Manilal's writings belong to the
Pandit Yuga – an era in which Gujarati writers explored the traditional literature, culture and religion to redefine contemporary Indian identity when it was challenged by the Western culture brought by the colonial rule. His writing career began in 1876 with the poem
Shiksha Shatak and continued until his death. He contributed to almost all popular forms and published poems, plays, essays, an adaptation of an English novel, book reviews, literary criticism, research, edited works, translations, and compilations. His autobiography was not published until 1979. His prose writings have been collected in
Sudarshan Gadyawali (1909). He was an exponent of Advaita philosophy; throughout his life, he interpreted all aspects of human life and civilisation in the context of
Advaita Vedanta, writing several articles and books on the topic.
Literary works In 1882, Manilal published his play
Kanta. A fusion of
Sanskrit drama and
Shakespearean tragedy, the play had the first tragic hero in Gujarati drama. Manilal wrote another play,
Nrusinhavatar (1896), at the request of the
Mumbai Gujarati Natak Company. It was based on
Hindu mythological episodes, and was staged in 1899 after his death. '', a
ghazal by Manilal Dwivedi, in his handwriting Manilal based his poetry collection
Atmanimajjan (1895) on his own experiences, with the theme of love. It largely consisted of
ghazals in the style of
Persian Sufis. Despite flaws of language, such as the misuse of
Persian words, they were held to capture the spirit of the ghazal according to critic
Mansukhlal Jhaveri. Through them, Manilal illustrated the concepts of the Advaita Vedanta, and expressed his disappointments and his cravings for love. His ghazal "
Amar Asha" is popular in Gujarati. He adapted
Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel
Zanoni into Gujarati as
Gulabsinh (1897). According to Thaker, "
Gulabsinh occupies an important place in Gujarati literature as a unique adaptation of an English novel, and as a novel of occult interest and a rare love-story of a human and a
superhuman character." It was later adapted into the
Gujarati plays Prataplakshmi (1914) by
Mulshankar Mulani and
Siddha Satyendra (1917) by
Chhotalal Rukhdev Sharma. After his death, the manuscript of Manilal's autobiography,
Atmavrittanta, was in the possession of Manilal's disciple, the scholar
Anandshankar Dhruv, who never allowed it to be published for fear that it would damage Manilal's reputation. It was finally published in 1979, eighty years after Manilal's death. It created a stir due to its outspoken nature and its unreserved accounts of his moral lapses, including his extramarital sexual relationships.
Religious and philosophical writings Manilal made Vedantic philosophy popular among the Gujarati community, examining the main features of Indian philosophy and of Hinduism. He imparted to Gujarati readers an awareness of the foundation of their religion and culture. He argued in his writings that the native culture of India was superior to that of the West. He was recognised both in India and in abroad as a staunch proponent of ancient Hindu traditions and as a learned Indian philosopher. Shortly after moving to Bhavnagar, Manilal published a book in English entitled
Raja Yoga (), in 1885. This reproduced a lecture he had delivered on the topic of 'The Logic of Commonsense', together with an introduction to
theosophist Tookaram Tatya's English version of the
Bhagavad Gita. The book also contained his English versions of the
Vakyasudha and the
Aparokshanubhuti. The English orientalist
Edwin Arnold, who met with Manilal in
Bhavnagar and conversed with him at length, admired the book for its content and clarity. Shortly after its publication, Manilal received a letter inviting him to speak in the 7th
Oriental Congress in Vienna, which was to be held in December 1886. However, the
political agent of
Saurashtra decided to replace Manilal with another candidate,
R. G. Bhandarkar. Manilal wrote two articles for later Oriental Congresses: the first on
The Purans (Philosophy verses Symbology), which was written for the 8th Oriental Congress held in Stockholm in 1889; and another on
Jain philosophy for the 9th Oriental Congress held in London in 1892. He was awarded a certificate of merit for the second article. Manilal wrote two books intended as a response to the Westernised reformist movement of his age. The first,
Pranavinimaya, contained practical expressions of spiritualism according to Hindu philosophy. It was written from 2 August to 9 September 1888 and published in December. It addresses mesmerism and presents a study of yoga and
mysticism; it attempts to establish a similarity between mesmerism and yoga, and to establish the superiority of
spiritualism over
materialism. The second book,
Siddhantasara, was a discourse on the theoretical aspects of Advaita philosophy in the context of other world religions. Manilal began writing it shortly after
Pranavinimaya, though his work was delayed by illness. It was completed in March 1889 and published in June. It outlines the development of
Indian philosophy and makes a case for the superiority of Advaita philosophy over all other religious philosophies. It created prolonged controversy; many were particularly critical of what they regarded as logical lapses and inconsistencies in Manilal's arguments. He was invited to present a paper at the first
Parliament of World Religions, held in
Chicago in 1893, but he could not afford to go. His paper on
Hinduism was read there by
Virchand Gandhi. Manilal wrote several books in English which were well received in India, Europe and America, including
Monism or Advaitism? (1889) and
Advaita Philosophy. He published an anthology of the aphorisms of
Vedanta under the title
The Imitation of Shankara (1895), with simultaneous publication in Gujarati as
Panchashati.
Social reform and educational writings In 1884, Manilal published
Nari Pratishtha in eight installments in the weekly periodical
Gujarati. It was republished, with additions, in book form in 1885. It deals with the status of women in Hindu tradition, and lays out Manilal's beliefs: in his view women were more capable of love and more dutiful than men, and that should be the focus of their education, though he also believed they should be taught subjects such as science and history. He believed that "a couple joined in love is undivided by death", so he considered widow remarriage a sin. He was opposed to teaching women English, and he believed that women's menstruation meant that they should not work outside the home. In 1885, Manilal founded and edited a magazine called
Priyamvada to discuss the problems faced by Indian womanhood. At the time, most Gujarati women were uneducated, and the magazine did not draw the response he had hoped for from the women's community, so in 1890 he renamed it
Sudarshan, and made it wider in scope. He elaborated upon Narmad's line of thinking through his writings in these magazines which he edited until his death.
Sudarshan Gadyawali (1909) collects these articles, which cover subjects such as religion, education, sociology, economics, politics, literature and music. According to Jhaveri, with these magazines, Manilal emerged as the acknowledged master of Gujarati prose.
Bal Vilas (1897) is a collection of Manilal's essays on religion and morality, written for schoolgirls.
Translations Manilal translated the Sanskrit plays
Malatimadhava and
Uttararamacarita by
Bhavabhuti into Gujarati. Of these,
Uttararamacarita was considered an excellent translation by Jhaveri. Manilal also translated
Samuel Smiles's
Character into Gujarati as
Charitra (1895), and
Samuel Neil's
Culture and Self-Culture as
Shikhsna ane Svashikshan (1897). He translated the
Bhagavad Gita with commentary into Gujarati. He prepared with translation and notes the English editions of
Patanjali's
Yogadarshan and
Mandukya Upanishad for the Theosophical Societies of India and America respectively. == Reception ==