Reviews of Books

Popular Culture in Karnataka.–By Masti Venkatesa Iyengar. (Published by the Author, Bangalore City. Price Rs. 2-8-0.)

Mr. Masti Venkatesa Iyengar hardly needs to be introduced to the readers Triveni. For many years, he has been a valued contributor, giving striking glimpses of the culture and the Life-Movement in Karnataka. In this volume, he seeks to present to the outside world the surgings of culture-consciousness of a simple people who were once a ruling race. He has re-discovered the beauty that is born of simplicity, the purity that is the off-spring of isolation.

A book about the culture of a people can be written either from a historian’s point of view or that of an artist. The former, however, labours under a defect in that it will be merely a catalogue of the various influences in their chronological order, and a complete view cannot be had. Mr. Iyenger, being a sensitive artist himself, can only handle the theme, as he has in this book, according to the latter method of treatment. He has drawn with a delicate but sure touch the joys and sorrows of the daily life of the people, the philosophy and tradition that help them along the road.

The book does not pretend to be an exhaustive account of the heritage of the people whose language was once spoken from the banks of the Cauveri to those of the Godavari. It gives an idea of the two great movements which moulded the destiny of the Kannada people, and shaped their lives with that touch of tradition that goes a long way in consolidating the common heritage. As Mr. Iyengar rightly says, "Philosophy, religion and art were combined in this culture to play upon the whole of life even of common men." Even of common men–therein lies the justification for this book. A culture to be broad based must be rooted in the simple lives of the common men–and that is a peculiarity not only of Kannada culture, but of all Indian cultures, unlike those of Europe which have passed the humble people by.

This book emphasises the organic spiritual and cultural unity of India from the white Himalayas to the green Cape. The twin movements of Virasaiva and Haridasa of Kannada could have taken place in any part of India, and produced the same result. Even so, the Kannada movements towards simplicity have spread beyond the borders of that country. In Bombay and Madras we constantly hear the names of Basavanna and Purandaradasa and their sayings.

These movements "touched the root of the people’s conscience and fed it with the water of life." They were movements of the common people whose pursuits were neither learned nor philosophical. And that is the sole reason why they have been absorbed into the stream of life and have enriched the cultural ground of that country.

The best chapter in the book is, of course, the one on ‘folk-song.’ The test of a culture is its folk-song, and Kannadadesa comes out victorious in the test. The number of songs, their variations, their differing treatments blending all the nine rasas, evoke our admiration. The one about the fall of Seringapatam, especially, is a masterpiece of patriotic fervour. Thus they range from love of one’s country to rural amours–but all with a grain of modesty, never loud-mouthed nor bawdy, but keeping well within the demands of decorum without losing the touch of spice.

The people of Kannada must have an unconscious urge towards the Beautiful in Life–for the names of their villages, which Mr. Iyengar enumerates with explanations in another chapter, are lovely and euphonious, and give rise to pleasing thoughts of smiling cornfields and groves. And the recurring usage of the name of Jasmine, ‘Mallige,’ while paying tribute to their unerring instinct of finding charm in white, denotes the extreme simplicity of the country-folk.

In the end Mr. Venkatesa Iyenger draws his conclusions about the present and the future following on such a superb past. The two movements that have done so much for Karnataka are now ranged against each other, when, together, they could have worked for the uplift of the Kannada peoples. The age-old illusion of difference between Vishnu and Siva is blinding them still to their own interests. Mr. Iyengar also criticises the spirit of compromise carried to excess, as in the case of animism being practised side by side with high philosophy and mysticism. But it may be pointed out that philosophy coupled with exotic manifestations of what he calls the ‘lower religion’ helps the people to keep sane and to avoid the pitfalls of the Protestants in Europe who killed Beauty, Art and Nature. His conclusions are quite in accordance with his lofty outlook. And if he has been scathing in some of his criticisms, it is due to his exceeding love for the culture of his mother-country.

The book is very well written and in a lucid style. But as the essays were originally written for the purpose of lecturing to the Madras University, they suffer a little from what one might call the ‘speaking method.’ It may also be mentioned that his references to the art of the country are brief and incomplete. He could have devoted a whole chapter to that essential part of the people’s culture. Again he might have, with benefit to the average reader, condensed the chapters on the Virasaiva and Haridasa Movements.

We congratulate Mr. Masti Venkatesa Iyengar on this excellent book, and hope that he will hereafter give us fuller glimpses of the beauty of Karnataka.

K. J. MAHADEVAN

Burmese Drama–A Study, with Translations, of Burmese Plays. By Maung Htin Aung. (Oxford University Press. Price Rs. 7-8-0.)

This study of the Burmese Drama by Mr. Maung Htin Aung was, in its origin, a more comprehensive thesis submitted for the degree of Ph. D. to the University of Dublin on ‘A Comparative Study of Burmese with English and European Drama.’ "From the thesis for which I was granted the degree," writes the author in his Preface, "I have omitted only some portions that dealt with the English and European Drama, and have given the work in its present form the new title, Burmese Drama."

In its present form, his study of the Burmese Drama bears at least one very obtruding trace of its origin, namely, an unhappy eagerness to find a parallel for every stage of the growth of the Burmese Drama in the history of the English Drama. Not infrequently the parallel nature sought to be established is a little too exaggerated and impossible. In any case, it is not a safe method to study the growth of a country’s Drama while one is obsessed all the time with the history of the Drama in another country. The following quotations (some of them contradicting each other) from various places in the volume illustrate the danger:

"The Nibhatkhin was the equivalent of the English miracle and mystery plays."

"There is absolutely no mention in those accounts of anything which could be termed the Burmese morality play. Yet, I venture to think (italics ours) that there must have been plays comparable to the English moralities. If it should be presumed that the interlude developed directly out of the Nibhatkhin, there would be a big gap between the two. I think (italics ours) that the professional actors first gave semi-religious plays in imitation of the Nibhatkhin. I think also (italics ours) that there were also plays actually dealing with abstract notions of morality and religion which formed the subject of the English morality plays."

"U Kyin U was a Marlowe, U Pon Nya a Shakespeare, and the decadent dramatists are Fords."

"But as far as it is known, the age of U Pon Nya is not comparable to the age of Shakespeare, for Burmese Drama, even during U Pon Nya’s time, did not equal the Elizabethan drama in spontaneity and intensity."

"And U Pon Nya was not a Shakespeare, and had by no means exhausted the possibilities of the drama. Moreover, Burmese decadent drama is very far below its Elizabethan counterpart in artistic achievement."

"And had the rise of the new drama (after the British annexation of Burma) been possible, I believe that it would have been something akin to the English Restoration Comedy, for a comedy of ‘humours’ was developing rapidly in the decadent period even though it was subsidiary to sentimentality and pathos. But I am wandering into realms of pure conjecture, which is inexcusable in a work attempting to be scientific."(Italics ours).

"The British annexation in its effect on Burmese drama is comparable to Cromwell’s closing of the English theatres, for both events gave the death-blow to decadent and already dying dramas."

The quotations show that Mr. Aung’s work would have gained greatly in value, if he had tried to trace the history of the Burmese Drama independently, without, for instance, dropping into conjectures about ‘Burmese morality plays’; and if he had attempted to assess the merits of U Kyin U and U Pon Nya without, in the process, meddling with the names of greater dramatists like Marlowe and Shakespeare. In ‘a work attempting to be scientific,’ what cannot be excused is this desire on his part to rush to compare the Burmese Drama with the English Drama, when even to him the very history of the Burmese Drama has dark and obscure phases, and when, besides, the Burmese Drama is obviously so inferior to the English Drama of the Elizabethan age.

To this same mistaken desire to find parallels in the history of the English Drama should be attributed Mr. Aung’s very unreal division of the history of the Burmese Drama into six stages:

"First, there is the age of the Nibhatkhin, comparable to the English miracle play, ending about 1752. Second, we have from 1752 to 1819, the period of the interlude (comparable to the English morality and interlude) and the Court drama. Third, we have the period of the dramatist, U Kyin U, 1819 to 1853. Fourth, we have the period of the poet, U Pon Nya, 1853 to 1878. Fifth, there is the period of decadence, 1878 to 1886. Sixth, we have the time from 1886 to the present day."

Actually, the division is thoroughly unreal for a number of reasons. There is little to complain about the first period of the division. Mr. Aung gives an exhaustive description of the Nibhatkhin, which was the pageantry of religious processions, where each cart represented a set scene, and the cart stopped at certain places, and the scene came to life, and dialogue and action were used, showing in effect a play. But the second period is very obscure, and no logical connection has been established by Mr. Aung between the interlude and the Court drama the twin manifestations of this hypothetical stage. Proceeding to the next two periods, the differentiation, in the sphere of thought and technique, between the drama of U Kyin U and the drama of U Pon Nya appears to be one without a sure basis:

"U Kyin U was a romanticist. The world in Daywagonban and Parpahein was a world of fantasy and romance. In U Pon Nya’s plays, the atmosphere of romance is missing. He does not use animals as characters, except in Paduma, where the crocodile contributes to the main action by saving the prince and by driving home the moral that even animals are wiser than women……In U Kyin U’s work the gods and demons were in keeping with the romantic atmosphere. U Pon Nya portrays his supernatural characters as belonging to a world other than ours, but as being interested in the human world…..U Pon Nya does not have to create a fantastic world to accommodate his spirits, as U Kyin U had to. Even in U Pon Nya’s Kawthala, written in imitation of Daywagonban, the tree-god re-incarnation of Kawthala, is different from the tree-god of U Kyin U’s play."

This argument contrasting U Kyin U and U Pyon Nya is a far too laboured one; and to readers of this volume who are not familiar with the Burmese language, and who have not read U Kyin U and U Pon Nya in the original, the similarities between these two Burmese dramatists are many and marked; and on the evidence available in this book there is little to prove that U Pon Nya was an improvement in any manner on U Kyin U or that he ushered in a new era for the Burmese Drama.

Even the ‘Decadent Period,’ the fifth of the periods of Mr. Aung’s division, seems to have too much in common with the periods of U Kyin U and U Pon Nya; and Saya Yaw and U Ku and Saya Hsu Tha of this period cannot certainly be adjudged to be inferior to the two earlier dramatists. Mr. Aung tries elaborately to show where the decadence lies, but such qualities of decadence as he describes seem to be no less present in U Kyin U and U Pon Nya. The "showing on the stage of the queen giving birth to a child" and a scene occurring "where the hero is shown roasting and eating his new-born heir," are no doubt proofs of a certain decadence in the fifth period, but, broadly speaking, U Kyin U and U Pon Nya had not themselves evolved sufficiently out of the immaturity which can, in the extreme, perpetrate such absurdities on the actual stage as presenting a mother in the throes of child-birth or presenting a father making a meal of his heir.

And as for the sixth period from 1886 till now, on Mr. Aung’s own admission, there seems to have existed no dramatist and no dramatic work worth considering (if we over look Po Sein, the actor, who "impressed the audience, increased his prestige and enhanced the theatrical effect," by "having two British ex-soldiers with rifles, standing motionless on each side of the stage whenever he appeared") and this fact ought to have prevented altogether the very postulation of a sixth period.

Excluding the Nibhatkhin and the Court drama and the five later dramatists, U Kyin U, U Pon Nya, Saya Yaw, U Ku, and Saya Hsu Tha, there appears to be no Burmese Drama at all to discuss, and a thesis of such length on so meagre an achievement cannot but result in a certain want of proportion in critical evaluation, and it is not surprising at all that Mr. Aung at moments mistakes U Kyin U for a Marlowe and U Pon Nya for a Shakespeare.

Mr. Maung Htin Aung takes great pains to refute (and nearly succeeds in refuting) the theory of Sir William Ridgeway that the true dramatic element in Burmese Drama was borrowed from the Indian historical plays of Rama, and says, "The ‘true dramatic element’ was already in the Nibhatkhin, or at least in the interlude; the Indian Ramayana coming by way of Siam did influence Burmese drama, but this was possible only because there was already a native drama to absorb this foreign influence." But Indian readers of Mr. Aung’s book cannot escape the feeling that if Mr. Aung had given up comparing the Burmese Drama at each stage with the English Drama, and had instead more persistently pursued the study of the influences from India and Siam on the Burmese Drama, more light might have been shed on the earlier and obscure phases of the Burmese Drama. Mr. Aung says in his last chapter, ‘The Aftermath,’ that the essential difference between the Burmese Drama and the Sanskrit Drama is to be found in the realism of U Pon Nya, in the sympathetic understanding of U Kyin U revealed in the portrayal of villains, and in the so-called Burmese doctrine (assumed to be absent in the Sanskrit Drama!) that the essence of technique was in the smooth, logical and clear unfolding of the plot." This is a prejudiced exaltation of the Burmese Drama at the expense of the Sanskrit Drama of which Mr. Aung betrays no actual knowledge.

The volume has many an Appendix containing translations of many scenes from many plays. But there is nothing particularly praiseworthy about the dramatic movement or the dialogue. More often than not, the dialogue is very ponderous not pointed and realistic, thus reminding one of Mr. Aldous Huxley’s remark that in life there is no dialogue but there are only intersected monologues! There are only ‘intersected monologues,’ chiefly monotonous, in these Burmese plays, and they only serve to prove that the Drama in Burma is no more developed than is the Drama in most of the modern Indian languages. Burmese Drama too has not yet learnt the technique of the modern prose plays of the West, and all the dramas that have been discussed in this volume are written in the familiar antiquated mixture of a little prose and a lot of verse–a fact which creeps into our notice almost by the sheerest accident towards the end of the chapter on the ‘Decadent Period,’ instead of being mentioned in the earlier chapters when the individual work of each writer is considered.

Mr. Maung Htin Aung’s book gives us excellent material about the Burmese Drama. But the book also leaves ah unfortunate impression that both his critical evaluations and his historical analysis of the Burmese Drama are faulty and incomplete. Still, the real incompleteness is perhaps in the history of the Burmese Drama itself. It is as if a ‘History of the English Drama’ had been laboriously written by an enthusiastic Englishman in the middle of the sixteenth century, before the advent of Marlowe and Ben Jonson and Shakespeare; or, to give a homelier illustration, as if an elaborate thesis had been written on the intellectual attainments of a school-boy who knew only his alphabet. Such a history and such a thesis can perhaps make useful information sometimes, but they cannot seek to satisfy any genuine element of human curiosity.

BURRA V. SUBRAHMANYAM

Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita–ByProf. D. S. Sarma, M.A. (Price Re. 1-4-0.)

This book published by the veteran publicist and Grand Old Man of Andhradesa, Mr. Nyapati Subba Rau Pantulu, President of the Hindu Samaj, Rajahmundry, contains the six lectures on the Gita delivered by Prof. D. S. Sarma under the auspices of the Samaj, mainly to students. It has the added attraction of a Foreword by Sir S. Radhakrishnan. The author intends it to be a guide-book to the earnest modern student of the Gita. Mr. Sarma is, himself, in the words of Sir Radbakrishnan "a serious-minded and scholarly expositor of the Gita." He has made its study and exposition his life-work and felt the truth of what he says in his pulses." He earlier translated the Gita and published it with a useful introduction. This translation is also appended to this work and will be found to be very helpful to the student.

Mr. Sarma in his lectures is mainly concerned to indicate to the Hindu student how the Gita has an intense practical and effective appeal to every one of us, ordinary men, in our lives, and is a source of inspiration to us even under the changing conditions of modern India. He proves that, ancient though it be and addressed to a great hero living in a different atmosphere and in a different social order and confronted with different problems, the teaching of the Gita has in it elements of freshness, vitality and eternal value which must instruct the modern mind. He maintains that, unlike many another ancient scripture, obscured with the encrustations of learned commentaries and inaccessible to the lay man, the Gita is still simple and direct enough to admit of its being understood and pondered over by even unsophisticated minds. Ever since the middle of the 18th century when it began to be translated into French and English, it found its way to the Western world, and, now freed from its local colouring and geographical limitations, bids fair to become the Gospel of Humanity. It is quoted alike by the philosopher and the politician, the mystic and the demagogue, the reformer and the orthodox. The remarkable feature of the Gita is that, unlike many another great work, it does not suffer in translation but retains its terseness, suggestiveness and force, even though the peculiar charm and dignity of the Sanskrit verse fade in translation. It has always been a moot point among Sanskritists, why the name ‘Gita’ should be in the feminine gender. Many explanations have been attempted but the most convincing seems to be that the Gita is, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "the universal mother. She turns away nobody and her door is wide open to anyone that knocks, and a true votary of hers does not know what disappointment is but ever dwells in perennial joy and the peace that passeth understanding." It is to indicate the all-embracing motherly love of the Lord in the Gita that the feminine gender is used. The Sanskrit verse in the Gita Mahathmya also suggests the same idea; ‘Amba tvam Anusandadhami Bhagavat Gite.’

The Hindu mind, which ever since the dawn of history has been immersed in the study of the problems of religion and intent on the pursuit of high religious and ethical ideals is characterised, by dint of the experience of centuries, by a spirit of compromise between practical life and abstract idealism, and while soaring in the upper regions of metaphysical thought never loses its hold on the solid ground of the hard realities of life. It has, therefore, come to be imbued also with a spirit of tolerance for the varying degrees of culture and for the habits and customs of the different strata of society and sympathy for the defects and disabilities of human nature. This characteristic has often led the foreigner who surveys Hindu culture and civilisation to observe an element of incongruity and illogicality. To the acute logical mind, even the Gita in some places has appeared to be obscure and elusive. This is due to the same spirit pervading the teaching of the Gita also. While trying to liberate the Hindu mind from the rigid formalism of Vedic rituals, the Gita has not been bold enough to go to the logical extent of condemning ritualism altogether. While extolling the supreme merit of absolute renunciation and abstract jnana it laid stress on the necessity for work and service. It lays great emphasis on the inner attitude of mind and condemns the outward adherence to religious tradition but at the same time fights shy of any revolutionism and advises conformity to the authority of the Shastras.

In India throughout the centuries, the Gita has continued to attract the masterminds of every age and evoked many learned commentaries from them. In modern times, we have had the commentaries of Tilak and Aurobindo Ghose. Every age has tried to put its own interpretation on the Gita. We of the present day are free to put our own interpretation, consistent with the spirit of the present age, on the teaching of the Gita. We need not regret that we have to break away from the past nor need we unnecessarily condemn the past commentators and their interpretations as wrong or torturing the text. The unique feature of the work is that, without being unnecessarily mutilated, the text lends itself to all these varying interpretations. It seems as if even the phraseology and treatment of the subject are deliberately adapted to such a process and the Lord seems to have willed that it should be so. The great Sankara, while beginning his Commentary, bewails that the text has been misinterpreted by the people around him, and some, in their turn, in the present age, bewail that Sankara and other commentators have narrowed the text to suit their particular systems of thought. The wonder of it all is that the Gita is flexible enough to admit of the various interpretations made according to the changing modes of thought and the spirit of succeeding ages.

Any intelligent thinker who appraises the tendencies and ideologies of the modern age, must come to the conclusion that a compromise is inevitable if the world should not end in chaos between spirituality and materialism, social service and individual salvation, imperialism and international goodwill and universal toleration. In the task of the preparation for such an era, the Gita is sure to be, in a greater degree, the guide and gospel, and must, perforce, attain the dimensions of a book of the world. Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya expresses the wish that he may live to hear the news that from the richest mansions to the poorest cottage no Hindu home is without a copy of the Gita and that it is held in reverence by every Hindu with all the devotion due to a form ofthe Divine, and that the teaching of the Gita should be popularised among all sects and classes in this country. Prof. Sarma’s lectures will go a great way to help in the realisation of this wish.

K. BALASUBRAHMANIA AIYAR

Dinamni Annual Number (As. 8.)–The Dinamani Annual Number marks as usual the healthy level of journalistic effort in Tamil and easily secures our appreciation by the fine get-up and copious illustrations including many coloured pictures of rising artists. The range of the topics shows variety and flair. Mahamahopadyaya V. Swaminath Aiyar has contributed an interesting article to this number and we have a story of the late Subrahmanya Bharathi, which perhaps has not hitherto seen the light of day. There are many short stories by various talented younger men and women satisfying the reader’s desire to enjoy more than an hour of pleasant reading. We feel no hesitation in congratulating the ‘Dinamani’ upon this beautiful production.

K. C.