Chittaranjan Nepali’s epic themes of history

His major thrust was the study of the characters in national history who had performed heroic acts.

Chittaranjan Nepali (1931-2023), probably the oldest historian many of us knew, should be remembered today for several reasons. Like many historians who tend to present grand images of their favourite historical times and events, Chitdai, as we knew him, too, foregrounds the epic nature of events and personas of history in his writings. Historical and literary writings constitute Chitdai’s oeuvre. History, whether seen as messianic like Walter Benjamin or materialistic like Karl Marx, reverberates to the present. My interest in this subject is guided by my background as a literary person interested in the cohesion of the heroic psyche commonly evoked in the oldest literary genre, epic and “grand history”.