''Scrap Book'', formally published as ''Govardhanrám Madhavrám Tripáthi's Scrap Book'', is a diary written by Indian writer Govardhanram Tripathi from 1885 to 1906. It is a repository of the author's wide-ranging thoughts, including on moral and spiritual conflicts. It provides many details about Govardhanram's life and family.

Background

Govardhanram obtained his LLB degree in 1883 after repeated failures, and moved to

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

in 1884 to practice as a pleader at high court. In January 1885, when he was 30, he started writing ''Scrap Book''. He noted in it important points and quotations from books that he read. He wrote in the diary till 3 November 1906, a few months before his death. It is believed that Govardhanram maintained a personal diary also, but this has not been found. Originally spanning seven notebooks, it was edited by

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, Sanmukhlal Pandya, and Ramprasad Bakshi and published in three volumes from 1957 to 1959. Bakshi published an abridged version in Gujarati titled ''Govardhanram Ni Manannondh''.

The subjects of the ''Scrap Book'' can be divided in three sections: (1) Govardhanram's speculations and comments on Hindu religio-philosophical texts and concepts; (2) his views on contemporary socio-political issues, issues, institutions and leaders; and (3) problems, resentments and pain in his personal life as the head of Hindu joint family. The notes in the ''Scrap Book'' include Govardhanram's personal comments on a wide range of subjects including his personal problems, his nature, emotions, ideals, the problem of his retiring from the active life, Sannyas and Yoga, family life and its problems, perception on the soul, God, life after death, virtue, immorality, bliss, astrology, his own writings, and contemporary events.

Reception

In Tridip Suhrud's assessment, ''Scrap Book'' was outstanding among Indian self-focused compositions that elaborate on the themes and the quest of the medieval Bhakti tradition, giving, perhaps for the first time, a vernacular version of the idea that the

self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...

is an experimental locus, where what is recorded, the outer and inner worlds, while fusing in the self can simultaneously be disentangled to create separate dimensions. The most exemplary modern expression of the paradox was, he added,

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autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English p ...

. Scholars including Uttamlal Trivedi and Balwantray Thakore have extensively used these observations while writing on Govardhanram.

References

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Background

Contents

Reception

References

External links