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KALYANI KOSH
(A MAITHILI - ENGLISH DICTIONARY)
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1999
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First Edition : 1999
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$35.00
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Maharajadhiraja Kameshwara Singh
(1907—1962)
Maharaniadhirani Kama Sundari (alias Kalyani) Devi
Founder of the
Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation
FOREWORD
Maithili is a distinguished language of quite a large number of people of north India
and the southern part of Nepal Tarai. It has a long and well-known history. Quite a number
of luminaries of Maithili beginning from Vidyapati in the fifteenth century to Baidyanath
Mishra “Yatri” of the present era are known for having excelled in the art of making
poetry of classic, immortal value. The past generations are witness to an illustrious graph
of creativity of scholars who enriched the store of Maithili literature a great deal. Its value
could not remain hidden from the sight of such Western scholars as. Colebrooke, Aime
Martin and others in the beginning of colonial rule. In the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, Grierson, a great orientalist, devoted considerable time to bring it to the notice of
scholars of Indian languages at the international level. He collected a number of words,
folk songs (including those of Vidyapati), and also made effort for preparing a grammar of
Maithili. His name deserves to be remembered for his contribution to the cause of Maithili
at a time when it required the services of scholars for its development on modern track.
Gradually, the scholars of Mithila began to realize their obligation in this context.
Halli Jha, a great grammarian, took up the task of preparing a grammar of Maithili in the
last decade of the nineteenth century. With the beginning of the present century, journals
and magazines began to be brought out in Maithili. Simultaneously, the need of a dictionary
was also felt. Soon, Bhavanath Mishra prepared Mithila Shabda Prakash in seven parts, of
which the first one was published in 1914. Subsequently, Deenbandhu Jha also published
one dictionary that had been compiled by him. After independence, Jayakant Mishra made
an ambitious project in this context. A few parts of his comprehensive dictionary have so
far come to light. Govinda Jha, who is the compiler and editor of the present dictionary,
Kalyani Kosh, prepared one Maithili-Maithili dictionary which was published by Maithili
Academy, Patna. Besides, attempts were also made by a few other scholars before in this
context which deserve attention of those interested in the study of Maithili lexicography.
However, the scholars working on Mithila, particularly from the points of view of history
and social sciences, often looked for a bilingual (Maithili-English) dictionary and finding
that there was none available so far, did not hesitate to point out the deficiency of Maithili
in this context.
For this Foundation, it is really a matter of pride to publish Kalyani Kosh and, thus,
take a step towards making up the said deficiency of Maithili. It has been compiled and
edited by a renowned scholar of Maithili, Govinda Jha. He brought his final draft of the
manuscript of Maithili-English dictionary to the notice of the Foundation about five years
back. The Board of Trustees Of Foundation decided to consider it for publication under the
Kameshwara Singh Bihar Heritage Series. However, it was also felt necessary by the Board
that a group of scholars should be requested to review it and suggest ways of making it
more comprehensive. Subsequently, an advisory body was formed consisting of Damodar
Thakur, Karunakar Jha, Mohan Bharadwaj, Guneshwar Jha and Bhim Nath Jha. This advisory
committee commenced its work ii 1995, and, then, it took about a year to give a final
shape to the draft for publication. The members of the said committee made a sincere and
concerted effort under the guidance of Damodar Thakur for increasing not only the number
of words, but the quality of this dictionary. The Foundation shall ever remain indebted to
all them. .
The final draft of Kalyani Kosh was sent to press in 1996. Considering the nature of
task, it was decided to proceed patiently and be satisfied with the quality of jobs done by
the press at successive stages before printing. Under the circumstances, its publication took
relatively a long time. Since the Foundation has limited resources, it was not possible to
do any thing more in this context.
Needless to say, the debt to Govinda Jha is too great to be expressed in words. In
spite of being quite old in age, he worked tirelessly in the mean- time for making Kalyani
Kosh as comprehensive and useful as possible. However, no dictionary of a living language
can ever be claimed to be the final one. Its preparation requires continuous exercise of
word collection and compilation. So, Kalyani Kosh is not presented as having a complete
stock of words. In fact, there are reasons to believe that innumerable words of the different
corners of the society and territory of Mithila remain yet to be incorporated in it. However,
one may have the satisfaction of bringing cut one of at least benchmark value that can
make the task of the lexicographers of future quite easy.
Ashok Kumar helped in correcting proofs, Rajesh Agrawal and his assistants of Alekhan
worked hard while printing the Kalyani Kosh. I am thankful to all of them.
HETUKAR JHA
Honorary Managing Trustee,
Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh
Kalyani Foundation, Darbhanga, Bihar.
Story Behind The Venture
In 1992, Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi) proposed to bring out a Maithili-English
Dictionary. I prepared a detailed plan for the same and submitted it to the Akademi
for consideration, Unfortunately, the proposal did not materialize. However, following
the old Sanskrit maxim 3ReT ah 7 WITT (The wise men never leave
unfinished whatever they begin), I set myself to the task of executing my plan as a
labour of love. It took almost three years to prepare the final manuscript of a
Maithili-English Dictionary. Now, the problem was to find out a suitable publisher. This
was too serious a problem to be tackled easily, and therefore, the manuscript of this
dictionary remained shelved for some time.
Subsequently, in a chance meeting with Dr. Hetukar Jha, I came to know that The
Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation of Darbhanga has launched
Kameshwar Singh Bihar Heritage Series of Puplication. I submitted the said manuscript
to the Foundation with the request to publish it in the manner befitting the dignity of
the Foundation as well as its generous patron.
I am grateful to the trustees of the Foundation who considered my request and
constituted a Board of Advisors consisting of noted scholars for facilitating me to
improve the text. Consequently a number of new words and meanings were inserted,
definitions in Maithili in addition to those in English were added and various other
improvements were effected.
Out of the several titles suggested for the present dictionary, the Board of Advisors
decided Kalyani-Kosh : A Maithili-English Dictionary. Naming a dictionary after a
historical personage is not unusual. Chandrakanta Abhidhan, a series of Assamese
dictionary is a good example. Kalyani being the name of the last surviving member of
the Khandawala dynasty, has a historical significance of its own. The publication of the
present dictionary also marks a historical event. Associating the name of Kalyani with
the title of the dictionary should, hopefully, be appreciated by all those who believe in
the value of history for the future of our culture.
I express my sincere gratitude to all who helped me in the compilation of
the present dictionary. I am specially grateful to Dr. Bhim Nath Jha and Pt. Mohan
Bharadwaj for affording a good number of words, to Pt. Matinath Mishra ‘Matang’ for
making available an advance copy of his Maithili-Shabda-Kalpadruma, and to Dr. Doman
Sahu ‘Samir’ for providing numerous words from the eastern part of Mithila.
(i)
I am deeply indebted to Prof. Damodar Thakur, ex-Director, Public Instructions,
Government of Bihar, for his valuable guidance and co-operation.
And lastly, I thank my learned friend Dr. Hetukar Jha, Managing Trustee of the
Foundation, who remained always available to me for solving my doubts and checking
my slips in course of printing. It is his intelligent and masterly handling of this Project
that my dream at last becomes a reality.
Govinda Jha
Patna
Introduction
Aims and Objects
Kalyani-Kosh is a practical dictionary of the Maithili language. It is presented for
the use of native speakers as well as outsiders. Both Devanagari and Roman scripts
have been used for the words included here. The meaning and/or definition of each
word are given in both Maithili and English. It contains about 40,000 (forty thousand)
words and phrases which were collected in the course of interaction with the members
of different walks of life of Maithili speech community. Besides, the books of Maithili
literature were also consulted in this context. The words belonging exclusively to
Maithili have been our first choice. Most of the words contained in this dictionary (or
in any dictionary of Modern Indo-Aryan language) belong to the common vocabulary
of the allied languages.
Maithili problematically abounds in the regional and dialectical variance. In our
liberal social out-look all such variants living in the mouth of the speaker are equally
correct and deserve accommodation in dictionaries. We have actually accommodated a
number of them in this dictionary. But, for us, it could not be possible to collect all
such variants and incorporate them in this dictionary of practical end and moderate
size. Consequently, we have to satisfy ourselves only with those variants which have
sustained the test of time, being used continuously by the entire community. Of course
some words taken from the literary sources are exception to it, and as such they are
labelled as cls (classical) denoting that they are used only in literature and not in the
common parlance.
Orthography in Maithili has, for long, been a hot bed of controversy: We have
however, maintained a uniform way of spelling and for this have adopted a system of
orthography that is being followed since long in the widest area.
The rapid development of science and technology, trade and commerce and means
of communications has enormously changed the life style of the Maithili speaking
people within the last five decades. In course of this development numerous things of
recent production and new activities of modern life have come up mostly with their
English names. Out of the English loan words of this kind we have accommodated
only those which are found to be sufficiently naturalised.
( ii)
Keeping in view the limit of our ends and means, we have tried our best to make
the present dictionary as compact and precise as possible. For this, we have excluded.
all unnecessary derivatives and compounds retaining only those which convey some
extra significance. For example, one can find the basic word &@4, but not its regular
derivatives like tae, Sari, Saiex, cavitex ele. Likewise, there is Ut
“royal”, but not the compounds Use, WS, UST, WHET and the like, as
their senses are clearly conveyed by their components themselves.
We have paid special attention to the ceremonial and cultural significance of the
words. Similarly we have carefully shown the secondary, figurative and other indirect
meanings. Literal, etymological and historical meanings are given within single inverted
commas whenever they were found helpful. But in English such meanings are not given
considering them unnecessary for practical purposes.
‘
The Language : An Overview
The words and expressions covered in Kalyani-Kosh belong to the language known
as Maithili, Mithila Bhakha or Tirhutia. It is spoken by some 20 million people inhabiting
a tract of land called Mithila or. Tirhut covering an area of about 28,000 square kilometres
situated mainly in north Bihar in India and partly in the territory of Nepal.
Till the 16th century Maithili enjoyed the highest-status. in its region and even
outside. It was the sole medium of all sorts of social and cultural activities of the
people. It had the prestige and privilege of being the mother tongue of the then royal
families of the Karnatas, Oinibars and Khandwalas in Mithila, Mallas in Nepal and Sens
in Morang. Many of the kings of these dynasties composed poems and dramas in
Maithili and liberally patronized its writers. It is to be noted here. that the present
dictionary is also a fruit of the generosity of our late-lamented Maharaja of Darbhanga
coming from the said Khandwala dynasty. For long, Maithili also served as a lingua
franca in the north-east comprising Nepal, Assam, Bengal, Orrisa and south-east Bihar.
It had been the most effective vehicle in spreading the Vaisnavism in the said
region.
In the growth of literature Maithili stood ahead of all its neighbouring languages
and touched its acme as early as in the 14th century A.D. with the advent of poet
Vidyapati, and the trend continued for some centuries.
"With the beginning of the 17th century Maithili started to lose its ground. In proper
Mithila it was replaced in official use by. Persian, In Nepal and Morang it was ousted
by the Nepali language as a sequel to the establishment of Gorkha rule there. When
the Britishers came, Persian was replaced by English. Now Hindi is occupying virtually
all the spheres of administration, education and mass media under the Government.
(iy )
