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

India and Java (Greater India Society Bulletin No.5). Part I (History), By Dr. Bijan Raj Chatterjee; Part II (Inscriptions), By Drs. Bijan Raj Chatterjee and Niranjan Prasad Chakravarti. Calcutta.

The Greater India Society, Calcutta, has to be congratulated on the publication of this useful bulletin relating to the history of India and Java. The first part is a revised edition of an earlier work entitled Indian Culture in Java and Sumatra (1927), ably prepared by Dr. Bijan Chatterjee who is an authority on subjects relating to Indonesia. In this part, the author has ‘availed himself of his knowledge of the Dutch sources to revise and bring up-to-date the subject-matter of the first edition’. And in this Prof. N. J. Krom’s authoritative work, the Hindoe Javaansche Geschiedenis, has been particularly useful to him. In this edition we have three new chapters, viz., (1) Fall of the last Hindu kingdom of Java, (2) The Mahabharata and the Wayang in Java, and (3) Tantrism in Cambodia, Sumatra and Java. The second part is new and consists of Sanskrit inscriptions from Java, Sumatra and Borneo, ‘lands of originally alien tongues and peoples but afterwards completely transfused by contact with the superior culture of India’. These inscriptions were collected by Dr. B. R. Chatterjee and have been edited and translated in this part by Dr. N. P. Chakravarti, Assistant Epigraphist to the Government of India. While a majority of these inscriptions come from Java (West Java, Central Java and Eastern Java) some hail from Borneo, the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra.

Ancient Java possessed no history even as ancient India did not. As Dr. Vogel remarks, ‘there is no account whatever of those mercantile and missionary relations between India and Java which have left such lasting traces in the culture of that island. In the whole gigantic literature of ancient India, both Sanskrit and Pali, there is but a single mention of Java, which occurs in the fourth canto of the Ramayana. The epigraphical records, which to a certain extent must supply the want of historiography, do not throw any light on the early relations between India and the Archipelago, with the exception of a few copperplate charters of the Chola Dynasty’. Since Dr. Vogel wrote there has been much research done on the subject, and the results of this as well as the earlier researches, though fruitful on the side of art and architecture, have much to tell us on the side of history also, as they have helped considerably to reconstruct the ‘Hindu-Buddhist period of Javanese history’ in the following manner stated herein briefly: -

Ptolemy (150 A.D.) calls Java ‘Jabadieu’ or the island of barley. The earliest epigraphic records known are from Borneo which have been assigned to the fourth century A. D. They are in Sanskrit language while the script closely resembles the Pallava Grantha script of South India and of the earliest epigraphy of Champa and Kambuja. The next series of inscriptions, also in the Pallava Grantha script, are from West Java and have been assigned to 450 A. D. They refer to King Purnavarman of Taruma-nagara, an ancient city that has been located near Batavia. The visit of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien to Java, driven by storm, was in about 413 A. D., when the island knew very little of the Buddha’s law. Indeed the introduction of Buddhism here was not earlier than 423 A.D., when a Kashmir prince, Gunavarman, took upon himself the glorious task of preaching that religion here. Later on he went to China. For three centuries since then we get no inscriptions, but Chinese annals however do the duty of history, for they tell us of a kingdom called Lan-ga-su in N. W. Java and of another called Kalinga in Central Java, while W. Java is almost forgotten. The first dated record however is found in Central Java, and comes from Janggal. It is a Saiva record dated Saka 654 (732 A. D.), speaking of sage Agastya’s home in South India and is written in Pallava Grantha script while its language is ornate Sanskrit. In the next dated record discovered at Dinaya and bearing the date Saka 682 (760 A. D.) we find the local Kavi script while the language is still Sanskrit. Kavi gradually replaced the Pallava Grantha in Java. This record shows also that the cult of Agastya was prevalent in Java. In the last quarter of the eighth century A. D. the maritime kingdom of Srivijaya in Sumatra, whose rulers were the glorious Sailendras who followed Mahayana Buddhism, held sway over Central Java. The inscriptions of these Sailendras both in Central Java and in Sumatra are written in a North Indian script which is closely akin to the Pala inscriptions of Nalanda. Srivijaya was noted about this time as a famous seat of learning and as a centre of commerce, while the relations between the Palas of Magadha and the Sailendras were happy and cordial. The wonderful stupa of Borobudur and other lovely temples and sculptures of this period in Central Java testify to the high artistic taste of these Sailendras.

From an inscription dated 785 Saka (863 A. D.) written in Kavi, we get to know that Hindu princes who were devotees of sage Agastya won Central Java from its Mahayanist overlords. The descendants of Agastya are said in this record to have settled in the isle. Of these Hindu kings of the restoration period we get to know of two, Daksha, who probably built the Prambanam group of temples, and Wawa. The latter was ruling over East Java and was administering Central Java with the aid of a governor. With the end of Wawa’s reign we hear very little of Central Java.

Mpoo Sindok, a minister of Wawa, established a powerful kingdom in East Java and a dynasty of his own. The famous Erlangga (1035 A. D.) was the son of a princess of this dynasty. He was a patron of Kavi literature. It was in his time that the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were rendered into Kavi verse. Soon after his death the kingdom got divided into parts, one of which, the principality of Kediri, had famous rulers such as Varshajaya, Kamesvara and Jayabaya (1100-1155 A. D.) under whose patronage the Kavi works such as Sumanasantaka, Krishnayana, Smara-dahana, Harivamsa, Bharata-yuddha etc., were composed and under whose vigilance trade flourished, Javanese boats plying between Madagascar on the west and the Chinese coast on the east. In the first part of the 13th century Ken Arok conquered Kediri, made himself the master of Singasari and creating a kingdom of that name made it the most powerful state in Java. This happened in 1220 A.D. Krtanagara, (1268-92A.D.) the fourth in descent from him, was ambitious and attempted a conquest of Borneo, Bali and Sumatra, but was killed in battle by the chief of Kediri. Vijaya, the son-in-law of Krtanagara, founded in 1294 A.D., the kingdom of Majapahit. His daughter, Jayavishnuvarghani, who succeeded him began the conquest of the Archipelago in 1343 A. D., while her son Hyam Wuruk, who came to the throne in 1350 A. D. expanded the kingdom of Majapahit considerably. From two Kavi chronicles, the Nagarkrtagama and the Pararaton, the former of which was composed in the court of Hyam Wuruk himself, we learn that the kingdom of Majapahit extended to New Guinea on the east and to the Philippine islands on the north, while Srivijaya, Kedah, Singapore, etc., were included in the list of dependencies. As for religion and art of this period we get to know that both Buddhism and Hinduism were patronised by the king and that Javanese art, ‘best studied in the temple of Panataran, was coming more and more under Polynesian influence’.

After Hyam Wuruk, the kingdom decayed and a princess of Champa, wife of Krtavijaya, one of the last rulers of Majapahit, favoured Islam (1448 A. D.) with the result that Sumatra, Java and the Malay peninsula were being gradually brought over to Islam. While tradition attributes the fall of the kingdom to Vijaya V, who died fighting the Muslims in 1478 A. D., recent research would seem to suggest that ‘it was a Hindu prince, Ranavijaya of Kediri, who dealt the death-blow to Majapahit in 1478 A. D.’ and in 1513 A. D. we find the Hindu king of Java seeking Portuguese alliance.

The work under review is a valuable contribution on the subject of the history of India and Java, which no student of the subject can do without. The authors have done their respective tasks very ably and in a manner that does credit to their scholarship and wide learning.

T. N. RAMACHANDRAN

Indian Women and Art in Life.–By Kanaiyalal H. Vakil, B.A., LL.B. (D. B. Taraporewala Sons & Co., Bombay. Price, Rs. 2.)

This is, in the main, a reproduction of Mr. Vakil’s address on Indian art delivered at the Bombay session of the All-India Women’s Conference some years ago. Mr. Vakil is an enthusiastic advocate of certain phases of present-day Indian art, particularly as it obtains in Bombay and Western India. He contends that the art movement in India has, for too long, been the concern of ‘exclusive coteries’ of worshippers who fail to see the intimate connection between art and the daily life of the nation. According to him, attention ought to be diverted from the archaic and the antique in Indian art, to the actual work of the rising artists in every province. And they must be freed from the trammels of convention. Art should pervade every department of the nation’s life as it once did,–beautify our homes and surroundings, our fashions in dress, and our festive gatherings. In all this, the women of India can play a great part. ‘The women of India, if they so determine, can assist substantially art in India towards its reconstructive, or rather progressively positive, phase of vitality and growth. They can stop its provincial and ego-centric decadence and raise it to its legitimate status, not less international than interprovincial.’ The book is beautifully got-up and illustrated with examples of Indian painting, sculpture, and dance.

Mr. Vakil’s antipathy to Mr. E. B. Havell and his disciples in Bengal amounts almost to an obsession. Like King Charles’s head, it turns up on every page and detracts from the value of an otherwise excellent book.

K.R.

SANSKRIT

Manameyodaya.–Aprimer on Mimamsa by Narayana Bhatta. Text in Devanagari, with English Translation, Introduction and Notes: By Dr. C. Kunhan Raja and Mr. S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri, M.A., B.Sc., Readers in Sanskrit and Philosophy, Madras University. (The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar. Price, Indian Edition Rs. 5; Foreign Edition Rs. 6).

The Manameyodaya is an excellent manual on the theory of knowledge and ontology of the Bhatta School of Mimamsa. Though there are many small works treating of the Mimamsa, there are very few which succinctly and clearly set forth the philosophy of the Mimamsa system; and for this one has to go to the elaborate and difficult works like the sloka Vartika of Kumarila and the Tarka-pada of Sastra-dipika or to the works on Advaita, on the principle that the Advaitins mainly follow Kumarila in this respect, ‘Vyavahare Bhattanayah’. It is very praiseworthy of the Editors to have made this work available for the students of Indian Philosophy.

The work consists of two parts, the first dealing with the means of valid knowledge written by Narayana Bhatta, well-known Malabar poet and philosopher of about the latter half of the 16th century, and the second dealing with the categories written by a scholar of the same name. The treatment of the subject is in the classic style of stating the principles in brief karikas, then expounding them, discussing and refuting the views of other schools in prose comments. The different topics are comprehensively dealt with in lucid language without any of the cumbersome elaboration of the scholasticism of the 16th and subsequent centuries.

The English translation of the work is accurate and reliable, and the language simple and flowing. The translation is conveniently printed at the bottom of each page for easy reference. The value of this critical edition is greatly enhanced by the detailed table of contents, comparative table of Pramanas and categories, lists of doctrinal differences, glossary of words, and brief notes at the end which further elucidate the more difficult and obscure points. It is surprising to find such a model edition as this should have, like the one in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, omitted to give an index of the karikas occurring in the text. The karikas in the present text are not even numbered!

A. SANKARAN, M.A., Ph.D.

The Bhamati of Vachaspati-Chatussutri.–Edited with an English Translation by Mr. S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri, M.A., B. Sc and Dr. C. Kunhan Raja, M.A., D. Phil., Readers in Philosophy and Sanskrit, Madras University. With a Foreword by Sir S. Radhakrishnan. (Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar).

The Bhamati of Vachaspati is the reputed and learned commentary of the versatile philosopher, Vachaspati-misra on the Sariraka Bhashya of Sri Sankara and represent the basic work of one of the three schools that arose as followers of Sri Sankara’s Advaita, viz., the Bhamati Prasthana. The present text of the Bhamati-Chatussutri forms the most important portion of the work that is ordinarily studied by all traditional students of Advaita and it is now presented for the first time to the non-Sanskrit-knowing students of Indian Philosophy with an English Translation, Introduction and Notes.

The text adopted here is the same as that of the Sri-rangam edition, but the editors have also utilised two other manuscripts of the Adyar Library and have adopted some readings from them, wherever they were found preferable e.g., on p. 49 where pravartante is preferred to the singular pravartate, which is the reading in all printed editions. Though the adoption of this reading violates the elementary principle of sentence-construction viz., that a pronoun that is the subject of a sentence must have for its antecedent only the subject of the previous sentence and not the object, yet there is justification for the reading in that it makes the meaning clearer and is in greater consonance with what follows.

The Editors have had the benefit of suggestions and criticism from Mahamahopadhyaya Prof. S. Kuppuswami Sastri, but on p. 122, the reading of an important quotation from the Nyaya Sutra ‘Budhi siddham tu tad asat’ properly identified by the learned Professor is wrongly read by the Editors with a negative particle as in the printed books, even though the emendation has the support of the Katpataru and is war-ranted also by the context. The Editors in their explanatory notes at the end discuss the merits of the two readings but have exercised their discretion wrongly in preferring the bad reading, resorting indiscriminately to the law of parsimony, unmindful of the demands of the context.

However the text as presented here is genuine. The translation has been made with the utmost care and is true to the original. Considering the difficulties of the Bhamati text, it must be said that the translators have made an achievement worthy of any scholar. The even more scholarly part of the work is to be found in the learned Introduction and the brilliant Notes at the end of the work. In the former are clearly set forth the distinctive tenets of the Vachaspati School, Vachaspati’s indebtedness to Mandana and his differences with other commentators, particularly Padmapada, the author of the Panchapadika. There are also occasional comparisons with the views of Western philosophers which will be of great interest to the modern student. It may be noted in passing that the Editors’ criticism of the doctrine of Jivanmukti as illogical is not convincing, though in this matter, it may be mentioned, they have the support of a great dialectician of Advaita, Gouda Brahmananda Sarasavati. In the scholarly Notes are elucidated historical, textual and doctrinal points which could not be made clear in a mere translation. (e.g., see notes 22, 27,31,51,54,65.119,132,137,138, etc.). These notes are quite essential or we may even say that they are much more necessary and useful than a mere translation for the proper understanding of philosophical treatises bristling with technicalities which are likely to lead astray the scholar of limited or one-sided knowledge. As examples, may be cited Prakarantara (p. 297) and Nioyga or Apurva (p. 303). The notes are very copious and full, revealing the superior scholarship of the Editors and their great attention, care and eagerness to make the work as well understood as possible.

The printing and get-up of the book are excellent. The learned Editors have, by this publication, rendered distinguished service to Indian philosophical studies and have earned the gratitude of all students of Indian Philosophy.

A. SANKARAN, M.A., Ph.D.

Andhra Ritu-Samharam.–By G. V. Subrahmanyam, B. A. (Andhrapatrika Office, Madras. Price As. 8.)

‘It is for love of the beautiful that I have translated Kalidasa’s poem, not from pride of scholarship’, says the author. But scholarship in Sanskrit and Telugu is as much in evidence here as love of beauty. His style is a happy blend of the Sanskrit samasa and sweet Telugu idiom.

The Ritu-Samhara is believed to be the earliest of Kalidasa’s poems; in it are seen the first sproutings of that love of Nature which flowered into perfection in his later works. Mr. Subrahmanyam calls attention to this development and proves it by apt quotations. Translation of a poet like Kalidasa is indeed more difficult than original production in Telugu, as the reader is excessively critical at every stage, and inclined to disparage the efforts of a mere modern. Mr. Subrahmanyam has done his work with considerable skill. He deserves the encomiums showered on him by the Press, and by Mr. K. Nageswara Rao in his Introduction.

We wish the author a brilliant literary career, for he has begun well.

K. R.

Hampi Kshetramu.—By Kodali Venkata Subba Rao, B.A. and K. Sivayogananda Rao. (K. Sivaramakrishna Rao, Andhrapatrika Office Madras. Price As. 10.)

This great work of the late lamented Subba Rao (along with his uncle Sivayogananda Rao) represents the flowering of his genius and patriotism. That ‘style is the man’ is amply illustrated throughout these poems. The rough exterior of Subba Rao tempered by his innate charm and affection attracted his friends while he lived; so too does his poetry now. The poet standing on the ruins of Hampi, and recalling in a picturesque and thrilling manner the departed glories of the city, gives us a vivid glimpse into the past. There i life and energy in every line, and surpassing wealth of imagination. Thought and language are so well poised, that the poet may be deemed to have set at rest the conflict of theories about form and substance in poetry. Historic personages like Vidyaranya, Rama Raya and Tirumala are portrayed in a unique manner; Subba Rao does not hesitate to describe Tirumala Raya as a coward while historians generally prefer to be silent.

‘Nirankusah Kavayah’ (‘Poets are unshackled’) was the reply given to me once by Subba Rao when I pointed out to him the use of certain words and of incorrect prosody. Even in these poems we find colloquial expressions, but they enhance the beauty of the whole, and in every instance they have a special significance, justifying the above reply.

Inscrutable are the ways of God. Just at a time when Subba Rao was winning recognition as a poet of rare promise, he was snatched away. It was left to his friend and colleague Mr. Viswanatha Satyanarayana, M.A. to collect the poems and give the poet a chance of eternal life.

C. J.

MARATHI

Arvacheen Marathi Vangmay Sevak: G. D. Khanolkar.–(Bombay, Price Rs. 2-4.)

Mr. Khanolkar’s handbook on modern Marathi writers fulfils a long-standing need of a good reference book of modern Marathi authors, and the very fact that it has at once been recognised as a standard book on the subject must speak of this volume a great deal. An alphabetical index of the names of the more prominent writers is an useful addition.

Vihangam: Editor, Y. M. Phatak, Congress Nagar, Nagpur.–(Monthly. Rs. 3 a year.)

Vihangam is a bright young thing in Maharashtra’s growing and popular journalistic ventures. It is a very good miscellany of light and serious Marathi literature and most young writers have found their way into this journal. The controversy regarding payment to writers is interesting and one would like to know how Maharashtra’s writers and publishers are going to solve it. The journal, one is told, is a new venture and the first of its kind in the Central Provinces. But Mr. Phatak must try to improve the exterior of his magazine and give up using the rather unnecessary and meaningless display of types and ink in his pages. For one thing, such a process hurts the eye of the reader, and artistically it is absurd. Nor must Mr. Phatak encourage the publication of third-rate amateurish sketches in pen and ink and the display of cheap cinema illustrations which, one is afraid, definitely spoil the general get-up of a good publication.

R. L. RAU

KANNADA

Matagati Mattu Itara Kathegalu.–By ‘Ananda’ (Bangalore, Rs. 0-12-0).

This is a fine collection of five short stories written by ‘Ananda’, one of our distinguished short story writers. It is accompanied by a brilliant foreword from ‘Srinivasa’, the godfather of the short story and of many other things in Kannada. There is also a panegyrical lyric by Mr. D. R. Bendre forestalling the text.

‘Ananda’s’ short stories have always a minuteness and perfection of technique, a chiselled grace and chastity of language, an even and enchanting flow of narrative which it is hard to find anywhere else. There is a lyrical sweetness inherent in the theme and the treatment, which renews, the beauty of many of his stories every time.

Technically considered, all the five stories are stories of incident. This is not to say that they belong to a smaller category. A story of character is not better than a story of incident simply because it is a story of character. There is much more of characterisation in Shakespeare’s romantic comedies of incident than in Ben Jonson’s ‘eccentric’ comedies of character. The thing to be grasped is the life that the starting-point of incident or character yields to the writer. And there is immense life in each of these stories. It almost spreads its mantle over the technique itself.

The stories are beautiful because of this mantle of life which they wear with grace. They have also misled certain critics of their technique on this account. ‘The Girl I Murdered’ and ‘Life’ are not stories of character. The Baswi, the courtesan and the other characters are only types made to live for the moment in order to display the essential glamour which the situations had for the writer. This is done so well that the types are almost individualised; and we are also made to look beyond the incident and the characters to the society which is full of problems similar to those depicted in the stories. In ‘A letter from his wife’, sympathetic humour and subtle irony are made to enliven the charming situation. Though ‘The enchantress’ is intensely and predominantly lyrical in its psychological details, it would not have been a short story but for the final hint that the lady of his dream was the heroine of a fine painting. ‘The Horse-man in the sky’ is a fine adaptation of a famous American short story with the same title.

‘Ananda’ has an artist’s vision of life; he has also the god’s gift of expression.

V. K. GOKAK