Reviews

Literary Criticism: European and Indian Traditions. Editor: C. D. Narasimhaiah. Published by the University of Mysore. 255 pages.

The volume under review comprises the papers, twenty in number, read at a Seminar on Literary Criticism, organised by the Department of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in English, University of Mysore, in June 1965. The editor has contributed a preface explaining the significance and purpose of the publication and an introduction explaining the scheme and objectives of the seminar. He has also included in an appendix to the volume, a report of the seminar by Mr. David McCutcheon, one of the participants, originally published in Quest, which is calculated to give a rough idea of the proceedings of the seminar, and the discussions that followed the reading of the papers.

As the editor himself points out in the preface, the title is rather pretentious, for, barring one Sanskritist, one Tamil writer, and two European scholars, the participants are all Professors or Readers in English at Indian universities and the discussions, as well as the papers, are mostly confined to English and American principles and practices of literary criticism. But almost all of them reveal a commendable measure of acquaintance with, and appreciation of, the classics in Indian literary criticism, and the traditional Indian approaches to literature and aesthetics. The claim of the editor may readily be conceded that the contributors to this volume may, taken together, be considered the highest Indian critical intelligence, brought up largely on English and American literatures, but responsive alike to the immemorial traditions of Indian and to European critical modes in general. The objective of the seminar is defined correctly by Mr. McCutcheon in his report as ‘to investigate the possible relevance of Sanskrit theories to modern literary interests and to accommodate Sanskrit with Western aesthetic theories in a joint approach.’

The seminar and the publication amply demonstrate the need, and the desirability, for systematic and sustained collaboration between the Indian teacher of English and the Sanskrit scholar, in such attempts at mutual understanding and influence, in the interests of the evolution of a modern tradition of literary criticism, to shape and guide and foster the literatures in the Indian languages, to forge links with our past with which today we have lost all vital connection, to focus our attention on the sources of our own culture, to draw the attention of the modern world to the treasures in our glorious traditions of literature and literary criticism, which they richly deserve, so that we may contribute to the integration of the wisdom of the past with modern knowledge, and promote the evolution of a world culture and common standards of literary criticism of universal validity, towards which the human race seems to be rapidly advancing.

No wonder the standard of the papers and the discussions which followed them evoked high praise in discerning circles throughout the country. But it is only a beginning, though a very good and encouraging beginning, and the endeavour has to be steadily pursued with increasing zeal and one may hope the proportion of Sanskritists among the participants in such seminars, like Dr. K. Krishnamurthy of the Karnatak University, who can make the Sanskrit tradition available in modern terms, progressively increasing.

The recommendations of the seminar for a literary criticism syllabus combining Western and Sanskrit poetics, and the desirability of working in both the traditions in mutual collaboration, and the study of comparative aesthetics and comparative literature, deserve the immediate attention of the authorities of all the Indian universities.

Sanskrit poetics have never received the attention and appreciation accorded in the West to Indian religion, philosophy, art and literature. Consequently even in India today the theories or Sanskrit literary criticism have been confined to courses in Sanskrit and had little influence on modern Indian studies or practices. Prof. Narasimhaiah therefore deserves to be complimented on his initiative in the organisation of the seminar, and the publication of the volume under review, which constitute a valuable contribution to the cultural renaissance in modern India.
–M. SIVAKAMAYYA

T. S. Eliot (Homage from India): A commemoration volume of 55 essays and elegies. Edited by P. Lal. Writers Workshop, 162/92. Lake Gardens, Calcutta–45. Pp. 228. Price hardcover Rs. 12. PaperRs. 6.

Of no other English poet and critic could it be said with equal validity that his practice and theory had a seminal impact, in his own lifetime, on the poets and the students of literature in this country as of T. S. Eliot, who died in 1965. Conversely, of no other English or American writer could it be said that he was influenced by the basic assumptions of Hindu philosophy to the extent of being able to introduce them creatively into his own poetry, as T. S. Eliot again. His reference to the concepts of Hindu metaphysics (and possibly even the tenets of the Buddhist canon) was not a learned gimmick or a prank of obscurity but something with a poetic inevitability and an intellectual integrity about it. It was, therefore, in the fitness of things that there should be a homage to Eliot from India as well as from the rest of the world. And this appropriateness has an added poignancy to it when we learn from the enterprising editor of the volume that he had originally planned it as a garland for the poet over a dozen years ago to be presented on his 64th birthday. It had instead became a wreath for the Samadhi. The Puja had turned out to be a Shraddha. This is harmony in the incantation.

The homage, in its variety and sense of purpose, is something that would have gladdened the recipient’s heart, were he alive and will now give his soul some peace. The editor deserves all praise for his imagination and perspective in planning the volume and seeing it through. He has succeeded in tapping the right sources for the wealth of informed contributions. He has cast his net wide and the catch is impressive indeed. Ahmed Ali, in his perceptive analysis of Eliot’s impact on the poetry of his younger contemporaries, rightly describes him as a catalytic agent. Comparing him with other poets of the same age, he finds him more considerable for his cryptic originality and all-round achievement. English poetry was not the same again, after Eliot and poets were not the same again either, after reading him. Among the poets of this century, he was possibly the most widely read in the English- knowing world, with the sole exception of Robert Frost, but he was not always read right, as P. Lal takes care to put in. The personal response to the poetry of Eliot is outlined, by a number of writers including Nissim Ezekeil, M. R. Bhagavan, Devkumar Das and others with the Workshop imprint.

Some of the writers had opportunities of either meeting Eliot in the flesh or close personal correspondence with him over the years. Dr. Mulk Raj Anand stayed long enough in England and long ago too to have done some book-reviews for The Criterion. It was Eliot’s good turn in the shape of unstinted praise which was responsible for G. V. Desani’s All About Mr. Hatterr finding a publisher in England. We learn from Dr. Ranjee Shahani’s interview that the poet was truly humble, courteous to a fault, but anxious to avoid over-simplification or imprecise statement in prose or verse. The image of the clean and clerical Mr. Eliot “and his brow so grim, and his mouth so prim,” the American poet, who died a snobbish English death, is, however, hard to efface from the reader’s imagination.

Substantial contribution to the literature on Eliot is made by the discussions of the role of Eliot as a critic. His critical theories are examined with care and a juxtaposition with those of his forerunner in the last century, Mathew Arnold, suggests itself quite naturally to many of the students of criticism. Lal himself had done a thorough job in his scrutiny of the methods adopted by the four critics who had dealt with Eliot in the pages of The New Review of Calcutta. One of them is Mr. K. Viswanathalm who had perhaps with every justification taken the cudgels for Arnold, who had come in for a lot of needless derision in the wake of some hindsight debunking done by Eliot himself. Arnold’s generalisations might be rather too facile for the critic who would be particular, and his denunciation of religious or intellectual dogma might itself sound to modem ears a little too dogmatic in turn. But it would be less than fair to deny Arnold his share of good, solid, common sense. Nor can we lightly dismiss his genius for the formulation of certain broad general principles, which might, however, need some tidying up with the addition of exceptions and qualifications. A jibe like the following, with an obvious ring of Lytton Strachey about it in a different context, sounds rather misplaced and superfluous after the laborious demolition done by Eliot. Referring to the “criticism of life theory”, the comment has it: “While Eliot’s theory is a result of years of patient research in poetic practice and achievement, Arnold is speaking as an Inspector of Schools...” The point is not about one being an Inspector of Schools, or the other having been a bank clerk or a publisher’s reader. Without the body of general formulations by Arnold on poetry and culture, Eliot would have found his job far less easy than he did. As it is, he had a handy predecessor to contradict and wisely qualify and improve upon for the benefit of the succeeding generations and the delectation of his own admirers. In a way, it might be said that if Arnold the critic were not there, Eliot the critic would not be there in the same form and shape. Messrs Sisir Kumar Ghose, Sadhan Kumar Ghose, C. D. Narasimhaiah, Amaresh Dutta, and others have thoughtful studies of Eliot’s criticism.

Refreshingly outspoken are some of the essays, especially those by Agehananda Bharati, David McCutcheon and Lawrence Bantleman. Tributes in verse by K. Raghavendra Rao, P. Lal, T. K. Doraiswamy, Pradip Sen and James McAuley lend a distinct personality to the chorus of homage. Altogether a creditable achievement this as a contribution to Indian critical writing in English, besides being a new definition of the phenomenon that went by the name of T. S. Eliot.
–D. ANJANEYULU

Studies in Indian Art by Dr. V. S. Agrawala. Visvavidyalaya Prakasan, Varanasi–l.

Man is international in essence, but national in appearance. Man creates art. Hence art is international in essence and national in appearance. Thus art is a universal language to be understood by the universal man. Butthe idiom of the language differs from country to country, from nation to nation. That is why every country has got its own art distinct from that of another country.

India, like all other countries, has got its own idiom and traditions of expression in art. The primitive art of the world was more universal than the world’s classical and romantic art; and again today the modern art in the world is more universal than the art of the other periods.

Indian art has found its expression more in sculpture than in painting. It is the depth of thought rather than the appearance of form that has rendered Indian art what is usually called introspective. It is not so much the representation of form as the inspiration of the spirit that is chiefly fascinating in Indian art. Indian art is symbolical representation rather than factual imitation, Dr. Vasudeva S. Agrawala’s “Studies in Indian Art” contains his articles contributed to various journals occasionally and yet the coherence of thought and expression has well been maintained throughout the book. But such collection of a single author’s articles on the same subject is often compelled to contain the risk of repetition despite careful editing. But to the lay reader such repetitions are a boon rather than a curse.

Dr. Agrawala’s book contains vast material on various phases of Indian art, especially sculpture. His approach to art is chiefly scholastic and yet it is not deprived of aesthetic appreciation and connoisseurship. “Studies in Indian Art” contains eight principal sections –1. An Approach. 2. Indus Valley Art. 3. Some Early Symbols. 4. Mauryan Art. 5. Sunga Art. 6. Madhura Art. 7. Gupta Art. 8. Medieval Art. The book is profusely illustrated with 165 line drawings and eight plates. But the paper and the get-up of the book are not up to the standard.

The reader receives vast enlightenment as well as ample entertainment from the scholarly pages of Dr. Agrawala’s book. Regarding the futility of realism in Indian art he writes:

“Indian art, except for the brief interlude of Mughal art, did not interest itself in portraiture. In the words of the Sukraniti, portrait painting is unheavenly (Asvargya). At another time, viz., in the Gandhara school of the North-West, the artists were working with consciousness of the human element in art, the figures being conceived as true to human anatomy rather than as the idealized products of the mind. It was the fatal weakness of Gandhara art that it conceived the Buddha in terms of the human body rather than in terms of the ideal Yogi. The more it succeeds in its anatomical representation, the poorer it becomes on the spiritual side. No human figure, as it is, carries with it any attention unless it undergoes a spiritual transformation. To the extent that the image seeks direct representation, it becomes weakened in its symbolism.”

It is the same with the modern art of the world. “The less realistically representational it is, the more artistic it becomes, Although the ideals of approach have been different, both the modern artist of the world and the ancient Indian artist hold identical views regarding the elimination of the representational element in art. The symbol of an object is more potential than the object itself, for the object reveals only the outward appearance of itself by concealing its own inherent characteristics which are invisible whereas the symbol represents, in a non-representational form, both the essence and appearance of the object; a symbol is a non-representational representation of the representational-cum-non-representational aspects of an object or an idea. A symbol is an idealized appearance.

Dr. Agrawala’s interpretations have an inclination towards nationalism and religiosity and thus he is hesitant to appreciate the presence of foreign elements in Indian art. Yet, he could not help admitting the same. According to Sir John Marshal the Mauryan art has its source in the Achaemenian art of Iran. Even the lion capital of Asoka and the Mauryan palace at Patatiputra were inspired by the palaces at Susa and Persipolis. It was also advocated that the craftsmen of Asoka learnt from Persia to impart a lustrous polish to stone. Sir John Marshal believes that the Persian influences had entered India through Bactria.

Dr. Agrawala considers this from a different angle:

“Sir John Marshal has emphatically stated that the Sarnath capital is alien to Indian ideas in expression and in execution. So far as the contents of the lion capital, i. e., the ideas of expression, are concerned, we have already seen from a two-fold approach how these ideas are wholly indigenous. On the other hand, they are completely in accord with the tradition of Indian art both preceding and following the reign of Asoka. Secondly the Dharma Chakra, the four lions and the figures on the round abacus are eloquent expressions of the personal ideas and ideals of Asoka, with respect to the love in the Law of Piety inculcated by the Buddha.”

The foreign scholars have a tendency to attribute many of he glorious achievements of Indian culture to alien sources while Indian scholars are wont of attributing even the achievements of alien culture to Indian sources. We have to choose a middle path in between these two extreme viewpoints. In fact, no culture of any country has been either purely indigenous or purely alien. In the remote antiquity of humanity there existed no such difference of cultures. No country’s culture is pure, untainted by the contact of the cultures of other countries. It is the same with India where Aryan culture entered from beyond the borders of India. And now we no longer consider the alien Aryan culture as foreign. So, none should feel belittled when one learns that the culture of his or her country has been contaminated by the cultures of other lands.

“Studies in Indian Art” reveals a vast panorama of fields of various phases of art in various historical periods in India. Dr. Agrawala is well-acquainted with the iconographical traditions of Indian art and thus he has successfully interpreted many a gesture and posture of Indian sculpture in this volume. His scholarship in Sanskrit has enabled him to trace the origins of some of the sculptural enchantments to some of the Sanskrit epics and lyrics as well.

Dr. Agrawala’s chapter on the art of the Gupta period is outstanding. In the life and culture of India the Gupta period (300-600 A. D.) has been deemed as the Golden Age. In this period the status of aesthetic activity was raised to that of spiritual practice. External beauty was given an unusually high prominence. Sensuous beauty in this period was not considered ignoble. Music, poetry, painting, sculpture, drama, dancing etc., were held to be dearer to the Deity than the spiritual practices. The poetry of Kalidasa, the painting of many caves of Ajanta and some of the most enchanting pieces of sculpture and architecture were produced in the Gupta period. The life of the people in this period was throbbing with rhythm, rhyme, colour and movement. Of the sculpture of this period Dr. Agrawala observes:

“The period from about 300 to 1200 A. D. falls into three divisions of almost equal length during which Indian sculpture passed through three phases of maturity. Stylistically, these phases correspond to the Classical, Gothic, and Rococo conventions of Western art. In Indian history they are known as the Gupta (300-600 A. D.), the early medieval (600-900 A.D.) and the late medieval (900-1200 A. D.) periods.”

During this period the terracotta sculpture developed to a greater extent, a specimen of which has been reproduced on the jacket of this volume. This head study, in terracotta, of a amsel in profile is lovely; the expression of the eye and the hair style are very fascinating.

“Studies in Indian Art” is abundant in every phase of Indian art except in the art of the South which is conspicuous by its absence. Not a single paragraph has been devoted to South Indian art in this volume. South Indian bronzes constitute the major part of Indian sculpture. The images of Nataraja are a synonym for Indian art. Out of the many images of Nataraja, the one in the Brihadisvara temple at Tanjore has been acclaimed as the masterpiece. This image belongs to the Chola period (973-1198 A. D.). Similarly no mention is made of the Satavahana and Ikshvaku art of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda respectively. The art of the entire South has been excluded from this volume; thus this book belongs to the art of North India.

But there is ample reason to save Dr. Agrawala from being accused of the exclusion of South Indian art from this volume, for this volume is only a compilation of the author’s stray articles and not an originally planned book.

“Studies in Indian Art” throws much light on the little-known facts of well-known things as well as well-known facts about little-known things.
–SANJIVA DEV

Seven Great Religions by Dr. Annie Besant. The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras-20. 1966. Cr. 8-vo size. Pages 274. Cloth Rs. 8-40; Wrapper Rs. 5-90.

This book is a compilation of lectures delivered by Dr. Annie Besant on Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Sikhism during the Theosophical Conventions held in 1896 and 1901. The first series of lectures on Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity were published in 1897 as Four Great Religions. The second series are included in the present book which is hence entitled as the Seven Great Religions. In these “popular expositions” of these great religions Dr. Besant has attempted and succeeded in unveiling the “underlying unity” and “the common foundation which supports all religions”. Therefore every thinking man should read and reread these lectures patiently, imbibe the spirit of the unity of all religions, fully and carry on the noble mission of human brotherhood propounded by Dr. Besant, earnestly. We are deeply indebted to this great woman who had dedicated herself to our country and our people and had awakened our national and spiritual consciousness. The life and work of Dr. Besant will ever remain a romantic chapter in the history of the British rule in India.

These single lectures on these great religions are naturally succinct and limited in their scope. But each lecture brings out the very essence of each religion and kindles the reader’s curiosity and interest to go to its original sources. Though meant to be popular expositions, they are sometimes heavy and learned and more esoteric than exoteric and hence not always within the reach of the beginner or the novice. This is quite understandable since these lectures were delivered before the learned congregations of the Theosophical Society. If they had dealt more with moral and ethical aspects of these different religions, the common reader can more easily catch the common denominator, like while reading the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley. Besides, even this edition is incomplete without Dr. Besant’s last lecture on Theosophy or Divine Wisdom, which should have summed up all the previous lectures and should have given a sort of climatic experience both to the contemporary listeners and the later readers.

Religion has failed to reform man so far, rather, man has refused to be reformed by religion and has persisted in his folly; but religion has nevertheless succeeded in dividing man from man. If these lectures cannot reform man completely, at least they can unite man partially, by dispelling his colossal ignorance of religions other than his own, as it is ignorance that is at the root of all human failings and failures. Therefore Dr. Besant has rightly exhorted: “Judge then a religion by its noblest, and not by its worst, and then we shall learn to love each other as brothers, and not hate each other as bigots and as fanatics.”
–P. E. N.