ABSTRACT
On 28 March 1928, Suniti Kumar Chatterjee writes to GeorgeAbraham Grierson: ‘Is there any likelihood of a second edition of your “Vernacular Literature of Hindustan” being taken in hand? [...] The work is a fundamental one for the History of Hindi literature, and there is still some demand for it.’ The text thus mentioned is Grierson’s The Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan, first published in 1888 as a special number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.1 Grierson himself variously speaks of this publication as a mere ‘compilation’ or ‘collection’ of materials.2 The work indeed presents itself at first sight as ‘not more than a list’3 : it chronologically assembles the names of 952 writers-numbered all the way through-and gives information on their major works as far as available. Nevertheless, Grierson produces-through his very selection, presentation and authorial comments-a historiographical
framework, and also demarcates for the first time a literary space for north Indian vernacular writings, establishing in his discourse geographically determinable centres and peripheries within a region called ‘Hindustan’.
