Dictionary of Proper Names
Selected from Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works (1989/1996)
T
Tacitus Cornelius (c.56-c.120), Roman orator, historian, & prose stylists in Latin.
Tagore, Abanindranath (1871-1951): son of Gunendranath, great-grandson of Dwarakānath. Artist & litterateur, he re-established the old Indian system of art & painting in the esteem of the world. He inspired a number of other Indian artists including Nandalal Bose (q.v.). He was the founder of the Indian Society of Oriental Art. Earlier, he had been a colleague of Havell in the Govt. School of Art in Calcutta.
Tagore, Debendranath (1817-1905) eldest son of Dwārkā Nath Tagore & father of Rabindranath. In 1839, he founded the Tattwabodhini Sabhā & joined Rammohan Roy’s Brahma Sabhā or Samāj in 1843. He framed a covenant & introduced a formal ceremony of initiation based on Mahānirvāṇa Tantra, & propagated the new doctrine through his journal Tattwabodhini Patrikā which openly declared the Vedas as a divine revelation & the sole foundation of the new Church. The younger section among the followers of this new movement showed a critical attitude towards the doctrine of the infallibility of the Vedas & started their own offshoots. Among them the best known are those of Akshaykumar Dutta & Keshab Chandra Sen (q.v.). [R.C. Dutta et al’s Advanced History of India, pp.872-73]
Tagore, Rajah Jyotindra Mohan (1831-1908): eldest son of Horu Kumar Tagore: composed Bengali dramas: Hony Secretary of the British Indian Association & its President 1879 & 1891: from 1870 to 1883 Member of Bengal Legislative Council, of Gov.-Gen.’s Legislative Council, of Education Commission, & of the Jury Commission: Raja Bahadur 1871, Maharaja 1877, Maharaja Bahadur 1890: in Jan.1891, title of Maharaja made hereditary: by a decree of the Privy Council given extensive landed property in several districts & given life interest in the estates of his uncle Prasanna Kumar Tagore: made munificent endowments & donations for religious, educational & charitable purposes: a strict orthodox Hindu, he observed all religious rituals, became foremost member of Pathuria-ghat branch of Tagore family. [Buckland]
Tagore, Rabindranath (1861-1941), founded Vishwa Bharati at Santiniketan in 1901: wrote fifty dramas, hundred books of verse, forty volumes of fiction, & several books of essays & philosophy. He wrote in Bengali but translated much of his work into English. The English translation of his Gitānjali won him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. He was knighted in 1915; he returned this honour in protest against the martial law regime in Punjab resulting in the Jāllianwāla Bagh massacre in 1919.
“Sri Aurobindo’s grandfather, Rajnarayan Bose, had organised a secret society (enrolling young Rabindranath as a member) & also established an institution for revolutionary propaganda & action, but the climate of the time being what it was, neither the secret society nor the institution could prove effective…. Bande Mataram was first sung from the Congress platform by Rabindranath in 1896, but it made then no electric impact on the audience.” [K.R.S. Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo – A Biography & a History]
C.F. Andrews: One day the Lokamāṇya came to the Poet Rabindra Nath Tagore & said to him: “I can manage to put Rs fifty thousand in your hands if you can go to England at this time.” The Poet said, “You know I cannot do any political work. I am only a poet.” Lōkamānya replied, “I do not want you to do any political work, but simply to be present in England in this year, because it is necessary that the name of India should stand high in the minds of the English people & your presence will effect this object.” The Poet could not go…. [Reminiscences on Lōk. Tilak, S.V. Bāpat, 1924]
Hemendranath: In one of his essays in Nārāyaṇa (q.v.), Das wrote: ‘Rabindranath has imported many things from the West. That no doubt has added to the rich variety & wealth of Bengali literature but has not helped to develop & preserve Bengal’s individual culture & its national genius. Under no circumstances, should we suffer ourselves to be led by the glamour of the West.’ [H. Das Gupta Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, “Builders of Modern India” Series, GoI, 1977]
Sri Aurobindo: I think partly at least it is Tagore who has made the idea current on the Continent that Buddha is the beginning & end of the Indian Spirit. – I think partly at least it is Tagore who has made the idea current on the Continent that Buddha is the beginning & end of the Indian Spirit. Formerly, Rolland (q.v.) never thought about Asia; he was busy with his European unity & European culture etc.” – [On the report that Tagore believed that if internationalism is fulfilled nationalism will care of itself] Internationalism is all right, we accept it on its own plane. But we must have nations first…. In this way sometimes people injure the very cause for which they stand. I should be on good terms with my neighbour, but that does not mean that I should allow him to come into my house & occupy it. [A.B. Purani: Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 2007: 308-09, 276-77, s/a p.593-94; CWM Vol.16]
The Tagores Buckland: (1) Dwārkā Nath (1794-1846): 2nd son of Ram Mani Tagore: established 1834 the firm of Carr. Tagore & Co.: helped found the Union Bank & the Landholders’ Society: agitated for the abolition of Suttee, freedom of the Press, repeal of the “Black Act”: first native Justice of Peace: to Europe Jan.1841, entertained in England by Queen Victoria & E.I. Co.’s Court of Directors: returned 1842, refused to perform prāyaschitta: in a public meeting established an endowment in his name to help native youths to go to Europe. (2) Maharaja Ram Nath (1800-77): brother of Dwārkā Nath: adopted theistic views of Ram Mohan Roy & joined the Brahmo Samāj: helped found the Indian Reformer & the British Indian Association of which he was president for about 10 years: made Raja 1873: Maharaja on Jan1.,1877: Member, Calcutta Corporation, Fellow of Calcutta University & a Governor of the Hindu College. (3) Prasanna Kumar (1801-68): in 1854 Gov.-Gen. Dalhousie appointed him clerk assistant to his Legislative Council & later a member: started the Reformer in 1831: a Governor of the Hindu College, member of Council of Education [see Gorst, Sir Eldon], of Bengal Legislative Council & Calcutta Municipal Corporation, Governor Mayo Hospital: disinherited his son Gayendra Mohan because he converted to Christianity: his marble statue erected in Senate House, Calcutta. (4) Maharshi Debendra Nath (q.v.). (5) Maharaja Bahadur Sir Jyotindra Mohan (6) Raja Sir Surindra Mohan (1840- alive, 1904): younger brother of M.B. Sir Jyotindra…. (7) Maharaja Kumar Pradyot Kumar (1873-alive, 1904): son of Raja Sir Surindra Mohan & adopted son of M.B. Sir Jyotindra Mohan: represented city of Calcutta at the coronation of H.M. the King-Emperor 1902.
[Tellingly, the last two above were dropped by S.P. Sen by these two dropped by Buckland⇢]
S. P. Sen: Satyendra Nath (1842-1923): persuaded by his friend Monomohan Ghose (Dr K.D. Ghose’s friend) became, in 1864, the first native Indian to be admitted to the ICS: involved himself to the extent possible in the Hindu Mela sponsored by Nabagopal Mitra under the patronage of his elder brother Dwijendro Nath & cousin Gonendro Nath in 1867: served his full term in different posts all over Bombay Presidency then comprising entire western India including Sind & Gujarat: retired in 1897 as District & Sessions Judge & settled in Calcutta: one of those presiding at the foundation of the Bengal National School. Satyendra’s son Surendra Nath (1872-1940): born in Poona, educated at Bombay’s St. Xavier’s school & college: B.A. 1893: in contact with Pramathanātha Mitra (see Mitra P.), Manindro Nandi, Ashwini Kumar Dutta, Sri Aurobindo, C.R. Das, Okakura, Nivedita, C.F. Andrews, & W.W.
Pearson: started industries in Bengal to raise funds for his nationalist activities: helped founding the Anushilan Samiti, was its Secretary: one of the leaders of the anti-Partition movement: supported the Congress, connected with the Ādi Brahmo Samāj of his great grandfather Debendranath: advocated free compulsory primary education as had been done by Sayājirao. [Dict. of National Biography in 4 vols., Calcutta Institute of Historical Studies, 1972-74]
Tai Maharaj Case Tai Maharaj was the widow of Sirdar Baba Maharaj of Poona, who, before his death, appointed Tilak, Khaparde, & some others, trustees of his estate. The trustees quarrelled with the widow, out of this arose the famous Tai Maharaj adoption case. Chief Presidency Magistrate A.H.S. Aston convicted Tilak of perjury in connection with it, but the High Court of Bombay acquitted him.
Tailanga Swami (1608-1888), noted for his enormous build & longevity (280 years), but more for his remarkable yogic powers & the miracles he performed out of compassion, pity, or some compelling necessity. Born Shivaram, he was given the name Ganapati Saraswati when he took sanyāsa at the age of seventy-eight. He ultimately came to be known as Tailanga Swami for he belonged to Telangadesh. After long years of hard tapasyā & pilgrimage to various shrines including those in Nepal & Tibet, he spent his 150 years Kāshi.
Taine Hippolyte (-Adolphe) (1828-93), French thinker, critic, historian, exponent of 19th cent. French Positivism which applies scientific method to humanities.
Takhti-Suleman/ Seat of Solomon a hill in Kashmir, overlooking the Dal Lake in the city of Srinagar, whose original name was first Persianised & then Anglicised by the bigoted foreigners who conquered & converted the entire region. The Shiva temple on this hill was erected in 220 BC by Emperor Ashoka’s eldest son Kuṇāla or Jalauka, for Shaivism had been the religion of the entire region since times immemorial & remained its predominant religion even after Ashōka inserted Buddhism. Even the Kushāns originally of central Asia, who invaded & settled there at the turn of this millennium gradually accepted Shaivism though they did not oppress Buddhists. Ādi Shankarāchārya visited Kashmir in first quarter of 9th century (see Ubhayabhārati). It was beside Jalauka’s Shiva temple that he wrote his celebrated Saundarya Lahari, a powerful hymn to Mahāshakti which is acclaimed as a master-piece of Sanskrit literature. Since then the temple & the hill, till then known as Gopādri, are known as the Shankarāchārya temple & hill. In 1961, the Shankarāchārya of Dwārkā Peeṭha installed a statue of Ādi Shankarāchārya behind the Shiva Lingam in the Shiva temple on this hill. ― In 1898, Swami Vivekananda was in Srinagar from June 22 to July 15. Among the local excursions that the Swami made with his disciples was that on July 29 to the small, massively built Shiva temple that stands atop the Shankarāchārya Hill which rises a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain. The famous floating gardens can be seen below, for miles around. The beauty & extensive sweep of the scene drew from the Swami the exclamation: “Look, what genius the Hindu shows in placing his temples! He always chooses a grand scenic effect! The Hara-Parvat rises red out of blue water, like a lion couchant, crowned. And the temple of Mārtanda Shiva has the valley at its feet!”
Talavakara Rishi mentioned in 9th chapter of Talavakāra Brāhmaṇa of Sama-Veda.
Talthybius herald of Agamemnon.
Talwār Madan Talwār, “Madan’s Sword”; journal named after Madan Lal Dhingrā (q.v.). The first number datelined Berlin, November 29th, 1909, was printed at Rotterdam. It openly advocated the use of physical force to end British rule in India.
Tamburlaine Tamburlaine the Great, two-part romantic tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on Timur-i-lang (Tamerlane).
Tamerlane corrupted form of Timur-i-lang (1336-1405), a Turk jihadi best known for the barbaric conquests of his dynasty, invaded India in 1398, opening Delhi to rapine & pillage by his hordes for days on end, leaving anarchy, famine & pestilence behind him.
Tantalus son of Zeus & father of Pelops & Niobe. He was admitted to the table & council of the gods, & for his insolent behaviour was condemned to Tartarus (q.v.). One legend says that he divulged divine secrets, another that he served his son’s body to the gods. He was punished in Hades by being set thirsty & hungry, in a pool of water which always receded when he tried to drink from it & under fruit trees whose branches the wind tossed aside when he tried to pick the fruit.
The Tantra(s) a yogic system devoted to the many aspects of Shakti. The Shāktas are divided into two: Dakshīnāchāris (right-handed) & Vāmāchāris (left-handed).
Tantrasāra a treatise on Tantra written by Maheshvarāchārya Abhinava Gupta.
Tao the One – Being & Non-Being, Beginning & End, the Way, the Road to Heaven.
Taoism founded in 6th century by Lao-tzu, it is a major religio-philosophical tradition of China, typified by positive, active attitude toward the occult & the metaphysical. It includes ideas & attitudes of his exponents Chuangtzu & Lieh-tzu.
Tapas/ Tapoloka world of infinite Will or conscious Force; second of the three supreme worlds of the Puranas.
Tāpti popularly Tāpi, it rises in Garwilghar Hills & flows into the Gulf of Khambhāt.
Tārak an Asura whose austerities gave him the strength to challenge the Devas, & for whose destruction Pārvati’s son Skanda / Kartikeya was born.
Tarquin seven kings of this name ruled Rome before 509 BC, probably the legendary of Etruscan dynasty; two of them are permitted by scholars to historical: Tarquinius Priscus & Lucius Tarquinius Superbus; the latter (ruled c.534-10 BC) all democratic legislation & killed many senators leading to a popular uprising which exiled him. Sri Aurobindo refers to him as Tarquin the Proud.
Tarsus on river Cydnus was capital of Cilicia, birthplace of St Paul (q.v.).
Tartar(s) collective name for Turks, Cossacks, etc., of central Asia or Siberia; they overran parts of Asia & Europe under Mongol leadership in 13th century.
Tartarus sunless abyss below Hades where the Titans were confined; or the place of punishment in Hades. In Homer’s lliad it is the very lowest region of the Underworld.
Tāshi Lama a name of Panchen Lama/ Rinpoche (Precious Great Pundit), from his official residence Tāshi Lhunpo monastery near Shigatse; he is second Dalai Lama.
Tasso Torquato (1544-95), Italian poet famed as author of Jerusalem Delivered.
Tata, J.N. Jamsetji Nasarwānji (1839-1904): born at Navasāri, Gujarat: educated at the Elphinstone College: a successful & philanthropic industrialist & philanthropist: founded the firm of Tata & Co. at Bombay with branches in the Far East, Europe & America: pioneer of cotton manufacturing industry in West India, he started the Alexandra Mills in Bombay, Empress Mills in Nagpur, & a Swadeshi mill: developed silk culture in Mysore, iron & copper works in Central Provinces: built the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel at Bombay: hoped to build an Institute of Research with a view of providing new careers for promising youths & promote resources of India: until this institute could be started on a financial basis of £14,000, he intended to endow a Trust for sending Indian students to London to complete their education & offered the Govt. of India properties producing a large annual income for an Institute of Scientific Research in India: he died at Nauheim on May 19, 1904. [Buckland]
Taj Mahal mausoleum built by Emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved queen Mumtaz Mahal (Arjumand Bāno Begum) on Yamuna in Agra. It took 22 years to build from her death in 1631 in child-birth (it was her fourteenth child); it cost 50 lakhs rupees & God-alone-knows how many whippings, mutilations, & deaths among the labourers.
Tatler tri-weekly English periodical, chiefly written by Sir Richard Steele with contributions by Joseph Addison, published 1709-11. It also discoursed on manners & society, establishing principles of ideal behaviour & its standard of good taste.
Telang, Kāshināth (1850-93): a Saraswat Gond Brahman of Thana, Bombay named Kāshināth Triambakrao: adopted by his father’s elder brother: educated at Elphinstone High School, Fellow of the Elphinstone College under K.M. Chatfield: teacher at that college 1867-72: joined the bar as an advocate: M.A. 1868, LLB 1871: studied English literature, philosophy & political economy, became an accomplished public speaker & writer: proficient in Sanskrit, translated the Bhagavad Gita into English verse for Max Müller’s “Sacred Books of the East”: very successful at the bar: frequently consulted by judges on points of Hindu Law. In politics he was generally on the side of the Opposition, criticised the Salt Bill, the Revenue Jurisdiction Bill, the Licence Tax & the Cotton duties: appointed a Law Professor & Fellow of Bombay University of which he ultimately became Vice-Chancellor: Member of the Education Commission 1882: C.I.E. (Companion of Indian Empire): Member of Bombay Legislative Council 1884: Judge of Bombay High Court 1889: helped organize the INC 1885: elected President of Bombay branch of Royal Asiatic Socy 1892: contributed to Indian Antiquary: wrote Gleanings from Mahratta Chronicles. [Buckland]
Tempe Vale of Tempe, between southern Olympus & northern Ossa Massifs of northeast Thessaly; sacred to Apollo & extolled by many poets including Virgil.
Temps Le Temps, liberal evening daily founded in 1861 by A. Nefftzer at Paris, later shifted to Lyons: played an essential role in the Third Republic: stopped publication on 30 November 1942 when Lyons was occupied by the Germans.
Tennyson Lord Alfred (1809-92), chief representative of the Victorian Age, appointed poet laureate in 1850.
Ten Thousand refers to the retreat of Ten Thousand Greek patriots under Clearchus after the battle of Cunaxa. They marched some 1,300 miles from Sardis to Cunaxa & over 900 from there to Trapezus, on the most rugged terrains in the coldest weather, with practically no supplies, & constantly poached on by the Persian invaders.
St. Teresa of Avila, (1515-82), Spanish Roman Catholic nun originally named Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada: originator of the Carmelite Reform that restored & emphasized the austerity & contemplative character of primitive Carmelite life.
Terpander (c.647 BC), Greek poet & musician of Lesbos, an island in the Aegean Sea, he sang to the accompaniment of the “Kithara”, a seven-stringed instrument resembling a lyre, which he was said to have invented.
Tertullian Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c.160-220), Christian (Carthaginian) theologian: initiator of Latin theological words & phrases de rigueur in Western Churches for 1000 years: founded his own sect in Africa: wrote on eschatological themes, his vision of the Millennium, & depicted the other world based on Judeo-Christian apocalyptic images.
Teucer (1) the son of Scamander of Crete by the nymph Idaea, & father-in-law of Dardanus; (2) son of Telamon by Hesione, daughter of the Trojan king Laomedon, & half-brother to Ajax the Greater.
Thackeray William Makepeace (1811-63), English Victorian novelist whose work, during his lifetime & for long afterward, was considered equal or superior to that of his fellow-novelist Charles Dickens. Buckland: William was born in Calcutta; his father Richmond Thackeray of E.I. Co.’s Civil Service was then Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Bengal. Since Richmond died 13 Sep.1815, when he was collector of the 24 Pargānās, William was sent to his family in England in 1817.
Thamyris Thracian poet singer, rival of Apollo in love for the beautiful youth Hyacinthus. Apollo told the Muses that Thamyris boasted he could surpass them in song. They deprived him of his voice & blinded him.
Thea Greek goddess.
Themis ‘the fixed or firm one’; personifies law & justice.
Themistoclean relating to Themistocles (c.524-460 BC): Athenian politician & naval strategist, creator of Athenian sea-power, & the chief saviour of Greece from subjection to the Persian Empire in 480 BC. When the city-ruler, opposed the plan he suggested, started to hit him, he cried out: “Strike but hear.”
Theocritus (c.310-250 BC), Alexandrian Greek poet, the creator of pastoral poetry.
Theosophical Society founded in New York by Blavatsky & H.S. Olcott in 1875. In 1886, its headquarters were moved to Ādyār, Madras. Its objects are: to form a universal brotherhood of humanity, encourage the study of comparative religions, philosophies, & sciences; & investigate the laws of nature & of man’s latent powers.
Theramenes Athenian politician & general who died in 404/403 BC.
Thermopylae a narrow pass in Greece, nine miles SSE of Lamia, between the cliffs of Mt. Oeta & the impassable morass on the shore of the Malic Gulf. During the invasion of Greece in 480 BC by Xerxes I, the Spartan king Leonidas successfully defended the pass with 300 Spartans & some 2000 other Greek forces – all died.
Thessalian of Thessaly: situated north of Boeotia, south of Macedonia & on the Aegean Sea, Thessaly was almost walled in by mountains, including Pindus & Oeta.
Thetis mother of Achilles. She was loved by Zeus & Poseidon, but because it was destined that her son would be greater than his father they married her to Peleus.
Thompson, Francis (1859-1907), a Catholic English poet of the Aesthetic movement of the 1890s, he wrote The Hound of Heaven.
Thomson, James (1700-48), British poet famous for Seasons which foreshadowed some of the attitudes of the Romantic movement. He also wrote a few plays.
Thor Norse god of Thunder, hence of might & war: eldest & strongest of the sons of Odin. His chariot wheels made the thunder. Armed with his magical hammer which returned when thrown, with his belt of strength, & with his iron gloves he was an implacable foe of cruel giants but benevolent toward mankind.
Thrace region east of Macedonia, on the Aegean & the Black Sea & extending north to the Danube. In the Trojan War, Thracians fought under Rhesus as allies of Troy.
Thucydides Athenian historian, considered greatest of Greek historians: wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, between Athens & Sparta.
Thule Greek & Roman name for the most northerly land in the world as they knew then; a land which Pytheas heard of & perhaps reached c.300 BC [s/a Ultima Thule]
Thyestean relating to Thyestes, son of Pelops & brother of Atreus. Thyestes seduced his own daughter unknowingly & had by her a son, Aegisthus. In revenge for Thyestes’ seduction of his wife, Atreus served all the sons of Thyestes except Aegisthus at a feast. Horrified Thyestes pronounced the curse which brought misfortune to the house of Atreus.
Tiberius Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar Augustus (42 BC-37AD): second Roman emperor (AD 14-37), who greatly strengthened the institution of the principate, but was vilified as a vicious tyrant by Roman historians.
Tiglath-pileser Tiglath-pileser I, king of Assyria (ruled 1115-1077 BC), defeated the Babylonians, expelled the Mushki invaders from Assyrian Armenia, & campaigned as far west as the coast of the Mediterranean. Tiglath-pileser III (ruled 744-727 BC) inaugurated last & greatest phase of Assyrian expansion.
Tilak (Lokamāṇya) Bāl Gangādhar (1856-1920); Pārvatibai, wife of Gangādhar Shāstri (b.1846), who though frail in health after three daughters, had worshipped Suryadeva with endless fasts & prayers for a son, & on 23rd July 1856, 6th day of Krishna-paksha of Ashādha, an hour after sunrise, the longed for son was born. Tilak came, said Sir Raghūnath Paranjape, “at a psychological moment when the obvious advantages of British rule as compared with the old Indian rule had come to be regarded as habitual, a part of the very nature of things, & the disadvantages had begun to be acutely felt.”
All his life he pursued the goal of Swaraj with an unmatched single mindedness. Thrice prosecuted for sedition, twice involved in long-drawn defamation trials, he also prepared the defence of three friends in three different litigations – each of these litigations enhanced his reputation, each of these judgments furthered his cause. ― In the 1882 Barve defamation case, students of Kolhapur (one of them, G.K. Gokhale) staged a play to raise funds for his defence, & K.T. Telang defended him. ― Arrested on 27th July 1897 on charge of sedition under Sections 124-A & 153-A, for his articles in Kesari in connection with murders of the villainous Rand & Ayerst, his barrister Dinshaw Dāvar was refused bail from High Court Justices Parsons & Ranade but was granted by Justice Tayābji on a security bond for Rs 50,000 entered by Annāsaheb Nene & Seth D. Dharamsey of Poona. When Tilak refused to offer the apology advised by Ranade & Motilal Ghose, S.N. Bannerjea & Tagore persuaded two English barristers L.P. Pugh & William Garth to take up his defence. They appeared in the Sessions trial with young barrister Mr Chaudhuri. On 13th September three out of the nine jurors found Tilak innocent on both counts (which, in Britain, not in India under Pax Britannica, required a retrial) upon which Tilak stated, “...the verdict has been arrived owing to the misunderstanding of certain Marathi texts [mistranslated, as ordered, by Govt.’s Muslim translator]. There was not a single Mahratta gentleman put into the witness box by the prosecution...the writings themselves are not seditious...& were not likely to produce disaffection against Govt. in readers of Kesari or any intelligent Mahratta.” Still, accusing Tilak of publishing “articles of the kind which could only bring misfortune upon the people”, Justice Stratchey convicted him “for absence of affection to the Govt. established by law in British India”, & sentenced to 18 month’s rigorous imprisonment. In jail, Tilak wrote Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas.
On 24th, the Full Bench of the Bombay High Court rejected the application for leave to appeal to Privy Council in London. When Pugh & Garth offered to help to prefer a special appeal to Privy Council, Dāji Abāji Kharé (q.v.) sailed for England on 2nd October. H.H. Asquith, then M.P., later Prime Minister, argued his appeal in Privy Council which confirmed Strachey’s judgment on 19th November. Thereafter Governor Sandhurst’s satisfied soul remained untouched when Chaphekar brothers, the culprits of Rand-Ayerst murders, betrayed by a convict in prison, were arrested convicted & hanged proving Tilak uninvolved, when news spread that Tilak had lost 25 pounds in just 2 months of R.I., even when Sir Sankaran Nair, presiding over the INC session at Amravati, demanded why there was no Indian in the jury that convicted Tilak, why was he not extended the facilities he was entitled to as a political prisoner. Max Müller, learning of Tilak’s eagerness to study the Rig Veda in jail, sent his volumes, that study laid the seed of Tilak’s book Arctic Home in the Vedas. Müller also prepared a memorial for Tilak’s release on 12 grounds based on the fact that prosecution failed to establish even remotely any relation between his writings & Chaphekars’ crime; got it signed by William Caine, R.C. Dutt, Naoroji, Sir A.A. MacDonnell, Sir William W. Hunter & other scholars, & submitted it in London to Secretary of State Hamilton in June 1898. Petitions for Tilak’s release also poured in from Bombay & other places in the province which had that year experienced the same horrors of Govt. plague-administration as had Poona the previous years. Cornered, Sandhurst ordered Strachey on 7th July to grant release if Tilak agreed to abandon politics altogether & not join any public celebration on his release. CID officer Brewin, who had grilled Tilak in the Tai Maharaj & Rand-Ayerst cases, was sent to negotiate these conditions. When Kharé told him that the first was out the two hammered out a compromise in which the key phrases were “he will do nothing by act, speech or writing to excite disaffection towards the Govt.”. Before he signed it, Tilak added “such act, speech or writing as may be pronounced by a Court of Law to constitute an offence under the Indian Penal Code”. Two months after Sandhurst relented, at midnight of 6th September, Tilak was released.
In December 1901, on his way to the Congress Session in Calcutta, Tilak met Swami Vivekananda who spoke to him about national regeneration. In 1902, Tilak met Sri Aurobindo at the Ahmedabad Congress Session – the upshot was the launching of an all-India the Nationalist movement. On 2nd May 1908, Sri Aurobindo was jailed on the charge of having masterminded the Muzaffarpur bombing. On 7th London Times: “If Bengal has been chiefly conspicuous in its resort to destructive methods, the cunning brains that conceived & fostered the movement are probably to be found for the most part in Western India.” Tilak’s editorial in his Kesari of 12th, entitled “The country’s misfortune”, denounced & disowned the incident but warned, “Occasions like the present demand a consideration of the limit within which those in authority can flout public will & the limit beyond which they cannot try the patience of the governed.” In the next weeks, even as his editorials thrashed out issues & side-issues arising out of the fateful bomb, while preparing for the inevitable police raids, he returned the letters of an English professor of Deccan College, which, though not even remotely connected with politics, would still have got him into trouble. On 22nd he wrote: “We view with deep regret the recent acts.... We firmly believe that they are the result of prolonged & persistent disregard of public opinion & a continued policy of repression...& not, as alleged [in Anglo-Indian quarters] of any speeches or writings. We are convinced that the true remedy ... lies not in ... repression & coercion ... but in the prompt redress of popular grievances & in making liberal concessions to the legitimate demands & aspirations of the people in a spirit of large-minded sympathy & far-sighted statesmanship.”
Minto’s hands were strengthened when Morley telegraphed him a hint about the English Explosives Act [Footnote on p.263 of Vol. II of Morley’s Recollections]. On 8th June 1908, Minto issued the deliberately open-ended Explosive Substances Act & Newspapers Incitement to Offences Act, signalling ruthless repression of all nationalists & their papers. The Govt. of Sir George Clarke, in Bombay Presidency, started a ruthless campaign against newspapers. Marathi weeklies like Hind Swarājya, Vihāri& Arunōdaya, were some of the early victims of this campaign. On 9th (that day’s Kesari’s editorial was “These remedies are not lasting”) he decided to prosecute Tilak for “The country’s misfortune” even before it was officially translated. S.M. Paranjape editor of Kāla was arrested on the 11th, jailed in Bombay. The same day Paranjape was granted bail, the 20th, publicly hinted Tilak was next. Tilak, who had come to Bombay for the 12th to 15th annual Shivaji festival, was arrested on 24th evening. The same night in Poona, Bombay police assisted by local police invaded Gayakawādā, Tilak’s residence, threw the family out, locked & sealed Kesari office & the residence. The next morning they ransacked the place ‘to gather evidence’; then drove to Simhagadh, broke into Tilak’s house there disdaining every legal & human propriety but came up empty handed. Poona that day observed a spontaneous hartal.
The same morning of 25th, Bombay observed a spontaneous bandh & from 9 a.m. crowded into the court of Chief Presidency Magistrate A.H.S. Aston who had foisted the Tai Maharaj case on Tilak. Tilak was arraigned before Aston around noon; assistant prosecutor Bowen charged him under Sections 124-A & 153-A of IPC on the basis of a police translation of
“The country’s misfortune” of 12th May. When Aston postponed the hearing to 29th, Tilak’s barrister, J.D. Dāvar, son of High Court Justice Dinshaw Dāvar, applied for bail. Aston refused & sent Tilak back to Dongri jail. There, on 27th June, he was served with the 2nd warrant, this one on a slapdash translation of “These remedies are not lasting” of the 9th. On 29th when Dāvar Junior complained that the Anglo-Indian Press made illegal comments which amounted to contempt of court, Aston was forced to warn Anglo-Indians to lay off, but when Dāvar favoured a single trial for both sets of charges he upheld Bowen’s demand for two separate trials. When Bowen wanted to admit as evidence an unstamped, undated post-card ‘found’ in Gayakawādā on which were jotted the names Handbook of Modern Explosives by M. Eissler & Nitro-Explosives by P. Gerard Sanford & Aston admitted it rejecting Dāvar’s cogent arguments against it, Dāvar insisted he record his reasons for admission. Bowen examined some witnesses for the 2nd case but Tilak reserved his cross-examinations for both cases for the Sessions.
Since High Court required defendants to inform Govt. 48 hours before filing a bail application, Tilak’s solicitors gave the intimation that (29th) evening. On 1st July, when Barrister Jinnah, appearing for Tilak, sought to be heard, first he was told the 48 hours had yet to run, then Justice Dāvar adjourned the bail hearing to 2nd. That day Jinnah refuted Govt. arguments against bail, referring to Tilak’s health (he was then being treated for diabetes), holding that official translation of both articles bristled with mistakes & submitting correct translations & enabling Tilak to build his defence made bail indispensable; & clinching his argument by referring to the plea by which Justice Dāvar himself had in 1897 obtained bail for Tilak from Justice Tayābji: The main criterion in considering bail was whether the accused would present himself or not. Though Dāvar had no option but to refuse bail, he did facilitate Tilak request to obtain all the legal books from the High Court library he needed & even went out on a limb to procure the books Tilak needed from other places.
The next day, Barrister J. Bapista contested Govt.’s demand for ‘special’ jury: It was unjust to shift venue from Poona where accused would have easily secured Marathi-knowing judge, assessors & jurors; this ‘special’ jury would consist of Europeans & Anglo-Indians ignorant of Marathi besides, misleading translations had already appeared in Anglo-Indian Press & prejudiced this class of jurors; more crucially their communal affinity with English rulers ought to disqualify them because of the identity of interest between them & the prosecution, especially with regard to section 153-A which alleges that these articles had created hatred against them; whereas a common jury was more likely to do justice to the accused. Dāvar ruled that the special jury would be formed on 13th July. The overriding criterion which forced Dāvar to refuse bail was that Govt. had been ‘hearing’ ominous underground rumblings, of plans for a golden jubilee of ‘1857’in 1907 planned by Indian revolutionaries organised mainly by the Nationalist leaders of Punjab, Maharashtra & Bengal, headed by Tilak – a crafty Chitpāvan Brahmin cast in the mould of the Peshwas; Govt. had ‘heard’ too of the aid they received from Russian & Afghan sources. This is why London had made Sir George Clarke (Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence since 1904) the Governor of Bombay in 1907. What if any of Tilak’s friends in ‘terrorist’ groups spirited him away if given bail or even from the prison, & re-enacted Shivaji’s escape from Aurangzeb’s prison? Hence soldiers patrolled every corner of every suspicious locality & late on 12th night Tilak was removed from Dongri into a solitary room high up in High Court building, with an armed sergeant as his shadow.
From 13th onwards Tilak argued for himself. Advocate-General Branson began by asking for a single trial for all four counts (124-A + 153-A in both articles). Tilak objected to this joinder at Sessions stage when Aston had ruled all counts as distinct; also it handicapped him in marshalling his defence. When Dāvar agreed to allow the joinder if Govt. dropped one of the four counts, 153-A against “country’s misfortune” was dropped. Then the jury was empanelled: out its nine members six were Europeans, two Parsis & one Jew – not one a Marathi knowing Hindu. Next day Branson’s assistant opened the trial by a wild barrage: Tilak’s articles referred to English rule as country’s misfortune, suggested bombs & murders would help India secure political rights as happened elsewhere; & quoted from articles not admitted! In just a few minutes Tilak shut him up. Then, instead of putting its Muslim Chief Oriental Translator whose reckless translations it had submitted, Govt. brought his assistant B.V. Joshi, a former student of Tilak in his New English School whose careful translations it had rejected. Tilak made Joshi admit that the sanction to prosecute was given before Govt. translations were ready, that Chief translator’s hasty job on the 2nd article was rushed in just before the proceedings before Aston & that it failed to distinguish between many such terms as ‘colour’& complexion’; then asked Joshi to translate back into Marathi “A despotic rule need not be necessarily tyrannical” & a Sanskrit shloka, in both of which Joshi failed. However, before the hearing resumed the next day, Joshi had realised that it was not him Tilak was after but to prove Govt. translations were gross perversions of what he had actually written; led by Tilak he admitted the translation was not his & was faulty.
Cross-examining Inspector Sullivan who was deputed to search his residence in Poona, Tilak made him admit that the original search-warrant did not mention his Simhagadh house; that it was added by the Poona City magistrate & he did not know when the addition was made; that he had broken into Simhagadh house without any resident’s permission or presence of anyone from Tilak’s Poona residence & forced open cupboards; & that the drawer from which he specially selected the post-card was not locked, that it contained a whole heap of papers relating to a variety of subjects in which it was neither at the top nor at the bottom, ergo given not special importance.
On 15th July Tilak submitted his final statement. It contained a) a proper English translation of more than a dozen words in the two articles on which the prosecution was based, proving both Govt. translations misleading in material parts thereof; b) his statement to the Decentralising Commission to show that commenting on administration’s workings & offering suggestions for its improvement was the normal duty of every public worker & journalist; c) he had jotted down the names of those two books in the post-card found in his desk in order to procure those books to help him prepare his comment on Minto’s Explosive Substances Act. Then began his final address to the jury which, with a break on 17th, concluded on 22nd July, kept him on his feet for 22 hours! To witness that forensic feat the Russian consul & many English & Parsi wives of high-ranking gentlemen attended the court. It was published in English & Marathi translation immediately after he was removed to Burma where Clarke kept him until he himself demitted office. The half-truths & untruths in his report to London prevented Tilak’s release in 1911 on the occasion of King George’s coronation, though both George & Viceroy Hardinge wanted it.
On the point of resuming his seat that 22nd, Tilak addressed the jury: “I am now on the wrong side of life, according to the Indian standards of life. For me, it can only be a matter of a few years; but future generations will look to your verdict & see whether you have judged wrong or right.... If at least one of you would come forward & say that I was right in what I did, it will be a matter of satisfaction to me; for I know that if the jury are not unanimous in England another trial would place. It is not so here: but it would be a moral support upon which I could rely with great satisfaction.” When Tilak resumed his seat, after just an hour, Branson began his closing speech. Seeing the way Branson went on, Dāvar announced that all the remaining stages of the case would be completed that very day. Branson spoke two hours before the normal Tiffin break, nearly two more after it & some more after the extra Tiffin break. When Dāvar finished summing up the case for the jury it was 8 pm. After its deliberations the jury returned at 9:20; six (all the Europeans?) out of nine held Tilak guilty. When Dāvar asked Tilak if he wished to add a word before the sentence was passed, Tilak related the story of Prahlada & the Narasimha avatar. “All I wish to say, is that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of things, &, it may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.” The Judge lost his temper: “It must be a diseased mind, a most perverted mind that could say that the articles you have written are legitimate weapons in political agitation. They are seething with sedition; they preach violence, they speak of murders with approval, & the cowardly & atrocious act of committing murders with bombs, not only seems to meet with your approval, but you hail the advent of the bomb in India as if something has come to India for good.” The sentence he had decided to pass – six years transportation & a fine of Rs 1,000, he said would be stigmatised as misplaced leniency! The barbarity of the sentence can be seen by the fact that in 1908 a well-fed British male’s life expectancy was around 48 years while Tilak was then 52 & in bad health. [S.L. Karandikar, Lokamāṇya Bal Gangādhar Tilak – The Hercules & Prometheus of Modern India, 1957; Editorial Note, “Documents on the Trial of Lokamāṇya Tilak–1” of Eternal India – A New Perspective Monthly, March 2011; R.J. Moore, “Escape from Empire – The Atlee Govt. & the Indian Problem”, OUP, London, 1983]
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Extracts from Reminiscences & Anecdotes of Lokamāṇya Tilak, edited & published by S.V. Bāpat, Poona, 1924:
(1) Swami Shraddhānanda, founder of Gurukūla, Haridwar: I first met Lokamāṇya in December 1899 at the Lucknow Congress…. His Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas showed the courage to stand up for the Antiquity of the Vedas as against European Scholars, whom no Indian had dared to give lessons in research work before.... The Moderate leaders were afraid of being publicly associated with him because he had recently come out of jail. He entered by a side door... when the audience saw him & rose up to give him an ovation & pressed him loudly to go to the platform. The Moderate leaders remained seated & feared lest the idol of the people might compromise them by ascending the platform. He took a chair in the delegates’ block & quietly sat down. During the lunch break, I asked his views on the interpretation of the Vedic mantra on Varuna-Vyavasthā, & found they coincided with those of Rishi Dayānanda.... To my eyes he had no personal ambition but brooded on the wrongs of his Motherland, it was his determination to liberate her that was “terrible.... At Lucknow in 1916…he said in substance, “the British tell us that we descendants of the Aryans are not the original owners of the soil. We Aryans took the country from the Aborigines; the Muslims conquered it from the Aryans, & the English conquered it from the Muslims. Hence the English are the guardians of the aborigines. Well, I agree to this & ask the English to go away delivering the possession to the Bheels, Gonds, & Ādi-Drāvidas. We will gladly serve the original owners of the soil.”
(2) Saralā Devi Chaudhurani: I did not meet Lōk. Tilak personally till September 1902.... My Lāthi-cult was in full swing in those days. I had succeeded in making the practice of fencing & boxing, of the stick & the sword & all other weapons of self-defence & captured the heart of the Bengali youth. But to my dismay stories of banded robberies & murder of Bhadralog began to be heard of from certain quarters. Some of my lathial boys felt tempted to join in those bands.... I was hard put to convince them that it would be unworthy of their manhood. For against all my reasonings was brought in the personality of Tilak & his approval as the greatest argument in favour of dacoities. So I, a Bengali maiden took courage to my heart & mended my way at once to Poona.... Those were the days of the Tai Maharaj Case. I found him & his friends immersed in books of law & detectives thronging in & out of the house like ants. He was calm & undisturbed like a rock under buffets of billows. I had nearly three hours quiet talk with him...he told me distinctly he did not approve of the dacoities, much less authorise them on the score of their being practically useless for political purposes. At the Benares Congress of 1905, I & my husband were putting up in tents. One morning we were taken by surprise by a call from him..... Unlike many a national leader...he never felt too proud to show regard & esteem to compatriots of whatever school of thought or following they might be.
(3) S. Satyamurti, Leader of Swarājya Party, Madras: The first time I saw Tilak was at the Calcutta Congress, 1906.... While the leaders from other provinces stayed in separate houses...leaving the other delegates to take care of themselves, this leader of leaders stayed with all the Maharashtra delegates in their camp & shared their boarding & lodging.... On the S.S. Egypt from London to Bombay in 1919: ...He was requested by many European passengers to deliver a lecture on the Arctic Home in the Vedas. For an hour he held a largely European audience spell-bound by his wealth of learning, his keenness of critical acumen, & above all his power of simple, humorous & effective expression. Many of them felt & told me “what Indian politics has gained in Tilak, scholarship & research has lost.”... I last met him in May 1920 in Benares, at the meeting of the All-India Congress Committee. The Ali brothers invited him Allahabad to attend a special meeting for discussing the Khilafat (q.v.). He told them he would only attend meetings of the Congress to decide questions of national policy.
(4) V. Venkateśwara Sastrulu, proprietor Vavilā Press, Madras: While still a student it happened that I accidentally followed Messrs S. Doraiswamy Iyer, M.A. B.L. & V. Chakkarai Chetty to attend the Surat Congress. Everyone is aware of the great attempts made by Messrs Mehta & Gokhale just before the Congress sessions to kill the Nationalist aspirations that were then spreading in the country. It is also well- known that the Moderates prevented Mr Tilak’s occupying the Congress presidential chair at the Calcutta Congress in 1906, that they did not give room for national aspirations, that they shifted the venue of this Congress from Nagpur to Surat lest Mr Tilak should occupy the presidential gaddi. Owing to the unprecedented activity on both sides, the country was ablaze with unprecedented enthusiasm. It is...not possible to adequately describe the fury & agitation that arose from the audience when Mr Tilak, the Mahrātta lion, at the behest of the party, ascended the rostrum, cool & serene but nevertheless dignified with his usual subdued smile playing upon his lips, to oppose the election, as president, of the Moderate Rash Behari Ghose. It was a sight for the gods to see the thin slim figure stand boldly facing an audience who were come prepared to use all means, fair & foul, to prevent our hero addressing.... The previous night Mr Gokhale came to our Nationalist camp on a canvassing mission & with a great show of dignity requested us to give votes in his favour. To this Mr Chakkarai firmly replied, “Enough of your moderation. This is not the place for the display of your moderation. Please be off.” Immediately on returning from Surat I published in Telegu the proceedings of the Surat Congress, the life of the Lokamāṇya & Ananda Matha.... In 1915, when he filed the suit Sir Edward Carson had agreed to appear for him but withdrew when he became a Cabinet Minister but in 1919 he resigned from the Cabinet to defend Chirol! No wonder the British Court ruled against Tilak after dragging the case for so long swallowing lakhs of rupees. As a result Tilak lost hope in an Englishman’s sense of fair play & justice either at home or abroad when it was a question between a white skin & a coloured skin.... He did not have much faith in the non-cooperation movement started by Gandhi & the Ali brothers.... There is no doubt, in my mind at any rate, that had Lōkamānya lived at the time of the Calcutta Special in September 1920, the history of the Congress & our country would have been thoroughly different....
(5) Rev. Andrews Charles Freer (1871-1940): “My personal relation to Lōkamānya was always in connection with Indians abroad…. When I was going to Africa & to Fiji, I had long interviews with him. On my return from Fiji I saw him again & described to him the immoral atmosphere in which our sisters were forced to live. I can never forget how very deeply he was moved to hear my report…. In the evening a very large meeting was held…. It was that day that I understood the meaning of his name ‘Lōkamānya’… the people were moved when he described to them the condition of our people in Fiji. He moved them even to tears…. I found that he had a very deep love for the poor & understood them far more than most Indian leaders.... He felt the sufferings & sorrows of India as they were his own. Another thing that was noticeable in him was the extreme simplicity of his life which was of the noblest & purest character. He spent everything that he had for the country, spending almost nothing on himself…. He always took the practical view of what could be done & aimed at doing that.... He was a learned Brahmin for his immense knowledge of the Arya Dharma, a true Kshatriya for his brave fight for the country, a real Karmayogin.... He will no doubt be remembered as…the father of Indian Nationalism. India free from foreign domination will be able to truly appreciate the unquestionable greatness of Lōkamānya Tilak. [Reminiscences & Anecdotes of Lōkamānya Tilak, edited by S.V. Bāpat, Poona, 1924]
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C. Rajagopalachari, 1957: The Lokamāṇya...played a very hard & very noble part in our social & political evolution during what must be regarded as the hardest period we had to pass through.... Reason & liberal doctrines had to be supplemented for the first time by irresistible popular awakening in order to move foreign Imperialism to doubt itself. Tilak’s battle was the first assault on British pride & self-complacency. And the poison that issued from the conflict was a deadly variety. It was met with a courage that set the right tone for the rest of the struggle which had to be continued through further phases.... Tilak was a conformist but no man was less narrow-minded or had broader sympathies.... He suffered much but never indulged in self-pity & never therefore had to hide it in loud martyrdom. He was up to his neck in public affairs all his life & wrote a great deal in Marathi in his journals but you will not find “I” in it anywhere. No great man was less troubled with a memory of himself or the thought of how he figured in anything. He did what he did caring only for what was wanted & not for what part he played in it. [Foreword to Karandikar’s Lokamāṇya Bāla Gangādhar Tilak – The Hercules & Prometheus of Modern India, 1957]
H.W. Nevinson: (Nevinson toured India in 1907 & met Tilak at Simhagadh) “His full brown eyes are singularly brilliant, steady with daring, rather aggressive. But his general manner is very quiet & controlled, & both in conversation & public speaking, he talks in brief, assured sentences, quite free from rhetoric, outwardly passionless even in moments of the highest passion, & seldom going beyond the statement of facts, or rather, of his aspect of facts at the time…. In scholarship, he is known among all Sanskrit scholars as one of the closest & most original…. To me the book Arctic Home is significant because it appeared in the midst of the author’s direst persecution, when money, reputation, influence, everything was at stake & few men would have the courage to spare a thought either for sacred Books or Arctic Circles.” [Karandikar: 248, quoting Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, pp.65-66, 72-74]
Abinash Bhattacharya: One day about noon a dignified-looking Marwari arrived & asked to speak to Aurobindo. I requested him politely to come back in an hour. He was stubborn. “Well, let me sit here in the drawing-room & chat with you. An hour will pass quickly.” He said that so jovially that I could not refuse him. Helplessly I sat down & began to chat with him. Talking with him was really a pleasure. Barely fifteen minutes had passed before Aurobindo-babu slowly came down the stairs with his slippers on. Recognising the visitor from a distance he called out happily: “Tilak, it’s you!” I gave a start. Bal Gangādhar Tilak! I bowed down at his feet & apologised. He took my hands close to his chest & said: “Forgive you for what? You haven’t done anything wrong.” ― “Why didn’t you tell me at once that you were Bal Gangādhar Tilak? I would have called him down.” ― “I knew that. But I was aware that Aurobindo was resting.” [“Sri Aurobindo”, Mother India, July, 2012:528-39]
Durga Das, 1969: In the light of happenings in post-independence India, among the most impressive aspects of Tilak’s many-sided genius is, to my mind, the modernity of his thinking. I wonder sometimes whether his penetrating vision did not see far into the future. In those early days he envisaged a Constituent Assembly to frame a constitution for the country; universal adult franchise; the division of provinces on the basis of language; the introduction of nationwide prohibition; the protection of labour through a guaranteed minimum wage; & the development of a public sector for key industries. Here indeed was a gigantic intellect unafraid of looking decades ahead & discerning the imperatives of freedom. [INDIA – From Curzon to Nehru & After, Collins, London, 1969]
R. Venkatachalapathy: V.O.C. Pillai (q.v.), one of Tilak’s staunchest lieutenants in the South, was known as “Tilak of the South”. His Tamil biography of Tilak, Bhārat Jothi Sri Tilak Maharishiyin Jiveeya Varalaru, was serialised in Vira-kesari, a nationalist daily started by Tamils in Colombo in August 1930, in its Sunday Supplement which began from April 1933. [Tilak’s Southern Lieutenant, Open Page, Hindu]
Tilottama an apsarā.
Tilottamasambad (1860), Bengali narrative poem by Michael Madhusudan.
The Times poem by Charles Churchill, published in 1764.
The Times Literary Supplement to The Times (London), initiated in 1902.
The Times of India so renamed in 1861, it was founded in 1838 as Bombay Times. On 2nd Feb.1885, P.M. Mehta quoted Dufferin’s “No man...whatever his occupation, was justified in dissociating himself altogether from all contact with political affairs”, at the Bombay Presidency Association, two days after it was formed by him, Badruddin Tayābji, K.T. Telang, Jamsetji Jejeebhoy (1783-1859). The Times reacted with: “Any demand of natives...for a share in the Imperial Govt. should be checked as wholly immature in their own interest. Representation by election in the governing councils, either of the empire or the provinces, which will probably be the first object of popular agitation, would most certainly be refused.” [Karandikar]
Timon of Athens play suspected to be by Shakespeare & some others.
Tintoretto Jacopo Robusti (1518-94), one of the greatest Mannerist painters of the Venetian school & of the Renaissance; famed for executing with aid of assistants the great “Paradise” a 30x74 ft. oil canvas which includes over 500 figures.
Tiresias blind prophet of Thebes. He obtained his prophetic powers either by Athene who had blinded him when he saw her bathing; or by Zeus in compensation for his wife Hera having blinded him. Tiresias foretold most great events of ancient Greece.
Tiruvalluvar a Tamil yogi who wrote Tirukkural (see Kural).
Tiruvaymoli ‘The Sacred Utterance’” by Nammalwar, it has over thousand verses.
Tirynthian epithet of Diomedes, who came from Tiryns.
Tishya occurs twice in the Rig-Veda as a star (see Pushya); in Sayāna Tishya is the Sun later it became the name of a lunar mansion.
Titan(ess) twelve primordial children of Uranus (Heaven) & Gaea (Earth): Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, & Cronos, & certain of their offsprings; they were the ancestors of the Olympian gods. Cronos, the youngest Titan, ruled the world after overthrowing & castrating Uranus. He swallowed each of his own children at birth, but Zeus escaped. Cronos was made to vomit up the others (including Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, & Hades) &, after a protracted struggle, he & the other Titans were vanquished, all of them but Atlas imprisoned in Tartarus, & the reign of Zeus was established. More broadly, the word Titan may be applied to any being of a colossal force or grandiose & lawless self-assertion, or even to whatever is huge or mighty.
Titian Tiziano Vecellio (1488/90-1576), painter of the Venetian school, one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance.
Tolstoy Leo (Lev) Nikolayevich Tolstoi (1828-1910), Russian novelist & philosopher. Moral & social elements play a great role in his later works, for which he is much respected. His most famous is War & Peace.
Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe sonnet by Mallarmé.
Tommy Atkins name used in the specimen form given in British Army regulations from 1815, to be filled up by the prospective recruit.
Toramāna Toramāna was a leader of the Huns that invaded south Rajasthan from west Asia & established himself in Mālwā around 500 AD, & extended his sway over central India. He was succeeded by his son Mihirakula, the persecutor of Buddhists, who extended his territories up to Afghanistan & made Sialkot in Punjab his capital. The expansion of the Hun rule in Central India seems to have been checked by the loyal feudatories of the Guptās, & the Hun imperial power was finally shattered c.528 by the combined forces of Yaśodharvarman of Mandsaur (western Mālwā) & Bālāditya, usually identified with Narasimha, the Gupta king of Magadha. Mihiragula fled to Kashmir which he eventually seized but did not live long to enjoy.
Torquemada Tomas de (1420-98), first Grand Inquisitor in Spain: his name is synonymous with the Inquisition’s horror, religious bigotry, & cruel fanaticism.
Tory Tory & Whig were names used to denote two opposing political parties in England in 18th century. They were introduced as terms of abuse in 1679 during the heated controversy over the bill to exclude James, Duke of York (afterwards James II), from the succession. The Tories supported James’ hereditary right despite his Roman Catholic faith; the Whigs (‘Whig’ connoted nonconformity & rebellion) claimed the power of excluding the heir from the throne. After the Revolution of 1688 Toryism became identified with Anglicanism & Squirearchy & Whiggism with the financial interests of aristocratic & wealthy middle classes & later of the proletariate. Their connotations changed continually as they were applied to individuals or parties by sentiment & tradition. But Tory continues to designate the Conservative Party.
Totā Puri Nāga sannyasi who initiated Sri Ramakrishna into Sanyāsa. The latter used to refer to him as Nengta, naked. Totāpuri was a great Vedantist & a man of profound knowledge. He became Jivanmukta [see SABCL: 5:576] as a result of austere spiritual practices over forty years. He was ignorant of the path of devotion, but he was moved to tears when once Sri Ramakrishna sang to him a devotional song. Totāpuri stayed at Dakshineshwar for eleven months, & there used to be frequent conversations between him & Sri Ramakrishna.
Tower of Silence or Dokhma: a round structure with a well in the middle, & on the boundaries three rows meant for the bodies of dead adults & children. The bodies are laid bare & are soon consumed by vultures. According to Zoroastrian principles neither fire nor earth should be defiled. The practice seems to go back to its old custom of exposing the dead on mountain tops.
Townsend, Meredith (b.1831): studied with the Orientalist Professor E.B. Cowell at Ipswich Grammar School: in 1848 joined the Friend of India Meredith started as a sub-editor of Friend of India, & some years was its editor, as also Assistant Translator to Govt. & Indian Correspondent of the Times. Giving up its editorship in 1898, he revealed the One True God’s Final Word in his magnum opus Asia & Europe. It was the book that most influenced Jawaharlal member of the Fabian Society. ― This book provoked Tilak to give a fitting reply. Among the books he referred in order to study the geographical features of the two continents, the unity which underlies the surface of diversity of Asia, the races inhabiting the two continents, the peculiarities of the British Empire & a host of allied subjects, were Captain Mohan’s Problems of Asia, Benjamin Kidd’s The Control of the Tropics, Gustav L Bon’s The Psychology of the People, Goldwin Smith’s Commonwealth or Empire, Sir Alfred Lyell’s Asiatic Studies, Colquhoun’s China in Transformation. Finally, in 1903 he published a series of eleven articles under the title “Asia & Europe” in his Kesari.
Toy Cart translation of Mricchakaṭika in ten acts composed in 1st & 2nd century King Shudraka, supposed to be the oldest extant Sanskrit drama. (See Vasantasena)
Transition poem by Eleanor Hammond, in American journal Poetry & reproduced in Shama’a & reviewed by Sri Aurobindo in Arya.
Trasadasyu author of Rig-Vedic hymns. Sri Aurobindo renders the name as ‘the disperser of the destroyers’, ‘the scatterers of the dividers’, ‘the Terror of the Destroyer(s)’, & ‘Trasadasyu’. [S/a Traivrishna Tryaruna]
Trasadasyu (Paurukutsa) mentioned in Rig-Veda as king of the Purus. He was the son of Purukutsa by his wife Purukutsani, born to her at a time of great distress.
The Traveller one of the best known poems of Oliver Goldsmith, published in 1764.
Treitschke Heinrich von (1834-96), German historian & political writer whose advocacy of power politics, influential at home, led to distrust of Germany abroad.
Tretā second of the four Yugas, when sacrifice commenced & righteousness decreased by one-fourth; men adhered to truth, & were devoted to righteousness dependent on ceremonies. Rāma, Vishnu’s 7th incarnation, was born in Tretā.
Tribune English daily founded in 1881 at Lahore. Under the editorship of Nāgendra Nath Gupta (1911) & Kālinath Roy (1917), the paper regained its old importance.
Trigartas Arjūna defeated the Trigartas for the success of the Rājasūya yajña performed by Yudhishthīra; his brother Nakula also once did the same. Consequently the Trigartas joined Duryodhana’s hosts in the Great War at Kurukshetra.
Tripour/ Tripura Tripurāsura name of the Asura Bāṇa, because he received as a gift three cities (Tripura) from Shiva, Brahma & Vishnu. He was slain by Shiva.
Trishanku/ Trishuncou (1) a Rishi in the Taittiriya Upanishad (2) Satyavrata, a Sūrya-vamshi king, for being guilty of three great sins. Rishi Vishwāmitra (q.v.), gratified by the assistance which Satyavrata had rendered to his family, tried to send him alive to heaven in spite of the resistance & opposition of the gods & of Vasishtha. The king was eventually fixed in the sky as a constellation.
Trishira a three-headed demon.
Trita (Aptya) a god or Rishi of the third plane, full of luminous mental kingdoms unknown to the physical mind; Aptya from his origin in Āpah (water).
Triton(s) Triton, son of Poseidon, was a sea creature with a body whose upper half was like a human’s & the lower fishlike. Later Greek literature speaks of many Tritons, sometimes blowing trumpets of conch-shells while riding sea-horses.
Tritsuraj epithet of Sudas (q.v.), king of Tritsus (q.v.)
Tritsus “Those who seek to pass beyond” mentioned in the Veda. In Sayāna they are “priests who were Vasishtha’s disciples”. Vasishtha is said to have this class. Tritsus helped Sudas in the great battle against ten kings, mentioned in the Vedas.
Triumph of Life poem by P. B. Shelley on which he was working at the time of his accidental death.
Triveṇi the confluence at Prayāga of Ganga, Saraswati & Yamuna.
Troas/ Troad the confederacy of several allied independent cities of which Troy was the chief. They were harried by the Greeks for the first nine years of the Trojan War before they attacked Troy.
Troezen town in Argolis (q.v.), near the eastern tip of the Peloponnesus.
Troilus son of Hecuba & Priam.
Tros early Trojan prince, son of Erichthanius, grandson of Dardanus after whom were name the region of the Troad & the Trojans.
Troy situated a few miles south of the entrance to the Hellespont (Dardanelles) on a mound commanding the triangular plateau between the rivers Scamander & Simois. In 2nd millennium BC it was the strongest power on the coast of Asia Minor & its location gave it control over trade between the Aegean & the Black Sea; the Trojan War (c. 200 BC) may have actually been fought by the Greeks mainly to destroy this control. Excavations have discovered on the site of Troy a series of towns one above the other dating back to the third millennium BC. The city of Priam, named after Troy & also known as Ilium or Ilion, was built on the ruins of ancient cities & was surrounded by a massive wall erected by Poseidon & Apollo for Laomedon. The Trojans, according to the Greeks, traced their descent through Dardanus to Zeus & considered their city to be inviolable because of the presence of the Palladium (q.v.).
Tudors Welsh dynasty that ruled England from 1485 to 1603, represented by Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, & Elizabeth I.
Tughlak, Mahomad In 1320, Tughluq, founded the Tughluq dynasty by murdering the Sultan of Delhi; Timur-i-lang ended that dynasty in 1398. 1325, Ghiyas-ud-dīn’s son Mahomad is believed to have contrived his ‘accidental death’. Mahomad began by suppressing the rebellion led by his own cousin in South India, & the one led by his governor of Multan, & then conquered the South Indians kingdoms of Warangal, Devagiri, Malabār, & Dwara-Samudram. In 1327 he ordered the transfer of his capital from Delhi to Devagiri (q.v.) because it was situated at the centre of his empire which then extended from Punjab to Bengal & the foot of the Himalayas to Kanyā Kumari, & renamed it Daulatābād. Then he ordered all lay residents of Delhi to join his officials & armed forces whom he had ordered to shift to Daulatābād – 700 miles away across the Vindhya Mountains & that too on foot. The majority died or became lifelong invalids. So Mahomad ordered them all to return to Delhi. Ibn Battutah found Delhi in 1334 “deserted in some places & bearing the marks of ruin”. ― In 1330 he issued copper coins in place of gold ones but could not control their counterfeiting. Two years later he collected a vast army to invade Persia but too much money was spent in the preparation & abandoned the project. A second invasion was sent in the Kumaon region but that too proved disastrous. Hasty & hot-tempered, he brooked no opposition from anyone. The growing sense of the failure of his policy made him charge the people with perversity. In course of a talk with a contemporary official, Ziā-ud-dīn Barnī, he exclaimed: “I visit the people with chastisement upon the suspicion or presumption of their rebellious & treacherous designs, & I punish the most trifling act of contumacy with death. This I will do until I die, or until the people act honestly, & give up rebellion & contumacy. I have no such Wazir as will make rules to obviate my shedding blood. I punish people because they have all at once become my enemies & opponents. I have dispensed great wealth among them, but they have not become friendly & loyal.” He enhanced the rate of taxation & revived & created some additional cesses. According to Yahiya bin Ahmad Sirhindi the increment was twenty-fold & to this was added house-text & pasture tax. Then famines broke out in different parts of his empire & he became more tyrannical leading to revolts in 1334-35 in the South, in Gujarat & Sindh & in Bengal. The foreign Amīrs revolted in Daulatābād, resulting in the birth of the Bahmani kingdom in August 1347, & subsequently, the dismemberment of his vast empire of 23 provinces. After his death, his nephew, 46-year-old Fīrūz Shah was proclaimed Sultan in 1351. Fīrūz invaded Bengal in 1353 & again in 1359. He failed to defeat the sultan of Bengal, notes a historian, in spite of his offering a reward for every Hindu head, paying for 180,000 of them, & raiding Hindu villages for slaves. [Based on Bhattacharya: 293, 649-50, Dr Majumdar et al’s Advanced History…: 309-13, 318, etc.]
Tugra a king, a protégé of the Ashwins. He sent his son Bhujyu with a large army to conquer his enemies in Dvīpāntara. Their boats which could go in sea & air capsized in a storm. The Ashwins saved them & sent them back to their country.
Tukārām (1607-49), poet-saint of Mahārāshṭra. His devotional songs, addressed to Viṭhala (Lord Vishnu), greatly influenced Shivaji.
Tulsi(das) (1532/43-1623) wrote his Rāmacharita-mānasa in Awadhi the popular language of his time. It is his version of Vālmiki’s Rāmāyana.
Tunstall historical character in Scott’s poem Marmion.
Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775-1851), English landscapist, who left over 19,000 water colours, drawings, & oils to posterity.
Tuxuc Takshaka, son of Kadru, chief of snakes [s/a Parikshit].
Twashtri among Rig-Vedic gods, he is “the Fashioner of things” [SABCL 10:438]; among Puranic gods he is Viśvakarmā.
Tayābji Badruddin Tayābji (1844-1906): The sarcastic ‘Tyabji Bose’ used by Sri Aurobindo refers to the illogical reaction of Indian loyalists & Britishers to the speech of a Bengali nationalist at Tyabji’s memorial in London. Tayābji had attended the 1st session of the INC founded by Hume. When he was elected president of the 3rd INC session at Madras many Mohammedan leaders who had (advised by Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan of Aligarh) kept aloof from INC, joined it. Tayābji was the first Indian barrister of Bombay to be appointed a judge of the Bombay High Court 1895. When the first sedition case against Tilak came up in 1897 & Justice M.G. Ranade refused him bail & Tayābji granted it.
Tydeus father of Diomedes & son of Oeneus, king of Calydon in Aetolia. He was one of the leaders in the Greek invasion of Thebes.
Tydides Diomedes, being a son of Tydeus.
Tyndarid/ Tyndaris Helen as foster-daughter of Tyndareus king of Lacedaemon.
Tyrrhenian Greek for the Latin “Etruscan”, meaning (native) of Etruria. Tyrrhenoi masters of iron-working raised Etruria’s art of bronze-working to a new height.