A MODERN SAGE
Dr.
G. V. L. N. SARMA
Professor
of English,
It
seems to me that in the death of Sri Ramakotiswara Rau we lost a great rishi, for Sri Ramakotiswara Rau was
essentially a sage in the long tradition of sages from the Vedic times. The
ancient Hindu sages were the leading lights of forest universities to which
every aspirant for the treasures of the mind and spirit went and from which
emerged the Upanishads and other priceless gems of sacred and secular literature.
Forests had been cut down long ago; and society, groaning under a foreign yoke,
has been invaded by technology. Under the circumstances, our modern sage would
be a Gandhian-idealist, still cherishing and teaching
the time-honoured values of life and spreading
sweetness and light meekly as he went along through the vicissitudes of life.
Such was the personality and work of Sri Ramakotiswara Rau. He had a passion
for impregnating young minds. He loved to see nascent minds shoot up, blossom
and come to fruition. His patriotism was not mere love of the land, it was basically love of his countrymen and their rich
common heritage. He wanted to herald the dawn of Indian renaissance and endeavoured to bring about, in his own modest way, a new age in Indian life and literature. My colleague from Narasaraopet, who used to meet Sri Ramakotiswara Rau
frequently, assures me that even in his old age he used to spend most of his
evenings talking to impressionable and adoring young men who clustered to his
feet in the small unkempt park opposite his home in Narasaraopet.
His talk had the capacity to delight, uplift and inspire the right mind. He was
a high brow who did not despise to talk to the low brow. His was one of the
most encyclopaedic minds of our times in Andhra, and
he loved to share his knowledge and insights with others. This was the chief
reason for starting Triveni, the peerless English quarterly, which
mingles his love of humanity with the wisdom of our modern sages and the power of
knowledge.
Triveni
has grown during the last forty years under the benign care
of Sri Ramakotiswara Rau. This is indeed no small achievement. Though less
spectacular, this is, for intellectuals at least, as great an achievement as
the bringing down of the Ganges by Bhagiratha or the
scaling of
Sri
Ramakotiswara Rau made noble friendships with writers, artists and political
sufferers of his time, friendships which were to last for ever.
As
Donne put it, ‘no man is an island’. Every reader of Triveni
has lost a part of his personality in the death of Sri Ramakotiswara Rau,
and this loss is irreparable.
“Just
as a man finds his soul only by creation of new things from his heart’s depths,
so too a Nation finds itself by creating beautiful things. Any one who helps
–C.
Jinarajadasa
January,
1930