C. V. Kumaraswami Sastri
Diwan Bahadur Sir Calamur Viravalli Kumaraswami Sastri Kt. (19 July 1870 – 24 April 1934) was an Indian jurist, statesman, and Sanskrit scholar who was leader of the Madras Bar as a Vakil of the High Court, before being appointed as a puisne justice of the Madras High Court in 1914, and, later, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. He also served on numerous special committees; most notoriously, the Rowlatt Committee - service on which nearly imperiled his later service as Chief Justice.[1] The great-grandson, great-great-grandson, and great-great-great-grandson of celebrated Sanskritists,[1] he himself was noted for achieving "brilliant success, with speed"[1] from his first days practicing law. In his heyday, he was considered "the most brilliant representative of the Madras Judicial Service", and the successor to V. Bhashyam Aiyangar.[2]
Family
Scion of an eminent family of Iyer Brahmins descending from his grandfather, C. V. Runganada Sastri, he was brother to fellow High Court justice Dewan Bahadur C. V. Viswanatha Sastri, and brother-in-law to eminent lawyer and statesman C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, as well as uncle to MP and Minister for Industries, and later Minister for Law, C. R. Pattabhiraman, as well as Shankaracharya Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha Maharaj, supreme pontiff of the Dwaraka Math and then the Govardhan Math.
His own children consisted of C. V. Nagaraja Sastri, a University of Cambridge boxing blue whose elopement with a Dutch tennis player to Europe somewhat retarded his legal career, although he was ultimately appointed Registrar of Trademarks and Judicial Member of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal. C. V. Ekambara Sastri, adopted from his brother Ramanatha, who went on to marry V.A. Madhavi, niece and heiress of V. K. Krishna Menon, and sire the multimillionaire industrialist Hariram Sastri.
He gave the hand of his daughter Lakshmi in marriage to V. N. Viswanatha Rao, who would become Law, Education, and Finance Secretary of the Madras Presidency, as well as Collector of Tinnevelly and of Tanjore.[3] Their son was the legal historian V. N. Srinivasa Rao, who married his cousin, C.V. Viswanatha Sastri's granddaughter Lakshmi.
Early life
Kumaraswami Sastri was born in Madras in 1870, the eldest son of C. V. Sundara Sastri.[4] Kumaraswami Sastri was the grandson of C. V. Runganada Sastri, polyglot and one of the first Indians to serve in the Madras Legislative Council.[4] He had three brothers and a sister, Seethammal, who married Sir C. P. Ramaswami Iyer.
Kumaraswami Sastri graduated from the Presidency College and Law College, Madras, where he won the Elphinstone Thompson and Morehead Law scholarships. He also won the Innes Medal.[4]
Career
Sastri started his career as a lawyer of the Madras High Court in 1894 and was rapidly raised to the rank of Rao Bahadur[5] After serving as a vakil, Sastri eventually became Judge of the Madras Small Causes Court.[4] He was awarded the Diwan Bahadur title while serving as the District Judge of Berhampur in 1911, shortly before his elevation to the High Court,[4]
In 1914, Sastri was appointed judge of the Madras High Court.[5] He was a member of the infamous Sedition Committee - also known as Rowlatt committee - under Justice Sidney Rowlatt, which resulted in the infamous Rowlatt Act. He was knighted in the 1924 New Year Honours list.[6]
In 1919 he published a paper on Aryan rule in India in G. A. Natesan's Indian Review, which also carried a 1928 paper he authored on Hindu mysticism and numerous reviews of academic and popular monographs.
In 1932 his criticism of rising education costs, delivered in a convocation address to the University of Mysore, drew attention.[7]
Following a paper by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri on the identity of Mahīpāla, the emperor lauded by Kṣemīśvara in the opening of the Caṇḍakauśika, in 1933 he dated the Sanskrit playwright Rājaśekhara to c. 850-920 AD, consequently identifying Mahīpāla as the Gurjara-Pratihara emperor of that name, and not Māhipala I of the Pala dynasty, as conjectured by Hara Prasad Shastri and accepted by R. D. Banerji and Jnan Chandra Ghosh.[8] He collaborated with M. Hiriyanna of Mysore in selecting and editing Sanskrit plays by Bhāsa, Śūdraka, Kālidāsa, Śrīharṣa, Bhavabhūti, and Viśākhadatta for a English-language anthology of translations, which was first published in the year of his death with his foreword as Tales from Sanskrit Dramatists: the Famous Plays.[9]
Death
Sastri died in Madras in 1934, aged 63.[3]
Notes
- ^ a b Dezalay, Yves; Garth, Bryant G. (15 November 2010). Asian Legal Revivals: Lawyers in the Shadow of Empire. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-14463-4.
- ^ Sundararajan, Saroja (2002). Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, a Biography. University of Michigan. ISBN 978-81-7764-326-8.
- ^ a b "Obituary: Sir Kumaraswami Sastri". The Times. 25 April 1934. p. 9.
- ^ a b c d e Bhargava, Prag Narain (1912). Supplement of Who's who in India. Lucknow: Newul Kishore Press. p. 72.
- ^ a b Yves Dezalay; Bryant G. Garth (2010). Asian Legal Revivals: Lawyers in the Shadow of Empire. University of Chicago. p. 71.
- ^ The London Gazette, 1 January 1924
- ^ Current Science. Current Science Association. 1932.
- ^ The Indian Historical Quarterly. Ramanand Vidya Bhawan. 1985.
- ^ Tales from Sanskrit Dramatists: The Famous Plays of Bhasa, Sudraka. G. A. Natesan. 1939.