Glorious creative past

A CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF HINDU MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY AND LITERATURE: John Dowson; D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd., Sri Kunj, F-52, Bali Nagar, New Delhi-110015. Rs. 100.

IT MUST be a very small number of people, Indian or foreign, who are not deeply fascinated by the mythology, religion, history, geography and literature of India. It is a most gratifying experience to find a significant number of foreigners, English, European, Greek, Arab and others, who have written sympathetically and perceptively about India's glorious past.

They illustrate the great debt we owe to Western oriental scholarship for our knowledge of the glorious, creative past of ancient India. We, of the modern world, would have continued to wallow in sheer ignorance of our own past, had not these scholars done such arduous meritorious work. Even today Sir William Jones' Institutes of Manu is cited with reverence in our higher courts of law in dealing with cases involving Hindu laws of inheritance etc.

What we owe to the author of the book under review is truly incalculable debt. He has brought together in a single volume nearly all the material that the books mentioned above contain, in dictionary or alphabetical form. The material is presented in exceptionally concise and crisp form and with a meticulous regard for accuracy in detail. One does not have to go to Buhler's or Sir William Jones to learn about Manu. Dowson tells us what we likely want to know about Manu. But not merely about Manu but about nearly all that is significant in the sphere of religion, geography, history, mythology and so forth. The great Horace Hayman Wilson, the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, projected a work of this kind for the Oriental Translation Fund. Dowson says in his preface that of history ancient Indians know nothing. It must be remembered that they were making history and had little time or use for writing history. Unlike Julius Caesar who wrote his own memoir of the Gallic War in Latin, the makers of ancient history were too busy making history to think of writing an account of it. Yet, in the Vedas, we have accounts of the struggle the Aryans had to wage with the Dasyus. It has, however, to be borne in mind that the ancient Rishis of India were more concerned with the ultimate nature and meaning of the universe, man and life than with chronicling current events. To them events were irrelevant. The quest for Reality, for Ultimate Truth was alone relevant. But the number of names of men and women, of groups and class, accounts of various heroic activities, show that there was more than philosophic speculation in the far off ancient world. We learn about Abhidana Chintamani of the Jain writer, Hemachandra, who was the first lexicographer, perhaps of the world. These are spread out in this book, a whole world of valuable information, lovingly and intelligently set out about most matters we likely want to know about and a great deal which may not interest us immediately but which will spring into life at the most unexpected moment and thrill us with a sense of something newly discovered.

The author's accounts may seem incredibly succint and crisp but that is because he aimed not at the massiveness of the great Oxford Classical Dictionary but at providing readily, accurately and crisply information of the kind we look for in a reference work of this kind. He does not omit anything of real value. For example, on Abimanyu, son of Arjuna, he points out that he was not born to Draupadi but to Subhadhra, sister of Lord Krishna, whom Arjuna married. He does not mention the name of Abhimanyu's killer, nor does he mention the clemency of Draupadi towards the killer. ``Let us not make a widow of the killer's wife,'' said Draupadi. On Aryabhatta, he speculates whether he was not well- known to the West as well as the Arabs. He tells us incidentally that Patna, which was Pataliputra, was also known as Kusumpura. On Asvalayana, he fails to mention that his Grihya Sutras govern Rig Vedic Brahmanas only. In speaking of the various avatars of Lord Vishnu, he says that Rama was also known as Ramachandra - moonlike or gentle. One wonders where he got this detail.

There is a very crisp summary of the Mahabharata. Sometimes the author carries brevity to an extreme point. On Mandukya, he says, ``an Upanishad translated by Roer for Bibliotheka Indica''. The name could have been translated, the fact of a Gaudapada Karika on it and the crucial importance of this Upanishad in Advaita Vedanta mentioned.

The book contains diacritical marks and a key to the correct pronunciation of Sanskrit terms. For a work based on orientalist rather than on original Sanskrit sources, there is an amazing adequacy and accuracy which impresses the reader with the dedication that the author has brought to the performance of his self-chosen, difficult task.

S.R.

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