A Grammar of the Pure and Mixed East Indian Dialects (An Old and Rare Book)

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HERASIM LEBEDEV was one of the most remarkable personalities who flourished in the 18th-19th centuries, and he forms an important link in the early history of Indological studies in Europe, and the part he played in seeking to bring about an understanding between India on the one hand and Russia and Europe on the other has so long remained unknown and unappreciated. It is only during the last few years that we are getting to have precise information, and much fuller information than before, about this remarkable man. In Bengal, where he spent some eventful years of his life, which were in the first instance highly beneficial to the people of Bengal and India, for the last 50 years a few scholars only knew of him as an "adventurer" from Russia who had something to do with the development of the drama in Bengal. All that was generally known about him until now was that he came to Calcutta in 1787, and in the 90's of the 18th century established, for the first time in India, a play-house in the European style. with a stage and painted scenes and everything, and performed with the help of Bengali actors and actresses one of the two Bengali plays which he had got translated from English into Bengali for this purpose.

Lebedev found himself in financial difficulties, and also met with oppo. sition from a number of British residents in Calcutta; and he had to go away from India in 1797, leaving his work unfinished. He published his grammar of the Pure and Mixed East Indian Dialects etc." from London in 1801. This work had some interest for students of Indian Linguistics, but it was buried in an edition which was difficult to procure in India. Then he published in 1805 a book in Russian giving an account of Hindu culture, which has until only very recently remained a sealed book to most Indologists, both in Europe and India.

The Lebedev papers which are preserved in Moscow in the State Archives and in the Archives of Art and Literature are now revealing to us. not a mere adventurer who came out to India to seek his fortune but a real scholar who possessed both the Wanderlust and the desire for knowledge.