Muhammad Mansuruddin (31 January 1904 – 19 September 1987) was a Bengali author, literary critic, essayist, lexicographer and biographer from Bangladesh.
[1] He was an authority on folklore and was famous for a huge collection of age-old folk songs, mostly anthologised in thirteen volumes under the title Haramoni.
In recognition of his lifelong contribution to folklore collection and research, the Rabindra Bharati University awarded him D.Litt.
On 31 January 1904 Mansuruddin was born to Muhammad Jaider Ali (father) and Jiarun Nisa (mother) in the Muraripur village under Sujanagar thana of Pabna district of East Bengal of the British India, now in Bangladesh.
His career as a teacher commenced in 1932 when he joined the Dhaka Islamic Intermediate College to teach English language and literature.
Although the collection of folklore remains his greatest legacy, he wrote literary essays and fiction all through his life.
His most notable literary contribution is, however, the collection of over six thousand folk songs from different rural areas of Bengal.
Apart from Haramoni ('হারামণি'), his notable collection was Lalon Fakir-er Gaan ('লালন ফকিরের গান' : Songs of Lalan Fakir), published in 1948.
The song of Lalon Shah bears the quaking of life and delightful reason why the rural indigent people preserve it.
Muhammad Monsooruddin, another prominent folklorist of Bangladesh, took up the task of collecting Baul songs, which had been started by Tagore.
His collection of humorous folktales, published in Bengali as Bangalir Hashir Galpa (1960) appeared along with English translation.
Special mention should be made of Late Abbas Uddin, a scholar, accomplished singer, and collector of folksongs.
He was impressed by the richness of Bengali folk music and decided to collect them before they are fully lost into oblivion.
For Haramoni, he visited hundreds of villages of Rajshahi, Pabna, Nadia, Murshidabad, Mymensingh, Faridpur, Barisal, Noakhali and Dhaka.
He was encouraged by the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Kshitimohan Sen, Pallikobi Jasimuddin, singer Abbas Uddin and painter Zainul Abedin.
He was inspired when his collection of a song of Lalon Fakir sung by Premdasa Bairagi was published in the Haramoni section of the monthly literary magazine Probashi.
Haramoni was the name of a regular section of monthly literary magazine Probashi that was dedicated to publishing folk songs collected from rural areas.
The first volume of Haramoni (Lost Jewels in English translation), essentially an anthology of Baul songs, was published in 1931.
Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote the preface of the book when its first volume was published.
The fifth volume was edited by Muhammad Abdul Hye and published by the Department of Bengali, Dhaka University, in 1961.