Sahitya Parisad Patrika
Sahitya Parisad Patrika a research based monthly magazine. L Leotard and Kshetrapal Chakraborty founded 'The Bengal Academy of Literature' at the Shovabazar residence of Binay Krishna Dev on 8 Shravan, 1300 BS (23 July 1893). From August 1893, a monthly journal was started with the same name, edited by the secretary, Kshetrapal Chakraborty, and containing reports of weekly meetings, research articles and reviews, mostly in English. In December 1893, Rajnarain Basu requested for the use of Bangla in the meetings of the Academy. Again, Umesh Chandra Batabyal made the same request in February 1894. He proposed to change the name to Bangiya Sahitya Parisad. In the meeting of 18 February 1894, Umesh Chandra's proposals were accepted. The eighth to the eleventh issues of the journal were published from the organisation having the name Bangiya Sahitya Parisad (The Bengal Academy of Literature). Finally, on 17 Baishakh 1301 BS (29 April 1894), the Academy was reorganised as the Bangiya Sahitya Parisad and in the same year, the quarterly Bengali Journal Sahitya Parisad Patrika was started as the organ of the Parisad. Though combined issues were sometimes published, and at times even several years had to be combined in a single issue, the journal continues till date. Debajyoti Das and Santipada Bhattacharya have compiled an index volume of the journal up to 1392 BS, which is available at the Parisad.
The Sahitya Parisad Patrika was planned as a research journal from the very beginning. In the fifteenth annual report of the Parisad, Ramendrasundar Trivedi clearly outlined the ideals and objectives of the journal. According to the report, it was decided at the outset that fiction and poetry had no place in it. Even articles that did not contain newly discovered facts or new theories were not to be entertained. In selecting the articles, the Parisad mainly followed the footsteps of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, though its ambit was restricted to Bengal and the Bengalis.
The Sahitya Parisad Patrika aspired to construct the history of early Bengali literature through the collection of old manuscripts; the social history of Bengal through the collection of ritual traditions, social festivities and folk games; the political history of Bengal through the study of coins, inscriptions and documents and the history of Bengali language through the study of dialects, and the like. In its hundred years' journey through many ebbs and tides, the journal contributed substantially in all the above mentioned areas. The Bangiya Sahitya Parisad collected a huge number of manuscripts from different parts of Bengal. The description and discussion of these and other manuscripts were one of the journal's main thrust areas. It published collections of words from different districts of Bengal in its effort to compile a dictionary of Bengali dialects. Studies in local history published in the journal, mostly based on newly discovered coins and inscriptions, helped the reconstruction of the history of Bengal. Its scientific articles inaugurated the study of science in the vernacular. Even in the field of preparing Paribhasa (Bangla synonyms of technical terms) the Sahitya Parisad Patrika played a pioneering role.
Contributors to the journal include serious researchers, young and old, from almost every field of knowledge. Achyut Charan Chaudhuri, Amulya Charan Ghosh, abdul karim sahityavisharad, Dinesh Chandra Bhattacharya, nagendranath basu, nalini kanta bhattashali, Chintaharan Chakrabarty, Nirmal Kumar Basu, Padmanath Bhattacharya, Basantaranjan Roy, Bimanbihari Majumder, Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay, muhammad shahidullah, jadunath sarkar, jogesh chandra bagol, jogesh chandra ray, Rajani Kanta Gupta, rabindranath tagore, rakhaldas bandyopadhyay, ramendrasundar trivedi, Sukumar Sen, suniti kumar chatterji, sushil kumar de, haraprasad shastri, Dinesh Chandra Sarkar, ramesh chandra majumder are some of the illustrious contributors. [Indrajit Chaudhuri]
