Editing Understanding Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa: Life and Commitment to Bhāratīya Languages

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| style="vertical-align:top; padding:4px 6px;" | Understanding Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa: Life and Commitment to Bhāratīya Languages
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{| id="pravaha-abstract" role="region" aria-label="Summary" class="bjs-abstract-panel" style="float:right; clear:right; width:300px; max-width:300px; box-sizing:border-box; margin:0 0 1em 1em; border:1px solid #d6a9bc; border-collapse:separate; border-spacing:0; background:#fff7fa; color:#202122;"
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! class="bjs-abstract-heading" style="padding:8px 12px; background:#efcddd; color:#202122; text-align:left; font-size:1.15em; font-weight:700;" | <span class="bjs-abstract-controls"><span class="bjs-abstract-open">[[#pravaha-abstract|+]]</span><span class="bjs-abstract-close">[[#mw-content-text|-]]</span><span>Summary</span></span>
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| style="padding:14px 16px; background:#fff7fa; text-align:left; line-height:1.65; overflow-wrap:anywhere;" | <div class="bjs-abstract-preview">Dr Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa lived a life advocating for the indigenous languages of Bhārata. A Telugu writer himself, he maintained consistent…</div><div class="bjs-abstract-full">Dr Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa lived a life advocating for the indigenous languages of Bhārata. A Telugu writer himself, he maintained consistent efforts to uplift the Telugu language. He lived at a time when the Western framework dominated over discourses. By making attempts to reunderstand Saṃskṛta literary concepts, he emphasised on the relevance of the traditional Bhāratīya literary concepts. He did not voice against English but raised objections against seeking validation from the Western countries and their thoughts. He continues to remind that Bhāratīya civilisation’s foundation is its languages from which cultures grow and interact.</div>
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<span id="introduction"></span>

= Introduction =

Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa was a great Telugu writer whose life emerged out of the fractured linguistic world that undermined Bhāratīya languages such as Telugu while advocating for English. Also known as Kavisamrāṭa, Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa was a rare combination of extraordinary scholarship and excellence in poetry. He was a poet, a novelist, short-story writer, lyricist, playwright, a critic and an orator [<nowiki/>[https://www.wisdomlib.org/history/compilation/triveni-journal/d/doc70081.html <u>1</u>]]. His was not a casual voice of anger but an interruption that many did not like.

He lived at a time when his contemporaries were interested in quoting Shelley, Keats, Eliot, Marx, Freud, and Russel but had no idea about Nannaya, Tikkana, Śrīnatha, Kālidāsa, Abhinavagupta, Mammaṭa or Ānandavardhana. A new trend emerged that sought validation from the English linguistic styles and guidelines. Validation mattered more than the content or its authenticity; therefore, literature, itihāsa, archives, folklore, and even heritage were admired only when they were validated by the West or translated into English by orientalists. It was this arrangement that Satyanārāyaṇa chose to reject.

<span id="purpose-and-scope"></span>

== Purpose and Scope ==


The article reflects on the life of Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa, a Telugu writer from the 20th century. His rejection of the Western standards of writing and advocating for the focus on indigenous languages such as Telugu established his fight for treating Telugu and other indigenous languages not as a secondary or a residue language. His life entailed consistent efforts without caring for the comments of his contemporaries and the Western elites. The article attempts to read his life and his efforts towards encouraging indigenous languages.

<span id="collapse-historical-background"></span>

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Awarded with the prestigious awards like the Jñānapīṭha award and Padmabhūṣaṇ, Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa chose to revisit the traditional Bhāratīya concepts of understanding literature. While his contemporaries chose to look at literature from the European lens, he asserted about rasa (aesthetic experience), aucitya (appropriateness), vakrokti (creative expression), dhvani (resonance), alaṅkāra (poetic devices), and chandas (meter), along with paurāṇika references, and aitihāsika perceptions. His understanding of kāvya had its root in Saṃskṛta assertions of kāvya. Satyanārāyaṇa did not reject English; as a post-graduate of arts, he was aware of all the branches of English literature. His fight was basically against seeking validation from the colonialists and against seeing indigenous traditions from the Western lens.

<span id="reunderstanding-saṃskṛta-literary-concepts"></span>

== Reunderstanding Saṃskṛta Literary Concepts ==


While the contemporaries portrayed Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa as old-fashioned, he brought forth the correct perspective of understanding concepts of Bhāratīya literature. He asserted that rasa was not a theory belonging to history; it was a way of understanding the evolution of emotions as they turn into an aesthetic experience. Likewise, dhvani was not merely an abstract idea. It was a theory involving meaning, suggestion, silence, and resonance. Dhvani carried much more than what words could express.

Vakrokti is the way of expressing creatively. In this regard, Dr. Satyanārāyaṇa stated that vakrokti was not merely an oblique expression, but a creative mode of conveying ideas, without reducing those ideas to emotionless statements. Similarly, aucitya dealt not only with etiquette or manners, but also with ensuring that character, situation, tone, and moral rhythm are in harmony with one another.

His assertions were questioned and he was looked upon as a comic figure by the English-educated middle class. He had the knowledge of meters, itihāsa, etymologies, genealogies, yet he was questioned for not having an understanding of modern science and political economy. He was often called a fossil. His memory, language and inheritance were rejected because he advocated for Bhāratīya intelligence, knowledge and thought.

<span id="his-efforts-for-telugu-literature"></span>

== His Efforts for Telugu Literature ==


Kavisamrāṭ Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa lived at a time when Telugu pride rose but the Telugu authority was falling. The Telugu middle class people celebrated the greatness of the language, celebrated the poets, organised for linguistic identity, yet failed to think in Telugu. This limited their scope of understanding their identity and left no way for enquiry for the Telugu speakers. Even the educational institutions lacked the approach to understand Telugu.

Satyanārāyaṇa aimed at not bringing back Telugu literature as it is. He chose to bring the traditions close to modernity. From novels, plays, stories, and essays to paurāṇika retellings and philosophical reflections, he carried modern and traditional aspects together. He wrote Vēyi Paḍagalu, where he brought forth a portrayal of the society. This text can also be called an encyclopedia of Āndhra culture [<nowiki/>[https://www.wisdomlib.org/history/compilation/triveni-journal/d/doc70081.html <u>1</u>]]. In Rāmāyaṇa Kalpavṛkṣamu, Satyanārāyaṇa does not just retell Vālmīki’s version in the traditional meter, he presents the epic for the Telugu readers, allowing it to enter Telugu soil and sensibility.

Rāmāyaṇa Kalpavṛkṣamu was not a mere translation of Rāmāyaṇa into Telugu language. Satyanārāyaṇa brought liveliness and natural elements into the text so that the readers could relate to it and find it meaningful. Śrī Rāma was not merely a character speaking in Telugu in this work but an innate part of Telugu culture. It therefore became easy to understand the epic's universal values. The universal element of the epic does not wipe out the local element, but it is only through the local that the universal element finds space to grow. Through this reinterpretation, Satyanārāyaṇa challenged the norms and conventions of reading the epic, thereby inviting ‘Teluguness’ to remain a part of the evolution.

<span id="literary-changes-during-the-reinterpretation-of-rāmāyaṇa"></span>

== Literary Changes during the Reinterpretation of Rāmāyaṇa ==


When Satyanārāyaṇa was writing the Rāmāyaṇa Kalpavṛkṣamu, a lot of changes were subtly taking place in the literary space. This was because people widely believed that literature needed to change in order to cater to the changing times. Poetry was distanced from meter, myth turned to realism, old forms were outdone and there was a need to replace them.

Eventually, prose, social critique, free verse, psychological exploration, urgency for revolution, and literature that was natural to the twentieth century became the guiding principles that led to the futuristic world. In such dynamic circumstances, Satyanārāyaṇa spent years composing and completing a six-volume Rāmāyaṇa in classical style. His was an act of provocation.

<span id="collapse-tradition-as-per-dr.-viśvanātha-satyanārāyaṇa"></span>

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<div class="pravaha-collapse-title"><span class="pravaha-collapse-open">[[#pravaha-collapse-2|+]]</span><span class="pravaha-collapse-close">[[#mw-content-text|-]]</span><span>Tradition as per Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa</span></div>
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The critics often questioned Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa as to why he was composing the Rāmāyaṇa now. His response ranged from a devastating ‘why not now?’ and sought answers about who had decided that the epic could not be modern, that meter was a prison, and that our legacy and itihāsa were inferior to the imported ideas. He questioned people for quoting and referring to Eliot and not Abhinavagupta. His questions in response revolved around the notions of literary freedom and literary amnesia.

His quarrel was not with English literature, but with the imitation of the foreign culture and foreign notions disguised as progress and advancement. He called upon educated minds to no longer seek validation from foreign culture and to recognise and respect one's own. By this time, the traditional grandmother's idiom, region's meters, metaphysics, oral and textual worlds, had all become a victim of suspicion and doubt.

<span id="understanding-traditions"></span>

== Understanding Traditions ==


For Satyanārāyaṇa, studying tradition was completely different from thinking about it. To him, studying traditions led to production of cultural commentary, while thinking about it broke open the chains of subjugation and thereby produced intellectual sovereignty. He wanted Telugu to carry śāstras and their essence. As the bearer of śāstra, Telugu would be able to make judgements, understand metaphysics, criticism, beauty and the world.

<span id="satyanārāyaṇas-case-of-rebellion"></span>

== Satyanārāyaṇa's Case of Rebellion ==


Satyanārāyaṇa's case of rebellion is rooted in the discomfort he produced. The literary space has witnessed rebellions at regular intervals. The breaking of meters, attacks on customs, mocking of devī-devatās, rights of workers and women, and social justice were some of the aims of the rebels.

But Satyanārāyaṇa chose to do something extraordinary. He rebelled against the contemporary rebellions. He asserted that the said freedom was another form of servitude. In his rebellion, he questioned whether rejecting tradition was an act of courage or a submission to the new trend.

<span id="collapse-relevance-in-contemporary-times"></span>

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In a time when Bhāratīya languages are praised but their roots are weakened, there comes a need to rethink. When Bhāratīya languages are termed rich, this richness becomes a consolation because people are not allowed to think in these languages.

When parents choose an English school for their children, they choose an English medium of imagination. Even when colonial power no longer exists, English as a medium of imagination continues to exist. When a young student can easily relate to trauma, capitalism, and identity in English but fails to write a page of reflection as prose in the language of his/her family, there emerges a need to rethink.

Satyanārāyaṇa places a reminder that a language dies when people stop trusting it to express depth and complexity, and not when people stop speaking it. Even though the jokes, songs, slogans, domestic communication, and cinema may employ the use of language, its sovereignty may still be lost. Millions of speakers of a language fail to stop the language from losing its essence at the most crucial time. Despite having epics, grammar, vocabularies, folk forms, and fiction, a language may still be deemed unfit for theory.

To solve this problem, Satyanārāyaṇa urges that the Bhāratīya languages ought not to choose between the past and present, but rather carry both together. Bhāratīya languages have the ability to carry village and university, purāṇa and novel, meter and modern crisis, idiom and cosmic question, at the same time. And not only can they carry emotions but also jñāna.

A rejection of English is not the solution. Whether the English language should be a measure of jñāna and intelligence is the real question. Bhāratīya languages should become languages of thought and not merely languages asserting belongingness.

<span id="conclusion"></span>

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= Conclusion =

Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa's assertions are symbolic of the confidence in presenting one's tradition as a living discipline of form, argument, memory and even renewal. He did not simply present language, Telugu in particular, as a means of comfort, but as a responsibility.

He presents through his efforts that to save a language, affection alone is not sufficient. Its use, difficulty, scholarship, experiment, pride, and even criticism is as important. When children are made to understand that their mother language is not inferior to any other foreign language, a language is saved. When epics are recreated by novelists, when poets question the philosophers, when wisdom and the wise are not reduced to fossils, language tends to get saved. It is when a civilisation’s consciousness realises that becoming a footnote in another language’s textbook is of no use to the civilisation, that a language tends to get empowered with time.

<span id="references"></span>

= References: =

<ol style="list-style-type: decimal;">

<li><blockquote><p>www.wisdomlib.org. (2022, March 17). ''Dr. Viśvanātha Satyanārāyaṇa’s Literary Eminence''. [https://www.wisdomlib.org/history/compilation/triveni-journal/d/doc70081.html <u>https://www.wisdomlib.org/history/compilation/triveni-journal/d/doc70081.html</u>]</p></blockquote></li></ol>


* Srimadramayana Kalpavrukshamu Sundarakandamu by Sri. Viswanath Satyanarayana in Telugu : Sri. Viswanath Satyanarayana : Free download, borrow, and streaming : Internet Archive. (1992). Internet Archive. [https://archive.org/details/srimadramayana-kalpavrukshamu-sundarakandamu-by-sri-viswanath-satyanarayana-in-telugu <u>https://archive.org/details/srimadramayana-kalpavrukshamu-sundarakandamu-by-sri-viswanath-satyanarayana-in-telugu</u>]



== Original Article Information ==

* '''Original Article Link:''' https://www.brhat.in/dhiti/the-last-pandit-in-a-modern-classroom-reading-viswanatha-satyanarayana
* '''Original Article Details:''' A portrait of Vishwanatha Satyanarayana, the Telugu giant who refused to let English education decide what counted as modern literature.