Reviews

Early Victorian Poetry of Social Ferment by A. Bose, D. Phil. (Oxon), Professor and Head of the Department of English, Muslim University, Aligarh. Published by the Raleigh Literary Society, Muslim University, Aligarh. Pages 82. Price Rs. 5.

This monograph of the Raleigh Literary Society of the University of Aligarh, apparently an attempt at research work in English literary criticism, calculated to be of interest to University Professors and advanced students specializing in English literature, deserves the distinction of publication in a separate volume, by virtue of the nature of the subject, the method of approach and the remarkable success attained by the distinguished author, Prof. Bose. It ii worthy of the attention of all interested in literature, in general, and current problems in the literary field in our country, in particular, and hence wider publicity, beyond the University circles.

The monograph deals with the social situation in England in the early Victorian period, the manner and extent of the influence of the social situation on the poetic output in England during the period in general, a detailed examination of the reaction to the social situation, of the major poets of the period, and the significance of the whole analysis to students of literature, with regard to the proper attitude for a poet to the social problems of his age and country. The period dealt with in the volume comprises the critical decades in the history of the English nation, the first in modern history to adopt democracy and technology, when the nation was excited and trying to adjust its life to the profoundly altered and altering material conditions, in consequence. The significance of this masterly analysis of the influence of the social ferment on the poetry of the period, of the minor poets as well as the major, to nations like ours, going the way of democracy, science and technology, is too obvious to require any emphasis or recommendation.

India As I See Her by S. R. Sharma, M.A., Fergusson College, Poona. Published by Lakshmi Narain Agarwal, Agra. Pages 251. Price Rs. 7-8-0.

Embarked on a new career of political independence, social democracy, economic progress and international status, the subject of India, what it is Sind what it stands for, is of great significance and importance; and many have been the attempts in recent times to understand and interpret India.

But here is a valuable addition to the literature on the subject by a distinguished professor and a popular historian. In this chaplet of 25 chapters, he endeavours to present the ideals nursed by India during twenty-five centuries, and the direction of the evolution of the spirit of the nation, in her long and persistent struggle to fulfil her destiny.

It seems to be just the kind of history for the general reader, and deserving of the attention of every educated Indian who wishes to have an emotional awareness of our past and present, so that he may play his due part in the attempt of the leaders, to give a right direction to the future of the nation.

M. SIVAKAMAYYA

Prehistoric India and Ancient Egypt By Sudhansu Kumar Ray. Published by Cambridge Book and Stationery Store, 3, Regal Buildings, New Delhi. Pages 42. Price Rs. 5.

Sudhansu Kumar Ray, now Junior Field Officer, Crafts Museum, New Delhi, was a close associate of the late Gurusaday Dutt, I.C.S. He surveyed undivided Bengal several times and studied the rich art heritage of the land. Himself a talented artist, Ray made great sacrifices for the cause of art. He founded many cultural institutions and organised many cultural societies. For many years he worked as the Rural Art Surveyor on behalf of the Asutosh Museum.

The recent studies of Ray in the relations between prehistoric India and ancient Egypt not only throw light on the cultural kinship between Egypt and Bengal of old, but open up an unexplored field of investigation and we hope his work will be a fillip to modern Egyptologists to further their researches.

In hisown words Ray explains the object of the book as to “present here a traditional portrait figure of an Egyptian Djat (Governor), the Door of the South, Great One of the Southern Eighteen (collectorates), which I have collected from the district of 24-Parganas in South Bengal near about the mouths of the Ganges. This portrait figure does not only resemble Egyptian southern Djats but iconographically as a whole also markedly corresponds in its peculiar ‘White Crown’ (Het) of the southern Egypt of ancient days. Not only this figure alone but there are many important traditional artifacts and related nomenclatures which clearly indicate Egyptian occupation of Bengal a thousand years before the Mauryas came to power.”

This book is very interesting in its own way, strengthens the bonds between the Egyptologists and Indologists and brings the two ancient civilizations closer than they have been. It is well illustrated with sketches and photographs. There is a map depicting the “Two-Governments” and Dua (t) in Bengal, similar to that of Egypt of the ancient days. We hope that this book will not be the only attempt of Sudhansu Ray in this line and that before long he would add much to his own investigations and research.

V. V. TONPE

SAMSKRIT

Bhramara Sandesa                              pp. 23+21        Price Rs. 1-8-0
Vanalata                                             pp. 11+17        Price Rs. 1-0-0
Dravidarya Subhashita Saptati          pp. 12              Price Rs. 1-0-0
Vyajokti Ratnavali                              pp. 10+56        Price Rs. 2-0-0
Kinkinimala                                        pp. 107            Price Rs. 2-0-0

Author Sri Y. Mahalingasastry. Copies can be had from the Author, Sahitya Chandrasala, Tiruvalangadu B. O. Via Narasingampet, Tanjore Dt.

All the above poems, coming from the facile pen of Sri Y. Mahalingasastry, a descendent of the family of Sri Appayya Dikshita, a versatile genius, are a clear proof of the fact that Samskrit is still, in India, a living language with all its pristine purity, and that there are even today Samskrit poets who can with ease reproduce the charms of classical Samskrit poetry.

Bhramara Sandesa, containing 10 Mandakranta verses, takes after the Meghasandesa Kavya of the celebrated poet Kalidasa. Indra, in order to protect himself from the harassing sin of Brahmahatya, accrued to him from killing Vritra, hides for a considerable time in the stalk of a lotus in the holy river Ganges on the earth. Thus separated from his wife, Sachi, he requests a bee to carry a message of comfort to her and sets out in detail the route to be taken by the bee. An intelligent borrower as he is, Sri Sastry has impressed the stamp of his originality on many of his charming verses. The fancy and imagination that we come across in verses 22, 23, 28, 34, and 68 are all to a great extent his own, and are highly pleasing.

In the introduction, which deserves to be read by all students of Samskrit literature, Sri N. Raghunatha Aiyar (of The Hindu, Madras) makes a critical and comparative study of the important sandesa kavyas in Samskrit, and gives an estimate of the author of this kavya in the following words: “The critic of the future may see him as standing out from the welter of second-rate imitators, in the select company of Dhoyi and Vedanta Desika and one or two other later writers, and as having contributed a shade of distinctive beauty to the rainbow which the sun of Kalidasa has projected against the rain-bearing clouds of poetry.” None can either add to or detract from the above words.

Vanalata is a lyric poem, written by the poet in his teens. In writing this, the poet drew his inspiration from Kalidasa’s works Meghasandesa and Vikramorvasiya.

The poem combines in itself the features of both love lyrics and devotional lyrics in addition to those of descriptive poetry. The poet’s command of Samskrit language is really commendable, and Vrttauchitya is a special feature of this kavya.

Dravidarya Subhashita Saptati–This is a Samskrit translation of Auvvai’s Tamil poems ‘Nalvazhi’ and ‘Vakkundam’ numbering 70 in all. These are famous in Tamilnad for their philosophical outlook and practical wisdom. Verses No. 16, 23, 29, 32, 34, 37, and 40 in particular are very instructive and invaluable. In this translation, the author has made use of 11 metres, and two of them are his own inventions. According to the Hon’ble Justice N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar of the Supreme Court of India, who wrote a brief preface to this work, the author has achieved ‘remarkable success’ in his translation. We, devoted as we are to the encouragement of translations fromand into Indian languages, have nothing but praise for the author who has marvellously succeeded in his laudable attempt.

Vyajokti Ratnavali is a collection of 125 Anyapadesa verses in Samskrit, which have criticism of life for their aim and are allegoric in nature. The poet has added his own English translation to these verses, and any Samskrit student can peruse them with interest and delight.

Kinkinimala: This work which has won approbation of Samskrit scholars, both Eastern and Western, is a collection of sweet songs and shorter poems in Samskrit–a novel addition to Samskrit literature–some of them being translations from Shelley and Shakespeare. Herein is a collection of dainty dishes that can cater to the tastes of all and feast any student of Samskrit literature. Every modern Samskrit student must possess a copy of this.

In conclusion we earnestly appeal to all the votaries of Samskrit learning, to lend their helping hand to Sri Sastry, the poet, who for want of funds is not able to bring to light his unpublished works.

B. KUTUMBA RAO

TELUGU

Nagarjunasagaram: Geya kavyam–a narrative poem in lyric metres by C. Narayana Reddi. Published by the Telangana Rachayitala Sangham (Writers’ Association of Telangana). Pp. 116. Price Rs. 1-8-0. Copies can be had of Ajanta Publications, 712 Mahakali Street, Secunderabad.

The poet is a young man who has already made his name as an outstanding poet of Telangana and one of the most promising of the poets of Andhra.

The theme of the poem is the conflict between the ideals of the artist and the man of religion, a theme of perennial interest. This powerful theme is presented in the poem through the story of the charming heroine, Santisri, a lay disciple in the theological seminary attached to the Buddhist Monastery at Nagarjunakonda, in the early centuries of the Christian era. She falls in love with an artist, the sculptor Padmadeva, engaged in carving the incidents in the life of Lord Buddha and the Jataka stories on the structures of the monastery. She is the victim, thus, of a severe conflict between the allegiance of her soul to the religious ideal of Buddhism, as expounded by the head of the institution, Gumdora, and the natural attraction of her heart to the lover in the artist. The artist and the teacher are both uncompromising and irreconcilable and so the story ends in a tragedy–the initiation of the heroine into the monastic order of Bhikkhunis while in a fit of self-reproach for her lapse from the religious ideal, the departure of the artist from the monastery in consequent despair and sorrow, and the pathetic yearning of the torn heart of the lady for her lover. An imaginative resolution of the conflict is vaguely suggested in a dream of the distant future, of the grand reservoir of the present Nagarjunasagar project on the site of the tragedy.

The poet very ably exploits the many powerful attractions inherent in the theme such as–the love story, the tragic conflict, the historical ground of life in the monasteries in Andhra in ancient times when the region was distinguished in Bharat for its patronage of Buddhism, as evidenced by the remains of Stupas, Chaityas, Viharas and sculptures, a topical reference to the great irrigation and power project at Nagarjunasagar, now under construction and promising plenty and prosperity to the future generations, the wealth of inheritance in artistic achievement brought to light in recent times by the archaeological finds at various places in Andhra, the lyric metres so very popular with the youth of modern Andhra, the humanitarian and materialistic ideals so much in vogue in secular Bharat.

But one is constrained to note with regret that the poet fails to conceal his pronounced preference for the artist’s ideal as against the ideal of the man of religion, in his presentation of the conflict, which thus lacks the objectivity and detachment essential in art; and he fails as signally to do justice to the religious ideal, especially of Buddhism, in presenting it as less sympathetic to, and even in callous antagonism to, the humanitarian and humanistic ideal, and as advocating the narrow ideal of self-centred spiritual progress for the individual; at the same time, the claim on behalf of the ideal of the lover and artist, to champion the cause of humanitarianism and social welfare is not worked out poetically in the theme but only asserted and vaguely suggested in a dream, which hangs loose like an appendage, beautiful but superimposed.

These defects in the architectonics of the poem and the criticism of life embodied in it militate against the claim of the poem to the rank of a classic in the view of the academic and critical student of literature, but there can be no doubt of the success of the poem in achieving immediate popularity in view of its very many obvious attractions and the equally striking talents of the poet.

A foreword by the reputed savant and well-known critic of music and literature, Sri Rallapalli Anantakrishna Sarma, provides an instructive exposition of the lyric metres in Telugu and their possibilities, a critical estimate of the metres attempted and the commendable success achieved by the poet in handling them, as well as an illuminating, though brief, appreciation of the poem.

An introduction by Dr. P. Srinivasachari, Head of the Archaeological Department of Andhra Pradesh, a historical scholar of wide cultural interests and literary and artistic tastes, furnishes an authoritative account of the historical ground against which the poet presents his theme, and distinguishes for the reader’s benefit, the historical from the imaginative elements in the composition.

The publication of such a poem of outstanding excellence, just at the time of the inauguration of Andhra Pradesh, is a happy augury for the future of the Andhra people, and a hopeful sign of their cultural achievement.
M. S. K.

MARATHI

Resha by Vaman Raoji Dawale. Published by K. B. Dawale, Karnatak House, Bombay. Pages 64. Price Rs. 2.

Vaman Raoji Dawale is a famous figure in the literary world of modern Maharastra. He is known to his readers both as a poet and as a prose writer.

In ‘Resha’ we find Dawale at his best in dealing with Love, Beauty, Nature and Humanity. There are twenty-five poems out of which one might be sighted here as an example of his poetic thought.

In a poem on ‘Gul-Mohur’ his love of natural beauty is well depicted and though the wealth of modern imagery is evident in it, one can still find his indebtedness to the ancients for the verbal melody.

The poem begins thus:

Gul-Mohur has blossomed
And the wealth of Lord Indra has been spread over the earth!

In various figures the poet describes the colourful sight of the host of crimson Gul-mohurs. He compares them with the beauty of some youthful Malva girl that strays into this spot, lost in her admiration for her novel make-up. He further describes the capturing sight as follows:

Over the green forest trees
Does anyone sprinkle sindhur from above?
Or does some love-intoxicated fool set his love-dreams blooming?
The sky-borne, evening cloud is lost in wonder at the sight
And seems to question: What is it that spreads yonder there?”
And thus forgets to reach its destination.

This is one of many such thought-provoking poems of Dawale which appeal to the head and heart.