Swami Vipulananda, a Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu social reformer, literary critic and author,
was instrumental in the revival of the Hindu religion and native traditions in the island nation. PRIYADARSHI DUTTA does a total recall on his 120th birth anniversary
Batticaloa, a town in the Tamil-dominated eastern province of Sri Lanka, recently saw a number of high-profile statues being desecrated, agitating not only the Tamils but also creating ripples across the world. The statues included those of Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vipulananda, Robert Baden-Powell (Scouts movement founder) and Tamil poet Periyathampi. In January, a statue of Swami Vivekananda, too, suffered similar fate.
Few Indians possibly knew there were statues of Vivekananda and Gandhi erected by Lankan Tamils. Both these eminent Indians had visited Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) during their lifetimes. There is even lesser chance that we would remember Swami Vipulananda (1892-1947). It is a pity that his name has resurfaced after the desecration of his statue, days after his 120th birth anniversary.
A younger contemporary of Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), he might not be equally famous.
But he was no less a cognoscente of Indian civilisation. Essentially a man of science, like geologist Coomaraswamy, he was a stalwart scholar of Tamil, besides being an educationist. But being the architect of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda movement in British Ceylon, his institutionalised legacy far exceeds that of Coomaraswamy.
Born as Mailvaganam (literary meaning, the Peacock-mounted Lord Karthikeyan) at Katermootthoor in Batticaloa on March 27, 1892,
Vipulananda attended Saiva Tamil School in his native province. There he cultivated knowledge of Tamil and Sanskrit, which brought him closer to Hindu culture, not to shaken by his further studies at Batticaloa Methodist Mission School and in London. He began his teaching career in missionary schools — first in Batticaloa and then Jaffna. Then, in 1920, he was appointed at Manipay Hindu College, which put him into a new trajectory. Coming in touch with Swami Shanananda, he became votary of Ramakrishna Mission, Madras.
He decided to embrace a monastic life and was initiated as an ascetic novice — Prabodh Chaitanya — in 1922 and became a full monk under the name Swami Vipulananda in 1924. He began editing Ramakrishna Vijayam (Tamil monthly) and Vedanta Kesari (English monthly).
Vipulananda delved deep into Tamil history and literature. He reorganised the schools of Ramakrishna Mission (1925-31). On June 1, 1925, he took over the administration of Sri Koneswara Hindu College (actually school), Trincomalee, on the behalf of Ramakrishna Mission.
He remained at its helm for five years, during which both its sections — Hindu Boys English School and Hindu Boys Tamil School — expanded in enrollment as well as facility creation. Vipulananda also founded Shivananda Vidayalaya, run by Ramakrishna Mission.
It was a result of his vision that Sir Annamalai Chettiyar built Annamalai University near Chidambaram in 1929. It was envisaged as the fountainhead of Tamil Hindu culture. Vipulananda became the first professor in Tamil, and created the first glossary of scientific terms in the language. He was entrusted the work of translating works of Swami Vivekananda in Tamil. He took care to translate them in words of pure Tamil origin. In 1930, he was posted at Mayavati Ashram, Almora, where he began to edit Prabhuddha Bharata. Later he returned to the south.
In 1937, Sir George Frederick Stanley, then Governor of Madras, visited Annamalai University to address its convocation.
Vipulananda hoisted the Indian national flag (tricolour Charka flag) on the university rooftop, a greeting the British conservative hardly liked. A Ceylonese Tamil, Vipulananda proved himself better Indian nationalist. Coomaraswamy, incidentally, had the honour to hoist the free India’s national flag on August 15, 1947, at a gathering on expatriate Indians in Boston, Massachusetts.
As a social reformer, Swami Vipulananda was deeply inspired by the vision of Subramania Bharati (1882-1921). Bharati, himself a Brahmin, fought vehemently against caste discrimination.
Vipulananda was a prolific writer in English, contributing to Vedanta Kesari and Modern Review. One of the deficiencies of the modern Indian language movement, including Tamil, is that there is overemphasis on exclusivity. But Swami Vipulananda was a polyglot who knew English, Tamil, Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Bengali, Sinhalese and Arabic.
He had the vision of India’s spiritual unity. But his love for Tamil remained unsurpassed. He wanted to revive the cultural importance of Nallur in Jaffna — the last capital of Tamil kings in Lanka. He dreamt of a university there. He was critical of the education department’s decision to establish the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya.
Yal Nool is considered the magnum opus of Vipulananda. It took him 14 years to write this 500-page book, published just a month before his demise. Yal was ancient musical instrument of the Tamils — mentioned in the Sangam era literature — which later became extinct. Through his penetrative research, Vipulananda got the instrument reconstructed. Yal Nool was released by Karanthai Tamil Sangam on June 6, 1947, at the Thirukollam Poothor temple (Kerala) before a large assembly of Carnatic musicians. A prototype of Yal was displayed on the occasion.
Vipulananda passed away on July 19, 1947, at Ramakrishna Mission, Colombo. On September 9, Coomaraswamy passed away in Boston. It was indeed a double blow.
The country owes debt of gratitude to Lankan Tamils for producing stalwarts who furthered India’s perennial heritage and reinterpreted for modern times.
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