Hason Raja
(1854-1922 AD)
Hason Raja was a Bengali mystic poet, philosopher, lyricist and composer of music. He was born in British Bengal (present day Bangladesh). He spent most of his life in Sunamganj, Sylhet and Bishwanath of Sylhet Division in Bangladesh. He also travelled to Kolkata (Calcutta), Dhaka (Dacca), Shilong and other parts of India. Hason Raja gained international recognition after
his death when Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore quoted and evaluated his works in his lectures at Oxford University. Tagore said, “We realise it through admiration and love, through hope that soars beyond the actual, beyond our own span of life into an endless time wherein we live of all men.” and “It is a village poet of East Bengal who preaches in a song the philosophical doctrine that the universe has its reality in its relation to the Person.”
His ancestors lived in Varanasi, Ayodhya and Raebareli of India. From there they moved to Bardhaman (present day West Bengal of India), Jessore (Bangladesh) and lastly to Bishwanath of Sylhet Division. His father Ali Raja married the widowed wife of his cousin Amir Baksh Choudhury of Lakkhansree (Laksmansree) of Sunamganj and Hason Raja was born to this couple on 21 December, 1854. Hason Raja had one sister and two brothers; they were Dewan Obaydur Raja (brother), Sahifa Banu (sister) and Muzaffar Raja (brother). Since his childhood Hason lived with his mother Hurmat Jahan Banu. Owing to traditions of a zaminder (landlord) family, his early life was moulded in an aura of luxury and comfort. He, however, understood the burden of his mother’s sadness who lost four of her children before his birth. Also, Hason’s father Ali Raja used to stay at Rampasha in Sylhet Division for eight to nine months of the year to look after his zamindari (estate) there. Hason Raja learned Arabic, Persian, Hindustani and Bengali from his tutors in this somber background. Hason Raja grew up on the bank of Surma River. Because of a partially absentee father, Hason Raja became restless. He used to take out boats and roam the Surma River and adjacent lakes and swamps. He roamed the nearby jungles and took to swimming and kite flying and he reached his adolescence in such bucolic background. He met and befriended many people and it was around this time that he started writing tripadi ( a Bengali poetic metre) verses. Later he included these verses in his book “Showkhin Bahar”. Traditionally, there had been a musical environment around his residence since his childhood. Bauls were regular visitors of their house with different folksongs like Thakurbhugi, keertana, bichchhedi, Raibichchhedi, Shambichchhedi, moharash baul, huligan, fakiri, Gazir geet, and nauka baich geet. At the same time female Bauls performed bier geet, mongola, mal, mathur, gusto, firagusto and many other songs for the ladies in the inner apartments. All these musical atmospheres had great effect in his song writing . In 1869, at the age of 15, Hason Raja experienced an earthquake which was followed by flood and storm. Two years after this natural disaster, at the age of seventeen, Hason Raja saw his elder brother Obaydur Raja die when he was only 39 years old. Just after 39 days of his brother’s death his father Ali Raja passed away. These two deaths devastated Hason Raja. He wrote;
Gaining wealth and assets, Hason! you become the landlord
Can you think that you would stay in Lakkhansree for eternity! In this difficult and sad times Hason Raja fell in love with a beautiful young lady but failed to get her beside him. He started his book of songs ‘Hason Bahar’ at this time. Love for a fellow human being turned into a love for the esoteric, the divine. He wandered around Karimganj, Shilschar, Shilong, Mymensing, Dhaka, Kolkata and Delhi. A wanderer Hason Raja became involved in several infatuous marriages with some well-bred women in Sylhet. After this spell of amorous activities Hason Raja became indulged in different hobbies. He hunted kora (moor hen) obsessively. In 1897 at the age of his 43, Hason Raja saw a devastating earthquake at the Richter scale of 8.8. This left a lasting impact on his mind and thoughts. He took it as a warning from his creator and mentioned in his songs that he had vision about a close encounter with Him. ‘Hason Udash’ became an amazing book with so many wonderful mystic poems in it.
100 years before the independence of Bangladesh, Hason Raja took pride in his Bengali roots. He considered himself a Bangali-devotee (sadhak). In his role as a sadhak, he enriched Bengali folk literature, and thus, ultimately, Bengali literature. Thus he could say:
I am desperately craving for my beauty, the lover
Oh Radha, for you, Bengali Hason Raja crying and roaming everywhere
The benevolent, non-communal Hason Raja wanted reconciliation and rapprochement between classes, creeds, races and nations. Having known the mystic spirit of love, he wanted to embrace all men of all classes. In one of his songs he says:
All classes will become one,
Merging into each other
There won’t be any egoism,
Hason Raja says. After the deaths of his beloved brother and father, he realized that the world is very transitory and nobody would live for ever. He was devastated again when his mother Hurmat Jahan left this world in 1904. An all engulfing emptiness struck him again and brought him face to face with the futility of worldliness. He sang;
My father and brother died, and my mother too
Hason now knows the price one has to pay to live in this world
These days have gone in neglect and nights wasted in slumber,
Raja wakes up at dawn and cries. Since that day Hason Raja started getting ready for the final day of leave. From the bank of Surma or the bank of Kapna, Hason would soon be leaving Lakkhansree, the village of love or Rampasha, the village of colours, and sailing to the eternal land of hereafter riding on the boat of soul. He wrote:
There won’t be any value of a beautiful mansion
I can build in this void. Today most Bangladeshis have heard of Hason Raja’s name and almost everyone can sing or cite at least a line or two from one of his songs. His songs are influenced by Vaishnava Padavali Keertana, Sufi poetry and even Buddhism. He draws on various images and sources to express his deep longing for spiritual union, the union between creator and the created. He sings of human self-awareness, a self reflection which evolves into modern self-led thought of responsibility and creativity. Hason Raja died in 1922, at the age of 68, just a few years before his contribution to Bengali literature was recognised and mentioned in lectures at Oxford University by Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1930. Two museums were established in his name in two places, one namely, Hason Raja Museum sponsored by "Hason Raja Museum Trust" at his birthplace at Lakkhansree, Sunamganj which displays a good number of his memorabilia to visitors on daily basis and another is ‘Museum of Rajas' at Rajakunjo, Sylhet, Bangladesh. Exploring his Brahma, the person, the man, Tagore happened to come across Hason Raja in his writings and got astonished by the vastness of his thought. He translated the following lines:
‘The sky and the earth are born of mine own eyes,
The hardness and softness,
the cold and the heat are the products
of mine own body,
The sweet smell and the bad are of my own nostrils.’
This poet sings of the Eternal Person within him, coming out and appearing before his eyes, just as the Vedic Rishi speaks of the Person, who is in him, dwelling also in the heart of the sun:
‘I have seen the vision,
the vision of mine own revealing itself,
coming out from within me’. ” ( translated by R Tagore 1930)
Hason Raja's poetry reflects his spiritual pursuits and the ever-changing nature of the world. Poet Tagore was overwhelmed with the depth of Hason Raja’s thought, the insight, the supreme truth and the ultimate goal. Tagore found that individual in Hason Raja by saying that “The concrete form is a more perfect manifestation than the atom, and man is more perfect as a man than where he vanishes in an original indefiniteness’.
