Versatile Genius

Sri Kapali Sastriar

(By M. C. Subrahmanyam)

M. C.—as he is universally known—is the oldest living disciple of Sastriar. He was his student, both at the Muthialpet school and the school of life. He has been responsible for many a public service the most notable of which is the Public Health Centre, Madras.

Sri T.V. Kapali Sastriar was born on September 3, 1886 in Mylapore and he was named after the presiding deity of the place, Sri Kapaleeshwara. He came from a family which, for generations, excelled in scholarship in Sanskrit, in the upasana of Sri Vidya and in the observance of rituals and ceremonials enjoined by tradition. The family belongs to the branch of Samaveda and the clan of Bharadwaja. Some of Sastriar's ancestors had performed yajnas.

His father, Sri Vishweshwara Sastry, was a great Sanskrit scholar and an ardent Sri Vidya Upasaka. He taught Sastriar Sanskrit and initiated him into Sri Vidya. Also, he went through the mill of studying Samaveda in the time-honoured traditional way. He scrupulously observed the prescribed regimen of Pooja, Parayana and Japa. By the time he was 12, he had read Ramayana twelve times over and had performed Sri Rama Pattabhisheka as many times. Every morning he would stand before the shrine of Lalita Tripurasundariand repeat the Sri Vidya Mantra 1008 times. He had his English education in the Hindu High School, Madras, during the period when Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastriar was its headmaster. All this while, he was registering a two-dimensional growth: his mind was developing sharpness, sweep, height and depth; his exploration of the inner spiritual realms was proceeding apace.

When Sastriar stepped into the 20th century, he was just fourteen. Even at that young age he had attained an assured but quiet stature and standing in the world of scholars and spiritual seekers.

The first three decades of this century had all the glories of the Augustan Age and all the explosive features of a revolution. Sri RamakrishnaVivekananda quickened the dawn of this age. Tagore and Bharati in the field of arts and letters, Raman and Bose in Science, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo in Yoga and culture, Tilak and Gandhi in politics, caught the first light of this new dawn and worked towards ushering in its high noon.

In the field of Yoga, there were new efforts at recovering the light that had illumined the path of our ancient Rishis but which had been obscured by time. Three great men were parallelly at work in this direction. All the three had built up an inner life and developed an inner vision, though the altitude of each one of them was different.

Sri Aurobindo in a letter written in 1912 to Motilal Roy of Chandranagore says that Sri Krishna had revealed to him the secret meaning of the Vedas, that he was shortly going to unravel the secret of the Vedas and that he felt that he could write a new Nirukta.

Sastriar, who had been taught to chant the Vedas in the traditional way, who had studied the use of the Mantras in rituals and who had noted the unfailing refrain in all scriptures and sacred texts from the Upanishads to the Puranas that the Vedas constitute the source and authority of all spiritual endeavour, found that the apparent meaning of the Mantras made no sense whatsoever. At the same time, he found frequent references to the secret character of the Mantras. He read Sayana's Bhashya on the Vedas. Bar some occasional illumination of some Mantras which had obvious spiritual import, it perpetuated the prevailing obscurity about the Riks. Sastriar was seeking light.

About the same time Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri—hailed as Nayana and Vasishtha Ganapati Muni by his disciples and admirers—scholar, poet, Sri Vidya Upasaka, ashtavadhani, astrologer, Mantra Siddha, directed his mind, illumined by years of tapasya, towards decoding the Mantras on Vedic Gods. Sastriar first met the Kavya Kantha in 1906. It was a case of Greek meeting Greek. He was deeply impressed by the astonishing range, depth and peaks of his mind and by his refreshingly original interpretation of our spiritual and philosophical tradition as enshrined in the Vedas; Upanishads and other sacred texts. Sastriar became his disciple and by 1910 he had received from him illuminating help in the understanding of the Vedic, Upanishadic, Tantric and Puranic traditions. It was Kavyakantha who took him to Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Sri Ramana Maharshi meant one big leap for him in his inner life. The Maharshi who rarely touched anybody with his hand, placed his hand on. Sastriar's chest and indicated to him the location of the spiritual heart centre. Sastriar who had mentioned this incident had not indicated how this hasta-diksha helped him in the development of his inner life. The affection and esteem in which Bhagavan Sri Ramana held Sastriar was indicated by his reference to him (Sastriar) as "Chinna Nayana" (Little Nayana). Next to Ganapati Muni, it was Sastriar who gave a brilliant and scholarly exposition of the teachings of the Maharshi through his Sat Darshana Bhashya, Ramana Gita Prakasha etc.

Though Vasishtha Muni opened out new vistas of understanding of the Mantras and Gods of the Rig Veda, Sastriar felt that what he had received from his Master was not enough to launch him on the still foggy highways of the secret of the Veda.

In 1914 when Sri Aurobindo started redeeming his promise to Motilal Roy through his articles on the Veda in the Arya, Sastriar realised that here was a Seer of Rig Vedic vintage to whom the Vedas yielded the key to unlocking their secrets. Sastriar has said that he would read each issue of the Arya avidly and at one stretch and then read it again and again till the next issue arrived. His first meeting with Sri Aurobindo in 1917 was memorable. It is interesting to know that the meeting was arranged through Subramania Bharati who was in regular touch with the Yogi. Sastriar had found his ultimate master and realised his mission. He joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram later when it was formed and lived there for the rest of his life.

In the Ashram his life was one of total consecration and tapasya. Sri Aurobindo's writings on the Vedas and the Upanishads were in English. For the acceptance of scholars of traditional training and modern thinking, they had to be presented in the setting and style of some of the great commentators of old. Secondly, Sri Aurobindo's integral view of the Indian spiritual tradition had to be presented with appropriate scriptural support, interpreted creatively and convincingly. His studies and reflections on the Veda, Upanishads and Tantra took the form of articles in journals devoted to the exposition of Sri Aurobindo's teachings. He, however, took up for achievement the principal mission of his life, namely, a commentary on the Rig Veda in the light of the findings of Sri Aurobindo. This he took up when he was sixty. He had the necessary background for this Bhagirathan project—orthodox upbringing, and enquiring mind, arduous study as per traditional discipline, rigorous upasana, a quest for Truth. which took him first to Nayana and then to Sri Maharshi, refuge at the feet of Sri Aurobindoto complete the mission of his life and years of sadhana which exemplified the Upanishadic dictum that spiritual life is like walking all the time on the razor's edge and which earned for him the appellation, Kavi, from Sri Aurobindo himself. Sastriar wrote his commentary on the first Ashtaka of the Rig Veda in four years. Sri Aurobindo went through it and approved of it. Eye witnesses describe how Sastriar worked all alone, without any reference books by his side, drawing upon his phenomenal memory, waiting for the right inspiration to come before interpreting difficult words in the sacred text, literally burning the midnight oil.

His bare external life completely covered his flaming spiritual personality which reached out to new horizons and scaled new peaks of light all the time. His real life was lived in the soul of which hardly one or two knew anything. We know of him through his luminous works in English and Sanskrit—his commentary on Umasahasram, the classic of Vasishtha Ganapati Muni, on Ramana Gita and on the First Ashtaka of the Rig Veda. He wrote in Telugu; he rendered the Vedic hymns in chaste Tamil. What do we know about Vyasa, Valmiki, Kalidasa, Kamban and so many poets, philosophers, commentators and others? They live only through their works. Sastriar takes his rank with the seminal minds who have given a new and original turn to the understanding of our spiritual tradition.

In his writings on the Veda, he justifies the old adhyatmic interpretation of which Yaska speaks and that without contradicting other possible approaches; he draws upon his own yogic experience to confirm the wisdom of the Rishis. Expounding the Vidyas of the Upanishads, he shows how these texts are manuals of sadhana, continuing and enlarging upon the Vedic tradition—and are not revolts against the Veda, as propagated by some—and he unravels the mysteries of disciplines like the Madhu Vidya, Prana Vidya etc. Writing on the Tantra Shastra, he establishes its relation with the Vedic tradition not only in the realm of concepts and principles but even in their application to life. He presents the Tantra in its original grand setting of totality of manifestation.

He relates Sri Aurobindo's Thought and Yoga to the ancient Vedic scheme and clarifies many issues likely to cause misunderstanding viz. Jivanmukta and superman, Mukti and transformation and so on. His Mahamanustava, laudation of the Supreme Goddess, Sri Lalita Tripura Sundari, is replete with yogic secrets and instinct with concentrated power of the Mantra.

As part of the present Birth Centenary Commemoration, a new edition of his collected works is being brought out. Five Volumes are already published. Three more, containing his writings in Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu are under preparation. Seminars are being organised in which scholars from different parts of the country are going to participate highlighting Sastriar's many-sided contribution to world-thought.

Sastriar is not the last of the great Rishis of India. Others are bound to follow the trail blazed by him to discover new ones. His life has been a light of illumination; his writings carry a creative power which time cannot dim.