Dictionary of Proper Names
Selected from Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works (1989/1996)
L
Lacedaemon Laconia in Peloponnesus, of which Sparta was the capital.
Lachhima queen of king Shiva Singh Rupnaraian in the songs of Vidyāpati.
Lady of Shallot poem by Tennyson.
Lady of the Lake Vivian, mistress of Merlin (a magician & seer, helper of King Arthur), she lived in a castle surrounded by a lake.
Laertes king of Ithaca & father of Odysseus.
La・/ Lais Sicilian courtesan, taken to Corinth in the Athenian expedition to Sicily.
Lajpat (Rai) Lālā Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), ‘Punjab-Kesari’ or ‘Sher-e-Punjab’, outspoken in his advocacy of anti-British nationalism in the Congress party. He was a lawyer by profession & an Arya Samajist. He became with Tilak & Pal the symbol of the Nationalist Party called therefore the party of Lal-Bal-Pal’. Lajpat Rai was deported to Mandalay (Burma) without trial in May 1907. In November, however, he was allowed to return due to insufficient evidence to hold him for subversion. That year, he refused to be a candidate for the Nationalist Party’s decision to propose him as president of the Surat Congress – a crucial turning-point in the independence movement. In 1914 he went to the USA & returned after the War. He joined the Swaraj Party of C.R. Das & Motilal Nehru & presided over the special session of the Congress held at Calcutta in 1920. “On 5 January 1925,” writes A.B. Purani, “Lālā Lajpat Rai came with Dr. Nihālchand, Krishna Das, & Purushottamdas Tandon, to meet Sri Aurobindo. Lajpat Rai & Sri Aurobindo met privately for about 45 minutes; the rest of the company waited outside. From their faces when they came out, it seemed both of them had agreed on many points.” In 1927, the 4th Reprint of Lajpat Rai’s book, Young India was published at Lahore by Jagan Nath of Servants of the People Society. Lajpat Rai died on 17 November 1928 from injuries sustained during the lāthi charge by police on a procession led by him at Lahore on 20 October in protest against the arrival of the Simon Commission. His murder was avenged by Bhagat Singh & his band of freedom fighters.
Lakshmibai (1835-58), the Rani of Jhansi, played a prominent role in the first war of independence & fought alongside the Maratha general Tātyā Tope in capturing Gwalior (1857). General Hugh Rose cornered her & Tātyā at Morar & Kotāh; on 17th June 1858, she died fighting alongside them. “While reviewing the book on the Life of Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi by Parasnis published early in 1895, on 7th May, Tilak reminded his readers that they should not, following English historians, condemn the uprising of 1857 as a mutiny & denounce its leaders as rebels. While suggesting the Rani’s resemblance to Joan of Arc, he maintained that the Queen’s Proclamation, which recognised the native rulers’ right of adoption, indirectly justified what the Rani had fought for & died for.” [Karandikar: 122]
Lamb Charles (1775-1834), English writer known for his Essays of Elia.
Lamia poem by Keats in which Lamia is a witch destroyed by the sage Apollonius.
Lamprecht, Karl Gottfried (1856-1915), German historian, the first to put forward a psychological theory of history & social development which departed from Europe’s materialistic-economic conception of history & social development dominated by the ideas of its scientific materialism, esp. Marx’s socio-historical materialism. But Lamprecht’s theory was too rigid in its analysis & classification of social phenomena to explain the inner meaning of the phases, the necessity of their succession, their term, & the end to which they drive, thus failing to illumine “the thickly veiled secret of our historical evolution”. [Vide “Social Progress & stages of Social Evolution”, Kishore Gandhi, Mother India, Dec., 2015, pp.973-74]
Landor Walter Savage (1775-1864), English author & poet.
Lord Lansdowne Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice (1845-1927): Under Secretary for War 1872-4, for India 1880: Viceroy & Gov.-General of India 1888-94: reconstituted the Legislative Councils, giving its Indian members the right only to wax eloquent financial legislation: instituted an Act to protect only English girls: revised the Factory Act to benefit only the Europeans: sanctioned more powers to the Police to harass native people & princes: opened an Imperial Library & Record Office: suspended of the Presidential Army system: closed Govt. mints to native princes for free coinage of silver: punished the Prince of Manipur on pretext of having conspired to murder British officers there: extended railways & irrigation works to benefit faster movement & convenience of his officials, armies, & police: invented “spheres of influence” on the frontiers by coercing the Emir of Afghānistān to accept a boundary advantageous to the British: on return to England made Secretary of War 1895-1900 & Foreign Secretary from 1900 [Buckland deloused].
Laocoon Trojan prince, brother of Anchises & priest of Apollo or Poseidon.
Laodamia poem by Wordsworth.
Laomedon king of Troy, father of Priam. He employed Apollo & Poseidon to build the walls of Troy, but cheated them on their payment, so Poseidon sent a sea monster to ravage the land. Heracles killed the monster, but he too was refused the promised reward, so he attacked Troy & slew Laomedon & all his sons except Priam. Laomedon’s grave lay over Troy’s Scaean Gate which, when opened, signified war.
LaoTse Lao-Tse/ Lao-tzu (Lao=old), founder of Taoism. He, like Confucius, simply laid down a system of moral & social behaviour.
Lares originally Roman deities of cultivated fields worshipped at crossroads. Over time they became both household gods, worshipped as centre of family cult, as well was Gods of the national religion who protected the country against its enemies.
Larissa Larissa Cremaste, an ancient town in Phthia said to be the home of Achilles.
The Lark Ascending poem by George Meredith.
Latona Roman form of the Greek Leto (q.v.)
Lawrence, D.H. David Herbert (1885-1930), English short-story writer, poet, essayist, & one of the most inspired novelists of his times. He attempted to express the deep natural & instinctive forces in men & women by writing symbolically or explicitly of ‘primitive’ peoples & the primitive passions in ‘civilised’ individuals.
Lays Lays of Ancient Rome, a book of poems by T.B. Macaulay (q.v.).
Leadbeater Charles Webster (1847-1934), a Church of England clergyman who became a leading figure in Theosophical Society & right-hand man of Mrs Besant.
Leakat Hussain, Maulvi/ Liakat (Hossain) (b.1852) prominent political figure of Bengal; foremost among Muslim leaders antagonistic to the British Divide & Rule. Active in the agitation against the partition of Bengal, he mobilised Muslim opinion in favour of Swadeshi. In 1912 he was convicted of sedition at Barisal & sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. In 1916 he founded & became president of Bharat Hitaishi Sabhā to help the needy of any religion, caste, or creed.
Lecky William E. Hartpole (1838-1903), British historian of rationalism & morals.
Leconte de Lisle Charles-Marie-René (1818-94), French poet, leader of the Parnassians; acknowledged as the foremost French poet (1865-95) apart from Hugo.
Lee-Warner Sir William (1846-1914): joined ICS 1869: acting Director of Public Instruction, Bombay, 1885: Political Agent in Kolhapur, 1886: Secretary of the Political, Judicial, & Educational Departments of Bombay, 1887-93: Additional Member Gov.-General’s Legislative Council: Chief Commissioner of Coorg & Resident of Mysore Feb-Sep 1895: Secretary in Political Dept. at India Office, 1895-1902; Member of the Council of India, 1902-12; wrote The Protected Princes of India, & The Marquis Dalhousie, 1904. [Buckland]
Legende des Siecles collection (1859) of metaphysical epics by Victor Hugo.
Leigh, Austen Provost, King’s College, Cambridge, 1889 to 1905.
Lele (1) Vishnu Bhāskara Lele (1876-1938) a Mahārāshtrian yogi under whose guidance Sri Aurobindo achieved complete silence of the mind & immobility of the whole consciousness in three days’ time, probably during the first week of January 1908. Barindra Kumar, Sri Aurobindo’s younger brother, called Lele to Baroda for this purpose. Lele was by profession a clerk. He had practised a certain form of Bhakti-yoga, & had achieved some realisation. [See SABCL 24: 1258; 26:83-84] In February 1908 Lele came to Calcutta, where he again met Sri Aurobindo. Abinash Bhattacharya: “Vishnu Bhāskara Lele came to our house with one of his disciples. The practice of yoga increased noticeably after his coming. Aurobindo-babu normally ate rice & dal with us, but after Lele’s arrival he just took a boiled potato or a boiled plantain with a small portion of rice. I conferred with Baudi (Mrinālini Devi) & arranged to have some ghee put in his rice.” [“Sri Aurobindo” in Mother India, July 2012, pp.528-39] At this time the guru-disciple relationship – if it may be so called – between Sri Aurobindo & Lele came to an end. Afterwards Lele went to Deoghar to give initiation & yogic training to Barin’s associates in revolutionary work. When he came to know that they had accepted the cult of the bomb, he declined to initiate them saying that yoga & terrorism could not go together. He warned them of the dangers of the method, & foretold that India would attain freedom without bloodshed. (2) A Mahārāshtrian who translated Mahābhārata or part of it. (3) Balkrishna Lele invented by Madras Times in an issue of 1911 as agent of Mr Tilak sent to Pondicherry to spread anarchy. The Hindu published Sri Aurobindo’s refutation of this fabrication.
Lemaire Jean (b.1856), French politician, the Governor of Pondicherry (1904), a member (for Pondicherry) of Lower Chamber of France (1906).
Lemnian of Lemnos, an island in the northeast Aegean Sea just west of the ancient city of Troy, from where the archer Philoctetes was brought late in the Trojan War.
Lemuria hypothetical prehistoric continent in the Indian Ocean invented by P.L. Sclator as home of the lemur (a monkey-like animal); he claimed it had stretched from the Malaya Archipelago across the south coast of Asia to Madagascar.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian painter, sculptor, architect & engineer. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry into the workings of the human body & physical & natural laws as well as a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time. A manuscript of his notebooks depicting submarines, steam engines & snorkels, sold for $30.8 million in Dec. 1994. [The Indian Express, 17 Dec. 1994, p.6]
Leopardi Giacomo (1798-1837), Italian poet, scholar, & philosopher.
Lesbia used by Roman poet Catullus in his most memorable poems to address his beloved, probably Claudia. The name recalls Sappho of Lesbos.
Lethebridge, Sir Roper (1840-1919): called to the bar at Inner Temple 1880: in the Bengal Educational Dept. 1868-76: Fellow of Calcutta University: editor Calcutta Review 1871-8: joined Political Dept. & appointed Press Commissioner of Govt. of India 1877-80: wrote Golden Book of India & History of India. [Buckland]
Lethe the river in Hades that produces forgetfulness. Both the dead, upon arrival there, & the reincarnating souls, going to the world of the living, drank from her.
Leto loved by Zeus, whose queen Hera sent Python (see Pythoness) to persecute her during her pregnancy. Leto wandered about the earth until Zeus fastened the island of Delos to the bottom of the sea for her; there she gave birth to Apollo & Artemis.
Letters of D.H. Lawrence (1932) edited by Aldous Huxley.
Levi/Levite Levi was the 3rd son of Jacob & his first wife, Leah. He was the ancestor of the Levites, the Jewish priestly class. In Apostle St Luke’s Gospel (10:32) a Levite, being Jewish, ignored a sick man but a Good Samaritan, being Christian, nursed him.
Libanius with Themistius, leading educationist of Greece. Libanius was a famous rhetorician who conducted a school in his native Antioch.
Liberator journal edited & published from Paris by Edward Holton James. More than half of its inaugural issue (c.1910) was devoted to India. Shyamji Krishnavarma (q.v.) applauded Mr James’ writings & activities in his Indian Sociologist.
Light a lyric written by Sri Aurobindo in 1882 published by Manchester’s Fox’s Weekly in its first issue, 11 January 1883. A perfect gentleman, decades later he laughed away the metre of this poem as “an awful imitation” of Shelley’s “Cloud”. In 1879-83, Sri Aurobindo & his brothers were wards of Mr & Mrs Drewett. During his spare time from being tutored by the Drewetts, Sri Aurobindo developed an affinity with literature & poetry acquiring an intimacy with Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare. Shelley’s Revolt of Islam (q.v.) became a great favourite & he read it again & again. By 1881, he would write later, he had already received strongly the impression that a period of general upheaval & great revolutionary changes was coming in the world & he was destined to play a part in it [SABCL 26:4; s/a St. Paul’s School]. Shelley’s real education, say his biographers, “came from reading & from the exercise of his imagination” & his tussle against society came from a conviction that “man’s degradation came about by priest-craft, monarchy & commerce”. Auro’s two years in Himalaya’s divine beauty had cast deep roots of poetic sense & feeling, & his wide & intense reading in Manchester, filled him with soaring thoughts & aspirations. While the imagery of his Light is Biblical thanks to the doses of Christianity at Loreto in Darjeeling & at the Drewetts’, Auro’s personal contact with Christianity (like Shelley’s), was of a nature to repel rather than attract, & the sordid commerce in the white man’s smog-wrapped Manchester had ignited a strong urge in his wide-awake soul for the liberty-giving true Light. The sonnet he wrote on 3-4 October 1939, when Nazism menaced the world, invokes the same Light: “Light, endless… timeless… immutable… burning… leaping… brooding… stupendous… joining my depths to His eternal height.” And it was that Light he referred to in his message to his countrymen in 1948, “the Light which led us to freedom…the Power that brought us through…will bring us unity. A free & united India will be there & the Mother will gather around her sons & weld them into a single national strength” [s/a ‘Sons of Light’ in Buddha, Constantine, & Islam]
Light Punjabi Moderate journal which in August 1906 published an open secret of the INC stalwarts confirming Sri Aurobindo’s New Lamps for Old: “What the most ambitious of Indians have dared to hope for is that a day may come, may be a century hence, when in the domestic affairs of their country they will enjoy some measure of freedom from autocratic rule.” [S/a Ghosh, Rash Behari for his assertion as president 1908 INC]
Light Brigade The allusion is to an English cavalry brigade in the Crimean War, whose heroism was made famous by Tennyson in his poem The Charge of the Light Brigade (1855) written as part of his duties as poet laureate. The countless accounts of spectacular bravery, self-sacrifice of steadfast soldiers, of the fearless officers, of the asinine blunders of the commanders in the field & of the shameful recriminations that followed apart, the most crucial aspect of that war was the courage of Florence Nightingale & her brave band of nurses who went into the battlefield to nurse the dying & wounded regardless of which side they had belonged to – a first in the history of European wars laying the foundation-stone on which would come up the ambulance brigades of every Army in the world & the International Red Cross.
Limber Horses poem in The New Statesman& the Nation, perhaps in 1932.
Listeners poem by Walter de la Mare.
Literary History of India by Robert Watson Frazer [cf. History of Indian Literature]
Little Brothers of the Poor an association of Barisal Brajamohan College, Bengal, started by Aswini Kumar Dutt; it inspired the Swadesh Bāndhab Samiti.
Livy one of the three great Roman historians (other two were Sallust & Tacitus). He wrote a history of Rome, a classic in his own lifetime, & exercised a profound influence on the style & philosophy of historical writing down to 18th cent.
Lloyd George David (1863-1945), 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, British prime minister (1916-22), who dominated the British political scene in the latter part of World War I & in the post-war period & laid the foundations for the modern welfare state. Having a long parliamentary career (1890-1922), he resigned from political life in 1922 during the English-Turkish crisis & thenceforth suffered criticism from both the Liberals & the Conservatives.
Locke, John (1632-1704) laid the epistemological foundations of modern science.
Lodge, Sir Oliver Sir Oliver Joseph (1851-1940), English physicist. After 1910 he became prominent in psychic research, believing strongly in the possibility of communicating with the dead. He was involved in a serious endeavour to reconcile science & religion.
Lokarahasya collection of 18 articles by Bankim Chandra in his Bangadarshan.
Lolita Lalita (1) an apsarā of Swarga; (2) a companion of Radha in Vrindāvana.
Lomaharshana father of Suta (q.v.) & member of the court of Yudhishthira. He was the first who first chanted the Puranas.
Lombardy region of northern Italy, extending from the Swiss border to the Po & from the Ticino to the Minico River. Lombards were an ancient Germanic people settled along the lower Elbe in 1st century who, in 568, conquered northern Italy. Lombardy was under Austrian rule in 1713-96.
(London) Times The Times of London, started by John Walter in 1785 under the name Daily Universal Register, & designated The Times in 1788. In 1906 the control of the paper was secured by Alfred Harmsworth (see Harmsworth Trust).
Longfellow Henry Wadsworth (1807-82), a popular of American poet, a professor of modern languages, having command of some ten languages.
Lopamudrā the sage Agastya created her from the most graceful parts of different animals (the eyes of a deer etc.) & secretly introduced her into the palace of the king of Vidarbha, where she was believed to be the daughter of the king. Agastya had made this girl with the object of having a wife after his own heart. When she was marriageable, he demanded her hand, & the king was obliged to yield.
Lorenzo di Medici Lorenzo il Magnifico (1449-92), Italian merchant, politician, patron of arts & literature, a reputable scholar & poet, & virtual ruler of Florence.
Loti, Pierre pen-name of Louis-Marie-Julien Viauc (1850-1923) whose novels were popular due to their accurate & exotic descriptions, & Romantic pessimism.
Lotus-Eaters a poem by Tennyson that first came out in 1832.
Louis IX (1214-70), King of France (1226-70), canonized as St. Louis. The most popular of the Capetian monarchs of medieval history, in 1248 he led the Sixth Crusade to the Holy Land. In 1270 he embarked on another crusade to Tunisia, where he died. Louis XII (1462-1515), King of France (1498-1515) noted for his disastrous Italian wars & his domestic popularity. Louis XIII (1601-43), King of France (1610-43). Louis XIV (1638-1715), King of France (1643-1715). His reign marked the apogee of the monarchical idea & a golden age for the arts, which earned him the name of the Sun King. His reign was characterised by the phrase “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the State”). Louis XVI (1754-93), King of France from 1774, failed to provide the strong government France needed in that critical time.
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, or Napoleon III (1808-73), Emperor of France (1852-70) who gave France two decades of prosperity & revived its prestige in Europe, but was defeated in the Franco-German War (1870-71).
Lowes, Livingstone wrote Convention & Revolt in Poetry, & The Road to Xanadu.
Loxias epithet of Apollo as interpreter of Zeus’ will.
Loyola Saint Ignatius (1491-1556) of Spain; an influential figure in the Counter-Reformation of the 16th century, the founder of the Society of Jesus (see Jesuits).
Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39-65), Latin poet; a Republican patriot who was forced to kill himself when his part in a plot against Emperor Nero was discovered.
Lucifer originally the planet Venus as the morning star, personified as a male figure bearing a torch – Latin lucifer (lux, light; ferro, to bear) means bearer of light. He had almost no legends, but in poetry he was often herald of Dawn. In Christian times Lucifer came to be regarded as the name of Satan before his fall. In 2001 a Christian novelist described Lucifer’s advice thus: “2000 years ago, God sent down his first son. He was good man who preached compassion & forgiveness – he even died on the cross for humanity to teach you the true way of God. But it didn’t work. Religions fought with each other over their interpretation of Christ’s teachings. They got in the way of faith. It no longer became an issue of free will but of power & guilt. Where’s the free will in a priest saying, ‘Do what I tell you to do or you’ll go to Hell?’.... But God doesn’t want vast churches & adoration. He wants you to come of age & no longer need Him. That’s what his first son tried to explain. Living a good life is its own reward – at death each individual will experience his own soul truth. But no one listened. So He sent down a second son, a darker son, Me. Not to preach good & kindness this time, but to prove once for all that God doesn’t exist. Only then could mankind outgrow the shackles of religions & develop its own sense of right & wrong – true free will.” [M. Cordy, Lucifer, 2001:425-26]
Lucifer Lucifer in Starlight, a sonnet by George Meredith.
Lucknow an important city of U.P., on the River Gomati, is the capital of the state of Uttar Pradesh, formerly known as the United Provinces of Agra & Awadh. It was the venue the Annual Congress Sessions in 1899 presided over by Romesh C. Dutt that dared enunciate its fundamental policy & approve a Constitution with an objective which briefly announced “The promotion by constitutional means of the interest & the well-being of the people of the Indian Empire.” Since 1913 the Congress & the Muslim League had been working precisely on a Hindu-Muslim Pact to unite “the interest & the well-being of the people of the Indian Empire”.
The 1916 Lucknow Pact: Morley-Minto Reforms or Council Act of 1909 included separate electorates for Muslims. This communal inequity was deepened by the Lucknow Pact. The first act of Chelmsford who succeeded Hardinge as Viceroy (writes Durga Das) in 1916 was to whittle down Hardinge’s offer of self-government as the goal of reforms, then warned the only Indian Member of his Executive Council, Sir C. Sankaran Nair in charge of the Dept. of Education, Health & Land Revenue that India had no right to demand reforms on the principle of Self-Determination then prevailing on the international scene but only on her loyalty to Britain. In support of Nair, Bhupendranath Basu & Narasimha Sarma (who would succeed Nair) drew up a Memorandum which Jinnah & other Indian members elected to the Imperial Legislative Council (nineteen in all) endorsed. The Memo’s principal demands (while forced to concede the principle of communal electorates) were: (a) a substantial majority of elected member in all legislatures in the country, (b) power over money bills, fiscal autonomy, (c) an equal number of Europeans & Indians all Executive Councils & (d) the abolition of the Secretary of State’s showpiece India Council. The Memo formed the basis of the Lucknow Pact between the Congress & the Muslim League. ― “The Hindu-Muslim Concordat & the Lucknow Pact,” writes Congress historian Sitāramayyā, “were the off-springs of the seed sown at the 1913 Congress presided over by Nawab Naba Syed Mahmud of Madras.” That year Jinnah joined the League, thus becoming a member of both parties. The Mar.’15 Congress Session was the first time League members attended its session “in one body”. In Nov.’15, with Gokhale dead & Mehta dying, Sir S.P. Sinha, D.E. Wacha, S.N. Bannerjea, Mrs Besant, Mrs Naidu, Malaviya, Gandhi, R.N. Mudholkar & B.G. Horniman attended the League’s Session as Guests. In Apr’16, preliminaries of the Concordat were drafted by League & Congress Executives at Motilal Nehru’s residence,
almost hammered out in Oct. at Calcutta, & finalised in December just before their Lucknow Sessions. The Concordat’s central article was: One-third of the elected members to the Imperial Legislative Councils will be Muslims elected through separate electorates. ― Tilak & his party were admitted to INC only in Jan.’16. Tilak started the Home Rule League on April 23, 1916 (writes Ramana Rao) & raised the cry of Home Rule for India. He preached & persuaded students to join the Defence Force. The Govt. thought this was a move to sabotage the army. His entry into Punjab & Delhi was prohibited. He was asked to be bound over for good behaviour for one year by demanding a security of Rs. 20,000/-. The High Court reversed the order of the District Magistrate. Tilak’s popularity was already at its height and this incident raised it further. He was the recipient of ovations and purses wherever he went. On his completion of 60 years (1916) he was presented a purse of one lakh rupees. It was only at the Dec.1916 Lucknow session that Tilak came to know details of the Calcutta Concordat, & assumed that the resulting Pact would ensure that all future political undertakings will be a joint League-Congress affair (see how Gandhi dealt with the Home Rulers in Khilafat Agitation). It was on the basis of this assumption that he proposed a nation-wide demand for Home Rule as was most likely to succeed in the world-wide agitation for self-determination. It was this assumption of his that Sri Aurobindo called his greatest blunder [See Nirodbaran’s Talks with Sri A]. ― In his speech as the Session’s President Ambika Charan Majumdar (q.v.) declared: “Call it Home Rule, call it self-rule, call it Swaraj...it is representative government..... Here are our demands which, God willing, are bound to be fulfilled at no distant date. India must cease to be a dependency & be raised to the status of a self-governing state as an equal partner with equal rights & responsibilities as an independent unit of the Empire.…. In any scheme of readjustment after the war, India should have a fair representation in the Federal Council like the colonies of the Empire. India must be governed from Delhi & Shimla & not from Whitehall or Downing Street…. The Council of the Secretary of State should be either abolished or its constitution so modified as to admit of substantial Indian representation on it. Of the two Under-Secretaries of State for India one should be an Indian & the salaries of the Secretary of State should be placed on the British estimates as in the case of the Secretary for the Colonies…. The Secretary of State for India should, however, have no more powers over the Government of India than those exercised by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the case of the Dominions. India must have complete autonomy, financial, legislative as well as administrative.…. The Government of India is the most vital point in the proposed reforms. It is the fountain head of all local administrations & unless we can ensure its progressive character any effective reform of the local Governments would be impossible. For this the services must be completely separated from the State & no member of any service should be a member of Government.” [Dict. of National Biography, Ed. S.P. Sen; Institute of Historical Studies, Calcutta, 1972-74]. INC adopted the Pact that 29th & that League on 31st. Consequently the British Govt. incorporated it en bloc in its Act of 1919 only to find INC rejecting the Act but not the Pact at Amritsar (q.v.)! [Based on A Short History of the INC, M.V. Ramana Rao, 1959; History of the INC, P. Sitāramayyā, 1935/1946; Md. Ali Jinnah (A Political Study), Matlubul Hasan Sayyid, Lahore, 1945; Gokhale: The Indian Moderates & the British Raj, B.R. Nanda, OUP, Delhi, 1979; Lōkamānya B.G. Tilak, Karandikar, 1957; Durga Das, India-From Curzon to Nehru & After, London, 1969; CWSA 36:234-35; 255-57]
Lucrece The Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare’s poem dedicated to Henry Wriothesley.
Lucretius (1) (c.99-55 BC), Latin poet & philosopher whose De Rerum Natura sets arguments based on philosophies of Democritus & Epicurus. (2) Central figure in Tennyson’s Luctretius (1868).
Ludwig (1) Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (1825-48), patron of the arts, who transformed Munich into the artistic centre of Germany. (2) Ludwig II, (1864-86), a patron of Wagner, was talented, liberal, romantic, & eccentric. He died insane.
Lule Burgas See Abdulla Pacha
Luther, Martin (1483-1546) German biblical scholar, linguist, founder of Protestant Reformation. His socio-religious concepts laid a new basis for German society.
Lyceum Club created by Aristotle in a grove sacred to Apollo Lyceius.
Lycia a hilly coastal region of Caria (q.v.). Sarpedon led the Lycians in Trojan War.
Lycidas pastoral elegy by John Milton.
Lycomedes king of Scyros; in his court Achilles was sent by his mother Thetis to hide to prevent his being of slain in Trojan War as ordained by the gods. Odysseus found & enlisted him in the Greek armies against Troy.
Lycurgus reformer of Sparta’s constitution, govt., & social system, to establish a machine of war which would preclude trouble from the helots & other slaves.
Lyrical Ballads a collection of poems by Wordsworth & Coleridge.
Lysander (d.395 BC), military & political leader: won the final victory for Sparta in the Peloponnesian War & wielded great power throughout Greece at its close.