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.]

SANSKRIT

Vinavasavadattam- [An old anonymous Sanskrit drama:. Reprinted from the Journal of Oriental Research, Mylapore, Madras. Price As. 8.]

The importance of the Brihat Katha, in respect of supplying inexhaustible themes for dramatists is next only to that of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Among the stories of the Brihat Katha itself, it is the romances of King Udayana of Kausambi that have attracted the dramatists most. The Udayana-Natakas fall into two classes, those that dramatise the marriage of Udayana with Vasvadatta, and those that have for their plot one or the other of the romances of the Prince subsequent to their marriage. The publication of this drama, Vinavasavadattam, has added one more to the former class of dramas.

The drama is available up to the end of the third Act only, the remaining being lost. We do not have any clue to find its author or its own name. The title, Vinavasavadattam, as pointed out in the Foreword, is only a conjecture. The Foreword suggests that the author of the play may be Saktibhadra, the author of the drama, Ascharyachoodamani, in the Prologue of which he refers to himself as the author of another work called Unmadavasavadatta which probably is identical with this Vinavasa-vadattam. It is not likely that Saktibhadra is the author of this play, since the style of that poet as seen in his Ascharyachoodamani differs very much in its superiority over the unidiomatic and insipid prose bits and prosaic verses of the Vinavasavadattam.

However, this drama has interest for a student of the Bhasa-problem, displaying as it does all the peculiarities of the thirteen dramas ascribed to Bhasa. It is very likely that this anonymous drama also belongs to what is very aptly described as the Chakyar-Nataka-Chakra, stage versions (or sometimes original plays also) of the Kerala actors.

As pointed out in the Foreword and the foot-notes, this drama bears resemblance, in plot, ideas, and expressions to the Pratignayaugandharayana, one of the thirteen dramas attributed to Bhasa. Both derive their plot–the marriage of Udayana with Vasavadatta, daughter of Pradyota, King of Ujjain,–from Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara, ii. 3–6.

The development of the plot slightly differs in the two dramas, the Pratignayaugandharayana beginning with the action of the third Act of the Vinavasavadattam. Act 1, describing King Pradyota planning the ruse to capture Prince Udayana, to give him his daughter in marriage according to a Divine vision he had in a dream, and Act 2, depicting the elephant-hunt of Udayana and his subsequent capture by the minister of Pradyota, are very dull. But the third Act, depicting the chief minister's love for his imprisoned master, is very impressive. The diction also grows finer now, but unfortunately, the loss of the text after the third Act makes us postpone our estimate of the play until further search brings to light the complete drama.

V. RAGHAVAN

ENGLISH

The Five Laws of Library Science–By S. R. Ranganathan, M. A., F. L. A., [Published by the Madras Library Association. Price Rs. 5.]

Both in manner, matter and get-up, this is a sumptuous production, artistic and attractive, showing the high standard set up by the Madras Library Association under the energetic leadership of Mr. K. V. Krishnaswami Aiyar. The author of the book, Mr. S. R. Ranganathan, is a distinguished scholar and a keen, clear thinker. I have always deemed it a good fortune to the public life of Madras that a man of his temperament and attainments should have deliberately chosen to keep away from the arid tracks of the law or the narrow ruts of official service.

Mr. Ranganathan has reduced to five the final rules of Library service, and in the process of reduction, he has shown the real touch of an artist, and has lifted the science to the realm of art. Library organisation and management is very prosaic, but the author has carried to the subject a sympathetic and orderly mind, and does not forget for a moment the human ground that alone makes books valuable. The five laws are the results of his own research, and his analytic mind never fails to perceive the underlying group-unity in diversity.

Mr. Ranganthan's book is at once a study of the psychology and the economics of the Library movement in its intimate relationship with the great problem of Education. I would heartily commend this book to all lovers of literature.

K. S. VENKATARAMANI

Teardrops-By Nalapat Narayana Menon: Translated into English by V. M, with a Foreword by Prof. S. K. Banerjee, M. A. Ph. D., Presidency College, Calcutta. [Published by W. Newman & Co., Ltd. Calcutta. Price Re. 1]

There is a proverb in Italian: Traduttori, traditori which condemns all translators as traitors, but as one who has read Mr. Nalapat Narayana Menon's Kannuneerthulli, the Malayalam original of Teardrops, I must say that V. M. escapes in a large measure the harshness of the apophthegm by trying to be uniformly faithful to the original. Kannuneerthulli is an Elegy on the death of the poet's wife, breathing forth a poignant philosophy of life realised through death; death, which, as a writer on folk poetry says, "is the source of all art, of all human achievement. . . . It shattered to pieces the dull round of the food-seeking present and built out of the ruins the perception of a past and a future. It was a symbol of human one-ness with the coming and going of day and night, summer and winter, the rising and receding tide. As an elegy Kannu-neerthulli has hardly any equal to it in Malayalam, and the translator who has been sponsored by Prof. S. K. Banerjee "to that wider cultured public who are ready to find for themselves a second home wherever beauty beckons them on" deserves to be congratulated on his task.

But the chief defect of Teardrops is that it abounds in loosely-constructed lines of bald prose.

"This Samsara is all trash, declare the Pundits who have realized Brahmam" (V. 6); "who cared in those days for even Vaikunda praised to exhaustion in the Puranas?" (viii, 11). The italicised words which are merely scholastic only sound the hollowness of the prose.

"The Brahmam, that pervades all matter, does not discriminate between bodies in choosing its abode; the loss from my bosom of that priceless jewel is therefore a loss for ever." (V. 13). From a didactic as well as a deductive view-point the original is couched in felicitous epithets; in the translation the logical reasoning jars.

Translations, exquisitely poetic and passionately lyrical, however, are not absent in Teardrops. I quote a few: -

"As usual, the day dawned pleasant and fresh–
Faced like the red lotus, and with flowery smile
Welcomed the dancing legion of tender leaves;
The playful breeze strolled along, sprinkling the
Earth with fragrant dew;
With mirthful ripples the winding brook shook
Gently the sleeping banks." (ii, 1)

And where the poet sings of the fatal day and the funeral pall that death threw over the sky: -

"With charcoal clumps of gloomy clouds on the border,
And stars of splintered bones scattered here and there
With ashes allover,
The sky that night looked a burnt-out pyre." (iv, 6)

And in the section which tells of the wife as an expectant mother, the translator is at his best:-

"Into the silken cloth of life that we two
Wove with the vital nerves of our souls.
The Hand of Fortune sewed the golden border of lace". (x. 1)

Or the profound philosophy expressed in such magnificent manner: -

"The Mysterious Alchemist settling himself down to
Silver work with dark iron dust,
Transmutes everything into the gold ere He puts
His Blow-pipe into the Bag of Time." (x, 3).

Malayalam is as yet a comparatively undeveloped language, and surely V. M. has done a creditable bit of work by translating one of the best pieces in his mother-tongue and thereby pointing out the not unworthy place of Kerala in the literary world, the Kerala of whose natural beauty and glory Laurence Hope sang to the West three decades ago.

MANJERI S. ISVARAN

Yoga Personal Hygiene–ByShri Yogendra [P.O. Box 481, Bombay. Price Rs. 10.]

Practical Yoga has long since been a mystery to the Oriental scholars and a secret of much complicated technique to the public. Of late, with clever metaphysical sifting, we have been able to ascertain the exact field of Yoga as a philosophy and also as a religion. While, however, it was suspected that the technique of practical Yoga has besides its metaphysical and religious significance a deeper scientific merit, no attempt was made to classify those claims and ascertain the net value of the various Yoga practices in the light of our modern sciences. It is extremely gratifying, at this stage, to observe that a very far-reaching attempt of much academic and scientific interest is made by an internationally reputed authority upon the subject of the Yoga and Yogatherapeutics. Shri Yogendra, the author of the Scientific Yoga Series (to appear in twelve uniform volumes) is an able scholar who has made extensive researches in the realm of practical Yoga. He acquired at first hand all the Yoga practices from His Holiness Paramahansa Madhavdasji of Malsar, a practical Yogin of great distinction, by undergoing the secret training under his personal supervision for over three years during the years 1915 to 1918. He has thus every right to speak upon the subject of Yoga practices. Combined with his knowledge of the Western sciences and the wide experience gained at his Yoga Institutes in India and America, conducted under medical supervision, the author is placed in a position to successfully handle the subject from the practical and scientific aspects.

We have been swamped with the so-called practical Yoga literature by cheap and popular exploiters, which neither helped the searchers after truth nor the scientists. Mr. Yogendra’s presentation of the subject, the Science of Yoga, is a challenge of clinical and laboratory tests and deserves special attention and admiration. For example, his work Yoga Personal Hygiene now available is probably the only authentic and encyclopedic work of its kind representing that great field of personal training and care of the body secretly taught by the Yogins five thousand years ago. It deals with every phase of hygienic interest with corroborations from both the most ancient Yoga literature and the modern health authorities. It is just the kind of work that should be in the hand of every lay reader and also the scientist, for it serves as a reliable text-book both for individual and personal study and for further scientific researches. His method of exposition is thoroughly scientific in its treatment and practical in its scope.

Looking to the interest and general importance of the subject, it is hoped that the author may be able to present his more important succeeding volumes at an early period to enable further scientific investigations on Yoga–the great heritage of practical knowledge which the Aryans possessed.

M. R. VIDYARTHI, M.A., LL. B.

KANNADA

Minchu–By A. N. Krishnarao, Bangalore.

This book entitled ‘Lightning’ contains nine short stories. The way of the short story is the way of lightning. It comes and goes all of a sudden and we are wiser for the intervening flash.

The writer stands midway between the artist and the social reformer. He is something of both. The strain of advocacy is more marked in his writings than in those of his predecessors, while artistic presentation is not absent. The first, third, fourth and seventh stories show the sensitiveness to the joys and the agonies of the world, natural to the born artist. The others show the righteous indignation of a social reformer with all the susceptibilities of an artist.

Character and situation–these are the key-notes of the stories. Both are finely interwoven in the third, which is the best. Here the speed of the short story equals that of a railway train, both of which lead their noble victim to inevitable death. The first story gives a vivid picture of constant love. But it should be noted that the first sentence of the third fragment of the story (P. 5) leads the reader to a misinterpretation of the time-scheme and implies that the wife of the narrator fell ill thirty years after the journey to Mysore.

Then there are the two historical tales, the fourth and seventh. Of these, the former is better for the simple reason that the plot and characterisation are more interesting. The story centres round the heroic deeds of Pratapasinha, and Prithviraj, a Prince-bard at Akbar's court. But the smile said to be lingering on the face of Yoshi's corpse (p. 42),–a heroic woman who killed herself to inspire in her husband the indignation which she herself felt against the licentious Moghul Court–is unnatural. Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara is the hero of the other historical story which has no special significance. The sudden transition from the dramatic to the narrative style in the second fragment of this story produces an unpleasing effect. The short story should be regular in its process and faithful to the style which it has taken up, unlike the novel where all methods may be tried.

"Her Life" is remarkable for the interplay of the three characters of the degraded woman, the inspiring mother and the lovable son; the technique is perfect, though a slight touch of artificiality is noticeable towards the end. "What next" is a platform lecture. But it has reason to be so, for the heroine relates her misfortunes when she is going to join the mighty sea. "Savitri’s Soubhbagya" again follows the unimpassioned style of narration. "The child" is a model of brevity in narration. But it also remains true that the situation of a child crushed by a motor-car and of the retaliation which follows admits of no more expansion. An artistic restraint imposed upon the fiery outburst of a volcanic eruption–such should be the way of the model short story.

The book is intensely human. The author's sense of the terrors and sublimity of this life pervades all the tales. A genius for details, a dramatic power of characterisation and dialogue, and a perfection both of design and execution, frequently mark the manner in which he imparts this sense to his readers. Every story goes straight to the heart. And that is a sufficient test.

V. K. GOKAK

Pranaya Gitegalu–Edited by A. N. Krishnarao, Bangalore.

This is a pretty little collection of some of the love-poems of modern Kannada poets. It is printed and got-up very finely. This external loveliness alone makes it a welcome gift; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. But the lyrics are also lovely. The spirited renderings of the poems of Tagore and Omar, by Prof. B. M. Srikantayya, Mr. T. N. Srikantayya and Mr. D. V. Gundappa are not mere translations but incarnations. Love in its extremity of joy or sorrow, in its spiritual or aesthetic exaltation, has been sounded by famous poets like Shrinivas and Bendre, Puttappa and Kadengodlu. The lyrics of Pai, Sali, Betgeri and others are also haunting and beautiful. The Editor has done his work extremely well and deserves admiration for his powers of appreciation and selection.

But we should like to mention that there are many more poems which ought to adorn this Golden Treasury. As it is, the collection is very slender. Mugali's Sampige can stand comparison with any poem in this collection for lyrical charm. Ramachandra's Bhavadevi deals with an aspect of love unrepresented in it.

V. K. GOKAK

TELUGU

Bharatiya Chitrakala–By Talisetti Rama Rao, B.A., B.L., (Published by the Andhra Patrika Office, Madras. Price Re. 1.)

Mr. Rama Rao has made a praiseworthy attempt to trace the history of Indian Painting from the earliest times. Information scattered in various standard works on the subject is here presented in an attractive form and made accessible to the Telugu public. The book lays no claim to originality; and, while it is a satisfactory survey of the development of Indian Painting, it fails to touch the fundamentals of Indian Art in general. We look in vain for a clear grasp of the ideals and methods of Hindu and Buddhistic Art, or illuminating criticism of its content. In certain places, the writer is actually apologetic about the art of Ajanta. There is a vein of amateurishness and dilettantism which vitiates his judgment. We wish he had taken more from Coomaraswamy and Havell, and less from Vincent Smith and Percy Brown.

But the book is the first of its kind in Telugu. Mr. Rama Rao's devotion to art is well known, and he has made a name for himself as an art-critic and talented cartoonist. We value his present essay as an earnest of loftier achievements in art-criticism in the future, and as a convenient introductory volume for the use of the lay reader.

K. R.