Reviews

Sri Vallabhacharya –His Life, Teachings and Movement –A Religion of Love–by Bhai Manilal Parekh, Sri Bhagavata Dharma Mission, Harmony House, Rajkot. pp. 500 – Price –Cloth Rs. 10. Board Rs. 8.

The book under review is a welcome addition to the literature on the theistic aspect of Vedanta which has had such a glorious history from the times of Bhagavan Sri Krishna to the present day. It consists of four parts. In Part I the author gives us all the available information about the life of the great Acharya. Though he attempts to be critical now and then, the author has not left out the many miracles which would naturally be associated with such personalities, and a modern historian may not, therefore, be prepared to accept every statement as strictly historical. It is interesting to note how much the cultural atmosphere of the Vijayanagar Court contributed to the manifestation of the Acharya’s genius. Although the Vallabha movement had no order of monks within its ranks, it may be seen that the Acharya himself is not in any way responsible for the deficiency, since he himself showed the way to his followers by becoming a sanyasin at the fag end of his life.

Part II deals with the Acharya’s teachings. An account is given of the Bhagavata Dharma as a whole in its historic setting and the special place of Vallabha is pointed out. Just as a zealous follower of the Acharya himself would have liked to stress the superiority of his own sect to all previous ones, the author has taken pains to point out the uniqueness of the Acharya’s teachings by comparing him with others, and the eagerness to proclaim the greatness of the subject of his sketch has, we are afraid, sometimes led him to make unnecessary reflections on the defects of other Acharyas. So far as we could see, there is something like a family likeness in the teachings of all the Acharyas and one would have expected them to embrace each other and not fight amongst themselves, if they could have really had the opportunity to meet one another. Each of them has attempted to propagate the teachings of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, and however much their interpretations may seem to differ, such differences are only on the surface and were due to the necessities of the times and the qualifications of their followers, and not to any inherent differences in their spiritual experiences and their religious outlook. The philosophy of Vallabhacharya, called Brahma Vada or Suddha Adwaita, is only another way of presenting God as the only fundamental and independent Reality, which is the theme of all systems of Vedanta; and the religion of Pushtimarga is only another edition of the doctrine of grace and self-surrender so dear to bhaktas of all sects. Even the insistence on divine grace as superior to self-effort is not unique, in as much as it is one of the accepted aspects of the doctrine of Prapatti as understood by the Tengalai School of Visishtadwatins.

Part III describes the later history of the movement. It is a pity that like all other movements, the religion of pure undiluted theism, which the Acharya taught degenerated in course of time. The author points out some of the characteristic features of the movement as it took shape under the leadership of his sons and descendants, and notes many of the aberrations and abuses which crept in. We feel that much of the bad odour associated with the name of the Vallabha sect could have been avoided if the teachings of the great Acharya had not been made the family property of his descendants and if it had been handed down through a succession of monastic disciples.

Part IV deals with the Bhagavata Dharma in Guzerat. In this section the author supplies much interesting information about the bhaktas of Guzerat, for which the public should be thankful to him. Religion and Philosophy is not the peculiar property of any particular linguistic or political area, nor is it confined to one community, race or nation. Every age and clime has had its own contribution to make towards the spiritual uplift of the Hindus. If North India took the lead in the Vedic days, South India also has never been behind. The Alwars and Nainars of Tamil Nad, the Dasas and the Shivasaranas of Karnataka, the saints of Pandharpur, the Sikh Gurus of the Punjab, the Sakta and Vaishnavite saints of Bengal and the masters of music of the Telugu country are all spiritual descendants of the great Vedic Rishis. Among the Acharyas who were the systematisers of religious teachings from time to time, we find Shankaracharya from Kerala, Ramanuja from the Tamil land, Madhva from Karnataka. Nimbarka and Vallabha from the Telugu country. We do not agree with the author, therefore, when in some places in his book he wants to make out a difference between the Aryan and Dravidian in this matter; confining devotion to Dravidian and philosophy to Aryan; whereas perhaps others may be inclined to hold that the reverse may be more true to fact.

The book contains two appendices in which are presented translations of the authoritative minor works of Vallabhacharya, which give us an insight into the core of his teaching.

We congratulate the author on this laudable attempt to enable the public to appreciate the life and teachings of the great Vallabhacharya about whom not much was known till now outside the circle of his own immediate followers.
SWAMY TYAGISANANDA

Letters of the Rt. Hon’ble V. S. Srinivasa – Edited by T. N. Jagadisan: Published by Rochouse & Sons, Madras. Pages X plus 392–Price Rs. 6/-

“It is really a good thing that a few able men should be content to be very leisurely. Their work gains in quality, and they have time, if they choose, to write letters which deserve to be classics,” wrote W. R. Inge in his Lay Thoughts of a Dean. Certainly very few among the readers of the new volume of “ ‘Letters of Rt. Hon. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri,’ ” will doubt the application of the observation to the book on hand.

Sastri’s genius for the English language nowhere else, perhaps, reaches the pinnacle of excellence as it does in his epistles. He is a master of style in whatever he touches, speech, writing or the epistolary art. And  none will deny the editor of this rare collection the supreme satisfaction (that all admirers of Sastri will readily share with him) that Sastri is most himself in his letters to friends.

One may write with enviable diction and effortless grace, but it may remain merely the written word, if the writing lack rhythm which fixes it forever in your memory. Style may thus be defined as a combination of character and ‘ear’, or free flow and rhythmic restraint. Sastri’s letters, are distinguished by a style in the above sense, such as has been achieved only by the select few.

Turning to the letters themselves, one is treated to a literary feast. One finds in them not merely the beauty of idiom and turn of expression, but a mind, rich and subtle, ready to communicate itself, and suiting its expression according to the matter to be conveyed and the person addressed. Patriots and important men of affairs like Gokhale, Krishnaswami Iyer, Gandhi, Montague and Mahadev Desai occupy the reader’s entire mind in some of the letters. But the art of the letter-writer is best seen in the vivid glimpses, as from a personal diary of mood more than of event, which we get it in the letters of Sastri to his daughter. Something more also, unable to bear analysis, dwells in letters such as the one addressed to a dear old friend on Mrs. Sastri’s passing away. And for the pure aroma of ‘friendship’s breathing rose with sweets in every fold,’ we need only gaze at the familiar picture of Rao Bahadur A. Krishnaswami Iyer in a message to another friend.

The “Gandhi-Sastri Letters” are perhaps the most entrancing in the volume, and have a melancholy interest owing to the fact that the late Mahadev Desai assisted the compiler in his task and wrote for him a note on the Gandhi-Sastri friendship. They are a moving human document and also reflect the deep ideological conflict among the intellectuals in modern India: though as to the honours in the dialectic warfare–always carried on in an exalted plane–partisans will form their own judgments.

Mr. Jagadisan, the loving devotee of Sastri, who has worthily chosen to edit these letters of Sastri (which are doubtless a small fraction of what must be in existence) deserves high praise. His preface is an epitome of all he holds dear and worth aspiring for in life. By undertaking this task he has made an enduring contribution to contemporary Indo-Anglian Literature, in a field which has been singularly meagre.
C. S.

The Well of the People by BharatiSarabhai – (Published by Viswabharati).

The author of this drama realises the truth that Heaven and Hell exist nowhere else but in one’s mind. They are of own making, and God is one and the same everywhere although His name, shape and form may vary according to our mortal conception. The gifted author has no doubt whatsoever that in the tiny hearts of the sorrowful, the neglected poor and the publicly shunned...for instance the Harijans–God attains His full stature and effulgence, because of their unflagging devotion to Him.

The play centres round the last stage of a weaver-woman’s life; it depicts how she had with a commendable assiduity in the “unsulking sun and lonely, in company with the fickle moon,” toiled at her spinning wheel and laid by Rs. 70 for a pilgrimage to Benares, the “Lotus seat of austere Sarnath,” for mukti. This faith is common to every Hindu. But what made her realise the higher truth that she was thereby in quest of her God outside of herself, and urged her to resolve upon teasing Him through service to the Harijans, by means of sinking a well, is beyond comprehension. That she could not find anyone in her decrepitude is not dramatically or even otherwise an adequate fillip. There must be sturdier and a more satisfactory explanation, more positively expressed or suggested than has been done in the play. Even this is not uttered by the woman herself so as to make us apprehend some sort of realisation in her; but is suggested in the narrative of the chorus of workers, and the haunting triad, Sanatan, Chetan, and Vichttra, who for aught we may guess, may be symbolic. But that is going beyond the sphere of the play and its legitimate criticism. But there they are, full-blooded like the Grecian semi-chorus but actionless and “static”, as the author herself in her foreword calls them. This gives a sort of classical mould to her play whether she admits it or not. The whole piece takes on the complexion of a Harikatha Kalakshepam, with this slight difference or elaboration engrafted thereon, namely, that instead of a single performer narrating the events of action,  some others also join him in doing it, to give it, as it were, a dramatic form. It might, of course, be edited to fit the stage, but the inherent quality of the inverted constructions of lines–like some of Rabindranath’s utterances which should certainly have influenced her–disqualifies it for the Peeple’s Theatre, which requires direct expression, and a further simplification of thought.

The above defects or deficiencies should not make one blind to the lyrical excellence of the play, its high imagery, and the haunting melody of lines such as,

Here gloworms…….
Like sonorous stars
Falling but fall not;

All life someone spreads out his solitary soul here
his psyche’s beetle drone.

At last, rising, the moon wakes on her wind-flooded head,
shakes the showering shirisha free,
looks round crouching on branch-held
feet, and now from the tree-
side, a liquid, she shakes her head, limpid, dazzling, free.
P. SAMA RAO.

Warning To The West–by Krishnalal Shridarani (International Book House Ltd., Bombay), Price Rs. 4–14–0.

This most interesting picture of the East, with special attention to its relationship to the West, has thrilled me–thrilled me because I have been saying to Indians for years that they must do more to help the West to know the real India. Here is an attempt that does not halt with India. This is “a warning to the West in the hope that it can mend its ways in time and avert the horrible finale that threatens to cut the globe in two.” The writer would prevent a “titanic inter-continental struggle between East and West, or interglobal racial conflict between whites and non-whites.” This is a warning to the Anglo-Saxons of their sins of omission and calls for a revolution in Anglo-Saxon insular psychology. It is an “Introduction” to The East, certainly much more valuable for a Westerner in India to read, who would know something of real India and the East than the many “Introductions” I have glanced over in the bookstalls. In fact, I wish there were a way to get every Westerner in the East to read this challenging book, yes, every Westerner. But it has its own value and interest for the Easterner also. For it does give an interesting picture of the recent growth of Western and Eastern relationships. It is too brief to give an adequate picture. And, as a result, in several places, perhaps a somewhat false impression is given. Nevertheless, the book is thought-provoking and a preliminary to a much more careful and detailed study of the whole subject. We must remember that it is a “warning”. It serves that purpose well.

The author gives a brief picture of the disillusionment of the East from the days when Japan defeated the Russian fleet near Tsushima until the fall of Singapore. These events have stimulated an all-Asian consciousness and have given courage to the Asians. Throughout the book the author also implies that the East has growingly looked upon the West with suspicion. Thus the plea for a change of attitude on the part of the Anglo-Saxon who seems most susceptible, of all the Westerners, to such a change.

The picture of the “White Sahib”, “Master” in the East and a most unsatisfactory interpreter of the East when he is retired, is one that each Westerner in the East must take to heart. The picture of the “caste Britisher” who “hates everything Indian while he is in the country” ought to make every Britisher deeply ashamed of such a record. The American affronts, such as their Immigration Laws which discriminate against the Oriental, need to be rectified immediately, And the challenge that the author makes to the missionary is also one we missionaries need to consider prayerfully. His picture of a divided Protestant Christianity that has all too often been a camp-follower or co-partner with Imperialism and Capitalism and a Western form of Democracy is also one that we must deeply regret.

And so the West is helped to understand the divided personality of Japan; the reaction of China and India to the West has been more normal; the intellectual profundity of India, the awakening of the East Indies; the growing Nationalism of Burma, Malaya and Thailand–the “Heartbeats of the Heartland”, where half of the people of the world live, are brought vividly to our attention. The author suggests that this area of the East will have its own federation unless the Anglo-Saxon leads all to a truly world community which he would prefer. But “the religious pride and narrow-mindedness of Anglo-Saxon Christendom, one of the primary causes for Humanity’s divisions into so many exclusive groups,” must go if world community is to be a fact.

The book is truly a warning of a friend to a friend. May it be heeded.

RALPH RICHARD KEITHAHN.

Angry Dust–by Manjeri S. Iswaran–Published by the Sakti Karyalayam, Madras, Price Rs. 2.

This is a collection of nine sketches of South Indian life. They cannot be called stories though there is an attempt at portraying a decisive event in each one of them. To any casual reader it would seem that the author chose at random types of men and women whom he wished to portray in words and weave an incident around them as a ground.

Mr. Iswaran has chosen familiar, only too familiar, types from South Indian life. The neglected wife that hangs herself because of the husband’s cousin and would-be-wife, to whom both the husband and the mother-in-law pay greater attention than she thinks due to her, the step-mother that brands the husband’s daughter on the thigh and ill-treats her in many unkind ways, the heartless Marwadi money-lender, the stupid magistrate who sentences a hungry destitute for stealing a few fruits to three years at a Borstal School–these and such other commonplace types are the subjects of these racy sketches.

The author’s handling of them though quite skilful yet leaves the reader unimpressed. There is none of the gripping, not to speak of the ravishing, nature of great art. The style throughout is non-descript and at times only flashy. One would desire to read some more sedate, restrained and picturesque portrayals of life, and instead of the grotesque and gruesome aspects that one finds in the work, one would desire to have a peep into natures more contributive to the joy, dignity and exaltation of our family as well as social life.

If the artistry were perfect, anything could be the theme of the portrayal. The artist’s magic can transform even the dirt of the gutter into gold-dust. Only the very greatest of artists may venture to handle the too familiar and threadbare types. The others will do well to keep their hands off.

The author has displayed considerable skill in ‘The man behind the chair’,  “The last pawn” and “Consummation”. The book makes interesting reading.
D. R.

Talk for Food–A farce in frustration –by S. Gopal and V. Abdulla, Sakti Karyalayam, Madras–Madura. Price As. Ten.

This is a booklet of 47 pages describing a Conference of all parties with Mr. Gardhabaswami Wiseacre in the chair. The characters represent almost all the important parties of modem India. There is the Pakistanwalla the Hindu Sabhaite. The Andhra Provincewalla, the Communist, the Sanatanist and the Dravidastanwalla. Each representative is well portrayed and the proper jargon put into his mouth. The authors claim: “We have attempted to portray how talkative India has failed unhappy India in the dark night of crisis.” And the claim is amply justified by the performance.

Who that has listened to the tragic volume of futile and purposeless words that have been uttered by the countless party-leaders of India these few years can fail to see the tragic humour of this little booklet?

We heartily congratulate the authors on this enjoyable farce which is truer to life than one should like to believe, and which, alas, results in portraiture while it should have been a caricature!
D. R

Sati Kasturba–A life-sketch with tributes – Ed. by R. K. Prabhu. Foreword by M. R. Masani. Published by Hind Kitabs, 267, Hornby Rd. Bombay. Price Rs. 1-4-0.

The editor deserves to be congratulated on this timely publication. It brings together in handy form a few anecdotes about Kasturba culled from Gandhiji’s Autobiography, a description of her end as described by Sri Devadas Gandhi, some personal reminiscences: and press tributes to her memory. This biograpical material is meagre–all too meagre. It bears little proportion to much that has to be inferred and understood. Kasturba was the life’s partner of one of the greatest men of our generation, whose, life, both inward and outward, has been full of events and crises. How starting with resistance to his ways of life, she soon acquiesced in his ‘adventures’ and kept step with him, and ruled over his ‘home’ such as it was–this is a moving story difficult to set out with the usual trappings of a biography. But we do hope a fuller biographical study will soon be attempted and made available of one who embodied in her life many of the finest traits of Indian womanhood.
K. S. G.

Burma by Ma Mya Sein. Oxford Pamphlets on Indian Affairs, No. 17: 32 pages. Priced As. 6.

The author was Principal of a Girls’ School in Rangoon and the only woman delegate to the Burma Round Table Conference. The opening sections of the pamphlet on geographical features, the racial elements, historical outline, etc., are admirably concise as well as precise. Then follow sketches of the administration, economic resources and trade and communications. The following section on Education and Religion contains a quotable indictment of the prevailing system of education, which would apply to the system in India equally well. Other sections on Relations with India, Nationalism in Burma, etc., follow. The treatment is throughout clear and masterly.

The section on Nationalism is much too brief. Some account of British capital invested in Burma would have rendered the pamphlet more complete.
K. K.

War-time Prices –by P. J. Thomas. Oxford Pamphlets on Indian Affairs, No. 18, As. 6.

Dr. Thomas, addresses the man in the street and makes him think about war-time prices. Having begun to think the latter may not agree with everything the author says: e. g., that the Government of India’s policy of war-finance is sound. He may instead point out that the present price predicament (result of Inflation or not) is one of the strangest things that have happened to the Rupee since it was hitched to Sterling. He may not agree with the proposal to borrow the small income of the poorer classes so as to put them out of mischief. He may even suspect that he is being led into the Defence Savings Campaign when the author suggests that there is no alternative but to place their savings at the disposal ofthe State in one form or another. Dr. Thomas’s is but a part solution and touches only a fringe of the problem.

Whatever one’s judgment be on the learned Doctor’s opinions one is grateful for the lucidity with which the subject is expounded, for the man in the street is helped to grasp clearly the major economic problems of war-time India.
A. N. S.

Oxford Pamphlets on Home affairs

How Britain is governed – by R. B. MacCallum. 32 pages–Priced 6d net.

Mr. R. B. MacCallum “has been for 17 years a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and has been engaged in the Teaching of history and political science.” In the short space of 32 pages he has, like a teacher of experience, presented to the reader in simple and lucid language brief but complete explanations of constitutional monarchy obtaining in the U.K. with its component parts of territorial divisions and traditional institutions. The Cabinet, the Civil Service, Local Government, Parliament and the electoral system are graphically sketched with a fair discussion in the end of the Party system in recent years. It is all admirably done but a short account of the Judiciary should have been included to justify fully the title “How Britain is Governed.” Except for that omission which appears to us sufficiently serious the pamphlet is a brilliant success of its kind.

One sentence about Northern Ireland (line 4 from the bottom on p. 8) might be held to be misleading in reference to the next following one. Canadian provinces do not return members to the national Parliament at Westminster.
K. K.

The Newspaper–byIvor Thomas; 32 pages, price 6d net.

The author is M. P. for Keighley and before entering Parliament was on the editorial staff of the Times for six years and chief leader writer to the News Chronicle for three years. As such he knows his subject intimately and has in the space of 32 pages given highly interesting accounts of the newspapers in England, their history, classes, types, ownership and groups, and also of News Agencies, and correspondents. There are also brief discussions of the underlying motive of the powerful newspapers, journalistic standards, influence of advertisements and war-time conditions. The descriptions and discussions are full of information and reveal the mind of a sober and patriotic well-wisher of the fourth estate.
K. K.

The Transition from War to Peace –by A. C. Pigou, 6d. net.

Problems of transition from war to peace have two aspects, national and international. Prof. Pigou discusses the national aspect and outlines a policy of transition. The keynote of his policy is the commonplace that there cannot be a sudden transformation but only a planned transition.

And the transition must be managed carefully step by step, e.g., there can be no cancellation of all war-time controls by a stroke of legislation:  the grip of the octopus of control should be a gradually loosened. To maintain stability, Prof. Pigou suggests state control in at least three spheres: employment, money-incomes and exports. In connection with employment he suggests control of money-wages, for after the post-war discharge of workers, the trade unions may have their bargaining power reduced. Another suggestion is to spread unemployment thinly over the country rather than allow it to concentrate in a few black spots. He points out that the Lease-Lend Act is a possible stabiliser in the field of exports, for obligations under that Act will have to be liquidated after the war through exports.

Prof. Pigou illustrates every principle of his policy from Britain’s experience after the last war. But he accepts that the international aspects are necessarily interlocked with national aspirations. Hence his note of hope–that Britain will not descend into poverty and squalor, the foundations of her economic strength remaining unshaken even after this war–needs restatement thus: ‘The provision of food and equipment for devastated countries will be an inescapable obligation on Great Britain and on the United States,–the execution of which may well entail some postponement of our own less urgent needs.’

A. N. S.

Life’s Shadows Vol. II (A Daughter’s Shadow) by Sri Kumara Guru, pp. 38 (Price 0-14-0 Madras)

That shadows are unsubstantial things is belied by this piece of work by Sri Kumara Guru, which has all the charm and interest of a short story or a sketch and the penetration and seriousness of a philosophic discourse.

The book gives an account of the life of one Hariharan who has a genuinely good and liberal attitude towards life. He has three daughters Annapurna, Saraswati and Ananda, whose education cost him much thought and trouble.

He is disappointed in his expectations and feels his entire life isa failure owing to the changed values of life in modern Indian society.

The book contains profound observations on woman, marriage and allied topics, and the story element is only the sugar-coating over the pills of brooding thoughts.
B. S.

TAMIL

Pachchai Kill (The Green Parrot) and other stories–by K. Chandrasekharan, M.A., B.L., Kalai Magal Office, Mylapore, Price Rs. Two.

Of the 17 stories in this collection one was inspired by a story in English by a celebrated writer of the West and another was adapted from a filmed story; the rest are original.

The author in his preface feels that his stories lack architectural beauty, style and description. But in a short story, style and description, if overdone, do not conduce to success and the author has nothing to regret on the score of his contenting himself with a natural style and sparing use of description. As for architectural beauty it is certainly necessary for the unity of impression which is the soul of the short story; but it is not true that every type of short story depends for its success on constructive skill.

But the majority of Mr. K. Chandrasekharan’s stories are intended to enshrine certain reflections of his on life as unfurled to him by Providence and studied by him from his own view-point He seeks to illumine through them certain gloomy corners, of life with a flash light calling the attention of the reader to them with a melting or sometimes an aching heart. He is often concerned with the unhappiness of motherless children and the self-effacement of a talented wife trying to live in concord with an ill tempered and illiberal husband. Children, in general, supply his themes and nearly one half of the number of stories engage themselves in analysing their little problems and trivial sorrows in harsh environments where the tenderness of their heart is apt to be ignored amidst the more adult passions of life. He has many a hit against men proud of their scholarship without assimilation in actual life of their knowledge or ethics. In the story entitled “Loneliness” the author depicts the pathos of a kind-hearted second wife suffering from the tyranny of the notion, that has grown so encrusted in the human heart, that even a conspicuous exception cannot scrape it away. Though teeming with life, some of his stories leave the reader perplexed or unconvinced, the ethical import in them being obscure or pertaining to the author’s own peculiar moods or predilections or unedified where he employs stunts for theatrical effect in conclusions. Where the obsession of the ‘idea’ is too dominant, the story lacks universal appeal. We are obliged, therefore, to say that the stories in the series are not only of different types but also of varying degrees of merit. But in as much as the author pleads through all the stories for an expansion of heart and sympathetic outlook on life which is tinged with sorrow being beset for the most part with ignorance, tyranny, selfishness and sham, he has not employed his medium in vain.
Y. Mahalinga Sastri.

TELUGU

Srimad Bhagavadgita – (with notes based on Shridhara’s commentary) –Published by the Sri Ramakrishna Mutt, Mylapore, Madras–Price Rs. 2/8/-

The book renders the verses according to Shridhara’s commentary the main ideas of which are embodied in the rendering itself, and contains, besides word for word rendering, notes to elucidate the connotation of words and phrases with parallel citations from the srutis and smritis and other ancient scriptures. Shridara’s verses, one at the beginning and another at the end of each chapter, summarising the main idea of the chapter are also given, as also variant readings of the Gita verses. Students of the Gita in the Telugu country will be grateful to the Editor for having provided an excellent and most valuable edition of the sacred book which brings within brief compass almost encyclopaedic information bearing on the text.
K. S. G.

Katha Lahari Edited by Sivasankara Sastry & D. Krishna Sastry Andhra Pracharini, Ltd. Price Re.1.

This is a volume of short stories selected from most of the popular writers of story in Telugu.

The stories with two or three exceptions, are love themes and abound in inconsequential detail and occasionally libidinous narrative. We wish the writers had more grip on the themes and aimed at something definite and wholesome. For instance, the story  “Saila Bala” by Adivi Bapiraju is an extravaganza of aimless chisel-work. A story must have a firm framework to be able to stand. 

There are two stories that stand out in bold relief from the tiresome monotony of the sensuous eroticism of other tales. They are a bird-hunting tale by Vedula Satyanarayana and another tale of a dog by Viswanatha Satyanarayana. The one contains a mystical fancy, while the other is a piece of sarcasm on human conduct.

The sensitive reader cannot help wishing there was more variety in the themes of the stories selected. The stories are written in easy and idiomatic Telugu and make interesting reading.
D. R.

KANNADA

Veerasajva Sahitya mattu Samskruti (Veerasaiva Literature and Culture) by Sri A. N. Krishna Rao: Publishers S. S. N. Book Depot, New Market, Bangalore City Crown 8vo. pp, 220. Price 1-8-0.

The book under review includes articles the author had contributed to Kannada journals. The chapters on “Veera Saiva Sahitya” and “Harischandra Kavya” have been written for this book. A chapter on “Sufism” has been put inas an appendix. The author finds many interesting parallels that throw light on the fundamental nature of mystic experience. From this point of view chapter 3 (‘Anubhava Mantapa ‘) and chapter 5 (‘Akka Mahadevi’) are specially interesting. On pp. 98 and 99, he gives a general estimate of Veerasaiva literature and draws our attention to the remarkable achievement of seven centuries which are studded by luminaries like Allama, Basava, Mahadevi Channabasava, Harihara, Raghavanka, Chamarasa, Nijaguna Siva Yogi, Sarvajna and Shadakshari. In Basava we find the Triveni confluence of Bhakti, Jnana and Vairagya. His sayings which are profound, pithy, pointed and poignant, are a rich spiritual treasure which, in point of the revelation of religious and mystical experience, have been termed the Kannada Upanishada. Allama was a master spirit in achievement and intellectual powers; Nijaguna Siva Yogi was a person of great learning and addressed himself to popularising in Kannada the philosophical teachings of the Vedas, the Agamas and Upanishads bearing on with the Saivamarga. The critical appreciation of Raghavanka, Sarvajna and others is a worthy attempt.

On pp. 40 the author institutes a comparison between Sidda Veeranarya’s “Sunya Sampadane” and Plato’s Dialogues, and says that from the point of view of spiritual experience ‘Sunya Sampadane’ is a million times superior to Plato’s Dialogues. In the interest of the accurate appraisal of works whose purposes and ‘climate of thought’ are vastly disparate, such judgments of value must always be erroneous and highly misleading. It is also to be regretted that fragments of poetry quoted from the Veerasaiva poets abound in verbal inaccuracies which could have been avoided by a more careful proof-reading and checking up with reference to correctly edited texts.

A bibliography and an index add to the usefulness of the book. The author is to be commended for adding this booklet to the library of modern books of an expository character bearing on the different aspects of Kannada Literature and Culture.
M. Y.

Arogya Darpana by Ayurvedacharya Pandit Shivakumara Swami, Kottige lane, Bangarore City, pp. 306+48+20. Price Rs. 2-8-0.

This is a book written with the object of teaching the ways and laws of health according to the principles of the Upanishads and Ayurveda which is not merely ‘a system of Medicine,’ but, as the word connotes, “The Science of Life.”  The ancient Hindus hesitated to give any system the name of “Science” or “Shastra” if it did not directly or indirectly lead to a correct knowledge of the cosmos and to the attainment of beatitude and deliverance from all pain and misery. The ultimate object of Ayurveda is, therefore, stated to be to gain that knowledge which consists in discriminating the principles of the material world from the cognitive principle, the immortal soul. The author, in his informing introduction, gives a short history of the origin progress and decline of Ayurveda. The major portion of the book is devoted to “general medicine” along with descriptions of the nutritional and medicinal properties of cereals, edible fruits and vegetables commonly used in Indian kitchens. The author has taken great pains in collecting and presenting us with many simple, harmless and useful prescriptions for ordinary ailments under each of the cereals, fruits and vegetables. The book is written in a homely, popular style and it deserves to be in every home in Karnatak.
D. K. BHARADWAJ.

HINDI

Jalatarang–Bharatiya Sahitya Mandir, Dharwar–Edited by Sri Gurunath Joshi–Price 8 As.

This contains translations of three Kannada stories by modern authors into Hindi (Sri Betegeri Krishna Sharma, Srimati B. T. G. Krishna and Prof. P. Ramananda Rao). The book contains an introduction by Sri A. N. Krishna, Rao translated into Hindi. All such efforts to make the literature of one Indian language available to readers in another are welcome. The translation (done by Sri Gurunath Joshi and by Srimathi Kuppamma) is competent and will give Hindi readers some idea of the work of modern Kannada short-story writers. We look forward to a continuation of such good work by the Bharatiya Sahitya Mandir, Dharwar.
K. S. G.