Facets of Indian Culture

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Ramanuja Srinivasan, M. A. Professor, Vidya visarada. Sangeetakala Sikhamani, Natyasastra Kovida (born 21st September 1887 at Lalgudi, district Tiruchi) has a brilliant academic career. He graduated from the Presidency College, Madras, in 1907, first class fist in Mathematics, winning the pitti Munnuswamy Chetty Gold Medal and the Marsh Prize and passed the M. A., first class first, winning the Stuart Prize. Entering the Maharaja’s College. Trivandrum, in 1910 as Assistant Professor 1943 to 1948, he was the Director of the Travancore Broadcasting Station.

While Mathematics met the mundane needs of the Professor, Music had been his spiritual fibre. A gifted Harikatha performer, he had always been active in innumerable expert Committess on Music in Travancore and Madras. He was for several years a member of the Central Advisory Board for Music in the Government to advise them on the programme side of their Broadcasting system. He did valuable research and composed pieces in some of the rare rages of Carnatic Music. He had been intimately connected with the Lalakshetra, Adayar. A popular writer and lecturer in English and Tamil, Prof. Srinivasan had written two dramas in Tamil and many articles in Tamil and English for various periodicals. This book contains some of his speeches and writings which indicate the dimensions of his learning

The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan — that Institute of Indian Culture in Bombay — needed a Book University, a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular emphasis, however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper impulsions of India. As a first step, it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand almost at once.

It is our intention to publish the books we select, not only in English, but also in the following Indian languages Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

This scheme, involving the publication of 900 volumes requires ample funds and all-India organization. The Bhavan is exerting its utmost to supply them.

The objectives for which the Bhavan stands are the reintegration of the Indian culture in the light of modern knowledge and to suit our present-day needs and the resuscitation of its fundamental values in their pristine vigour.

Let me make our goal more explicit

We seek the dignity of man, which necessarily implies the creation of social conditions which would allow him freedom to evolve along the lines of his own temperament and capacities; we seek the harmony of individual efforts and social relations, not in any make shift way, but within the frame-work of the Moral Order; we seek the creative art of life, by the alchemy of which human limitations are progressively transmuted, so that man may become the instrument of God, and is able to see Him in all and all in Him.

The world, we feel, is too much with us. Nothing would uplift or inspire us so much as the beauty and aspiration which such books can teach.

In this series, therefore, the literature of India, ancient and modern, will be published in a form easily accessible to all. Books in other literatures of the world, if they illustrate the principles we stand. For, will also be included.

This common pool of literature, it is hoped, will enable the reader, eastern or western, to understand and appreciate currents of world thought, as also the movements of the mind in India, which, though they flow through different linguistic channels, have a common urge and aspiration.

Fittingly, the Book University’s first venture is the Mahabharata, summarized by one of the greatest living Indians, nC. Rajagopalachari; the second work is on a section of it, the Gita by H.V. Divatia, an eminent jurist and a student of philosophy. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata; “What is not in it, is nowhere”. After twenty-five centuries, we can uses the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life, The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance, divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival; but, above all, it telling the tale of heroic men and women and of some who were has for its core the Gita which is as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of sagas in which the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of sagas in which the climax is reached in the wondrous. Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto.

Culture, I am convinced, will one day reconcile the disorders of modern life, Through such books alone the harmonies underlying true

I thank all those who have helped to make this new branch of the Bhavan’s activity successful.

Professor R. Srinivasan is well-known for his expert knowledge in several branches of Art, Science and Philosophy. Whether he deals with the mathematical and acoustical aspects of music or insists on the cultural importance of musical education or on intuitive originality and improvisation (Kalpana and Manodharma), whether he recounts the history of Natyakala and inveighs against its growing vulgarization, whether he reviews the rituals and the mysticism attendant on the consecration and maintenance of lemples (e.g., his treatment of Ugraprathishta and Saumyaprathishta) or stresses (as he does in his article on Education) that science is curiosity about life, philosophy an attitude towards life, art is a wonder of life and religion •is reverence for life (a very favourite thought of mine), Professor Dealing with ‘Drama as a form of Yoga’, he remarks that the function of the dramatist is to give us typical experiences of Srinivasan is equally interesting and equally thorough.

various types of humanity and that he enlarges thereby the significance of people and events.

One of the most arresting of the papers which he is now Institution or Vignana”. He outlines the significance of the several concepts termed respectively Manas, Buddhi, Gnana and collating for publication, is that on the “Nature and Function of Vignana. He hopes that humanity will develop a new faculty of intuition which will interpret the phenomena of the world in a new way. This, in fact, is exactly what is taking place in the higher reaches of science today and is demonstrated by the recent speculations of physicists and astronomers and remodeling of the older cosmology of the basis of relativity and the newer philosophy revolutionizing older ideas of space, time, matter and energy.

As an educationist of long experience, Professor Srinivasan takes care to point out that disciplined freedom is alone the real freedom. And in his paper on “The Gift of Free Will”, he dwells on the thesis that man is the creator of his own destiny and his own absolute law-giver. It is from this point of view that he deals with the problem of suffering.

I was specially struck with his note on “Some Languishing Arts” including the puppet drama, the Kolam and the Navaratri Kolu.

With a much-needed candour, the Professor, while indicating the importance of the Katha Kalakshepam, adverts to the danger of the modern Katha becoming, in his own language, a hotch-potch of indifferent music and low class humour.

It is with great pleasure that I welcome the publication of the lectures and memoranda prepared during several years, which Professor Srinivasan is now collecting for the benefit of the public. All that he has written is refreshingly stimulating and often displays real originality.

The articles, extracts and memoranda contained in this volume are a selection made from out of a number of articles and other pieces contributed to various papers and journals on various occasions. In the circumstances a certain amount of repetition is inevitable. But care has been taken to reduce overlapping to the minimum. The articles will, to some extent, reveal my three great interests in life — what I call my three “Mrs., Music, Mathematics and Mysticism. I have tried to understand the soul of India’s Culture through these aspects: Art, Science and Religion in its deepest and most universal sense.

The greatness, the uniqueness, of Indian Outlook lies in the value it sets on higher things, things relating to the soul. It does not however neglect material concerns, it has made headway even in those directions. But it has looked upon material comforts only as means to an end; it has never allowed these concerns to overshadow the higher and the more permanent aspects of a human being.

I cannot adequately express my gratitude to Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyer for the exceedingly kind-hearted foreword which he has written. He is a true son of India and is gifted with a big hear, I thank him most warmly for his kindness. My sincere thanks are also due in abundant measure to Sir S. Radhakrishnan, the philosopher- politician who, in the midst of his heavy and unceasing duties, found time to go through my articles and write such kind words of appreciation. He is an apostle of India’s Philosophy and Culture; I feel greatly honoured by his warm appreciation. I am very grateful to him.

What shall I say about the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan which has come forward to publish the book? I am tonguetied.

It is only in keeping with their tradition to stand by and help to keep the old Culture of India undimmed and guard it against unwholesome onslaughts. My heart-felt gratitude goes to them in an unlimited measure.