Brochure 1992

Brochure Palakkad,Kerala, 1992- page 1

Brochure, Palakkad, Kerala, 1992 –page 2

Something Rich and Strange: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)

            There is something naturally rich and strange[1] about the extremely intelligent creatures on earth—they never tread the trodden path.  Earthly Paths are definitely for the common mortals, for the uncommon there is the sky, water, fire and ether!

At the very outset we may recognize the epical dimensions of these two giants in Indian literary and aesthetic spheres—and their unique positions in contributing to the process of Indian Renaissance–however, this shouldn’t deter us from taking a closer look at each and also together. They lived with their ideals as we would live with our everyday realities. They lived at a time of great change, historically, temporally and culturally. They are products of their history and they have wrought great changes in history after them. Perhaps it may not be easy for us in the postcolonial, post-industrial present to comprehend the profundity of their thought, the largesse of their vision, and the depth of their historical anguish. Both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo aestheticised their political and ideological wills and their work endures as open invitations for any sensitive reader to experience their travails and traumas on their own.  They have passed on the legacy of a struggle: for difference and meaning, for resistance and understanding. What follows is a exploration of these issues in terms of poetry and thought of Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo.

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was a poet and painter who early in life dropped out of regular school only later to found a near-perfect alternative school of his own; Sri Aurobindo was a firebrand patriot, groomed up in alien surroundings and foreign customs, who dropped out of political action to withdraw into himself and spend forty years of his mature life in isolation in Pondicherry, refusing to step out ever after! Tagore’s vision of a school was without restraints and grounded on his philosophy of creative freedom; Sri Aurobindo’s practice of Yoga was aimed at total liberation and complete transformation.  No two people could be so alike and yet be as completely different as these two extraordinarily brilliant and creative Indian minds of the last century.  Indians to the core in their insightful thinking and yet profoundly universal and cosmic in their critical outlook, there is so much paradox in the life, thought, and creative output of these kindred souls.

Sri Aurobindo

This essay is an attempt to reflect on the uniqueness and similarity in the life and thought of these two Indian poets—it will examine, for the most, their ideas and ideals of education, the politics of difference and nationalism that each upheld, their notions of nationalism and internationalism, individual effort, experience and their characteristically cosmic and oceanic experience, and, finally of course their poetry and poetics. All these might appear such large issues which cannot be normally contained within the apparent word and spatial limit of a short essay, however, as I shall argue, these issues constitute a sort of organic whole of these two visionary giants.

Both Rabindranath and Sri Aurobindo were brought up in an atmosphere of colonial opulence, although the former on account of his family lineage had the privilege of home tuition and the creative environment of a sprawling family villa, while the latter, on account of his Anglophile paternal legacy was tutored by Irish nuns during early childhood and schooled later in Cambridge in the European classical heritage( perhaps a little less in terms of opulence but well-made up for by the colonial aura). Each were unique intellectuals revealing their poetic identities much early in life. Perhaps it was the oppressive burden of a westernized education which deprived the young Aurobindo of his native connectivity which a little later in life would pave the way for his obsessive search for a national identity. This compulsive desire for an alternate identity was the lynch pin of both, albeit with necessary variations on account of their historical situations. The life histories of Tagore and Sri Aurobindo are so very well known to all readers for needless repetition here.  Although Sri Aurobindo’s life has been set forth by scholars into three clear-cut phases – the early Europeanized boyhood and youth, the return to Indian Nationalism, and the retreat into Yoga (for further details see Iyengar), Rabindranath was fortunate enough to have had a not so disruptive a cultural experience; nevertheless both had to undergo the traumatic experience of a colonial educational burden.  While Aurobindo’s transformation from Aurobindo Ackroyd Ghose through Aurobindo Ghose into Sri Aurobindo, corresponding to the geographical, political and cultural changes in his historical life’s tempo are a little too obvious manifestations of his many avatars, Tagore’s changes are not too obvious but subtly revealed in his creative efforts and endeavours. It is in their ideas and attitudes to educational systems and methodologies that we start to see the emergence of a distinct cultural consciousness.

Rabindranath relates his own views and inspirations toward the setting up of a school thus:

I was brought up in an atmosphere of aspiration, aspiration for the expansion of the human spirit.  We in our home sought freedom of power in our language, freedom of imagination in our literature, freedom of soul in our religious creeds and that of mind in our social environment.  Such an opportunity has given me confidence in the power of education which is one with life and only which can give us real freedom, the highest that is claimed for man, his freedom of moral communion in the human world…. I try to assert in my words and works that education has its only meaning and object in freedom–freedom from ignorance about the laws of the universe, and freedom from passion and prejudice in our communication with the human world.  In my institution I have attempted to create an atmosphere of naturalness in our relationship with strangers, and the spirit of hospitality which is the first virtue in men that made civilization possible.I invited thinkers and scholars from foreign lands to let our boys know how easy it is to realise our common fellowship, when we deal with those who are great, and that it is the puny who with their petty vanities set up barriers between man and man[2].

Tagore’s grandfather, Prince Dwarakanath, was a close associate of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and his father Maharshi Debendranath, was the power behind the Brahmo Samaj for some time. Hence with such lineage it is little surprise that Tagore thought in the lines he did on education. The point worth noting is the insistence on the soul’s aspiration and its urge toward human freedom and expansion that underlies the inspiration to rebuild existing educational systems. This is fairly close to what later Sri Aurobindo would envision as the ultimate possibilities of education. There is idealism here, a combination of the Platonic and European Renaissance models; however, more than anything this is grounded on the Upanishadic ideals as we shall see eventually.

            “We must recognize,” Tagore once declared, “that it is providential that the West has come to India, and yet someone must show the East to the West, and convince the West that the East has her contribution to make to the history of civilization.  India is no beggar to the West.  And yet even though the West may think she is, I am not for thrusting off Western civilization and becoming segregated in our independence.  Let us have a deep association.”[3]

Perhaps there is here a facile marking off of the West and the East, however, the point worth looking into is the insistence on not forcing a separatist attitude but a call for a unique integration and understanding that comes from a deeper profundity of purposive harmony. Here both Tagore and the later Aurobindo would see eye to eye.  Despite being a hard-core activist and an extremist involved in the Nationalist politics with Balgangadhar Tilak and others, Sri Aurobindo too was equally aware of a need toward a synthetic vision which could take all humanity a little forward step by tiny step. From Nationalism to internationalism; from patriotism to liberal humanism; from hard-core activism toward the ideal of human unity—such is the trace of the arc of both Tagore’s and Sri Aurobindo’s thinking. This constitutes also the ground of their thinking on education and human awakening toward greater possibilities. Sri Aurobindo the clearer thinker of the two marks it off like this:

Let us begin then with our initial statement, as to which 1 think there can be no great dispute that there are three things which have to be taken into account in a true and living education, the man, the individual in his commonness and in his uniqueness, the nation or people and universal humanity. It follows that that alone will be a true and living education which helps to bring out to full advantage, makes ready for the full purpose and scope of human life all that is in the individual man, and which at the same time helps him to enter, into his right relation with the life, mind and soul of the people to which he belongs and with that great total life, mind and soul of humanity of which he himself is a unit and his people or nation a living, a separate and yet inseparable member. It is by considering the whole question in the light of this large and entire principle that we can best arrive at a clear idea of what we would have our education to be and what we shall strive to accomplish by a national education. Most is this largeness of view and foundation needed here and now in India, the whole energy of whose life purpose must be at this critical turning of her destinies directed to her one great need, to find and rebuild her true self in individual and in people and to take again, thus repossessed of her inner greatness, her due and natural portion and station in the life of the human race[4].

Here in lies Sri Aurobindo’s universal vision. He talks about the three separate entities in the human being: the essential self, the self in relation to its own national self hood, and finally the cosmic being. It is only in consideration of this tripartite integration can one design a system of education. Not in the mere accumulation of information, not in the acculturation to what is the now of knowledge, but in the realization of the full potential of what it means to be human and the same time more-than-human. In Tagore’s words, while the child “hungers for the Epic we supply him with chronicles of facts and dates.”

In all, education was a desired framework required for the active seeker of the essential self that is cosmic and universal for both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo.  They saw nationalist politics as just the tip of the submerged iceberg; the larger portion was the desire for the ideal selfhood that was transcendental. Hence both these poets could not bear to be trapped in their little political selves for long; they shook free and delved into a “beyonding.” Tagore noted for his wanderings returned more often to Santiniketan for regathering himself as a poet and recluse. Sri Aurobindo’s own trajectory is too very well known—from the timid Cambridge graduate, through the firebrand revolutionary, to the reclusive saint at Pondicherry: herein too one can discern the overarching desire to retrieve the self that is oceanic and boundless. This larger self as Sri Aurobindo saw it was the Spiritual, which was immanent and transcendent at the same time.

Amartya Sen[5] has pointed out that Tagore greatly admired Gandhi but he had many disagreements with him on a variety of subjects, including nationalism, patriotism, the importance of cultural exchange, the role of rationality and of science, and the nature of economic and social development. Even in his powerful indictment of British rule in India in 1941, in a lecture which he gave on his last birthday, and which was later published as a pamphlet under the title Crisis in Civilization, he strains hard to maintain the distinction between opposing Western imperialism and rejecting Western civilization. While he saw India as having been “smothered under the dead weight of British administration” (adding “another great and ancient civilization for whose recent tragic history the British cannot disclaim responsibility is China”), Tagore recalls what India has gained from “discussions centred upon Shakespeare’s drama and Byron’s poetry and above all…the large-hearted liberalism of nineteenth-century English politics.”

In the case of Sri Aurobindo, there too is clear evidence that he sought to instill in the dying soul of India with the inspiring sparks of what he held to be Western enthusiasm for manifest action in the world. As he envisioned it, spirituality is an all-transforming dynamic not a stultifying wet-rag. There is a dire need for both to meet and integrate their essential dharma.

The two continents [Asia and Europe] are two sides of the integral orb of humanity and until they meet and fuse, each must move to whatever progress or culmination the spirit in humanity seeks, by the law of its being, its own proper Dharma[6].

But what is most intriguing is the characteristic prophetic eye that observes further:

A one-sided world would have been the poorer for its uniformity and the monotone of a single culture; there is a need of divergent lines of advance until we can raise our heads into that infinity of the spirit in which there is a light broad enough to draw together and reconcile all highest ways of thinking, feeling and living. That is a truth which the violent Indian assailant of a materialistic Europe or the contemptuous enemy or cold disparager of Asiatic or Indian culture agree to ignore. There is here no real question between barbarism and civilisation, for all masses of men are barbarians labouring to civilise themselves. There is only one of the dynamic differences necessary for the completeness of the growing orb of human culture.[7]

This is definitely an intriguing observation that argues for diversity and difference in world cultures and one which resists the homogenizing vision of a globalisng market economy that marks our post-capitalist present that intends to mask out all differences into a monoculture (read Americanisation or even Cocacolonisation!)

Now both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were essentially poets and whatever their other preoccupations they kept up their poetic spirits. Perhaps in the final analysis they realized that only as a poetic experience could the diversities of the world be resolved. I have often felt that both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo held paradoxically their own other in themselves. This double voice becomes recognizable in many places, at the level of the treatment of themes, approaches to the narratives as well as even at the semantic and stylistic levels.

One characteristic that sets Tagore’s educational theory apart is his approach to education as a poet.  “At Santiniketan,” writes Kathleen M. O’Connell, “he stated, his goal was to create a poem ‘in a medium other than words.’  It was this poetic vision that enabled him to fashion a scheme of education which was all inclusive, and to devise a unique program for education in nature and creative self-expression in a learning climate congenial to global cultural exchange.”[8]

One hears the great echo of the early Romantic poet, William Blake here:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour. [Fragments from "Auguries of Innocence"]

Perhaps Tagore was essentially a lyric poet never even attempting to rise on the great wings of the epic song, as, on the contrary, Sri Aurobindo was: his Savitri—the longest epic in the English language– was a legend and a symbol that almost grew up with him. Sri Aurobindo worked on this epic poem over a long period and has perhaps enshrined in it the struggles and traumas of an entire generation. As with the late nineteenth century here and elsewhere, the general concerns of both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo was with beauty, love, truth. Thematically this triad would encompass the entire oeuvre of both poets. While Tagore drew sustenance and inspiration from the folk and the rural, Sri Aurobindo hastened to the Vedic and the puranic, for myth, metaphor and substance. Tagore’s songs and poems address the instant and the here and now while reaching into the beyond in a transcendental gesture of word and idea. Sri Aurobindo traces the immanence of the eternal and the spiritual in the here and now. Transcendence does not mean the same for both poets alike: like the Dark God—Krishna– seemingly dancing with a million Gopis at the same time, Tagore’s transcendental spirit hovers and disappears at will, forever elusive, forever charming, forever enduring. While for Sri Aurobindo the dance of Siva is an ever present avastha, a state of being and becoming atonce. As he traces this emanation philosophically through matter, life, mind and psyche (see the Life Divine) he is like a graphic artist taking the elusive line out for a walk in the infinite reaches of human experience. There is a definite purpose behind and within all life as the Master Yogi visualizes it—and that is transcendence and transformation. There is no exclusivity as he envisions it—nothing– not even the lowly amoeba– is excluded from this divine Lila. All life has a purpose and the realization of this becomes their very purpose. In fact, in Sri Aurobindo’s vision all this spiritual evolution is essentially natural and will take place whether one wills it or not, however, as he himself notes, to hasten this long-drawn purpose of nature is the creative function of Integral Yoga. Yoga is thus the inspiration for the natural evolution or unfolding of the Divine Spirit in all and everything. Sri Aurobindo’s vision is thus a future-oriented vision, and one that recognizes the multiplicity and dynamics of all life. His world is thus a multiverse of happening not a universe of limiting. Towards this end he strove to build a contact and connection. This forms his major contributions The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga.  However, it is my contention that it is through his poetry that Sri Aurobindo resolves the paradox of all life. As I have been arguing throughout the course of this essay, whatever other vocations Tagore and Sri Aurobindo went through they were poets, and their major vision is essentially poetic. Tagore explored song, short fiction, novel, drama and a variety of other forms, even resorting to visual arts toward the midpoint of his life, but his essential self revolves round the poetic.        

 

Kalpana Bardhan who has done extensive research in this field, has translated a number of songs under the headings: Love, Nature, and Devotion. Here’s one that is metapoetic:

                                    When through a song I see the world

Then I recognize it, then I understand.

Then its own language of light fills the sky with delight,

Then a sublime message wakes up in its dust.

Then it leaves the outside, in my soul it comes,

Then my heart trembles in the blades of its grass.

In streams of the song’s rasa, the lines of beauty lose own boundaries;

Then I find all with each other in close touch[9].

As Kalpana Bardhan notes in her Introduction: “In Rabindranath’s songs, unlike in vocal classical Hindustani and Carnatic music, words are not secondary to melody.  They are of equal or greater significance – the lyrics are no less than verbal, subtle dileneations of complex emotions, miniatures in metaphors and images. (p. x)” There is also a variant version of this original in Bengali that goes like this:

Poet, Singer

Through music the world as I see,

I know it, reveals its intimacy.

Language of its light

Fills sky in loving delight;

Its dust speaks the innate

Divine words ultimate;

Ceases to be external

In my soul melodies to spell;

On its grass

My heart’s throbs pass;

Beauty shapes up, flows the nectar

My own bounds to blur;

With all then I see

My camaraderie.[10]

Little wonder that that Tagore’s vision is unique: it is this uniqueness of what in Keats’s terms would be “negative capability” — the ability to extinguish one’s self and reappear in the other, a high modern “escape from personality!”  Tagore’s vision is universal, and in Sanskrit aesthetic terms this process could be seen as sadharanikarana—universalisation. Let’s now take up an early sonnet from Sri Aurobindo “My Life is Wasted” written in his late twenties.[11]

My life is wasted like a lamp ablaze

Within a solitary house unused,

My life is wasted and by Love men praise

For sweet and kind. How often have I mused

What lovely thing were love and much repined

At my cold bosom moved not by that flame.

’Tis kindled; lo, my dreadful being twined

Round one whom to myself I dare not name.

I cannot quench the fire I did not light

And he that lit it will not; I cannot even

Drive out the guest I never did invite;

Although the soul he dwells with loses heaven.

I burn and know not why; I sink to hell

Fruitlessly and am forbidden to rebel.  [Baroda, c. 1898 – 1902]

We sense herein a deep anguish—the times were terrible, the idea of a nation was in the process of becoming real and the pressures of a growing self-awareness and the touch of immortal spirit all invoking the poet who struggles within “ to quench the fire I did not light!” We can also sense a certain linguistic and semantic freedom in this early poem that slowly is releasing itself from the clutches of a burdened coloniality.  Until now the poet could freely resort to the nineteenth century English clichéd phrases, which are still visible in lines like: “What lovely thing were love and much repined/At my cold bosom moved not by that flame.” However toward the close the touch of the greater poet becomes largely evident:

I cannot quench the fire I did not light

And he that lit it will not; I cannot even

Drive out the guest I never did invite;

Although the soul he dwells with loses heaven.

I burn and know not why; I sink to hell

Fruitlessly and am forbidden to rebel.

Once the poet has commenced sensing the touch of the divine, or better still, once the poet has permitted the greater self awareness to emerge freely into play, the vision affords the greater craftsman to yoke together revelation and inspiration (two key terms in Sri Aurobindo’s poetics the coming together of which lead toward the rendering of what he considers as the most unique poetic: the mantra) Sri Aurobindo’s poetic corpus reveals the graph of an early Europeanised Romantic/Victorian decadent verse evolving self reflexively into an envisioned epic stature.  Of course all his lyric and narrative efforts lead naturally toward Savitri, nevertheless the shorter poems do really require greater attention as enfolding the bounty of his diverse moods and perceptions.  They may not be as visually imaginative as those of Tagore’s, nor would they be musical like those penned by Gurudev, but they are endeavours of a suffering soul that sees and senses and experiences the world in all its manifold sensibilities. Their honesty and sincerity cannot be challenged, nor can their ability to move the reader, given that the reader becomes a sahrdaya—of like-heart!  If in the case of Tagore it is the smaller aspects of life the simple things and ordinary joys and sorrows that undergo poetic manifestations into something rich and strange, in the case of Sri Aurobindo it is the profounder insight into the larger dimensions behind all simple being that poetically get transformed. It may be commonplace to state that both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were essentially poets, for its their unique poetic sensibilities which afforded them the visionary eye when it came to philosophize. However, both never held themselves to be academic or systematic in their philosophizing; neither would accept the appellation of a philosopher too. Their vision is of the lineage of the Vedas and Upanishads—simple, sensitive, impassioned, natural, and non- intellectual far from ratiocinative. While Tagore has left his legacy integrated with the rural, the folk, the commonsensical and the imaginative, closely tied to life in all its innocence and freshness, Sri Aurobindo has envisioned an entire universe conceived in poetic meaning and imaginative aspiration—a way of transformation that calls for a heightened poetic sensibility.  In the final analysis it is poetry that answers to the vision of Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. And only in poetry could their worlds be resolved.  A world of paradox and contradiction, a world of suffering and resistance, a world devoid of any sense while under the throes of a colonial burden—all this becomes beautiful and transformed into something rich and strange when the touch of rhythm and resonance announces the presence of the divine within and without. Any Spiritual Vision could appear amoral or even ridiculously romantic once taken out of context. But once seen in perspective everything falls into place.

The perspective that both Tagore and Sri Aurobindo afford is the simple truth of being: what was plain and apparent to the visionary eye of the poet– it is for us to shift and readjust our perspectives to catch a glimpse at least of their greater vision.   Tagore and Sri Aurobindo desired to build a world where harmony and understanding reigned over hatred and hostility. They were acutely sensitive to the dangerous ideologies of their own times which were leading the world in a trajectory of crisis and catastrophe; their anxiety is revealed in their thoughts and narratives—be it through songs, sonnets, poems,letters, fiction, drama, speeches or treatises. Of course their approach was certainly individual and different—while Tagore worked alongside people working and singing in their midst, Sri Aurobindo chose to work alone away from all in the isolation of an Ashram that came up around him (But we must remember he continued to publish his work so as to ensure it reached the public at large). It is in their single-mindedness that we perceive their unity. A commitment to humanity in the larger sense.

Rabindranath Tagore’s final lines dictated about a week before his passing are very well known.

The first day’s sun had asked

at the manifestation of new being– who are you?

No answer came.

Year after year went by

The last sun of the day the last question utters

on the western sea shores

in the silent evening –

Who are you?

He gets no answer.

This unquenchable desire to see into the heart of things is what marks off this redoubtable visionary poet. In a voice that counters the depressed voice of the early sonnet quoted a little while ago, Sri Aurobindo writes (again in his mid twenties, perhaps):[12]

I have a hundred lives before me yet

To grasp thee in, O spirit ethereal,

Be sure I will with heart insatiate

Pursue thee like a hunter through them all.

Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way

And with awakened vision watch me come

Smiling a little at errors past, and lay

Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home.

Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness

I shall approach thee in things and people dear

And in thy spirit’s motions half-possess

Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near,

Until I lay my hands on thee indeed

Somewhere among the stars, as ’twas decreed.

Despite its strait-jacket form and perhaps a little over-strained narration, this sonnet does convey more than its desired intent. The image of the hunter pursuing his quarry is striking but once the quarry, the spirit ethereal, turns and lays its eager hand on the hunter, he learns to see things afresh:

Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness

I shall approach thee in things and people dear

And in thy spirit’s motions half-possess

Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near…

And having seen and felt that sun’s rays on his eternal self the tireless will of the poet still pursues the spirit, never giving up till it is reached.  Although this sonnet does not reveal all of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical inquiring, it does presage an unsettled poetic psyche a relentless soul that tirelessly worked to transform all earthly being into a spiritual becoming.  If in this sonnet the poet-narrator seeks solace “somewhere among the stars, as ’twas decreed,” the final resolution was never to be elsewhere for the yogi. As Sri Aurobindo envisioned it the involuted Spirit had to reach through Matter, Life, and Mind into the various planes and parts of Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition and Overmind, until it finally united itself with the Supermind in an all transforming unity and integrity. His Integral Yoga was a recognition of the higher than mental life and a step ladder toward its achievement.

In the final analysis Tagore and Sri Aurobindo stood at two different extremities, perceived life in unique angles, thought and wrote differently, but, however, in their most subtle of perceptions they did not differ much.  That desire for the harmonious, for the virtuous, for the beautiful perfection, held them on diverse paths in the same direction. Their journey as we have seen was never on foot on well-trodden paths but over time and space in air, water, fire and ether. And whatever they touched they transformed into something rich and strange!

It is the propensity and capability for being sensitive to the overpowering vision and revelation of strong feelings, to be able to withstand their onslaught and internalize them into levels of profound poetic experience that makes the life and works of Tagore and Sri Aurobindo contemporary and relevant to us in these irreverential and descralised days of market capitalism.  When the youth of India as elsewhere are driven away from their own interior realms from even the minus-one days of their existence by the lures of the playing fields of technology and the tinsel establishments of commercial contrabands, trapped and intepellated in the clutches of a morbid educational system, conditioned into mistaking what they profess as their virtual existence as the real real, the poetic voice of the bard seldom reaches them from the other shores of time. What Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore stood for might appear so far removed from our own everyday existence and their struggles seen to be mere wrestling in the dark to no avail. If only the thin veils of our own deception were to fall off for a fraction of a second we could see their golden boats for what they are worth.  The true calling of poetry is the revelation of the real. And only when the mind’s eye is open can we see and hear properly. Until such times the complete worth and the significance of the struggles of these two visionaries might be condemned to remain in the dark.

smurals@gmail.com

http://smuralis,wordpress.com

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[1] The phrase of course is from the well known song sung by Ariel in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest! But the context is altered suitably and conveniently, retaining only the rich texture of the phrase with no connotations intended.

[2] Rabindranath Tagore 1929: 73-74) “Ideals of Education”, The Visva-Bharati Quarterly (April-July), 73-4.

[3] Iyengar, Sreenivasa K.R. Indian Writing in English, 5^th Edition (New Delhi: Sterling, 1985),p101

[4] Sri Aurobindo, A Preface on National Education,Two articles in the “Arya“(Nov-Dec 1920 and January 1921) http://intyoga.online.fr/preface.htm

[5] Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity (London: Penguin, 2005) 92ff.

[6]  Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, p.81

[7] (ibid p 81)

[8] Kathleen M O’Connell, Rabindranath Tagore on Education. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/tagore.htm

[9] Bardhan, Kalpana. Of Love, Nature, and Devotion: Selected Songs of Rabindranath Tagore (New Delhi: OUP,2008) p 218.

[10] See also http://globaldiplomat.blogspot.com/2009/03/song-of-tagore.html

[11] Complete Poems, Volume 2- The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, p 178.

[12] Op cit p. 180– Baroda, c. 1898 – 1902

Samuel Beckett Dramatist and Artist of Silence

Samuel Beckett

An English Professor and a Painter

Marthanda Varma, King of Travancore (1706 – 1758)

Exactly 270 years ago on a bright August morning the great armies of Raja Marthanada Varma of Travancore marched against the Dutch forces of Van Imholf. (the Dutch governor of that time) And here is what we read in our popular history books:

A battalion of Dutch army sent from Ceylon (the present Sri Lanka) landed at Kulatchal beach and started looting houses and markets; they even attacked a small contingent of the stationed army belonging to Marthandavarma. The initial successes of the Dutch instigated them to raid the land ranging from Kulatchal to Kottar, and eventually attack Thiruvananthapuram. Ramayyan Dalava was  Marthandavarma’s commander-in-chief of the army and  this large army under the brave Dalava’s leadership marched against the forces of the Dutch. The war began on the morning of August 10 at Kulatchal. Ramayyan’s cavalry broke into the formidable infantry of the Dutch and scattered them like dead leaves. The Dutch army fled in tatters.

When one browses through the traditional books of history there are bound to be many a hero who had led his armies into famed battles and won many a war. Kings and emperors of the western world are lauded with majesty and heroism after each war, each annexation, each conquest!  The common reader of East-Asian origin on account of the innumerable conquests and traumas that this part of the world had to undergo is made to look up to the west for such popular hero heroines. Nevertheless there are countless heroes and heroines, Rajas and Maharajas, who had broken through the dark shrouds of history and found their dear places in the hearts and minds of many an Indian. Actually the list of such heroes is not too long! Maharaja Marthanda Varma was one such. Perhaps only a few genuinely interested souls who had had the occasion to go through the annals of South Indian history or even specially Travancore history would know much about the heroic deeds of this King from a tiny state in the far south of India. In his case legend, myth, fiction and history blend in so well that it becomes quite needless even to set out to separate them. He is a compound hero: at once legendary and historical.

Marthanda Varma

When the Dutch governer Van Imholf threatened him stating that he would rake Travancore down to the dust, Marthanda Varma replied boldly that in the event of such a step being taken by the Dutch he would raise a huge navy with the help of the fisher-folk and attack Europe with full force! What a bold statement that has gone down into history!

Peninsular India had for long suffered imperial depredations and assaults from a whole host of people from beyond the seas. Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, French and the British had all tried on their own and also in various combinations! The Chinese and Arab traders had touched on these shores years ago in the guise of travelers and traders. The trade winds had brought in many a foreigner to these shores. But Indians especially the people of the south had always greeted foreigners graciously; nevertheless those imperial forces that swept through from the seas and mountains had to face active resistance from the Indians. The Dutch were vanquished at the great Battle of Colatchal. And Marthanda Varma had upheld the valour and gallantry of the Travancorians. He was also politically wise enough to sign a treaty with the powerful  English East India Company in 1723.  Little wonder that historians consider him as a shrewd tactician and a brilliant general: so very much like Napolean, if not a little more!

On assuming the throne in 1729, assisted by his able minister Ramayyan Dalawa, Marthanda Varma raised a well-trained army from the local people of Venad. He started on his campaign of expansion and started conquering the neighboring kingdoms. Many of these were allies of the Dutch East India Company and they declared war on his kingdom. His thirty odd years of rule were turbulent times indeed!

Marthanda Varma was born in 1706, as the son of the Junior Rani of Attingal (the queens of Travancore were titled the Ranis of Attingal) whose entire family, including herself, a sister who died, and two brothers had been adopted by Umayamma Rani of Venad on the failure of heirs in the Venad Royal house from Kolathunaad or Ezhimala Hill kingdom of North Kerala.

Kolathiri had founded the Matriarchal dynasty of Attingal in 1314 replacing the southern Nair dynasty after the reign of Udayamarthandavarma, king of Venad. Travancore at this time was known as Venad and was a very small principality extending from Attingal to the north down to Kanyakumariin the southern-most tip of the Indian sub continent. Within this small kingdom the power of the king was only nominal due to the power of the nobles known as Madambis, chief among them being the Ettuveetil Pillais or the Lords of the Eight Houses. The powers of the ruler were also to a great extent curbed by the power of the Ettara Yogam, the Managing committee of the famed temple of Sree Padmanabha in the present city of Trivandrum. The Ettuveetil Pillamar and Ettara Yogam had played a significant role in the history of Travancore and were responsible, as per legend, for the murder of Raja Aditya Varma in the previous century, the murder of five sons of Rani Umayamma and other similar crimes, all committed in a bid to extirpate the Travancore Royal House. It was into these conditions, where the sovereign was powerless under the headstrong nobles of the state that Marthanda Varma was born in 1706.

Marthanda Varma, from his formative years was an intelligent prince and it was on his advice in 1726 that Raja Rama Varma signed a treaty with the Madurai Nayaks and secured a foreign force in the country to check the activities of the Ettuveetil Pillamar and other rebellious chieftains. Previously he had also signed a treaty with the English, styling himself as the “Prince of Neyatinkara” in 1723. This incurred the wrath of the Eight Lords and thus they were bent upon murdering the prince. The result was that Marthanda Varma had to flee the capital to the safety of the northern states such as Kottarakara, Kayamkulam etc. where he lived in difficulty for many years, travelling from one place to another to escape his enemies under various disguises.

Marthanda Varma was not only a politically shrewd tactician and a ruler with a vision but an able general in battle-field as well. He led his armies from the forefront and thus instilled in them courage and valour.  In his military conquests he was ably assisted by Ramayyan Dalawa, who was later to become his Prime Minister. In 1731 Quilon or  Kollam, which was ruled by a branch of the Venad family was defeated and the last King was made to sign a document allowing the annexation of his kingdom by Marthanda Varma after his death. Marthanda Varma then turned his eyes toward Kayamkulam, another branch of the family, which allying itself with the Quilon family tried to prevent the growth of Venad. In 1734, several battles were fought against Kayamkulam and Quilon without any decisive effect. In the final battle of that year the Raja of Kayamkulam was killed and succeeded by his brother who soon appealed for peace and hostilities were ended for the moment. Marthanda Varma then, in 1734, annexed the Elayadath Swaroopam or the Kottarakara kingdom, ruled by another related Queen who was then duly pensioned off. In the same year, the Raja of Quilon died and Kayamkulam acquired the possessions of that king against the wishes of Marthanda Varma. The Raja of Cochin and Dutch, a very important foreign power by then, supported the act. The Dutch Governor of Ceylon, van Imhoff, asked the King to stop hostilities against Kayamkulam, to which Marthanda Varma replied that the Governor need not interfere in internal affairs that were no concern of his. In 1739 Van Imhoff arrived in Cochin and in 1740 espoused the cause of the Rani of Kottarakara and protested against the annexation of that kingdom by Marthanda Varma. On a subsequent interview with the Maharajah Marthanda Varma, the relations between the Dutch and Travancore became further strained. As mentioned earlier, it has been recorded that when the Dutch Governor threatened to invade the territories of Travancore the Maharaja gave a brave reply that he would invade Holland and the rest of Europe in case the Dutch misbehaved in Malabar! In 1741 the Dutch reinstated the Queen of Elayadath Swaroopam at Kottarakara against the wishes of Marthanda Varma who attacked the kingdom and completely routed the Dutch army and finally fully annexed Kottarakara to Travancore while the Queen fled to Cochin and continued to receive a pension from the Dutch.

Following the famed battle of Colachal, more than twenty Dutch men were taken prisoners. The prisoners were treated with kindness, so they were glad to serve under the Maharaja. Among them were Eustachius De Lannoy and Donadi, who attracted the maharaja’s special notice. Soon, De Lannoy, commonly known in Travancore as the ‘Valiya Kapithan’ (Great Captain) was entrusted with the organization and drilling of a special Regiment, which he did to the entire satisfaction of the Maharaja. De Lannoy was raised to the rank of General and proved of considerable service to the Maharaja in the subsequent wars. Following the expulsion of the Dutch, the Maharajah now turned his attention once again towards Kayamkulam which continued seeking help from the Dutch. In 1742, the Travancore forces attacked Quilon and fought the Kayamkulam army led by its commander Achuta Warrier stationed there. However, in this battle Travancore was defeated. But eventually reinforced with cavalry brought in from Tirunelveli, Marthanda Varma mounted a successful attack on Kayamkulam.

A treaty known as the Treaty of Mannar was signed, through which Kayamkulam became a subordinate territory.  However by 1746, the Kayamkulam Raja once again started showing signs of rebellion and when his conspiracy with the kingdoms further north (such as Kottayam, Changanassery, Cochin and Ambalapuzha) came to the attention of Marthanda Varma, Kayamkulam was annexed by a final war in which the Raja fled to the Kingdom of Cochin. By now Travancore extended from Cape Comorin to Kayamkulam in the north. In due course, Ambalapuzha, Kottayam and Changanassery were also annexed to Travancore. The principality of Meenachil was also annexed. In 1753 the tributary states of Cochin collectively known as Karappuram and Alangad were ceded to Travancore. In 1755, the Zamorin of Calicut, the most powerful king in Northern Kerala then was also defeated at a battle in Purakkad. He was supported by the armies of some other local kings also. This made almost all the Kings of Kerala succumb to the power of Marthanda Varma.

Once peace had been established in the country the King could turn his attention to other matters. The renovation of Sri Padmanabha temple, the centre of his kingdom, was begun during this time in 1731, and new state ceremonies such Murajapam, Bhadra Deepam etc. were introduced by Marthanda Varma.  The King also instituted a new knighthood for his loyal Nair officers known as Chempakaraman Pillai. The Kingdom of Travancore was formally dedicated to the Lord Sri Padmanabhaswamy on the 3^rd January 1750 and after that the King came to be called Sripadmanabha Vanchipala Marthandavarma Kulasekaraperumal and the Maharajah, taking the title of Padmanabha Dasa ruled the kingdom as the devout servant of that deity. Travancore as a whole thus became the property of Lord Sri Padmanabha, which is “God’s Own Country”.

Marthanda Varma paid special attention to improving agriculture in the Kingdom. The southern district of present day Tamil Nadu, Kanyakumari, was the southern-most part of Travancore too. The famed fertility Nanji Nadu, or the land east of Nagercoil which was considered the granary of Kerala on account of the extensive cultivation of rice paddy there, was primarily due to the irrigation facilities introduced by Marthanda Varma. His Edicts on the subject of irrigation issued between 1729 and 1758 A.D fill several pages in the Travancore Land Revenue Manual recorded by R. Mahadeva Iyer. It is recorded that the single harvest paddy fields of that area became double-harvest fields during his reign. Pallikondan Dam, Sabari Dam, and Chozhanthitta Dam, all on the River Pazhayaru in the vicinity of Nagercoil, were constructed by Marthanda Varma under his direct supervision and they continue to be still operational. Near Bhoothappandy a dam was constructed and a new channel named Puthanaaru was dug from it to irrigate the land near Thovalai.  Puthan Dam built by him near Padmanabhapuram brought in drinking water to that area. Many a historian has been fond of mentioning that the Maharaja himself came to supervise work in the fields and sometimes even participated in the labour!

Legends and tales have come to be built around the turbulent life of this brave Maharaja and there are many things and places associated with his fascinating adventures. The grand old Jackfruit tree near Neyyantinkara is one such. When once Marthanda Varma had to flee from his conspirators it is said that he ran and hid himself inside the huge pothole of this giant tree. This tree known till today as Ammachi plavu can be seen in the sacred compound of the Sri Krishna temple at Neyyattinkara. It has been recorded that it was Lord Krishna himself in the guise of a little herd-boy who took the king into the folds of the giant tree and helped him hide from his enemies. The sword of Marthanada Varma is still preserved in the museum at the Padmanbhapuram palce.

It is said that the death of Ramayyan Dalawa in 1756 caused great pain to Marthanda Varma as the former was not only his minister but also his trusted friend. The King’s health started deteriorating since then and he passed away two years later in 1758. He was succeeded by his nephew Maharajah Karthika Thirunal Rama Varma Dharma Raja in 1758 who consolidated the kingdom further. Just before his death, Marthanda Varma summoned his nephew and successor and gave him some advice. His main concern was that the rituals and ceremonies in the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple were to be continued and carried forward at all costs. Never was the Kingdom to pass from the dominance of the deity. Whatever land and people were annexed by his descendents later were also to be retained likewise under the sole dominance of Sree Padmanabha. Another major instruction was that the State should always maintain its expenses to the tune of its revenue, never over-spending. Further, no infighting in the royal family was to be ever allowed. Perhaps, as a better ally, the British East India Company were to be trusted rather than the Dutch or the French.

After these words of advice the King passed away in peace.

These days the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore has come to be front-page news item in many a national newspaper. The famed wealth accidentally discovered in the Sree Padmanabha Temple has instigated curiosity and inquisitiveness all over the world and the media has taken full advantage of this situation to draw the light of the world’s attention to this tiny erstwhile princely state. Travancore was definitely the creation of Marthanda Varma. He retained the political power and provided stability and collective direction to the emerging state. Of course, throughout the three decades of his rule he was engaged in warfare for either retaining the power over his kingdom or for expanding its contours, but despite these troublesome war-ridden times Marthanada Varma kept his own people happy and contented, and attended to matters of state with utmost seriousness. This he did on account of his own personal benevolence and munificence. The spiritual presence and continued support of Lord Padmanabha was assured by situating the temple right in the heart of his country. The pious and the devout flocked from far and wide to this august presence of the supreme Lord, and so did artists and poets, writers and thinkers. However, the real flowering in terms of culture art and music in Travancore had to wait for a couple of generations more—until the golden period of his successor Swati Tirunal. The entire Kingdom of Travancore or Thiruvithamcore was surrendered to the Lord and the Kings described themselves merely as His representatives ruling on His behalf! So was it written and so it came to be! Marthanda Varma passed into history as one who consolidated the political power of the southern empire and sanctified it through his august governance.

In one of the moving passages in CV Raman Pillai’s great novel of this name that pioneered history fiction In Indian languages, he describes a scene where the young king is a captive at the hands of his enemies and is about to be executed. One of the soldiers demonstrates with his drawn sword to the awe-inspired crowds that had gathered round this spectacle: Is there anyone, he screams at the top of his voice, is there anyone among you who wants to rescue this king? For a long minute there is complete silence and then from among those assembled a man of lower caste springs forth shouting: I’ll do it. In the ensuing grand fight the king is freed and he escapes. There are many such escapades of this legendary king that make this fictionalized narrative heroic and exciting. CV Raman Pillai has made the King of Travancore come alive so very much in the lines of his own role model—Sir Walter Scott, who had sowed the seeds of romance and chivalry in the British minds. Now, Marthanada Varma, likewise will remain forever a great Heroic King of the south, a lonesome figure, tall and majestic, feared by his enemies, loved and cherished by his own countrymen.

REFERENCES

Nagam Aiya, V. Travancore State Manual

Pillai, C. V. Raman. Marthandavarma,

Menon, P Shungunny. The History of Travancore

Menon, A. Sreedhara, A survey of Kerala History

Pillai, T.K.Velu. Travancore State Manual .Revised Edition

Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906)

In our own times, among the arts, often the most misunderstood has been the art of painting. The painter is looked upon as one who is either a freak or an export from another time and place, or a mere craftsman, a worker. While there are many among us who believe that the duty of the painter is to represent life as it is in all similitude, there are others who look upon this art as being explorative and creative just like any other art form. True, the history of the art of painting has been quite long and it has taken a long time to evolve in its many phases and manifestations. In our part of the world the history of painting has been most exciting in its phases of discovery and reinventions. Raja Ravi Varma, has, no doubt, a significant place in this.

As an artist my self one of my earliest exposures to painting was to the work of Raja Ravi Varma. In fact as a child I used to regard them much more than as mere paintings—his lifelike depictions of devi devathas were the very sources for my imagination while trying to visualize gods and goddesses. Saraswathi seated on a rock playing the veena with a peacock beside her, Lakshmi, Parvathi– in short, the very essence and substance of the Hindu mythology in terms of the visual appeared through the visual language of this noble painter. The hero heroines of Vyasa and Kalidasa were not elsewhere either. Ravi Varma provided a visual language to a whole generation. And this he did through his amazing talent in adopting a European medium of the 19^th century art, and also his equally great imitative capacity of illusionism. Not only did he change the way Indians perceived the world he also gave eyes to a pan Indian vision. How did he do it, what did he achieve, what is his true significance? Let us take a brief look at his life and works.

Raja Ravi Varma

 

 

Born on 29^th April 1848 to Umamba Thampuratty and Ezhumavil Neelakantan Bhattathirippad at Kilimanoor, in Travancore district ( Trivandrum in the present day Kerala state) Ravi Varma showed precocious talent at drawing.  His uncle Raja Raja Varma was instrumental in bringing him to Thiruvananthapuram where Ayilyam Thirunal accorded him royal patronage. In 1862 he moved into Moodath Matom which belonged to the Kilimanoor palace , inside Thiruvananthapuram Fort near to the Thevarathu Koikal Palace. Soon under the generous patronage of Ayilyam Thirunal, Ravi Varma was exposed to a whole lot of new influences, western and Indian alike. Traditonal Tanjore painters and then fashionable Italian artists as well. It was the technique of oil on canvas that drew his intimate attention and he began to practice it. However despite the wide variety of styles and techniques available to him, Ravi Varma was constantly aware of  his inadequate technical skills and also the lack of  a reliable Guru seems to have worried him. His biographers point out that Ramaswamy Naicker the noted painter from Madurai in the service of the crown prince Visakam Thirunal at that time jealously guarded the secrets of oil colour mixing, preparing the canvas, and the technique of perspective from the aspiring painter.   So too did the visiting Dutch painter Theodore Janson (visiting Thiruvananthapuram to paint royal portraits in 1868). Perhaps one can easily detect a clear trace of jealousy in this act: both the recognized painters were awestruck at the novice’s genius. Nevertheless one of the helpers of Ramaswamy Naicker, a man named Arumukham, used to visit Ravi Varma secretly in the dead of night to enlighten him with the secrets of oil painting he had learned from his master. Ravi Varma was obviously quick to learn on his own and adapt any new technique. He was bold enough to explore things on his own and thus remained an untutored painter all his life. As his name began to spread quite soon he was commissioned to execute portraits from all over the country

Ravi Varma’s talent never went unrecognized. He was awrded the highest honour of Veerasringala by Ayilyam Thirunal—the very first time such an award was given to a painter. In Madras his painting “Nair Woman with Jasmine Flowers in her Hair,” won the gold medal and later in 1873, for the same work he secured the most distinguished award at an art competition in Vienna. In 1876, his large figurative composition Sakunthala writing a Love Note was exhibited in Madras and was purchased by the English Lord Buckingham. When Sir Monier Williams later published his English version of Kalidasa’s Shakunthalam, this picture adorned the cover page.  And of course this has been the very mode in which later generations have visualized Kalidasa’s heroine.

Ravi Varma’s paintings won virtually all the accolades that were possible for an Indian painter of his times. He was invited to Baroda, Mysore, Bhavnagar, Jaipur, Alwar, Gwalior, Indore and Udaipur.  Wherever he went he painted portraits and paintings on a variety of mythological themes. His equally talented brother Raja Raja Varma also travelled with him and painted. His diaries written between 1895 and 1904 are perhaps the earliest personal accounts of an Indian artist.  They reveal the inner workings of a creative mind. Raja Raja Varma has been credited with the title of the earliest Indian landscape painter. While Ravi Varma concentrated on evolving a special technique of portrait paintings his brother chose mainly to capture the variations of the land. In fact their sister back home Mangala Bai Thampuratti was also credited with equally great talent as an artist. Her works can be seen in the Sri Chithra Thirunal Art Gallery in Trivandrum alongside the works of her brothers.

Sir T Madhava Rao, the then Diwan of Travancore and later the administrator of Baroda State was quick to see the possibilities in Ravi Varma’s popularity. He suggested they reproduce his works through the technique of Oleography. Oleography was a comparatively new mode of printing perfected in 1885 by George Boxter in England and it was another mode of lithography. Ravi Varma’s oleographs established his reputation as an Indian artist.  At the turn of his century Ravi Varma had become some sort of a cult figure so that when he came to die on 2^nd October 1906, people had already started worshipping his pictures.

While he was dying Ravi Varma’s house was overflowing with his admirers—people who had come from all over the world. The small village of Kilimanoor would certainly have never seen such a crowd before or afterwards. Correspondents and reporters from all the world’s newspapers and dailies were there. And Ravi Varma breathed his last in great fame and popularity. Living at a time when the country was passing through the traumatic experience of colonization, he virtually invented visual prototypes out of a legendary past and reintegrated them with a new iconography. His achievements have been equally legendary.

WORKS

Among Ravi Varma’s greatest works are his innumerable life-like portraits of people.  He appears to have discovered the effect of light on different textures of skin and that had definitely given him tremendous pleasure—his portraits speak to us of the people they show. Further he often delights in depicting the curves and falls of the clothing and the texture of ornaments.  It is often a delight to let your eye dwell on one end of the portrait and slowly allow it to migrate over the different textures—skin, clothing, ornament and more specifically the pattu kasavu and its metallic sheen!

The most outstanding pictures perfected by Ravi Varma would certainly be his majestic compositions of epical dimensions: Mohini Rukmangada, The Victorious Indrajit, Draupadi, Jatayuvadh, Viswamitra and Menaka – the list is elegant. It is definitely to Ravi Varma that one returns to get a visual depiction of Kalidasa’s Shakunthala, and Vyasa’s Bhishma. Among the noted dramatizations of Indian mythology Ravi Varma’s Damayanthi with the Hamsa and Shakunthala turning back for a quick glance at Dhusyantha would stand unrivalled.  He laid the foundations for later generations to visualize the Indian classics in a neoclassical mold. This is often cited as Ravi Varma’s strength as well as his weakness: he popularized the classical and brought the high dimensions of art into the levels of the ordinary.

Siva Parvati by Raja Ravi Varma

 

Ravi Varma’s Achivements : Critics and artists have argued that Ravi Varma gravitated to the medium of Oil on Canvas very much like the colonial Indians sliding into the English language. During British colonization only the western way of life was looked upon as valuable and desireable, the English language was raised into great position of prominence, and western manner of dressing, eating, living and thinking, came to be adored and imitated. Similarly in visual arts Ravi Varma symbolizes the colonial mode of painting.  Nevertheless, being a child of his times, Ravi Varma perfected his chosen art skills, and excelled in his medium. The art of portrait painting that he borrowed from his European ways of seeing, did not show any commitment to the earlier manner of painting practiced in the courts during the Mughal period: and yet Ravi Varma’s portraits reveal a touch of class.  He is most definitely a painter of great craft –be it in his proscenium stage-like dramatic compositions, or in his life like depictions of the goddesses Saraswathi, Lakshmy etc. He left a great legacy after him. He single-handedly pioneered a popularization of the art of painting through his oleographs.

And of course it is to him that we have to turn for a pan Indian vision.—the introducing of Oil on canvas as a medium, portrait-styles, the view as if from a proscenium stage, —invention of the sari as a Indian dress—and a pan Indian vision.

What Ravivarma means to me:

Saraswati -by Raja Ravi Varma

In a manifesto that wrote for a recent brochure of mine I pointed out that although my way of thinking is definitely different from that of Raja Ravi Varma his works have been a great influence on me. His painterly creations have been ingrained into the psyche of the land I grew up in. It was he who popularized the art of painting in this country. Of course when new influences seep in they shape up new and newer sensibilities. Ravi Varma imitated the early nineteenth century European decadent art no doubt, but he added a great deal to it in terms of his craft and meticulous eye for details. He transcreated the Indian myths and legends in a new language of perception. His greatest achievement as a painter I believe is his discovery of a pan Indian dress for Indian woman—the Sari. There are innumerable ways of wearing the sari in the Indian subcontinent. He chose the Maharashtra variety, and afterwards when the Indian Film industry developed this fashion had come to stay. There is a much debated painting of his entitled Here Comes Papa! Art historians and social critics have discussed this as a text of the matrilineal societal practice giving way to the patriarchal. But this is not among my favourites as a painter. The painting that depicts Nala slowly leaving the sleeping Damayanthi in the middle of the forest captures the quietness of the night and also speaks volumes about the grief and anxiety in the eyes of the distraught king. This work stands out as an outdoor composition. In my childhood home there were innumerable oleographs of Ravi Varma, and my favourites among those were that of Saraswathi sitting on a rock playing the Veena and Damayanthi in a flowing red sari gazing deeply into the eyes of the Swan and dreaming of Nala. I cannot close this talk without mentioning the exquisite work figuring human figures in the street. On a pavement below a large palacial building a darkish woman sits with a thampura on her side and a child in her lap.  Her eyes lead us away from the painting surface into infinity. She is obviously singing. Her fingers are caught in the act of strumming the thampura. Beside her are her worldly possessions a few tattered bundles. On the floor a little child dressed in green sari crouches, and her eyes are oceans of sadness and apprehension. Just to her left id a boy carelessly examining a wound on his elbow.  In the middle of it all is an empty pot. The entire composition has been so carefully constructed and one can easily perceive the deliberateness of the painter’s craft. But the execution is exquisite. This Ravi Varma at his best.

 

poverty

Contemporary critics like Aurobindo Ghosh dismissed Ravi Varma as a talentless imitative painter.  Even Ananada Coomaraswamy found him quite displeasing. His theatricality and want of imagination are reasons for their dislike.  However, for me Ravi Varma continues to be prince among painters and painter among princes.  Many differences not withstanding, he has left behind him a great legacy that the world will not willingly let die.

 

See also Swati Tirunal

Swati Tirunal

Anyone who had ever turned an ear to music of the carnatic tradition would certainly have come across the popular kriti Bhavayami raghuramam… the entire Ramayana in a ragamalika. How effortlessly it moves, how imaginatively it swings between actions and bhavas, emotions and suggestions.  Perhaps it could be considered as one of the most popular and widely listened to compositions of the maestro of Carnatic Music—Swati Tirunal. This name is so very well associated with quite a lot of compositions in a variety of languages and moods.  Perhaps one can say about Swati Tirunal’s creations: here’s god’s plenty!  Needless to say his was a life of devotion and dedication. And the poet in him drew inspiration and guidance from Lord Padmanabha, Vishnu as Anantasayi. As the name itself implies Swati Tirunal came from the far south from the Malayalam speaking territory of Kerala, the erstwhile Thiruvithancore, and later Thiruvananthapuram.—the present day capital of the state.  Here the country itself is God’s own, surrendered by the famed ruler Marthanada Varma to the Lord Padmanabha.  The rulers merely ruled with the consent of the Lord. And Swati had a great tradition—a tradition of excellence.  But more than anything else Swati Tirunal is remembered today not merely for his excellent and innovative period of rule but more for his great musical contributions—in Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and Marathi.

As one who was schooled and grew up in Trivandrum, In Kerala, I have always felt proud of my heritage whenever I had the opportunity to speak of that land either anywhere else in India or abroad—this was a land of great temples and architecture, of murals and masterpieces in painting and sculpture, folk arts and rituals, magic and mystery.  But over everything else towered two supreme names, world renowned in painting and music—Raja Ravi Varma and Maharaja Swati Tirunal.  What Ravi Varma did to the field of Painting, Swati Tirunal did to music.  Painting and music whether it be in Kerala or the rest of India, were never the same again after them.

Generally speaking, Carnatic music is to this day rather conventional and rigid in comparison with that of Hindustani tradition. The contributions of the Musical trinity—Tyagaraja, Syama Sastri and Muthuswami Dikshitar—are so very well tuned and set in the minds of the sahrdaya that they have become the standards of excellence. And there is seldom any variation possible in the renderings of their well known compositions and ragas, barring of course the variations effected by noted singers of our own times like Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, Semmangudi Sreenivasa Iyer, M S Subbalaksmi, M L Vasantha Kumari, M D Ramanathan, Balamurali Krishna, and a few selct others.  This is not the case with Hindustani music as there is quite a lot of possibility for personal free play and manodharma. The entire corpus of Hindustani musical texts is forever being reinterpreted and re- rendered and of course that would add to its charm and endearment. This of course is only a general statement.  In the world of the Carnatic there are equally great contributions made by the rediscovery of innumerable kritis rendered by Annamcharya, Purandhara Dasa, Bhadrachala Rama Dasa, Oothukkadu Venkata Subbha Iyer  to name only an outstanding  few. Of course it is not what a kriti is but how it is rendered that often matters in music, nevertheless the basic text does certainly offer the mode and manner of its own fruitful rendering.  The ragas and talas of Carnatic mainstream music would never be a burden to the creative mind, instead they would supply the nuances and variations on one select theme or a multiple freeplay of thematic variations.   That Swati Tirunal composed texts in most significant Indian languages in a variety of ragas goes to prove his incredible creative strength and poetic excellence.  Yes, a great deal of his compositions are excellent in their poetic qualities—they are not mere songs.

Garbha Sreeman–Sree Padmanabhadasa  Vanchipala  Rama  Varma  Kulasekhara Kireeta pathi  Swathi Ramaraja  Mannai Sultan  Maharaja Raja  Bahadur ShamSher Jung  Maharaja—that was his complete title–  was born on Friday the sixteenth of April 1813 on Swati star in the month of  Metam to Rani Lakshmi Bai of Travancore and Rajaraja Varma Koil Tampuran of Changanassery.   He was held to be Garbhasreeman because the title of the king was bestowed on him even before his birth! Travancore was always blessed by rulers who were elite and thus by virtue of their background well schooled and scholarly. Swati Tirunal was no exception—he was provided with the best possible education.  As was the custom in those days a King had to learn the niti—or law– in terms of how to run his kingdom—it was called rajaneethi. He was schooled in Sanskrit and many other languages over and above Malayalam.He also learned several languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada,Marathi, Hindusthani, and Persian .His aunt Rani Parvati Bai wanted him to learn English. The famed scholar Tanjavoor Subba Rao, was entrusted with the task. He was to wield a strong influence on Swati Tirunal’s life.  As a brilliant student he mastered English and other languages very well.

The musical talents of Rama Varma were developed first by Karamana Subrahmanya Bhagavatar, a prominent court musician. Subba Rao was proficient both in the theory of music and its practice in Tanjore. Swati Tirunal came to imbibe a lot of it. He also learned to play swarabat, a rather rare (stringed) instrument.

Swati Tirunal’s love for music brought numerous musicians of repute to the court who, in turn, enriched his understanding and exposure to music. Kannayya Bhagavatar,a direct disciple of Tyagaraja, Vadivelu, Chinnayya, Ponnayya, andSivanandam — known as the Tanjore Quartette, — all disciples of Muthuswamy Deekshitar, are notable among them.  A Maratha saint-singer Meruswamy also known as Anantapadmanabha Goswami introduced Swati Tirunal to the finer points of Carnatic and Hindusthani music as well as the hari katha tradition.  Other scholars and musicians who were associated with the Maharaja closely were Irayimman Thampi (1782–1862), quite famousas a poet and composer of music and Kathakali plays, Kilimannoor Koil Tampuran, a Sanskrit scholar and poet, Shatkala Govinda Marar, an amazing musician with a legendary ability to sing pallavis and Palakkad Parameswara Bhagavatar(1815–1891), a very gifted singer. Parameswara Bhagavatar and his sishyaparampara came to be known as the Mullamoottil Bhagavatars. They, along with the nadaswara vidwans of Padmanabhaswamy Temple,preserved Swati Tirunal’s music for over a century till   K. Chidambara Vadhyar, Muthiah Bhagavatar and others started documenting them.

Swati Tirunal’s literary contributions include the following.

Bhaktimanjari, an exposition consisting of 1000 shlokas on the nature and forms of bhakti, addressed to Padmanabha. (The kingdom of Travancore as I had mentioned earlier, had been offered at the feet of Sree Padmanabha of Trivandrum by Marthanada Varma, who took on the name padmanabha-dasa or the dasa of Padmanabha.)

PadmanAbhashataka is a collection of 100 shlokas addressed to Padmanabha.

syanandYrapuravarNanaprabandha is a kavya mixing verse and prose written in the champu style. This describes the legendary history of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

His musical output consists of about 400 compositions in five languages, namely, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindusthani, Telugu, and Kannada. He has composed compositions of all types: Tanavarnam,Padavarnam, Swarajati, Krti, Kirtanam, Ragamalika, Javali, Tillana,Bhajan and even some Hindusthani styles such as Drupad and Tappa. He modeled his compositions after the 17th century composer Margadarsi Seshayyangar, and even wrote a treatise on the prosody of Sanskrit compositions, taking the kritis of the maestro as ideal models. His compositions are all devotional. Most of them are addressed to Padmanabha or Vishnu—nevertheless, there are some addressed to Krishna, Siva, and Devi also. Some of is notable compositions are:

1. navaratnamalika: Nine compositions devoted to the nine

forms of conventional bhakti or devotion.

2. navaratri kIrtanams: Nine compositions that are sung as the

main piece in the concerts held at the navaratri mandapam

outside Padmanabhaswamy temple during navaratri.

3. utsavaprabandham: Twelve songs and several verses describing

the ten-day long festival at the Padmanabhaswamy temple.

4. kuchelopakhyanam and ajamilopakhyanam: Compositions that tell

the respective stories, influenced by the harikatha tradition.

5. ghanaraga krtis: Eight compositions in eight of the ten

traditional ghana-ragams.

6. ragamalikas: pannagndrashayana, kamalajasyahrta,

sohaniswarup (in Hindusthani ragas), Pancharaga swarajati, etc.

(The popular bhavayami raghuramam that I mentyioned earlier as one my own all time favourites was composed as an Adi tala krti in Saveri and was made a ragamalika by Semmangudi.)

7. Dance compositions: Consisting of several padavarnams, varnams,

Swarajatis and padams.

Having said this let us take a brief look at one or two major compositions of Swati Tirunal.  Mention has already been made of the ragamalika composition Bhavayami raghuramam—an all time favourite of mine. Even now as I listen to this unique composition rendered in equally unique style by MS Subbha lakshmi I feel the living pulse of the gifted poet who perhaps had been a little more closer to his Lord than many of us lesser mortals.

As the reigning deity of Travancore was none other than Sree Padmanabha, Swati tirunal naturally wrote a great deal of songs in his praise.  This was Sree Krishna for him appearing in a variety of forms –as boy, young man, lover, benign god, and in a great lot of inspiring roles.   Among my own favourites are: Kripaya Palaya Saure—   Sarasaksha paripalaya  Pannagendrasayana in the ragamalika style,— of course, all these now have seeped in to the memories of whole generations of music lovers for their perfect form and unique personal style. Swati’s songs are personal submissions to Lord Padmanabha—he is the perfect devotee always hopeful, always submissive, but persistent in his devotion.   His touch is unique even in the Malayalam songs he crafted perhaps under the influence of Irayimman Thampi in the Mohiniyattam style— One cannot but mention his Thillanas for their skilled notations of swaras and talas—many of which are still sung by major singers at performances. Mention has already been made of the facilities he provided to other visiting musicians and poets to his court. All in all, Swati Tirunal was a complete poet—his compositions and songs are unique contributions of a rare poet endowed with imagination and great talent.

What Sree Rama was to Tyagaraja, Padmanabha was to Swati. He perceived the divine face everywhere. And he saw him in all forms.  As the King Swati’s rule was quite brief—he passed away before he could effect much change—but nevertheless we cannot forget the fact that it was Swati Tirunal who evolved and developed the now famous zoological gardens of Trivandrum—he saw to it that several exotic trees were planted in the spacious lawns and many species of animal and bird life reared in near perfect captivity.  Another important aspect of Swati Tirunal’s was his serious involvement in whatever he did and his commitment to his people—he established the Observatory near the Kanakakunnu palace in order to foster the study of Astronomy and Astrophysics.  Nevertheless, despite all these significant contributions, Swati is now remembered mostly through his memorable songs and kritis. As long as there are music lovers and singers Swati Tirunal’s musical compositions are bound to be alive and they would be fondly remembered and cherished. Swati is a Poet among Kings and a King among poets!

See also Raja Ravi Varma