I am both privileged and overwhelmed that Prof. Janaki should have called upon me to write a Foreword to this excellent Part II Volume Commemorating the Birth Centenary of Prof. Kuppuswamy Sastri. Truly, I feel unequal and inadequate to the task, but I am happy that this provides me the opportunity to offer my Anjali of deep and sincere reverence and admiration for this scholar, guru, teacher, traditional and modern Pandit of our century. One has only to look at his disciples to know the comprehensiveness of approach, prolificness, the diversity of critical studies and the extent of his reach. Amongst these are the great names of Dr. C. Sivaramamurti, Dr. A. Sankaran, Dr. V. Raghavan, Pt. D.T. Tatacharya, Pt. A. Chinnaswami Sastri, Pt. V. A. Ramaswami Sastri and a host of other modern and traditional scholars.
Prof. Kuppuswami Sastri was in one respect the last of those great multi-disciplinary men of the Indian tradition; in another respect, he was the first of those Sanskrit scholars who established a new critical methodology for work, not only in Sanskrit but the broader field of Indology. This Commemoration Volume bears testimony to his command and concern for subjects ranging from Vedic studies, to rules of grammar, to alankara sastra, to linguistics, to historical studies, to textual analysis, to a critical examination of myth, to philosophy, metaphysics, and of course the arts.
The author-scholars of this volume are all internationally recognised minds and no doubt dedicated researchers. They have paid befitting tributes to this grand towering monumental figure of Prof. Kuppuswamy Sastri through their specific disciplines.
Prof. R. N. Dandekar has become a legend in his own lifetime. He represents a related but different stream of Sanskrit scholarship. Pertinently, he has once again raised the question of Vedic Exegesis, a much-debated subject for a century. To raise this matter at this point of time is to bring to the fore the new elements that have entered into the examination of Vedic Exegesis. Chief amongst these is the renewed interest in the intricacies and complexities of Vedic sacrifice (ritual). Much valuable work has been done in this field in recent years and it has indeed opened up new avenues of approach to the study of Vedas. It is in the light of this renew-ed interest that Dr. Dandekar draws attention to three questions relating to Vedic Exegesis, such as the applicability of Panini's grammar, the taking into account of linguistic factors such as the Dravidian substratum and the reinterpretation of Rgveda mythology in relation to the age-old question of proto-Indo-European.
Prof. Dandekar's stimulating contribution is matched by Prof. J. Gonda on the re-interpretation of the famous Agni verses of the Rgveda. This brief essay reopens another perennial question of the relation of Agni and Tupa.
These two seminal articles are followed by others of Vedic scholars-In fact, all the major names are here. Prof. C. G. Kashikar gives us an insight into the area of Syenaciti in the Apastamba tradition, and Dr. George Cardona "On Yaska's Etymology of Danda", Dr. T. N. Dharmadhikari on the "Kalpacitations in Sayana's commentary on the Taittiriya Samhita,". Prof. J. F. Staal has been involved with Vedic ritual, especially the Agni Cayana, as also philosophic studies for many decades now. Appropriately, this leads him to examine the relation between Karma and Jnana, and laguage and ritual. After a penetrating analysis, he comes to the conclusion that ritual preceded language and belongs to a pre-linguistic state of development. Prof. Staal's contribution will no doubt stimulate further enquiry at this level of theoretical analysis. The editor's welcome addition of a most pertinent quote from Susanne K. Langer reveals the painstaking work that has been done in the editing of this volume.
Altogether, the articles on Vedic Studies clearly reflect the modern trends in scholarship in the field. It is obvious that the methodology of ritual, the Viniyoga of mantras has acquired fresh significance and that there is a new concern on measure in the fundamental sense.
It is my pleasant duty and privilege to bring out, on behalf of the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, this Commemoration Volume containing select papers presented at the seminars held in connection with Sastriar's Birth-centenary Celebrations in 1981.
The K. S. R. Institute was founded in 1944 in memory of the great savant, Mahamahopadhyaya Prof. Kuppuswami Sastri by his admirers and scholar - friends like the Rt. Hon. Sri V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, Sir P. S. Sivaswami Iyer, Sir S. Radhakrishnan and Sri K. Balasubramanya Iyer. Dr. V. Raghavan whose devotion to his guru Prof. Kuppuswami Sastri and the cause of Sanskrit is well known, died suddenly in April 1979 after a long period of dedicated service to the Institute. After his demise, the Governing Body of the Institute, chiefly its President Sri T. V. Visvanatha Iyer and Secretary Sri K. Chandrasekharan, decided to celebrate the Birth-Centenary in 1981 in a worthy manner.
The celebrations were held in two sessions in June and Oct. 1981, in both of which almost all the leading scholars from India and abroad, participated. During the celebrations in June 1981, Part I of Prof. Kuppuswami Sastri Commemoration Volume containing a spectrum of 27 valuable writings of Sastriar himself, like a newly strung Naksatra-garland, along with a Kavya Gurucarita on him by his former student Prof, M. Ramakrishna Bhat, was brought out. The second part now issued carries select high class research articles by Indian and foreign scholars who personally participated in the celebration, and offered a bouquet of tribute to the savant, whose writings and speeches exuded the cream of his thought and were a model of excellence, authoritative and thought provoking.
The celebrations brought together not only scholars, admirers and sisyaparampara of Prof. Sastra but also long-standing friends of Sastriar and the Institute at the helm of administration like Sri R. Venkataraman, then Minister of Finance, Govt. of India Sri R. Tirumalai, I.A.S., Dr. (Mrs.) Kapila Vatsyayan, Secretary, Govt. of India, Prof. J. Filliozat and others. The celebration was indeed a landmark in the annals of the Institute, in that its recognition by the Govt. of India under the Adarsa Samsodh Scheme became an actuality subsequently in April 1983. For the close associates of the Institute, this is a dream come true. The proceedings of the celebrations are given in detail in the preliminary section of this Volume.
It is my pleasant duty to sincerely thank all the participants who contributed in a large measure in the actual celebrations by their financial, academic and moral support. It is difficult to name them all here. However, I will be failing in my duty if I do not acknowledge specially the unique, manifold assistance of Dr. (Mrs.) Kapila Vatsyayan and Dr. C. R. Swaminathan, who as close associates of the Institute, gave due consideration to the potentiality available here and gave lease to it; in addition, they have also contributed valuable Forewords in English and Sanskrit to this volume. My debt to them is indeed great.
My thanks are due to the Ministry of Education for the financial assistance in bringing out this Volume and to Sri V. T. Rajan and Ramani Brothers Printers for their wonted neat execution. I am also thankful to the academic staff of the Institute for helping me to go through the proofs of this Volume.
Prof. Kuppuswami Sastri and the founders of the Institute stood for high ideals in life and academic pursuits. May the Institute founded and nourished with dedication in memory of the great master and pioneer in Sanskrit and Indological studies in South India, grow from strength to strength, and enrich the cultural life of the Indological world in India and outside!
This is the second part of the Mm. Prof. KUPPUSWAMI SASTRIAR BIRTH CENTENARY COMMEMORATION VOLUME, containing on account of the Birth Day celebrations conducted with the holding of Seminars and other entertainments with music, dance and drama in the evenings, both in June 1981 and November of the same year. The first volume dealt mainly with the valuable writings of the great Professor along with a Sanskrit life-sketch in verses of the Mahamahopadhyaya by one of his early students. Select papers read at the Seminars by scholars of India and outside find a place in the 320 pages here, after the 45 pages of the proceedings of the Celebrations.
It may be worthwhile here to recall how Professor Sastriar started his career with the single aim of advancing the cause of Sanskrit in this State, if not the entire country. In 1905, when he was actually contemplating on legal studies with the ultimate purpose of becoming a lawyer, the opportunity came to him to become a teacher, when the late V. Krishnaswami Aiyar of Madras advised him not to waste his vast knowledge of traditional Sanskrit studies combined with the modern equipment of a Master of Arts he was then, but to put them to use in training younger students of Sanskrit in carrying on the rich tradition in Sanskrit Sastraic studies. What would have resulted in a great loss to Sanskrit studies was thus averted and Sastriar found his own level in Scholarship of a rare type. Thus ushered into becoming the first Principal of the Madras Sanskrit College from 1906 January, he built up a reputation soon for his enviable grounding in the four Sastras of Mimarisa, Vedanta, Vyakarana and Nyaya, along with Sahitya studies which particularly would not have gained the importance of a separate discipline in the Madras University curriculum of Sanskrit studies but for his taking it up seriously and advancing its scope in the later period of his Service as the Head of the Sanskrit Department in the Presidency College. People of the present generation may not know how much Sahitya as a subject of study was neglected, previously to his efforts. As a matter of fact, it was because of his being the Curator of the Madras Oriental Manuscripts Library, many valuable books in Sanskrit came to light under his careful editing of manuscripts according to modern research lines.
The Journal of Oriental Research was founded by him in the thirties of this century with a band of workers drawn mainly from his own students who had the benefit of the methodology of modern research from his example. Dr. V. Raghavan, to whose great devotion this Institute owes much for its founding and growth, was one of his disciples to carry out his master's ambitions and to add to them by his own abilities also in a wider field of not only Indological studies but of Sahitya, Sangita and Aesthetics in general. It was said that when the Professor was asked once for his credentials while being thought of for the INDIAN EDUCATIONAL SERVICE his characteristic reply was Apart from my students, what more am I required to supply as credentials? Such having been his confidence in and affection for his students, it was no wonder he began to live again in some of his students, such as Dr. V. Raghavan, Dr. Sivaramamurti, T. N. Ramachandran to mention a few.
The Seminars were conducted very efficiently during the June and November sessions by the enthusiasm of Dr. S. S. Janaki, a devoted student of Dr. Raghavan, and other scholars; and the papers of the savants of the Sanskrit world in India and the West, find a good representation in these pages.
Under the Adarsa Samsodha Scheme of the Govt. of India, special scholars are being trained in the traditional Sastras as well as the modern research disciplines along with a few Western scholars under the foundations in U. S. and European countries. With a view to combining modern science with studies of Vedic origin, the Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy working at the Institute are endowed specially for such an inter-disciplinary task and the Institute's usefulness gets more assured by their efforts.
This Volume bears the Narayana Smriti from His Holiness Sri Jayendra Sarasvati Swamigal and also the Forewords in Sanskrit and English by Dr. C. R. Swaminathan and Dr. (Mrs.) Kapila Vatsyayan respectively. Dr. S. S. Janaki's Preface gives in a nutshell a good account of everything about the Seminars and the scholars who participated.
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