SANSKRIT LITERATURE

V. RAGHAVAN

INTRODUCTION
the classical language of India, has had a history
S ANSKRIT,
of four thousand years in this country, its ~rliest literature.
the hymns of the Rigv1da, being also the oldest and most extensive
remains of Indo-European literature. The antiquity of Sanskrit
is well known, but its continuity is not less remarkable~ In the
same accents in which the Vedic seer uttered, his mantra is
even now intoned ; and in the same cadence and diction in which
Kalidasa and Bana composed, a Sanskritist today writes his
verse or prose. The Vedic dialects, the freedom of the popular
epic style, the rules for the spoken word in Panini's grammar, the
diction of early drama, all point to a period when Sanskrit was
a living spoken tongue. When out of its dialects a literary norm
got standardised and the early primary Prakrits were coming
into increasing literary use, Sanskrit still continued to hold its
authoritative position; for, as observed by the latest writer on
the language, "though it appears paradoxical at fint sight, the
Sanskrit language only reached its full development as a language
of culture and administration at a time when it had ceased to
be a mother tongue." 1 Buddhism and Jainism which started
with using the popular languages, could not by-pass Sanskrit
to which they had eventually to come. Sanskrit consolidated it-
self as a pan-Indian language by reason of the common culture
and thought it embodied; the mother of most of the mother-
tongues of the country, it was and is still the strongest bond of
the country's unity.
After the early growth of religious literature in Pali and
Ardhamagadhi, there was the cultivation of literary activity in
the classical Prakrits like the Sauraseni which figured in Sanskrit
drama and the Maharashtri in which there was an effiorescence
of poetry; not only did this Prakrit literature conform in pattern
to Sanskrit, alongside of which it grew, but the very grammar of
these languages was codified by Sanskrit. When these Prakrit&

1T. Burrow, TM Samlcril Languag1, Faber & Faber, London 1955, p. 57

202 QONTBKPORAB.Y IMDIAN LITBllATUlt.B

also, by their literary stylisation, got standardized., further

popular tongues took their place, first the Apabhramaa and
then the Modem lndo-Aryan languages of North India.
As in the case of the Prakrits, so in the case of the South
Indian languages, the impact of Sanskrit led to a literary renais-
sance; vocabulary, forms of expression, themes and literary genre
from Sanskrit permeated these languages; three of these which
enlarged their alphabet on the basis of Sanskrit, allowed them-
selves to be influenced by Sanskrit to the maximum extent to
which any language could be influenced by another; in two of
them whole passages of Sanskrit with a sprinkling of words or
the terminations only of the languages, could pass for composi-
tions in those languages; and in two of them, as in the Javanese,
there also arose a style of poetic composition, as also some expo-
sitory prose, called Mani-praoala (gem and coral) in which the
poet made an artistic blend of Sanskrit and the local language.
In fact, such was the intimacy with which Sanskrit flourished
together with the local tongues that till recently Sanskrit classics
were preserved in pahn-leaf or paper manuscript, or even
printed, mostly in the regional scripts.
Sanskrit also added two further dimensions to its magnitude.
From the 1st century a.a. onwards, through Buddhism, it spread
into Central Asia and the Far East; and from about the 2nd
-century A.D. onwards, it was the vehicle of the Hindu culture
which spread over the countries of South-east Asia, the Sanskrit
epics, dramas and poems giving these countries a script and
literature and the arts of dance, drama, music and sculpture.
Thus not only did Sanskrit consolidate the entire sub-continent
of India, but it also brought the whole of the Far East and
South-east Asia under a cultural homogeneity.
In this long sweep of its history, Sanskrit put forth intenE.ive
literary activity in every department-literature, philosophy,
arts and science. In sheer quantity this literature of which only
a part has come into print-the bulk lying in manuscript libraries
and a good part having been lost-represents a prodigious class
of world's literature. As to variety, Sanskrit has dealt with every
imaginable branch of human activity. In respect of quality,
originality and executional skill, its philosophical systems and
poetry and drama could be cited; some of the productions in
these branches, like the Upanishads and the Gita, form the most
 203

precious part of the heritage of India and have indeed become

part of world thought today; the two Sanskrit epics not only
inspired a large mass of literature in the regional languages, but
•
with the characters depicted by them moulded the national ideals;
and poetry and drama, such as Kalidasa and Sudraka produced,
still remain the highest achieved in India in these rcalnis. Literary
activity in the popular tongues specialised in a few select sectors,
like religion and lyric or epic poetry, and, £01 the greater part,
literary criticism, logic and metaphysics, medicine, art, law,
astronomy, mathematics, etc. were left to Sanskrit to be dealt
with by it. When the language of a writer or speaker of one of the
leading regional languages is screened, one finds that wherever
the thought touched higher ideas, the vocabulary became
Sanskrit. However much a regional literature might have grown
and whatever the eminence of a writer in a local language, neither
the literature nor the writer could afford to lay aside the Sanskritic
heritage and equipment upon which they continuously drew.
The renaissance of spirit that quickened the country in the
recent past into new life derived substantial inspiration from
a new awareness of the glory of India's past, and the content of
this awareness, for its greater part, is made up of a fresh appre-
.ciation of the heritage of Sanskrit. To a large extent therefore, the
spirit behind the new productions has been Sanskrit, though the
media have been the local languages.
Classical Sanskrit literature is remarkable for its variety and
richness of forms; to take belles lettres alone, Sanskrit developed
the longer epic, the shorter one and the minor poem; it had the
heroic, the descriptive and the lyrical; it produced the reflective,
the didactic, the historical and the narrative. If in its poems it
could display a wonderful variety of metrical beauty, in the rise
and fall of the periods of its prose it plumbed the musical possibi-
lities of the language; combining the charms of both, it evolved
the genre called the Champu. In drama ta.gain, Sanskrit poets
gave many types, the heroic Nataka, the social Prakarana, longer
plays and shorter ones, including one-act pieces, the farce, the
monologue, the historical and the political and the religious
and the allegorical play; in the later period, the Sanskrit stage
developed also many minor varieties of dance-drama. Above
all, the theory of Rasa, one of the key words of Indian culture,
like Dharma, was, with its twin concepts of Suggestion (Dhoani)
204

and Propriety (Aueliilya), the contribution of Sanskrit Alankara

Sastra, not superseded by anything produced in the local
languages.

A LIVING LANOUAOB
It should not be supposed from all this that Sanskrit kept itself
on a pedestal of its own, following an old set norm and repro-
ducing traditional patterns. An analysis of its long history and the
rich and varied growth of its literature discloses the changes it
underwent and the counter-influence which it received from the
popular languages; in phonetics and morphology, in vocabulary
and semantics, it was affected by its own Prakrits as well as by
the languages of families different from its own; in metre and
embellishments in poetry, in motifs and themes, in romances.
and narratives, in the dance-drama forms of its theatre (the
Uparapakas), it received contributions from the different regions.
where it met local traditioas and forms; with the same liberal
outlook with which it gave of its best, Sanskrit, which believed
in the pancha-sila of live and let live, incorporated into itself
elements of beauty in the regional cultures. The merit of Sanskrit
is that it was developed by all parts of India; with its charac-
teristic genius it went about doing quietly what the Constitution
wants Hindi to do today for becoming the Rashtrabhasha-to
allow itself to be developed by the different regions and to
assimilate things of value in the regional languages.·
Sanskrit authors kept themselves in close touch with contem-
porary events and utilised freely the fresh material with which
they came into contact. In the earlier phase, there was the
influence from Greece and Rome, e.g. in astronomy. In periods
closer to us, the Moghul times, Sanskrit writers learnt Persian,
compiled Perso-Sanskrit lexicons and translated from Persian
and Arabic. The Sanskritists never lived in isolation, but they
assimilated in such a manner that while retaining their indivi-
duality, they integrated the clements they took organically into
their own patterns. If the later Islamic contacts were a conti-
nuation of the earlier Middle-East contacts which began with
Chosrau Anosharwan (531-579 A.D.) and were strengthened
during the Caliphatr when medicine and mathematics in the
Sanskrit works were 1ranslated and transmitted to the West,
the European contacts in the modern times may be said to be
 205

a resumption of the intellectual contacts of ancient India with

Athens, Alexandria and Rome.
The Indo-European contact in modem times has been of
equal significance in the two continents : The discovery of
Sanskrit by the West had been the most significant event in
European thought since the Renaissance. So far as lndiJL is
concerned, this discovery of Sanskrit had a two-fold effect : on
the one hand, Indians who received a moder9 education woke
into a new realisation of the values of their cultural heritage,
and the work of the western orientalist produced a literary and
cultural revival in India; on the other, the impact of western
modes of thought and ways of life led to a process of change in
the traditional institutions and learning. The pursuit of Sanskrit
itself bifurcated into the modern and the traditional methods,
the former being pw-sued in the new English schools, colleges
and universities and the latter in traditional lols, pathasalas and
colleges started especially for fostering that type of study. The
influence of the West, its literature as well as notions, brought to
bear through education and administration, produced its re-
actions in both the types of Sanskritists. Consequently, Sanskrit
literature entered on a new phase with the rise of modern
European influence.
With the first impact, creative activity in Sanskrit which was
still going on received a fresh impetus but gradually, with
English usurping the place of a common all-India medium
held previously by Sanskrit, and with the replacement by English
of the regional language as the medium through which Sanskrit
was studied, Sanskrit was taken away more and more from
daily life and mother-tongue : its study became increasingly
archaeological. When we note the early gusto with which the
Sanskrit Pandit, on the first onset of English influence, started
a Sanskrit journal, translated a foreign work and wrote novels
and stories, and compare it with the feelink of helplessness that
has come over him today, we can trace the course of his demorali-
sation and the general insignificance into which Sanskrit as a live
medium of expression gradually fell. Even patrons of Sanskrit,
who enthusiastically pleaded for encouragement of Sanskrit
studies, looked down systematically on original writing in
Sanskrit. Luckily theire has been a revival of interest in the
literary pursuit of Sanskrit and even among Sanskritists who have
206

received a modem education, there has been a growing desire to

cultivate the language as a vehicle of their thought and expression.
At the beginning of the British period, Samlcrit education wu
in its usual swing and the tradition of the erudite Pandit was
still in force. During the 19th century, the Sanskrit Pandit or
his newly educated son or grandson was still writing in Sanskrit,
some of them, most facile and prolific, having produced about
a hundred works. When printing became the normal mode of
circulating literature and the medium of publication for Sanskrit
did not develop adequately, all this literature remained buried
in manuscripts. A full account of modem Sanskrit literature
cannot be given, as the bulk of the material to be surveyed remains.
unpublished and is difficult of access. Many a contemporary
writer in Sanskrit has poems, plays and stories which he cannot
hope to publish for the delectation of the wider public all over
the country. But this lack of publicity should not blind one to
the fact that there is a continuity of creative activity in Sanskrit
and that in recent times a sufficient volume of modem literature
has been produced in that language, and it may not suffer in
comparison with the productions in other languages of the
country.
It is necessary to draw attention to this, as reputed books on
the history of Sanskrit literature bring their detailed account
only up to about the 12th century and round it off with the
mention of a few stray writings of the later centuries. This defect
has been made good by one writer at lcast1 , who compiled a good
deal of data on modern Sanskrit writers in the different parts of
India and their works. Some samples of modern Sanskrit writings
were published in Sanskrit journals which have become defunct
now and the back volwnes of which are difficult to secure.
Surveys like the present one, and two others which the present
writer has made1, will therefore serve to give Indian lilllraleurs
and the general reading public an idea of the nature and extent
of this literature and to kindle interest in it.

CoNTACT wrril THE WEST

The modern trends in Sanskrit literature are in the main the

'M. K.rishnamachariar, lfisltw] of Claui&al Sanslait LilMalrn, Madru l9S7

1
Modmi Sanskrit Writings, Adyar Library Bulletin, 1956, and Sanskrit Lit11a-
1un 1700-1937,joumal of the Madras Uaivenity, Centenary Number, 1957
 207

result of the contact with western literature; the major forms in

which the new interest expressed itself are the starting of Sanskrit
journals, translation of western classics, the growth or
the abort
story, minor poem and the novel, the developmen~ of prose used
for narrative, descriptive and critical writing in the form of a
short essay or a long thesis and for general discussion and docu-
mentation, the cultivation of literary appreciation and historical
criticism on western lines and the exposition of pod.em scientific
knowledge. Within the country itself, Sanskritists who read
the latest productions in the regional languages or themselves.
wrote in their mother-tongues too, rendered into the classical
language the more noteworthy works, old or contemporary, in
the regional languages, thus re-cementing the close association
of Sanskrit with those languages. Thirdly, the new social and
political movements in the public life of the country produced
their repercussions on the Sanskrit writers, and here it is, in the
literature produced by Sanskritists in the new context, that one
sees Sanskrit alive in the full sense of the term as the vehicle of
expression for contemporary life and thought.
As the traditional form of Sanskrit learning has been
continuing, Pandits steeped in the older tradition continue to
compose long and short poems, hymns, plays, religious works,
commentaries and Sastraic and other technical treatises in the
old style. We have had recently in the South writers like Bhatta
Sri Narayana Sastri who wrote ninety-three plays, Radha-
mangalam Narayana Sastri, author of hundred and eight works,.
and Kavyakantham Ganapati Sastri who was equally prolific;
and there have been similar writers in other centres of learning.
The type of composition in which the learning and skill of the
composer exhibits itself in the construction of verses yielding
pictorial designs (bandheu) is still practised'; C. N. Rama Sastri
of Mysore wrote (1905) a dialogue between Ravana and Sita
(Sita-Ravana-samoada-jhari) in which the same verse uttered by
Ravana, with deletion of one letter, becomes Sita's reply to him...
Numberless commentaries in the old style have been written on
poems and plays, particularly those prescribed for University
4E.g. See T. S. Srinivasadeaik.acharya, in the Mysore Sanskrit College
Maaazine, 1951, March-Dec-ember; Mathuranatla Sarma, Jaipur, Ja,a-
Jluravaibhava (1947)-the Ch1trachatvara section
•aNirosAtlga-dalavatt11YUlava by Tatti Srlnivuacbarya, Tanjore 1900; aJso.
T. S. Srinivuadcsikacharya, MSCMM, 1951, March-Dec.
 208

counes, ~by old-type Pandits' as well as accomplished English

educated. Sanekritists8 • Among those who have canied on polemi-
<:al literature in the field of the systems of philosophy, Mm.
Anantakrishna Sastri, Madhusudana Sarma (Jaipur) and others
of this class in Banaras, Calcutta, Mithila and Kerala may be
mentioned. It is however not possible to give a detailed account
of the large amount of literature of the traditional type which is
still being produced.
Just as he employed the Sanskrit Pandit to compile digests
<>f law for his administrative needs, the British ruler induced the
traditional Pandit to write panegyrics in honour of the British
sovereign-Victoria, Edward VII and George V; and the Pandit
responded with Mahakavyas and even plays in the same strain
in which his ancestor would have eulogised the Paramara, the
Chalukya or the Vijayanagara dynasty. While we may not attach
value today to this exhibition of overflowing loyalty to the
British, we should note here the introduction of a fresh theme for
a Sanskrit Kavya or Nataka which incidentally served also as
a Sanskrit history of the English or of the British conquest of
India. In fact, some of these works were intended as histories.
The Angreja-Chandri.ka of Vinayaka and the anonymous ltihasa-
lamomani were early examples of history; the Natanodamotsa
(Calcutta 1839) is a description of England based on Miss Bird's
work; the Rajanga.la-mahodyana (Kumbhakonam 1894) of Rama-
swami Raju of Tanjore on the British includes lives of distin-
guished Indians also. Tirumala Bukkapattanam Srinivasacharya
described the First World War in his .Angla-jarmani-yuddha-
;vivarana. On a Sanskrit classicist soaked in the poetry of love in
Sanskrit, the sacrifice of the Empire for his beloved which Edward
VIII made, produced naturally a deep impression; the result
was, we had the poem Yaduvriddha-sauharda by A. Gopala
Iyengar (Madras 1937).

llmTOllY AND BIOGRAPHY

The writing of historical Kavyas on the local dynasties
continued hut we should note here a series of accounts wrltten
with a new historical spirit bringing up the history of India to
1E.g. Mahamahopadhyaya Lakshmana Suri, Madras
•E.g. M. R. Kale in Bombay and S. R. Ray in Calcutta; the .d'J'4fatakavya-
kh.,a and the AnandarangachampulJ.1akh.1a of the present writer may alao be cited.
 the British period.. These new historical accounts appeared in
prose as well in verse and dealt with either the whole field of
Indian history or particular phases of it. The ltiluuadipika' in
five chaptcn brings the account up to the wars with Tipu Sultan
and the Mahratta kingdoms. The Bharaleliluzsa (SSPP' 1948-49)
is a prose account of Indian history. Mm. T. Ganapati Sastri
wrote the Bharatanuoarnana, a history of India, and Ramavatara
Sarma, the Bharatiyam ltivritlam, a similar wark. The Bhara-
lltiorillasara is a historical work by Lakshminatha Sastri ofJaipur•.
In the Bharalasangraha, Kavyakantham Ganapati Saatri reviews
Indian history10. In the Sryanka Kaoya11, in 16 short cantos, Kavi
Krishna Kaur presented the early history of the Sikhs. Sripada
Sastri Hasurkar started a series of historical accounts in a series
called Bluirata-nara-ratnamala and gave us the Sikha-guru-ehariwa-
mritam (Indore 1933) on the Sikh gurus. The Sak. published in
Vol. IV a histori~al poem on Mahmud Gazni, the Gasanimu.ha-
mmada-charitra and in the same journal appeared also short prose
accounts of historical figures-Chandragupta, Asoka, Samyogita,
and others. In the SR. (1914) we have an account of Alexander's
invasion of India. In his Soadesiya-kalAa published in his SC.
( 1907) Appa Sastri set forth facts and figures of the history of India
and dealt with the good and bad features of the British rule. In Sri
from Srinagar, the Rajalarangini of Kashmir which had been
brought up to date in the post-Kalhana times is brought up to
the further modem times by Govinda Rajanaka.
Older literature on the lives of noteworthy personalities mixed
fable and fact and narrated in poetic and eulogistic style the
lives of important individuals with descriptive excursions
obscuring the few historical data. In the new biographies, the

'Printed : date not known.

1The following abbreviations in this survey represent the Sanskrit journals
noted against them :
SSPP. -Samskrita Sahitya Parishat Patrika, ~alcutta
SR. -Samakrita Ratnakara, Jaipur, Banaras
SaA. -Sahridaya, Srirangam
..4 V. -Amritavani, Bangalore
MY. -Madhuravani, Gadag, Dharwar
UP. -Udyanapatrika, Tiruvayyaru, Tamilnad
MSCMM.-MabaraJah's Sanskrit College Magazine, Mysore
Manj. -Manjuaha, Calcutta
SC. -Samskrita Chandrika, Kolhapur
•See p. 40, Introduction to Jo;pajluravai6haoa, Jaipur 1947
1°see p. 11, Introduction to his Umasaluura, Sirui, North Kanara, l 94S
11Lahore 1935
14
 210

high flown. style gave place to a simple narrative proae and the
writer concentrated more on incidents and details of the lives
and times of his subjects. Such accounts have appeared on a
variety of personalities, historical figures of the past, saints
ancient, medieval and modern, scholan, political leaders and
public figures of the recent times. Leaving those of the last cate-
gory to another section, we shall notice the biographies of the
other categoriea. Ambikadatta Vyasa of Jaipur wrote a historical
prose narrative on Sivaji, the SiofJf'ajavijaya, which appeared
serially in the Samskri'a Chandrika, Vols 7, 8. Sripada Sastri
Hasurkar wrote in prose on Prithviraj, Sivaji and Rana Pratap
Singh, in a series devoted to heroes of India (Bharata-vira-ralna-
mala, Indore 1920, 1922). Sakharam Sastri's account of Rani
Ahalya Bai takes the form of a Mahakavya (Satara 1951). In
similarKavya-stylc, RamanathaNanda of Jeypore, Orissa, wrote
the Jayapurarajaoamsavali(jeypore 1938). Greater interest attaches
to the Chalukya Charita (Madras 1938) in which Paravastu Laksh-
minarasimha Swami collates and weaves together the Chalukyan
inscriptions into a connected historical account of the dynasty,.
The Sahucharita (Kolhapur 1939) of V.A. Latkar Sastri is a prose
biography of a recent Ruler of the Kolhapur State. In a series
of short simple accounts under the heading Bharala-ralnas, the
Nagpur Sanskrit periodical, Samskrita Bhavitavyam, makes a
laudable endeavour to acquaint readers with the notable person-
alities of the different regions and literatures of India. Historical
episodes have also been used for fiction, as can be seen from a
further section in this survey.
Saints of different parts of the country have been more fre-
quently dealt with in prose and verse biographies. Alamelamma,
a lady of Mysore, wrote an account of the Buddha in her Buddha-
charitramrita (1922). Hasurkar started also a Bharatasad/&u-ratna-
mala in which he gave prose biographies of Vallabhacharya and
Ramdas. The lives of Sri Chaitanya and his elder contemporary
Advaita Acbarya have been told in prose by K.aliharadasa Vasu in
SSPP. ( 1928-29 ff and 1938-39 ff). Jnanesvara, Tukaram, Ramdas
and Mira form the subject of poems11 by Mrs. K.shama Rao. On
Satyanarayana, there is an account in SSPP. (1946 ff), under the
title Satyanubhava. Rajavallabha Sastri has a Mahakavya on the

111944, 1950 fr. 1953 ff.

 211

celebrated Nriaimbabharatri Swami of Sringerill; epsiodea in the

life and rnjaya-yatra of the Sankaracharya of Kamakoti have
figured in three worb1•. or the new religious leaders, Dayananda
is the subject of the Dayananda fwa/Jhaoa of V amaaacharya, of
works of Akhilananda Sarma, of the D0.1anarula Digoi.jaya (Alla-
habad 1910) etc., and recently of a large Mahalcavya, .A.ryotlaya
Kavya, in twenty-one cantos by Gangaprasad Upadhyaya (Alla-
habad 1952); in the last work, the author gives a large historical
setting to the advent of Dayananda, and describes Hindu
decadence and revival, foreign domination of India and the
gaining of freedom. The journal Sri from Srinagar carried
accounts of some Kashmirian saints. P. Panchapagesa Sastri wrote
in prose the life of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Madras 1937)
and K. S. Nagarajan of Bangalore the Vivekananda Charita11•
Among musician-saints, the two famous Carnatic music compo-
sers, Tyagaraja and Muttusvami Dikshitar, have each a Mahaka-
vya on their life, times and work, that on the former being the
production of Sundaresa Sarma (Kumbhakonam 1937) and on
the latter, yet to be published, a production of the present writer.
The veteran Andhra Sanskritist Kasi Krishnacharya narrates
the story of Valmiki in easy prose, introducing a number of
anecdotes, subsidiary stories and other interesting literary features
(Guntur 1957).
In fields outside Hinduism, the life of Jesus Christ has been
told in Sanskrit prose ( Tuucharitam} by Sri Nilakantha Sastri
of Trivandrum; and Sri Gunde Rao Harkare of Gadwal has
translated five chapte:s of the Koran (Ch. I, ptd., Islamic Culture,.
Hyderabad, XIX, i, 1945).
The life and work of scholars have also been recorded: Chandra
Bhushan Sanna wrote a short account Jivita1"iltanJa, of Pt.
Bechana Rama of the Banaras Sanskrit College (Banaras 1890).
The Yidoal-cbarila-panchaka of Narayana Sa~tri Khiste (Banaras.
1928) describes in Champu form the lives of five leading Maha-
mahopadhyayas of Banaras-Gangadhara Sastri Manavalli,
Kailasachandra, Damodara Sastri, Sivakumara Sastri and
Ramkrishna (Tatya) Sastri. The Samskrila Chandrika published

UMadraa 1936
HE.g. Sri Chandras1ldul'aDij41amaluiratnakara by P. Umamaheavara Sutri,.
1999
u .ef Y. ; also separately, 1947
 212 CONTBKPOllAllY INDIAN UTBllATUR&

prose accounts of writen of old and modeni scholars in Sanskrit..

Mm. Yajnaswami Sastri wrote the Tyag•rajtllJijayam on the life
of his grandfather, the distinguished Mm. Raju (Tyagaraja)
Sastri of Mannargudi (Tanjore 1904). Kshama Rao's Sankara-
jioanakhyana (Bombay 1939) is a verse biography of the lady's
father, the distinguished Sanskrit research scholar SAJ>kara
Panduranga Pandit. The Haranamamrila Ka1J}a (Bikancr 1955)
of Vidyadhara iastri is an account of his grandfather, dealing
incidentally with the Sanskrit activities of the latter's times.
The Brahmarshivilasa (Lucknow 1955) of Virendra Bahadur
Singh is on the life and renunciation of a scholar-recluse and the
writer shows his learning in the Sastras also. Dinanatha Trivedi
has given a brief biography of Pt. Purushottama Sarma Caturvedi.
The Sivakaivalya Charita by Dr. V. M. Kaikini (Bombay 1950)
is on the life of an ancestor of the author and contains interesting
historical information on migration of Pandit families. Even a
European orientalist, Lewis Rice, has been celebrated in a Sans-
krit biography (Padmaraj Pandit, Bangalore 1905).
More precisely the autobiography may be called a modern devc-
lopment1aa. Korada Ramachandra Kavi (1816-1900), is said to
have written a Svodaya Kavya, yet to be published. Durgananda
Swami wrote on his life in the Vidyodaya. Among recently published
works, there is the Isvarado.rsana or Tapooanacharila (Trichur 1950)
of Svami Tapovanam of Malabar, who passed away recently in
his Himalayan Ashram, written in an excellent prose style.
Among the enlightened Indian rulers some, under whose
regimes their States registered all-round progress, cannot be
forgotten. First among these comes the late Krishna Raja
Wodayar, Maharaja of Mysore, on whom there are many poems
in the early issues of MSCMM1', in some of which modem features
in the State like electricity, the Cauvcry Dam, the Jog Fa.llsJ
the Kolar Mines, the Hulikeri Tunnel, etc. are described.
H.H. Rama Varma of Cochin, uncle of the present Maharaja
and a distinguished Sanskrit scholar, is the subject of the
Ramavarmavijaya17• The Malau is on the present Maharaja of
Cochin, an equally distinguished Sanskrit scholar who has to his
"•Pae1 the accounts of themselves by Dana and Dandin
11 1925, by R.allapalli Anantakrishna Sanna, Narasimhacharya, Singcrian-
8•r and othen
1'By Kunhen Varier, Published 1930
1•By A. V. Krishna Varier, Trichur 1949
 215

credit a number of Sanskrit works written in the traditional

style. The Ja7apuroaibha1Joll of Mathuranatha Kavi Saatri is
an account of modern Jaipur, its ruling house and the Sanskrit
scholars and scholars' families settled inJaipur.

CamCAL PBltsPEarlVB
The historical study of Sanskrit language and its literature
was made part of the courses of study in Sanskrif9 it was included
in the curricula of studies even in the traditional Sanskrit Patha-
salas. It was all the more necessary to inculcate the historical
and critical perspective in the Pandit. Thus there arose the Sans-
krit prose accounts on the modem science of Comparative
Philology, with special reference to the Indo-European, and the
history of Sanskrit literature. Rajaraja Varma included in his
Laghupaniniya10 a supplement on Indo-European linguistics.
R. Sama Sastri wrote the Bhasha-tantra in the MSCMM. (1925-
26); in Sah. (III) appeared Aryabhasha-charita and in SSPP. (1935),
Devabliasha-devanagara-aksharayoh utpatthih by Dvijendranath
Guba Choudhary. In book-form, R. S. Venkatarama Sastri
wrote the BhashasastrapraVtsini11 , and S.T.G.Varadachariar
the Bhashasastrasangraha11• Similarly, accounts of the development
of Sanskrit literature in all its branches were also brought out.
R. Srinivasaraghavan wrote the Giroanabluuhabhyudaya in the
Sah. (III); in the Mitragoslithi, Girijaprasad Sarma wrote prose
essays on Sanskrit poets; in the MSCMM. Rajagopala
Chakravarti wrote the Kavilcavya'Dic/iara; in the UP. the Sams-
kritagranthacharitam is appearing serially; P. P. S. Sastri and
K. L. V. Sastri translated11 Macdonell's account of Vedic
literature from his History of Sanskrit Literature. R. S. Venkata-
rama Sastri published in Madras a history of Vedic arid classical
Sanskrit literature and recently Prof. Hansraj Aggarwal of the
Panjab University has produced in two volumes a larger work
on the same subjectM. The SamskritasakityaviPnarsa of Dwijendra-
nath Sastri (Meerut 1957) is another history of Sanskrit
literature in Sanskrit. Many Pandits and research scholars who

11Jaipur 1947
•2nd edn., Trichinopoly 1918
11Madras 1998, Balamanorama Press
•t93S, Chittugudur and Madras
•Palghat 1927
•Ludhiana 1951
214 CONTBllPOIVdlY INDIAN UTB'RATUllB

are workipg in the field of textual criticism and critical editions

of clauics present their introductions and critical apparatus in
Sanskrit instead of in English, as thereby the circle of users
of these editions is enlarged. Pandits like Madhusudana Sanna,
Jaipur, have produced in Sanskrit monographs on research
subjects like Indra, Chaturvarnya, Atri, and Yajna11..

SOCIAL AND P1Dj.080PHICAL MOVEMENTS

The period we arc surveying was also one of new movements
in the social, religious and philosophical fields. With Indians
taking after western ways of life in an increasing manner, with
oveneas travel becoming common, with the criticism which
the West was levelling and Indian social reformers were repeat-
ing against Hindu customs and institutions-early marriage,
widowhood, caste, untouchability etc-the orthodox Hindu
found himself the champion of the traditional ways. To begin
with, the Pandit boldly faced the rising tide of the reformist
movements and wrote many dissertations against sea-travel,
post-puberty marriage, widow-remarriagcll, etc. In the socio-
religious sphere there was the Arya Samaj movement which
with its call-back to the pristine purity of Vedic religion, gave
a fillip to Sanskrit study, and for its spread prepared many
text-books. Among the polemical literature which the Pandit
produced is also included critiques of Dayananda Sarasvati's
views. The Sanatanist's opposition to further socio-religious
legislative interferences in the pre-Independence and post-
Independcnce days continued. Such of the Sanskrit journals as
arc being edited by orthodox Pandits carried writings criticising
the reforms : In the SR for example ( 1951) there is a short drama
by Sivanaiha Upadhyaya in which two ladies are featured as
characters and are made to discuss the Hindu Code Bill and

u lrulravija,,a, 1930; Chaturvamya-riksha, 1927; .Alrik/pati, 1926; Tlfiruuarasvati,

1946; Maluushikula vaiblulva, 1956.
•E.g. Abdlai-nau-yana-mimamsa, Kasi Sesha Venkatachala Sutri, Bombay
1903; DurMitla-dhikkriti, Appa Sastri in SC., 1907; Vivaha-samaya-mimamsa-
.Abdhf,ana-vimarsau, N. S. Anantakrishna Sastri 1913; Bala-oioaha-h ani-Prakaso,
Ramuwarupa, Etawah 1922; Ritr.anati-vivaAa-Ditlhi-nishldha-pramanani, Madru
1912; Parilll.!)'d~mamanua, K. G. Natcsa Sastri, Srirangam 1913; Va.,10-nima.10,
P. Ganapati Sastn, Kumbhakonam 1910. Sri, journal of the Sanakrit Parishat,
Srinagar, carried serials on Age of Consent, Tem_plc Entry, etc. There were
also liberal Pandits who sided the reformists; e.g. Kasichandra who wrote the
Uddllara Cluwl,W,, on taking back into the orthodox fold those who had Cl'Olled
the seu (Bulletin of the R. K. Million Institute ofCulture,june 1956, p. 152)
 215

point out how the Bill would introduce a Pakistan within each
home in Bharat. But there were also Sanskritists who welcomed
the reforms and in the field of sociology or Dharma Sastra, two
noteworthy works produced in this period are the Mana11at1Mnna-
sara of Dr. Bhagavandas and the A.rya-Didluma or Viswnara
Smriti of Mm. Bishveshwar Nath Reu of Jodhpur. In the former,
available in a longer and a shorter version, couched in freely
flowing Anustubh verses breathing an ardent love of the country
.and its cultural heritage, the author, with his extensive knowledge,
reviews Indian history, t.he differnt systems of philosophy and
the Hindu view of life here and in the hereafter, seeks the true
significance of Sastraic injunctions relating to caste, women,
temples, etc., compares Hinduism with nther religions, enquires
into the rise and fall of Hindu kingdoms and points out that
one of the great drawbacks of the culture is its failure to achieve
a united national feeling, Sangha-sakti. In his equally voluminous
modem Smriti, Bishveshwar Nath Reu incorporates new scienti-
fic geography and history, modern hygiene, birth-control, etc.
When Hinduism had to be safeguarded against the Buddhist
.and Jain faiths, Sanskrit philosophers studied thoroughly the
metaphysics of the rival schools and kept up a continuous
philosophical contest in the works they produced~ Later, un-
fortunately, the Pandit dissipated himself with his internecine
disputes, the pluralists and the monists, the realists and the
idealists, the theists and the absolutists, and the different theistic
sects fighting with one another. While the earlier Sanskritist
forced the opponent to read his language, literature and school
and met him in debate in the pages of his works, the later Pandit,
failed to play this role when Hinduism was faced with Islam
first and Christianity later17 ; hence no literature developed in
this line and to that extent Indian philosophical literature
failed to keep itself abreast of the need of the times; this was
one of the reasons why on the side of the on~oming social changes
which alone the Pandit fought, he was waging a losing battle.
In the same manner, without facing the very ideology of the

"There is of course a stray exception here and there, e.g. in the llri11&1a-
tlhanna-kaumudi-samaloeluma of Brajalal Mukhopadhyaya (Calcutta 1894)
which was a critique of Dr. Ballantyne'a criticism of Hinduism from the
Christian standpcint, and the reply to John Muir'1 MalaJHllikiha (aeaimt
Hinduism) by Pandit Nilakantha Sutri Gore in his Stulra-1at11Ja-rli11imtga
(Ujjain 1951) before the Pandit was converted to Christianity.
 216 OONTEllPOllAllY DmlAN LITBllATURB

West, its notion of history and evolution, the Pandit dissipated

himself with answering misinterpretations of Vedic or other
passages and concepts in Sanskrit literature spread by the western
orientalist. Even within the Hindu fold, the new religious and
philosophical movements that arose did not receive due critical
notice in literature; for the ferment of thought witnessed, the
literary output from the opposition is insufficient. Among the
stray criticisms are those against Arya Samaj already noted
and a Sanskrit t~act against the new twenty-four chapter Gita
issued by the Suddha Dhanna Mandal in Madras, the Nutana
Gila Yaicltitryavilasa by 'Bhagavadgita Dasa' (Madras 1917).
Were there at least in this period, new lines on which the
traditional Pandits developed aspects of their systems of philo-
sophy ? There were and we might note here the bold and
original stand which a few Pandits and scholars took : Ramasubba
Sastri of Triuvisanallur was a Pandit well known for his original
interpretations which sometimes took disconcerting lines, as
when he attempted to dilute the position of Advaita in the
Brahma Sutras and Sankara's Bhashya thereon•. More recently,
Y. Subba Rao of Bangalore started expounding a new view
about the nature of Avidya in Advaita, and purporting to save
Sankara from his followers and Advaita itself a' a philosophy
from the formal logical structure that it later became, he wrote
his thesis Mulallidyanirasa (Bangalore 1929), refuting the possi-
bility of a positive causal nescience; and later when he assumed
the recluse-order with the name Sacchidananda Sarasvati, he
followed it up with a new gloss, the Sugama on the Adhyasabhashya
of Sankara (Hole Narasipur 1955). K. Venkataratnam Pantulu
propounded a new system called Aksharasankliya in his Marga-
dayini. Towards the close of the last centruy Appayacharya (died
1901) had adumbrated the new eclectic school of Samkhya-
Yoga-samucchaya or Anubhava-advaita and written a large
number of work~ to expound this thought11•

SPIRIT OP TOLERANCE
The spirit of tolerance is a part of the Sanskrit heritage; while

•Thia interpretation of Sankara was criticised by Gaurinatha Saatri in his.

Saiara61w/gG1arn61ii~a-kl&antlaa (Vani Vilas Press) and defend.-d by
Venkataraghava S..tri in hia Bla111,,,...1am61ii,,011inuga-mandana ( 191 S).
•see N1w Calalo,_ Catala,,,,,_, Madras Univenity, I, pp. 194-5
 217

Sanskrit had fostered the growth of thought through its dialectical

works relating to the differnt schools, it had never forgotten to.
underline the truth that the divene paths led to the same goal.
This higher spirit of undentanding has received greater emphasis.
in modem Indian thought and it is gratifying to note that among
the Pandits themselves who wrote Sanskrit treatises in thia
period, this spirit is to be seen. We may draw attention here
to at least two works breathing this spirit; Pola.ham Rama
Sastri wrote a dissertation entitled Cludrmna1:Samarasya, (Kum-
bhakonam 1944) seeking points of affinity among the four schools.
of Vedanta. A more important and comprehensive Sanskrit
treatise on these lines is the Darsanodaya of Mm. Lakshmipuram
Srinivasacharya written with the avowed object of reducing
sectarianism and promoting understanding.
Among the new movements, the Arya Samaj is the one which
has been intimately associated with Sanskrit and its revival. The
school produced many Sanskrit works expounding its ideas
and ideals and Akhilananda Sanna is its most prolific and gifted
poet and writer88. Among recent writers of this school is Brahma..
muni Parivrajak.a of Haridvar who has written a new commen-
tary on the Vedanta Sulras called Vedanta Darsana (Hoshiarpur
1954) in which the methods of interpretation of the classical
Bhashyakaras arc criticised. The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda
movement has so far produced only some hymns in Sanskrit•1,.
though, as noticed below, the two founders of this movement
have been made the subject of some literary pieces11• The
Asramas of Ramana Maharshi and Aurobindo have had a more
noteworthy record of Sanskrit writings. Kavykantham Ganapati
Sastri, later Vasishtha Muni, a highly competent poet, became
a votary of Ramana and gave us a Ramana Gita and succinct
metrical exposition of Ramana's Advaita in his Sad-darsana-
on which his pupil, T. V. Kapali Sastri, wrote a gloss. V.
Jagadisvara Sastri composed hymns on Ramana, the Ramana-
slolravali (Tiruvannamalai). Kapali Sastri later entered the
Asram at Pondicherry and became the chief Sanskritist there;
from Pondicherry, Sastri wrote the Sadliana-samrajya (1952)
•see NIW Caltllop Calalogonan, I, pp. 15-16 for his worb.
Ile£ Ramabis/,usaluuranama1tolra by M. Ramakriahna Bhat, Bangalore
1950.
11The Song qf lhl Sann,osin by Vivekananda was translated into Sanakrit
by Nityananda Bharati. •
218 CONTEMPORARY Dn>LUI LITERAT'lJJlE

in twenty.five verses on the place of Sad'llll,na in Aurobindo's

yoga, the .Ahnika-sttwa (1954), a collection of hymns, and his
magnum opus, the new Sanskrit commentary (Siddhajana")
on the Rigoetla Samlaila according to Aurobindo's interpreta-
tion. Going to the traditional Sutra-form in which Indian schools
set forth their tenets, Ambalal Purani of the same Asrama
presents succinctly Aurobindo's yoga in his Pumayoga-sulran.i".
There have appeared also other philosophical writings in
Sanskrit from authon adopting their own points of view as also
general Sanskrit essays and tracts on religious and philosophical
themes. The distinguished Research scholar and Pandit, Mm.
Ramavatara Sarma wrote the Paramarlhadarsanabluuhya, represent•
ing, as it were, a seventh Darsana in addition to the six traditional
systems of Indian philosophy. Of University Professors of Philo-
sophy, Jwala Parsad of Amaravati has a new system of thought
in his Tatwadarsana 81 composed in Sutra sytle and supplemented
by a gloss; here an attempt is made, not quite successful, to
adjust Indian Philosophy to modern scientific ideas. M. A.
Upadhyaya of Baroda, who followed Gandhiji, expounded a
system in his lnaranarupa• which discountenanced caste and
untouchability and even questioned rebirth, etc. Pumajyoti
( 1929) of Swami Pumananda of Hrishikesh is a general non-
'Sectarian exposition of philosophy conceived in a modem way
without caste-distinction and applicable to all and inculcating
Dharma, Vairagya, devotion, Yoga, etc.; it is written In verse and
prose. Dr. Sampumanand, Chief Minister, U. P., is an ardent
promoter of Sanskrit who loves to write and speak Sanskrit. The
Ckidvilasa in his name•7 is a Sanskrit version of a philosophical
essay of his; he has written also a commentary of his own called
Srutiprabha on the Yra~akantla of the Athanaveda, Swami
Agamananda of the Ramakrishna Math, Kaladi, has recently
brought out a Sanskrit dissertation on Dharma• in which the
Swamiji examines the concept of Dharma in relation to politics
and economics also.
The study of Europeaa philosophy in the college curriculum,
-------.
•Pondicherry, two parts 1950, 1951
"Pondicherry 1955
"Text and glou, Amaravati 1950
•Baroda 1951
"Banaras 1950
•Kaladi 1955
 219

which includes logic, psychology and ethics as dealt with by

westem writers, prompted a desire on the part of some to acquaint
the: Sanskrit reading circles with these subjects as understood
in the West. We may notice here the results of this new lin.c of
literary activity. As early as the middle of the last centWif,
the Pandit, Banaras, published Samkrit translations of Berkeley's
Princi.Jllls of Human Knowledg1• and Locke's Ess9 Conuming
Human Understanding", and one Vitthal had rendered Bacon's
No•m Organum'1• Dr. Sama Sastri wrote in the MSCMM. (1929)
accounts of modern western logic and psychology under the
titles Paschatya-pranaana-tattva and Manasa-lattr>a. One of the latest
examples of this class is a thesis on ethics in western philosophy"
produced by Visvesvara Siddhanta Siromani of Vrindavan.

MODERN ScmNCE
From the earliest stages, Sanskritists felt the need to bring
modem scientific knowledge to those among them who did not
study English. In this task the Sanskrit journals, the Samskrita
Clumdrika of Appa Sastri Rasivaclekar, the Sah. etc. did good
work. Under the title Vijnanakusrana, the SC. gave accounts
of Sanskrit scientific writing (e.g. 'Pracham-bhugola-oijnanam',
Jyotistattavam, etc.). As early as 1823 and 1828 llattur
Ramaswami Sastri and Yogadhyana Misra wrote two Kshetra-
tattva-dipikas on geometry. The Sak. published articles, some
with drawings, on several branches of modem science, Physics,
Chemistry, Astronomy, Botany (NS. : VoJs. II tr) under headings
like Paschatya-sastrasara (Substance of Western Science). Appa
Sastri wrote on Astronomy. C. Venkataramanayya of Mysore
gave a resume of the scientific knowledge of Ancient Indian
writers, Sanatana-bhaulika-rnjnana (Mysore 1939). Vitthala
Sastri wrote on the chemistry of the five elements accepted in
Hindu Sastras in his Pancha-bhuta-lJadartha (Banaras 1859). From
Bangalore and Mysore appeared also elaborate separate treatises
like the A.mmbodhinisaslra on Physics ascribed to sage Bharadvaja
and other ancient sages. While dealing with scientific subjects,
11Jnanasiddhantaekatulrika, Pandit, OS, VIII, IX, X
• Vidvadmro-LokWhitJAa-viracliita Manaviya-jnana-vishayaka-s111tra, Pandit,
OS,X
G.BManf1a-sulro-~, Banaru 1852. For some more works of this
type, see Bull. R. K. M. Inst. qf Cullwl, June 1956, pp. 133-4.
"Nili Sastra, in manuscript
220 CONTBllPOJtAB.Y DfDIAN Ul'&RATURB

we might notice also the poem in one hundred and sixty verses
called MartorJaprajapaliyam (Man as Creator, SSPP. Feb. 1947 ff)
in which Ravindra Kumara Sarma depicts the ultimate failure
of science; he makes a brilliant young Indian go to Germany,
specialise in science, come back, desire to manufacture a real
woman who would come up to his expectations, proceed with
the creation step by step, make the woman, infuse life and
motion in her and,,. finally come to grief suddenly. In the Weekly
called Samskri'am {of20. 3. 1956 and 17. 4. 1956), Vamsigopala
Sastri (Rajp'!tana) has two scientific short stories, both very well
written, Chltanam koa aste (Where is the principle of life?) and
Sukralokayalra (Journey to Venus); the former is on the failure
of science to discover the secret of life. In a short dramatic skit
on King Parikshit and the Kali Age, in the Dungar College
Patrika, Vidyadhara Sastri makes the Kali Age, which fails to
enter the world in the presence of Sage Suka and King Parikshit,
call Modem Science and Politics to help his entry and conquest.
In astronomy, astrology and Ayurveda, works arc being produced
in Sanskrit. Kaviraj Gananath Sen wrote the Pratya/cshasarira on
anatomy (Calcutta 1919), and the Siddhanlanidana on pathology
( 1922) and Bhudeva Mukhcrji the Rasajalanidhi on Hindu chemis-
try 1926; Ayurvedic doctors of Malabar and Tamilnad also wrote
similar works, c. g. P.S. Varier; V. N. Nair wrote the Anugraha-
mimamsa on the germ-theory (Calicut 1938); Nataraja Sastri of
Tintchi has written a Sanskrit work on the Tamil Ayurvedic
school called Siddha-vaidya; in the Svaslliyavritla (Bombay 1954)
Messrs K. S. Mhaskar and N. S. Watve deal with health and
longevity; and C. G. Kashikar, Poona, has dealt with the whole
background of Ayurveda in his Ayu11J1diya-padarlhavijnana. (1953).
Subjects of economics and commerce, agriculture and animal
husbandry arc dealt with by P. S. Subbarama Pattar in his
short work Yaria (Trichur 1954). In archaeology, Kedamath Sastri
has produced a book on Indus Valley Civilization, the Sindhu-
sabhyala; Pt. Kulabhushana has published an article on the
same subject in Sri~ the Journal of the Sanskrita Sahitya Parishat,
Srinagar (VI. lii-iv).

SANSKRIT PBRIODICAU
In the first flush of enthusiasm which energised the Sanskritists,
the primary need that they felt was the starting of Sanskrit
 221

periodicals. A survey of Sanskrit journals is indeed a revelation;

not only have there been numerous journals, but these journals
have carried such varied contributions that they might well
be credited with having played an important part in infusing
a fresh life into Sanskrit. Next to the Pandit of Banaras, the
honour of pioneering effort in this line goes to the Sam.rkrila
Chandrilca and the Sunritaoadini (first started as a weekly) of Kolha-
pur with which Appa Sastri Rasivadekar was actively associated.
Periodicals connected with Banaru, some of winch are not now
alive, are the Mitragoskthi, the Vallari, the Suryodaya (organ of the
Bharata Dharma Mahamandal), the Suprabhalam (of the Kasi
Vidvan Mandala), the Samskrilaralnakara (of the Samskrita
Sahitya Sammclan) and the Pandila Palrika of the All-India
Pandita Parishat; two other journals were also started in Banaras,
Suktisudha and Vitlyaratnakara. The Vidyodaya was started by
Hrishikesa Bhattacharya from Lahore; the Arya Samaj started
the AryasiddhanJa (Allahabad), and the Brahmo Samaj the
Srutaprakasika (Calcutta). Among journals started in South India,
the pride of place should go to the Sahridaya (Srirangam) which
was keeping a high standard, and with which were editorially
associated two gifted writers R. Krishnamachariar and R. V.
Krishnamachariar. Its place may be said to have been taken by
the Udyanapa.trika from Tiruvayyaru edited by D. T. Tatacharya.
The Manjubhashini was appearing from Kanchipuram, the Brahma
Vidya from Chidambaram and the Vichakshana from Sriperumbu-
dur. The Amritavani of Ramakrishna Bhat from Bangalore is now
stopped but the Ma.dhu.ravani from Northern Karnataka is
continuing and is keeping its standard. Different regions had
Sanskrit journals with supplements in local languages: the Ka9a.•
ka/,padruma in Sanskrit-Kannada from Bangalore (1897), the
Doaibhashika from Bengal, the Bharatadioakara from Gujarat,
the Mithilamoda from Bihar, the Bahu.sru.ta from Wardha. There
were also Anglo-Sanskrit journals, the &okanandadipika from
Madras, the 'Sanskri' Journal' from Pudukottah, and the Sams-
kritabharati from Burdwan. The Patrika being issued by K. M.
Munshi's Samskrita Visva Parishat carries English and Sanskrit
material. In the numerous multilingual college magazines also,
there appear original Sanskrit contributions. Among journals
that have had an unbrC'ken record must be mentioned the Sams-
krila Sahitya Parisl&at Patrika, Calcutta; from the same centre, K. C.
222

Chatterji ii carrying on his Manjruba. The Sanskrit Colleges at

different centres started their own Sanskrit magazines : The
Pattam.bi Sanskrit College had the Vijnanat:hirdtanani which
Punnasseri Nilabntha Sarma was editing. The Maharajah's
Sanskrit College at Trivandrum was publishing for some years
the Sri Chilra and that at Mysore is still issuing its journal. The
Sarasvati Bhavan and Banaras Sanskrit College arc now issuing
a high-class periodical called the Sarasoali Sruhama. From distant
•
Hyderabad (Sind) we were getting the Kaumruli. The Bihar
Sanskrit Academy published the Samskrila SamjirJanatn. The
Samskrila (Weekly) and Samskrita Saketa issue from Ayodhya.
In the place of the Samskrilaralnakara appearing from Jaipur,
we have now the Bharati from that place. In Simla, a new journal
has been started, the DiDyajyotis. The Surabharali appears from
Darbhanga. The Sanskrit Vidvat Sabha, Baroda, is bringing out
the SartlSlJati-saurabha. The Sanskrita Sahitya Parishat, Srinagar,
has been publishing for some years a quarterly organ called
Sri which specialised in essays. Special mention must be made of
the weekly Samskrita Bhfl1Jilaoyam of the Samskrita Pracharini
Sabha, Nagpur, which is good in the material presented and
the style employed. Some of the other journals, now no longer
functioning, are the Pratna-Kamra-nandini, the Vidoatkala, the
Samskrila Bharati, the Samskrila Mahamandala and Samskrita Padya-
vani of Calcutta, the Samskrita Bhaskara (Muttra), the Samskrita
Kadambini, the Vidyodaya (Bharatpur), the Amrilabharati (Cochin),
theAmarabliarali (Banaras), Ackyuta (Banaras), the Sarada (Allaha-
bad), the V1nkat1soara Patrika (Madras), the Usha and the Arya-
prablza. In one of the 1914 issues of the Samskrila Ratnakara (Jaipur)
there is an interesting dramatic dialogue among the Sanskrit
journals : The Ratnakara, the Vijnana Chinlamani, the Manjubhashini,
the Sahridaya, the Usha, the Sarada, the Aryaprabha and the Vidyo-
daya are made to meet and exchange views.
Apart from publishing minor poems, short stories, serial
longer stories and novels, these journals freely discussed in essays
and editorial notes every contemporary event, social question~
fresh reform and change : all these subjects have been discussed
in a simple style of prose with emphasis on matter, in the growth
of which these pa~n have been greatly instrumental. The
following random samples from different journals will give an
idea of the subjects that these Sanskrit periodicals discussed :
 Education in Germany, the rickshaw and plea for l"ClieC to its
poor puller, the decrease of the cattle wealth of India, birth con·
or
trol, the danger of impending famine, the lot the K.isan, the
set-up of education needed now, the evil of the exanination
system, Indians and the European War, the peaceful uses of ato-
mic energy, Nationalism and Internationalism, Hindu law
reforms. They carry also brief news-items and jokes and tit-bits.
They of course do not fail to devote space to discuss questions
•
bearing on the promotion of Sanskrit; among these figure also
some of the subjects which arc now spoken and written upon
frequently-Sanskrit as a national language, simplification of
Sanskrit, uniformity of Sanskrit education, methods of Sanskrit
teaching, greatness of Sanskrit, present plight of Sanskrit, a Sans-
krit University and so on. The Dravidian movement and the
Christian propaganda arc also dealt with. By writing in the
common language about personalities and note-worthy con·
tributions in regional languages, the journals play the role of
inter-State liaison and promote understanding and unity in the
country.

ESSAY
Following the article in the periodical, the essay, as a form,
was also separately developed. The growth of this form was also
helped by the need for fresh prose texts for differcnt school and
college classes. We may notice especially two writen who have
brought out books of essays, Mr. Hamsraj Agarwal and Sruti-
kanta Sanna. In the Samskritaprabandha-pradipa (Ludhiana 1955)
of the former, there are essays on such modern topics as recent
scientific advancements, the Kashmir question, the food situation,
four years of Independence, constitutions of the leading countries
of the world, the future of Sanskrit, the Hindu Code Bill, the
future of India and the method of teaching Sanskrit. The
subjects dealt with by the latter in his £aghunibandhamanimala
(Ludhiana 1955) include some lighter themes-the hookah,
a dialogue between a horse and a cycle, football match, third-
class railway travel, secular State, U. N. 0., elections and
friendships, talkies, the joy of aimless wandering, the picnic,
hobby, the sportsman's spirit, etc. The Prabandhaparijata is a
collection of essays on old and modem subjects, from diverse
hands, brought out recently by the Chamarajendra Sanskrit
224 CONTBMPOILA.llY DIDIAN UTBllATUllB

<Jollege, Bangalore ( 1958); among modern topics dealt with

here arc Pachasila, Gr1atsr Mysore, Birth-Control, U.N.O., Rani
Lakshmi Bai, Tilak, Gand/,i, etc. The Galpalauumatfiali is another
.collection of essays on historical subjects.
The form called Letlers has not developed, though here again
Appa Sastri had pioneered, as some of his lcttcn published show.

TRAVELOGUE
'
Travel has figured in ancient Sanskrit literature, especially
as pilgrimage. In modern times also, some works of this class
have been produced. Mm. T. Ganapati Sastri's Setuyatraamana,
though couched in traditional style, deals with Hindu ideals
and has reference to many contemporary details and social
evils. The Tribil1Jadala Cliampu•• of V. S. Ramaswami Sastri, a
lawyer of Madurai, is on the author's all-India tour and pil-
grimage and describes in addition to sacred places, all objects
<>f interest to modem man like universities, public buildings,
archaeological sites, etc. Sakharam Sastri wrote an account
ofhis travels in Konkan" in 1924. In thcjournalSri, there appear-
ed accounts of excursions to Amaranatha (V. iv), to the country-
'Side and a serial called Sarasvati-yitra which touched on places '
and matters of historical, geographical and cultural interest.
The samejoumalhas a Simla-varnana in X, iii, iv. S.P. Bhattachar-
ya's Uttarakhandayatra" is on his pilgrimage to the Himalayan
shrines. Dr. B. Ch. Chabbra's Nyaktarajanapadasobha"isadescrip-
tion of Holland where the author spent some time. Dr. Kunhan
Raja who was Professor of Sanskrit at Teheran described Persepo·
1is in a poem (.Adyar Library Bullelin, December 1953). Recently
M~ Ramakrishna Bhat, who was editing the Sanskrit journal
.AmritarJani from Bangalore and went to East Africa for some time,
has written about the latter country and his experiences there in
the form of a long letter published in the Samskrita Blumitaoyam"8•.

LITERARY ClunCISM
Literary Criticism had extensive growth in Sanskrit in the

•Madura 1937
MSee OriMlal Liln•l',I Dig11t, Poona, II, p. 165•
..Calcutta 1948
•.4 Y. Bangalore 1953.
••Mr. Bhat has also given in Sanskrit an African story in the same journal
(26-6-1956).
 225

.Alankara Sastra. After English education, the application of

western canons of criticism, of characterisation, style and the
exposition of the message of the poet became common; it was
felt that there was a need to develop in Sanskrit also tho critical
literary appreciation in the form of the long prose essay common
in western liteirature. The Sanskrit joumat. published many
.articles in this line but the initiative to publish books in this
-specific form goes to Mr. R. Krishnamacharya who was editing
the Sall.; he brought out in monograph for~ the Raghuoam-
savimarsa'1 and the Meghasandesavimarsa•. A. V. Gopalacharya,
Tiruchirapalli, has specialised in this kind of literary exposition,
-one of his works of this class being the Sandesadoaya-sarasoadini,
a detailed comparative study of the M1ghasandua and the
Hamsasandesa. The Madras Sanskrit Academy has been celebrat-
ing Sanskrit Poets' Day for the past thirty years and encouraging
the writing and reading of critical appreciations of Sanskrit
poets and dramatists".

SHORT STORY
It is perhaps in the short story that one might notice promin-
-ently the new developments coming over Sanskrit. The short story
as such is not new to Sanskrit but the form in which it is now
handled, Sanskrit owes to the West. From the dawn of the modem
period, short stories of the new type were appearing in the Sans-
krit periodicals; their number has now increased and short story
-competitions held in Nagpur'98 and Madras show that there arc
numerous writers in Sanskrit who could do justice to this modern
form.
Before taking up the actual modern short story, writers felt
the need to give as reading material to Sanskrit students simple
-elegant prose narratives, and for this purpose produced a good
deal of story literature. They retold Puranic episodes and collect-
-ed in Sanskrit numerous fables and popular tales. S. V~nkatarama
Sastri's Hundred Popular Tai.es and Fables in Prose {Madras 1898),
Svetaranyam Narayana Yajvan's Gadya KtJDya containing prose
-stories including two imaginative pieces (Sukumaraoarman and
" -8 Kavyagunadarsa Series, Srirangam 1908, 1915
••Several of the papers so read have been published in the Journal of
OrWntal Research, Madras.
••Eight of the stories vf the Nagpur competition are published in a special
issue of the Sanulcrita BluUJi""'.1am brought out on 24-4-1954.
15
 00.NT.BMPOJtARY INDL\N LITERATURE

Maliamod• ), P. Sivarama Sastri's CliarilrarabuJvali18 in two parts

on subjects from classical works and epics and Puranas, Visoa-
milra in prose by N. Nilakantha Pillai (Trivandrum 1936) •
Parasurama Charita by Venkatarama Sastri (UP., Tiruvayyaru
1934), Samskrita gady®ali11 by P. V. Kane, ](atharatnakara, prose
stories by M. K. Tirunarayana Iyengar (Bangalore 1910),.
Arjuna and other accounts by M. Ramakrishna Bhat (Bangalore
1953) are examples of this class. An effort was made to present
classical Sanskrit' works themselves in easy prose. On the one
hand, prose works like those of Bana and Subandhu were pruned
and presented in easy, abridged versions by R. V. Krishnamachar-
iar, Mm. V. V. Mirashi, V. V. Sarma and others. On the other,.
the stories of Sanskrit dramas of Bhasa, Kalidasa and others were
presented in prose narrative form by V. Anantacharya, Y.
Mahalinga Sastri, K. L. V. Sastri and Kailasanatha.
Of early stories published in the Sah., Sadhumani on a poor
sweetmeat vendor on the Ganges bank by K. Srinivasan is
really touching and is narrated very well. Among those published
in the SSPP. are Lila by Bhavabhuti Vidyaratna (1923-24),.
Pushpanjali by Taranikanta Chakravarti ( 1924-25), Aindrajalika
(May 1932), Rasamayi (1933-34), Bhaminya madanatapa on the
young wife of an old man (May 1955) by K. R. Sankaranarayana
Sastri, and I.C.S. Son-in-law by R. Rangachari may be men-
tioned. Whose fault is it? (Kasyayam aparadhah) by P. V. Varadaraja
Sanna (SSPP. April 1937) is to be singled out from these as a
piece in perfect technique, displaying capacity for graphic
presentation; the plot is the common social evil of poverty and
continued adversity leading people to vice. In SSPP. (May
1937) Rangacharya has a skit, No.garaparipalana Sabha, in which
an aged woman is set up for a municipal council. In one of the
older issues of SSPP. (1928-29), there is a skit by Venudhara
Tarkatirtha; writing a travel-story, the author finds himself, in a
dream, journeying in the city of Yama, the God of Death (Tama-
puri-paryatana) but his sojourn is cut short by a sudden dilemma
of King Yama whether his jurisdiction is only over Hindus or
includes the Mlecchas and the Indian visitor is sent back to his
cowitry to convene a Pandita parishat and settle the question•&
19Kumbhakouam 1922, 1924
11MaC1Pillans
11A contribution called Tamarajauichara appeared in the journal Vidyoda,1a ..
 SANSD1T LITBRATURB 227

The following stories published in SR. (1909-1948) may be

mentioned: PasyatoharaA, Duhkhini Bala, .A.samasalwa, .A."'acldna.sa-
bhyala (about modem civilization), Nirasapranaya, Sarala, Sakshi,
Adarsadampali (Ideal couple), Ayam eoa prnnaparipakah (This is
mature love), Ka"'na, Var1psu-valuka-samvada (dialogue between
the would-be father-in-law and the bachelor), and Nyayad/&ikari.
From the SR. two stories could be mentioned : In one, appearing
in the 1945 volume, the writer tries to bring out the lesson that
the peace and happiness of women cannot be 4had by pursuing
more and more the shadows and glamours of modem life; in
another, in the issue for June 1947, Dhanyo'yam pariksha-yugah, it
is shown that real knowledge cannot be promoted by the examina-
tion system. Some of these contributions are in the form of skits.
The Kaumudi from Hyderabad (Sind) published Visa/cha and
Pramoda-griham by Rama Dvivedi (1944, 1945) and a story on the
evil of the dowry system, rautaka by Visveswar Dayal. How a
black-marketeer outwitted a cat is told well in Marjara Ckaritra
by K. C. Chatterji in the Manj. (Oct. 1953). Mrs. Kshama Rao
published in 1953 five short stories in her usual Anushtubh verses;
these were first written in English and put into Sanskrit later;
her themes are often on topics of social reform, child marriage,
early widowhood, etc. Posthumously a collection of fifteen stories
of hers has been issued in a volume called Kathamuktaval.i (Bombay
1954), one of her older verse stories reappearing here in prose;
her Gramajyotis presents three stories of Gujarat villages during
civil disobedience days. In the Samskrita (June 1957), a historical
sketch, entitled Gahula, of the Hun period in Indian history is
narrated effectively.
In the Sarvajana-samskrila-mala, intended to give easy prose read-
ing material in Sanskrit, A. Krishna Somayaji, has given a story of
Tolstoy in Sanskrit Kano Luptak grikam dahali (Gun tur 1954) . Aesop's
Fables has been translated by more than one Sanskrit writer.

NOVEL
We may now notice a class of writings which can be definitely
called modem and shaped by western influence, the novel.
Here again we can see the transition from a background and
theme like that of the Kadambari to a social milieu. This class
has been enriched in all the three ways, translations, adaptations
and original productions. Appa Sastri rendered Bankim
 228 CONTBllPOBAllY INDL\K LITBllATU&B

Chandra's La,,anyamayi, first published in his journal Sams/crila

Chantlrika11 and then issued repeatedly as a separate book; the
Kapalaku.ntlala 6' of the same celebrated Bengali novelist was
translated by Hari Charan. Among other works of Appa Sastri
which appeared in his SC. are Krishnakanlasya Niroana and
Indira narrated autobiographically by the heroine. Of fiction of
other writen published in SC. are Mritli/cavrishabhalcalha ofNara-
simhacharya Punekar and Viyogini Bala by Balabhadra Sarma.
Upcndranath Sen wrote the Pallicchaoi, the Makarandika and the
Kundamala. Haridasa Siddhanta Vagisa wrote a novel called
Sarala11• A. Rajagopala Chakravarti's Saioalini58 is an adaptation
of another Bengali novel; the same author wrote two other novels
also, Kumudini and Vilasakumari Sangara. Chintamani Madhava
Gole wrote the Matlanalalilca (Bombay 1911). Several longer
stories and romantic talcs and novelettes have appeared serially
in the pages of the different Sanskrit journals: in the Sah. (ID)
appeared Kanakalala by K.alyanarama Sastri; written in fine
prose, it is a romance in ninety pages, based on Shakespeare's
Lucrece; Atirupa (III) by Gopala Sastri; Vijayini (IV) by Parasura-
ma Sanna; Simanlini (VII) by Narayana Sastri, Kamalakumari
and Sati Kamala (IX) by Chidambara Sastri and Susila (XI) by
the gifted editor R. Krishnamachariar.
The following were published in SSP P : Rajani by Renudevi
(1928-29), Radha, Durg11anandini (1922-23) and Radharani (1930-
31) were translations from Bankim's Bengali works. In the same
journal appeared also a novel entitled Datta (Oct. 1935 ff). In
the Ma.tlhuraoani, the editor, G. Ramacharya, serialised the story
Dni Vasann. In the MSCMM., N. Narasimhachari wrote the
romance Kirlisena using a heroic theme (1948..49). The Mandara-
11ati of K. Krishnamacharya (Madras 1929) is based on one of the
stories in the Brihatkathamanjari. Srisaila Tatacharya (died 1925)
also took up Bengali novels for translation, two of his produc-
tions being Durgesanandini and Ksluzeriyaramani. Kavyakantham
Ganapati Sastri wrote the novel Puma67 • Vidhusekhar who edited

11Wai 1907, Dharwar 1920, Banaras 1947. Among his other prose works
are Dni Kumudvali, Dasaparinati and Matribhakli.
••Calcutta 1926
11 For this and other writings of this author, see Classical Skt. Lit.,
Krishnamacharya, p. 673.
"Mysore 1917
17See p. 11, Introduction to his Umasaluura.
 229

the Milragoshlhi from Banaras wrote the romance Claandraprabha.

Medhavrata wrote the novel called Kranudini Chandra (Yeole
1920). Mr. Narasimhacharya who commanded an elegant,
graphic and poetic style wrote a novel (Navinakrili, Madras
1934) called Saudamani. The Simasamsaya (Manj. Nov. 1950 ff.)
is a new novel by Gangopadhyaya featuring a leftist youth.
Among longer stories using historical episodes arc Yangaoira
Pratapaditya by Devendranath Chattopadhyaya•(SSPP. 1930-31),
Gaurachandra by Indranath Vandyopadhyaya (SSPP. 1932-33)
and the Viralabdham Pariloshikam by R. Ramamurti from Cbola
history ( UP. 1955). Some examples of short stories on historical
episodes may also be noted here: Viramati (SR. 1909), A9tachar-
inah Parinamah (on the consequences of excess based on an episode
of the Muslim period, SR. 1942), and Dani Dines (SR. 1943). The
Weelcly Samskritam published some good historical short stories,
Ajanta (27. 3. 1956), Hiru (17. 1. 1956 ff), Dviras1Jamedkayaji
(27. 12. 1955) etc. Chandramauli of A. Rajammal, Madras, uses
an old type of theme and introduces also a drama into the story.
D. T. Tatacharya has rendered the Tamil novel Menaka by
Vaduvur Duraiswami Iyengar and the version is appearing in
the UP. Sri Jagadrama Sastri, Hoshiarpur, has produced a
prose fiction in his Chalrasalavijaya.

MINOR POEM
Another characteristic feature of modern Indian writings is
the new life which the minor poem assumed. Classical Sanskrit
has the tradition of Muktakas, Yugmakas, Kalapakas, Kulakas
and Satak.as but after the model of the western minor poem
which deals with specific ideas and subjects within the compass
of a limited number of verses, the modern Sanskrit writer pro-
duced a volume of poetry, which is perhaps the most common
form in which Sanskrit poets arc today e14pressing themselves.
Some writers have published collections of their minor poems,
but the bulk of the production in this category is either in the
magazines or buried in manuscript. The writings include transla-
tions and adaptations from English literature. Mr. Rama-
chandracharya's Lagh.ukavyamal.a (Madras 1924) comprises
translations : Purushadasasaptaka on the seven stages of man (from
As Tou like It), Sumanoratka (from Roger's A Wish), Piturupadesa
(from Hamlet) and Sadlwvadamanjari (from Browning's All's
230 CONTEMPORARY INDJAN LITERATURE

Righi wuJ, lhl World). The Kinkinimala of Y. Mahalinga Saatri

(Madras 1934) includes, besides renderings from Shakespeare,
Wordsworth, Shelley and Dr. Johnson, many new minor poems
in some of which new metres based on musical rhythm are
adopted, e.g. in the most striking piece Slhanuparidnana (on the
woes of Lord Siva). The Padyapwhpanjali of V. Subrahmanya
Iyer (Madurai 1951) has both original pieces and renderings
from English; atnong the former are lines on Rishis, Poetry,
Life, Nature and Art, Sakuntala's soliloquy, Wonderful India,
etc. The Prakriti Vilasa of Mm. K. S. Krishnamurti Sastri
(Madurai 1950) includes several descriptions of Nature. The
Kakali of Jatindra Nath Bhattacharya (Calcutta 1933) has,
besides traditional poems and hymns, two short eulogies on
Gandhi and Tagore. The Sushama of Prof. G. C. Jhala (Bombay
1955 ) is a short collection which includes satires, elegies and
descriptive verses. The Suvarnabindu of Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra
(1951, cyclostyled) contains some noteworthy pieces; one on
the ant, and another on true friends as the greatest blessing of
life; the poem on Gandhiji here is also to be noted for the Vedic
Gayatri metre it employs ; that on Mathura has references to
the cultural associations of the place disclosed by literature and
the archaeological excavations. S. B. Varnekar's Mandormimala
(Pardi 1956) includes several descriptive, reflective, didactic
a"1d patriotic pieces. Mathuranatha Kavi Sastri of Jaipur has
not left any modern object or development untouched in his
minor poems, a collection of which could be seen in his big volume
Sahilyaoaibhava (Bombay 1930); the first part of this volume has
specimens of Nature-poetry, then pieces depicting various emo-
tions, then reflective Anyapadesa verses and then a section
called Navayuga-vithi (Section on the New Age) in which the
poet describes the tram, the motor-car, the railway, the ship,
electricity, radio, gramophone, surgery, X-ray, photography,
cinema, the greatness of science, the merits of the westerners,
etc. His poems include reflections on Indian public affairs
also.
Among the numerous imitations of the Megluuandesa only a
few out..of-the-way specimens can be noted here: there have
been efforts to reconstruct the Yaksha's life at Alaka, his office,
cause of curse, etc. (Meghapratisandesa by M. Rama Sastri,
Mysore 1923); earlier, Korada Ramachandra Kavi wrote the
 231

Ghanaritta (Madras 1955), a sequel to Kalidasa9a work. Parodies

of the Meghasatllksa arc noted in another section.
Some examples of poems appearing in the journals should be
cited to show the range of subjects touched in this class : In the
Sah. (II), K. Kalyani wrote the Bkaratioilapa on the woes of an
author, in writing, getting printed, reviewed, read and enjoyed.
The Bharatiya Yuddhasajja (SSPP. Oct 1942) is amctricaldialogue
on ancient and modem warfare, prompted b}' India's last war
effort. Charma-golalca-Krida by Pulinavihari Dasgupta (SSPP.
1928-29) is on Football. Kulcke Subrahmanya Sastri has a poem
-on the Jog falls in the MSCMM. {1925). Appa Sanna wrote also
fine verses as seen in his poem on the parrot in the cage, Panjara-
baddhah Sukah (SC. 1904), and his translation of the Deserted Villag1
(SC., also separately issued, Dharwar 1915).
Short poems of varying lengths on a single continuous story
have also been published. Mahipo Manuniti l"'holah (1949) and
Devabandi Varadarajah (1948) by the present writer present
anecdotes from the annals of Chola history and the Srirangam
Temple. In an unpublished poem of the writer, entitled Na
kadachid anidrisam jagat (The world was never unlike this), the
Jirst sequence presents the story of the heartless abandonment
<>f Pururavas by Urvasi in Vedic times and the second, the
'Story of how an Indian Prince is abandoned by an English wite
after relieving him of a huge fortune.
On Sanskrit language and its greatness, several short poems
have appeared in the pages ofjournals; a separate longer poem in
hundred and six verses on this theme is Prabhu Datta Sastri's
Samskrita-vak-saundaryamritam (Delhi 1957).
Slightly longer poems of the older Khanda-kavya type have
been written, and in some of them the theme is treated in a
fresh manner. The Ko:oya-samudaya of C. Venkataramanayya
(Bangalore 1944) deals in this way with th~Vedic stories of
Harischandra, Nabhanedishtha and Visvamitra. The Dhara-
yaso-dkarah of D. M. Kulkarni (Satara 1952) is a peom on
the glories of one of the historic cultural centres of ancient
India, the capital of Bhoja. The Padmini-clumdra-samoada
of V. Venkatanarayanaraya of Vizianagaram (Banaras 1909)
is a dialogue on character. Medhasri Narayana Sastri,
Tiruvayyaru, has, among his numerous works, a gnomic work
on the four-fold goal of life, the ChalurvargachinJamani (Srirangam
 232 CONTEllPOllAllY INDIAN UTBBATUllB

1922). The old class of Anyapadesa-satalw is really an effective

medium Cor reflective poetry and several modem Sanskritists.
have composed venes of this type also. Mathuranatha Sastri's.
Anyapadesas were referred to. Y. Mahalinga Sastri's Vyajoktiratna-
vali (Tiruvayyaru 1953) belongs to this class. Special mention is.
due for the Jitamala Carita of Sukadeva Sastri of Jammu (Ptd.
Lahore); here, in eight short cantos, the author narrates the
tragic story of t}\e poor Brahman Baba Jitto and his daughter,.
well known in Dogra bardic lays. The Buddhistic story of U pagup-
ta and Vasavadatta is the theme of the Netronmilana in three
cantos by Y. Nagesa Sarma (Bangalore 1955) who bases himself
here on the Hindi prose work on the story.

SATIRE AND LIGHT VEllSE

Satire and light verses are also a line of writing which has
received fresh impetus in the pr~ent age. While modern-minded
writers have held the traditional type to ridicule, the latter has
also returned the compliments; several modem fashions and
foibles have come in handy for the latter. The wide variety of
views and quarrels and bickerings of diverse parties and leaders
have also supplied material for skits and satires. This is a class of
writing in which one sees a lively employment of Sanskrit.
A few modern writers have used the form of the Meghasandesa
for writing humorous poems. Examples of such parody are
Kakaduta ofC. R. Sahasrabuddhe (Dharwar 1917), the Kakadula18
of M. R. Rajagopala Iyengar, a message sent by a thief in gaol
and Sutzakaduta"' by K. V. Krishnamurti Sastri, Poona, in
which again a thief clapped in gaol pleads with a dog to go as a
messenger to his beloved. The taste of the onion is too strong to
be resisted and in Sah. VIII, Muddu Vitthalacharya puts in a
plea to the orthodox on behalf of this tabooed delicacy (Palan-
duprarthana); Kl'ishnarama of Jaipur has a whole century
on this precious thing (Palandusalaka). On the noble role of the
broomstick, there is a eulogy called Marjani and in a whole
century again, Anantalwar, later Pontiff at the Melkote Sri-
vaishnava Math, expatiates on the glory oi the broomstick80•

•.,,_,alainog• },Jisc1lla9, 1940

•S.-asoati Suslultnd, Banaras 1956
•Sammarjanisotala, Myso,re. The Samslcrita Chantlrika, Vol. 5, has an euay
® the broomstick (p. 7 ff).
 IANSDUT UTBllATURB 233

The bug and the ant have not escaped the poets: K. V. K.rishna-
murti Sastri, Poona, has a Malkunasldako, eight vcnes on the
bug, in the SR. and the bug, which is equally a nuisance in Bengal
as in Poona, gets an a.shlaka from Pulinavihari Dasgupta in
the SSPP. (Feb. 1928, Matkunaslitaka). The greater menace
Masaka, the mosquito, has been honoured even in ancient
Sanskrit poetry; in contemporary writings, Atreya (V. Swami-
natha Sanna) has hummed some lines on it11••The pleasur~ of
tea and coffee or the evil of addiction to them have inspired several
lines of poetry. C.R. Sahasrabuddhe has elevated Tea to be worthy
of a Gita, (Chaha-gita, Dharwar). Atreya expatiates on coffee in
sixteen verses (Kaphishodasika) 11 and two other poems on it have
really been hard on this wonderful beverage : M.V. Sampatkumar
Acharya's Kaphi-paniyam (SSPP. April 1941) and the Kaphi-
tyaga-dvadasa-manjarika; the latter harnesses the metre and associa-
tion of Sankaracharya's Bhaja Govindam to appeal to people to
give up coffee. From this, it is indeed refreshing to turn to the
Cup of Tea, a poem in seven verses, by M. Krishnan Nambudri-
pad of Karikkad (Samskrita of 3-4-1956). Appa Sanna wrote a
panygeric on the stomach, the Udaraprasasti (SC. 1906). In an
originally conceived poem, Kapinam upavasah.18 (Fast of the Mon-
keys), D. T. Tatacharya has a hit against the fickle-minded people
who pretend to observe austerities. The Kanyakul>jalilamrita in
38 verses by Mahavira Prasad Dvivedin lampoons Kanauj
Brahmins (SC. Vol. VI).
Satires have also been written on some of the new movements,
their leaders and protagonists. Dayananda is satirized by Chajju
Rama in the D0:1anandasktaka. Bankim Chandra Chatterji's
satire on the modern conferences in the story of the congress of
animals has been rendered into Sanskrit". In hundred verses,
Punnasseri Nilakantha Sanna has a go at the early political
agitators in his Sattvikasoapna (M.E. 1097, Tricbur) : the
shouting of diverse sl~gans and ideologies by different parties
are made fun of here in the form of a regular conference of a bull,.
a dog, a monkey, a fox, a parrot and so on, with welcome speech,.
opening speech, presidential address, and so on. The Congress>

1
1A.nnamalainagar Miscellany l 940
••/hid.
11Kumbhakonam 1925
"Sala. NS. II
234 CONTEMPORARY INDIAN UTBRATURB

Gila {Madras 1908) is a satire on the stormy Surat Congress.

Those who had taken to fashionable modem habits and left off the
traditional aeharas are satirized by Baba Dikshita Vatave in bis
K alpila-Kali-vrittanladarsa-purana.

DRAMA
Of the serious drama, the traditional type on old themes has
been produced Jn large numbers and it is enough to indicate
here that there have been writers like Bhattasri Narayana Sastri
who had written ninety-three plays and that to this day such plays
arc being regularly composed. Special mention must however
be made here of such plays which, while taking the tradi-
tional form or theme, yet work in many a new feature in form,
treatment and ideas. Naturally, this could not be avoided when
a modem educated Sanskritist begins to write drama in Sanskrit11•
The classical masterpieces themselves have suggested fresh
themes or attempts at dramatic reconstructions of situations im-
plied in the classical plays. For example, Jaggu Vakulabhushana
of Mysore has essayed on the last mentioned line and produced
'Short plays in two or three acts, among which may be mentioned
the Prasanna-Kasyapiya (Mysore 1951) in which Dushyanta and
Sakuntala, along with young Bharata, pay a visit to Kanva's
Asrama. The same fascinating theme has engaged also J. T.
Parikh of Surat who has a one-act piece on it, the Chaya-Sakuntala
(Surat 1957), in which the influence of the Uttararamacarita is
.also patent. Allegorical plays were also written, e.g. Adlumna-
tJipaka (SC. Vol. V). C. Venkataramanayya composed a long
allegorical play Jivasanjivani Nataka18 bringing out the value of
Ayurved.a.
The Madras Sanskrit Academy held an all-India Drama
Competition which met with very good response : the honours
of the contest went to a drama called Pratirajasuyam, just now
published, by Y. Mahalinga Sastri, on t}\e theme of a counter-
Rajasuya sacrifice which Duryodhana performs after sending
his cousins into exile; here as well as in other unpublished plays
of his on old themes, like the Udgatrdasanana, the author intro-
duces modern ideas. His Kalipradurbhava, just publishcd17: deals
11A notable change that has occurred is that Prakrit is generally avoided.
11Bangalott 1949
"Serialised in the UP. and issued separately, Tiruvalangadu 1956
 SANSKIUT LITBllATtJllE 235

in seven short acts with the old but entertaining story of the
jmmediate demoralisation which the Kali-age causes even as it
js coming. The Ubhayarupaka of the same author is a social comedy.
Sundarcsa Sarma of Tanjore takes a romantic theme, a replica
of the Bilhana story, in his Prema-vijaya (Triumph of Love)•
which the author has also put on boards.
The first change in theme is seen in the increasing number of
plays on famous personalities in Indian histQry; in this class
we have Mm. Mathuri Prasad Dikshita's on Rana Pratap Singh
of Mewar (Virapratapa Jfataka, Lahore 1937), M. M. Yajnik's
three plays Samyogita-soayamvara, Chhatrapatisamrajya and Pratapa-
Dijaya", all provided with songs, Sudarsana Pathi's Simhalaoijaya"8
on an episode of Orissan history, fitted with Orissan songs,
and Panchanana Tarkaratna's Amaramangala (Banaras 1939).
Premamohini-Ranadkira is a romantic play by Vijayananda( SC.
1904); it discards the traditional Prastavana. The Anarkali, in
manuscript, of the present writer deals with J ehangir's well-known
romance with the slave girl. Among the posthumous publications
-0f Kshama Rao are some social reform plays, c. g. Balavidhava'1,
in three acts, on the young widow. There have also been some out-
<>f-the-way themes offered in dramatic form : The Prakriti Saun-
darya (Yeole 1934) of the Arya Samaj writer Mahavrata is on the
beauty of Nature. The Gairoani'Dija;pa of Punncsscri Nilakantha
Sarma published in the journal Vijnanachintamani edited by
him dramatises the sad state into which Sanskrit had fallen and
the timely succour given by the starting of Maharajah's Sanskrit
Colleges in different Princely States; here Brahma, Sarasvati
and Rishis, Sanskrit, English and other Indian languages, arc
featured as characters. Prabhudatt Sastri of Delhi has a similar
play called Samskrita-vag-oijaya"1 in five acts in Sanskrit and
Hindi.
In the new upsurge of creative activity, Shakespeare claimed
the attention of the votaries of Kalidasa, Sudraka and Bhava·
bhuti. There have been some surveys of Shakespeare in Indian
languages but these take no note of the Sanskrit versions of the

llKumbhakonam 1943
"Published with English translations from Baroda, 1929 (Chltatrapati-
samraba)
fiBerhampore 1951
"Matfi., 1955
'IJ>elhi 1942
 236 CONTBllPOllAllY Dd>IAN UTBRATURB

productioas of this great dramatist. 71 As early as 1877 we had

from Srisaila Dikshitar, Madras, the Bhranli-,,ilasa, a translation
of Convdy of Errors. Rajaraja Vanna of Trivandrum adapted
Olhlllo." R. Krishnamacharya published. in the pages of the
Sah. and then separately as a book, Vasanlikasvapna, 71 a render-
ing of A Midsummer Nigh,'s Dream. Sri Gunde Rao Harkarc of
Gadwal has translated Midsummer Niglil's Dr1am and some acts
of Hamlet. Another translation of the Midsummer Night's Dream
appeared in the Sri (VIll. iii-iv). As Tau Like JI is now serially
appearing in the pages of the UP. under the title 'ratkabhi-
matam. Lamb's Ta/,es From Shakespeare has been put into Sanskrit
by M. Venkataramanacharya of Vizianagaram 78• The Sah. has
also published in its different issues prose versions of the stories
of Shakespearean plays, Othello, Hamlet, etc. Renderings of
short passages and poems from Shakespeare have been already
noticed. Other western dramas have also appeared in Sanskrit ..
Goethe's Faust has been done into a play called Visvamohana 77 in
seven acts by S. N. Tadpatrikar, Poona. Dr. Shama Sastri
rendered Amelia Galetti of Lessing in the MSCMM. (VII 1931).
Tennyson's two-act tragedy Tht Cup is adapted to suit the
Sanskrit dramatic tradition in the Kamalavijayanataka78 of C.
Venkataramanayya.
Next to these Sanskrit versions of western plays come the
dramatic productions of shorter dimensions, particularly the
one-act play which took fresh life from its western models. A
good number of such plays have been produced in this period.
The Sanskrit stage included the Farce or Prahasana from the
earliest times and we have at least a couple of good specimens
of this class coming down from the seventh century A. D. Among
the short plays that arose recently, it is refreshing to see a number
of Prahasanas. Occasions like the celebrations of the annual
College Days which needed Sanskrit entertainments for a short
duration gave an impetus to the growth of these short plays.
In recent years the All-India Radio has also been responsible

-----
"See e.g• .A,,an Patli, Nov. and Dec. 1955, C.R. Shah, Shakespearean Plays
in Indian Languages.
"Printed Trivandrum
71Kumbhakonarr4. 1892
"Madras 1933
"Poona Orilatalisl, XIV
''Mysore 1938
 237

for giving a fillip to the growth of short Sanskrit plays and drama-
tic dialogues..
A variety of themes, all of contemporary and social interest,
is to be seen in the new type of one-act plays: V. K. Thampi's
Thr11 Plays in Sanskrit'' (Pratikriya, VanaiJotma, Dlumnasya
.swkshma galih) take historical romantic themes of Rajput-Muslim
times. Kasyaham (To whom do I belong) by P. V. Varada-
raja Sarma (SSPP. 1939) is a daughter-in-law's monologue on
her lot in the new home. Manoharam Dinam (Fin~ Day) by A. R.
Hebare (SSPP. March 1941) is on that common incident in
schools, the manoeuvring of the boys for the declaration of a
holiday. Sita Devi dramatises domestic difficulties in her
Aranyarodana (Manorama, Berhampore, No. 3, 1949 ff.). Another
common experience in home and office is effectively dramatised
in .A.marshamahima (Sway of Temper, AV. 1951) by K.
Tiruvenk.atacharya; the irate officer falls foul of his wife and
clerk, and the wave of bad temper passes from him to the clerk,
from the clerk to his wife and from his wife to the servant-maid.
An out-of...the-way theme is featured in Vaniksula (Merchant's
Daughter, Manj. Aug. 1955) by Surendramohana Panchatirtha;
here a rich young widow is wooed by the votaries of Hinduism,
and Buddhism, with the former coming out successful. Mrs.
Kshama Rao's Katuoipalca (Manj. Dec 1955) handles one of those
tragic happenings common during the Satyagraha days when the
son or daughter joins the movement, breaks up the home and
the parents' heart, or in the violence of the police, sacrifices
his or her life. Presenting a later tragic phase through which
the country passed, the one-act piece called Malaa-smasana
(The Huge Crematorium) is written with skill and power; in
three brief scenes this short tragedy published in the Kaumudi
(Hyderabad, Sind, Sep. 1944) presents the streets of Calcutta
at the time of partition, strewn with corpses, a village of five
hundred reduced to five, and a Muslim tailor's family faced
with the alternative of dying by starvation .or by taking gruel
made of what has been obtained as rice in the black market,
a mouthful of which kills the only surviving daughter.
Already in the Snusliaoijaya8° (Triumph of the Daughter-in-law)
111"rivandrum 1924
"Edited by the present writer with his own 1loas in the .Annals of Oriatal
Ru.arch, Univenity of Madru VII, 1942-43
238 CONTEMPORARY INDIAN UTBllATUU

written by Ilattur Sundararaja Kavi in the latter part of the

last century we find the one-act play on a social and domestic
theme with an undercurrent of humour gaining vogue in
Sanskrit. Of avowed farces in one or more acts, we have had
several in the present century. One of the oldest of those to write
a farce is S. K. Ramanatha Sastri; besides the Dola-panchilaka
Prahasana, he dramatised also, under the caption Manimanjusha~
the most interesting but bewildering material of the Apahara-
varman story ~ Dandin's Dasakumara-charila81• K. L. V.
Sastri, Madras, wrote three farces : the Lilavilasa81 , the
Chamunda88, and the Nipunika. In the first the father and mother
want to give their daughter to two different kinds of boys, a young
Pandit and a drunken profligate; the girl's brother wants her
to marry a classmate of his; the last happens to save the girl
from some thieves and the muddle is thus easily solved in favour
of the last marrying the girl. In Chamunda the author takes up
a similar significant social material of the times : the initial
opposition of orthodoxy in villages to modern developments.
vanishing on the parties becoming beneficiaries from the modern
amenities; a young widow who becomes a London-returned
doctor, faces an antagonistic village devising a plot to humiliate
her when suddenly her medical help to the wife of one of the
detractors and her public spirit and sacrifice convert her revilers.
Y. Mahalinga Sastri has two Prahasanas, one Kaundinya Prahasana84.
worked on the popular tale of a miser being outwitted by a
fellow who makes a regular business of eating at another's house,.
and another Sringara N aradiyaH, worked on the motif of sex-
transformation using a puranic milieu. Pallisala Prahasana
(MSCMM. March-June 1942) uses the punning resources of
Sanskrit and features a bold mother who tackles directly a school
teacher who beat her son. A lady's overfondness for gold orna-
ments and the sorry end of this over-reaching desire form the
theme of Kanchanamala by Surendramohana (Marg. Feb. 1955).
Jiva Nyayatirtha writes a rather diffuse piece under the heading
of farce in his Purusharamaniya (Calcutta 1948), but he makes it
------
11Publwu-d aerially in the SSPP.
"Palghat 1935
11Maclras
MPrinted Madras 1930
•Printed 1956. Cf. Stri-narada in proac in the .4Y. 1944, by P. S..
l>akshinamurti.
 239

up in his Kshula-Kshnna (Manj. Nov. 1955) in which a niggard

who had amassed black-market money succeeds in the other
world too, and pressing Chitragupta himself in his service~ outwits
the God of Death, Yama, and obtains a fresh lease of life; in ano-
ther two-act piece of his, which also he calls a farce, the Chanda-
ttmdava (Calcutta), Sri Jiva portrays Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and
other forces of irreligion and conflict, and their failure ( ?) to enter
India of religion and spirituality. S. S. Khot's Ma.labhaaishayam
(on the quack-astrologer) and Lalavaidyam (on tlfc quack-doctor)
have been received very well in Nagpur where they have
been played; two other farces or social satires of Sri Khot are
Dhruvavatara and Ha Bania Sarade.
In a very well written piece called A.labdka-karmiyam (Un-
employment) published in the Sri Ckitra.••, K. R. Nair of Alwaye
presents the plight of the poor unemployed Sanskrit scholar
who makes up his mind to enlist for war-service when suddenly a
fifteen-rupee teacher's post comes to him from the famished
Principal of a neglected Sanskrit College; the characters re-
present allegorically Sanskrit language and literature, the Poet
(Kavi) the chief character, Imagination (Bhavana) his anxious.
wife, Gairvani (Sanskrit language, the mother), and the children
of the house restricted through birth control necessitated by
poverty, to two, viz. the Poem (the Son) and Taste (the Daughter).
Vatukanatha Sanna exposes in his Pandityatandavita (Vallari
1953 ff) the vanity and fuss that Pandits of difFerent sect'! and
schools make. Madhusudana Kavyatirtha had published a
similar satire on Pandits, the Panditackarita Pra.hasana in the
Vidyodaya. The Pratapa.rudriyavidambana., one of the unpublished
works of the present writer, is a parody, weaving a comic plot
in four acts out of the reductio ad absurdum of the hyperboles which
vitiate latter-day Sanskrit poetry. The Vimlcuti is another un-
published farce by the writer which has however a complete
philosophical allegory behind it. The old form of the Bluma
(monologue) is used by Y. Mahalinga Smtri to narrate the
well-known fable of the monkey and the drum (the Markata-
mardalika, Manj. Sep.-Nov. 1951). That even the traditional
type of Bhana, the erotic monologue, could be made interesting
now by the introduction of the contemporary social milieu,

11Publishecl by the Maharaja's Sanskrit College, Trivandrum 1942, 1943-

24-0 OONTBllPORARY DIDIAN LITBRATUlt.B

the new fashions of the ladies, their clubs, their new dress, the
new games of cards and tennis, the cinema, etc. is demonstrated
in the Sringarasekhara-bhana'7 of Sundaresa Sanna.
Short one-act plays and episodes presented in dramatic form
have recently been composed for being broadcast on the All-
India Radio; the present writer has in this category the musical
Rasa/,ila88 based on the Bhagaoata and the Kamasudtlhi81, an inter-
pretation of the message of the Kumara.sambhava of Kalidasa; he
has also presente'a on the AIR in drama-form episodes connected
with three women litt11at1urs in the history of Sanskrit literature,
Vfijika, Yikalanilamba and .A.oantisundarito.

TRANSLATIONS AND ADAPTATIONS FROll R.BOIONAL LANOUAOBS

As indicated in the introductory account, Sanskrit had always
kept an intimate relation with the popular tongues and the
literatures in them. In the modern period, the critical and
historical study of Indian literature has induced many a
Sanskritist to render into the Sanskrit medium some of the best
uamples from his own regional literatures. These renderings
are from ancient as well as modern productions in these
languages. Reference has already been made to modern novels
.and stories translated into Sanskrit from the languages and now
we shall notice renderings from them of longer and shorter poems
and other literary pieces. Some of the oldest works to be thus
translated today into Sanskrit arc from Tamil literature.
Following in the footsteps of the famous Srivaishnava philo-
.sopher Vedanta Desika, some modern South Indian Sanskritists
have translated the Vaishnavite canonical hymns oftheAlwars;
Medepalli Vcnkataramanacharya of Andhra (the Girvanasa,ha-
gopasahasra), T. Narasimha Iyenger alias Kalki of Mysore
(Sahasragalluzratnavalitl) and P. B. Annangarachariar of Kanchi11
have rendered portions or whole of this hymnal collection. The
.celebrated Tirukkural has been translated by two writers, Appa
Vajapcyin whose Sanskrit version is called Sunili Kusumamala••

"Kmnhhakonam 1938
".d V. and also separately, 1945
•AV. and also separately, 1946
• Preluhanakatrm Madras 1956
llBangalore 1930
11Conjecvaram 1947, 1951, 1953, 1954
•Kumbhakonam 1927
 241

and is accompanied by the author's Sanskrit gloss and a more

recent and better version in compact Anushtubhs, entitled
Suktiratukara, by Sankara Subrahmanya Sastri which appeared
.serially in the Sah. (XID ff.). In the iame journal appeared also
appreciations of the Tamil Ramayana of Kamban (XV) and
an account of the Tamil Saint Pattinattar (XIII). S. Nilakantha
Sastri of the Sanskrit College, Trivandrum, has rendered the
Tamil Kamba Ramtgana into Sanskrit verse ancj published parts
of this version under the title Sri Ramacliaritam. Subrahmanya
Sastri of Kadayakkudi tt anslated the Tamil didactic classic
Naladiyar in his Chalushpadi. C. Narayanan Nair of Nemmara
(Kerala State) has done the Tamil epic Silappadikaram into a
Sanskrit Kavya of six cantos entitled Kannaki-KovalamH.
The stories in the Kathasalaka11 of S. Venkatarama Sastri arc
drawn from vernacular originals. Scsha Suri presented four
hundred proverbs in Sanskrit (MSCMM. 1949) most of which
are from Tamilnad and other parts of South India. Short
accounts in verse and prose of famous Tamil literary figures
have also appeared, e.g. K. S. Nagarajan of Bangalore has
written on Andal, the Vaishnavite lady mystic (AV. 1947).
Y. Mahalinga Sastri's Dra'Didarya-subhashita-saptati represents select
renderings from the precious verses of the wise lady of Tamil,
Avvai, (Tiruvalangadu 1952). Tamil folk-songs and tunes of
well-known devotional songs have been imitated in Sanskrit
by gifted composers and poets in South India : the boat-songs,
the swing-song, Tiruppuhazh, Kummi, Kolattam, etc. Many
of these arc orally preserved, and also in manuscript. In one of
the published works of Subrahmanya Sastri of Kadayakkudi
many of these folk-tunes of Tamilnad are utilised by the
poet. S. T. G. Varadachariar of Narasimha Sanskrit College,
Chittugudur, has put into Sanskrit famous Sataka-poems in
Telugu-the Vemanasataka, the Sumalisatalca, the Dasarathisalaka,
the ](rishnasalaka, the Bhailr.arasataka and the K alakaslisoarasataka."
Dr. G. V. Sitapati has rendered stray Telugu verses, some of the
Telugu Patlas of Kshetrajna which are used for Abhinaya in
Bharata Natya, and also one of the poems in Telugu, Purnamma
of Gurazada Appa Rao. Y. Mallikarjuna Rao of the Andhra

••Salem 1955
91Mysore 1898
"Chittugudur and Madras 1954, 19.55 and 1956
16
242

Women's Sanskrit College, Rajabmundry, has brought out a

Sanskrit prose venion of the Telugu romance KalaJ>umstla,a.
K. Yajnanarayana Dikshita has offered the first instalment of
bis rendering of the Manueharilra of Allasani Peddanna.
In Malayalam, the three distinguished modem poets of Kerala,.
Ulloor Paramesvara Aiyer, Vallathol Narayana Menon and
Kumaran Asan have been translated by E. V. Raman Namboo-
tiri" and N. Gopala Pillai.98 Among other Sanskrit renderings.
from Malayalam may be mentioned the play Chandriktt
(Harippad 1955), the poems Kes01Jiyam and Na/,ini• . In
Maharashtra, M. R. Telang, the late versatile scholar
whose writings are all buried in manuscript, published a
translation of a short poem of Jnanesvara (SR. May 1947).
Sakharam Sastri Bhagavat of Satara and M. P. Oka of
Poona have rendered the Jnanesvari into Sanskrit . Pt. Oka's work
was continued by Justice A. V. K.hasnis . D. T. Sakurikar's.
Giroanakekavali (Bhor 1946) is a Sanskrit version of Moropant's.
Kekt111ali. N. C. Kelkar's well-known Marathi novel Balidana
has been rendered into Sanskrit by Latkar Sastri (Kolhapur 1940).
Bengali Sanskritists have done consistent work in this line like
their South Indian brethren. The Bengali epic Meghanadavadha
has appeared in Sanskrit (SSPP. 1933-34 ff., Nityagopala Vidya-
vinoda). Bhaskaranandasvamin has done into Sanskrit Chaitan-
ya's life, the Chailanyaeharilarmrila-samskrita-anuvadah (SSPP.1954,.
Part I separately issued, 1956-7). Translations from Bankim Chan-
dra and Saratchandra have already been mentioned. Many
poems, as also some of the shorter prose writings of Tagore, have
been translated by Phatikalal Das : Unasi, Sparsamani, Abhisarika,.
Asaradanam, Nisliphala Upaharah, Rash,ram nah pratibudhyatam,.
Mastakaoikrayah, Tuccha Kshatih, Soama-mrigaA, all in the Manj.
(1954, 1955); and Pralinidhi (SSPP. Oct. 1955) and Pujarthini by
Dhirendranath (SSPP. Oct. 54). S. Parthasarathi's Sanskrit
version of Tagore's 'Kaelaa-Dnayani' was enacted at the Madras.
Sanskrit College in 1924-25. The most sustained effort to
bring Hindi poetry into Sanskrit has been put forth by Mathura-
natha Sutri of Jaipur who has in his Jayapuravaibha'Da, 91 Sahitya-

ItMllhakavi Krittnala, Trivandrum 1945 ; Keralabhashavivartala, Trivandrum..

1948 .
11Sitaoicluwalahari, Trivandrum 1942
"Jaipur 1947
 245

oaibhaoa1• and Gilioilhi181 used a large number of metres and song·

forms from Vrajbhasha, Hindi and Urdu with the express aim
of acquainting the Sanskrit Pandit with the beauties of the regional
poetry; he has also translated into Sanskrit the Satsai ofBiharidas.
Jagadrama Sastri of Hosbiarpur has introduced popular Hindi
tunes of today in his Sangila Ramayana. The Sanskrit periodical
Suryodaya gives Sanskrit versions of note-worthy Hindi articles.
Vipulananda has translated a prayer-song oI Tulasidas (AV.
1950) and K. Tiruvenkatacharya of Mysore has in manuscript
a Sanskrit version of Tulasidas's Ramacharitamanasa. The Samskri-
tam (3. 4. 1956) has an article on the Bombay Gujarati mystic
poetess Nirmala alias Syama and a translation of Nisa by Rahula
Sankrityayana presenting Indo-European primitive life on the
northern banks of the Volga, in 6000 B. C. (Samskritam, Decem-
ber 1957).
Renderings from other languages and literatures have also
contributed to the enrichment of modem Sanskrit. Reference
has already been made to translations from English poetry. It
is but natural that the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam has
repeatedly tempted Sanskritists also : Haricharana who
translated Kapala Kunda.la and Adibhatla Narayanadas of
Vijayanagaram were among the first to translate it; the next
was Giridhar Sanna (Amara-sukti-sudhakara 181 ); Prof. M. R Raja-
gopala Iyenger108 was the third, the fourth was P. V. Krishnan
Nair whose version is entitled Madirotsava10& and the latest is the
Bha1Jacashaka ofSadasivDange (Bombay 1956). Translations from
Middle-East literature include stories like Alibaba and the Fo".Y
ThieoesJ.OI by G. K. Modak and Alla.din and lhe Wontlnfal Lamp
(Sah. IV) and two versions of the Gulistan, the Prasuna-'Datika
by Ramaswami in the SSPP. (1923-24) and the Pushpodyana in
two parts issued in book-form by R. V. Gokhale. 108 Aoes#a which
is so close to Rigvedic Sanskrit has also been taken up, not by
pure Sanskritists but by Panis; the old renderings have been
published in the series called Collected Sanskril Wri,ings of the

1•jaipur 1930
1118ombay
IOIJhalrapatan t929
lOIMadraa f 940
106Trichur 1945
1111.ongmans 1934
111Belgaum l 995
 244 CONTBllPOllAJlY INDIAM UTBRA.TUU

Parsis and among modem Pani writers, the linguist Dr. I. J. S.

Taraporewala has given a few samples of Avestan hymns in
Sanskrit versions in the pages of the Manj., and the well-known
Gujarati poet, A. F. Khabardar, has given Sanskrit versions
for a good number of hymns in his New Light on the Gahas of
Holy Zaratkushtra (Bombay 1951). From the more closely related
Pali literature of Buddhism, Mm. Vidhusckhara Bhattacharya
has rendered the Milindapa.nha (SSPP. Dec. 1936 ff.) ; the Manj.
has been carrying serial renderings from the Dkammapada (Sep.
1952 ff.). Sanskrit versions of old Christian hymns and Greek
proverbs with Sanskrit parallels and versions have also been
given by R. Antoine S. J. and K. C. Chatterjee (Manj. 1951 and
1953). Some translations from Japanese literature also seem to
have been published in the Mitragoslithi.
Sanskrit writers turned also to their brethren who had taken
to English as the medium for expressing their literary gifts .
.A.ho Baliyasta llhtllJitarJyatayah by P. Sankarasubrahmanya Sastri
is an interesting philosophical story rendered into Sanskrit
from B. R. Rajam Iycr's Rambles in the Vedanta (Sak. XII). V. V.
Srinivasa Iyengar, one of the founders of the amateur stage in
Madras, wrote a number of delightful playlets in English and one
of these appeared in Sanskrit garb under the title Damu
KutumlJaka in UP. (Vol. IV). The poem Umadarsa of C. Venkata-
ramayya (Bangalore 1937) is a rendering of an English poem
"Uma's Mirror" by K. A. Krishnaswami Iyer. One of the minor
works of the well-known Indo-Anglican writer, K. S. Venkata-
ramani, "A Day with Sambu"-a didactic piece for the young-
was done into Sanskrit by Y. Mahalinga Sastri in his Samblau-
charyopatleso. . 107 Of the poetic productions of Sri Aurobindo, a few
have been presented in Sanskrit under the title Kavitanjali (Mad-
ras 1946 ) by T. V. Kapali Sastri.

THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT

The new movement was really a re-awakening and a fresh

search of th< spirit of India. With modem education and the
cultivation of the critical spirit and the study of Indian history
in a more intenshe manner, a fresh realisation of the value of

117 Madru 1931

 245

the Indian heritage came. The Sanskritist particularly tumed

to the glory that was ancient India with a fervour which urged
his to a fresh effort for a renaissance. The higher spiritual values
of Indian culture and the material nature of modern civilization,
the growth of new fashions and foibles, the slavish aping of the
West, all these produced a rcvcnion and led to a reassertion of
the Indian spirit. Soon there was the birth of nationalism and
the freedom movement, and a galaxy of outstanding leaders
of public movement appeared whose patriotism, sacrifice, elo-
quence and campaigns :1tirred the intelligentsia and the masses
alike. The Sanskritists were also affected by the political activi-
ties and the Sanskrit writings of this age bear also tbc impress
of this new spirit. In fact, the literature which is animated with
this new spirit is the most striking part of contemporary Sanskrit.
In this class there are first the poems in which the sighing or
dreaming author dwells upon the greatness of Bharat, the fall
that came and his vision of a coming reconstruction. Tad alitam
eva (It is all gone) is a lament on the bygone glories of India,
by Annadacharana Tarkachudamani (SC. Vol. V). In the
Bluzratimanoratha108 , M. K. Tatacharya, P. W. D., Madras, falls
into reverie on the beach, and calls up visions of the high culture
of the country and its decadence in modem times. S. T. G.
Varadachariar's Sushuptivritta10• is a dream in three cantost draw-
ing first the dark picture as contrasted with the past glory and
then presenting the figure of the Mahatma appearing on the
horizon to relieve the gloom. In twenty-five Mandakranta verses
breathing ardent love of the country, M. V. Subrahmanya Iyer
(SSP P. 1925-26) bemoans in his Bharala-vadku-vishada the decay
of the fine traditions of India. The Bharata-hJzagya-oiparyaya110
of K. S. Krishnamurti Sastri is a very elaborate poem on this
theme. The Bharati Gita (Sak. I) represents some excellent
Arya verses on Bharata Mata. There are indeed very few issues
of any Sanskrit journal which do not ~ave some poem on
Bharata Mata. T. V. Kapali Sastri, in his Bharati-stava, 111 sees
the very image of the Supreme Mother Goddess in Bharata
Mata. In three cantos, the Bliarali Gita of the lady Lakshmi

111Published u the time of the First World War

1•Chittugudur and Madras 1937
110Serially published in the MY.
1llAmobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 1949
246 CONTEMPORAJlY Dn>JAN LITBRATURB

Ammal describes the glory of India, the fall and the call to her
sons to work for her all-round revival. The Saradaprtuadall• of
Mocherla Ramakrishna presents the discomfiture of one who
traduces Indian culture. Mm. Damodara Sastri of Puri has
composed a poem on the greatness of India, called Bharala·
gauraoa.

IMPRESS OP MODERN EVENTS

Next comes theliterature relating to the leaden of the national
movement. All the journals, from the Samskrita Chandrika onwards,
carried poems and accounts relating to the lives and achieve-
ments of the leaders. In Vol. V of the SC. there is a poem
in 37 verses on Tilak's incarceration. In the Sah. appeared a prose
account of Gokhale, an elegy on his death (IX, X) and an article
on Sarojini Naidu. The recent Lokamanya Tilak Celebrations
prompted the writing of four Sanskrit biographies on the
scholar-patriot by M. S. Aney, K. W. Chitale, Vasudeva Sastri
Bagewadikar and the Editor of the Madhu.ravani, Pandari-
nathacharya Galagali. Sri Nagarajan of Bangalore has a series
of biographies on the patriots, the Bharatiyadesabhaklacharit~m118
which includes Tilak, Andrews, Vivekananda,11' Radhakrishnan
and others. Pt. Bhiksha Ram of Kurukshetra has written prose
biographies of Malavya, Rajendra Prasad, Patel and Nehru.
The distinguished educationist Asutosh Mookcrji is the subject
of the Asutosli A.11adana by Kalipada published in the journal
Samslcrila-J1tulya-vani. The Andhra Editor, patriot and patron
Nagesvara Rao Pantulu is the subject of a short biographical
work, Jivila Carilra (Madras 1938), by V. Suryanarayana Sastri.
Lakshminarayana Shanbhoguc's Rashtrasabha.paligaurava111
describes all the Congress Presidents, has a special poem on
Subhas Bose, and commemorates the 1935 Jubilee Session of
the Congress. There is a poem on Nehru in the SR. (Nov. 1948);
quite recently S. B. Warnekar of Nagpur has published a century
of verses on Nehru ( thl Jawahara-larangini).
It is, however, the personality of Mahatma Gandhi, which
combined with political work some of the most ancient

11'Nellore 1949
111Bangalore 1952
IHSeparately iuued, Banplore 1947
"'Bombay 1938
 247

ideals and techniques of the Mahatmas of India, that proved

the greatest ·attraction to Sanskrit writers and provided them
with a hero worthy of new Gitas and Mahakavyas, verily like
a new Rama or a modem Buddha. The story of his Satyagraha
which reads like a romance in the history of modern India was
made the subject of different poems, Kshama Rao's Satyagraha
Gila118 and Ullara-satyagraha Gita117 in the gracefully flowing epic
measure, the Satyagraha Katha of C. Panduranga Sastri {the
MV.), the Satyagrahanilikavya of Satyadev VaSishth of Jaijhar
(Rohtak), and the summary of Gandhian thought by Mr. Tadpa·
trikar of Poona, echoing profusely the Bhagavad Gita which was
also the Mahatma's favourite book. In the classical Mahakavya
fonn, Swami Bhagavad Acharya wrote the three parts of his
epic on this "Celestial Tree of Bharat", the Bha:rataparijata, the
Parijatapahara and the Parijala.saurabha.11• In twenty cantos,
Sadhu Saran Misra of Darbhanga has produced his Kavya on
the Mahatma, Srimad Gandhi-Charita (MS.). Among expositions
of Gandhian philosophy, D. S. Sanna's Gandhi Sutras119 should
be mentioned for the striking time..honourcd fonn of Sutras
.employed by the author : the aphorisms here arc glossed by
citations in English of passages from Gandhiji's own writings
and speeches. Shorter poems on Gandhiji and his teachings
have appeared in a number of journals and collections of minor
poems, e.g. the Gandhisaptaha by S. Krishnambhatta in the
AV. (1945) and the one in Dr. Chhabra's Suvarnabindu which
with its Vedic metre suggests that the Mahatma belongs to the
succession of India's Rishis. The latest presentation of the thoughts
of Gandhiji is the Gandhi-sukti-muktaoali by C. D. Deshmukh
which renders into Sanskrit in divene metres a hundred select
sayings of Gandhiji.
Reference was already made to short stories having for their
theme episodes of the freedom struggle. The present writer's
Gopa Hampanna110 commemorates in a stor.y-poem the heroic
death of a Railway pointsman who saved the honour of a poor
Hindu lady from the evil attention of some drunken British

1932
111Paris
u'Bombay 1949
U•Second comp~cte edition, Ahmedabad 1951. See also Dwijendranath
Sastri's SvarqjyauJit£Ja.
111Madras 1938, 1946
110..4 V. 1947; also issued separately
148 CONTBMPOBA.llY INDIAN LITERATURE

soldiers. For a regular drama on this struggle, we may see the

Bharala M11111alam (SSPP. 1951 ff.) in which the will or united
force of the people, Gana-sakli, supported on either side by Mother
Goddess Chandi and the Bhagavad Gita, is featured as a lead-
ing character and the release of the Motherland (Matri-mukti)
ii made the purpose. The recent centenary celebrations of the
1857 movement has led to some productions in Sanskrit on this.
fint struggle for freedom; c. g. the Kranti-yuddluz in prose by
Vasudeva Sastd Bagevadikar, and the exploits of the heroes
of this struggle-Kranli-viranam Adbhutakathah published in MY..
(May 1957).
The journals have also many articles discussing the political
situation and questions of national importance. The SC. com-
bining the austere national habits and the question of Svadesi,.
wrote against western manufacturers, dumping on India soaps
ctc.-Yaidesika-vantbam Bharaladesiya.IJ, Dhannas ca. The Sri (X.iii,.
iv) has a poem on Khadi. The SR. appeals to the Princes to
ameliorate the conditions of the masses and the Kisans ( 1939)
ancJ hand over power to people (Oct. 1947). The Desa-dasa,
a poem in the SR. (1942) outlines what. should be done for the
country's all-round progress. The latest Bhoodan movement
ofVinoba Bhavc is the subject of a poem in the Bharati (1953),
the Bhudana-Cliatrusloki-gita.
Like the Gandhi Sutras, the Rasktrasmriti111 of Ram Rai, author
of Gramism, adopts a striking medium, brief sententious prose
in the form of a series of affirmations which every patriot should
utter to himself.
The campaigns and meetings of the freedom movement needed
the help of music and national song to sustain and enthuse
the energies of the volunteers and the masses. To the crop of
national songs that thus arose, Sanskrit also contributed its
quota. The Bharata Bhajana111 of a well-known South Indian
music composer, Mayuram Visvanatha Sastri, adopts a popular
form of Sanskrit, as also common Hindustani-cum-Carnatic
tunes to enable the songs to be sung widely. Mathuranatha
Sarma's Sahityavaibhava includes some national songs (Desa.-gitis).
The attainment of Independence was hailed in Sanskrit
poems : the SNtanlra Bharata by Devakinandana Sanna in the
WAhmedabad 1950
111Madraa
1948
 249
•
SR. (Aug. 1947), the s,,.,p
Knu (the Light-Banner-of
Freedom) of the present writer published in the Hindu, Madras,
during thefint Independence Day celebrations, the Bllaraa;rasasli
of Kunhan Raja (Ad. Lib. Bull. Feb. 1950) and the Soalanbya·
jyolis of M. Ramakrishna Bhat of Bangalore may be mentioned.
Pt. Prabhu Datta Sastri has poems on the National Flag and the
Charka.
The tragic end of the Mahatma naturally evoked many elegies
and longer poems: the Ma.halma1• of the present writer, TM
Mahatma by Amarachandra (SSPP. Feb. 1948), Ha Yinaoandyo
Gandhi by Sudhakar (SR. Feb. 1948), the Mahalmaoijaya1" of
K. L. V. Sastri, the Sraddhanjali111 of G. C. Jhala, the Mahatma-
ninana111 of V. Narayana Nair, the Sokaslokasalaka of Badarinatha
Jha1• 7 depict the gloom cast over the country and the loss sustained
by the people by the passing away of the Father of the Nation;
all of them set forth, briefly or at length, the ideals that Gandhiji
has bequeathed to us. ·
The initiative to place the Constitution of Free India in
Sanskrit was due to Dr. C. Kunhan Raja who prepared a draft
translation of some sections in his Bharata-rashtra-sanghalana. 1•
Another effort in this line, before the Government Committee
took up the work, is that of a Bezwada lawyer, G. Krishnamurti,
who did the sections passed by the Constituent Assembly up
to 8-1-1949.
Among political events of the post-Independence period, the
dramatic developments in Kashmir ending with the imprison-
ment of Shaikh Abdulla is dramatised by N. Bhima Bhat in his
K askmira-sandkana-samutlyama.11•
Several of the problems of Free India are discussed in the pages
of the Sanskrit journals. The shortcomings of the Congress regime,
corruption, black-market and other evils, lack of encouragement
of indigenous learning and culture-all this is lamented in a
poem called Soatantrya-abluua (the Semblance of Freedom)
published by P. Kannalkar Sastri in the Samskrila Bliavilav7a

1•The Vedanta K.esari, Madras 1948; also separately.

1"Palghat 1949
1
•In Yant/I Mataram and his collection Sushama, 1955
l•Trichur 1954, with author'• gloa
inoarbhanga 1953
l•Adyar Library, 1948
1•AV., B&Dlalore Xl-Xllt 1952-53
250 \ CONTEMPORARY DIDIAN Ll'l'EllATURB

(21-8-54). A recurring theme is of course Sanskrit and its present

condition. Many poems on Sanskrit have appeared and continue
to appear. Attention was drawn to a play published in the
Vijnana Chirdamani on the fate of Sanskrit with English on one
"Side and the local languages on the other ; similar compositions
continue to be written, e. g. the Samskrila-oag-oijaya, a five-act
play in Sanskrit-cum-Hindi by Prabhu Datta Sastri (Delhi 1942).
The Bharali-saptaka-lraya by Kasi Krishnamacharya, and the
older Vani-vilapJ by R. V. Krishnamachariar (Kumbhalconam
1926) are poems on the lamentable condition of the Sanskrit
muse. The journals carry numerous poems of this class.
The eyes of the Sanskrit world are turned now in one anxious
concentrated gaze on the Sahitya Ak.ademi and the Sanskrit
Commission180 sponsored by its Sanskrit Board.
This survey would clearly show that Sanskrit is neither
11lumbering nor merely reproducing some classical patterns;
in a world of change, the Sanskritists are also taking their part
and trying to bring to bear on affairs their reactions, criticisms
and aspirations.

FUTURB or SANSKRIT
The Sanskritists are putting forth a heroic effort to keep their
language alive, and not merely to preserve it as the classical
repository of hoary wisdom and antique artistic productions.
The realisation has come upon them that mere archaeological
researches, the quoting of the observations of Sir William Jon~
.or Max Muller or the singing of the praises of the past cannot
-serve to give that language a living status. Contemporary use
and original activity in it can alone secure for it this dignity.
Along with the Pandit, the English-educated Sanskritist is also
now freely writing and talking in Sanskrit. Even at University
level, Sanskrit is used for answering examinations and writing
theses for post-graduate degrees. Sanskrit conferences have come
tQ stay. Efforts at simplifying Sanskrit and reforming methods
-0£ its teaching, with a view to counter the plea that it is a diffi-
cult language, arc being undertaken ; several Sanskrit books and
pamphlets have appeared on this subject of Sanskrit teaching.
Considerable numbers of the people have returned Sanskrit as
llO'J'he Report or thi* Commission is DOW published and the Government
are considering the recommendations.
 251

their mother-tongue in the last census. In the midst of their

pre-occupations, busy public figures iike the former Union
Finance Minister continue to cherish their gift for original com·
position in Sanskrit.
The chief characteristic of this new spirit in Sanskrit is the
impact of the Western ideas and forms of literature, the renewal
of intimate relation with the regional literatures, its reflection
of contemporary India and the infusing into it of the ideals and
aspirations that animate the nation today. In 'this expansion,
there have appeared certain features which require underlining.
Sanskrit should, like other Indian languages, absorb a certain
amount of English and foreign vocabulary but with a language
having a heritage of a technical literature and incomparably
fecund word-forming resources, the new writers in Sanskrit
may exert themselves in evolving a more even, elegant and
harmonious vocabulary and style. Barbarisms such as are
committed by some North Indian Sanskrit journals, e. g.
Sarkarasya (of the Government), Kardah (card) and Bilam (Bill),
should be eschewed. Sanskrit could also evolve better equivalents
than expressions like the following common in Sanskrit journals
and essays: Krishna-apana for black-market, Uccha-siksluma for
higher education, A.navritapalra for open letter, Vilini..k1J1ana
for merger. There are Sanskrit T adbhaa and T atsama words in
the local languages which are semantically specialised differently
in different parts of the country; their usage has to be considered
and standardized. Particularly names of places in India and the
name India itself need not be used and transcribed in Sanskrit
writings in the wrong and mutilated form in which the Britisher
has popularised them ; in Europe, the Continent docs not
pronounce or write a single place-name in the way the English
do ; to use broken English forms, turn them into Sanskrit stems
and then add Sanskrit terminations to them results in a lot of
ugliness which could be eliminated.
Uncier the influence of their own mother-tongues, many a
North Indian Sanskritist is unable to stick to the pure Anushtubh
cadence without lapsing into that of the Pramanika, to note a
conjunct consonant intruding and breaking the metrical quan-
tity and to observe the rule that only at the end of the even feet
a short syllable could pass for a long one or could be left
without Sandhi with the next following word. More intense
252 OONTBllPOllARY DI INDIAN LlTJIRA'roRB

cultivation of Sanskrit activity alone can bring back the correct

ear for thra. The expansion of literary activity in the age when.
Sanskrit education is not widespread or intense has also pro-
duced the defect of grammatical lapses; but the wonder is that
most of the authon write correctly. The development of a.ii easy
direct prose style is a distinct gain but the idiom, diction and
construction should smell less of English and be more in con-
formity with the genius of the language ; in the pre-Bana age,
in early Bhashyas, in early drama and in fable literature, there
is pregnant vocabulary and an uninvolved style which we could
bring back into vogue now. In literary forms, the minor poem,
the short and long story and the short and long play, the essay
and the thesis have all representatives in the classical productions
with which they could easily fall in line.
In drama, the introduction of scene-divisions within an Act,
on the model of the western plays, is itself not an innovation of
major importance ; all such features could be adopted as fit in
well with the general plan of the Sanskrit drama. While it is
necessary to renovate Sanskrit drama by pruning it of its verbiage
and giving its characters more flesh and bone, and its plot
more action, it should be borne in mind that Sanskrit drama at
its best has its own unique technique and ideology and when
in the West itself the old conception of tragedy has changed and
critics like Eliot define the purpose of a drama in terms identical
with what Bharata and Anandavardhana enunciated, Sanskrit
writers today may well pause before they start imitating models
out-moded even in the West. Elements of artistic value should
be assimilated and made into an organic integration, and follow-
ing the lead given by Kalidasa that nothing is valued as old or
new but only as being inherently good, and that given by Sakti-
bhadra that merit matters and not the place from which a thing
comes, Sanskrit should re-emerge into a creative language,
adding to its long record fresh achievements.