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Sunday 25 May 2014

DEVOTION OF A DOG: WORDSWORTH'S FIDELITY AND SCOTT'S HELVELLYN

2014-21   Devotion of a Dog: Wordsworth's Fidelity and Scott's Helvellyn


Foxie guarding over her Master [Helvellyn 1805] 
On April 17, 1805, artist Charles Gough set out with his dog Foxie, to walk over Helvellyn, a high mountain in England’s picturesque Lake District. He never returned. Three months later, a shepherd heard barking high on the mountain’s flank, and discovered Foxie beside her master’s body. It appeared that Gough had fallen to his death, and the dog had remained by his side for three months. How she had survived up there in the wilderness, remains a mystery. 

The episode captured the Romantic imagination of poets and artists alike: Poets Wordsworth and Scott, and Painter Landseer, all paid tribute to Foxie’s loyalty [through their immortal works Fidelity, Helvellyn and Attachment].

William Wordsworth [1770-1850] 
Fidelity
William Wordsworth

 

A barking sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts--and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.


The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:
Nor is there any one in sight
All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below!
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;
Thither the rainbow comes--the cloud--
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog
As quickly as he may;
Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled Discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day
On which the Traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.
The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,
This Dog, had been through three months' space
A dweller in that savage place.


Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
When this ill-fated Traveller died,
The Dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master's side:
How nourished here through such long time

He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great

Above all human estimate!                                          
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Sir Walter Scott [1771-1832]
I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling, 
And starting around me the echoes replied.


On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,
One huge, nameless rock in the front was ascending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.


Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay
,
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.


Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away
.


How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?

How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?


And, oh! was it meet, that—no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him—
Unhonoured the pilgrim from life should depart?


When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand mute by the canopied pall;


Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;
In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming;
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.


But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,
To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,
When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,
With but one faithful friend to witness thy dying
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam
.


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Comments by William Wordsworth:
“The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Paterdale for the sake of angling.  While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished.  His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog’s fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza:-
“How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber,
When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start.”


I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza in my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.”

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Sunday 18 May 2014

JIM CORBETT: ANIMALS AT THEIR BEST - "LAW OF THE JUNGLE"

2014-20  Jim Corbett: Animals at their Best  - "Law of the Jungle"

Since the childhood Jim was fascinated by the wildlife in the forests around his home, and over time became a good hunter. Corbett was a colonel in the British Indian Army and worked for the North Western Railway. He was frequently called on by the government of the Indian state of Uttarakhand to slay man-eating leopards and tigers who had killed people in the Kumaon region.
Corbett succeeded in many cases where numerous other hunters had failed. In twenty years period, Corbett shot many man-eaters such as the Leopard of Rudraprayag, the Champawat Tiger, and the Panar Leopard, animals that had killed over a thousand men, women and children. His success earned him much fame and respect among the villagers of Kumaon, many considered him a saint.
Corbett was an avid photographer and after his retirement authored Man-Eaters of KumaonJungle Lore, My India and other books recounting his hunts and experiences, which enjoyed critical acclaim and success. Jim Corbett spoke out for the protection of India's nature and wildlife. He was a pioneer conservationist and stimulated awareness of the beauty surrounding people and the need to conserve it. India's first National Park in Kumaon is named in his honor.


True life story of  2 children  --  Lost and Found in the Jungle after 77 Hours!

Kumaon Forests
Friday was fair day in Kaladhungi and on that day everyone in the surrounding villages made it a point to visit the bazaar, where open booths were erected for the display of cheap food, fruit, and vegetables. On these fair days Harkwar and Kunthi returned from work half an hour before their usual time, for if any vegetables had been left over it was possible to buy them at a reduced price before the booths closed down for the night.

When Harkwar and Kunthi returned to the hut after making their modest purchases, Punwa and Putali were not at the hut to welcome them. On making inquiries from the crippled woman at the communal hut, they learned that she had not seen the children since midday. Harkwar set off to search the bazaar while Kunthi returned to the hut to prepare the evening meal. An hour later Harkwar returned with several men who had assisted him in his search to report that no trace of the children could be found, and that of all the people he had questioned, none admitted having seen them.

At the lower end of the village there was a police station in charge of a head constable and two constables. To this police station Harkwar and Kunthi repaired, with a growing crowd of well-wishers. The head constable was a kindly old man who had children of his own, and after lie had listened sympathetically to the distracted parents' story, and recorded their statements in his diary, he said that nothing could be done that night, but that next morning he would send the town crier round to all the fifteen villages in Kaladhungi to announce the loss of the children.

He then suggested that if the town crier could announce a reward of fifty rupees, it would greatly assist in the safe return of the children. Fifty rupees! Harkwar and Kunthi were aghast at the suggestion, for they did not know there was so much money in all the world. However when the town crier set out on his round the following morning, he was able to announce the reward, for a man in Kaladhungi who had heard of the head constable's suggestion had offered the money.

At day break on Saturday morning they went to the police station to tell the head constable of their decision, and were instructed to lodge a report at the Haldwani and Ramnagar police stations. They were greatly heartened when the head constable told them that he was sending a letter by mail runner to no less a person than the Inspector of Police at Haldwani, requesting him to telegraph to all railway junctions to keep a look-out for the children, a description of whom he was sending with his letter.

Near sunset that evening Kunthi returned from her twenty-eight-mile walk to Haldwani and went straight to the police station to inquire about her children and to tell the head constable that, though her quest had been fruitless, she had lodged a report as instructed at the Haldwani police station.

Shortly afterwards Harkwar returned from his thirty-six-mile walk to Ramnagar, and he too went straight to the police station to make inquiries and to report that he had found no trace of the children, but had carried out the head constable's instructions. Many friends, including a number of mothers who feared for the safety of their own children, were waiting at the hut to express their sympathy for Harkwar and for Punwa's mother.

Sunday was a repetition of Saturday, with the difference that instead of going east and west, Kunthi went north to Naini Tal while Harkwar went south to Bazpur. The former covered thirty miles, and the latter thirty-two. Starting early and returning at nightfall, the distracted parents traversed many miles of rough roads through dense forests, where people do not usually go except in large parties, and where Harkwar and Kunthi would not have dreamed of going alone had not anxiety for their children overcome their fear of dacoits and of wild animals.

On that Sunday evening, weary and hungry, they returned to their hut from their fruitless visit to Naini Tal and to Bazpur, to be met by the news that the town crier's visit to the villages and the police inquiries had failed to find any trace of the children. Then they lost heart and gave up all hope of ever seeing Punwa and Putali again. The anger of the gods, the children. Then they lost heart and gave up all hope of ever seeing Punwa and Putali again. The anger of the gods, man?

Monday found the pair too dispirited and too tired to leave their hut. There was no food, and would be none until they resumed work. But of what use was it to work now, when the children for whom they had ungrudgingly laboured from morn to night were gone? So, while friends came and went, offering what sympathy they could, Hark-war sat at the door of the hut staring into a bleak and hopeless future, while Kunthi, her tears all gone, sat in a corner, hour after hour, rocking herself to and fro, to and fro.

On that Monday a man of my acquaintance was herding buffaloes in the jungle in which lived the wild animals and birds I have mentioned. He was a simple soul who had spent the greater part of his life in the jungles herding the buffaloes of the headman at Patabpur village. He knew the danger from tigers, and near sundown he collected the buffaloes and started to drive them to the village, along a cattle track that ran through the densest part of the jungle.

Presently he noticed that as each buffalo got to a certain spot in the track it turned its head to the right and stopped, until urged on by the horns of the animal following. When he got to this spot he also turned his head to the right, and in a little depression a few feet from the track saw two small children lying. Here then were the missing children for whom a reward of fifty rupees had been offered.

But why had they been murdered and brought to this remote spot? The children were naked, and were clasped in each other's arms. The herdsman descended into the depression and squatted down on his hunkers to determine, if he could, how the children had met their death. That the children were dead he was convinced, yet now as he sat closely scrutinizing them he suddenly saw that they were breathing; that in fact they were not dead, but sound asleep.

He was a father himself, and very gently he touched the children and roused them. To touch them was a crime against his caste, for he was a Brahmin and they were low-caste children, but what mattered caste in an emergency like this? So, leaving his buffaloes to find their own way home, he picked up the children, who were too weak to walk, and set out for the Kaladhungi bazaar with one on each shoulder. The man was not too strong himself, for like all who live in the foothills he had suffered much from malaria.

The children were an awkward load and had to be held in position. Moreover, as all the cattle tracks and game paths in this jungle run from north to south, and his way lay from east to west, he had to make frequent detours to avoid impenetrable thickets and deep ravines. But he carried on manfully, resting every now and then in the course of his six mile walk. Putali was beyond speech, but Punwa was able to talk a little and all the explanation he could give for their being in the jungle was that they had been playing and had got lost.

Harkwar was sitting at the door of his hut staring into the darkening night, in which points of light were beginning to appear as a lantern or cooking-fire was lit here and there, when he saw a small crowd of people appearing from the direction of the bazaar. At the head of the procession a man was walking, carrying something on his shoulders. From all sides people were converging on the procession and he could hear an excited murmur of 'Harkwar's children'.

Harkwar's children. He could not believe his ears, and yet there appeared to be no mistake, for the procession was coming straight towards his hut. Kunthi, having reached the limit of her misery and of her physical endurance, had fallen asleep curled up in a corner of the hut. Harkwar shook her awake and got her to the door just as the herdsman carrying Punwa and Putali reached it.

When the tearful greetings and blessings and thanks for the rescuer and the congratulations of friends had partly subsided, the question of the reward the herdsman had earned was mooted. To a poor man fifty rupees was wealth, untold and with it the herdsman could buy three buffaloes or ten cows and be independent for life. But the rescuer was a better man than the crowd gave him credit for. 

The blessings and thanks that had been showered on his head that night, he said, was reward enough for him, and he stoutly refused to touch one pie of the fifty rupees. Nor would Harkwar or Kunthi accept the reward either as a gift or a loan. They had got back the children they had lost all hope of ever seeing again, and would resume work as their strength returned. In the meantime the milk and sweets and puris that one and another of the assembled people, out of the goodness of their hearts had run to the bazaar to fetch would be amply sufficient to sustain them.


Two-year-old Putali and three-year-old Punwa were lost at midday on Friday, and were found by the herdsman at about 5 p.m. on Monday, a matter of seventy seven hours. I have given a description of the wild life which to my knowledge was in the forest in which the children spent those seventy-seven hours, and it would be unreasonable to assume that none of the animals or birds saw, heard, or smelt the children. And yet, when the herdsman put Putali and Punwa into their parents' arms, there was not a single mark of tooth or claw on them.

      
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The Law of the Jungle and the Queen of the Forest - A True Life Adventure 

The Queen of the Forest
"the month-old kid and the queen of the Forest stood nose to nose."
a month-old kid

I once saw a tigress stalking a month-old kid. The ground was very open and the kid saw the tigress while she was still some distance away and started bleating, where on the tigress gave up her stalk and walked straight up to it. When the tigress had approached to within a few yards, the kid went forward to meet her, and on reaching the tigress stretched out its neck and put up its head to smell her. For the duration of a few heart beats the month-old kid and the Queen of the Forest stood nose to nose, and then the queen turned and walked off in the direction from which she had come.

When Hitler's war was nearing its end, in one week I read extracts from speeches of three of the greatest men in the British Empire, condemning war atrocities, and accusing the enemy of attempting to introduce the 'law of the jungle' into the dealings of warring man and man.

Had the Creator made the same law for man as He has made for the jungle folk, there would be no wars, for the strong in man would have the same consideration for the weak as is the established law of the jungles.

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Jim Corbett: My India [1952] [The Law of the Jungles pp 81-86] pdf [Click here]

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Jim Corbett: Tree Tops [1955] [Jim Corbett's Last Book] pdf [Click here]


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Sunday 11 May 2014

BEACH THOMAS: BIRDS AT THEIR BEST - UNCOMMON FEATS

2014-19  Beach Thomas: Birds at their Best  - Uncommon Feats


Sir William BeachThomas  [1868-1957]  was educated at Shrewsbury and Christ Church, Oxford. He was President of O.U.A.C. and Correspondent to the Observer and Spectator.  His published works include: The English Year [1925]; The Story of the Spectator[1928]; The Happy Village [1934]; and The Squirrel’s Granary [1936].   This essay, Birds at their Best is taken from the Observer, June 1931].

                                                      Birds at their Best 

Alderfun Sanctuary and the Athletic Chick

Here and there it is still vouchsafed us in England to see the greater birds dominate a whole landscape, as a Golden Eagle may in Scotland, or an Albatross in the Pacific. They assume a masterful importance. You cannot but watch them; and it is a pleasure to lie on a bank and direct your glass along the line of their passages from feeding ground to nest, or whither they will.

The Marsh Harrier can make a scenery like a great tree. A harrier’s nest in the marsh adds quality to the county’s partriotism. How eagle-like these great birds are! As one watched from afar the hen bird dip to her nest, Shelley’s great phrase fitted her not less than the Promethean Eagle: she too hovered a moment ‘in the light of her golden wings’.


Alderfun Sanctuary

Alderfun possesses all that a sanctuary needs. Nature herself has placarded ‘No thoroughfare’. No navigable stream passes through it; nor does any road, other than a green, lead up to its cloisters. The open waters are white with water lilies, most singularly large in flower and broad in leaf. The islanded lake is ringed with alders and hedge plants, where the warblers flourish. The 'thick chattered cheeps' of the sledge warbler were as continuous as the wild cries of the gulls. Alderfun is one of the rare places where the black headed gulls nest. And the place is so congenial in its quiet that they have neglected their usual habits for its sake.


Athletic Prowess of a new-born Chick!


Black-headed gulls nest here like moorhens on little islands in the water. And the pairs are faithful to the same home year after year. The first nest I saw contained three eggs. Other eggs had just hatched. One of the chicks, when I first saw it, swam to a lily leaf, with the ambition to mount it, scratching at the edge like a dog up a bank. The leaf was not a quarter-inch above the water, but that was a great height, needing no little determination and athletic prowess to surmount. After many failures — and “what are our failures here, but a triumph’s evidence!” – the feat was accomplished, and the callow chick stood proudly erect on the very middle of the lily-raft, which gave no evidence at all of the extra weight.  

callow chick on lily-raft which gave no evidence at all of the extra weight
Such little scenes have the power to impart a pleasure which abides for years. The harrier over the marsh and the gull on the lily raft belonged to the same rich day

what are our failures here, but a triumph’s evidence!” –  the allusion  is to Robert Browning's Abt Vogler, stanza 11

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Strange Antic of a mother Swallow in flight!

Another picture, not less impressive, was harvested that same month in a more private sanctuary. A brook divides it, flowing under the dark roof of a spacious sycamore, and half under a number of red-barked willows with narrow leaves as silvery as the little fish below them.
It is a haunt on summer eves of midget and gnat and of many strange flies that emerge from the waters. The repetitions of rings on the water, wide-spaced but almost continuous, suggest the opening of a summer shower. But the fish, mostly silver dace, are the only cause; they collect in shoals to the shade of the sycamore, for it is their richest feeding-ground. The swallows assembled for much the same reason as the fish: they too had an evening rise. 

In the hours after sunset, when the air seems to hold the glow of the sun just as it holds its warmth, the swallows, whose form of rest is endless movement, left the field for the brown stream. The passage of flight so dwells on the eye you could half-believe its lines remained in a dim tracery in the air itself. You could look down on their blue wings and backs as they flew under the little bridge till, half mesmerized by looking, you saw the surface of the water through a film of flight patterns.



Looking upwards from such a scene one odorous evening of late June, we saw one of the swallows play a strange antic. She rose from near the water-level from as sharp an angle as a tree-pipet or a ring dove practicing its spring song or flight, fluttered for a brief second opposite the twig of a willow, and without further delay vanished into the thin darkening air.

It happened that a moment earlier this same willow-twig, rather barer than its neighbours and more directly horizontal, had caught our attention. In lieu of leaves, it was decorated with five young swallows, four of them rubbing shoulders, and the fifth, rather larger and more fully coloured than the rest, perched  at the remove of an inch or so.

The old church clock had struck nine some while ago, and the light even beyond the shade of the sycamore was vague and dim. Exactly how the mother in that momentary flutter and check managed to pass the food to the young it was not easy to determine; but we could see that at each return, after two or three minutes’ hunting, she fed a different babe.

The babes were delicately poised on a slight and swaying twig, but took the food without the flutter of a wing, or any further movement than the opening of the beak. Nor was there any of the clamouring one sees among young in the nest. 

This feeding ceased about half-past nine, and the young seemed to shrink in size as their heads sank into their shoulders, and they fell fast enough asleep, to allow you to go and see them at the closest quarters. They seemed as secure on their precarious perch as if they had grown there, like the native leaves of the tree. 

Next dawn the birds went from the dark ‘into the world of light’.     William Beach Thomas


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Birds Through the Year -- Sir William Beach Thomas [pdf]  [Click here]


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Sunday 4 May 2014

"SILPI" SREENIVASAN - A "DIVINE" ARTIST

2014-18  "Silpi" Sreenivasan - A "Divine" Artist 


"Silpi" Sreenivasan [1919-1983]
"Sage of Kanchi" by Silpi
                     
P.M. Sreenivasan [1919-1983] alias SILPI has immortalized himself by his dedicated and unparalleled renditions in line drawings of temple architecture and sculpture. He was a line artist.   He was working as an artist for Ananda vikatan magazine from 1945 to 1967He was mentored by the magazine's senior artist Mali, who gave him the name Silpi [sculptor], on observing the artist's skill in his temple drawings. 
A deeply religious person, Silpi developed his skill into a unique specialization. From 1947 to 1960, his drawings of temples of South India appeared every week in Ananda Vikatan under the title Thennattu Selvangal [Treasures of South India]After leaving Ananda Vikatan, Silpi did illustrations for Bhavan's Journal, Kalai Magal, Thinamani Kathir, Amuthasurabhi, etc. He was a mentor to the illustrator Padmavasan.
Silpi toured temples in every nook and corner of South India. His drawings of temple sculpture were sketched on location at night, after the devotees had finished their darshan. For his followers, he provided the rare opportunity to view the innermost sanctums of temples. Every detail of the deity's ornaments was rendered accurately. Devotees used to keep his drawings in their prayer rooms to worship their gods and goddesses.

Temple Deities in Santum Sanctorums:

Kanchi Kamakshi
Madurai Meeankshi

Temple Santum Sanctorums:

                       








Temples External Views:






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"சிலை வடிவச் சிற்பங்களைச் சித்திர வேலைப்பாடுகளாக வெளியிடுவது, அதுவும் தெய்வீகச் சிற்பங்களைத் தெளிவான சித்திரங்களாக வரைவது என்பது, கிடைத்தற்கரிய பெரும்பேறு. தீர்க்கமான பார்வை, தெய்வீக மோன நிலை, தூரிகையைத் தாங்கிய விரல்கள், உதடுகளில் புன்னகை பிரியாத அழகு மலர்ச்சி, நெற்றியில் படிப்படியான விபூதிக் கோடுகள், நடுவில் குங்குமப் பொட்டு இவையே மாபெரும் கலைஞனாக விளங்கும் சில்பியின் மறக்க முடியாத அடையாளங்கள். 

வரைகலையையே தன் வாழ்வாக எண்ணி, வாழ்வின் ஒவ்வொரு கணமும் தன் அர்ப்பணிப்பை வெளிப்படுத்தி, ஆன்மாவின் ரகசிய தாக்கங்களையும், அறிவு தொட முடியாத ஞானத்தின் சிகரங்களையும், வார்த்தைகளால் விளக்க முடியாத தத்துவங்களையும் தன் ஓவியங்களில் வெளிப்படுத்தியுள்ளார் சில்பி. 

கருவறைக்குள் வீற்றிருக்கும் தெய்வங்களின் அமரத்துவம் வாய்ந்த வண்ண ஓவியங்கள் மட்டுமின்றி மதுரை, கிருஷ்ணாபுரம், திருநெல்வேலி, தென்காசி, சங்கரன்கோவில், தாடிக்கொம்பு, ஆவுடையார்கோவில்... எனத் தமிழகமெங்கும் பரவிக் கிடக்கும் திருக்கோயில்களின் ராஜ கோபுரங்கள், விமானங்கள், தூண்கள், மண்டபங்கள், சிலை ரூபங்கள், கலாசாலைகள்... எனச் சிற்பக் கலைச் செல்வங்களைத் திரட்சியான கோட்டோவியங்களாகப் பதிவு செய்துள்ளார் சில்பி. 

மேலும், சித்திரங்களே சிலாகித்தபடி சொல்லும் புராண & இதிகாச நிகழ்வுகளைத் தொகுத்து, சொக்கத் தமிழில் அவர் சொல்லியிருக்கும் அழகும் அற்புதமானது. 1948 & ஜனவரி தொடங்கி 1961 & ஏப்ரல் வரையில் விகடன் இதழில் சித்திரப் படைப்பில் முத்திரை பதித்து வெளிவந்தவற்றைத் தொகுத்து, வாசகர்களுக்கு நூல் வடிவில் கலை விருந்து படைப்பதில், விகடன் பிரசுரம் பெருமைகொள்கிறது. 

பல்வேறு விதமான ஆராய்ச்சிகளுக்கும், தொல்பொருள் தொடர்பான நூல் வடிவங்களுக்கும் துணை புரியும் அற்புதத் தொகுப்பு இது. நூலினுள் நுழைந்துவிட்டால், அதன் அற்புத சுவையிலிருந்து மீளவும் மனம் வராது. இந்த நூல், கலா ரசிகர்களின் கலைக் கருவூலமாகவும், படித்து, ரசித்துப் பாதுகாக்க வேண்டிய பொக்கிஷமாகவும் என்றென்றும் விளங்குவது திண்ணம்."


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