Madhusudan Das: His Life and Achievements

Abstract

Madhusudan Das: His Life and Achievements has only three objectives in view :(i) to present source materials on the life and works of Madhusudan Das; (ii) to have an objective evaluation of his personality and contributions; (iii) not to succumb to the hagiographical tradition while writing on the life and works of Madhusudan. To fulfil these objectives the book has been divided in two parts. Part-1 of the present volume is a reprint of the book Madhusudan Das As Seen By Many Eyes compiled by Miss Shoila Bala Das with some alterations. Brief assessments/comments by seven eminent persons have been placed in appendices added by me.This is a companion volume to Madhusudan Das: The Man and His Missions edited by me. In the Part-ll of the said book, the reminiscenes and biographical sketches, written by persons closely associated with Madhusudan, had been placed. The Part-I of the present volume is an extension of the Part-ll of that book.Biography of a man cannot be written from the records only. The biographical sketches and reminiscenes included in this book though subjective in nature, fill up the gaps and bring out the inner side of the personality under review. So the reminiscences compiled by Shoila Bala, which had not been previously printed,have been placed in Part-I. To make a comprehensive view of the man,comments/biographical sketches written by Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and others have been published in the brief assessments/comments in the Appendices. The sources, from which such comments/sketches have been collected, have been indicated in the brief notes in the beginning.