REVIEWS
Russian Panorama by
K. P. S. Menon (
In
spite of the recent spate of books on the subject, by visiting journalists and
others, Soviet Russia is still shrouded in a mystery in the eyes of the reader
outside. But, perhaps, it is no longer the intellectual puzzle or political
enigma that it used to be. Tourists are not infrequent and the general
atmosphere now little of the nightmare image that stalked the land in Stalin’s
regime. Khrushchev has been a real liberalising force
in Soviet politics and Russian life. Glimpses of the Russian scene (changing
from Stalin through Malenkov and Bulgaria to
Khrushchev), through the Indian eyes as it were, are given by K.P.S. Menon, who had been the Ambassador in Moscow for nearly a
decade after Dr. Radhakrishnan left the place in
1953. The travelogue is his forte.
Menon has a personal angle to everything he
observes and a personal style in which he writes. Both these qualities lend a
quiet distinction to his latest work. He has had occasion to see almost all
places worth seeing in Soviet Asia and Europe and ‘the most-favoured
ambassador’ treatment he had received from the authorities at all levels has
done little to deflect his judgment on men and things.
He has many shrewd comments to make on the degree of personal freedom in the
VSSR, the attitude to religion and science in a Communist Society, and his
views are not quite hidden, though he is more than slightly wary about giving
expression to them. Understatement comes natural to him.
The
seasoned diplomat that he is (after a lifetime in the Indian Civil Service,
with an initial spell in the old political department), Menon
coats his bitter pills with liberal quantities of sugar, even sacharine, where necessary. He errs on the side of caution,
needlessly perhaps, even after making it plain that his book is in the nature
of a personal, not a political, diary. When the situation is rather irksome, he
tends to be philosophical in the true Indian tradition, taking recourse to
analogies and transferred imagery. On the State of Hungary, he speaks more of
‘the tragedy of Man’ play in
A
Prize for Art by Edward Wakeford.
An autobiography. (Macmillan and
Co., Ltd.
Here
is the autobiography of an artist. Yes, but an artist with a difference. Edward
Wakeford can paint in words as well as in line and colour. He recalls his childhood in the Isle of Man, so
completely dominated by the patriarchal figure of his father and the early
manhood in
Faith
and Frivolity by
It
is not always that newspaper articles could stand a re-print in book form. What
strikes the reader as bright and significant today might well seem more than a
trifle faded by tomorrow when it has ceased to be topical. If it, however,
refuses to fade, to any material extent, at any rate, there must be something
in the theme or the treatment or the style which provides the
elusive quality that sustains reader interest. Kripalani’s
writings, now collected in a neat and handy volume, some of them at least, have
all the three elements, though in varying degree. For his writing, at its best,
is not really in the common run of journalism, so familiar to us. Sometimes, it
has a gentle and genuine literary quality to it.
The
book is aptly titled, for in this collection are brought together the grave and
the gay, the serene and the lively and the sublime and the funny. The first
section, which is by far the most substantial in more senses than one, consists
of studies of great men like Tagore, Gandhi, and C.
F. Andrews, some of whom the author had watched at close quarters. The
comparative estimate of the Gurudev and the Mahatma
is not only just but eloquent: “Pilgrims to the same shrine, they came by
different paths, the one trudging on bare feet, blasting barriers, building
bridges over chasms, leading and heartening his crippled and despairing
fellowmen, the other flying on eagle wings, scattering the nectar of his music
on earth. That is why they greeted each other in mutual recognition and clasped
each other’s hand in genuine admiration, despite the seeming gulf of a thousand
differences.” The remarks on Nehru in the well-written essay on ‘Nehru and
Gandhi’ are equally full of a sharp insight. Though written before Freedom,
they lose little of their aptness now, after more than a decade and a half:
“Politically he symbolises
The
tributes to Romain Rolland (“a great European”) and
C. F. Andrews (“a great Englishman”) are lit by the author’s wide understanding
and bear the warmth of human sympathy. The profile of President Radhakrishnan is delicately drawn while the homage to
Victoria Ocampo, the Argentine writer who was Tagore’s hostess, is tender and sincere. In some ways the
most revealing is the intimate portrait of Acharya Kripalani (on his election as Congress President) with whom
the author has very close associations. The saturnine and controversial figure
of the Acharya comes to us, in all its jagged
contours, with all its amiable contradictions: “He is a living paradox. He
loves deeply and talks callously, feels intensely and smiles cynically, thinks
logically and argues intemperately, follows faithfully and sneers irreverently,
the vision of a revolutionary and blinks like a reactionary. He loves the
Socialists and quarrels with them, and despises the diehards and works with
them. He is a rebel who conforms to authority, an iconoclast who worships an
idol, an idealist who boasts of realism, an ascetic who revels in frivolity. He
has no ambition and yet enters the lists, no axe to grind and takes sides, is a
profound believer in non-violence, always itching for a fight.”
Brief,
personal essays in the lighter vein are presented in the second section called
“Trivialities.” Most of them provide a humorous commentary on the foibles of
national behaviour in the era after
–D. ANJANEYULU
Essays in Philosophy ( Published by Ganesh & Co., P. Ltd. Madras-17. Pp.
527+XII. Cloth Bound. Rs. 25)
Ganesh & Co., Madras have
won fresh laurels in the field of publication by bringing out this commemoration
volume of essays by 52 scholars, Eastern and Western, presented to Dr T. M. P. Mahadevan on his 50th birthday. Probably, among the alumni
of Madras University, Prof. Mahadevan ranks next only
to Dr S. Radhakrishnan in the realm of philosophy. As
the editors have justly claimed, Prof. Mahadevan
could not have been honoured in a more fitting
fashion.
One
will be amazed to see the wide variety of subjects covered in the volume. There
are erudite essays on the three aystems of Hindu
Philosophy, the Drishtanta and Darsanas
in Indian Logic (by Barlingay and Karl H. Potter),
‘Religious Existentialism’ (by William Henry Harris), on Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga (by M. P. Pandit),
“Tagore: Humanist or Transcedentalist”
(by Charles A. Moore), “Socrates, Kierkegaard and
Nietzsche” (by Elizabeth Rankin) and on Psycho-analysis and Rationalism in the
context of the Vedanta and Buddhism. There are also scholarly essays on the
place of philosophy in the literature of the Southern languages. Prof. Bhaskaran has contributed an interesting and convincing
answer to the question “Does the State need a philosophy?” Perhaps, the most
interesting essay is from the pen of Miss S. Siauve
on ‘Some Aspects of Indian Influence on French Literature’. She traces such
influence right from the days of Bernier and La Fontaine in the 17th century.
It is not known to many that Lamertine, the Romantic
writer, was moved intensely by the Vedic hymns, that Victor Hugo’s views on
“the scale of beings” and “metempsychosis” were derived, to some extent at
least from his study of the Upanishads, that Michalet
saw in the Vedas “the Bible of Humanity’, that Bergson
bears a close resemblance to Indian concepts of Samskara
and the various levels of psychic life.
However,
one will readily concede the claim made in the editorial preface that “the
essays are not a simple apology for oriental wisdom and hegemony of spirit”,
but they offer “an entire cultural spectrum with many lines and shades
discernible, flashed by distinguished contributors, of different nationalities,
of different scientific, ethical and religious persuasions, working in vastly
different technical fields of inquiry.”
Precepts for
Perfection. Teachings of the Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna.
Compiled by Sabina Thorne. (Published by Ganesh &
Co. (P) Ltd., Madras, Demy 8vo size. Pp. 235+xii. Price Rs.
10)
While
there is abundant literature on the life and teachings of Bhagawan
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda
and Sarada Devi, it is not
widely known that the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna had contributed much
to spread the gospels of the Master. The teachings of fourteen direct disciples
including Ramakrishnananda, the first President of
the Math, have been collected in this volume in the form of thought-provoking
maxims.
“Qn: How can it be possible that I am the soul, I being
finite and the soul being infinite?
A:
Where is the difficulty? Have you not seen jasmine flowers? The petals of those
flowers are very small. But even those petals, dewdrops falling on them,
reflect the infinite sky. Don’t they? In the same way through the grace of God
this limited self can reflect the infinite.”
There
are 700 such gems from the savants of the Ramakrishna Order. The book provides
continuity of thought in the realm of Ramakrishna Philosophy.
–T. C. A.
RAMANUJAM
Sringeri
Souvenir
The
Sringeri Souvenir Committee of the Akhila Bharatha Sankara Seva Samiti,
(2, Bazullah Road, Madras-17) who have brought out a
Souvenir in connection with the Kumbhabhishekam of
the temples at Sringeri deserves to be congratulated
for bringing out a volume worthy of permanent record. The
volume, which is attractively got-up, contains valuable
contributions both in Sanskrit and English, written by eminent writers who have
dealt with different subjects such as the Teachings of Sankara
and his Philosophy, the beginning and the growth of Sringeri
Mutt, the contributions to the Mutt by the various Gurus who occupied the Pitham, the active interest evinced by the present Swamiji in the improvement of the Mutt by his ‘extensive
tours. While the articles in Sanskrit consisting of both verses of prayers to Sringeri Sarada Devi and to the Head of the Mutt, composed for the
occasion, and other discourses from scholars, are of considerable attraction to
the students and professors of Sanskrit, the English contributions have made
the Souvenir dear to any intellectual who goes through it. Rarely could there
be found such a collection of simple and vivid writings, which can he
understood by a common man, contributed by persons of differcnt
schools of thought coming from various professions and parts of the country.
The highlight of the Souvenir is the good collection of a number of coloured art photographs of Sringeri
Mutts at different places, the temples and those of the Swamijis
in company with different persons at different places. A perusal of the
Souvenir is bound to give an idea about the great contribution made to mankind
by Bhagavan Sankara in the
sphere of high-level thinking and the progress of the Mutt as revealed in different
articles confirm the strong foundations laid by Sankaracharya
in this regard. Literature of this type is much needed for the youth of India
at the present time.
–N
TeluguKavyadarsamu.
Translation of Kavyadarsa
in Sanskrit by the poet Dandi, with notes by late
Sri Avvari Subrahmanya Sastry, Satavadhani. Published by
Srimathi Kolachalam Subbalaxmi, C-65 E-type, Moti
Bagh-1 South, New Delhi) Pages 235. Price Rs 3-50.
Our ancestors seem to have devoted considerable attention
to the theory of poetry and canons of literary criticism. Numerous treatises on
the subject, in Sanskrit, are extant even to this day. But it is a long time
since they have ceased to exert any influence on the students of literature or
the practitioners of the literary art in the different parts of the country,
and, due to the limited and meagre acquaintance with
the Sanskrit language even among the educated sections of
the people in modern times, the views and achievements of our
ancients, in this branch of knowledge of universal and perennial interest, are
almost inaccessible to the reading public of the present day.
The
Kavyadarsa of Dandi
is one of such ancient classics in Sanskrit in the field of Poetics. The
translation of such a scholarly treatise in Sanskrit into a regional language
like Telugu is doubtless a formidable task, requiring in the author a
combination, which is a rare phenomenon now-a-days, of thorough scholarship in
the Sanskrit language, poetic talent of a high order in the regional language,
and critical acumen.
Such
a difficult task has been attempted by the late Sri Avvari
Subrahmanya Sastry, a
scholar and poet of great distinction, one of the foremost among the direct
disciples of the renowned poet late Sri Chellapilla Venkata Sastry. Competent scholars
and poets like Sri Manavalli Ramakrishna Kavi and Sri Janamanchi Seshadri Sarma have pronounced
the performance a remarkable success and a creditable achievement, in that the
translation is true to the original so far as the Sutras in the text of Dandi are concerned and provides excellent examples, in
Telugu verse, of the author’s own composition, in place of the examples in
Sanskrit in the original, to illustrate the distinctions and details dealt with
in text. To the numerous class of readers interested in poetry and poetics, as
well as the achievements of our ancients in the field of literary criticism but
deficient in adequate knowledge of Sanskrit and therefore denied access to the
original works, such translations should be exceedingly welcome, especially in
view of the explanatory notes provided by the author at the end, for the
technical terms and difficult expressions and passages. The publishers deserve
the gratitude of the Telugu public for this commendable and valuable
publication.
–M.S.K.