It has been my long-cherished desire to publish all the works of my late lamented father, Mahamahopadhyaya M. Lakshmana Suri, and the long delay in the carrying out of this desire has been weighing heavily upon me as neglect of a sacred duty. I confess to a feeling akin to what was expressed by the great poet in the following verse:
My regret has been all the keener for the great interest which the reading public has been taking in my father's works. Many were the enquiries received from quarters, known and unknown to me, concerning them and numerous requests for copies thereof. But I could not respond, as the publications were most of them out of print. And latterly, as a result of the general cultural awakening and an increasing desire on the part of the public to study Sanskrit, there has been a steady rise in the demand for those works, and I accordingly consider that their publication should no longer be delayed.
It is hardly necessary for me to write anything about the important place which my father's works occupy in modern Sanskrit literature, a place which has obtained international recognition. Sri K. Balasubramania Iyer, who has written a Foreword to this publication, was one of his beloved and devoted Sisyas, and he can speak about him with a knowledge and authority which few persons possess. To students of Sanskrit, the commentaries of my father on the Sanskrit dramas which earned for him the title of "a worthy successor to Mallinatha" and the prose works Bharata Sangraha, Ramayana Sangraha, Nalo-pakhyana Sangraha and Bhisma Vijaya-which are practically the first and the best of their kind-are bound to be invaluable. It is accordingly proposed to start with the publication of these prose works. Then, there are the Karikas on the ten Upanisads, which still await publication, and they have also a special claim on our attention. Last but not least will be the poems, dramas and other miscellaneous works. This Bharata Sangraha then will be the first of a series, which will comprise all the works of my father.
I must express my sincere thanks to Sri K. Balasubra-mania Iyer for having written a Foreword to this publi-cation and to my friend, Dr. V. Raghavan, for seeing it through the press and reading the proofs of the work. The proofs were read also by Sri K. V. Sarma, M.A., and Sri T. R. Subrahmanyam, Siromani, of the Kuppu-swami Sastri Research Institute, to whom also my thanks are due. I must also thank the proprietor of Sri Ramachandra Printing Works, Royapettah, Madras, for printing this work.
The author of the Bharata sangraha, Mahamahopadh-yaya Pandit M. Lakshmana Suri, was a renowned scholar and writer. He was born. in August 1859 in the village of Punalveli, near Srivilliputhur, Tirunelveli Dt. He belonged to a very respectable family. His father Muthusubba Kavi was also a great scholar and poet. Pandit Lakshmana Suri made an intensive study of Vyakarana and Vedanta and had deep erudition in both these sastras. He was a pupil of Subba Dikshitar of Kadayam, a well-known scholar. He was appointed as a Sanskrit Pandit in the year 1896 in the St. Peter's College, Tanjore, and continued there till the year 1907, when its college department was closed. During this period the late Mahamahopadhyaya Kuppuswami Sastrigal was a student under him. After 1907 he was employed as a Pandit in the Pachayappa's High School and continued there till 1920, when he retired. After retirement, he delivered discourses on Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavata and Vedanta Sutras in many places in South India. He passed away peacefully much to the regret of many of his pupils and friends on the 17th May, 1928. He left behind him three sons, the second son being Sri T. L. Venkatarama Iyer, now Judge, Supreme Court. It was during his stay at Tanjore that his career as a writer began. He wrote at first commentaries on the two dramas of Bhavabhuti, Uttararamacharitam and Mahaviracharitam, Anargharaghavam of Murari, Bala-Ramayanam of Rajasekhara and Venisamharam of Bhatta Narayana. He also wrote karikas on the major upanishads based on the Bhashya of Sri Sankaracharya. At the Vidvat Sadas held in the year 1903 on the occasion of the visit of Sir K. Seshadri Iyer, Dewan of Mysore, to Tanjore, the karikas were read and in recognition of their merit the Dewan of Mysore was pleased to confer the title of SURI on him. Ever since, he was known to the scholar-world as Lakshmana Suri. The Government of India conferred on him the title of Mahamahopadhyaya.
Realising the importance of prose works in simple Sanskrit to be read by students of Sanskrit, Pandit Lakshmana Suri wrote the present work, Bharata Samgraha and later the Nalopakhyana and the Ramayana Samgraha, His prose style was simple and lucid and at the same time vigorous and grammatical. Even in the years 1907 and 1908, the Board of Studies in Sanskrit of the Madras University, the Chairman of which at that time was Sir P. S. Sivaswami Iyer, and one of the members, Sri V. Krishnaswami Iyer, prescribed these prose works for the then Matriculation Examination. Even before the year 1900, while my uncle the late V. Swaminatha Iyer was District Munsifat Sattur he came into contact with him. His scholarship in Vedanta was very much appreciated by my uncle. He then gave a letter of introduction to his brother Sri V. Krishnaswami Iyer, at Madras. It was from that time that his association with Sri V. Krishna-swami Iyer began. This grew into a great intimacy. Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer became an ardent admirer of the poetic genius of Pandit Lakshmana Suri. Mr. Krishna-swami Iyer gave great encouragement to him and encouraged him to write other poems and prose works.
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