MASTER MIND AND MASTER PUPIL

Coomaraswamy and Gopalakrishnayya

DURAI RAJA SINGAM

Dr Ananda Coomaraswamy is the Bharata of our Indian artistic renaissance and whose never-ending inspiration and idealism have revived the dead bones of the classic theories of Indian art.

–Dr P. K. GODE

Ananda Coomaraswamy, a master mind, found in Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya, a master pupil. Duggirala’s association with his master made him a new Indian, and he became a “dvija”–twice born–under the saintly initiation of Ananda Coomaraswamy. Duggirala always cherished this initiation and following his teacher’s footsteps as a benign blessing.

According to Duggirala, Coomaraswamy always presided over the Goshtis–a study circle of the elite – as visualized by the master pupil. He was made a true Indian under the care and protection of Ananda Coomaraswamy. The pupil was charged with the new spirit needed for the country.

Andhra Ratna Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya¹ lost his mother on the third day after his birth, and his father in the third year of his life. He was brought up by foster parents, knowing great difficulties of life. He left for England through the assistance of a generous friend. This was a turning point in his life, for there he met Ananda Coomaraswamy. A new spirit possessed him. He became a greater man. His study of Sanskrit and Telugu classics equipped him with the background to rouse audiences and he proved to be a born leader of the masses. He had an abundant sense of humour and developed witticisms suited for any occasion, and his orations were relished by all except the mountebanks against whom he directed his vituperations. When he stood on the platform, he conveyed great amounts of sense to his avid listeners.

Duggirala’s views on Nationalism were original and were the outcome of the great wisdom imparted to him by his Guru. Ananda Coomaraswamy could take pride in rescuing one Indian–Duggiorala–from being proselytized by the running effects of Western civilization. Duggirala could look into himself, could probe into the traditions of his motherland, and incorporate into himself the good in everything of modern times, including the ethos of the Occident.

Dugirala’s life was always poisoned by privation. He did not survive to see his plans and schemes put into action, which, in modern times seemed to be far-off dream. He was energetic and active everywhere, and was not inevitably or irretrievably attached to any one environment. His stature always seemed to grow as the colossal Trivikrama. His innovative ideas, pure and high, bear the silver lining of the great thoughts of Ananda Coomaraswamy. During the days of Gandhiji’s Non-co-operation Movement in India, he lived, worked, and shone like a man of destiny.

In one of his letters, ² Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya mentions that he went to Ananda Coomaraswamy in June 1915 and stayed with him for six months. It was during this period, I feel strongly, that he must have accomplished the collaboration with Ananda Coomaraswamy in writing The Mirror of Gesture. Gopalakrishnayya was a good musician and he knew the art of dancing. The main contents of the book are the handiwork of Ananda Coomaraswamy, with Gopalakrishnayya contributing his suggestions in making the book what it is. This is my conclusion, but I do not have proof as to whether I am right or wrong.

In this connection one may note that Duggirala must have witnessed in India before he met Ananda Coomaraswamy, the Kuchipudi ³ dance concerts. These dancers are devotees of the ancient Indian dance traditions. They held and still hold Abhinaya Darpana (Mirror of Gesture) of Nandi as their text-book on dance. The gestural attitudes they practised and still practise have their background in this great work on dance. The text of it–availab in Telugu script–is the main source which served as a vulgate for the twin authors to undertake its English translation. Duggirala must have pressed forward in the process of translation; his own personal experience. Ananda Coomaraswamy also must have found him a worthy collaborator, for in his introduction to the second edition of the work he acknowledged the assistance rendered by Duggirala.

Thus Gopalakrishnayya stayed in Britain in all for five years–from 1911 to 1916. Whilst studying in the Edinburgh University, Gopalakrishnayya was not particularly diligent or careful. He missed many lectures; was indifferent to his professors, and was ignorant of his text-books with the result that he was unlucky in his examinations. He missed taking a degree twice; but he stayed on for another year. And while doing so, he wrote: “It is not any great love for the degree that is spurring me on thus, but the fact that, if my grandmother learns that, after all, I returned home without any degree, she will have a most unhappy life and its end. That I sincerely wish to spare her.” Ultimately he got an A. M. (Hons.) in Economics. He also went through a course of Physiology and Medicine, in which he received a diploma.

His stay in Britain was otherwise far more useful, because it was here he met his Guru, Ananda Coomaraswamy. It was at a meeting of the Edinburgh Indian Association in 1914 that they first met. At the end of the function, Gopalakrishnayya as its Secretary, had to propose a vote of thanks to the guests, which he seems to have done in a manner which attracted the great Kala-Yogi. They met subsequently by appointment. Gradually there arose a steady correspondence between the two, and finally Ananda Coomaraswamy drew young Gopala to his hermitage, at Britford near Salisbury.

This drawing together of the master and the pupil is the effect of Caksu Raga, attraction by sight. The venerable master could spot out and gain the worthy pupil into his sphere of elitehood.

Gopalakrishnayya stayed with Ananda Coomaraswamy for a little over four months. And this is how he himself described the value of this stay.

“I sought to place myself under Dr Ananda Coomaraswamy in whom the idealism of the East and the intense practicalism of the West are harmoniously blended...I came here and am staying in his house. The house is three miles from Salisbury town. It is a country-seat. How beautiful this is! He is a saintly man, and his wife and family (a little boy three years old and a baby girl) are so kind to me. Their house is truly an abode of peace and happiness. He has a huge library, and works incessantly...I like everything here, so well, so quiet, so beautiful, and so heavenly. There is a small garden around our house. The climate is very warm. There are no houses within two miles from here….Everything is very nice.

All day, I am working in his library or in my room, and in the evening, we all sit together, and have some music or discussion. It is all so beautiful. I am supposed to give them 30 sh. a week...Dr Coomaraswamy works so incessantly so regularly, and is making me follow his ways. Though I must confess, I am feeling this rather hard, but yet I feel sure, I shall get better shortly...It is all so quiet around. I am enjoying this life most, though when I come to do Work, I am feeling a bit hard.”

What he missed at the university he gained multi-fold under the guidance of Ananda Coomaraswamy, whose library was the inexahustible granary of wisdom of all times. As previously noted, Gopalakrishnayya took his A. M. degree to please his aged grandmother, but here under the elite umbrage of Ananda Coomaraswamy, he built his own stature, culturally and spiritually, to become “his own”.

At the end of his stay at Britford, he wrote:

The four months and odd I stayed with Dr Coomaraswamy is, in a sense, the best part of my life as yet lived. I think, the stay has profoundly altered my view and knowledge of life. Both physically and mentally I am now entirely a new man...Blessed be the happy moment which inspired me to live with him, which has brought about this great change in me.”

Ananda Coomaraswamy undoubtedly gave an effective turn to the genius of young Gopalakrishnayya, and supplied him with a good deal of knowledge on Indian art, literature and philosophy; and soon Gopala became his co-worker and assistant. The teacher and pupil gradually worked together at reviews on Rajput paintings, Ajanta Frescoes, “Abhinaya Darpana” and so forth. And in his letter dated 29-10-1915, the Doctor wrote to Gopala: “I very much hope we shall have the opportunity to work together sooner or later for your assistance would be a great advantage to me.”

In all the letters to his friends in India, Gopalakrishnayya has nothing but praise for his teacher. He refers to him in one letter, “He is not a moralist. Oh! he is a great man. No wonder he has such a wide European reputation.” Other letters include the following passages: “Dr Coomarswamy has no doubt to some extent repaired the loss sustained by me in losing you.” “My sojourn here does immense good to me in every way. Dr Coomaraswamy works so incessantly, so regularly and is making me follow his ways.” He is leaving this country for America where the Harvard and other varsities invited him to deliver lectures on Indian art and philosophy. He will be leaving in January.”

Gopalakrishnayya himself faithfully kept up his discipleship even after his return to India and in the only letter he wrote to the doctor from India, in 1925, he addressed him as his “Esteemed Guruji,” and begged for an asirvadam and an occasional contribution to his newly-started journal, the Sadhana. ⁴ The entire letter is well worth quoting in full:

Ramnagar, Chirala-Perala,

January, 1925

My esteemed Guruji,

Namaste!

I herewith send a sign of life (a reference to copies of Sadhana enclosed). It is ages since I heard of you or you of me. This long interregnum makes now a heart-rending, now a heart-thrilling delightful story.

Vicissitudes almost transcendental and abyssmal as well tried their luck with my soul...All the time, would you care to believe it! I not only never forgot you, but you Tere ever gracing the front bench in the Goshti of my soul. During the period we were ever in communication–through silence of course, Mouna-Vyakhya-Prakatit-para-Brahma-tatvam. The silence bears the ever-green commentary on Brahman. I ever dig from the response of silence enough light to illumine my path...

I wonder how you all are. My pranams to Sreemati Ratan Devi. How and where is Narada and Rohini? What are they doing? Hope and pray you are all flourishing.

Sometime back I looked up a magazine from America under the title the New Orient. I found a few lines in it from you. I noted you were still in Boston. I felt it is time I should send you a sign of life.

To put my story briefly, ever since I returned from England (it is nine years now) excepting for a brief period of a year during which I was in Government service as a Professor in a college, I have been in national service, in some form or other, enjoying all its gifts of poverty and penury. I had also my go to that flat globe the jail for a year. I have constructed a tiny little village caned Ramnagar near the famous town Chirala (whose exodus and exile of a long twelve – month, by the way, constitute one of the most exciting and important episodes in non-co-operation campaign). Leaving the Lord, I am yet the only inhabitant of the village. I live there with my wife and child. By the way, again, I lost two children and I have now a boy just 14 months old. This is all my little family, and some day I hope together in a few more wise souls into my Goshti whose Peetam I propose to establish there some day. Sreeman Andhra Vidya Peeta Goshti (something like the Aristotelian Society) has been my ambition. I started this some five years back but as yet there are very few members, five or six, as they must be from the Andhras (Telugus) alone and a weekly journal of ‘National Idealism’, a phrase peculiarly your own, which I intended to start so long ago, could only make its appearance very recently, a few weeks back, owing to the storms and cyclones of non-co-operation, unnerving us from doing, anything. I herewith send you the three issues of it which so far have appeared. You will notice in them some politics which could not be helped until sometime to come, owing to many causes which I do not propose to worry you with. I beg an asirvadam from you and a periodic favour.

Can I ever hope to see you in this side of the planet? Earnestly looking forward for a line from you.

Yours most affectionately,

D. Gopalakrishnaya

It is said that Gopalakrishnayya’s first contact with Gandhiji was through Coomaraswamy’s introduction of him as “the coming Man of India.” And no wonder that the former became his chela when Gandhiji started his Non-Co-operation Movement in 1921.

In his introduction to the second edition of The Mirror of Gesture being the “Abhiaaya Darpana” of Nandikeswara (Translated into English by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya, with introduction and illustrations), Coomaraswamy has this to say of his collaborator:

My collaborator, Mr. Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya, is no longer living. I do not know the exact date or circumstances of his death, but cannot refrain from paying a brief tribute of very high respect to his strength and purity of character, and intellectual attainments. He was already what can now-a-days be rarely said of young Indian students, an educated Indian before he came to Europe, and was therefore in a position rather to gain than lose by the European experience which has too often a culturally destructive effect on the already Anglicised victim. He took an A. M. degree at the University of Edinburgh, and returned to India, after five years’ absence. He realised with a profound shock the unhappy condition of, the people of India, and felt that they had been poisoned by false education: he felt that he himself must “purge himself of all the foreign matter” that he had assimilated. Henceforth he regarded every problem with purely Indian eyes. He joined the National Congress, adopted the programme of Non-violence, and devoted himself to social service. In connection with the Chirala-Perala Tragedy, ⁵ when fifteen thousand inhabitants of the two villages of Chirala and Perala evacuated their homes rather than accept a municipal constitution and unbearable taxation, Gopalakrishnayya was tried twice for sedition in 1921, and imprisoned on both charges for periods of a year and of nine months running concurrently. I cannot tell how much this imprisonment may have been an ultimate cause of his death, but it is certain that his health was greatly impaired, and as he himself said, “I never thought that such a hell existed on earth.”

Gopalakrishnayya was a very gifted speaker in Telugu as well as in English. He was accustomed to make his point by means of pertinent and witty Pauranic analogies easily caught by his audiences, and even by means of an application of Indian aesthetic theories to social and economic problems. Ananda Coomaraswamy quotes the classic speech of the Andhra patriot who was in the dock at a trial for sedition. In the course of one of the trials he said:

Wealth consists of utilities; and utilities are “appropriated”. Appropriation is consumption. The commodity, material or immaterial, must cease to exist; that is to say that when we impart value to things we decree their death...a change of name and form. When mankind finds themselves in the economic mood that we are in now, it is the destruction of all things that is ordained. It is Laya; the Layakarta is Rudra. And the leaders of mankind are now all Rudras (i.e., “destroyers”) not of good but of evil. Such is the case with De Valera, Lenin, Gandhi and Zaghul Pasha.

At another time he said:

I recognise your law in so far as in tune with our national Swadharma (i.e., innate character and calling). If you think I have offended your law, it is not to defy it in a spirit of scorn or contempt, but to purge itself of its erratic form and evil import, and attune it to that of our own...India exists and shall exist as a racial unit in this universe...Our moral ideal does not consist of our own emancipation...political emancipation alone...but directs itself towards the achievement of the emancipation of all existence from its phenomenal bondage. It is not the common political suffering that is to weld together the Hindu and the Muslim,....but the mutual respect, regard and love for each other’s Dharma and the necessity of its individuated preservation that can and shall achieve it. Swaraj (i.e., autonomy), therefore, means the preservation of Hindu Dharma, Muslim Dharma, Christian Dharma, Parsi Dharma, Sikh Dharma, in short the Swadharma of all, and a co-ordinated federation of all, which are now being threatened with destruction by a godless philosophy, industrial anarchy, and spiritual famine that beset the world at the present moment. We shall achieve it by Nishkama Karma, action without a longing for the fruit; and then tell me, Sir, where do hatred and contempt come in the performance of such an action?

These matters may seem to be irrelevant to the present work; but in the first place, I feel it no less than my duty to indicate in some way Gopalakrishnayya’s mental stature: and in the second place, it must be remembered that the modern division of life into many water-tight independent compartments is a mere affection and aberration of truth. The traditional arts of people are not an excrescenee upon their life, but an integral part of it. As Gopalakrishnayya himself expresses it, “life is a complex phenomenon in which all the apparently autonomous aspects–social, political, economical, moral and aesthetic are interlaced and intertwined together in such a manner that action in one aspect will have momentous incidence in all the others.”

Ananda Coomaraswamy’s picture of Duggirala was that of a patriot and a martyr in the making. Duggirala built his own psyche into the great stature of MAN and he lived to be that, trusting himself to the Divinity realisable in himself.

Between Ananda Coomaraswamy and Duggirala, there existed a friendship charged with mutual respect and perfect understanding. Coomaraswamy catered to the mental hunger of the aspiring Duggirala and the latter nourished himself into a practical philosopher, who thought, contemplated, and put into action all the noble ideas inculcated into him. Sublime, reoriented traditions and patriotic ideals pervaded his being and all his efforts in India were directed to the elevation of the masses into a new form of literacy, which included physical, mental and psychic development.

Sacrifice was always his first step, action was the second, oratorical speech-making was the third, subordinating the self for noble causes was the fourth, and his final step was complete identity with the course and the cause. He found himself a leader of his companions. He ever had a clear vision of his ideals and modus operandi. He lived as a hero and died as a martyr. He shines in the memories of posterity as the Andhra Jewel (Andhra Ratna).

¹ The life story of this patriot of South India has been told by Sri G. V. Subba Rao, Andhra Ratna Gopalakrishnayya (Visakhapatnam: M. S. R. Murty & Co., 1953). There is an earlier book. The Chirala-Perala Tragedy An Episode of Voluntary Exile by Sri G. V. Krishna Rao (Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1922).

² Goshti Library published a book entitled Andhra Ratna D. Gopalakrishnayya Letters (Bezwada, India, Goshti Book House). These letters contain an intimate account of Gopalakrishnayya’s contacts with Ananda Coomaraswamy.

³ Kuchipudi, a Village in Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh, India.

⁴ Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya translated a lecture delivered by Ananda Coomaraswamy in London into Telugu and published it in the Prabodhini, Vol. V No.3 and No. 4, 1911 and 1912, a Telugu journal Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya edited in Guntur District. The article is titled “Hiudu Chitrakalalu” and the following are the sub-headings 1. Upodghata, Introduction. 2. Vastu Sastra, Architecture. 3. Silpa Sastra, Sculpture. 4. Varna Lekhana, Painting. It is available for consultation at the Tamil Nadu Archives, Madras.

⁵ See G. V. Krishna Rao, The Chirala-Perala Tragedy; an Episode of Voluntary Exile. Madras: Ganesh and Co., 1922. Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, India, is the largest town in the Ongole District next to Ongole itself. Chirala is not a single town. The old Union consists of four villages Chirala, Perala, Jandrapet and Old Chirala. Perala is about a mile from Chirala proper.

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