Riaz-i-Tirhut of Ayodhya Prasad "Bahar"- A Glimpse of Tirhut in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

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It is, indeed, a matter of great pleasure that Riaz-i-Tirhut of Ayodhya Prasad 'Bahar' has come out in print under Kameshwar Singh Bihar Heritage Series after more than a century of its first edition.

This series was launched by the Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation, Darbhanga, for bringing to light the records, reports and other works relating to socio-economic/ political/ cultural life of Bihar. Priority, of course, is given to those published long time back, which are, now, more or less completely lost and forgotten, and deserve to be consulted and used by the scholars working on Bihar. It was with this purpose of regeneration of materials for the promotion of knowledge on Bihar that two books, namely, Bihar Durpan (in Hindi) of Babu Ramdin Singh (first comprehensive edn., Khadga Vilas Press, 1882) and India Tracts of James Browne, (first edition, Logographic Press, Black-Friars, 1788) were published in 1996. Riaz-i-Tirhut is third in this series to come out.

This book was written in Urdu by Ayodhya Prasad 'Bahar' in 1867 at Darbhanga and was published in 1868 in Muzaffarpur. Riaz literally means garden. The meaning of the title of the book is "gardens of Tirhut". The author has used the word garden (riaz) in a figurative sense denoting aspect or facet. The book includes description of different aspects of life in Tirhut which in 1860s included present districts of Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Darbhanga, Madhubani and Sitamarhi. The descriptions reported seem to be based partly on author's own observations and experience and partly on the information he collected from pauranic and other sources. Most of the accounts regarding Darbhanga town and other place are significant in the sense that one does not come across such details in other reports and records.

Efforts were made for searching a copy of this book in various libraries. Quite a number of persons who own and maintain their personal libraries were also approached. But, the book was not found anywhere. Fortunately, about three years back, Shri Shadan Faruqui, in a chance meeting with him at his residence in Laheriasarai (Darbhanga), informed that a copy of Riaz-i-Tirhut was available with him. He had seen this book in the personal library of late Maulana Muhammad Ilias Rahmani. Ilias Rahmani had a rich collection of Persian and Urdu records regarding Tirhut and his contribution to the history of Darbhanga in particular and Mithila in general is quite well- known¹. However, after his death, his library remained ignored and now it is difficult to say what happened to that collection. Another copy of this book was available in Lakshmishwar Public Library of Darbhanga. Shri Shadan Faruqui, being a renowned scholar and poet of Urdu, considered its value both as an old work of Urdu prose and as a rich source of regional history. He, therefore, copied the entire text of the book by hand. At that time (in 1960s), facility of photo-copying was not available. Now, when even that single copy of this book is reported to be missing from the said library, the only copy that exists is the one prepared by Shri Shadan Faruqui. He was kind enough to allow his personal copy to be photo-copied and expressed his sincere desire for its publication and circulation among scholars. However, its publication in its original form could have been of only limited value. Therefore, for its wider use, it was decided to get it translated into Hindi or English and then reprint the original version alongwith the translated one. Fortunately, Shri Izharul Imam who is well acquainted with Persian and Arabic languages, came forward and volunteered to translate it into Hindi soon. It took him a few weeks to transcribe the entire text in Deonagari script. Simultaneously, he also translated it in Hindi.