First, the background of the unusual subtitle: The Banarasi Angrez. In 2004, on my retirement from the Civil Services, I came to settle down in Banaras. Strangely, I found that here, practically no one that I met had even heard the name of James Prinsep, let alone about his many-dimensional contributions to the development of the city. Then one day I met Raman Shankar Pandya, popularly known as Rammo Bhaiya, a sixth-generation inhabitant of Banaras. He asked me what I was doing at the time, and on my replying that I was working on a biography of James Prinsep, he immediately said, 'Oh, James Prinsep! He was a great man and a greater Banarasi than we Banarasis'. I was surprised and asked him how he had heard of this name when it had evoked almost a blank response when I spoke of him to other people including senior academicians.
What Rammo Bhaiya told me was that in his childhood his grandfather would point to a house in the distance saying that that was the house where lived the 'Banarasi Angrez,' meaning a Britisher who had endeared himself to the people of Banaras so as to be identified with them.
This book would not have seen the light of the day but for my old friend Dr. Sanjay Garg, Deputy Director at the National Archives of India, and a noted historian and numismatist. He not only edited saw my manuscript through the press, but also agreed to add and Epilogue. I am grateful for his valuable contribution.
Shri Ramanand Tiwari, Proprietor of the Pilgrims Publishing has always taken a keen interest in my academic endeavours and had earlier published James Prinsep's Benares Illustrated, to which I had added a detailed Introduction. I thank him for undertaking to publish this book. Pilgrims Publishing and I, are working currently on complete works of James Prinsep.
In a departure from the usual practice of academic works which lay down their 'Conclusions' at the end, I propose to begin this study of the life and work of James Prinsep by setting down two conclusions which I have reached after having mentally stayed with him for about twenty years now. Readers may find these conclusions controversial and even unbelievable, yet I state these without much fear of contradiction and with the conviction that by the time one has gone through the book or even a substantial part of it, one will tend to agree with me. These conclusions are one, that if a graph were to be drawn of human genius, James would find a place somewhere near the top with the likes of Leonardo da Vinci; and two, that no individual has contributed more to the development of the ancient and holy city of Banaras and in so many diverse ways as James Prinsep.
One will of course ask that if James was indeed the genius he is claimed here to be, how come he has not generally been heard of? Well, there is an explanation for this: one that was set down by the well-known historian C.H. Philips in his Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, published as far back as in 1961.
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