Sahitya Kutuhala: Almost century old book in Sanskrit using Malayalam script; Cover page in English shows my great-grandfather R. Narayana Sastri as Editor and A.R. Rajaraja Varma as author

Last minor update on 16 Apr 2023

The book is titled Sahitya Kutuhala (translated by the author Rajaraja Varma in the English Preface to "Exercises in Poetry"). With an elder's great and persistent effort, a copy of the book was located in Kerala, and a xerox copy of it was made and sent to me by post. Note that this book is out of print now and it does not seem to be included in the book of complete works of A.R. Rajaraja Varma which is available for purchase now, and seems to be in print. So the only way to get the Sahitya Kutuhala book is by visiting libraries and other institutions that have an old copy of the book.

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The xerox copy of Sahitya Kutuhala, in its cover page shown in above pic, has clear printing of:

"Edited with short notes"

"BY"

"R. NARAYANA SASTRIAL"

"Sanskrit assistant, College, Trivandrum"

R. NARAYANA SASTRIAL  (Sastrial name seems to be a variation of Sastrikal or Sastri) refers to Thuravoor Narayana Sastrikal (Sastrigal) my great-grandfather (referred to below as TNS).

That makes it a valuable heirloom for me, and for any other interested TNS descendants.

It is the only book (or even article) we have, where TNS name appears on the cover page even if not as author but as editor. The date of publication is 1925 (Malayalam Era 1100). That is almost a century back! Seeing a xerox copy of the cover page of a book of nearly a century back with name of my great-grandfather on it, has been truly an awesome experience.

A.R. Rajaraja Varma (ARRV) had passed away (in 1918, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._R._Raja_Raja_Varma ) before the book's publication date of 1925. While TNS did outlive ARRV, was TNS alive in 1925 when the book was (first) published? We don't know.

The Preface (in English) is credited to "The Writer". Naturally one presumes that is ARRV. But ARRV was not alive in 1925! Had ARRV worked along with TNS on preparing the manuscript for this book before his death in 1918, which was used after his death by his heirs (children, siblings?) to publish this book with ARRV as author and TNS as editor? That probably was the case.

Given below are pics of the two Preface pages:

The designation of TNS as "Sanskrit assistant, College, Trivandrum" is a bit of a put-down but I have to accept the reality that while TNS was shown as "Headmaster" of Sanskrit Paatashaala in Travancore Almanac and Directory of 1911, at the time of writing/compiling this book, his designation seems to have been "Sanskrit assistant" (or it was his last designation before retirement).

The preface mentions "... when so competent a scholar as Mr. Narayana Sastrial, late of the local Sanskrit College, offered to undertake the whole responsibility of making a selection and the editorship, ..."

The words "late of the local Sanskrit College" implies that TNS had retired from (left the services of) the Maharaja's college at that time. Perhaps his last official designation at the Maharaja's college when he retired was "Sanskrit assistant".

Coming from a traditional Sanskrit paatashaala background, TNS seems to have lacked academic qualifications of European standards, and so would not have been given a more fitting designation like that of Sanskrit teacher or Sanskrit pandit/pundit in the College.

The book is in Malayalam though the poems are, I think, Sanskrit poems written in Malayalam script.  A pic of the Sanskrit in Malayalam script title page of the book is given below.

The “1100” text above is the publication date in Malayalam Era. 825 has to be added to it to get our Common Era. That comes to 1925 which is the year of publication of this book.

Shri D.K.M. Kartha (Karthaji) kindly provided the conversion of above page contents to Sanskrit language using Devanagari script, and later its translation to English, which are given below.

ह्रीं

साहित्य कुतूहलं

कतिपय लघु काव्य संग्रह रूपकं

------------------------------

अनन्त शयनस्थ प्रधान राजकीय पाठालय देश्यभाषाध्यक्षेण

एम. ए., एम. आर. ए. एस. बिरुदधारिणा

अ. रा. राजराज वर्मणा

प्रणीतं

------------------------------------------------------

तत्रैव पाठालये संस्कृताध्यपनसहकारिणा

रा. नारायण शास्त्रिणा

टिप्पणैः  सनाथीकृत्य प्रसाधितम्

अनन्तशयनस्थ

कमलालय मुद्रालये मुद्रिता

1100

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HReem

sAhitya kutoohalam

In the form of a collection of the summaries of a few light poems

------------------------------

Trivandrum's Chief Royal College Regional Language Department Chairman

Having the degrees of M.A. and M.R.A.S

A.R. Rajaravarma

Written by

------------------------------------------------------

In the same College, by the Sanskrit Teaching Assistant

by R. Narayana Shastri

edited with a Tippani (Notes) that makes the work fully accessible

Trivandrum based

 Printed in the Kamalayala Printing House.

1100

---------------------------------------- End of title page English translation -------------------------------

What exactly is TNS contribution to the book?

TNS work in the book, as per ARRV preface, was selection of poems and editorship, and the cover page adds "short notes" to editor role of TNS. 

There is no introduction in the book. The main content of the book starts immediately after the preface.

The "short notes" contributed by TNS seem to be the footnotes provided in some of the pages of the main content of the book. These pages have ARRV’s prose or poetry Sanskrit text (in Malayalam script) followed by a separator and then TNS’ notes (in smaller font usually) also in Malayalam script (and possibly Sanskrit text). Shown below is a picture of one the pages of the book with red arrow and label box showing the “short notes” part of TNS (R. Narayana Sastrial) at the bottom of the page which is separated by a horizontal line from the main prose contents by ARRV (A.R. Rajaraja Varma) on the page.

What exactly was the editorship that TNS did cannot be known from the book. Perhaps he modified some of the prose or poetry text of ARRV in this book. 

It is the footnotes that are clearly attributed or credited to TNS. So these footnotes become very valuable to TNS descendants and others interested in TNS.

[I thank the publisher and author of Sahitya Kutuhala, and have presumed that they (and their heirs) will not have any objections to me sharing the above pics of Sahitya Kutuhala on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]