S. Srinivasa Sastri
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Speeches and Writings oj THE RIGHT HONOURABLE S. SRINIVASA SASTRI VOLUME 2 THE RT. HON'BLE V. S. SRINIVASA SASTRI BIRTH CENTENARY EDITION September 1969 Speeches and Writings of THE RIGHT HONOURABLE V. S. SRINIVASA SASTRI Volume 2 FIRST EDITION 22 September 1969 © South Indian National Association Srinivasa Sastri Endowment Fund PRICE : Rs. 20/- (set of two volumes); Rs. 10/- (each volume). Printed at The Jupiter Press Private Limited, Madras-18 CONTENTS PAGE LECTURES ON THE RAMAYANA : I. The Instructional Value of the Epic . 1 II. Rama, an Immaculate Human Being . 7 III. The Vali Episode . 21 IV. Repudiation of Sita . 44 V. Sugriva, the Trusted Friend . 59 VI. Vibhishana Vindicated . 73 VII. Ravana, Greatness without Goodness . 77 VIII. Ravana, the Mighty . 84 IX. Ravana's Infatuation for Sita . 100 X. Sita, the Unapproachable . 108 XI. The Abhisheka Ceremony of Rama and Sita 117 LETTERS .. 127 EDUCATION : The Schoolmaster's Test . 205 Convocation Address at Annamalai University 218 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS AND SKETCHES : My First Meeting with Gokhale (1925) . 229 The Story of My Admission (1926) . 234 Rishi Ranade (1842-1901) 239 Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyar (1864-1946) . 25! V. Krishnaswami Aiyar (1863-1911) . 256 Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar (1879-1966) . 271 MAIN EVENTS IN SASTRI'S LIFE . 277 LECTURES ON THE RAMAYANA 1 THE INSTRUCTIONAL VALUE OF THE EPIC THE Ramayana has been told to us times without number. Every line of it has been scanned and commented upon minutely, not hundreds, not thousands but millions of times over. We have all conned every little thing in it. Nevertheless, somehow or other, in our mixed human nature, there is a tendency which we nourish to come again and yet again to the story, whether before breakfast or after siesta in the afternoon or midnight and it is time to be sleeping. At whatever time we go, to what• ever place, whoever the expounder may be, somehow or other there is that in us which helps us to put aside all disturbing illusions, all the things that are calculated to take us away from the environment of the story itself even while our circumstances are such as to cause distraction for the time. A child crying or somebody falling asleep on you and all the other things may be calling attention to the wretched world around you ; but even so, somehow there is in all of us, provided we are Hindus by training and in spirit, an ability, what shall I call it, an almost non-human ability to put aside those distractions and to remain under the influence of that illusion as though the whole thing were being enacted on the stage by men fully trained for the purpose amidst appointments of a first-class character, which will produce and maintain the illusion at its greatest. We have that amongst us. Everyone of us has it and it is a marvel how we retain it. I should ask you always to put yourselves in that condition and remain in it whenever you read this great epic. The whole thing is done before you with a set purpose and unless you help that purpose to fulfil itself in you, you read it for nothing. Everything, therefore, depends on the way in which you open the book and read it. I take up the book anywhere and read it. To me Sri Rama is not divine. Nevertheless, the illusion is always there, in full force. I can throw myself heart and soul into the very essence of the story. When I read that book, I read that book and do nothing else ; my whole mind is devoted 2 KT. HONBLE V. S. SIUNIVASA SASTRl to it. A hard-hearted man like me, 1 read it, and, strange to say, there is not a page which does not bring tears into my eyes! Any fine sentiment, any tender feeling, any affection between brother and brother, and re-union of beings that have been separated for a time, aye, any homage paid to friendship, to gratitude or to any of those eternal abiding virtues of human character, brings tears into my eyes ! ( stop ; I cannot go on. I have to wait and wipe my eyes and then go on. Why do I do that ? A hardened man of the world, why do 1 do that ? Why has it that effect on me ? I suppose it is because deep down in my nature, going to strata which perhaps in my waking life I shall never touch, there is a spirit of the utmost reve• rence and affection for those great characters. Why ? Even if Rama and Sita were not of this land but were the hero and heroine in an alien poem, I should feel probably not so very much affected but nearly as deeply. Human nature is human nature; whether nurtured here or in another land, it is just the same. And. that brings me to the main point of the lecture which I should like you to take away with you, viz., that the divinity of Sri Rama need not be questioned for a moment, no, I wish 1 can bring myself to believe it — but, I find as a matter of fact, that it is not essential to the understanding of the story or to profiting by the story. And, I can tell you without boasting that, perhaps, robbed as I am of that faith, I am able to get for the building up of my own nature more from the Ramayana than many another student of that book who believes in the divinity of the character but is not able, for some reason or other, to take in the real spirit in which the lives were lived. After all. when you come to look at it, it seems to be this way. There is the great vault of the heaven above. We are all under it. We function under it. Our lives are ordered under it. We quarrel and fight, we kill each other, acquire and lose. We do so many things under/this over-arching heaven. If thus fhe over-arching heaven enters into our lives, our doings and sayings, shapes our character and regulates the details of our lives, it does so and who can question it ? Whether I say that it does so or not, the fact is that it does. My belief does not affect it, my non-belief cannot abolish it. It is there, immutable, eternal, unalterable by the thought of ihe individual. I may be Lectures on the Ramayana 3 a man of science, I may be a man of logic, 1 may be a naturalist- minded man, this, that or something else ; but, if there is the influence of heaven on my life, though I may be ignorant of it, I cannot get away from it, It is there always, affecting everyone of my thoughts, giving shape to everyone of my doings, however big or however small, however significant to other people or however devoid of value to others. That which is done by me is subject to this eternal, immutable influence. So, if Rama and Sita and Hanuman had divinity in them, they had it. Everywhere, in everyone in the story, that influence is there and will be there. It is not possible, it is not scientific, it is not accurate, it is not sensible to say that Rama was divine in some of his acts and not divine in others, that Sita behaved only in some parts of her life like Lakshmi. but that in some others she got out of her Lakshmi-hood by some strange device. If divinity appertained to these characters, it did appertain, aye and for ever. To try and separate some things in the Ramayana from other things in the same book for the quality of being especially marked by the divine influence or of being especially the symptom of divinity is. it seems to me, to show ignorance of the very fundamentals of the poem. The thought of divinity need not. therefore, affect your understanding of the poem. You may read the poem as an epic, as a great epic, that has influenced the whole lives of millions of people for generations upon generations. One word more, You all know — I need not elaborate it to an audience of this kind, but T will just remind you, I need only remind you — that even the theory of avatar, philosophi• cally stated, applies to all humanity in one sense, remote it may be and comprehended only by great students of our literature. In one sense, every single creature in this planet or elsewhere is merely an emanation from the one and only source of all life and the one and only cause of the Universe. In that wise, we are all avatars ; only, in us the divine element is not nearly so prominent as in the case of some others. It is a question only of degree, a question, as it were, only of the proportion of time and proportion of events in which the divinity plays its part. That, really and properly considered, is what distin• guishes one man from another, in a great man, the divine or super-human element manifests itself oftener. more clearly and 4 RT. HON'BLE V. S. SRINIVASA SASTRI to better purpose than in the case of a comparatively ill-deve• loped man. That is why they speak sometimes of the evolu• tion of souls. Some souls are developed more than others on a higher plane and, therefore, in them it is possible for us to see, and in their writings and speeches it is possible for us to hear more often the note of divinity than in the case of other people not so fortunate or so far advanced in evolution as they.