C.V.Raman Pillai (1858-1922)


The impact of Western education was the great reality in Indian national life in the 19th century. The Renaissance in Bengal was its most direct consequence. Exposure to western culture made Indians look at their culture with a certain detachment. This led on the one had to increased political awareness and consequently the struggle against foreign domination; on the other hand, it provoked the Indians to set about modernizing the Indian social structure which was still steeped in medievalism.

A new understanding India culture, especially Hindu philosophy, was thus called for; and the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Sree Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekandanda and others had their impact on Bengali literature. In Kerala too, there was a similar religious awakening. Sri Chattampi Swamikal (1854-1924) and Sree Narayana Guru (1857-1929), close companions often engaged in long wanderings as mendicants from place to place, were the harbingers of this new spirituality, a new moral idealism which was deeply rooted in both the wisdom of the past and the reality of the present.
Through their revolutionary reinterpretation of the philosophy of the Vedas and the Upanishads, they brought about a massive transformation in the basic moorings of our people. Both were gifted with a linguistic insight and had a Dravidian orientation in the expression of their thought. Both used their writings - Chattampi Swamikal in prose and Narayana Guru in verse-to effect fundamental changes. Both achieved a fusion of intuition and reason, and co-ordinate the metaphysical with the mundane. Narayana Guru's poetic instinct found a supplementary fulfillment in the works of his disciple Kumaran Asan.