Author: Jaithirth Rao
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 15, 2005
URL: http://iecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.php?content_id=68380
David Shulman holds up a mirror
to India's past and present art and culture
Between board meetings and trysts
with spread-sheets, I am suddenly blessed. Sitting in the corner next to
the TV, I discover a gem that I had read a while ago. It was time to revisit
Yaksha's pool and drink from its enigmatic waters - waters that hurt, heal
and reveal in succession. The book in question is The Wisdom of Poets:
Studies in Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit by David Shulman.
This is not a book review. The book
was published in 2001 and I am sure it has been reviewed in scholarly journals.
This is too short a piece to be even marginally acceptable as a chronological
or critical examination of Shulman's work. This is merely an attempt -
in my allotted 1000 words - to introduce some of my readers (including
those who seem to like my aesthetic instincts while disagreeing with my
political ones!) to the magical world of one who should be rightfully referred
to as the greatest living Indologist. Unfortunately in the post-Saidian
world, Indology appears as a sub-set of Orientalism. Shulman is formally
known, among other things, as a professor of 'Indian Studies'. My conservative
instincts steer me in the direction of the older, more evocative descriptor.
I first heard Shulman speak at a
conference hosted by the British Museum in London. A friend, Richard Blurton,
had invited me to it and I decided to take a rare day off from selling
mortgages and current accounts to attend it, along with my father. The
subject of the conference was 'Kumbakonam'. And for those of you who don't
know Kumbakonam - the town which is today a taluka capital in the district
of Tanjore, was a great city in Chola times and continues to be an enormously
important sacred spot to this day. Shulman spoke about the foundational
myths of Kumbakonam. The tale of the breaking of the seminal pot and the
tale of Vishnu-Oppiliappan ("the ideal bridegroom that every parent would
want for a fond daughter", as Shulman described the divine lover) was unfolded
by him with great exuberance and felicity. Kumbakonam ceased to be a physical
place. It became a metaphor for the world, while all the time retaining
its real geographical base in southern India.
Shulman that day reminded me of
an enchanting "puranik" who brought the gods to life before us. I was bowled
over by the eloquent professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies
at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I voraciously started reading everything
I could lay my hands on that had been written, or edited, by him. Here
is a protean personality, a renaissance man - an accomplished scholar not
only of Sanskrit, but also of Telugu and Tamil. But he is more than a scholar.
He is a literary critic, a cultural anthropologist and a sensitive 'bhakta'
who understood that God has his moods! He passed himself off as one who
in an earlier life had lived in 19th century Madras and been a "poorna-pandita"
and a "per-arignar".
He has collaborated extensively
with personalities as diverse as A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao
and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. There is virtually nothing about peninsular India
that he is not interested in, or does not have a point of view about. The
only parallel I could think of was William Jones. And Shulman probably
shines even in comparison with that grand scholar. Firstly, he deals with
more than one Indian language; secondly, he deals with ancient, medieval
and contemporary matters; lastly, he approaches his subjects with a sense
of being an interlocutor among equals, not as an antiquarian wandering
through musty museums.
In The Wisdom of Poets there are
many lovely essays. The range is enormous. Nala and the metaphors of transformation
through gambling as an authentic human pursuit, Yudhishtira and his contest
of riddles with his "real" father - the Yaksha, the tale-within-a-tale
with multiple identities forming, re-forming, dissolving and re-appearing
in Bhavabhuti's Uttara Rama Charita, Kamban's epiphany in his Ramavataram
and, above all, Allasani Peddanna's exploration of the human predicament
in his classic Manucharitamu.
I was fortunate to visit Israel
some years ago. When he found out about my interests, the Indian ambassador
very kindly telephoned Shulman and requested him to meet with me. Shulman
drove to the university specially to see me on a holiday. I was touched
and flattered no end, especially when he gave me an autographed copy of
his newly published, Poem at the Right Moment, a translation of pre-modern
Telugu poems co-authored with Narayana Rao. We got talking and I asked
him about his fondness for Madras. He smiled and there was a faint suggestion
of a fleeting thought intruding from another life... his mind seemed to
be wandering away to Mylapore or Tiruvallikeni. I asked if the connection
may be karmic. I think I touched a chord. He chided me for my ignorance
of Indian languages and said that I could and should learn them easily.
I looked at my brother-in-law who was with me and remarked that the professor
seemed to be judging other people's IQ on the basis of his own!
We finished our conversation by
dwelling on recurring themes in art and literature. The theme of the first
humans who explored this planet at the end of the great flood of antiquity
is featured in the Markandeya Purana and has a haunting resonance to it.
Five hundred years ago, Peddanna revisited his grand theme. Shulman identifies
a new spirit that emphasises the centrality of humankind in the epic Telugu
poem. I mentioned to him that Jaishankar Prasad's Kamayani in Hindi had
the same theme. Shulman meticulously took down the details. Doubtless he
will learn both the language and the text in a few months and not think
too much about it.
De Tocqueville held a mirror up
to 19th century America's political scene. Shulman holds up a mirror to
the entire palimpsest of India's past and present art, literature, mysticism
and culture. We are lucky to have such a warm, sympathetic, erudite human
playing the role of the proverbial 'sutradhar' and 'tippanikar' for us.
After all his connections with India span both lives past and lives to
come.
The writer is chairman/CEO of MphasiS.
Write to him at jerryrao@expressindia.com
