... Ramayana and Bhagavata Page 92 of the Sanskrit language and Shahanama of the Persian besides literary epics like the Raghuvaṃśa of Kalidasa and Jānakiharanam of Kumardas. The Indian epics represent "the ancient historical or legendary traditional history turned to creative use as a significant mythus or tale expressive of some spiritual or religious or ethical or ideal meaning... formative of the mind of the people... The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ethical ideas and cultural practice." Sri Aurobindo has given an estimate of the two Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in his Foundations of Indian Culture which is quoted here: The Mahabharata especially is not only the story of the Bharatas, the epic of an early event... mind of the Veda and Upanishads has retired behind the veil of the intellectual and outwardly psychological imagination. We shall close this long citation of the estimate of the two great Indian epics by Sri Aurobindo with a comparison with the European epic which he himself has given: These epics are therefore not a mere mass of untransmuted legend and folklore, as is ignorantly objected ...
... rata, R ā m ā yana and Bh ā gavata of the Sanskrit language and Sh ā han ā m ā of the Persian besides literary epics like the Raghuvanśa of Kalidasa and J ā nakiharanam of Kumardas. The Indian epics represent "the ancient historical or legendary traditional history turned to creative use as a significant mythus or tale expressive of some spiritual or religious or ethical or ideal meaning, and... thus formative of the mind of the people.... The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ethical ideas and cultural practice". Sri Aurobindo has given an estimate of the two Indian epics, the M ā h ā bh ā rata, and the R ā m ā yana in his Foundations of Indian Culture which is quoted here: "The M ā h ā bh ā rata especially is not only a story of the Bharatas, the... the Veda and the Upanishads has retired behind the veil of the intellectual and outwardly psychological imagination". We shall close this long citation of the estimate of the two great Indian epics by Sri Aurobindo with a comparison with the European epic which he himself has given:— "These epics are therefore not a mere mass of untransmuted legend and folk-lore, as is ignorantly objected ...
... vaguely conscious of the difference between the Homeric and the ancient Indian epics, for he says that in these latter "a truly heroic foundation is overlaid with much literary and theological matter"; 5 the essential contrast between Page 372 the Western classical epics and the great Indian epics, however, goes rather deeper, though on the surface there is considerable... from the Gir forest in Kathiawar to the 'Hanging Gardens' on Malabar Hill. There is a diminution but also a refinement, there is less vitality, but more complexity. The two great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, however, defy easy description. They are more than epics, they are really called itihasas, reservoirs of traditional knowledge from which people can drink ...
... will look after the horses of the King. So here is Nala, unrecognizable, with a different face, in a foreign land, among strangers. It seems to us that these periods of retreat described by the Indian epics, when one hides in an unknown place under an assumed identity, symbolically indicate an inner movement of introspection, a time devoted to a deep inner quest and renewal. All energies are necessary... battle-field and had not yet scaled the mountain tops of thought."* While this story contains the wonders and the touches of the miraculous that pertain to a fairy tale, it has for subject, like all Indian epics, a struggle between two ideal forces, universal and opposing. One can read the story as a parable which by means of very ancient symbols tells us the adventure and battles of man's inner being led ...
... rule and law, but on that basis and with a perfect fidelity to it still raised up to minister to the intellectual, ethical and religious development of the being. It is notable that the two vast Indian epics have been considered as much as Dharma shastras as great historico-mythic epic narratives, itihāsas . They are, that is to say, noble, vivid and puissant pictures of life, but they utter and breathe ...
... should be a narrative on a large scale was falsified by Dante. Another such surprise in modem times was sprung by Sri Aurobindo in his Savitri. Sri Aurobindo held in high esteem the two Indian epics, the Page 485 Mahabharata and the Ramayana. In his Foundations of Indian Culture, he has passed valuable remarks about these two great epics. About the Mahabharata he says: ...
... which had just emerged from clouds. Children were marvellous and they told me stories and legends connected with the Castle, with the sea and with the hills. I too told them a few short stories of Indian epics and dramas. When we returned, both the Prince and Princess were ready to sit down for the session. Children had become so friendly with me that they did not want to leave me. They promised ...
... Here was a scene that contained too many potential marvels to be ignored by a poet of love and beauty and the joy of life. The greatness of ascetic mastery had been depicted many times before in Indian epics, but it had never been made a part of the beauty of life, while Kalidasa's appreciation is aesthetic in its nature. The picture of Parvati, immobile, standing in water during the nights of the cold ...
... also Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali. 1895 First literary publication. Songs to Mirtylla (poems written in England and Baroda) for primate circulation. Began studying the Indian epics and classical Sanskrit literature; translating the epics, Upanishads and Sanskrit plays; writing poetry, plays and literary essays. I896-97 Elected President of the secret ...
... initiated to the world of learning by writing the first letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. It was my father who taught me Bengali. Very soon I could read fluently. Then, instead of reading himself the Indian epics, as he used to do, he began asking me to read the books aloud to him. I never went to any school. After our mother died in 1932, my father often went travelling. So as soon as I was seven ...
... disappointed suitors. Mr. Risley has been misled by pitchforking his early memories of Roman history into Indian epic and narrative. And need we say that there was neither Swayamvara, nor fighting nor peacemaking in the story of Shacuntala? This is the first time, moreover, that a startled Indian public has been pointed to Shacuntala as the ideal Hindu woman. Sita, Draupadi, Savitri, Damayanti,—these... be measured by the amount of opposition it meets, and it is encouraging to note that the revival of Indian Art is exciting intellectual opponents to adverse criticism. Mr. Vincent Smith, a solid and well-equipped scholar and historian but not hitherto noted as an art-critic, recently lectured on Indian Art, ancient and modern. It is not surprising that he should find little to praise in the characteristic... incapable. It is therefore sure to conquer Europe as steadily as Indian thought and knowledge are conquering the hard and narrow materialism of the nineteenth century. Asceticism and Enjoyment Small things are often indicative of great and far-reaching tendencies. While glancing at the Modern Review ,—always the best worth perusal of our Indian monthlies,—our attention was arrested by a slight illustrated ...
... or other, one never puts one's hand on one's head or one's belly but always instinctively on the middle of one's chest. Apropos of the subject in hand I may recount a little episode from the Indian epic Mahabharata. Once when Draupadi, the heroine, was about to be disgraced in public by her enemies, she appealed inwardly to Sri Krishna for Page 105 help. "O Sovereign of the Highest ...
... The pure literature of the period is represented by the two great epics, the Mahabharata, which gathered into its vast structure the greater part of the poetic activity of the Indian mind during several centuries, and the Ramayana. These two poems are epical in their motive and spirit, but they are not like any other two epics in the world, but are entirely of their own kind and subtly different... and conduct. The poetical manner of these epics is not inferior to the greatness of their substance. The style and the verse in which they are written have always a noble epic quality, a lucid classical simplicity and directness rich in expression but stripped of superfluous ornament, a swift, vigorous, flexible and fluid verse constantly sure of the epic cadence. There is a difference in the temperament... been so great that they have been described as the bible of the Indian people. That is not quite an accurate analogy, for the bible of the Indian people contains also the Veda and Upanishads, the Purana and Tantras and the Dharmashastras, not to speak of a large bulk of the religious poetry in the regional languages. The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ethical idea and cultural ...
... (songs) in classical South Indian music or in the repetition of motifs in Indian temple architecture or in the Ajanta paintings .Things are not to be judged on apriori grounds but only by their valid effects upon us. 'Rhetoric', of course, is another ready stick, to brandish, but it is apt more often than not merely to claw the air. Speeches in epic poetry generally acquire a ... power, and the resulting victory too has consequences both on the individual and the cosmic planes. Of Beatrice, who plays in the Divina Commedia a role not unlike Savitri's in the Indian epic, Charles Williams writes: "Let us say then that this was the effort—the union of virtue and beauty. It is, I think, true that virtue eventually runs away with the book... Philosophy—lady or no lady—is... create a favourable context for the poet who would sing of man and his developing destiny in the cosmos. But in spite of all these propitious circumstances, a great epic may fail to arrive. Is Savitri the supreme achievement in the epic genre, or is it a noble effort gone awry? Is it the one great cosmic poem of our time and of all time, or is it no more than a tour-de-force, worthy to be praised because ...
... under his feet, though in a very different way. Commenting on the plan of his magnum opus, the Indian poet points out that it expresses "a total and many-sided vision" and "aims not at the minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision or world-interpretation." 3 This is true of the Roman epic also. Raymond Frank Piper, an American professor of philosophy, considers Savitri a cosmic... to the Eternal's light. But this is also bound to happen." 33 Envisioning the ultimate victory of man over death, Savitri ends on a note of hope. It becomes evident at the end that the Indian epic is a complete rebuttal of Lucuetius's world-view. With regard to all 31 Ibid., p. 686. 32 Ibid,p.687. 33 Ibid, see pp. 703-08. Page 357 the major issues relating... regard to the time, clime, race and milieu that gave birth to them, very surprisingly, they deal with many common themes, their major preoccupation being with man's confrontation with death. The Roman epic written 1 Quoted in Prema Nandakumar, A Study of Savitri, Ashram, 1962, p. 436. 2 Quoted in Walter E. Houghton and G. Robert Stange, ed. Victorian Poetry and Poetics, Boston: ...
... of gurubhakti. Such an interpretation would have helped the case considerably. Hence he was asking eargerly: 'What did Drona do? What did Drona do?'* At first the witness * In the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata Drona or Dronacharya is a preceptor of the royal princes. Norton and others, ignorant of the reference, took him to be a contemporary character, in fact a conspirator. Page 287... Professor Leacock's comments in this connection are worth quoting: "If he opened what he thought was a cupboard door and fell downstairs and broke his neck, that would be very funny to a Pottawattomie Indian, but not to us." 4 The second example of an unadulterated "humour of situation" centres round what once befell Canon Ainger, a 'reverend gentleman'. The story is as follows - as told.by Prof... consolation: X. Sri Aurobindo's humour on Ambu-Purushottam row. "There was no misdirection of your appeal to Krishna; if there was anybody responsible it was Anilkumar with his Tabla [Indian drum]. But there was nothing wrong and no possession in the evil sense of the word - nothing hostile. The beat of the Tabla - more than anything else - created a vibration which was caught hold of ...
... possibility of an epic in this age and the idea of an epic being more and more subjective. It is not the size of the event which gives inspiration for an epic, but the significance of the event which is seen and felt by the poet. We saw Aswapathy's history yesterday, and found that Aswapathy is not the childless king that he is in the legend of the Mahabharata , the Indian epic, but he is here... book gives an answer - the sixth and seventh books, particularly the sixth - and it indirectly answers this question: Is suffering a permanent element of the cosmic constitution? The epic says no, the last answer of the epic is that it is not permanent. Pain happens to be an element in the present working of the universe because it is necessary; there is a place for it in the economy of the universe, there... realize the Divine, to become unexpectedly divine. What is the nature of Aswapathy's realization when he first began Yoga? The earth's uplook to a remote unknown Is a preface only of the epic climb Of human soul from its flat earthly state To the discovery of a greater self And the far gleam of an eternal Light. This world is a beginning and a base Where Life and Mind ...
... The pure literature of the period is represented by the two great epics, the Mahabharata, which gathered into its vast structure the greater part of the poetic activity of the Indian mind during several centuries, and the Ramayana. These two poems are epical in their motive and spirit, but they are not like any other two epics in the world, but are entirely of their own kind and subtly different... conduct. The poetical manner of these epics is not inferior to the greatness of their substance. The style and the verse in which they are written have always a noble epic quality, a lucid classical simplicity and directness rich in expression but stripped of superfluous ornament, a swift, vigorous, flexible and fluid verse constantly sure of the epic cadence. There is a difference in the temperament... they have been described as the bible of the Indian people. That is not quite an accurate analogy, for the bible of the Indian people contains also the Veda and Upanishads, the Purana and Tantras and the Dharmashastras, not to speak of a large bulk of the religious poetry in the regional languages. Page 285 The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ethical ...
... 38 These chapters on Indian architecture, sculpture and painting are the quintessence of art criticism, and the Indian student as well as the unbiased Westerner will find in these pages insights and explorations of immeasurable value. Then follow five chapters on Indian literature, the first three being devoted to the Veda, the Upanishads and the two great epics - the Ramayana and the... the sufficient fountain-head of Indian philosophy and religion, but of all Indian art, poetry and literature. 42 Then intervened the age when the Shastras were formulated or codified, but more important were the two great epics, the Mahabharata (containing the Gita as well) and the Ramayana - which are not primitive edda or saga, nor just heroic epics, but itihāsas, chief instruments... life but immeasurably more profound and evolved in thought and substance than the Greek, as advanced in maturity of culture but more vigorous and vital and young in strength than the Latin epic poetry, the Indian epic poems were fashioned to serve a greater and completer national and cultural function... . 43 Sri Aurobindo finds in Kalidasa a poet who ranks with Milton and Virgil, but with ...
... Sakuntala, and the meeting of Bhima with Hanuman and much besides - don't appear. I wonder if it will be performed in India and if so how India will take this internationalization of India's most Indian of epics. My friend Prince Kumar, a descendant of the Udaipur family, told me, quite casually, that his relations had tried to poison him when he was a child and I said 'just like the Mahabharata' and... Indian Poets and English Poetry From K.D. Sethna I have been a little slack in replying to you, but the procrastination has brought me to a very important day on which to launch my letter. August 15 has for India two far-reaching significances to commemorate. There is the birth of Sri Aurobindo whose fight for freedom was seminal in many respects, not least... die who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake... And it is most meaningful that the choice of August 15, 1947, a birthday of Sri Aurobindo's, was made for India's Independence not by any Indian but by an Englishman, the last British Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten. What gives further suggestiveness to the choice is that Mountbatten picked out August 15 because two years earlier ...
... whether leadership must be non-coercive., .and whether it is distinct from management." (Robbins, 1994). The classical Indian understanding of leadership influence is based on the foundations of self-discipline and an inner spiritual quest. In the' Shantiparva of the Indian epic Mahabharatawe get a glimpse of the ideal leader (king): 'That king... who is free from malice, who has his senses under... and Leadership In The Indian Organizations In a questionnaire survey conducted in 1994 by this researcher among 1000 Indian managers from 12 Indian organizations at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta the following facts emerged: Page 341 1.The respondents were middle and senior level managers and officials from public sector organizations like Indian Oil Corporation, The... this course, an effort would be made to develop appreciation for various forms of Indian art and culture and also some practical skills in one or more forms of art and culture. The module is proposed to cover: *Indian schools of painting. *Indian schools of music. *Indian schools of dance. *Indian literature. Practical aspect of the Module will comprise training in either ...
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