Kodandarama Rao

T. Kodandarama Rao was drawn to Sri Aurobindo after discovering in his college hostel a few copies of the Arya (1914-1921), a philosophical monthly journal written by Sri Aurobindo.  He came to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo in 1920 and between 1921-1924 stayed there as a disciple.   Much to his dismay, he had to leave Pondicherry because he ran out of money.  Sri Aurobindo couldn’t help Kodandarama because he had no funds to maintain others.  He never appealed to the public for funds at any time.   If some devotee sent money, he would accept after considering the source.

Thrown back on the treacherous waters of life, Kodandarama now needed gainful employment.  He reluctantly became a pleader after his father-in-law financed his tuition for law college.   The rest of the story is best narrated in his words:

I joined the Bar in October 1925, and began to make headway slowly and steadily at the Bar.  I did not and do not have attraction for the profession of law which I took up by force of circumstances. The ideals of the legal profession, like other professions, are very good and ennobling, but they are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Real “Karma Yoga” consists in upholding the ideals by sincerely following them in practice.  Mahatma Gandhi (himself a lawyer) has evolved and advocated an ethical code for the legal profession and he has followed his code. According to him, a lawyer has to take up only true cases and abandon the briefs whenever he comes to know of the falsity of the cause. According to the opposite view enunciated by other eminent lawyers, it is not the function of the lawyer to adjudge a case entrusted to him for advocacy, but only espouse the cause of the client as per the instructions given to him to the best of his ability, without regard to the truth of the facts of the case entrusted to him.

Unable to reconcile these two views and tossed between the high ideals preached and the malpractices indulged in by the members of the profession, I could not compose myself and wrote to the Master to extricate me from the dilemma and enlighten me as to the correct course of action. The words of advice given to me regarding the legal profession and other matters relating to my sadhana are to be found in the following letters of Sri Aurobindo.

24th May, 1933

T. Kodandaram,

It is true the lawyer’s profession as practised by many in India is full of things which are not what they should be but it is not a necessary character of the legal profession.  Even here many carry on the profession with a scrupulous honesty in all respects like Duraiswami (a prominent Madras lawyer) and succeed. A lawyer has to do his best for his client and make every point he legitimately can in his favour — to bring out the weak note of the case is the other party’s function, not his; but it is his best to which he is bound, he is not bound to do what the client demands as the best. It is a question of establishing an honourable but practical and commonsense standard for the profession.

-Sri Aurobindo.

In another letter dated 20th May, 1938, Sri Aurobindo wrote:

There is no harm in taking interest in your work as a lawyer, without that there can be no success. But both the work and the success should be inwardly offered to the Master of all works; so long as it has to continue.