REVIEWS
ENGLISH
History of Bengali
Literature–by Dr. Sukumar Sen. Foreword by
Jawaharlal Nehru. Published by the Sahitya Akademi,
I
am not aware of any book on Bengali literature as ambitoius and comprehensive
as Dr. Sukumar Sen’s. It is an achievement in scholarship and sympathy alike.
It succeeds both in outlining general trends and in emphasising individual
writing. In a book of about 400 pages, the thread of the growth of the Bengali
language is not lost. Even the obscurest author, but only up to the forties of
this century. (“The short compass of this history does not allow for the
inclusion of writers who have made their mark after 1941, the year that marks
Tagore’s death as well as the approach of the Second World War. P. 380.”) is
not forgotten, and there is an elegant attempt to assess every kind of writing
objectively. It is a book which the literary minded in every language-group in
To
all writers and readers in Indian languages, who are, like all moderns, more
interested in the present than in the past, it is quite a disappointment that a
book on Bengali literature should fail to deal with the post-Tagore,
post-Second-World-War period. The emphasis on men like Michael Madhusudan Dutt
and a few other ancients, however significant their place in the chronology of
literary history, and there are nearly 15 pages about the minutest doings of
Dutt, at the expense of modern glories like Sarat Chandra Chatterjee.
Buddhadeva Bose and Jibananda Das, is somewhat disconcerting. Even Madhusudan
Dutt does not occur till page 212. The earlier epochs and the earlier writers
are dealt with in generous detail, sometimes needlessly, and there is a
speeding across authors of the 20th century, except Tagore, which does them no
real justice. But these are understandable if Dr. Sukumar Sen wrote the earlier
chapters unoppressed by the limit set to him in this publication, and realised
the limit more and more as he came down the 20th century.
Compression distorts the lowest layer most. And it is nobody’s fault.
Dr.
Sukumar Sen’s History of Bengali Literature will remain for long a most
valuable book on Indian literature.
Essays and Addresses–by
D. Gopala Krishnayya. Published by Goshti Book-Trust, Amalapuram (Andhra
Pradesh). Edited by Brahma Sree G. V. Subbarao. Price: Rs. 2.
Duggirala
Gopala Krishnayya, the most fascinating leader of men that Andhra ever
produced, who died fairly young and fairly frustrated, who should have stepped
as of right into a leadership in Indian politics but for petty dissensions in
Andhra, but for petty considerations in the Gandhian circle, and, above all,
but for his own Puck-like qualities, and this Puck was no Ariel who bowed to a
Prospero, is an unjustly forgotten leader of action, and is by no means a
leader of thought who should be forgotten. His fine achievement in the
Cheerala-Perala Satyagraha is rivalled only by Gandhiji’s Champaran and
Vallabhbhai’s Bardoli. His thesis about “Brahaminising all the Hindus” is as
bold in concept as anything in Hindu thought that came after Sankara and
Ramanuja. He was a man with a modern mind, steeped in Hindu thought, and linked
to the mass-mind of India–in a Gandhian manner, but with a difference.
Gandhiji, outside the politics of independence, was preoccupied with the
survival of the Hindus as a race by the elimination of untouchability, and by
the purification of the Hindu social order. Gopala Krishnayya, outside the
politics of the Rama Dandu (and the Rama Dandu was not just
politics), was deeply interested in the survival of Hinduism by the elimination
of caste and by the purification of Hindu doctrine. It was perhaps a hopeless
cry in the wilderness. Religious leadership in
These
essays and addresses are perhaps not written in the best form, for Gopala
Krishnayya lived in a hurry; but they contain his thought in unmistakable
language, and it is essential that the generations next to his should read his
thought and benefit by contact with a mind passionately attached to the Indian
way of life, and passionately directed towards the preservation of a universal
culture.
Every
young person in
We
owe a deep debt of gratitude to Brahma Sree G. V. Subba Rao for publishing this
book.
Whispers from Eternity–by
Paramahansa Yogananda. Published by Self-Realisation Fellowship,
There
is a region in which mere thought is poetry, in whatever manner expressed. And
this book of beautiful thoughts, sometimes mystic, sometimes semi-mystic,
sometimes common, emanating from an Indian mind settled in America, inheritor
of the tradition of Vivekananda, treating Man, the World, Religion and God as
one and inseparable, is poetry of that region. I read Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography
of a Yogi. It was an enthralling book. My pleasure in reading Whispers
of Eternity was enhanced by my earlier acquaintance with the other book. Whispers
of Eternity is by no means a unique phenomenon. Mystic thought, and the
love of God as the Beloved or as the Guide, is common to all
languages, races and climes. Yet, there is enduring freshness in this book, and
it is not surprising that no less a person than Thomas Mann was grateful to
Swami Yogananda for granting him “some insight into this fascinating world.”
An
excellent book. I was particularly struck by the lovely simplicity of the
Children’s Prayers, pages 181 to 187. These prayers should be translated into
all the languages of the world, into equally simple and graceful words that
penetrate the child-mind.