GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE
THE Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-that Institute of Indian Culture in Bombay-needed a Book Uni- versity, a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular emphasis, however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper impulsions of India. As a first step, it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand almost at once.
Each book was to contain from 200 to 250 pages and was to be priced at Rs. 2.50.
It is our intention to publish the books we select, not only in English, but also in the following Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
This scheme. involving the publication of 900 volumes, requires ample funds and an all-India organisation. The Bhavan is exerting its utmost to supply them.
The objectives for which the Bhavan stands are the reintegration of the Indian culture in the light of modern knowledge and to suit our present-day needs and the resuscitation of its fundamental values in their pristine vigour.
Let me make our goal more explicit:
We seek the dignity of man, which necessarily implies the creation of social conditions which would
allow him freedom to evolve along the lines of his of individual efforts and social relations, not in any own temperament and capacities; we seek the harmony makeshift way, but within the frame-work of the Moral Order; we seek the creative art of life, by the alchemy of which human limitations are progressively trans- muted, so that man may become the instrument of God, and is able to see Him in all and all in Him.
The world, we feel, is too much with us. Nothing would uplift or inspire us so much as the beauty and aspiration which such books can teach.
In this series, therefore, the literature of India ancient and modern, will be published in a form easily accessible to all. Books in other literatures of the world, if they illustrate the principles we stand for, will also be included.
This common pool of literature, it is hoped, will enable the reader, eastern or western, to understand and appreciate currents of world thought, as also the movements of the mind in India, which, though they flow through different linguistic channels, have a common urge and aspiration.
Fittingly, the Book University’s first venture is the Mahabharata, summarised by one of the greatest living Indians, C. Rajagopalachari; the second work is on a section of it, the Gita by H. V. Divatia, an eminent jurist and a student of philosophy. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: ‘What is not in it, is nowhere’. After twentyfive centuries, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life.
The Mahabharata is not a mere epic, it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and of some who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival; but, above all, it has for its core the Gita, which is, as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of sagas in which the climax is reached in the wond- rous Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto.
Through such books alone the harmonies underlying true culture, I am convinced, will one day reconcile the disorders of modern life.
I thank all those who have helped to make this new branch of the Bhavan’s activity successful.
PREFACE
IN 1939 just before the second world war, my husband. the late Prof. S. N. Dasgupta, had been invited to Italy. He had been invited many times before, in 1924, 1930, 1935, 1936. In 1936 the International Congress of Science was holding its session in Rome. The night before the first meeting of the Congress, he was invited by the president to dinner and the conversation related to the development of science and India’s contribution thereto. The president suggested that next morning. instead of the topic proposed already for him, he should talk on the concept of science in Ancient India.
My husband came back to his hotel and thought over this. He had no books of reference with him. But this was no serious obstacle. All his life, not- withstanding the enormous amount of research he had been doing, he seldom made any notes. His memory was wonderful and unique. He carried all details and references, no matter however varied the field, in his head. So he exercised his mind that night and decided that since space, time and matter were the funda- mentals that science had to deal with, he would talk on these. He then went to sleep peacefully without a second thought about this science meeting. Next morning the Science Congress sat with all the leading scientists of the world taking part in it. Professor Dasgupta was the first speaker to address the gathering and the time allotted was the usual limit of fifteen minutes. He began his speech, it went on and on; fifteen minutes passed into an hour, and the hour passed into two and then to three without any interrup tion. The whole of the morning session was occupied in listening to what scientific concepts had been formulated by the Indian mind without any of the modern equipments. The audience listened spell-bound to this new side of Indian culture. He had spoken several times before on Indian philosophy and religion, but this time it was science. After his speech was over, one or two of the British scientists asked him two or three questions which were duly answered. The sitting came to an end amidst tremendous applause and loud acclamation ‘great man’ great man’ (grando homo).
It was the same year that the Senate of Rome decid. ed to honour him with the honorary degree of D. Litt. Before this they had conferred this only on their king. As a result he was invited again in 1939 to receive the degree and to lecture on Indian art. He had delivered lectures already on Indian philosophy, religion and science. Now it was to be on art through which our countrymen had expressed their concept of beauty, the inner spiritual vision through line, colour, painting and carving of stones.
So this was the occasion for which these lectures on Indian Art were written and when they were delivered. I remember distinctly when he was writing them, how they filled our heart with a unique thrill at the revelation of the inner principles that lay in our perception of beauty and its communication. But he translated them also into Italian as he intended to deliver them in the language of the people he was going to address. He knew besides Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindi and English. two continental languages, German and French very well; this time he was brushing up his Italian. He reached Italy in April 1939, and was accorded a state reception and military honours in Rome. Mussolini was in power at the time. His son-in-law, Count Ciano. received him on behalf of the state. The convocation in which the degree of D. Litt. was conferred upon him, was filmed and exhibited all over the country. It was a unique honour shown to one of the eminent sons of India, which was still in bondage. During the same summer he delivered his Lectures on Indian Art in Rome. I refer here to an interlude simply to describe the liveliness of the gathering. As the Professor began his first lecture, he said, besides the usual words of courtesy, how he loved Italy only next to India. He said: “My first love and loyalty goes naturally to my mother-country. India; but the second goes to Italy. the ancient seat of wisdom and beauty, which has endeared herself so much to me by so many ties of association, and it is a known fact that the second love is always stronger than the first.” The audience roared with laughter at this lively witticism.
Had it not been for the war which set in almost immediately after his return to India in August, these lectures might have been published long ago. The terrible war came and so many postwar calamities followed which made publication so very difficult. My husband’s health broke down in 1940 and since then he was ailing from heart troubles, though heroically continuing his quest for knowledge. In 1950 we came to Lucknow from England and my husband was still working in his sick-bed on the completion of the fifth volume of his ‘History of Indian Philosophy’. Shri K. M. Munshi became Governor of U.P. in 1952 and his sincere interest and regard for Indian culture drew him to my husband’s bedside in September when they had some talk on the subject of their mutual interest. Since October, 1952, there was a serious turn in the illness of my husband; and the great life that was still burning for learning and knowledge, passed away after a brief gleam of recovery in December, 1952.
My husband had written a letter to Shri K. M. Munshi, the Rajyapal, U.P. about his unpublished manuscripts, and it is through the Rajyapal’s very kind and sympathetic assistance that this small book is being published. My gratefulness to Shri K. M. Munshi cannot be adequately expressed. I join him in humility and reverence in the sacred task of showing our deepest respect for the departed by bringing out his message to the world. The ‘Introduction’ to the book has been based on the author’s own Introductory chapter to his work on Aesthetics written in Bengali.
Lucknow.
May 2, 1953
(Mrs.) SURAMA DASGUPTA
