Reviews

LATIN-SANSKRIT

Lingua Sanscrita.–By M. Rampolla del Tindaro (Pp. VI-259. Roma: Bardi, 1936).

It may seem strange to Indian readers that a Sanskrit Grammar should be written in Latin at this time of day. They must remember that Sanskrit is nearer to Latin than it is to any modern European language, in grammar and syntax and even in vocabulary. Besides, this Grammar has been written for the students of the Pontifical Seminary in Rome, where Fr. Rampolla del Tindaro is Professor of Sanskrit to men who come from every part of the world and are united only by a common faith and a common and ancient language.

The language in which it is written, therefore, will limit the usefulness of the Grammar, if not entirely, at least mostly, to Catholic Seminaries and Colleges. But its arrangement and get-up deserves unlimited praise. The Sanskrit type, on thin glazed paper, comes out clear and beautiful, better than that of any other Grammar I know, even Macdonell’s. The lessons are laid out in an easy gradient of difficulty, with examples, vocabulary and exercises to illustrate each. In fact, the distinctive mark of this Grammar is that it gives the student a test of his understanding of every step in declension, conjugation and syntax, by offering him carefully prepared exercises in translation from Sanskrit into Latin and from Latin into Sanskrit in the same book with the theory of these mysteries. In this respect it resembles Bhandarkar's Steps and surpasses them by containing all in a single handy volume.

The second part consists of a choice anthology culled from such fragrant trees as the Mahabharata, the Bhagavadgita, the Ramayana, the Manavadharmasastra, the Panchatantra, and the Kathasaritsagara. Beginners and scholars alike will welcome Kunti's lamentation, and Arjuna's discourse on the eternity of Brahman, and the hymn to Vishnu in the Gitagovinda. A translation of the ‘Our Father’ is a fitting finale to this work of a Catholic Sanskritist. There is a fairly complete ‘Vocabulary’ to help the student.

We do hope that this practical and scientific Grammar will soon be translated into English and other modern languages. It deserves a wider field.

T. N. SIQUEIRA, S. J.

Chitra-Mala.–(APortfolio of water-colours.) By V. R. Chitra, Vice-Principal, The Government School of Arts and Crafts, Madras. (Price Rs. 5.)

It is felt, perhaps widely, that the growing tendency among art-lovers to admire the Indian schools of painting is more for the sake of fashion than as the result of any real understanding of the subject. Carping as such a criticism may seem, it cannot be totally ignored as born of mere prejudice or an inherent incapacity to appreciate the fine arts. The difficulty in the way of a proper understanding or real appreciation of the lost arts of Indian painting and sculpture, is mainly attributable to the complete breaking up of tradition and atmosphere, for ages, in this land of the incomparable Ajanta and Ellora.

While music has not suffered any real set-, painting and sculpture have been so much lost to us that their re-emergence compels many, in the very land of their birth, to complain of their strangeness and lack of appeal. The eye needs constant training for the perception of beauty that is elusive. Familiarity with it has indeed much to contribute to the acquisition or cultivation of taste for a particular technique, or distinct style or method, in every one of the fine arts, and particularly in painting. If the Karnatic school of Indian music, for instance, fails to exhilarate others to the same degree to which it captivates the heart of South India, and even falls on deaf ears with most of the Westerners, we can easily imagine a worse fate for an art like painting that is almost unknown and whose exponents at the present day are far too few to engender in us any idea of its greatness. Continuity of tradition and atmosphere are as much essential to the art-lover as to the artist. If we derive supreme pleasure from South Indian music when rendered in the traditional style, we invariably forget the long association and uninterrupted nurture in its atmosphere that have enabled us not to miss its sure appeal. We feel amazed to be told by outsiders occasionally that the Karnatic music breathes of too much artificiality and unnatural restraint of the voice. Our ears are so very finely attuned to it, our hearts so very eager to respond to it, that we feel our appreciation is more spontaneous than cultivated. Why, we even feel at a loss to comprehend how others could be immune to it.

If music could thus deceive, wherefore not Indian painting and sculpture? Natural indeed that they could strike those who have become aliens in their own country, as unnatural and conventional to a fault. Their eyes, accustomed to enjoying mere physical beauty, rarely seek the inner spirit or expression of emotion that should distinguish a piece of art. They deem anatomy and perspective as the very aim and end of pictorial art. They fail to recognize that the wonder of Nature surpasses all that human ingenuity and excellence can attempt to copy in colour or stone.

The function of art, according to our great masters, is more to interpret life than imitate it. Idealism and not realism, captured their imagination. Our poetry, our sculpture, our dance, our painting, each revels in a great deal of symbolism and detail, which perhaps would mar the conception of beauty to a foreigner who attempts to copy everything that is in nature and considers it the highest end of art. In order to re-create the atmosphere for the growth of taste for Indian art at the present juncture, what we need most is to have collections of the works of great artists in national galleries and public places and annual exhibitions of the kind that we are having by the Madras Government School of Arts. Good prints of masterpieces that have recaptured the ancient spirit, will serve in their own way to supplement the education we need. Handicapped as we are in our country, where printing of coloured blocks has not yet attained the necessary standard, we can still hope to profit much by owning portfolios like that of Mr. V. R. Chitra.

In this beautiful Chitra-Mala, containing eleven colour plates, we inhale the breath of a bygone age. If an artist could preserve in colour and content the atmosphere of the theme or episode he wishes to portray, we need have no doubt of his success in self-expression. The distinction of Mr. Chitra’s art lies in his ability to create things in the wake of the earlier masters. His medium is tempera and hence all the more praise to him for accomplishing such pleasing effects in such an exacting technique. His ‘Roshnara’ and the ‘Cover Design’ containing the form of the Buddha will stand the test of discerning critics for their delicacy of outline and rich detail.

We feel no little pride in bringing to the notice of the public this excellent, though small, portfolio indicating what absorbed wooing of a neglected art could produce, when prompted by the love of beauty and the creative instinct.

K. CHANDRASEKHARAN

The Voice of Omar Khayyam.–(A Variorum Study of his ‘Rubaiyyat.’) By Jamshedji E. Saklatwalla. (Qayyimah Press, Bombay, 1936. Price Rs. 2-8-0.)

Despite the voluminous literature that has gathered round the personality and writings of Omar Khayyam, we are no nearer a solution of the problem as to what exactly he stood for, and what his ‘Rubaiyyat,’ really means. To the reader unacquainted with the Persian language, he is known only through the exquisite rendering in English by Fitzgerald. It is a matter of dispute whether Fitzgerald has correctly understood and interpreted Omar’s great poem. On the one hand, we are told that Omar was a great saint and mystic, who expressed himself in figurative language which has been grievously misinterpreted by many. At the other extreme, we have the Carlylean dictum that he was a mere drunkard and sensualist. Perhaps the truth lies between these opposing views. The difficulty is that those admirers of Omar who extol him as a God-intoxicated soul, have been unable to produce any translation of his work, which would impugn the correctness of Fitzgerald’s rendering. There seems, however, to be no justification for the view that Fitzgerald has placed Omar in a bad light. There are, no doubt, oft-iterated expressions extolling the grape, and the pleasures of life. But these are referred to merely by way of emphasising the futility of life and the attempts to find a solution of its problems. Undoubtedly, a vein of bitter pessimism pervades the poem; and when Omar avers "Let the Sufi flout; Of my base metal may be filed a key that shall unlock the door he howls without," he pronounces a final and contemptuous verdict on those who came out by the same door as in they went." For one who believes that "the first morning of creation wrote what the last dawn of reckoning shall read," life has no attraction, save on its material side. But whatever this may be, Omar continues, for all time, a baffling, fascinating figure, though about eight hundred years have elapsed since his death.

Mr. Jamshedji E. Saklatwalla has rendered a great service to lovers of literature by his variorum study. A careful perusal of it, no doubt, does not bring the reader any nearer to our understanding of Omar Khayyam, but it provides a wealth of material, rarely available to the public. It is however desirable that the materials should be arranged in a methodical way, and not left, as they are in the book, as a miscellaneous collection.

N. S. SRINIVASAN

Dambaru (The Cosmic Drum of Shiva).–An Anthology of Poems, Vol. I. (The Futurist Publishing House, Calcutta, Price, Re. 1.)

The Publishers explain that "the object of publishing this quarterly series of anthology is two-fold: first, to represent mostly the present-day trend of the poetry movement in Bengal in particular, and India in general; second, to contribute its quota to the world-thought of poetry." The first of this series is a two-fold failure. Dr. Bhabani Bhattacharya himself speaks downright sense about this new Bengali poetry. "The makers of new English verse will note with bitter surprise," he says, "that the poetic revival in Bengal is a hothouse growth; constantly sprayed over with romanticism. There is a dream-atmosphere that is regrettably out of place. Flowers thrust up their coloured heads too often. Birds break into song with boring repetition. Stars and swans. Clouds. Pine forests. The inevitable moonlight. All the hackneyed material of rhymsters has been preserved, and is being proudly exhibited in modern Bengali verse. This is decadence." These poets have no right to be the poetic comrades or heirs-apparent of Eliot, Auden, Spender, or Day Lewis.

The Doctor’s Preface seems to be a trifle more precious than the poetry crushed within these fine covers. The poetry is not even as vital as his prose. I must, however, commend the Futurist Publishing House for its flaming enthusiasm, for its enterprise, its clinical carefulness, and the moderation of its ‘futurism.’ I have nothing but praise for these beautiful, well-paginated, well-printed books, brightened by cover-designs, which are, however, more cubistic than futuristic with just a hint at a furious and suggestive futurism. It would be futile to examine Mr. Subho Tagore’s interpretation of ‘Dambaru,’ the cosmic drum of Shiva, which forms the cover-design. There is at least a dynamic poise in the picture which the poetry utterly lacks.

Even Mr. Harindranath Chattopadhyaya and Mr. Humayun Kabir seem to be resolutely flat. The others are even flatulent. If they wanted to transcend all clangour and flamboyancy, and attain annihilation of sound and colour, why did not this annihilation of the fetters of form lead to some kind of nirvana? If you believe in flatness, let the flatness be flat, classically flat. Even Mr. Chapman seems to have entered this free-masonry of flatness, this conspiracy of cacophony. Mr. Ashu Chattopadhyaya’s uncertain command of rhythm and repetition does not save him from uninteresting rococo work. Moni Bagchee is meaningful and has sure signs of promise. Much of this poetry reads like an indifferent or even bad translation of inferior Bengali poetry, and if the only excuse for including a piece like ‘Two Uraon Marriage Poems’ is that they are translations, then it is a poor excuse for publishers who charge so highly.

Out of this cloud-land of drift and desire, Mr. Subho Tagore emerges with credit. I have been privileged to read his poetry previously published under the same auspices, and I can say that he is a very vital and interesting poet, who has many vital and interesting things to say in an intensely vital and interesting way.

The poetry, on the whole, is not even meekly modernistic. The Doctor’s Preface is like a thesis adhering to a packet of poems. He does not even hint at the trends of futurism, if any, in this poetry.

To a reviewer who has spent his life-time in studying the intricate processes of that life-force called poetry, the infantile mortality among the average Indo-Anglian verse-writers is extremely distressing. But in the group represented by ‘Dambaru,’ there seems to be some determination to survive. They are sincere, and their poetry is valid to that extent. I will never question that. But if the mortality rate were to go down, every verse-writer must attain what few of these poets attain: distinctness of personality, which can be attained only by originality

of thought and feeling, and freshness and newness of phrasing.

‘Dambaru’ to me is a thundering disappointment.

M. CHALAPATHI RAU