Important Notice

In 1892, the celebrated Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda, sat down before a photographer for a picture. The image that resulted was impressive, and a copy still hangs on the walls of the Belur Math in Calcutta. But if the subject of the portrait was a significant personage, the man behind the camera was equally interesting. For this photograph was taken not in just another commercial studio, but in the halls of a palace. And the photographer was a... In 1892, the celebrated Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda, sat down before a photographer for a picture. The image that resulted was impressive, and a copy still hangs on the walls of the Belur Math in Calcutta. But if the subject of the portrait was a significant personage, the man behind the camera was equally interesting. For this photograph was taken not in just another commercial studio, but in the halls of a palace. And the photographer was a highborn amateur, Prince Asvathi Tirunal Martanda Varma (1871-1900) of Travancore.

Asvathi Tirunal was the youngest of three sons born to the Junior Rani of Travancore, Bharani Tirunal Parvathi Bayi (1850-1893). Under the matrilineal system of succession followed by the royal family, it was through his mother that Asvathi Tirunal inherited his rank as a prince, and a place in the order of succession to the throne. His father, who enjoyed the status of a consort, but no royal titles, was an aristocrat called Kerala Varma. Incidentally, this man came from the Kilimanoor family and was a cousin of the artist Raja Ravi Varma.

But Ravi Varma’s relationship with Asvathi Tirunal was deeper than a mere connection via a cousin. For one, the artist was married to the prince’s aunt-that is, his mother’s sister. This made Ravi Varma’s children and the prince close first cousins. Years later, in 1900, when Ravi Varma’s granddaughters were adopted into the Travancore royal family, it led to controversy. Asvathi Tirunal’s older brother was opposed to the adoption. But not only did Asvathi Tirunal endorse it, he would preside over the ceremony in the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Ravi Varma would have recognised much of himself in his young nephew. In his own day, the artist had flouted aristocratic conventions by choosing to make painting a profession as opposed to practising it as a casual hobby-something even his wife frowned upon. He travelled around India, interacting with people of diverse backgrounds, so that orthodox men at home evidently considered ostracising him from their caste. More than anything, Ravi Varma had a curious mind and the capacity to think big, and to think out of the box.

Asvathi Tirunal shared these traits with his uncle. At a time when stereotype presented Indian (“native”) princes as debauched figures, lost in a world of wine and dancing girls, this one won acclaim by becoming the first Indian royal to obtain a BA degree. In an era when royalty did not mix freely with their subjects, Asvathi Tirunal did not hesitate to take some of his classes with ordinary students in the Maharajah’s College in Trivandrum. “Both His Highness and the students,” wrote the Indian Magazine and Review, “seemed to enjoy the novelty of the situation”.

But there was more to him that cut at the roots of orthodoxy, showing him as a modern man. In 1896 Asvathi Tirunal made a public visit to an outpost in Vaikom of the London Missionary Society. “Almost up to the last minute,” we read, locals did not believe that “a prince of the ruling house” would visit Christian “nobodies” working among marginalised lower-caste groups. But not only did Asvathi Tirunal come, he “with his own hand” handed out prizes to students of “the lowest castes of people”-this in an age when the very sight of these folk was deemed ritually “polluting” to their traditional superiors.

It is not surprising that Asvathi Tirunal showed great interest in travel. When he entertained Swami Vivekananda, no sooner did the monk mention his visits to various provinces and states than the prince “interrogated him regarding his impressions”. Two years later, Asvathi Tirunal was finally able to go on a pan-Indian tour-and who better to guide him around India than his uncle, Ravi Varma? In 1896 Ravi Varma’s brother would even publish a travelogue around this: A Narrative of the Tour in Upper India of His Highness Prince Martanda Varma of Travancore.

It was a rewarding journey: Ravi Varma and the prince visited a church in Trichinopoly, got mistaken for Rajput royalty in Gulbarga, witnessed a court hearing in Bombay followed by a Parsi wedding, explored a mosque and a Jain temple in Ahmedabad, saw the Taj in Agra and Emperor Akbar’s tomb in Sikandra, toured a lunatic asylum in Jabalpur, and crawled into a sacred cave at Panchawati in Nasik. In about five months, Ravi Varma and Asvathi Tirunal “travelled 125 miles by road, nearly 7000 by rail, and 200 by water”.

It is no surprise, then, that even Lord Curzon- notorious for dismissing Indian princes as “a set of unruly and ignorant and rather undisciplined school- boys”-would air a very different view when it came to Asvathi Tirunal. The “BA Prince” was, the Viceroy would declare, “a man of culture, of travel, and of learning”. In Travancore and elsewhere there was much good feeling for and about him and it was generally believed that when, in time, he succeeded to the throne, he would inaugurate a just, innovative, and progressive reign.

Unfortunately, that event never came to pass. In 1900, only weeks after he watched over the adoption of Ravi Varma’s granddaughters into the royal family, Asvathi Tirunal died. There had been some warning signs: nearly a year before a British official had noted how the prince had “become far too stout, quite unwieldy, and [had] given up all exercise.” His older brother too was “obese” (and would die the following year), and it appears they were both diabetic as well. It was a terrible loss to Travancore-the gifted prince would never be king.

When Asvathi Tirunal died, he left no children; only a young widow. In Travancore, the wives of princes were not considered royalty. Under the matrilineal system, only sisters enjoyed the rank of ranis while the wives, like the ranis’ husbands, were only consorts. Of course, they had titles, privileges, an allowance from the durbar, and other perquisites. But any celebrity they enjoyed waned with the death of their spouses, and they withdrew from the scene. In this case too, Asvathi Tirunal’s wife lived a quiet life following his passing.

Narayani Pillai (c.1875-c.1922) came from an elite family in Trivandrum. Her grandfather was not only a famous Kathakali artist but also a favourite courtier of one of the prior Travancore maharajahs of the mid-nineteenth century. This background is perhaps what made it natural for Narayani to obtain English education from Augusta Blandford, a missionary in Trivandrum who had also tutored the consorts of previous maharajahs as well as Asvathi Tirunal’s mother. Perhaps her modern education was one of the factors that attracted the prince to Narayani.

Narayani Pillai: Known as “Sreepadam Ammachi”, Narayani Pillai (c. 1875- c. 1922) was the wife of Prince Asvathi Tirunal. Granddaughter of a celebrated Kathakali artist and a royal courtier in the Travancore durbar, she was educated by an English missionary, and was a fitting companion to her husband. This portrait was most likely made as a present by Ravi Varma soon after the prince’s marriage to Narayani.

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