Sun Blossoms

FOREWORD

After the inevitable but temporary eclipse of its true aim and function which poetry suffered in recent times in common with all the other cultural values of life owing to the preponderantly externalised activism of the modern age, it seems to be endeavouring not only to recover the height of its past achievement from which it fell but also, enriched inwardly even from this fall and made more puissantly conscious of its high purpose, to rise to yet newer and greater heights; once again the poetic spirit seems to be coming to the front as a luminous guide to the ever-progressing soul of humanity; once again it seems to be resuming its essential function of being the mediator between the truth of the spirit and the truth of life and of revealing through inspired rhythmic word the infinite delight and beauty of the spirit on all the manifold planes of its manifestation. Now that we are retracing our steps from the error of considering as final and all-sufficient the merely materialistic, vitalistic and even idealistic explanations and interpretations of life and its aim and, going further and deeper, are admitting the greater all-reconciling and integrating truth of the spirit and endeavouring for its realisation and expression in life, poetry equally with the other arts, or perhaps more than the other arts, it being according to Sri Aurobindo, the most complete of all the arts and most subtle of our means of aesthetic self-expression is rightly felt to be one of the most powerful aids to this endeavour.

At the centre of this creative effort stands Sri Aurobindo whose recent poetical work (only a little of which is as yet published) is a unique, unprecedented and stupendous outburst from the topmost peaks of spiritual vision and inspiration. His work is too great for our normal standards to judge at its proper value, or perhaps too near in point of time for us to appreciate adequately; perhaps even the greatest of creative work in such a neglected eld as poetry has inevitably to wait for some lapse of time before it gets even nodding recognition.

But Sri Aurobindo is no lonely creator working for personal aims and his creative work is not conned merely to poetry. He is the Master-moulder of the temper of the coming age. Though, like Leonardo Da Vinci of the earlier age, he might carry on his work away from the superficial tumult of his time, he, like him, is working at the

Page i

very centre of the evolutionary march of the race, controlling the mainsprings of the upward surge of progressive forces, releasing from their involved secrecy and setting forth in dynamic motion the root powers that shape the mind and life of the coming age. Not only are alive in him the magnificence and the greatness of all the past cultural ages, not only has he a rm grasp over all the essential achievements of the present age, but also by him is carried forward all this splendid greatness of the past and the present towards a still more golden future. More than any other person, he is the torch-bearer of our age, the opener of doors to unknown far-flung splendours, the bringer of the dawn of Divine Life.

In the eld of poetry too Sri Aurobindo is the Master, but his work is not conned only to his own great poetic achievement; he has also created poetry of singular beauty and excellence through some others who have allowed his master-hands to mould their poetic faculties to extraordinary greatness. In the radiant ethereal heavens of the Poetic Muse Sri Aurobindo is the Sun round whom revolve his satellites, nourished and sustained by the light they receive from him.

Nirodbaran, a selection of whose poems is presented in this volume, is evidently one of the satellites of the Aurobindonian Sun, qualified for medical profession, he could be least expected to make his way into so disparate a eld as poetry and it is doubtful if he would have turned out any valuable poetry, had he not come under Sri Aurobindo's potent influence. This is not meant to imply that he came to, and has been living for past several years near, Sri Aurobindo to become a great poet nor to suggest that Sri Aurobindo's influence on others consists in creating literary greatness in them. The aim of Sri Aurobindo's endeavour being fundamentally none other than the realisation of the Spirit, his influence on those who choose to follow him works primarily to no other end than their spiritual development. But since Sri Aurobindo's acceptance of the central spiritual aim does not imply a complete and unqualified rejection of life and its values, but rather involves their deliverance from their basic insufficiency and a fulfilment of their secret urge by a thoroughgoing and drastic spiritual transmutation of all their powers, no significant endeavour in any eld of life is left out of his total and comprehensive aim. The pursuit of the aesthetic value (of which poetry forms a very powerful channel) the seeking for the beautiful and delightful in man and nature and God and in all things has always been one of these high endeavours of the race and in Sri Aurobindo's integral aim it occupies an important place in so far as it helps us to draw near, contact directly and realise

Page ii

intimately the infinite Bliss and Beauty of the Spirit in its essential self-existence as also in its endless manifestation everywhere and, having realised them, to seek for their expression through the inspired rhythmic word and the revelatory vision.

The intense imprint of this inspired intuitive word and vision is evident everywhere in the poems included in this volume; everywhere the lines seem highly vibrating to the subtle felicitous music of some distant and lofty planes of the Spirit; everywhere is felt the enchanting impact on our listening of the voice of the spiritual muse singing sometimes in delicate exquisite strains, sometimes in profound massive tones, sometimes in wide-winged, high-soaring rhythms. Nowhere the authentic intuitive inspired utterance gets stied or marred by the falsifying intrusion of the external speech, nowhere the intrinsic light of the inner vision gets clouded or blurred in the revealing expression; nowhere the deeper subtle profundities and potencies get cribbed or maimed in transmission. The height and intensity of the poets inspiration no doubt varies, but even at his lowest pitch he never forsakes the intuitive felicity of the genuinely inspired word and vision; never does he lapse into the mere intellectualised or the externally vital or sensational mode of speech or seeing& Even at a very moderate estimate Nirodbaran's poetry must rank very high indeed; truly evaluated, it must be acclaimed as a definitive milestone on the slowly unfolding path of the evolution of the future poetry.

Kishore H. Gandhi

Page iii