(iii) Harakanta Barua's autobiography thus serves the purpose of a realistic and intimate history of Assam of the nineteenth century, and future scholars will have to turn to it again and again when they take up the work of compiling a critical and scientific reconstruction of the period. It was also said on a previous occasion. "I would ask my countrymen to imagine the happiness they would have derived by a perusal of the autobiographies of Kumar Bhaskaravarman, Momai- tamuli Barbarua, Purnananda Buragohain and Maniram Dewan if these luminaries had condescended to bequeath such records to posterity" ** Now, we have before us the diary and autobiography of Harakanta Barua, an eminent Assamese scholar and observer. patriot and man of affairs, who like the famous Samuel Pepys, has transmitted for the enlightenment of the future ages all that is signi- ficant in a momentous period of his country's history which witnessed the changing of the old order and its yielding place to the new. The book has been edited with enthusiasm and devotion by Sriman Kumud Chandra Bardoloi, great-grandson of Harakanta Barua. He obtained the manuscript from his uncle the late Srijut Bidyakanta Barua. The latter's son the late Sriman Pramod Kanta Barua had made over to me the manuscript of Harakanta Barua's Assam Buranji or a lustory of Assam, which was published in 1930 by the Assam Government Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies. A brief account of the Sonamua Daivajna family. compiled by Harakanta Barua, has been inserted at the end of his Assam Buranji. The editor Sriman Kumud Chandra Bardoloi has taken great pains in bringing out this autobiography of his distinguished ancestor. He has prefixed a short sketch of Harakanta Baruas's life compiled with the help of the information gathered from the autobiography and obtained from the surviving members of the family. The glossary of official teams and exhaustive index compiled by the editor have added to the value of the publication. Lastly, we hope that a critical and exhaustive biography of Harakanta Barua will soon be compiled. The present book will no
- S. K Bhuyan. Studies in the Literature of Assam. Lawyers' Book Stall.
Gaubati, 1956. p. 121.
