VIRESALINGAM
YUGA PURUSHA AND NAVAVAITALIKA
(A sesqui-centennial Tribute)
B. Lakshmipati
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY is
the first modern Indian - so said Gurudev Tagore. By the same token, Viresalingam is the first modern
south Indian. Indeed, he is even more; he is truly an Universal Man. For this
reason, although 1998 is his sesquicentennial birth year, it is not surprising
that he is as relevant to (he present times as he was before his passing away
eight decades ago.
India from even before
the time of the Buddha enjoyed preeminence in every field of human endeavour
for two thousand years. But by the late eighteenth Century declined to a
chaotic, decadent, morally degraded society steeped in ignorance and superstition.
Gone was the spirit of inquiry, gone was the scientific temper, gone were the
open-mindedness and tolerance. From plenty, the country was getting to
impoverishment as on new scientific or technological advance was made.
It is said the Hour
finds the Man. When things
almost reached the nadir, there sprang, up men like Rammohan Roy, Debendranath
Tagore, Keshubchandra Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Jyotiba Phule, Mahadev Ranade,
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Dhondo Karve, Narmada Sankar, Said Ahmed
Khan, Swami Dayananda, Subramania Bharati, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Pandita
Rama Bai, Kandukuri Viresalingam, Raghupati Venkataratnam and the ilk in
different parts of India, to bring about a silent revolution in the Country.
These men of destiny together with personages like Annie Besant and Sister
Nivedita brought a total change in the fabric of Society, for the better.
Viresalingam, a star
of the magnitude in the galaxy of the great, blessed with excellent memory,
sharp intelligence, industry, determination, courage, willingness to withstand
obloquy, a great sense of justice, humaneness, fair-mindedness, compassion and
a will to fight for just causes fearlessly, brought about by his titanic
labours extending over half a century, lasting and needed reform in the many
fields of his endeavours. In his life time,
i) he managed to expend
the range of Telugu literature to an unbelievable extent;
ii) he saw to it that
education of girl children and children of the disadvantaged sections of the
society was recognized to be a necessity by the society;
iii) he founded schools, got a magnificent building built for one of
them;
iv) he had inculcated a spirit of Scientific Inquiry and a rational
outlook and approach in the hitherto ritualistic and superstitious society;
v) he saw to it, that
the twin evils of marriage of tender girl-children to elderly men, the
prohibition of remarriage of windows,
however tender aged the window be, are recognised by society, by highlighting
the inhumanity towards widows and child widows in particular, reduced almost to
a state of non-persons-confined to the kitchen and doing drudgery, deprived of
proper food, raiment and even their hair tonsured, by establishing after a
diligent study of all the relevant Sasras but only a later day execration;
vi) he managed to perform between 1881 and 1892 twenty-nine widow
remarriages under his own auspices against active and even violent opposition
and social ostracism and threats of excommunication;
vii) he had established and published journals and magazines devoted to
the spread of a rational outlook, spread of civic consciousness, bringing about
awareness to various forms of corruption in society, spread of a well balanced
outlook in women on life, highlighting various from of social evils, to expose
corruption and corrupt practices amongst officials, whether Indian or British;
viii) he had built at his expense Town Halls and Prayer Halls to
provide various facilities for people of many cities or towns;
ix) he had founded a Home for windows and women needing succour,
and an Orphanage amidst ideal
surroundings of a vast garden;
x) he had been literally a builder of monuments in brick and mortar and
a gardener of the best garden(s) where many exotic trees and plants from other
parts of India were collected and planted;
xi) he had found the time and energy to write an autobiography, the
first published ever in Telugu, extending to a thousand pages, a mirror of his times, a source book for
historians and sociologists - an accurate, fair and frank work not given to
extolling his own work or achievements, an autobiography, the like of which has
not yet appeared in Telugu, that has anticipated by a decade Mahatma, Gandhi’s ‘My Experiments in Truth’, in candour and self introspection;
xii) he did painstaking original research, never attempted before his
time, on the lives, chronology and merits of some two hundred and twenty poets
for which he had to refer to published and unpublished works, collect palm leaf
manuscripts from private and public collections, examine historic numismatic,
epigraphic and lithic records, copper plate inscriptions etc. These labours led
to bringing to light of many hitherto not known poets and resulted in the
publication of works of twenty poets. The range and breadth of this research
culminating in the publication of the monumental. ‘Andhra Kavula Charitra’, published first in 1887
involving his developing his own methodologies to go into a virgin field to
become a beacon light to his successors, is breathtaking; He laboured so hard
for three decades to update his work by constant research;
xiii) he had published over a hundred and fifteen books written by him
- on an amazing variety of subjects ranging from pure literary works to books
on science, grammar, logic, prosody and poetics, astronomy, physiology,
animals, history, biography, translations, transcreations - literally a cronucopia of subjects that compels one to wonder if he is
not an encyclopaediast and a true polymath. Indeed, he was one of the principal
editors revising C.P Brown’s epoch-making English-Telugu and Telugu-English
Dictionaries. His collected works encompass 11 volumes extending to
10,000 pages - excluding articles in journals etc.
Not for nothing, then,
Viresalingam has been honoured and revered to this day as a ‘Yuga Purusha’ Man
of the Era, ‘Nava Vaitalika’ - Harbinger of modernity ‘Gadya
Tikkanna’ - eminent in Prose as the peerless Tikkanna, who wrote the
greater part of Andhra
Mahabharatam, is for poetry (Tikkanna bested the venerable Veda Vyasa
himself in the felicity of his work), ‘Sarvatomukha Prajna’ many faceted
genius Polymath. People consider him the fore-most Andhra of the 19th and 20th
centuries and the greatest South Indian of his time and a peer of all the great
reformers of Bengal, Maharashtra, Madras Presidency, United provinces, Gujarat
and Punjab – the whole of India including all the
south-Indian native states. He lives to this day in the minds of people - his
literary works survive and are read, some of his institutions still function in
spite of the modern day evils that beset our society.
By the time his life
ended, this Visionary with a Missionary Zeal had transformed Telugu Literature
- it acquired a new splendour with many new avenues, hitherto unknown. The
first Telugu Drama, the first Telugu Novel, the first Autobiography, the first
true essay, the first critical work on research on Telugu poets, the first true
journalistic articles, editorials, the first books on science subjects, the
first brief histories on several Indian (native) states. The first brief or
full length biographies have all been written by him, his translations or
transcreations of Sanskrit or English authors have merits that rival or excel
the originals and are well loved to this day.
By the time he passed
away, women of Andhra were free from age-old thraldom imposed on them by as
unthinking, selfish society, and could savour the benefits of modern education.
Before his life’s
mission was over, Andhra Society and South Indian Society became more rational,
educated, humane and tolerant. Avenues of education opened to the disadvantaged
and disabled strata of society including the so-called ‘untouchables’.
Viresalingam is truly
a Man of Destiny, appearing at the appointed Hour in a period of decadence and
degradation of Society. For who else, single-handedly can bring all this about,
inspite of frail health, suffering throughout from asthma, coming from a family
in straightened circumstances, inspite of his having only a modicum of formal
education - for he was only a
matriculate, holding only the
position of a Telugu Pandit in a Collage. The epic battles fought by him in the
cause of widow remarriage with orthodox pandits, traditionalists, the
established hierarchy of religious heads, and priesthood. The social ostracism
he and his friends had to endure, besides physical danger and threats he had to
face is a saga of epic courage, which are very relevant even today in the
present stage of new evils confronting our society.
Indeed study of his
life and work is a must for us, when all forms of the forces of darkness are
threatening our society from every corner. Superstitious beliefs, decadence of
a ‘soft society’, corruption in all its diverse and ugly faces, total selfishness,
unashamed pursuits of power and pelf, cross communalism, casteism and
exploitation of the weaker sections of the society, an amoral education system,
an unhealthy competitive society are the features of our present day sick
society. To whom do we turn to know our duty and see light but to Ramamohan
Roy, Vivekananda, Viresalingam, Venkataratnam, Narmada Sankar, Jyotiba Phule,
Narayan Guru and “Others who are the true inheritors of the greatness of India
that was, and to Annie Besant and the Mahatma. Our society stands condemned and
we be declared the poltroons of our time if we are pusillanimous and
compromising to bury our heads in dishonour and shame. Viresalingams are there
holding the beacon light to us - we have but to follow. Such is the relevance
of this Man to us, eight decades after his passing on. Indeed Viresalingam and
his likes are Men for all ages, for all times and for all society - they are
universal men.
To get a better idea
of the life and work of Viresalingam, it is essential to read his works,
especially the autobiography, Andhra Kavula Charitra, his prahasanams (farces
and satires), his Telugu Sakuntalam, the novel Rajashekara Charitra his
fictional, travelogue Satyaraja Purva Desa Yatralu and other works, his
articles and his letters. While espousing the cause of the spirit of science
Viresalingam wrote.
Modern science is
important and is brought to us by the British. With the lamp of knowledge
science is dispelling the darkness of ages and driving away blind beliefs,
prejudices etc. This is a war, a war between truth and non-truth, between
knowledge and ignorance, between old and new ideas. We have no doubt that
knowledge and truth will triumph in this war.
While starting his
journal ‘Vivekavardhani’ in 1874, he wrote:
Condemning bribery,
enrages officials, deriding concubinage angers the rakes, if obscurantism is
attacked the bigoted and ignorant would jump at; when remarks are made against
formal observance of religious practices while ignoring the true moral principles
of religion the established priesthood becomes vengeful; but if our chosen
mission is to succeed we have to face the ill-will of these people.
It is in this journal,
that he expressed the corrupt practices of officials, besides of course
advocating social reform, modernisation of education etc. He became the first
investigative journalist of India, when he pieced together the torn contents of
a waste paper basket, to establish that a judge at the supplication of a lawyer
tore off a judgement already written, to favour a litigant whose cause the
lawyer espoused.
On 27 May, 1919 while
writing the 45th page of the second part of his Autobiography, the pen fell
down from his hand in the night. Sensing that his end was near he summoned a
fellow guest of his at Madras and requested him to take down a message:
“I am leaving before completing many of the tasks I set myself I hope that my friends, associates and welcomers to Reform will carry
on with my unfinished work. Most of our people generally are not having any of
the better things of life and carry on in superstition or ignorance. It is your
duty to educate them, to give them freedom, equality and justice. I implore you, I beseech you to do your best for the
inarticulate masses”.
Soon after this
Viresalingam passed away aged 71 after half a century of titanic labour.
The tasks he set about
can be gleaned from what he wrote in his paper ‘Viveka Vardhini’, Sept., 1879;
“Country men! Carry
yourself in imagination for a minute into those remote times when India set a
brilliant example of civilisation to other nations, Are you not proud that your
country was the cradle of all sciences? Was it not by your ancestors that the
Greeks and the Arabs were initiated into the secrets of Medicine and the first
principles of Mathematics?
Did we not possess Sanskrit
the best of languages, Astronomy the most sublime of Sciences and the most
complete systems of philosophy and the best Law givers? Was there not a time
when the shastras were truly interpreted and acted upon scrupulously? Did our
Country not possess along with its other accomplishments its patriots too? How
very noble were their efforts! could any but the greatest geniuses produce our
Dharma shastras, Grammar, Logic, Philosophy and Astronomy? Was that not a time
when our women were educated and socially on a level with men?”
Thus he wrote in An
Appeal to the Indian Public of the Widow Remarriage Association.
His appeal was to All
India. He set about to bring a renaissance in Indian Society in all its facets.
For him uplifting the lot of women was so that one half of the Society can make
its just contribution to the progress of the country He saw that almost a fifth of the nation, the so-called ‘untouchables’ were deprived of education
and that segment has to be brought out of the shackles, decades before Mahatma
Gandhi came on the scene.
His real aim has been
to completely transform Society that it can reflect its glorious past and make
significant contributions to civilization in the present. He had his order of
priorities, education, emancipation of women, uplift of the so called
‘untouchables’ and the disadvantaged. He wrote:
Do you think I am
against political work? As in the case of religious and social fields, I seek
freedom in the political field too. But we cannot have properly the fruits of
it unless we change our religious and social conditions. As such we serve our
country well as social workers.
How prophetic? Only Mrs.
Annie Besant had such a vision. He anticipated her by over a decade.
He laboured hard in
different fields; his vision was never fractured. It can perhaps be said fairly
that no other single contemporary of his in the galaxy of the great undertook
work in so many fields and with such signal success. The key to his success is
his most basic faith in the Absolute Supreme, an Entity of Truth and Justice as
expounded by the Brahma Samaj. If to Mahatma Gandhi, Rama represented these, to
Viresalingam Sarveswara represented these. Viresalingam was a supremely moral
and noble man whose social conscience was fully developed. He has been a Karma
Yogi all through his life. He believed work is worship; deeds more important
than words; knowledge and truth are to be pursued ever; discipline and
dedication are a must.
Indeed a Yuga
Purusha and Nava Vaitalika is Viresalingam, the Man of Destiny, a
study of whose life can find us clues to tackle the social, political and
educational malaises confronting us at the end of the 20th Century.