préface de Jacques Attali, Editions Codex, 2010