... mind on the subject of Indian poetry and literature, still one finds a frequent inability to appreciate the spirit or the form or the aesthetic value of Indian writing and especially its perfection and power as an expression of the cultural mind of the people. One meets such criticisms even from sympathetic critics as an admission of the vigour, colour and splendour of Indian poetry followed by a Page... does not altogether pass it by as an alien world, to develop an undisturbed appreciation because the receptivity of the mind is not checked or hampered by any disturbing memories or comparisons. Indian poetry on the contrary, like the poetry of Europe, is the creation of an Aryan or Aryanised national mind, starts apparently from similar motives, moves on the same plane, uses cognate forms, and yet has ...
... be in a natural English form. Ilion is not ostensibly poetry of the sacred but it has still a depth of vision made dramatically vivid. Surely you Page 19 wouldn't call this "Indian" poetry Victorian in any valid sense nor dub it imitative Romantic verse? Again, can one say that here themes or moods or experiences which are typically Indian and cannot be assimilated by the genius... Shakespeare and Milton, Keats and Tennyson with great narrative beauty. But I have heard Page 28 Indian music (and Arabinda Basu used to expound its rhythms to me) and also heard Indian poetry recited (in Hindi and in Sanskrit too) and the rhythm of the Indian imagination is quite different, those long majestic slokas have quite a different movement. Sri Aurobindo was trying to 'pour ...
... school of denigration, primarily of Western origin no doubt, but not lacking its Indian practitioners. From the general counts, presently, flows particular and painstaking criticism in respect of Indian poetry, art, and Indian life - and accordingly, Sri Aurobindo too states the Siddhanta with a lucid clarity, force of authority, and apposite and adequate marshalling of detail. Even as the criticism is... that repeatedly achieves the transcendence of the terrestrial into vaster spiritual realms: these three distinguishing marks of the best Vedic poetry provide also the inspiration for all the best Indian poetry to come. The Upanishads add a more specifically intellectual dimension to the poetry and the speculation, but they also connect with the higher spiritual thought of the civilised world ...
... have life, emotions, a real & passionate history and over all move mighty presences of gods & spirits who are still real to the consciousness of the people.) The life & surroundings in which Indian poetry moves cannot be rendered in the terms of English poetry. Yet to give up Page 251 the problem and content oneself with tumbling out the warm, throbbing Indian word to shiver & starve ...
... "infinite", "eternal", "limitless". The Page 78 difficulty about such words has struck me before—frequent use of them gives a not-altogether-agreeable Hugoesque flavour to mystic Indian poetry; but I wonder whether I have cheapened or misused them. At least you have never taken me to task on that score.) "I did not object to your frequent use of 'infinite', 'eternal', 'limitless' ...
... more uchchv ā s in Bengali poetry than in English, if by the word is meant rhetoric, free resort to imagery, prolific weaving of words and ideas and sentiments around what one has to say. Most Indian poetry in the Sanskritic languages—there are exceptions of course—was more restrained and classic in taste or else more impressionist and incisive than most English poetry; the qualities or defects noted ...
... carried out his pious resolve. For, his prejudices do not appear to have essentially diminished, though they are within a somewhat changed framework. He has recently brought out a big book, Modern Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology and a Credo, partly Page 142 to refute another critic, Buddhadeva Bose. In The Concise Encyclopaedia of English and American Poets and Poetry, edited ...
... it on the title-page of his excellent new anthology of poems written in English by Indians. Both are acts of inspiration. The fine phrase becomes a focus of special significance when applied to Indian poetry in any form. A peacock is commonly known for three things: the abundant colour of its plumes, its keen dancing - and its look of vanity. But the vision of the East has not found the peacock ...
... is not more ucchvāsa in Bengali poetry than in English, if by the word is meant rhetoric, free resort to imagery, prolix weaving of words and ideas and sentiments around what one has to say. Indian poetry in the Sanskritic languages—there are exceptions of course—was for the most part more restrained and classic in taste or else more impressionist and incisive than most English poetry; the qualities ...
... respect those minute particulars, but rather sweeps them aside. I enclose a photocopy of a review I wrote of a recent Tagore translation from which you will see that I by no means apply to all Indian poetry this judgment. I really feel that there is nothing more I can say to justify Page 116 or damn myself as it may be in your eyes. As 1 wrote in my last letter, India confronts ...
... equivalent in English or which, even when translatable, do not at all convey the same association to a person not familiar with Sanskrit. As Sri Aurobindo remarks, "The life and surroundings in which Indian poetry moves cannot be rendered in the terms of English poetry". A literal translation would be abstruse and bad poetry. And Page 46 Sri Aurobindo adds, "the business of poetical translation ...
... On Poets and Poetry Letters on Poetry and Art Indian Poetry in English Writing in a Learned Language I was surprised last night how les mots justes sprang ready to the pen's call. Alas I can't say the same thing for my English poetry, where I always fumble so. One cannot expect to seize in poetry the finer and more elusive tones, which are so important ...
... is the strength of English poetry. Page 60 For since the heightening cannot come mainly from the power and elevation of the medium through which life is seen, as in Greek and ancient Indian poetry, it has to come almost entirely from the individual response in the poet, his force of personal utterance, his intensity of personal vision. Three general characteristics emerge. The first is ...
... use of words like " infinite", "eternal", "limitless". The difficulty about such words has struck me before-s-frequent use oj them gives a not-altogether-agreeable Hugoesque flavour to mystic Indian poetry; but I wonder whether I have cheapened or misused them. At least you have never taken me to task on that score.) "I did not object to your frequent use of 'infinite', 'eternal', 'limitless' ...
... carried out his pious resolve. For, his prejudices do not appear to have essentially diminished, though they are within a somewhat changed framework. He has recently brought out a big book, Modern Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology and a Credo , partly to refute another critic, Buddhadeva Bose. In The Concise Encyclopaedia of English and American Poets and Poetry, edited by Stephen Page 431 ...
... flower or bird' by what he read. He showed the others how to break away from the pseudo-spiritual, pseudo-philosophical poem brimming with sonorous Miltonicisms. Imagine what would have happened to Indian poetry in English if poets had followed in the footsteps of Sri Aurobindo, that great savant and revolutionary, but a terminal poetic disaster?" Here are rootless self-styled professionals arrogant to ...
... precision and falsifying brevity, gravity and majesty." 25 Besides the linguistic difficulty there was also the cultural difference. "The life and surroundings," says Sri Aurobindo, "in which Indian poetry moves cannot be rendered in the terms of English poetry." 26 While translating Sanskrit poetry he had to tackle this problem thoroughly. In his notes he points out, as he says, "rather sketchily" ...
... different times. I give a few examples here, in order to highlight some of the aspects of his undisputed glory. Professor Lasson, for example, rightly calls him "the brightest star in the firmament of Indian poetry". According to Humbolt, "Tenderness in the expression of feelings and richness of creative fancy have assigned to him a lofty place among the poets of all nations". 6 Goethe's appreciation ...
... It is however, beyond the scope of this bibliography to cover this extensive literature in about twenty Indian languages. But, certainly, outstanding among those who have made a mark in modern Indian poetry are Aurobindonians like Nishikanto in Bengali, Sundaram in Gujarati, Veluri Chandrasekharam in Telugu, and Bendre, Puttappa and Gokak in Kannada. Magazine Literature The magazine literature ...
... ng and learning and experimenting again. On the question of translating Kalidasa, Sri Aurobindo makes certain points which are indeed capable of a wider application to the translation of Indian poetry generally to any modem European language. The problem is difficult, yet it must be solved; and the difficulty would be proportionate to the greater perfection of the poem to be translated. Describing ...
... following difficulty:—". The News of the Month This brief-lived feature was halted after the second issue of the Arya , September 1914. South Indian Vaishnava Poetry Sri Aurobindo published these essays on Andal and Nammalwar, two of the alwars or Vaishnava devotional poets of Tamil Nadu, in the Arya in May and July 1915. In the same... included in Essays Divine and Human , volume 12 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO . Short prose writings published between 1910 and 1950 on certain specialised subjects — the Vedas, the Upanishads, Indian culture, political theory, education, poetics — are included in the volumes of THE COMPLETE WORKS dealing with those subjects. Essays in Philosophy and Yoga is divided into five parts according ...
... Vedic and the Upanishadic spirituality has remained constantly alive in varied degrees, and the Upanishads have particularly been the sufficient fountainhead not only of Indian philosophy and religion, but of all Indian art, poetry and literature. The Vedic and the Upanishadic quest was that of immortality and of the eternal Truth in its integrality, discoverable on the heights beyond the mind... inefficiency to deal with life. For a time, Indians submissively echoed Page 436 their new Western teachers and masters and considered these three words to be the formula of Indianness. The British could hardly understand the spirit of Indian art and dismissed it as something primitive. Fortunately, Europe discovered in due course that Indian art had remarkable power and beauty. But in... India the view that India could hardly be recognised as a civilised country, and, in their ignorance of the true account of Indian history, derided the Indian discovery of the Dharma, belittled the enormous developments of Indian systems of knowledge or Shastras, considered Indian sociology as an unintelligent basis of the rigid and oppressive caste system, and thought of India's political ability as ...
... Vedic and the Upanishadic spirituality has remained constantly alive in varied degrees, and the Upanishads have particularly been the sufficient fountainhead not only of Indian philosophy and religion, but of all Indian art, poetry and literature. Page 67 The Vedic and the Upanishadic quest was that of immortality and of the eternal Truth in its integrality, discoverable on the heights... Indian Identity and Cultural Continuity Philosophy of Indianness An attempt to capture in conceptual grasp the meaning and content of Indianness is to plunge ourselves into the depths of Indian history and to discern those characteristics that are unique to India and which bring us to the understanding of the genius, spirit and soul of India. Geographically... unpracticality and inefficiency to deal with life. For a time, Indians submissively echoed their new Western teachers and masters and considered these three words to be the formula of Indianness. The British could hardly understand the spirit of Indian art and dismissed it as something primitive. Fortunately, Europe discovered in due course that Indian art had remarkable power and beauty. But in regard to other ...
... A Defence of Indian Culture A Defence of Indian Culture Indian Literature The Renaissance in India XVII Indian Literature - 2 The Upanishads are the supreme work of the Indian mind, and that it should be so, that the highest self-expression of its genius, its sublimest poetry, its greatest creation of the thought and word should be not a literary or... this great birth-song in which it soared from its earth into the supreme empyrean of the spirit. The Vedas and the Upanishads are not only the sufficient fountain-head of Indian philosophy and religion, but of all Indian art, poetry and literature. It was the soul, the temperament, the ideal mind formed and expressed in them which later carved out the great philosophies, built the structure of the Dharma... cadenced prose, spiritual poems of an absolute, an unfailing inspiration inevitable in phrase, wonderful in rhythm and expression. It is the expression of a mind in which philosophy and religion and poetry are made one, because this religion does not end with a cult nor is limited to a religio-ethical aspiration, but rises to an infinite discovery of God, of Self, of our highest and whole reality of ...
... of pessimistic sadness into the rapture of the eternal peace and bliss. Indian secular poetry and drama is throughout rich, vital and joyous and there is more tragedy, terror, sorrow and gloom packed into any few pages of European work than we can find in the whole mass of Indian literature. It does not seem to me that Indian art is at all different in this respect from the religion and literature... which lay hold upon but do not wallow on the earth. There is not here indeed the vast spiritual content of the earlier Indian mind, but it is still an Indian mind which in these delicate creations absorbs the West Asian influence, and lays stress on the sensuous as before in the poetry of Kalidasa, but uplifts it to a certain immaterial charm, rises often from the earth without quite leaving it into the... A Defence of Indian Culture A Defence of Indian Culture Indian Art The Renaissance in India XIII Indian Art - 2 Architecture, sculpture and painting, because they are the three great arts which appeal to the spirit through the eye, are those too in which the sensible and the invisible meet with the strongest emphasis on themselves and yet the greatest ...
... and Upanishads as not only the fountain-head of Indian philosophy and spirituality, of Indian art, poetry and literature, but also of Indian education and of the Indian tradition of teacher-pupil relationship. The most important idea governing the ancient system of education was that of perfection, for developing the mind and soul of man. Indian education aimed at helping the individual to grow... ideal we find in the ancient Indian system is that it is not only by obediently serving the teacher but also by repeated and full questioning that the pupil can gain the right knowledge, pari prashnena, pari sevaya. Actually, reverence for the teacher was enjoined upon the pupil for three main reasons. In the first place, Indian culture and consequently the Indian system of education strove to... preserved and developed, if we examine the spirit of the Indian Renaissance and the task it has set out to accomplish, we find that a mere revival of the old will not suffice; we shall have to admit new elements and new attitudes which are valuable for preparing the future humanity. The Indian Renaissance strove for an India that is genuinely Indian and Page 38 genuinely universal. India ...
... highest knowledge. It is in these Vedas and Upanishads that we find not only the sufficient fountainhead of Indian philosophy and religion, but of all Indian art, poetry and literature. It is there that we find the soul, the temperament, and the ideal mind which later ripened into what we now call Indian genius of spirituality, intellectuality, askesis and vitality. The development of the science of... . But when we come to study the modern schools of psychology, their apex-ideas of polarities of conflicting drives, dream analysis, personality styles, integration, and the rest, in the light of Indian knowledge that has been gained through the ages by a rigorous process of research, experimentation, and verification, we feel that we are in possession of scientific data which far exceed the tentative... consciousness, and of the superconscious, there are, in Yoga, numerous descriptions; among the Sufis, among the Christian mystics, among the Lamas, there are parallels in their descriptions, and in the Indian Yoga itself there are various classifications of the states of consciousness that pertain to these domains. The release from the ego, the realisation of the Self, of the Cosmic Consciousness, of the ...
... The Indian Spirit and Indian Poets and English Poetry containing correspondence between him and Kathleen Raine are. a critic's delight, full of insights and illumination. • Fifth, Sethna's considerable body of writing in the field of Indian history and archaeology has disproved the pernicious dogma of the Aryan invasion theory. His work The Problem of Aryan Origins: From an Indian Point... research in areas as diverse as Blake and Shakespeare Studies, Aryan Invasion Theory and Ancient Indian History, Overhead Poetry, Christology, Comparative Mythology, the Study of Hellenic Literature and Culture, Indian systems of Yoga, International Affairs, the question of the English language and the Indian spirit, Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Mystical, Spiritual and Scientific Thought, the Structure... point of view or target opponents through the habit of "guilt by association". 2. The English Language and The Indian Spirit: Correspondence between Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1986. Also see, Indian Poets and English Poetry: Correspondence between Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna , Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994. 3 . A Follower of Christ ...
... images and ideas almost in the same terms, and when we read the Vedic texts and the principal Upanishads and study the later period of Indian history, we find that they are not only the fountainhead of Indian yoga and philosophy and religion, but of all Indian art, poetry and literature. Sri Aurobindo points out: "It was the soul, the temperament, the ideal mind formed and expressed in them which... human action, we find in them the sources of the highest ethical systems that developed in the later periods as the Indian idea of Dharma. The Upanishads constitute a continuation and development of the Vedic system of yoga. There are a number of passages which are at once poetry and spiritual philosophy of an absolute clarity and beauty. There are others in which subtlest psychological and ph... secret knowledge of which the Indian tradition speaks is contained in the Vedic descriptions that relate to the human journey starting from the awakening of Agni which lifts us up Page 15 to attainment of immortality. It can be said that it is the Vedic science of the human journey in its upward rising towards truth-consciousness that has moulded Indian philosophical thought towards ...
... knowledge which made the Upanishads possible. We see here how the soul of India was born, and we come to recognize the Vedas and Upanishads as not only the fountainhead of Indian philosophy and spirituality, of Indian art, poetry and These great names are those to whom various parts of the Rig Veda are attributed. The Rig Veda, as we possess it, is arranged in ten books. They are called Mandalas... Romasha, Lopamudra, Apala, Kadru, Vishwavara. Page 31 literature, but also of Indian education and of the Indian tradition of teacher-pupil relationship. The most important idea governing the ancient system of education was that of perfection, for developing the mind and soul of man. Indian education aimed at helping the individual to grow in the power and force of certain large... ideal we find in the ancient Indian system is that it is not only by obediently serving the teacher but also by repeated and full questioning that the pupil can gain the right knowledge, pari prashnena, pari sevaya. Actually, reverence for the teacher was enjoined upon the pupil for three main reasons. In the first place, Indian culture and consequently the Indian system of education strove ...
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