Muhammad Mansuruddin

Muhammad Mansuruddin (31 January 1904 – 19 September 1987) was a Bengali author, literary critic, essayist, lexicographer and biographer from Bangladesh.

He was an authority on folklore and was famous for a huge collection of age-old folk songs, mostly anthologised in thirteen volumes under the title Haramoni.

On 31 January 1904 Mansuruddin was born to Muhammad Jaider Ali (father) and Jiarun Nisa (mother) in the Muraripur village under Sujanagar thana of Pabna district of East Bengal of the British India, now in Bangladesh.

His education started in a rural school called Madhabchandra Nandi Pathshala.

He matriculated from the Khalilpur High School 1921.

He did ISc from the Pabna Edward College in 1923 and then IA from the Rajshahi College in 1924, both IA and ISc being equivalent to HSC.

While a student of the Rajshahi College, he was married to Sharifun Nisa in 1925.

They had six sons and six daughters.

He obtained his bachelor's degree (BA) from the Rajshahi College in 1926.

He studied in the department of Indian Vernacular of the Calcutta University from where he secured M. A. (Master of Arts) with a First Class in 1928.

In 1929 he joined government service as a school sub-inspector.

While posted in Naogaon, he came to meet with Annadashankar Roy who was then the sub-divisional officer (SDO).

His career as a teacher commenced in 1932 when he joined the Dhaka Islamic Intermediate College to teach English language and literature.

From 1935 to 1938 he taught at the Howrah Intermediate College, Calcutta.

From 1938 to 1941, he taught Bengali language and literature in the Chittagong College.

Then he joined the Rajshahi College and taught from 1941 to 1943.

A collection of Vaishnab Kabita was published in 1942.

He was a professor of Bengali language and literature at the Murray Chand College in Sylhet from 1948 to 1952.

Apart from Haramoni ('হারামণি'), his notable collection was Lalon Fakir-er Gaan ('লালন ফকিরের গান' : Songs of Lalan Fakir), published in 1948.

Lalan Geetika ('লালন গীতিকা') was published subsequently.

Professor Monsooruddin taught at the Dhaka College since 1952 from where he retired in 1959.

During the same time, he taught in the Bengali Department of the Dhaka University as a part-time faculty-member.

Also, he served for some time as an instructor at the Police Academy, Sardah.

As a teacher he was very interesting and attractive to his pupils.

Mansuruddin started to write at a very early stage.

Although collection of folklore remains his greatest work, he wrote literary essays and fiction all through his life.

His most notable literary contribution is however collection of over six thousand folk songs from different rural areas of Bengal.

In 1952 he worked as editor of monthly literary Mah-e Now for about six months (on deputation from government service).

He spent fifty to sixty years in collecting Baul songs and other rural songs.

He transcribed without caring for lexical accuracy.

He took down as he heard from the mouth of the singers.

He collected a huge number of folklore poems and songs many of which were collected in thirteen volumes during his lifetime.

He also collected songs of Lalon Fakir and wrote on him.

Also, in 1974, he translated some songs of Lalon Fakir for the international audience.

He often encouraged younger folklorists to research following internationally recognised scientific conventions.

At the same time he advised folklore researchers to travel to the rural sources of the folklore items to discover the life behind it.

Folksongs of Lalan Shah in English rendering was published in 1974.

Introduction of different volumes of Haramoni are revealing and educative.

In the Introduction of Volume V of Haramoni, he wrote, "No contemporary poet was to be compared with Lalon. The song of Lalon Shah bears the quaking of life and delightful reason why the rural indigent people preserve it. This song quenches the spiritual musical thirst, in fact, though Lalon is illiterate but his songs are full of refulgent. The language of Shah is more glorious than Dasharoti Ray, Modhu Kanan even than the language of Ram Prasad-No other his contemporary Muslim poet can be compared with him, even the poem of great litterateur Meer Mosharraf Hossain is worse than that of Lalon".

In recognition of his lifelong contribution to folklore collection and research, the Rabindra Bharati University awarded him D.Litt. degree in 1987.