Sir Jadunath Sarkar, CIE, FRAS (Bengali: যদুনাথ সরকার; 10 December 1870 – 19 May 1958) was a prominent Indian historian and a specialist on the Mughal dynasty.
Sarkar was educated in English literature and worked as a teacher for some time but later shifted his focus to history research writing.
He had vast knowledge of Persian language and all his books he wrote in English. He was vice-chancellor (VC) of University of Calcutta from 1926–1928 and a member of Bengal Legislative Council between 1929–1932. In 1929 the British knighted him.[2]
He has been called the "greatest Indian historian of his time" and one of the greatest in the world, whose erudite works "have established a tradition of honest and scholarly historiography" by E. Sreedharan.[6] He has also been compared with Theodor Mommsen and Leopold von Ranke.[6]Arthur Llewellyn Basham calls him "the greatest Indian historian of his generation.".[7] He has also been described as "a star historian of modern India on medieval Indian history, who brilliantly caught the spirit of the age and devoted himself to the neglected field of Indian historiography."[8] He has also been appreciated as "unquestionably the greatest Indian historian of his time and one of the greatest in the world".[9]
Sarkar's works faded out of public memory, with the increasing advent of Marxist and postcolonial schools of historiography.[10]
His treatment of Shivaji Maharaj was however criticised by N.S.Takakhav; as "his sympathies lay with the Moguls and the commanders of Mogul empire and the British factors of Surat and Rajapur.[12]
Sarkar was honoured by Britain with a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire CIE and knighted in the 1929 Birthday Honours list.[13] He was invested with his knighthood at Simla by the acting Viceroy, Lord Goschen, on 22 August 1929.[14]
The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, an autonomous research center, has been established in his house, which was donated to the state government by Sarkar's wife. CSSC also houses the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre, a museum-cum-archive of primary sources.[15]
Chaitanya's pilgrimages and teachings, from his contemporary Bengali biography, the Chaitanya-charit-amrita: Madhya-lila (translation from the Bengali original by Krishnadasa Kaviraja, 1913)
^ abA Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000, E. Sreedharan, p. 448
^Basham, A. L. “Sir Jadunath Sarkar, C.I.E.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 3/4, 1958, pp. 222–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25202199. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.
^Jha, Ajay Kumar. “PROFILE OF A HISTORIAN: SIR JADUNATH SARKAR (1870-1958).” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 65, 2004, pp. 880–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44144800. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.
^Moumita Datta. SIR JADUNATH SARKAR. p. 11[1]. Sir Jadunath was unquestionably the greatest Indian historian of his time and one of the greatest in the world, Naturally, therefore, his powerful personality and erudite works could not fail to exert great influence on contemporary scholars and historians. There was hardly any sensitive an honest worker in the field of medieval Indian history who could remain immune from this healthy influence in some way or other, directly or indirectly.
^ abMoreland, W. H. (July 1921). "Studies in Mughal India by Jadunath Sarkar; Mughal Administration by Jadunath Sarkar". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 3 (3): 438–439. JSTOR25209765.
^Davies, C. Collin (April 1949). "Maāsir-i-'Ālamgīrī of Sāqī Must'ad Khān by Jadunath Sarkar". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1 (1): 104–106. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00102692. JSTOR25222314.
Jha, Ajay Kumar (2004). "Profile of a Historian: Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958)". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 65: 880–890. ISSN2249-1937. JSTOR44144800.
Pawar, Kiram (1985). Sir Jadunath Sarkar: A Profile in Historiography. New Delhi: Books & Books.
