<小特集 南アジア・イスラーム文献の出版・伝播2>アキール文庫に含まれるダカニー・ウルドゥー語文学コレクション［C201-208, C301-307］

Abstract

Dakanī is the group of languages spoken in Deccan which are usually considered dialects of Urdu. Written in Arabic script, it has a long literary tradition since at least the 15th century. During the Bahmanī, ‘Ādil Shāhī (Bījāpur) and Quṯb Shāhī (Golkonḍah, Hyderabad) Dynasties, i.e. the three Muslim dynasties based in Deccan, writers of literature were very active in contrast to Delhi where writing activities adopting Urdu as the literary language did not begin substantially until the 18th century. Thus, Dakanī literature can be considered a very significant precursory phase in the history of Urdu literature, in which various literary inventions and experiments were conducted. The Aqeel Collection includes about 400 books dealing with the Dakanī language and literature and more than 200 books on the local history of Deccan. These books are becoming less and less available all over the world, and even in India. In such a situation, the fact that the Aqeel collection possesses so large an amount of books related to the matter is a very rare case of invaluable importance. In addition, this collection has the following strong points: It covers almost all the authors (poets) considered as great masters representative of the literature of Deccan such as ‘Ādil Shāh II, Nuṣratī, Qulī Quṯb Shāh, Wajhī etc. Not only the original texts of the literary works, but also the analysis and detailed studies of these works, the authors’ lives and the historical, social and cultural background are contained in this collection. This collection also includes authors around the great masters, i.e. poets belonging to the same school as, or contemporary with the masters. Such poets might certainly be less known to us, but the study of such poets would enable us to attain a deeper and richer comprehension of the background of these masters, and the literary language and stylistics which they partly inherited from the school they belonged to and partly invented by themselves. Considering these advantages, it is highly expected that the study of Dakanī literature which has so far been relatively little cultivated, will opened up more in the future, bringing to light the early phases of the development of Urdu literature.