Reviews

[We shall be glad to review books in all Indian languages and in English, French and German. Books for Review should reach the office at least SIX WEEKS in advance of the day of publication of the Journal]

ENGLISH

Jacob Epstein.-By L. B. Powell. [Published by Chapman & Hall Ltd., London.]

Already the name of Epstein is recognized among all who love art as one of the most striking of living sculptors. Ever since his work began to be noticed by the public at large, he has been the source of furious criticism with, on the whole, a larger number of dissentients than supporters. This book on his work is therefore particularly valuable because it is written by a great enthusiast of Epstein who is evidently in close touch with the artist. The book is one that will certainly go into several editions, partly for its letterpress, but much more for the thirty-nine beautiful illustrations of Epstein's masterpieces. It gives for the first time adequate material for appraising Epstein's technique and the ideals which lie behind it.

There is no question whatsoever regarding his strength and the power of his realism. Some of his portrait busts are intensely living and will always be recognized as masterpieces; and yet somehow, to some at least, his work is not satisfactory, and it is that dissatisfaction which has been voiced by the public at large. Not that the pubic at large is a connoisseur in matters of art, but yet there are certain primitive instincts of humanity which reflect deep and eternal intuitions.

Epstein's work is a distinct challenge to the accepted standard of art as a revealer of beauty. We are driven to examine what is the fundamental basis of our belief regarding art by these works of Epstein, which are representative of a certain wave of unrest in all art circles today. Of course all artists of every epoch accept as the fundamental basis of art that it shall be true to "Nature." But it is upon the understanding of this word "Nature" that there is such a divergence of opinion. Very briefly, there are two Schools, represented on the one hand by Epstein and all those who see the world as he does, and on the other by all those artists who seek the beautiful as did Plato.

The School of the Moderns represented by Epstein tries to see Nature as it is; they use a highly trained artistic sensorium, and by its aid try to grasp the character of Nature. Thus in Epstein's sculpture we see the various persons as they are. Each has a clearly marked expression, and in the main the character is brought out in the sculpture. But there is no attempt at idealism, that is to say, to see a person in any way different from what he appears to a trained psychological medical man gifted with artistic appreciation. Epstein is a master in this mode of art. Mr. Powell, in trying to explain him to us, again and again uses the word "elemental" as the real clue to Epstein. Undoubtedly all elemental things are true to Nature, and have, from certain aspects, a very great beauty.

But the second School of Art did not stop at elementalism. This second School is represented by Plato. He, too, recognized that the basis of all truth is "Nature," but this "Nature" was to Plato not the Nature of our five-sense sensorium. The Nature of our senses was to Plato what the Americans call "a jumping-off place." So to the typical Greek, particularly at the time of Phidias and his followers, every "natural" thing was a mirror of a thing in a supernal realm of "Nature." It is this thing of the other world which they were always seeking, in order to understand the truth and reality about the thing of this world. That loftier thing was called by Plato the archetype—the eternally beautiful thing whose very nature was truth, goodness and beauty. From this Platonic standpoint the whole world was recognized as a more or less distorting mirror of that greater world of beauty.

Therefore, a thing could be seen truly only when seen in relation to its archetype; and since each archetype behind every existing object was essentially beautiful, the attempt of the Greek artist was to see the reflection of the archetype in the thing here below. They were always trying to find the spirit behind the matter, the life behind the form, just as do all Indian artists. The Indian artist leaves the form with a few graphic contours, without developing them to show the beauty of the form, as he is sensitive to the inner life of the form. The Greek, being more objective, revelled in making a beautiful outward form, leaving the highly trained imagination of the cultured Greek to sense the archetype behind the form. In the schools of art represented by India and Greece, the truth as to a thing–Sat in India–, or the reality concerning it–its "being," as Plato said in Greece–must first be grasped, if there is to be any true reaction of the observer to the thing which he observes.

This same divergence of standpoint characterizes symbolism as it is to-day, and as it is found in the best artists of the Middle Ages. Symbolism has a mathematical structure behind it, like the formulae of algebra, and is suffused by a great imagination; but as that imagination is healthy or diseased is the embodiment of the symbol. It has been stated by psychiatrists that many of the drawings of Futurists and Cubists, which have been considered as the high watermark of their art, find exact parallels in drawings drawn by lunatics in the asylums. It is surely right to give the artist perfect liberty to do what he wants; but the question: Is it beautiful? is not superfluous, since art has always a relation to the inhabitants of this world who have to appreciate it.

Epstein is certainly wonderful in portraiture. There is vigour and virility, and there is no question that he has a great place in the development of the art modes of to-day. But whether he will be recognized as anything more than a brilliant example of the unrest of to-day will only be shown by future generations. While admiring Epstein greatly, I feel utterly convinced that men are seeking, not the world which Epstein sees, but that other world of the archetypes which is so near and yet so far. Plato, after all, is the pointer along the true path and it is in the light of that conviction that I have, rightly or wrongly, thus expressed myself about Epstein.

C. JINARAJADASA

The Man of Gingerbread. –By Alastair William Rowsell Miller. [Published by Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 3s. 6d. net]

Mr. Miller quotes from Beddoes' Fool’s Tragedy this as motto and challenge to his little book of poems: "Am I then a man of gingerbread, that you should mould me to your liking?" And altering Churchill's lines boldly we answer that he is not a man of gingerbread; he is not savour'd in talk and phyz; and he is quite of this world. His verses (most of them are translations from Latin and French) are not Brummagem wares, all gilt and gawdy; they are bright little cameos, and seem to have come from the hands of a skilful lapidary, exquisitely cut and polished. Truer to say, the whole book is one shining cameo.

Mr. Miller's technique is faultless, and his diction, not tediously conventional. He expresses himself briefly and precisely; he is not abandoned to any mood or image, and his poems, crystal-shrill in brightness, are crystal-chill in emotion. "Blame Me not Much" is an exception. It is a pure lyric drop and quivers with its melody:

"When spring had broken
Up winter's levee
And trees were bowing
Budded heavy,
Then sweetly spoken
Was our vowing."

In our opinion the finest poems in the book are "An Evening of Spring," and the three under the beading "Virginia Remembered." Here is the first of the poem-sequence and we would ask the reader to get the book and discover the rest for himself.

"I saw an ancient cherry tree
Scarredly and crookedly
Stand in a field that was also
Crooked and scarred with the scars of plough
Bloom was misty upon the bough;
And the earth was red with the riches of earth;
And the wind, that frolicked a thoughtless path,
Would tremble the blossoms then and now,
Tremble the blossoms, and laugh, and go;
And the red earth would be flecked with snow.
That is all. And yet it seemed to me
That the plough-scarred field and the crooked tree
Were built in holy harmony."

Surely, Mr. Miller has not used poetry as a means of escape into a peristyle of misty unreality.

MANJERI S. ISVARAN

(1) Kalakshepam (2) Gopala Krishna Bharati.–[Author of "Nandan Charitram."] By M. S. Ramaswamy Iyer, B. A., B. L., L.T.

Mr. M. S. Ramaswamy Iyer is already known in the circles of music-scholars as the author of a biography of Sri Tyagayya, the great genius of Karnatic Music and as an editor of the standard Sanskrit texts of Karnatic Music, like Ramamatya's Svaramelakalanidhi. In the first book under review the author treats of the subject of ‘Kalakshepam’ from the points of view of its origin, original form, nature, development, and its purpose for society. He tells how the art arose at Tanjore and what parts the three celebrated exponents of that art, Brahmasris Krishna Bhagavatar of Tanjore, Panchapakesa Bhagavatar of Tiruppayanam and Lakshmanacharyar of Tiruvayar played in its development. He estimates the first as "interesting," the second "instructive," and the third "inspiring" –qualities essential for the art and whose combination is the perfection of it, The second and the third sections of the book offer some hints to Bhagavatars who perform ‘Kalakshepam’ and to those that enjoy the performance.

There is none in the Tamil Land who has not heard of the story of Nanda, the Pariah Saint, sung in the immortal kirtanas of Gopalakrishna Bharati. As an opera on the stage and as a ‘Kathakalakshepam’ its popularity is great and unwaning. Mr. Ramaswamy Iyer's biography of Bharati is a welcome study as it adds to our greater understanding of the rich heritage of our land in Literature and Art. It is an exhaustive study and fascinating: it discusses and arrives at the date, patron, etc., of the author; traces the history of Nandan Charitram; devotes some attention to the other works of Bharati, and his services to Music. "A few of these ‘other works’ Mr. Ramaswamy Iyer observes, "are in the possession of Mr. G. K. Lakshmana Iyer of Chidambaram. Will any individual or any corporation persuade or even otherwise help him to bring them into the light of day?" This appeal can very well be addressed to the Music Academy, Madras.

I recommend these two books to Bhagavatars and to that wider public that is interested in the music and the master-musicians of South India.

V. RAGHAVAN

Studies in Applied Economics, Vol. I.-ByBenoy Kumar Sarkar, Calcutta University. [Published by Chuckerverty Chatterjee & Co., Calcutta. Price Rs. 6.]

The volume consists of essays on six different subjects: (1) Principles of control over Foreign Insurance companies as found in some of the European countries, (2) The remaking of the Reichs Bank and the Bangue de France–a study in comparative banking, especially on the note-issue side, (3) The Bank capitalism of young Bengal with special reference to the Central Bank of India, (4) The Railway Industry and Commerce of India–in International Railway Statistics, (5) Rationalisation in Indian Business Enterprise, (6) The World crisis in its bearings on the regions of the Second and the First Industrial Revolutions. Most of these topics are dealt with from the standpoint of estimating the position occupied by India in the scale of comparative Industrialism. As may be expected, the book is full of statistical information relating to these various aspects of economic life, of practically all the modern countries; and in the attempt to draw lessons from them and group the countries under different stages of evolution, the author is able to draw considerably from his recent travels in Europe during the years 1929-31. Especially the second, fifth and sixth essays are very suggestive though in the cases of the third and fourth essays one may feel uncertain whether all the labour involved in finding out India's relative position in the international scale by a comparative study of per capita bank capital and the number "of persons served by a Bank, etc., and to say that Bengal to-day is very behind Japan as she was in 1907," or with regard to Railways judged from the mileage per 10,000 population, to say that "India in 1925 was somewhere what Germany was about the year 1853 or France about 1860," is worth while when as the author himself admits that ‘equations’ of comparative industrialism or capitalism must not be invariably treated as identical with the equations of economic or other efficiency" and also that "it does not take centuries and millenniums to become modernised in regard to bank-technique, industrialisation, etc.," as especially the experiences of Italy and Japan show.

In the fifth essay the author deals with the extent to which even India has been forced by international price competition to rationalise, and he points out traces of this process in the Cotton Mills of Bombay–though here it is all the more in the way of internal economies rather than by way of combination and the weeding out of inefficient mills, and in the case of the Tatas at Jamshedpur where in addition to labour-saving devices and other efficiency methods of an internal nature, he finds rationalisation in the larger utilisation of the firm's by- products and in the expansion of the firm into something like a ‘vertical combination,’ possessing its own mines and even using all its steel as raw material for its finished goods, and also in the increasing nationalisation of the staff which must help to reduce costs. He rightly points out how the future of some of our other industries which are now in a ward condition is bound up with rationalisation, e.g., hydro-electricity, oil-pressing, chemical industries like the soda compounds, etc. The economics of these industries depends on the technology of subsidiary or affiliated industries. For instance, "In order to develop one chemical industry it is not enough to invest money and employ technical experts in that line only. One will have to develop simultaneously a large number of industries in the same group. . . . An isolated chemical industry is doomed by its very nature." So also in the case of the vegetable-oil industry, "true rationalisation would involve a simultaneous business activity along different fronts of the oil complex," e.g., the manufacture of oil-cakes, fertilisers, vegetable butter or other edible fats, candles, paints and varnishes, soaps, etc. The thing is so obvious that one feels that it will not be long before our business men are able to rectify the defect and India becomes self-sufficient with regard to these small and variegated though important industries.

As regards the world crisis which is the subject-matter of the sixth and last chapter, it is the author's opinion that unemployment of a genuinely critical character is to be found chiefly in the three industrial countries–Germany, Great Britain, and U. S. A., and that France which is not so predominantly an industrial country is comparatively free from it, and that it is more of an ‘epochal’ longrun phenomenon than a cyclical one, being largely due to the final consummation of what may he called the Second Industrial Revolution in certain regions and of the First Industrial Revolution in others. If in the course of this transition certain countries have been more hard hit by unemployment than others it is due to the reaction in those countries from the overemployment of the War Period, that of the post-War currency depreciation which gave a fillip to industrial expansion in them. To add, the export industries were severely affected by the sudden and abrupt fall in agricultural prices throughout the world since 1929 and the tremendous decline in the purchasing power of peoples like the Indians, the Chinese, etc., producing raw materials. But the author answers us that "in all this unemployment crisis of 1929-'32 there is hardly anything to demonstrate in a palpable manner that the income per head of the population in currency or goods and services is lower than it was, say, during 1905-15. So far as the national wholes are concerned, the present unemployment as such, although a manifestation of depression, cannot be interpreted as a sign of economic catastrophe, decay, etc." It is only a question of certain groups within a nation being hit relatively harder than others. It is only a form of poverty–an eternal and universal phenomenon. And we find in these countries "the public finances are more or less adequate to maintain the millions of unemployed, i.e., that the tax-payers, especially the business corporations, are rich enough in spite of the difficulties of the hour . . . . . Neither the German nor the British budgets, even under conditions of retrenchment and economy, are the budgets of famished and hunger-stricken peoples . . . . Some dislocation and maladjustment is certainly in, evidence but neither the public finance nor the national wealth of the unemployment regions is in a seriously bad plight." The line of thought pursued here is original and suggestive. So also the suggestions with regard to future reconstruction. The improvement of the situation in the case of the advanced industrial countries depends on increasing the purchasing power of the ward ones. This can be done only by their industrialisation and modernisation of agriculture. These are the countries entering the stage of the First Industrial Revolution. Their industrialisation would mean, of course, the loss of markets for commonplace goods of ordinary and inferior qualities for the advanced countries. But the demand for ‘quality goods’ in the ward regions will have to be satisfied for a long time to come by imports from abroad. Further they will have to depend on the advanced countries for a long time for the imports of machinery, chemicals, etc., and for capital loans. So far as reparations are concerned he is of the opinion that if these cancellations are carried out in an abrupt manner, it may not benefit either Germany or the Allies because "the industrial and general socio-economic structure of the German people to-day is based on some two decades of war economy and reparations economy." So also "Italy, France, Great Britain, and the U. S. A. have likewise established their national economies in accordance with the imports and exports requirements such as the financial (and goods) transfers dependent on the receipt of reparations and payment of war debts have rendered inevitable." So a sudden change of this regime can only mean great dislocations in their industries and commerce. He therefore wants the reduction of these payments to be in a gradually declining scale and to be spread over a decade or so. He hopes that as soon as reparations question is solved in a reasonable manner a new series of international capital movements will commence from regions that have it to those that want it for their industrialisation. This will relieve the world of a great part of industrial unemployment and agricultural depression. But we may doubt if all this consummation can be achieved without considerable concerted action of the nations, and some world-planning also, especially in the matter of the division of labour and industries as between the nations of the Second Industrial Revolution and those the First.

V. A.

TELUGU

Kalingadesa Charitra.-Edited by R. Subba Rao, M.A., L.T. [Published by the Andhra Historical Research. Society, Rajahmundry. Price Rs.7-8]

This volume of nearly 800 pages is a symposium of articles, contributed by various scholars on subjects, relating to the history of Kalinga Desa, and is a useful addition in Telugu to the history of Kalinga, a much neglected period of Andhra History. One of the pioneers in the field that worked under great disabilities was Mr. Mon Mohan Chakravarti whose articles were published in 1903 in the journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. We owe to him primarily a connected history of the later Gangas of Kalinga till their downfall when their kingdom was usurped by the Gajapatis of Orissa. Drs. Fleet. Hultzsch, Kielborn, Sten Konov, B. C. Mazumdar and others have also done much for the elucidation of the Kalinga history by editing several copper plate grants. The first scholar in the Andhra country to edit some of the Eastern Ganga grants was Rao Sahib Gidugu Ramamurty Pantulu who has identified ‘Kalinganagara,’ the capital of the Gangas of Kalinga with the present Mukhalingam in the Parlakimidi Taluq, Ganjam Dt., an identification disputed by scholars like Mr. Gadi Narasinga Rao, as evident from the article "Kalinganagara" included in this volume. B. C. Mazumdar besides editing many copper plate grants has given us in English a short sketch of the Eastern Gangas of Kalinga in his Orissa in the Making. Other scholars working on the subject are Messrs G. Ramadas, Satyanarayana Raju Garu, B. V. Krishna Rao, R. Subba Rao, the editor of this volume, Ch. Narayana Rao, G. V. Seetapathi, G. Narasinga Rao and A. Rama Rao. Today luckily there is no lack of materials for writing the history of Kalinga. The volumes of South Indian Inscriptions, the reports on Epigraphy, the journals of the Behar and Orissa Research Society, the Bengal Asiatic Society, the Andhra Historical Research Society, and the Telugu Bharati contair well-edited inscriptions of both the Ganga and the Gajapati dynasties which throw a flood of light on the history of Kalinga. In spite of such an abundance of material, the history of Kalinga, particularly up to the middle of the sixteenth century, i.e., the history of the Eastern Gangas of Kalingnagara and the Gajapatis of Cuttuck, offers innumerable problems for solution. Such are, for instance, the Ganga Era, the Home and the Origin of the Eastern Gangas, the Chronology of the later Gangas, the nature of usurpation of the Ganga Kingdom by the Gajapatis of Orissa, the relation between the Eastern and Western Gangas, the relation between Kalinga and Orissa architecture, the social, economic, and religious conditions in Kalinga from early times up to the British period and the peculiar constitution that was prevailing during the later Ganga and Gajapati dynasties.

Contributions on various subjects like Anthropology, Chronology, Archeology, Architecture, Historical Tradition, Ethnology, Language and Literature, find a place in this volume; but unfortunately, there is much repetition of articles by different writers on the same subject but with different titles, which the Editor could easily have avoided. The general standard of many of the contributions is rather low too. Most of these do not take us any farther nor enlighten us any more than what we already knew before the publication of this volume. The Editor himself has written a lengthy history of Kalinga (nearly 230 pp.) in two parts and with two titles, one about the history of Kalinga and the other about the history of Utkal or Orissa. His reason that because Anantavarma Choda Ganga conquered northern Kalinga–Uttarakalinga or Odhradesa, the history of his descendants had to be treated under the caption: "The History of Uttarakalinga or Odhradesa" is, far from convincing. The spelling adopted of proper names is defective, e.g., Kalpaharudu for Kalapahad, Chezzarala for Chezzarla and Bad for Baud, etc. The mere mention of facts given in the inscriptions like the maintaining of lamps, giving of coins and cows, etc., and piecing them together do not make history. Each fact mentioned in the inscriptions has its own value and proper use should be made of it in its proper place. If history is written as is done by the Editor it will confuse the reader rather than enlighten him. With all its defects however this volume is a useful reference work. Its usefulness would have been enhanced if the Editor had only incorporated in it all the published copper plate inscriptions of the Eastern Gangas of Kalinga.

M. SOMASEKHARA SARMA

GUJARATI

Soratha ni Sagar Kathao.–By Gunavantray Acharya. [Published by the Fulchhab Karyalaya, Ranpur, Kathiawad.]

"Naval Tales of Soratha:" this is what the title of the book means. Kathiawad peninsula, because of its exteneive coastline, has produced some of the best and most adventurous sailors from the earliest times, competitors of the old Phoenician, Arab, and such other mariners. To cross over to East Africa or Arabia has been child's play to them all along. This spirit of adventure still survives. The six short stories contained in this little volume of ninety-six pages furnish enough of thrill and adventure to last for days together, and portray in graphic language the hair-breadth escapes of the heroes of the tales. The piracy that infested the Indian seas in the past also furnishes its part of interest. Altogether we congratulate the writer on the new line he has struck out in thus reminding us that we also possess a race of sailors as fearless and resourceful as those of the modern European nations, if only proper opportunities were given them to demonstrate those qualities.

(1) Rang Tarang (2) Mhari Nondhpothi (My Diary) by Jyotindra H. Dave, M. A. [Published (1) by the Gandiv Press, Surat; and (2) by the General Book Depot, Bombay. Both illustrated. Price Re. 1, and Rs. 1.8 respectively.]

Both these books are full of humour. The introduction to "My Diary" written by Prof. V. J. Pathakji, very ably analyses the merits and demerits of this young writer of humourous literature in Gujarat, who though he has made his debut on the stage comparatively lately, has already made his mark and won applause. He reminds one by his style and the lightness of his touch and naturalness of portraiture of the late lamented Sir Ramanbhai Nilkanth whose place in this branch of literature still remains vacant. The skits and laughter-producing incidents narrated in both these books give genuine delight and pleasure to the reader. Though quiet, i.e., not loud and boisterous, the writer never misses his mark of raising real mirth in his reader. His great merit is that he provokes you to mirth and laughter, and himself sitting glum and solemn-looking watches your antics. There is no doubt the difference pointed out in the Introduction between the writings of Sir Ramanbhai and those of the present writer, that whereas ridicule or derision is the predominating note of the former's writings, joking or merriment is the predominating note of the latter's. But a closer study of both would reveal many other distinctive features in each. While Sir Ramanbhai's originality could create individual and towering characters like Dickens's Pickwick, Mr. Dave has still a long way to make up in that direction, and he promises to do so, we are glad to-day.

K. M. J