CHAPTER VI
Tue Punpits aNpD MuUNSIS OF ‘THE Forr Wituram CoLuece. After William Carey the next writer of importance, who composed two of the earliest original works in Bengali prose, was Ram Ram Basu, who unlike Carey was a native of Bengal, born at Chinsurah towards the end of the 18th century and educated at the village of Nimteh in the 24 Pergunnahs. He was a Bangaja Kayastha, as is indicated in his Pratapaditya Charitra. To quote Dr. Carey’s account, “Ram Bose 27 and before he attained his _ sixteenth College. year became a_ perfect master of Persian and Arabic. His know- ledge of Sungskrit was not less worthy of note.” ' Such was his reputation for proficiency in these languages that Carey speaks of him admiringly “a more devout scholar than him I did never see *.” It was this reputation for learning which secured to him not only the post of a Pundit * in the College of Fort William Ram Ram Basu.
‘ Original Papers of Carey in the care of Serampore Missionary
Library, quoted in N. Ray’s Pratapaditya Charitra p. 185.
- Buchanan, op. cit. speaks of him as “a learned native” ; Marsh-
man, op. cit. describes him as ‘one of the most accomplished Bengali scholars of the day.” > Carey says that Rim Basu resigned his appointment through a difference of opinion with the authorities of the College. The date of his resignation however cannot be determined. In Roebuck, op. eit. (which was published in 1819) we do not find Ram Basu’s name in the list of the Bengali Pundits; on the other hand in Buchanan, op. cit. (published 1805) he is described as “a learned native in the College.’ He must have resigned some where between 1805 and 1818.
