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This paper will focus on a 20th century Nepali intellectual, Ram Mani Acharya Dixit (1883-1972), and his trans-border activities for the promotion of the vernacular by investigating his integration of the progress of a language with his nation, his apotheosis of the vernacular and his devotion in strengthening prose writing for the sake of the development of the divine mother tongue. Foregrounding his linguistic activities such as writing, publishing and printing in Nepal and India, with Benares in particular, it will try to answer questions such as: What was the motivating factor that inspired him to write and publish in the Nepali language? Was he in any way influenced by the Hindi language movement that was at its peak in North India of the time? How influential was Dixit's role in standardizing Nepali? Besides this Nepali language standardization concern, the paper will also examine Dixit's idea of serving mother, motherland, mother tongue and [Hindu] religion through service to a language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents three recitation versions of two tales from the famous Vetālapañcaviṃśati (VP; the "Twenty-Five Tales of an Animated Corpse", a medieval Sanskrit anthology of riddle-tales) that made their way orally from South Asia to Europe. The original work is one of the rare Sanskrit texts to have been disseminated widely and over a long period of time. It is a work that has thrived in oral, manuscript and printed versions. The stories in question, recorded in Germany as retold by three Nepali prisoners of war during World War I, show how this pre-modern Indian textual tradition was received into modern vernaculars and recounted in modern settings. It documents the fluidity of texts as dependent on the reciter's, scribe's or publisher's own outlook, as well as on differing times and circumstances. In addition to the text's long history of transmission, colonialism and print capitalism were further factors that influenced the retelling of the VP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have heard and read much about the wartime bravery of Gurkha soldiers, the idea of the Gurkhas as a martial race and how British recruitment practices targeted them. But much less is known about the experiences of Gurkha prisoners of war in World War I. The Germans captured thousands of soldiers fighting in the British Indian Army, and among these were a large number of Gurkhas. This imprisonment of soldiers not only served German strategic goals, but also offered a good opportunity to collect source material for research. This paper will briefly shed light on the scholarly activities engaged in by German scholars in Halbmondlager (Half Moon Camp), with a focus on the self-referential writing of one of the Gurkha prisoners of war, Jas Bahadur Rai, who never returned from the camp, but who did bequeath to posterity a song which he sang for the Germans. We will discuss whether Jas Bahadur had freedom of agency while recording his song, and if this song indeed qualifies as life-writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restrictions on the freedom of speech and press, along with the unavailability of competitive printing solutions in Nepal under the Rana regime, caused the centre of gravity of scholarly activities to shift to India. A number of Nepali intellectuals, who came from a variety of backgrounds and had various reasons for having migrated to India, were involved in writing and publishing starting by the end of the 19th century. In those days Benares had few if any peers among Indian cities as a centre of local traditions of education and Sanskrit learning, and as a spiritual, economic and literary destination for Nepalis. Benares, which occupies a special place in Nepali history for its immense contribution to the country's cultural, social, literary and political evolution, was also the main hub of Nepali print entrepreneurs. This article will delve into early such entrepreneurs and an array of Nepali printing activities in Benares before 1950. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will deal with Shivarani Devi's (1890-1976) Premcand ghar me~, a literary memoir-cum-biography of her husband Premchand, a pioneer of Hindi literature. The book has already been extensively discussed in previous studies as a mirror held up to Premchand, revealing all his dynamism as a writer, intellectual and householder. Against this backdrop, this article attempts to delve more deeply into Shivarani Devi's own intimate space within the household. It will discuss the 'self' that Shivarani Devi necessarily lays bare while portraying her husband, the 'other'. It will analyse the narrated self of Shivarani Devi within the domesticity that she defines as ghar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]