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.]

Murugan, The Tiller: By K. S. VENKATARAMANI, M. A., B. L.

(‘Swetaranya Ashrama’, Mylapore, Madras. Second Edition. Rs. 2.)

We welcome with delight a new edition of this charming tale of South Indian life from the pen of a South Indian of acknowledged literary eminence. Murugan, as an interpretation of Hindu life and ideals, deserves to rank with the late R. C. Dutt's Lake of Palms and Lal Behari Dey's Bengal Peasant Life. The first edition received unstinted praise from all quarters but ‘Triveni’ was not then in existence and we were denied the pleasure of noticing it.

Murugan, the hero, is the typical Indian peasant, humble and pious; unlettered but rich with the wisdom of the centuries behind him. Ramachandran and Kedari represent opposing ideals and pursue different paths in life. But they end by ‘going to the land’ and drawing sustenance, physical as well as spiritual, by close communion with Mother Nature. They are, however, much more than mere types. We seem to be seeing Kedaris and Ramchandrans every day of our lives. Mr. Venkataramani, it is clear, has more of Ramachandran than of Kedari in him, though by an irony of fate, he is practising law like Kedari, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Kedari's Nadu Street and Tank Square. But Mr. Venkataramani's dreams of a life of Vanaprastha in the ‘Swetaranya Ashrama’ of the future may one day materialise. Meanwhile, we heartily congratulate him on the recognition he has gained and which he so richly merits. An excellent Tamil translation of Murugan has already appeared and we hear a Telugu edition is in progress. Other Indian languages ought to copy this example.

Mr. Venkataramani of the old Victoria Hostel days, winning prizes in Bookman competitions and–it was whispered amongst us with awe–actually corresponding with Prof. Saintsbury, has blossomed into an important literary figure. We rejoice that it is so, and look forward to more from this gifted writer.

K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAO.

SRINIVASA AIYANGAR, P.T., History of the Tamils, from the earliest times to 600 A.D., (1929, C. Coomaraswami Naidu & Sons, Madras, Rs. 5 nett).

The origin of Tamil culture has for decades been a subject of much speculation, but few have brought to bear ripe scholarship and discriminating judgment on a study of the problem. Caldwell took up the study as a philologist, but his conclusions stand vitiated by his ignorance of the development and the genius of Tamil literature. Kanakasabhai Pillai gave us a masterly presentment of Tamil culture as preserved in its literature, but he failed to interpret it for us. M. Srinivasa Aiyangar speculated on the ethnology of the Tamils and evolved theories which are remarkable for their crudity. The less said about Dr. G. Slater's views on the Dravidian problem the better. Mr. T. R. Sesha Aiyangar brought together a miscellaneous assortment of views and successfully evaded a formulation of any conclusions of his own. Of casual contributions to the subject there is no end, but none of them is of any the least value.

Kanakasabhai Pillai started with the literary vestiges of early Tamil: the still earlier period of culture remained to be reconstructed and a picture drawn of the social and the intellectual conditions of the age. To a scholar of a very different type has fallen the task of reconstructing that earlier history. Kanakasabhai was deeply versed in Tamil literature, but he lacked the intellectual alertness, the omnivorous scholarship and the heretical zeal of Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar, to whom no subject is beyond his grasp and no belief is too sacred to be spared lightly. He was not nursed in the traditions of Tamil scholarship and he has come late to a study of it, but being an easy and consummate master in many of the domains of scholarship, he has been able to attain, in a remarkably short time, to a mastery of Tamil literature which none but pandits can lay claim to. For two generations Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar has enjoyed the reputation of being an intellectual giant, and, if proof of the reputation were wanted, it would be found in the remarkable work now before us. In its six-hundred and odd pages of close print we cannot find more than fifty pages which do not bear the imprint of original thinking: some six-hundred extracts from the Tamil classics have been rendered into English for the first time: many a novel theory is evolved with surprising clarity and enforced with abundant illustration. And this work, which another man would have taken a full twelve-month merely to fair-copy, was all thought out and set forth within a period of twelve months. The surprise is all the greater as it follows close on the heels of his Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture, which itself was a triumph of unremitting industry and illuminating exposition. He has always scorned to take either his facts or his conclusions at second-hand and he is too conscientious a literary man to be content with facts fished up for him by others. To get hold of ideas from more reticent scholars, to work them up into theses, to publish each of them in half a dozen periodicals and at last to gather them up in a collected edition are arts which he has never had need to practise. He is, indeed, the youngest of scholars in industry and in intellectual enterprise; at the same time, in the amplitude of many-sided learning he is the oldest of scholars. In him we have a happy blend of youth and age, –the industry and enterprise of youth and the ripeness and maturity of age.

The main basis of Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar's deductions as to the earliest culture of the Tamils is the literature of the so-called Sangam Age, including the Porul-Adiharam of the Tol-Kappiyam, accounted the earliest of the available Tamil grammars. His interpretation of Tamil culture is based on three central theories, –the effect of the geography of South India on its culture, the transition to a fireless cult, and the indigenous character of all the peoples and the cultures of India. That there is much of truth in Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar's contentions can scarcely be denied, but it is open to question whether the three lines of argument advanced by him account adequately for all the cultural phenomena.

Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar traces much of the individuality of Tamil culture to the fact that the culture developed in five classes of habitable land, all of which lie in fairly close juxtaposition in the Tamil country, –the hills, the dry wastes, the woodlands, the deltas and the littoral. We do not agree with Mr. P.T. Srinivasa Aiyangar in the determination of the factors governing the evolution of Tamil culture, but, it is this disagreement that makes us appreciate all the more the infinite resource with which he supports his position. He exhausts Sanskrit and Tamil literatures for appropriate illustrations; he adds instance to instance and piles quotation upon quotation in such profusion as almost to smother disagreement before it is born.

Having attempted to evaluate the culture of the periods for which there are no contemporary records, Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar passes down to the age of the early poems attributed to the Sangams or Academies. He discounts heavily the theory of three Academies and questions shrewdly the value of the poems for the purposes of history.

An interesting chapter deals with the history of the intercourse which the south of India had with the north and he seeks to show that the assumption that the south was an entity apart from the north is absolutely without foundation. That the Cheras were not unknown to the age of the Taittiriya Aranyaka is an interesting suggestion for which one would like to have evidence more cogent than is now traceable. In a series of chapters Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar gives a lively account of the foreign trade of South India in the first and the second millenniums before Christ. In a chapter On the Ramayana he would make out Valmiki to be a contemporary of Panini and the Ramayana as it stands now to be a composition of the period when the agamas had made the doctrine of avataras popular. Following Pargiter's suggestion, Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar postulates a succession of Agastyas: the first of them was, twenty generations earlier than Rama, the husband of a princess of Vidarbha, a kingdom south of the Vindhyas, and had his asrama in the western part of the Satpura range: the second of them, a contemporary of Rama, was visited by him close to the banks of the Godavari: the third was a much later one who had his seat on the top of the Malaya hill, much

further south, and the fourth was the author of the grammar which bears his name. This southward migration of ‘Agastya’ through the generations is said to be the symbol of the spread of the Aryan cults in the south. This is an alluring hypothesis and deserves considerable attention. An interesting chapter is devoted to chronicling the rise of the agamas and another to the growth of the schools of Baudhayana and Apastambha, and in both chapters an attempt is made to determine the extent to which the south and the north stood mutually indebted: Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar's views on these questions are not only bold and uncompromising but also provocative of thought; further and prolonged research alone will establish whether he is wrong.

We reach next a succession of chapters in which the real character of early Tamil literature is laid bare. That that literature; as it now survives, is preserved mainly in anthologies has often been pointed out before, but no attempt was ever made to determine the course of its stratification. Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar advances a very interesting theory that the Tol-Kappiyam and some poems of the Puram and Aham collections are among the earliest of that body of literature and that the Kali-Tohai is among the last: the theory deserves and will repay careful consideration. He discounts rightly the myths about the three Sangams and gives a picture of the development of the Sangam literature which is more natural than any so far drawn by historians. In another series of chapters he traces the history of the three principal dynasties of the Tamil country, so far as that history can be reconstructed from the Sangam books: he does not go into the question with the thoroughness which characterises the rest of his work as he must have rightly recognised that an adequate study of the subject will entail the writing of a book fully as long as and much more detailed than the present one.

It will be recognised on all hands that the merit of Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar's work lies in the huge volume of evidence he has collected and marshaled and in the clarity with which he has argued out his conclusions. No reader of the work can lay it down without being impressed by the great erudition of the author and the close thinking which characterises every page of it. For decades this work will stand out as a monument of scholarship and as a beacon to voyagers in the yet nncharted seas of the early cultural history of our country.

The impression may be left in the minds of some readers that Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar has interpreted our cultural evolution to the advantage of the Tamilian and shown less than justice to the Aryan. Even if the impression be well-founded, we must not forget that Sanskritists have held the field so long and so obstinately that the Tamilian scholar who wants to wrest for his own culture what be considers to be its birthright cannot hope for success unless he bears down furiously on his antagonists and hits hard enough. In remote antiquity, Agastya strode forth southward to redress the injustice done to Tamil, and, if Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar now goes forth with equal rage it is because he has had equal provocation from the Sanskritists of modern times. We are confident that this new book of his will help to restore the balance and to reinstate Tamil in her lawful seat.

T. G. ARAVAMUTHAN.

MARATHI

"Lagnacha Bazaar" or "The Marriage Market": By Mrs. Shanta Nasekkar, B.A.

[Publisher V. N. Marathi. The ‘Grihalakshmi’ Office, Dhummatkar House, 241, Girgaum Road, Bombay. Price Rs. 2.]

This is a new novel written by Mrs. Nasekkar and has for its theme the eternal problem of the Hindu marriage. This familiar subject form's the mainstay of her story: but she has also dwelt upon the subtle tyranny of the present day social reformers, which takes a hundred shapes, as it often happens in the middle-class Hindu families.

For instance, Satyavati the daughter of a middle-class family, is married in her 19th year to Suresh, a civilian. Suresh's parents have squeezed out forty thousand rupees from Satyavati's father as a dowry. This sum is not exactly a dowry, but it is supposed to be paid towards expenses which Suresh incurred whilst studying for the I.C.S. in England. The first chapter of the story deals with this and incidentally reflects what modern girls have got to say about this most pernicious custom. The chapter itself is styled, "Marriage or Auction" a very suggestive title. But luckily Suresh is not the average type of young man. He feels very disconsolate about his father's doings, and confesses to that effect to Sushila who is a great friend of Satyavati. One feels however Suresh would have been more of a real man if he had the courage to return that forty thousand instead of giving longdrawn apologies which he pours out to Sushila, his wife's friend. Meanwhile a certain amount of intimacy is the result of Suresh's communications to Sushila, and it is not strange that Suresh gets to like her more than Satyavati, with the result that a tragedy is worked out and Satyavati's life is ruined.

Mrs. Nasekkar deals out her story warmly and one must congratulate her on the selection of characters which are so true to life. She deals with a good many problems in her own quaint way. The relationship of the married man with other married women is so well worked out in the gradually developing interest and intimacy which results between Sushila and Suresh. The character of Sadhu Anna, the heartless educated father who sells his daughter with forty thousand rupees is a good study too, and when later on the writer depicts the tragic end of the heroine Satyavati, and yet after the tragedy is worked out, she makes them the units of a better organised society, Mrs. Nasekkar shows a consummate skill in the study of human nature and its frailties, as well as its pathos.

When all is said, one feels however that it is an old old tale, this evil of misfits and the system of marriage in vogue in Hindu society. It was Mr. Apte who first made people conscious of their callous in-difference to this very vital question in Maharashtra Society; and we must confess too that even after Mr. Hari Apte's attempts, we have not been able to evolve such a thing as right, healthy, public opinion about certain aspects of our customs.

But one feels the women are the worst sinners in this respect, for it is they who are so singularly instrumental in causing misfits and tragic endings to what otherwise would have been normal healthy married lives! No grown-up girl is free from their criticism. If a girl goes to college, well, she must be criticised; if she stays at home, well, she must he talked of; and the ‘dowry’, that famous word! If only the women made up their minds when they married their daughters or sons, not to have anything to do with this system, what a reform would have been worked out!

These are some thoughts which arise from a perusal of Mrs. Nasekkar's very interesting work. The language is very simple, and easy, and it ought to appeal to the women of Maharashtra in particular.

The Golden Champak: Selected poems ofProf. S. N. Chaphekar, M.A., LL.B., I.E.S. [Deccan College, Poona.]

The name of Prof. S. N. Chaphekar is well known in Maharashtra. As a poet, dramatic critic, and familiarly known as Shree Krishna, Prof. Chaphekar holds a unique position. The volume under review is a collection of the professor's work of art and it fully justifies itself. It is a varied and interesting collection, where the reader will find verses and songs on everything that is beautiful in daily life. Here are a few lines at random. He sings about the golden dawn:

Nikata, Nikata, Khachita Yeta!
Subha Dinichi Suprabhata !!
Hoteela Jay Saphala Hatu!
Sakala Apule !!

(Swiftly comes the dawn of a brighter day–the golden dawn when our desires shall be fulfilled and we shall behold the glory),

or when he sings of the old year that is a-dying:

Viserun ya! Bhutakala!
Bhutanchich ti Masal !!
Tapa, Shoka, Bhayakaral,!
Smarana de teechen !!

(Come let us forget the old year: with its dying embers and the dead hopes, and the fever of yesterday.)

It is this bright optimism that endears Prof. Chaphekar to his readers. Unlike many of his contemporaries who are content with sentimental forebodings and who try to imitate slavishly the poetry and the spirit of the West, Prof. Chaphekar has a genius of his own. Some of his lyrics are exquisite, as in the case of Diwali, Dasara, or Pimpalpan. He has got his own inimitable style of rendering into appropriate Marathi, some of the finest lines and thoughts of Shakespeare. Witness these lines:

"Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?"

He says,

Vasantantalya. Tula Dinachee Upama Deun Kai?
Adhika Ramyatara Adhika Sojjvala Tyahuni Pari

Tava Kai?

The book is attractively got-up and priced one rupee.

R. L. RAU.

MALAYALAM

Velu Thampi Dalava: By Mr. K. M. Panikkar, M. A. (Oxon), Barrister-at-Law.

These are fine verses written by one who is well known to Malayalam literature. There are eight pieces in this collection.

(1)Anjali (2) Velu Thampi Dalava (3) Paris (4) Gnanam (5) Sagarasthothram (6) Navavathsaram (7) In Spain (8) Parajayaganam.

The author has reputation and indeed he writes well. In the book under review, the author maintains his own traditions. These verses may not be quite novel to those of us who are acquainted with European literatures. But to the old school in Malayalam literature, some of them may be interesting, for instance, the verses on Spain and Paris. Perhaps they may not interest them at all for lack of historical knowledge. The author’s reference to Napolean in his

poem on ‘Paris’ is not very happy nor relevant, and is inexcusable in an impartial student of history.

There are indeed some points for criticism which can be done best only in Malayalam. But I would point out two glaring instances of what I may call ‘immaturity in a poetical aspirant.’

(1) "As Pranava to the Vedas, so is Paris to the historians of Europe–So do they (historians) merge in Paris". I would merely say that I fail to appreciate this ‘alankara’.

(2) "Prowess equal to Karthikeya"–I cannot agree that Velu Thampi Dalava possessed ‘Veeryam’ which was equal to that of Sri Kartbikeya. Our efforts at poetic exaggerations for the sake of strength of the ‘alankara’ fail when a mortal, though of the best of mankind, is compared and made equal to the Most High power.

But the poems as a whole are of the highest order in versification. ‘Velu Thampi Dalava’ in particular is remarkable for its delightful symphony, terse expressions and noble sentiments of patriotic feelings that pervade the soliloquy, as it were, of that great soldier-minister of Travancore. The name ‘Velu Thampi Dalava’ has a significance to the people of Kerala which Cambronne, the last of the Old Guard at Waterloo has created for his in the hearts of Frenchmen. Mr. Panikkar has unquestionably chosen the fittest hero to express feelings of patriotism that are mighty like French Revolutions, which only a Velu Thampi Dalava could feel and act up to. I offer Mr. Panikkar my most hearty congratulations on this piece.

P. NARAYANA KURUP.

KANNADA

Publications of the Adhyatma Karyalaya, Dharwar

The Adhyatma Karyalaya of Dharwar seeks to present the great principles incorporated in the ancient religious books of the Hindus to the Kanarese reading public in easy Kanarese. Its publications are finding a ready sale in the educated circles of Karnataka. The Karyalaya intends in future to expound the Hatha-Yoga, Raja-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga and Dnyana-Yoga, as also the spiritual Sadhana, Sidhi, Upadesha and the lives of Shri Krishna, Shri Ramakrishna, Buddha and others. The following are its publications till now: -

Upanishat-prakash– Parts 1 and 2. The first edition has already been sold and a second one issued. The two parts contain a simple translation of the Eesha, Kena, Katha, Mandukya, Prashna, Mundaka, Itareya and Taittireeya Upanishads: as also their summary and clear explanation. The author is Mr. R. R. Diwakar, M.A., LL.B. Both parts together run to about 350 pages and are priced Rs. 1-8-0 only. The preface to the second part contains a clear exposition of the object and utility of the Vedanta Shastra.

Geeteya Guttu–by the same author as above. Pages 300. Price Re.1only. This is a popular attempt to carry the message of the Bhagawad-Geeta to every Kanarese home in a very simple and easy style. It also contains a lengthy preface in which various questions relating to the Geeta are dealt with in an exhaustive manner.

Upanishad-Rahasya: – This is a free Kanarese rendering of "A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy" by the celebrated scholar Mr. R. D. Ranade, now Professor of Philosophy at the Allahabad University. The translators, Messrs. R.R. Diwakar, D. R. Bendre and S. B. Joshi, have spared no pains to make the great principles adumbrated in the book easily intelligible to the ordinary Kanarese reader. It contains the exposition of 13 Upanishads that are considered to be the oldest, together with notes on Cosmology, Psychology. Ethics, the Darsanas, the Absolute and Self-realization. Pages 406 Demy Octavo. Price Rs. 3. The printing and get-up of the book are quite up to the mark.

V. S. MIRAJI.

TELUGU

Mutyalasaramulu: By the late GURUJADA APPA RAO GARU (Published by his Son Mr. G. V. Bamadas, Vizianagaram.)

The author of this slender volume is famous in the Andhra Desa for his ‘Kanyasulkam’. Some of his original poems along with two short stories in prose are here given posthumous publication.

Apparao Garu is, in the words of the Editor of this Journal, a ‘Herald of the Dawn’ of modern Andhra Renaissance. He is the precursor and founder of the new and rapidly growing school of lyrical poetry in contemporary Telugu literature. The title of this small book which may be rendered in English as ‘Strings of Pearls’ echoes the name by which the exquisite new metre created by him is immortalised. The verses contained in it are mostly composed in that same metre, and the very first poem, which is a defence of the school of freedom-loving poets hailing from the younger generation, goes under the title of ‘Mutyalasaramulu’. The poet herein sings in his vigorous and graceful metre:

‘You Scorn my verse?
Well, what loose I !
Your eye that appraises but wooden dolls
Is dull to the grace of damsels!’

At a time when the tyrannical classicists of Andhra were standing up against all innovations in the literary field, arming themselves with the mace of authority and traditional sanction, it was really heroic of Sri Apparao to have started his single-handed fight with this daring pronouncement upon the decadent taste of the orthodox party. The first poem which hacked the classicists with a graceful axe and defended the younger poets with a powerful shield was composed by the author about twenty years , when any word of reform in any matter was a heresy, and any note of individual freedom, a new scandal in our province, It was then that Apparao, the seer, sung his fresh songs and wrote his fresh prose paving the path for a new literary life, He was a contemporary of the great Veeresalingam who wielded his wizard's pen in a no less heroic fashion for the cause of Social Reform. The war-conch of Veeresalingam in defence of young widows roused the youth of Andhra; and we find the first great poet and dramatist of modern Telugu echo and re-echo the same note of the cause of widow re-marriage and of equality for the depressed classes, in his immortal drama ‘Kanyasulkam’ and in his stirring poem ‘Lavanaraju Kala’or ‘the dream of Lavanaraja’.

The latter poem is included in the book under review. This beautiful tale in verse narrates how King Lavana dreamed, and in his dream strayed among a segregated camp of the Panchamas (the untouchable class) who were living out of the pale of civilised society, but within the wise bounds of their own social laws and organised interests, working for the amelioration of their own fallen class; and in that dream-picture Lavanaraju, the idealist that he was, falls in love with a graceful Panchama virgin. He dreams of making her his queen, that daughter of the Panchamas, and of restoring their natural privilege of equality to her people who were put down by age-long tyranny. And slowly the noble dream passes off and the king wakes up to the realities of life.

Whatever the rest of the tale may be, this was the first instance when, in Telugu literature, a poet thought of picturing his generous and bold social ideals in his poetry in contrast to the stale treatment of erotic love of the heroes and heroines in the classics for the last two centuries. Thus was a new vista opened. The poets of our Telugu land could thenceforth sing of their ideals and aspirations, and be true poets of the Spirit, and not of mere form like the decadent Prabandha Poets. Apparao Garu, for the first time among Andhra poets, knew his noble message and gave it out to the world strongly and freely. He repeated in his themes what Shelley proclaimed that, ‘Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’; and even vindicated it in so far as he knew it his right and duty as a poet to regenerate and rejuvenate the dead ideals of our social and individual life.

As for pure literary excellence and elegance of sentiment, we may quote his Kanyaka, a ballad based upon the popular tradition about the ‘Kanyaka-Paramesvari’, the Vysya maiden who fell a prey to the burning pyre to baffle a tyrant who wanted to outrage her chastity; and is still worshipped in South India as a Goddess. From the flaming altar of Death, the Virgin addresses her fellow-citizens in

exhorting tones:

"If he be the King of the city,
Doth not God be the King of Kings!
Have not you the manliness
To save a virgin from the tyrant's hands?"

and then burning to the tyrant himself she sings her last song in triumph:

"Shame for your arrogance
O King of the city!
And for your evil desire.
Is there not a God above
To chastise even kings?

The important feature of Sri Apparao's poetry, in addition to the noble themes, is the innovation in the matter of style. He was also the first exponent of a new Telugu style, the style that appeals to and belongs to the masses, unlike the old one which was the exclusive property of literary aristocrats. In every line he has written, prose or poetry, he has shown a new genius and a new possibility. We may without controversy say that Apparao Garu is the idol, the path-finder worshipped and followed by all the younger writers of Andhra in spite of strong criticism of a reactionary type. The two short stories in prose that follow these verses are very charming with their simple and entertaining themes dressed in homely, artistic language.

We fail to see why the publisher had to write his preface in English to this book of Telugu verse! Nevertheless, Mr. G. V. Ramadas merits the compliments of all Telugu people with literary taste for bringing out this posthumous collection which has been long overdue, as well as for his promise to publish another volume compiled from the stray contributions and fragmentary writings of the author. It is a pleasure to the reviewer of this book to contemplate, through this accident, on the noble and idealistic life of the late Poet. We hope it will not be taken lightly by our literary public if we suggest that Poet Apparao gloriously merits a fitting memorial in admiration for his peerless pioneer work, say, in the form of organising an Academy in his name through which all the best productions of modern Telugu writers may be given publication in an adequate manner.

M. VISVESVARA. RAO.