The Bhishma Pitamaha of archaeology

by R. Gopu

I first came to know of Dr. R. Nagaswamy by way of newspaper articles about archaeological or historical discoveries. In 2009, I read his path-breaking 1962 thesis on Mamallapuram. In this, he proposed that Rajasimha Pallava was the creator of all the monuments of Mamallapuram. Until then, the consensus among historians was the one proposed by Jouveau Doubreil in 1915, that three Pallava kings, Narasimha Pallava I, his grandson Parameshvara and the latter’s son Rajasimha were each author/patrons of different monuments in Mamallapuram, over a century.It was as thrilling as a Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie murder mystery. The various aspects of architecture, epigraphy, aesthetic sensibility, poetic skill and other historical evidence he marshalled in his arguments were brilliant.

We mostly remember Nagaswamy as a grand old man, the Bhishma Pitamaha of archaeology in Tamil Nadu. That is a disservice to brilliant archaeologists who preceded him for 150 years, some of whom like T.N. Ramachandran, Sivaramamurthi etc., Nagaswamy himself worked with, and held in high regard. We also forget that his accomplishments came when quite young. The Rajasimha thesis was written when he was only 32! K.A. Nilakantha Sastry, in his preface to his magnum opus, History of South India, thanked the young Nagaswamy for his invaluable advice.

If anything, Nagaswamy was a brilliant young man. We are fortunate that he lived long and enriched several fields: history, dance, music, literature, and religion, not just archaeology and epigraphy. He was a torchbearer of a brilliant tradition of academic scholarship launched by such British stalwarts as William Jones and Alexander Cunningham, but also had the broad and deep learning in both Tamil and Sanskrit literature. Always seen wearing a three-striped vibhuti across his forehead, he was as proud of his bhakti, as he was respectful of scientific research.

I encountered his Rajasimha thesis as part of my preparation for a site seminar at Mamallapuram, organised by Prof Swaminathan, an ex-professor of IIT-­Delhi and founder of the Tamil Heritage Trust. Swaminathan recalled a trip to Sittannavasal with Nagaswamy. Sittannavasal has an ancient Jain painting, a Pandya Tamil inscription in vattezhuthu script and a Sangam era inscription in Tamil Brahmi script. Nagaswamy seized by enthusiasm, grabbed a sheet of paper and began demonstrating these scripts to a teenage goatherd standing around the monument! Did the nonplussed goatherd realize that a scholar of international repute was teaching him epigraphy?

But this spirit, of wanting every citizen to learn about and be proud of his or her heritage characterised Nagaswamy. He didn’t want archaeology or epigraphy confined to intellectual islands like academic seminars and museums. In these times, when historical monuments face exploitation as granite quarries, thousand-year-old paintings are whitewashed into oblivion, bronzes are smuggled and sold, and monuments ravaged in the name of restoration and renovation, what could be more compelling?

In 1966, Nagaswamy became director of the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Department, the first in any state of India. He published several pamphlets priced at a few paise, when books were expensive and libraries rare. He persuaded the government to build museums at twelve district headquarters – prior to this, only Madras and Pudukottai had museums. Archaeologists from other states marveled that his proteges could read Tamil inscriptions off the walls of temples, when elsewhere it involved a laborious process of taking estampages and weeks of decipherment.

He faced his quota of setbacks and controversies, and political and ideological clashes. He was suspended at one time. While he awaited an enquiry, he did not sit idle and morose. Like India’s freedom fighters who wrote books in prison, Nagaswamy put his literary and artistic talents to full use, and composed several dance dramas on historical and religious figures such as Rajaraja Chola, Rajendra Chola, Manimekalai, Appar, etc. With Kapila Vatsyayan, he cofounded Natyanjali, a dance festival in Chidambaram. Several of his dance dramas were performed by artistes of national repute, not just in India but in Germany, Sweden, USA, Canada, etc.

He wrote Tamil books for the general public on Sangam literature (yaavarum keLir), and Tamil Nadu’s painting and sculptures (Oviya Paavai). He wrote scholarly tomes in English (Sahrdya; Vishnu temples in Kanchipura; Studies in Ancient Tamil Law and Society). He compiled books on bronzes (Chola Art), Mamallapuram. Gangaikonda Cholapuram in both English and Tamil. His website (https://tamilartsacademy.com) is a veritable university, listing his books and articles.

Aware of the average person’s ignorance of Sanskrit literature and words, he described even popular sculptures using beautiful Tamil phrases from Tevaram and Divya Prabhandam. He used the phrase maa-mayidan-serukku-aRutta-kolattaaL () for Mahishasura Mardhini, and Tirumangai Alwar’s phrase kadal-mallai-kidantha-karumbu () for Anantashayana Vishnu in Mamallapuram. An inscription in Valampuram refers to a king’s donation of “vattaNaigaL pada-nadanta naayanar”. Nobody knew what it meant, but Nagaswamy recalled a poem by Appar that refers to Bhikshaatana as “vattaNaikaL pada-nadantu maayam-pesi valampuratte pukkange manninaare” and connected this to a Chola bronze of Bhikshatana.

That was his unique ability. His vast mastery of three languages, his knowledge of the Vedas, smritis, agamas, Bharata’s Natya shastra, and epics in Sanskrit, his equally broad knowledge of Tolkappiyam, Silappadikaaram and other Tamil epics, Sangam literature, Bhakti literature, in Tamil, and his expertise in inscriptions, history, and three centuries of academic scholarship in English, made him that rarest of rare scholars. There are barely a handful of people with this knowledge base, few of whom could speak or write with such felicity. For this, he often earned the vituperative derision of one-book pundits and mono-lingual scholars.

Some personal anecdotes – I struggled to understand the Kanchi Kailasanatha temple. He mentioned that its patron Rajasimha used the words Atimaanam Ati-adbhutam (“a perfectly measured marvel”) to describe it. That opened my eyes: approach the temple with Rajasimha’s own words. Swaminathan offered me the singular honor of discussing Nagaswamy’s international papers at THT’s 2014 Lecture Kacheri honoring Nagaswamy. We donated to him a kurta, embroidered with the words Atyantakaama (Man of Endless Desires) and Kalasamudra (Ocean of Arts), titles of Rajasimha Pallava inscribed in the calligraphic Nagari at the Kailasanatha temple. He delightedly wore it the very next day. When I stumbled upon a long forgotten, 1830 transcript of a Pallava inscription, he was delighted and arranged a meeting at his house, to explain it. What an honour, to share the stage with him!

Dr. Nagaswamy with R. Gopu.

At a recent seminar, for a lecture about Uthiramerur, he brought a pot, put in chits of paper with names written, and asked youngsters to pick the chits. Thus, he practically demonstrated the kuda-olai system mentioned in the tenth century Uthiramerur inscription, which explained procedures to select administrators without fear or favour.
A few years back tragedy struck him. His grandson, not yet thirty years old, unexpectedly passed away from a medical emergency. When he returned from the funeral in the USA, he learnt that a young and brilliant scholar, a masterful orator, had announced that he would no more speak in public, because of mental turmoil caused by relentless abuse by critics on social media. Nagaswamy called him up, and casually mentioned his personal bereavement. The youngster took the hint – if even such a terrible personal loss could not dissuade a man in his late eighties from continuing his scholarly research, after brickbats from both learned and powerful rivals, should someone half his age be so easily dissuaded?

To meet Nagaswamy was a privilege, to hear him was an education, to share his company was an unforgettable pleasure.

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