Making of the Encyclopaedia | Prof. George Menachery | Part 3

 

Saturday Evening Post

Making of the Encyclopaedia

From the Horse’s own Mouth

George Menachery

Three

And then two things happened.
In those days - even now it is so - the Trichur Public Library was functioning  in the spacious portico and side rooms of the Trichur Town Hall building, erected as a monument  to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George, then emperor of India. As an enthusiastic member of the Library I used to visit the building quite often, mostly in search of detective stories and P. G. Wodehouse. The upstairs verandah of the building housed, at that time, the archaeological museum. As an avid “budding connoisseur” of Indian art and architecture I used to stroll along this verandah from time to time. The lady in charge of the exhibits and the few books for sale, Sarojini by name I think, used to urge me to purchase the publications of the department, as she thought that I was an addict of such books. One day I decided to purchase one or two books, mostly priced at just annas two and three.  Unloading my pocket I found there three rupees. I handed over two rupees to Sarojini – that was her name I suppose - and asked her to give me its worth in the cheapest books in her store. She gave me almost a dozen books, mostly annual reports of the Cochin Princely State’s Royal archaeology department, at that time headed by Anujan Achan if I remember right.
Getting home I threw the cheap, shabby pamphlets on the table, intending to peruse them at leisure, which was contrary to my habit of reading any book as soon as purchased. But on this occasion I had a Simon Templar and a Wodehouse with me from the library which I was hungry to consume.
When I finally got down to reading the booklet size publications I was flabbergasted and spellbound. For Anujan Achan had given in some issues photographs and copies of works of art from the churches of the State – in bronze, granite, wood, ivory, and pigments and had also appended legends and stories connected with some. These works opened my eyes to the fact that many of the works of art in the ancient churches of Kerala contrary to scholarly pronouncements at the time were on a par with if not sometimes superior to the works I had studied at length in the temples of Chidambaram, Thanjavoor, Madurai, Kancheepuram, Sreerangam and the Rock Fort temple when I was a student at the Trichinopoly college for four years. And some of the church arti- facts were older than any Vigraha in Kerala temples, which statues were all post eighth century. This revelation rekindled my desire to write the book which I had almost given up. I started visiting the churches described in the Archaeology reports and other churches. And took hundreds of photographs of these marvels in 1970 – ’71 which was somewhat expensive because in those pre-digital days one roll of film could give only 36 negatives and printing the photographs involved another expense.  That photography pilgrimage to the ancient churches has continued ever since and taking photographs has become much cheaper after the arrival of digital cameras. As the proud possessor  of a large number of photographs now I thought that I might be able to write a good monograph on the art and architecture of Kerala churches.