Gitanjali, the most
popular English work (1913) of Viswakavi, Rabindranath Tagore, achieved the
Nobel Prize for literature as a mark of distinction in the Indian tradition.
Its popularity as the best translation of his Bengali original (1909) is
unrivalled to have won international acclaim. It excels for its kaleidoscopic
themes: Bhakthi or the adoration for the Divine, the love for nature and man,
the concept of work, etc. For him, God manifests in all natural elements. He
proclaims his ardent love for the Divine and seeks the communion of God and
man. He firmly believes that the Divine inspires him to compose songs in praise
of God. He also deeply feels that they are his true and befitting offerings to
Him. They are his devotional songs with musical undertones reflecting his
Bhakti, fervent adoration and ardent devotion to God. There is a clear-cut
influence of the Vishnava Bhakti poets and the Brahmasamaj on him apart from
his understanding of humanistic approaches to compose Bhakti lyrics. His poetry
reflects the echoes of Jayadeva, Vidyapathi and Chandidas. He imbibed the
concepts of humanity, fraternity; humility, equality and equanimity from the
knowledge of different religions to the core for his humanistic and pragmatic
approach to life. The readers of Gitanjali feel at home in
understanding his philosophy of life. They enjoy felicitous expressions of
passions, yearnings and ideals in the rhythmic flow of words by the use of
vivid images of natural objects and common people to mark a wide range. His
exceptional intellectual abilities and distinguished literary talents under the
rich experience of Bhakti cult enable him to expound the ethos of Indian life
in fresh and natural style through his writings. Referring to his poems, Prof.
Mao Shichang, his bosom friend told The Hindu in an interview on 24th
March, 2012, “Tagore was like the god of poems in my heart.” As he was a
multisided genius and multifaceted personality, he established as the symbol of
Indian Renaissance.
Tagore has immanent will and inherent
zeal to bring enlightenment to man to have humanistic and idealistic approaches
for realistic and pragmatic goals in the well-being of his fellow being through
the Bhakti lyrics or hymns of Gitanjali. His life-long dream is to give message
directly to man or indirectly through God and his vital and pivotal concept and
concern is man and his welfare. He firmly believes that the poet in him is God
and his poetry is the most becoming and befitting gift to be offered to Him.
His Bhakti lyrics focus on ‘the ways of God to man’ in the welfare of man. Life
is a struggle to face, a journey to proceed or a battle to fight. He is bound
to welcome all: toil, hard work, sweat, stains, pains, etc with positive
gesture for the welfare of the human world. He should not give any scope to
hypocrisy, falsehood, etc which lead man to his downfall. In the poem, ‘Leave
this Chanting’ and other poems, he makes it clear. Vague idealism, false
ritualism, seeming worship, fancy road show, etc do not help man witness
divinity. Work, with a vision and
devotion to quenching the thirst and satiating the hunger of man like rivers
and trees, is real worship. God is ever present in man and his achievements in
sharing duties but not in shirking responsibilities. He must be a committed
worshipper and devoted priest in the temple of work for the welfare of man to
win the sense of deliverance:
“Deliverance? Where is
this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has
joyfully taken upon him the
bond of creation; he
is bound with all for ever” (Poem: 11)
God is with man for ever in human
welfare. He is omnipotent and all powerful. He is solely and wholly responsible
for the creation of man and the universe.
As a part of His obligation, He ever safeguards the universe created by
Him. God is all: the fountain of life, the origin of light and the source for
bliss and the life of life. He is music to enthrall the heart and illumine the
mind: “The light of thy music illumines the world.” His mellifluous music flows
in all directions to delight all objects of nature. He creates light, music,
the eternal blow of air and flow of water for life, nature with its beauties in
bounty, etc.
Man is to be away from prejudices
and hypocrisies and follow humanistic approaches for human welfare like the
flower to sweeten the atmosphere, the river to flow through fields and hamlets,
the poem to enlighten its readers, etc. Man with insight, intuition and
illumination has obligations to fulfill, promises to keep and duties to
perform. It is his utmost and foremost responsibility as man. God is with him
to pat, to clap, to love and to bless him highly and suitably. He aptly rewards
those who fulfill their sheer obligation but not those who are in mere
meditation by chanting mantras and rotating beads on the precincts of
shrines. Man should cross the hurdles of
materialism and commercialism and hazards of hypocrisy and falsehood and be in
practice of the ideals of God.
Tagore finds the correct answer,
‘God is now here’ for an atheist to say ‘God is no where’ in the words of Swami
Vivekananda. He is very much present especially in the place of toil and hard
work with farmers and path-makers. He is the creator of the animate and the
inanimate: men with insight, all the creatures with instinct and all the other
objects of nature. He is present everywhere in every object of nature. Man’s
body, mind and heart manifest His presence. Life is ‘God centered’ but not
‘Self-centered’. The soul aims at the Supreme soul for its communion. The body
is treated as “frail vessel” but it is created with the soul that always craves
for its communion with the Supreme Soul, ‘the Over Soul’ in terms of Emerson.
The soul in the process of communion purifies itself to merge with the Supreme
Soul. It is like a flower which eventually offers itself to God as a part of
his primary responsibility. All objects of His creation will ultimately
culminate in God as they are true offerings to Him.
God is omniscient. He has the
knowledge of the truth and the devotion to be practiced by man. There is
condemnation of worldly desires and materialistic pleasures as per the
strictures of God. The divine wisdom on the part of man with insight and
illumination is for his concern to serve his fellow beings. There is nothing
which makes one high and the other low. There is no discrimination and
difference between one and the other. According to him there is ‘only one language
of the heart’; there is only ‘one religion of love’; there is ‘only one caste
of humanity’ and there is ‘only one God- who is omnipresent.’
Tagore makes clear his humanistic
and pragmatic approaches in his poem, ‘Where Is Mind without Fear?’ He as a
child asks his countrymen in particular and man in general to break the
manacles of bondage, the shackles of slavery, and the confines of domestic
walls for complete perfection, right action and heavenly freedom to reflect
patriotic fervor on one hand, humanistic favor on the other for human welfare.
It is the utmost responsibility of man as a supreme creation.
As an ardent devotee of God,
Tagore firmly believes that He is infinite and complete. To add to or to
subtract from Him is a vain hope and utter flop. He is manifest in his infinite creations that
are the objects of nature. He as man feels that all of them are the true gifts
offered to God. Life, which is the most invaluable creation with infinite beauties
and limitless joys, is the right gift given to God. In the same way the flower,
the river, the poem, etc as depicted in the poem, ‘Thy Gifts’ are appropriate
offerings to God:
“THY gifts to us
mortals fulfill all our needs
And yet run back to thee
undiminished.” (Poem: 75)
Tagore’s rare
distinction of the philosophy of poetry is to please the readers by its
meaning. The poem aims at God whom he profusely praises for His wonderful
creation of the universe with its beauties and joys in his hymns. It presents a
delightful message to man in quest of the Divine. The concept of Divinity is
undercurrent to flow constantly through his prolific contribution to Bhakti
literature like the thread to spread inside charming flowers of a garland:
“From the words of
the poet men take
what meanings
please them; yet their last
meaning points to
thee.”
(Poem: 75)
Tagore worships
God as the musician. For him, He produces mellifluous melodies for the pleasure
of the listeners like the boat man to delight the sailors and a singer to make
the baby smile or sleep by the lullaby. His holy music is the dazzle in the
dark. It enlightens the ignorant. It fills the heart with incessant joy in its
constant flow.
“The light of thy music illumines the
world. The life breath of thy music runs
from sky to sky. The holy stream
of thy music breaks through all strong
obstacles and rushes on.
My heart longs to join in thy
song. But vainly struggles for a voice.”
(Poem: 3)
As a poet,
Tagore adores the music spellbound but becomes expressionless under the spell
of mystic beauty. His poetry reflects his mystical philosophy but his concept
of mysticism is marked with a concrete sensuous expression. Mysticism in
respect of Yeats, Eliot, Whitman, etc aims at the communion of man with the Supreme
Being that is the soul with the Supreme Soul and the soul with the ultimate
reality or oneness in all objects of nature. Edward Caird defines it “…religion
in its most concentrated and exclusive form” as “that attitude of the mind in
which all other relations are swallowed up in the relation of the soul to God.”
(1129). He as a poet and man is a mystic but his mystical overtones are
different from those of others like Yeats, Eliot and Whitman for their
theological dogmas and conceptual thoughts. He marks a clear-cut difference
from other mystics, for he loves the joys of life and the beauties of nature.
He lays emphasis on the soul to purify itself, freeing from materialism and
commercialism; pride and hypocrisy for its communion with the Supreme Soul. He
wants to keep his body pure and his thoughts pure and prays to God:
“I shall ever try to keep my
body pure, knowing that thy living
touch is upon all my
limbs.
I shall ever try to keep all
untruths out from my thoughts,
knowing that thou art thou
truth which has kindled the light of
reason in my mind.”
(Poem: 4)
According to him, God is life
with the body, the mind and the soul; and man can build a bridge between him
and the Supreme in the form of love and devotion. His firm conviction is to
offer life as the highly befitting offering to Him. In life, human love transforms
into divine love. Vaishnava philosophy has had influence on him to have
devotion and adoration for Him. His true adoration for Him grows deeper and
deeper and his deep devotion makes him think of himself imaginatively to be His
beloved, await His arrival and see Him like Radha for Lord Krishna. He wants
their communion with God in the form of marriage. In the same way he seeks the
communion with God by His side in the splendid chariot in the imagined role of
a beggar maid. He adores Him as a devotee, a beloved, a disciple, a beggar
maid, a friend or a child.
Tagore delineates human love and
adoration for God as well as the relationship between man and God as the
nucleus of his poetry. He presents his religion as the religion of man and his
love as the love of man. His reflections focus on the universal love for man
through Gitanjali under the influence of Upanishads and Vaishnava Bhakti
philosophy. Pearl S. Buck reflects the view: “His poetry, his poetic prose
reached deep and far and he spoke to us of mind and soul, leading human spirit
towards God. No narrow God created by man, but the spirit of the universe
itself, creative, broad and deep, transcending formal religions and race.”(119)
In the ultimate analysis of his philosophy, he aims at the communion of the
soul and God, the finite and the Infinite, the particular and the universal,
the human and the Divine.
Gitanjali reflects
Tagore’s message that to serve man is to serve the Divine. His philosophy of
life is to have humanistic approaches for the welfare of mankind as God loves
those who serve their fellow beings. The humble and the poor are His favorites
as they serve mankind. Love and charity help man to purify his soul and justify
his actions to be human in relation and humanistic in concern for the welfare
of man. Mere chanting of mantras, rotating beads and offering incense are not
an indication of true worship. Work is worship. To work is human and so to work
is divine. The song, ‘Leave this Chanting’ makes his vision and mission clear.
He counsels the worshipper to open his eyes and have enlightenment that God is
not within the four walls of the temple. It is a mere belief to think so. In
fact, God is everywhere, and prefers to be with the toiling laborers: the
tiller of the soil and the path-maker.
“He is there where the tiller is
tilling the hard ground
and where the path-maker is
breaking stones. He is
with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is
covered with dust. Put off thy
holy mantle and even
like him come down on the dusty
soil.”
(Poem: 11)
This shows Tagore’s ideology for
man to be humanistic and pragmatic. This reflects, at its best, his true religious
spirit which never considers sham or superficial worship worthwhile for
God. Real devotion and true adoration of
God are not confined to the rituals within the four walls of the temple. Such
worship is ritualistic rather than idealistic. His attitude to religion throws
light on the ideal of toil or the sense of work which is real worship and true
devotion to God. The sense of religion is to preach man humanistic and
pragmatic approaches for the welfare of man.
He lays emphasis on the truth without fear on the part of man to face
any kind of situation with legitimate pride and honor to show his cultural
heritage. The truth is the most sovereign principle to be away from false
impressions and hypocritical actions. The power of reason should guide man to
have humanistic approach which is never under the guise of hypocrisy or
pretence and is ever free from the tyranny or dominance of false beliefs and
empty rituals. For the poet, toiling results in meeting the real needs and
achieving the goals of man and God likes toiling like tilling and path-making.
Man performs his duties to fulfill a purpose, aim and objective of the humans
like the flower to spread its fragrance for excellence before its fall or
fading away.
Man is the central character and
humanity is the focal point of Gitanjali as Tagore wants to make him realize
humanity and universalize the concept of man under the influence of the
Upanishads. Man is the incarnation and creation of God and he is responsible
for the welfare of man, his fellow being in the universe. Man is the
representative of God in heaven. Man as Adam should not eat the fruit of the
forbidden tree and bring fall and down fall to the race of man under the
influence of artificial forces and superficial realities. Instead he has an
inevitable moral obligation to perform and ‘promises to keep and mile to go’ as
man in the message of Robert Frost. It
is the truth and it reflects the beauty. It is an undeniable fact, a practical
reality and the eternal truth and man wakes up to realize this concept.
Individual actions must not be superficial and peripheral but deeply devotional
to work and really ideal to serve man in quest of human interest. It is the
right way for man to meet and stand by God in toil and hard work and it is man’s
sheer success and dear deliverance through his real devotion to work.
Tagore wishes man to be a real
worshipper who really worships work which God loves most. It is the humblest or
the lowest who are deeply devoted to human activities though their dresses are
stained and torn. It means that the work performed by man must be devotional,
ideal, purposeful, resourceful, meaningful and useful like farming,
path-making, writing, etc. At the same time in the same spirit he must practice
charity which is considered to be the greatest virtue as per scriptures. To
practice charity, man must have the virtues of munificence and sacrifice.
Karna, Shibi, Ranthi, etc are the practitioners of kindness and sacrifice. The
rich and the proud are blind to human virtues and values and oblivious of
legitimate duties and responsibilities. God bestows the choicest blessings on
them who are the embodiment of humanity as a sign of divinity because to serve
man is to serve the Divine.
The gifts of God are in
proportionate to his humanistic virtues like charity in practice. God wishes
human welfare and so he wishes man to have humanistic and pragmatic approaches
but not hypocritical and superficial worship within the four walls of the
temple. It is the immediate and ultimate reality of humble and human activity.
It is the real realization of true devotion to work as a clear sign of human
wisdom. Man’s life busies itself on one hand in the performance of duties
as true worship and it passes on the other hand through darkness to light and
enjoys the beauties of life which craves for its communion with eternity,
transcending the due trifles of transience.
Works Cited
- Shichang, Mao. “88 Years Later, Tagore Makes a Return to China.”(Unique Feature) Interview with The Hindu, Saturday, March 24, 2012.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. Gitanjali. London: Mc Millan& Co., 1962.
3. Caird, Edward. Encyclopedia Britannica. London: Encyclopaedia
Britanica Inc,
1768. Vol. 15
4.
Buck, Pearl.S. ‘A World Poet’, a Centenary Volume Rabindranath Tagore.,
New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademy, 1987.
Published in KJE: Vol: 31/2012
Published in Triveni, Hyderbad. Oct-Dec 2008. Vol:82. No: 4.
