Balasubrahmanya Aiyar: A Great Soul

DR. P. NAGARAJA RAO
The demise of Sri K. Balasubrahmanya Aiyar on September 30 removes from the field of Indian Culture and Hindu religion a great soul. He lived the full life of a full-blooded Hindu with an indomitable faith in the Lord, the sanctity of the Vedas, the greatness of the Sanskrit language, in the power and glory of the saints and Acharyas of the Hindu faith. He lived a life of acharya. From the time of his brahmopadesa till he breathed his last, he never gave up his sandhyavandana except for the days he lay unconscious when ill in the last days. He is a firm believer in the Hindu ritual and temple worship, but he insisted they should not be empty but must be expressive and symbolic of our faith. His Gurubhakti was only equalled by his love for his father. In 1927 he met the Kanchi Acharya and invited him to Madras to take his lodging in the Sanskrit College. Since then he has remained a devout disciple of the Math and earned the deserved title Dharmarakshamani. He edited for over a decade the popular religious journal Kamakoti Pradipa. In it, apart from his editorial writings, he has given us a series of articles on two of the important Hindu Samskaras, the Upanayana, and the marriage. The articles are of great interest and have moved the minds of men and women and raised the drooping faith of many a Hindu in his religion. The articles deserve to be brought out as separate books. He was a highly informed man. His mind was a storehouse of Sanskrit learning in all its branches:...Sahitya, Sastra particularly Advaita Vedanta, Dharma Sastras, Sangita, etc.

His intellectual output was very much less that what it could have been in view of the great knowledge he possessed. He made excellent use of the association he had with eminent Pandits and learnt the Sastras from them in the traditional way. He seated himself before a large table, books piled up, papers filed and with chairs all round him. Visitors used to pour in, each with a problem of his own for he was connected with several public institutions. He would receive all and speak to them his mind and they would leave the room better and satisfied, He would not easily suffer any lapse or indolence in people that sought his help. He was critical and harsh on occasions, but had the larger interests in view. The apparent sternness of his manner concealed a child-like heart and his feelings for his friends, young or old were tender and sincere. His laughter was his relaxation. He knew men and their merits with an uncanny insight and he would size them up in a moment. He rarely made a mistake in judgment of men. He had two loves among our classics, the Ramayana of Valmiki and the poems and dramas of Kalidasa. He used to go into raptures over the verses of the Ramayana. His favourite verses are

He loved Kalidasa and held him up in his lectures for the balanced view of life the great poet put forth in his works. He was engaged in the last two years to bring out a book on Kalidasa’s genius. He delivered a few lectures on the theme. He has given us the neat little books published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Hindu Ideals and Yakshaprasnas, Krishnaswami Rao and Venkataratnam Naidu endowment lectures delivered under the auspices of the Madras University. In these books we get a challenging account of Hindu social philosophy and ethics meeting the charges of unsympathetic critics, who crudely and cruelly interpreted Hindu doctrines. As a lawyer he delivered Justice Kumaraswami Sastri Law Lectures on Hindu Law.

He was born to a distinguished Indian, the late Sri V. Krishnaswami Aiyar, in 1892 and had his early education in the Hindu High School, Triplicane, under the great Headmaster, the late Rt. Hon’ble V. S. Srinivasa Sastriar, who taught him not only English but also Sanskrit. He graduated from the Madras University from the Presidency College with Chemistry as his subject. He obtained the University GoldMedal and took to the study of Law. He was an apprentice under the late S. Srinivasa Ayyengar, who was then the Advocate-General of Madras and who was a great friend Sri Krishnaswami Aiyar. He worked with distinction at the bar and was associated with late Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar in many cases. He gave up active practice in 1945 and since then he was a great publicist in different fields. He was for over 15 years a member of the Madras Legislative Council and in that capacity he contributed his knowledge to the debates on the Agrarian Problems with insight and fervour. He was a member of the Senate of the Madras University from 1925 till 1970 and a member of Syndicate from 1947 to 1970, for a period of 23 years and contributed significantly to the solutions of many an educational problem. On several occasions Dr. A. L. Mudaliar expressed his appreciation of Mr. Balasubrahmanya Aiyar’s work on the Syndicate as his close associate.

The spread of Sanskrit language was a great passion with him. He saw the seeds of Indian culture in the language. He took an active part in running very efficiently the Madras Sanskrit College founded by his father. It is not an empty boast or an exaggeration to state that the Pandits who emerged from the college or taught in it are all-India figures and great exemplars of Sanskrit learning. They are models of finished scholarship and profundity. Towards the very end of his life, his sole concern was to put the college on a sound basis and towards this he arranged a benefit performance by our doyen musician Sangita Kalanidhi Srimati M. S. Subbalakshmi.

He loved Sanskrit and also Tamil. He could speak in Tamil eloquently and humorously. In his own house for a long time there was a Yogi who had memorised the entire Tevaram and Tiruvachakam (the song of the four Saivait saints) and would sing with him the Tamil hymns. He was fond of Appar. He discoursed on the teachings of the Gita for three years, week after week to a large audience in Tamil. He would like to speak. To him to speak out and speak out a theme was an imperative. He harmonised the claims of Tamil and Sanskrit and pleaded for their peaceful co-existence.

On the organisational side he had to his credit many activities. He was the treasurer to the Indian National Congress in 1927, when it met in Madras. He was the secretary of the Sanskrit College for decades and President of the Sanskrit Academy, the Vice-president of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Madras Kendra. He delivered the classical address at the Madras University Convocation to students spelling out the true objective of university education.

I conclude my tribute to Mr. Aiyar with a passage from Carlyle which helps me to avoid all evaluation and comparisons. He writes, “In a world which exists by the balance of antagonisms, the respective merits of the conservative and innovator must ever remain debatable, great in the meanwhile and indubitable for both the sides is the merit of him who in a day of change, walks wisely and honestly.” Such a one was Mr. Balasubrahmanya Aiyar.