... 196 193—The existence of poverty is the proof of an unjust and ill-organised society, and our public charities are but the first tardy awakening in the conscience of a robber. 194—Valmikie, our ancient epic poet, includes among the signs of a just and enlightened state of society not only universal education, morality and spirituality but this also that there shall be "none who is compelled ...
... in the Mahabharata and Valmiki's emphatic and repeated protest against it through the mouth of Rama. This ethical code was like all aristocratic codes of conduct full of high chivalry and the spirit of noblesse oblige , but a little loose in sexual morality on the masculine side and indulgent to violence and the strong hand. To the pure and delicate moral temperament of Valmiki, imaginative, sensitive... of those imperial forms of government and society which Valmiki had idealised. Behind its poetic legend it celebrates and approves the policy of a great Kshatriya leader of men who aimed at the subjection of his order to the rule of a central imperial power which should typify its best tendencies and control or expel its worst. But while Valmiki was a soul out of harmony with its surroundings and looking... On Literature On Literature The Poetry of Kalidasa Early Cultural Writings The Age of Kalidasa Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are the essence of the history of ancient India; if all else were lost, they would still be its sole and sufficient cultural history. Their poems are types and exponents of three periods in the development of the human soul ...
... Kaikeyi. Only Valmiki has been able to describe the majesty and the divinity of Sri Rama, who even though dimmed by the unexpected turn of events, rose immediately to the supreme heights of firm resolve, golden virtue, supreme sacrifice and imperturbable strength of equanimity. And only Valmiki could describe that tender love of Sri Rama for Sita and also the fierce love of Sita for Rama. Valmiki Ramayana... assembled viewers, remark on the physical resemblance of the boys to Sri Rama, and Sri Rama on being told by the twins that the great poem was composed by the great sage Valmiki, sends a message to Valmiki to bring with him Sita. Valmiki arrives with Sita and declares the purity of Sita and that the twin boys were born to her. Sri Rama, however, asks that Sita should publicly declare her chastity. Sita... one of the greatest poets in the history of the world', Valmiki (as rendered from the original Sanskrit into English.) Our presentation is an adaptation of the translation of Srīmād Valmīki-Ramayana into English by Gita Press. It is felt that many readers may like to have the experience of the literary beauty, charm and strength of Valmiki's style and his genius, even though in the first introductory ...
... purpose we immediately resort to the works of Valmiki, Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti. Yet, as a matter of fact, the Gita, the Upanishads and the Vedas can easily stand on the same footing with the greatest poetry. However natural or mundane may be the delight in poetic creation, it can never surpass the poetic greatness of the mantra. Neither the ancient poet Valmiki nor even Homer or Shakespeare are an exception... Shakespeare: And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, or Dante's: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate, (Abandon hope, all ye that enter here,) Page 109 or Valmiki' s : Apahrtya sacim bharyam sakyam Indrasya jivitum. Na ca Ramasya bharyarh mamapaniyasti jivitam. (Even after stealing Sachi, the consort of Indra, one may remain alive. But kidnapping... the womb of future, for time has no end and the earth too is boundless." From this point of view Milton and Virgil may be looked upon as mere poets. Those who consider Shakespeare, Homer and Valmiki superior to Milton, Virgil and Kalidasa come to such a conclusion from a subtler consideration. One group of poets makes use of vaikhari vak, while the other of pasyanti vak. Seer as poet and ...
... now compare and contrast, for example, the genius of Valmiki and that of Shakespeare in the field of literature. On Page 253 reading Shakespeare a stamp of characters that are human is left on our mind, and Valmiki impresses us with characters that are superhuman. Shakespeare has depicted men solely as human beings, while Valmiki read into men the symbol of some larger and higher... with each other, as it were. But Valmiki deals with experiences and realities that exceed the bounds of ordinary earthly life. Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear are the highlights of Shakespearae's creation. Valmiki's heroes and heroine are Rama, Ravana and Sita. The characters depicted by Shakespeare are men as men are or would be. But even the human characters of Valmiki contain something of the super-human ...
... Aurobindo on Sri Rama I am rather perplexed by your strictures on Rama. Cowardice is the last thing that can be charged against Valmiki's Rama; he has always been considered as a warrior and it is the "martial races" of India who have made him their god. Valmiki everywhere paints him as a great warrior. His employment of ruse against an infrahuman enemy does not prove the opposite — for that is... equilibrium — but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such — it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus — you efface the main lines of the characters, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and some parts of shadow which... Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Vol. 22, SABCL, pp. 413-21 Page 324 Appendices IV Sri Aurobindo on Valmiki and Vyasa A Comparison Vyasa in fact stands at the opposite pole from Valmiki. The poet of the Ramayana has a flexible and universal genius embracing the Titanic and the divine, the human and the gigantic at once or with an inspired ...
... and Gandhi also say the same thing—that poetry must be for the masses. Kalelkar says that even the Ramayana was written for them. SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! PURANI: Yes, Kalelkar explains that Valmiki used to go from cottage to cottage reciting the Ramayana and that when the epic was finished the Rishis presented him with a Kamandalu (water pot), a Kaupin (loin-cloth) and a Parnakutir (thatched... Kalelkar's is an entirely unheard-of interpretation of the Ramayana. PURANI: He claims to have found evidence in the poem itself for his theory. SRI AUROBINDO: Where is it said in the Ramayana? If Valmiki meant it for the masses he kept his meaning a secret. Nor did he recite it to the masses. There were the professional reciters who carried it from door to door and popularised it. That is a different... his art; but in art you can't take soul and body as separate things. Those images—food and vessel—can be applied to physical processes, not to any inner process like art creation. PURANI: When Valmiki had the vision, he was busier giving form to it than going from cottage to cottage and popularising the Ramayana. By the way, there is a point made by someone about Vyasa and his Mahabharata. He ...
... world's absolutely supreme singers. Who are these, then? Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Kalidasa? And what about Aeschylus, Virgil and Milton? I suppose all the names you mention except Goethe can be included; or if you like you can put them all including Goethe in three rows—e.g.: 1st row Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki 2nd row Dante, Kalidasa, Aeschylus, Virgil, Milton 3rd row Goethe and there... their scope and touch too on things which the Greek and Elizabethan poets could not even glimpse. But as poets—as masters of rhythm and language and the expression of poetic beauty—Vyasa and Valmiki are not inferior , but also not greater than the English or the Greek poet. We can leave aside for the moment the question whether the Mahabharata was not the creation of the mind of a people rather... a greater poet than Racine whom you want to put in the first ranks. If you want only the very greatest, none of these can enter—only Vyasa and Sophocles. Vyasa could very well claim a place beside Valmiki, Sophocles beside Aeschylus. The rest, if you like, you can send into the third row with Goethe, but it is something of a promotion about which one can feel some qualms. Spenser too, if you like; it ...
... of Avatarhood. 1 I am rather perplexed by your strictures on Rama. Cowardice is the last thing that can be charged against Valmiki's Rama; he has always been considered as a warrior and it is the "martial races" of India who have made him their god. Valmiki everywhere paints him as a great warrior. His employment of ruse against an infrahuman enemy does not prove the opposite—for that is... unstable equilibrium, but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such—it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus—you efface the main lines of the character, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and some parts of shadow which... but they are not at all the essence of the matter. Also, I do not consider your method of dealing with Rama's personality to be the right one. It has to be taken as a whole in the setting that Valmiki gave it (not treated as if it were the story of a modern man) and with the significance that he gave to his hero's personality, deeds and works. If it is pulled out of its setting and analysed under ...
... varṇana ) then there is poetry. Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are supreme poets of their respective ages because they have found, each in his own way, the perfect expression for those powers. When Sri Aurobindo speaks of the three powers supremely expressed by the three poets his remark should not be taken to mean that each power is exclusive to one poet only. Valmiki's world contains "vast material... gave the most magnificent expression to the beauty and grandeur of the physical world, shows also "a keen appreciation of high ideal and lofty thought." 43 i) Valmiki and Sri Aurobindo The moral world of Valmiki is the world of passions and emotions, world of the vital forces. Morality implies the governance of the natural impulses in man and a transformation of that which is... with you, my wise lord. 45 The tale of Valmiki's awakening to poetry tells us how the natural bhāva of grief ( śoka ) is transmuted into the karuṇa rasa , the aesthetic experience of compassionate sympathy, giving rise to the poetic utterance (śloka) 46 The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL, Vol. 14, p. 290. 47 Valmiki sings, says Sri Aurobindo, "of the ideal man embodying ...
... poets. The Upanishads in this respect have a certain kinship with the early poets of the intervening age—Vyasa and Valmiki. Upama Kdliddsasya— Kalidasa revels in figures and images; they are profusely heaped on one another and usually possess a complex and composite texture. Valmiki's images are simple and elemental, brief and instinct with a vast resonance, spar and full of power. The same brevity... brevity and simplicity, vibrant Page 342 with an extraordinary power of evocation, are also characteristic of the Upanishadic mantra. With Valmiki's akasamiva dusparam— like the sky hard to cross over, or , gatarcisamivanalam— like a fire whose light of flame is gone, or , tejasadityasamkasah ksamaya prthivisamah— ...
... poets. The Upanishads in this .respect have a certain kinship with the early poets of the intervening age – Vyasa and Valmiki. Upamā Kālidāsasya --Kalidasa revels in figures and images; they are profusely heaped on one another and usually possess a complex and composite texture. Valmiki's images are simple and elemental, brief and instinct with a vast resonance, spare and full of power. The same brevity... brevity and simplicity, vibrant Page 39 with an extraordinary power of evocation, are also characteristic of the Upanishadic mantra. With Valmiki's ākāśamiva duspāram like the sky hard to cross over, or, gatārcisamivānalam – like a fire whose light of flame is gone, or, tejasādityasamkāśah ksamayā Prthivīsamah – fiery as the burning sun, full of ...
... Aeschylus, Sophocles, Virgil and Milton — just as all these stood above Goethe who too, according to Sri Aurobindo, was among the e1ite. At the sheer top there was nobody except Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki and Vyasa. Four criteria Sri Aurobindo set up for the absolute first rank. They may be summed up: originality of imagination, power of expression, creative genius, range of subject-matter... also scale of work or what we may call quantity of quality. Dante just misses the utter Everest-point and sits crowned on a Kanchanjanga because his work does not have an equal genius with Vyasa's, Valmiki's, Shakespeare's and Homer's for creating a teeming world of living characters and real-seeming situations and "unknown modes of being". An energetic constructiveness Page 262 on... and finish, rarely, if at all, equals. Sri Aurobindo may be said to have been poetically influenced in a basic sense by Homer and Shakespeare from his earliest days and, later, by Vyasa, Valmiki and the mantras of the Rigveda, the Upanishads and the Gita. If any poetry not exactly of the sheer top, though high enough, deeply permeated him, it was Kalidasa's more than Dante's. This ...
... Yogic knowledge (in your hypothetical case) it should be quite easy to add the outer one. 29 December 1934 When one hears that you had to plod through a lot, one wonders whether the story of Valmiki's sudden opening of poetic faculties is true—whether such a miracle is really possible. Plod about what? For some things I had to plod—other things came in a moment or in two or three days like... at the first shot (when I was in Calcutta)—after some years of incubation (?) it burst out like a volcano as soon as I started writing the Arya . There is no damned single rule for these things. Valmiki's poetic faculty might open suddenly like a Page 63 champagne bottle, but it does not follow that everybody's will do like that. 1 April 1935 Avoidance of Certain Subjects If I ...
... Aeschylus, Sophocles, Virgil and Milton - just as all these stood above Goethe who too, according to Sri Aurobindo, was among the elite. At the sheer top there was nobody except Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki and Vyasa. Four criteria Sri Aurobindo set up for the absolute first rank. They may be summed up: originality of imagination, Page 205 power of expression, creative genius... scale of work or what we may call quantity of quality. Dante just misses the utter Everest-point and sits crowned on a Kanchanjanga because his work does not have an equal genius with Vyasa's, Valmiki's, Shakespeare's and Homer's for creating a teeming world of living characters and real-seeming situations and "unknown modes of being". An energetic constructiveness on a grand scale rather than... if at all, equals. Page 206 Sri Aurobindo may be said to have been poetically influenced in a basic sense by Homer and Shakespeare from his earliest days and, later, by Vyasa, Valmiki and the mantras of the Rigveda, the Upanishads and the Gita. If any poetry not exactly of the sheer top, though high enough, deeply permeated him, it was Kalidasa's more than Dante's. This ...
... simple and perfect is the grief of Damayanti when she wakes to find herself alone in that desolate cabin. The restraint of phrase is perfect, the verse is clear, equable and unadorned, yet hardly has Valmiki himself written a truer utterance of emotion than this: ________ The Mahabharata, Vanaparva, 64.12. ** The Mahabharata, Vanaparva, 64.19. "Ah Nala, my pure Lord! I am destroyed!... similarity with episodes of the Ramayana. We will mention two of them. The first one is Damayanti's lament, the passage on which we have just quoted Sri Aurobindo. We present here its parallel in Valmiki's Ramayana: Rama's lament after he has discovered Sita's disappearance. As the reader can see, there is a striking similitude between the two monologues including that touch of delusion in which the... limbs among themselves."* Another episode in the Nalopakhyanam reminds us of the Ramayana. This is the moment when Damayanti searches for Nala _________ * Aranyakanda, 60, 26-30 in Srimad Valmiki-Ramayana, Part II (Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 1992), p. 814. Page 71 in the forest and is so desperate and has such a burning desire speak about him that she asks the lion and the mountain ...
... stability of a rock. This is the difference between the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, between the styles of Vyasa and Valmiki. This too is the difference between Wordsworth and Shelley. The Ramayana has always been recognised Page 101 for its poetic beauty; Valmiki is our first great poet, ādi-kavi. In the Mahabharata we appreciate not so much the beauty of poetic form as a ...
... ‘is characterised by immensity alone.’ That is why Aeschylus, Lucretius, Shakespeare and Corneille had conquered his heart. Had he been acquainted with Sanskrit literature he would have included Valmiki and the Vedic seers. As a matter of fact, what we want to derive from poetry or any other artistic creation is a glimpse of the Infinite and the Eternal. When the heart opens wide, it soars aloft to... pâtre promontoire au chapeau des nuées S' accoude et rêve au bruit de tous les infinis, – we are borne on the bosom of a shoreless Deep. The same immensity pervades those verses of Valmiki, which may be rendered: Know us as Kshatriyas carrying on their duties while roving in the forest. We desire to know you, who are roaming in the Dandakas – and that phrase from the... Radha is at large. (Vidyapati) or, I shall store up my Beloved in my soul. To none shall I disclose The perfect union of two hearts. ( Chandidas) It is said that Valmiki is the pioneer poet in Sanskrit literature. In our Bengali literature it is Vidyapati, nay, to be more precise and accurate, it is Chandidas who is the father of poetry. He raised the natural vital ...
... great poets—Valmiki, Vyasa, Page 337 Kalidasa—have found in it almost an ideal, at least a wonderfully elastic, medium for poetic expression, inexhaustible in its potentialities, rather comparable to blank verse in the Age of Shakespeare or heroic verse (or the couplet) in the Age of Dryden and Pope. It is said that the Adi-Kavi (the 'first' poet), Valmiki, was walking... from nowhere struck the male bird and killed it, leaving the female disconsolate. Valmiki's humanity felt a deep wound, his anger flashed up for an instant, and he broke out into a curse—but the curse took a rhythmic form. The shock of tragedy and the welling up of pity had produced a sudden tension in Valmiki's mind which sought natural release in the form of the verse which was presently to ...
... other day I happened to ask X whether you were Shakespeare. He was diffident. My own belief is that you have somehow amalgamated all that was precious in those that manifested as Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Dante, Virgil and Milton: if not all, at least the biggest of the lot. Kindly let us know the truth. Among your other and non-poetic incarnations, some surmise Alexander and Julius Caesar. Good... claims Julius Caesar. I don't want to be prosecuted by her for misappropriation of personality. Alexander was too much of a torrent for me; I disclaim Milton and Virgil, am unconscious of Dante and Valmiki, diffident like X about the Bard (and moneylender?) of Avon. If, however, you can bring sufficiently cogent Page 55 evidence, I am ready to take upon my back the offences of all the famous ...
... unfettered but infallible fantasy. Out of His infinite personality He creates all these characters & their inevitable actions & destinies. So it is with every divine creator,—with Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Kalidasa. It is perfectly true that each has his own style of language & creation, his own preferred system or harmony of the poetic Art, just as the creator of this universe has fashioned it in a ...
... of the world we could include Valmiki, Vyasa, Homer, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Virgil, Kalidas, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton and Goethe. From the point of view of essential force and beauty, Homer and Shakespeare stand above all the rest, although Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharta is greater in his range than Homer in the Page 11 Iliad. Similarly, Valmiki has a greater range than Homer... Homer in Odyssey. Both Vyasa and Valmiki, in their strength and in their achievement in regard to the largeness of the field are greater than the whole dramatic world of Shakespeare. According to Sri Aurobindo, both the Mahabharta and the Ramayana are "built on an almost cosmic vastness of plan and take all human life (the Mahabharta ) all human thought as well in their scope and touch too on things... things which the Greek and Elizabethan poets could not even glimpse. But as poets — as masters of rhythm and language and the expression of poetic beauty — Vyasa and Valmiki though not inferior are not greater than either the English or the Greek poet." 1 Homer has given the presentation of life always at a high intensity of impulse and action and those who know Greek feel that he casts it ...
... sculpture, the stability of a rock. This is the difference between the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, between the styles of Vyasa and Valmiki. This too is the difference between Wordsworth and Shelley. The Ramayana has always been recognised for its poetic beauty; Valmiki is our first great poet, a di-kavi. In the Mahabharata we appreciate not so much the beauty of poetic form as a treasury of knowledge ...
... PART V Savitri in World Literature Let us try to put Savitri in the perspective of some of the world's great poems, if only for its own fuller grasp. Valmiki, the first bom of poets, author of the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, is the supreme singer; Veda-Vyasa coming after him, the author of the Mahabharata, is the supreme poet-thinker. Anyone versed in... the poetry of vision where the poet like the Vedic Rishis is also a seer, a man who catches through insight an aspect of Reality and transfers its vibrations to the word, with a fusion in it of Valmiki's poetic felicity, Veda-Vyasa's thought-sublimity, though not its extensibility and, in addition, a 20th-century sensibility. Homer possessed of a vision as wide as the world of his day, a... Homer's. Homer's is a world of Helen — a human passion; Sri Aurobindo's of Savitri -— a divine passion; and yet as creative geniuses both are supreme. Sri Aurobindo put Homer along with Valmiki and Shakespeare in the first row of the world's supreme poets. One thing, however, is strikingly similar in both the epics. Homer's Iliad is full "of images drawn from fire, the armies clash ...
... Shakespeare and Dante..." * * * "Many centuries after these poets [Valmiki and Vyasa], perhaps a thousand years or even more, came the third great embodiment of the national consciousness, Kalidasa. There is a far greater difference between the civilisation he mirrors than between Vyasa's and Valmiki's. He came when the daemonic orgy of character and intellect had worked itself out and... Selected Episodes From Raghuvamsam of Kalidasa Appendices Passages from the writings of Sri Aurobindo on Kalidasa "Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are the essence of the history of ancient India; if all else were lost, they would still be its sole and sufficient cultural history. Their poems are types and exponents of three periods in the development ...
... Rama, his exile, the abduction of his wife, Sita, by Ravana, the expedition against the demon-king, and the final rescue of Sita—all this is also Page 239 the subject of Valmiki's great epic, the Ramayana. Even as Rama had been able to triumph over his tribulations ultimately, Yudhishtira too should be able, notwithstanding his present plight, to get back to his own. ...
... poetry. V From Sri Aurobindo's draft manuscripts, a volume entitled Vyasa and Valmiki was published posthumously in 1956.35 This volume contained a valuable inquiry into "The Problem of the Mahabharata", some very stimulating "Notes on the Mahabharata" and a luminous fragment on "The Genius of Valmiki"; besides all this body of prose, the volume included also translations of selections... quality and poetic perfection - than the Homeric poems.... 36 Vyasa's knowledge of character is not So intimate, emotional and sympathetic as Valmiki's; it has more of a heroic inspiration, less of a divine sympathy. He has reached it not like Valmiki immediately through the heart and imagination, but deliberately through intellect and experience, a deep criticism and reading of men... 37 ... a new planet swims into his ken... The mind racing swiftly, the heart expansive and in a flutter of thrilled delight, the sensibility growing new wings of understanding, Sri Aurobindo viewed Valmiki and Vyasa as twin Himalayan peaks of poetic achievement, he saw the differences too, and also the lineness and difference between these on the one hand and, on the other, the greatest epic poet ...
... subtle form of its own and this form may be thought of as achieving its presence within the physical body in which the soul destined to receive the Avatar is itself housed. 7. I do not know Valmiki's Ramayana sufficiently to pronounce whether he pictures Rama as conscious of the Divine born in him from the beginning of his life. This phenomenon is not essential. The Avatar-being is, of course ...
... maximisation of one or more elements of our nature. When illumination and heroism join and engender relations of mutuality and unity, each is perfected by the other and creativity is endless. Valmiki, Vyasa, and Kalidasa are the three greatest poets of India, and one cannot have a living experience of Indian culture without some direct experience of the works of these three great poets. Kalidasa ...
... by his genius able to create sympathy in us for Ravana and not Rama. Isn't this striking? SRI AUROBINDO: But even then his Ravana is insignificant as compared to the tremendous personality in Valmiki's Ramayana. Or see the character of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost. And Rama's character too has been much degraded in Madhusudan. (Turning to Purani) Is there any epic in the Marathi language... many are they? As for subject, what subject could be more suitable to an epic than the career of Napoleon? It is surprising—the large number of epic poets in Sanskrit. The very language is epic. Valmiki, Vyasa, even classical poets like Kalidasa, Bharavi and others have all achieved epic heights. NIRODBARAN: Has your own epic Savitri anything to do with the Mahabharata story? SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... evolution, and can best be studied by examination of the intimate details of thoughts and actions of this great personality, which have been described by one of the greatest poets of all times, Valmiki, who is also recognized as a most ancient poet of classical Sanskrit literature. Illumination, Heroism and Harmony, — all the three are found to be united in all the episodes that have been chosen ...
... out of consideration for his subjects; it was part of his duty as king. He had, at least at one time, shown a greater regard for his brother than for his wife. The words he has been made to say by Valmiki in this connection have attained celebrity: dese dese kalatrani dese dese ca bandhavah tam tu desam na pasyami yatra bhrata sahodarah Page 62 "Wives one can get in every... might be found; Another son be born if one were slain. But I , when Hades holds my parents twain, Must brotherless abide for ever." (Murray) The point to note is that whereas in Valmiki a man is made to say that wives are available by the dozen in every land, Sophocles makes a woman declare as if in retort that husbands too are to be had in plenty. (3) Aeschylus, Sophocles ...
... Tyrrhenian 35 U Uchathya 9 Uma 18 Upanishad 37 Upanishadic Assurance 53 Upanishadic Rishis 8 V Vaishnava Poet 78 Vaishnava Poetry 91 Valmiki 13, 40, 103, 104 Varna 15 Varuna 1, 4, 5, 6, 31 Vashishtha 8 Vayu 13 Veda 8, 13 Vedantins 34, 56 Vedantic mysticism 56 Vibhutis 93 Vijnana 14 Vishwamitra ...
... The unsealing of grandeurs from subtle dimensions of Nature to cast an interpretative light on the world-pageant through a rich packed poetry could very well be true of ancient epics like Valmiki's Rāmāyana and Vyasa's Mahābhārata or mediaeval ones like Kalidasa's Kumārasambhavam and Raghuvamsam . The last phrase about man's word being upraised to neighbour a divine utterance... across the ages to reveal Page 54 here and now the arcane Eternal, the masked Absolute. Yes, the poems spoken of in our earlier quotation are like the masterpieces of Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa rather than like the Vedic hymns, the Upanishadic slokas or that super- Vyasan rarity — the Gita — in the midst of the Mahābhārata . But these too, in Sri Aurobindo's ...
... - was a necessary part of the human past. Someone Rama-like was assuredly there and Valmiki has so projected him that all his actions bear the stamp of an Avatar's universal consciousness. Sri Aurobindo declared that he could clearly recognise the Avataric afflatus in all the decisions and deeds of Valmiki's Rama. I think that for all prac- Page 261 tical purposes the basic Rama ...
... lives of men. And the Stream flowed on. Down the bed of Time it flowed, ever widening, ever enriched. Of the few epics that have come down to us, two are written in Sanskrit: the Ramayana of Valmiki, and the Mahabharata of Vyasa. In the hands of Kalidasa at a later age, it became a thing of grace. But Sanskrit was not the language of poets only, of philosophers only, it lent itself equally well ...
... had a large and powerful interpretative and intuitive vision of Nature and life and man and whose poetry has arisen out of that in a supreme revelatory utterance of it. Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Valmiki, Kalidasa, however much they may differ in everything else, are at one in having this as the fundamental character of their greatness. Their supremacy does not lie essentially in a greater thought-power... favoured immortals. The religious poetry of the later Indian tongues has for us fervours of poetic revelation which in the great classics are absent, even though no mediaeval poet can rank in power with Valmiki and Kalidasa. The modern literatures of Europe commonly fall short of the Greek perfection of harmony and form, but they give us what the greatest Greek poets had not and could not have. And Page ...
... has no idea of these things, not even elementary principles of Sankhya. He doesn't realise that in Nature one can have the contact of something of Supernature. He has no imagination, either. He says Valmiki has depicted Ayodhya as a rich, luxurious city. SRI AUROBINDO: Should it have been described as a poor village? Then if he read Kalidasa he would squirm with agony. PURANI: For such people everything ...
... power of its unifying harmony. Highet's pointed emphasis on Milton's style in Paradise Lost is by no means misplaced. The hexameter of Homer and Virgil, the anustup of Vyasa and Valmiki, the terza rima of Dante, the symphonic blank verse of Milton, the crystalline iambic pentameter of Savitri, all play no mean part in charging these great epics with life and movement and a rounded ...
... were Shakespeare. He was diffident. My own belief is that you have somehow amalgamated all that was precious in those forces that manifested as Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Dante, Virgil and Milton: if not all, at least the biggest of the lot. Kindly let us know the truth. Among your other and non-poetic incarnations, some surmise... Julius Caesar. I don't want to be prosecuted by her for misappropriation of personality. Alexander was too much of a torrent for me; I disclaim Milton and Virgil, am unconscious of Dante and Valmiki, diffident like Nolini about the Bard (and money-lender?) of Avon. If, however, you can bring sufficiently cogent evidence, I am ready to take upon my back the offences of all the famous people ...
... -Aitar_a,80,83 -Brihadaranyaka, 71n., 74n. -Isha, 158n. -Katha, 29n., 31n., 68n., 78n. -Kena, 29n., 162n. -Mundaka, 68n. -Swetaswatara, 68n. VAIKUNTHA,128 Valmiki,209 Varma, Ravi, 420 Varona, 207 Vedas, the, 133, 151, 239 -Rig Veda, 133, 160n Vedanta, 85 Victoria, Queen, 418 Virgil, 107,203,209 -Aeneid, 1O7n. 154, 178, ...
... the Psychic Being and never the self-centered body. The moderns may ask: "Is it obligatory that one should have a great soul in order to be, a great poet?" In the hoary past it was almost so. Valmiki, Vyasa and Homer rightly deserve to fall into that category. But the ancient Latin Catullus, the French poet Villon of the medieval age, most of the 'Satanic' poets of the Romantic age, and Oscar Wilde ...
... until then they were deprived of this blessedness, but with Jnaneshwari a whole new world of devotional life opened out for them. The first Marathi poet combined in himself the lyrical mysticism of Valmiki and the spiritual classicism of Vyasa to build the foundation of a larger collective social order. The method of the poet is reiterative, emphasising each idea or concept with the help of several examples ...
... compared with it in sustained poetic quality, only the Shah-Nameh of Firdausi, the Ramayana of Valmiki and the Mahabharata of Vyasa exceed it in length — three works which, like it, are products of the East. And indeed Page 127 Savitri stands with the masterpieces of Valmiki and Vyasa in more than one respect. It has been conceived with an affinity to the ancient Indian temperament ...
... and nobody will ever outsing Valmiki and Homer and Shakespeare. But a new region of reality will be laid bare, untrodden expressive paths penetrated. While the former ages gave us something of the world's wonder as seized by the body-sense, the life-gusto, the mental aesthesis, there will be found in the future a poetic word equal to Homer and Shakespeare and Valmiki but packed with a superhuman awareness ...
... his outer social life. The problem – Man versus Society, the individual and the collective-the private and the public sector in modern jargon – is not of today. It is as old as Sophocles, as old as Valmiki. Antigone upheld the honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual claims to the demand of ...
... Savitri himself to the social psychology of the modem. Purani's comparative discussion of epical form stands out for its analytical insight: he marks a difference between the early epic of Homer, Valmiki or Vyasa, where a vast and complex outward action is the subject; and the departure towards subjectivism introduced by Dante and strengthened in Milton. Savitri could be seen as a modern efflorescence ...
... his outer social life. The problem—Man versus Society, the individual and the collective—the private and the public sector in modem jargon—is not of today. It is as old as Sophocles, as old as Valmiki. Antigone upheld the honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed Page 40 herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual ...
... Parvati's Tapasya Notes Kalidasa's life "Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are the essence of the history of ancient India", said Sri Aurobindo, "if all else were lost, they would still be its sole and sufficient cultural history." Yet, of the life of these three great poets we know very little. And the three plays and four poems of Kalidasa tell us nothing... great epic literature (mainly the Ramayana and Mahabharata), great philosophical systems, codes and ethics, codes of statecraft, as also great sciences and arts, began to develop during this period. Valmiki and Vyasa are the great representatives of that period. Then, Many centuries after these poets, perhaps a thousand years or even more, came the third embodiment of the national consciousness ...
... or legendary tradition 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." Valmiki and Vyasa indeed shaped the minds of the Indian people. They were architects and sculptors of life. Their epics contain a deep reflection on life, on human psychology, on society, politics and religion... in its shade). See Ayurvedic Pharmacology and Therapeutic Uses of Medicinal Plants by Vaidya VM. Gogte, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, 2000, p.438-39. Page 24 immediate influence of Valmiki (one of the most pathetic touches in the Nala is borrowed straight out of the Ramayana), at any rate able, without ceasing to be finely restrained, to give some rein to his fancy. The Nala therefore ...
... those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret Page 311 consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses... he is quite oblivious of them, gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the elemental poets—Shakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits ...
... noble literature. Disciple : Kalelker in a recent article has tried to make Page 238 out that Valmiki wanted to serve janatā , humanity – and so he recited the Ramayana from cottage to cottage! I can never understand this idea. I can't imagine Valmiki doing it. When did he find the time to write the Ramayana, if he was reciting it from place to place? Sri Aurobindo... Aurobindo : But where does Kalelker find his authority for saying so? The Ramayana was not recited to the mass by Valmiki : It was the reciters who popularised it. Disciple : He refers to some verse in the Ramayana which describes how the Rishis heard the Ramayana and gave Valmiki a Kaupin – loin cloth, Kamandalu and a Parna-kuti – thatched house. Sri Aurobindo : Good Lord! But the Rishis ...
... sculpture, the stability of the hill. This is the difference between .the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, between the styles of Vyasa and, Valmiki. This too is the difference between Wordsworth and Shelley. The Ramayana has always been recognised for its poetic beauty; Valmiki is our first great poet, a di-kavi. In the Mahabharata we find not so much the beauty of poetic form as a treasury of knowledge ...
... those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret Page 83 consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it... he is quite oblivious of them" gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the elemental poets – Shakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits ...
... Plays, Vol. 7 99 . VYASA AND VALMIKI Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1956 Essays, notes and translations from the author's Baroda period. Vyasa: "Notes on the Mahabharata", "The Problem of the Mahabharata" and translations (done in 1893) from the Sabha Parva and Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata. Valmiki: "The Genius of Valmiki" and translations from the Bala Kanda... Volume 3 The Harmony of Virtue , EARLY CULTURAL WRITINGS: The Harmony of Virtue; Bankim Chandra Chatter jee; The Sources of Poetry and Other Essays; Valmiki and Vyasa; Kalidasa ; The Brainof India; Essays from the Karmayogin; Art and Literature; Passing Thoughts; Conversations of the Dead. Volume 4 Writings ...
... makes beauty out of man's outward life and action and stops there. Shakespeare rises one step farther and reveals to us a life-soul and life-forces and life-values to which Homer had no access. In Valmiki and Vyasa there is the constant presence of great Idea-Forces and Ideals supporting life and its movements which were beyond the scope of Homer and Shakespeare. And beyond the Ideals and Idea-Forces ...
... Life-Literature-Yoga 1952 Conversations of the Dead, 1909-1910 1951 The Phantom Hour (a short story), 1910-1912 1951 Kalidasa, 2 Vols., 1898-1904 1929 Vyasa and Valmiki, 1893-1905 1956 The Future Poetry, 'Arya', December 1917 -July 1920 1953 Collected Poems and Plays, 2 Vols. 1942 Poems Past and Present 1946 Poems from Bengali ...
... as they satisfy these criteria in a greater or smaller measure. Sri Aurobindo chooses eleven poets for the sheer first class, but even these he distributes into three rows. In the top row he puts Valmiki, Vyasa, Homer and Shakespeare as equals. In the middle' row come Dante, Kalidasa; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Virgil and Milton. In the third stands in solitary grandeui:Goethe.1 Those in the first- ...
... even to the most educated Indians of today; the sheer poetic excellence of the Veda should have merited the full attention of the whole nation; even the three great national poets of Indian history, Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa, and their works are hardly known and only very briefly mentioned in our history books; the great achievements which were registered by ancient Indians in the fields of astronomy ...
... 51 Turner, W.J. 310-312 Underhill, Evelyn 339, 348 Urban, Wilbur Marshall 274, 449 Urvasie 40, 52,201,318,340,342,363,386, 421-423, 458 Valmiki 243,340,341,384 Van Ruvsbroeck, Jan 326 Vasavadutla 47-49, 318 Vidula 12, 46, 458 Vidyapati 45 Vijayatunga J. 18 Virgil 33, 54, 309, 376 ...
... physical education? We should remember the heroes that India gave to herself who rep resent not only great qualities of courage and valour but also of physical strength and excellence. Here is how Valmiki. describes Rama in the opening verses of the Ramayana: There is a famous king by the name of Rama, born in the line of great Ikshwaku. He is of subdued sense and of exceeding might. He has... and of symmetrical limbs. This highly beautiful and mighty Rama is supremely intelligent, and of eloquent speech. Centuries later, Rama was described again by the poet Kalidasa echoing Valmiki's description: Young, with arms long as the pole of the yoke, with sturdy shoulders, with a chest broad as a door panel, and a full broad neck, Raghu was above his father ...
... a charmer's basket—poetry, prose, philosophy—everything. But I am not so sure about poetry any more, and wonder whether all that is said about Valmiki's sudden opening is true. You said about yourself that you had to plod on for a long time. How could Valmiki have it without undergoing any preparatory pangs of delivery? Plod about what? For some things I had to plod—other things came in a moment... at the first shot (when I was in Calcutta)—after some years of incubation (?) it burst out like a volcano as soon as I started writing the "Arya". There is no damned single rule for these things. Valmiki's poetic faculty might open suddenly like a champagne bottle, but it does not follow that everybody's will do like that. Whatever little benefit I derive from the hospital attendance, is counteracted ...
... period of past history with our present. d) All that pre-eminently constitutes India as a nation has been expressed continuously through the Sanskrit language. Three greatest national poets, Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa have written only in Sanskrit, and it may be asked as to how, without the knowledge of Sanskrit, at least at the minimum level, one can hope to enter into the spirit that is so ...
... SRI AUROBINDO: What is this superstition? At that rate Sophocles, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth are not good poets because their poetry is not full of images? Is Kalidasa a greater poet than Vyas or Valmiki because he is fuller of images? MYSELF: What thinkest Thou of this anapaest poem, Sir, Written by my humble self? Pray, does it stir Any soft feelings in Thy deep within Or touches ...
... 18n -Brihadaranyaka, 14, 15n., 18n., 29-30n -Chhandogya, 12, 20n., 25 -Katha, 19n., 69n -Prasna, 38 -Taittiriya, 44n V AIKUNTHA, 100 Vaishnavism, 100 Valery, 88 Valmiki, 39-40, 62, 73, 83, 85, 187,235 Varona, 28-9, 45, 157, 159-61, 180, 294 Vashishtha, 162 Vagus, 28 Vaughan, 80 -"They Are All Gone", 8On Vayu, 166 Vedas, the, 9, 13-14, 21, 27-9 ...
... this superstition? At that rate Sophocles, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth are not good poets, because their poetry is not Page 165 full of images? Is Kalidasa a greater poet than Vyasa or Valmiki because he is fuller of images? 18 February 1936 Poetry does not consist only in images or fine phrases. When Homer writes simply "Sing, Goddess, the baleful wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus... in thrilling to these things but that it is sadly wrong in thrilling to them only. It means that your plexus will remain deaf and dead to most of the greater poetry of the world—to Homer, Milton, Valmiki, Vyasa, a great part even of Shakespeare. That is surely a serious limitation of the appreciative faculty. What is strange and beautiful has its appeal, but one ought to be able also to stir to what ...
... on poems not precisely of a mystical type: he had read in them as typically Indian and typically un-English a luxuriant effeminacy, a backboneless love-reverie on a rich divan. How far the epic Valmiki and Vyasa or even the voluptuous Kalidasa with his bold imagination and firm shaping hand could be charged with these so-called Indian qualities is a question merely y requiring to be asked in order ...
... n 210 true soul 28,160 Truth-Consciousness 51 Turiya 99 U Upanishads 3,37,61,141,200,207 Usha 88 V Vaishnavism 273 vāji 302 Valery 62 Valmiki 60,182,205,213 Vaughan 232 Veda 3,61 Vedantic influence in poetry 197 Vidya 302 Vijnana 247 Virat 99 Virgil 57,186,205,258 Vishnu's Garuda 307 Vision, power ...
... (Nolini) No. But the Gita is a part of the Mahabharata. (Nolini) Yes. Is the Ramayana more recent? (Nolini) No. Is it of the same period? And is the author known? (Nolini) Valmiki. Yes, and this has not changed so much. (Nolini) Not as much as the other. Not so much as the Mahabharata. But there are differences. There is one tradition which says that Ravana died ...
... purely poetical quality: You have said somewhere that, in spite of the Mahabharata and Ramayana being greater, wider and deeper creations than the Iliad and Shakespeare's work, Vyasa and Valmiki, though not inferior, are not superior poets. Doesn't this amount to saying that neither the plane nor the scope nor the theme of a poetical creation makes any difference to the purely poetical ...
... was to protect his people, destroy their enemies, and defend their territory—therefore his. Ideally, a ruler is the upholder of the law, dispenser of justice, bringer of prosperity to his people. Valmiki, in the epic Ramayana, includes universal education among the signs of a just society. The Rig-Veda emphasizes the need of people's approval if the rule were to be stable. In short, India developed ...
... they belong to the clan of Mahalakshmi, can be regrouped according to the principle that predominates in each, the god-head that presides over the inspiration in each. The large breath in Homer and Valmiki, the high and noble style of their Page 79 movement, the dignity and vastness that compose their consciousness affiliate them naturally to the Maheswari line. A Dante, on the other ...
... Chandidas, 72; from Vidyapati, 74; from Nidhu Babu, 74; from Horu Thakur, 76; from Jnanadas, 76; on Bande Mataram, 76; translation from Dwijendralal, 77; Sagar, Sangit, tr. of, 77ff, 411; on Vyasa & Valmiki, 79ff; tr. from the Ramāyāna, 8 1ff; from the Mahabharata, 84ff; on Nala and Savitri, 85-6; Vidula, 87; translation from Bhartrihari, 88; from Kalidasa, 90ff; The Birth of the War-God, 92ff; The... for food and sleep, 600-2; on susupti state, 602; on role of 'hostile' forces, 602ff; on predestination, 602-3; letters to disciples on literature, 604ff; on Goethe and Shakespeare, 605, 606; on Valmiki & Vyasa, Homer & Shakespeare, 605; on Donne's poetry, 606; on psycho-analysis, 607; "four Aurobindos", 607-8; question-answer duet, 608-9; The Future Poetry, 610ff; Ahana, 620ff; ... 100; 'mortal mightier than the God's, 102; comparison with the Chitrangada story, 106; as epyllion, 106 Uttarapara Speech, 315,317,333ff, 338,385, 572 Vaidyanathaswami, R., 736 Valmiki, 10,20, 84, 605,615 Vasavadutta, 120, 147ff; sources, 147; moves and counter-moves, 148ff; "controlled experiment", 150; psychological subtlety and dramatic intensity, 152 Venkatanatha ...
... sampling on his own. Starting with Sri Aurobindo's placing of Shakespeare in the highest rank in the orders of the eleven world's greatest and best so far of poets in his estimate, along-side Valmiki, Vyasa and Homer, Sethna re-emphasises that Shakespeare is the supreme poet of the vital, the elemental and the human plane of life-force, informed and impelled by the creative demiurge. The phenomenal ...
... they belong to the clan of Mahalakshmi, can be regrouped according to the principle that predominates in each, the godhead that presides over the inspiration in each. The large breath in Homer and Valmiki, the high and noble style of their movement, the dignity and vastness that compose their consciousness affiliate them naturally to the Maheshwari line. A Dante, on the other hand, or a Byron has something ...
... the creative spirit of Sri Aurobindo which tends more towards the strenuous than the genial, the arduous than the mellifluous, and which has more of the austerity of Vyasa than the easy felicity of Valmiki, however it might have affected the ultimate value of his creation, according to certain standards,¹ it has illustrated once more that ¹". . .it cannot be said that Aurobindo shows any organic ...
... (ethical) mind over the mental titanism on the one hand and on the other the animal mentality, two trends in the path of human evolution. Sri Aurobindo also declares that in the Rama depicted by Valmiki he can feel the afflatus of Avatarhood, the movements of a consciousness beyond the personal, a consciousness that has a cosmic character. How far back in time Rama may be considered to have ...
... day I happened to ask Nolini whether you were Shakespeare. He was diffident. My own belief is that you have somehow amalgamated all that was precious in those that manifested as Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Dante, Virgil and Milton: if not all, at least the biggest of the lot. Kindly let us know the truth. Among your other and non-poetic incarnations, some surmise Alexander and Julius Caesar. Sri... claims Julius Caesar. I don't want to be prosecuted by her for misappropriation of personality. Alexander was too much of a torrent for me; I disclaim Milton and Virgil, am unconscious of Dante and Valmiki, diffident like Nolini about the Bard (and money-lender?) of Avon. If, however, you can bring sufficiently cogent evidence, I am ready to take upon my back the offences of all the famous people in ...
... mental titanism on the one hand and on the Page 109 other the animal mentality, two trends in the path of human evolution.) Sri Aurobindo also declares that in the Rama depicted by Valmiki he can feel the afflatus of Avatarhood, the movements of a consciousness beyond the personal, a consciousness that has a cosmic character.) How far back in time may Rama be considered to have existed ...
... Am I talking too much? To learn to speak only what is necessary. Am I lazy? To resolve to remove idleness. How to organize my life and my activities? Study of selections from Valmiki and Vyasa A detailed study of the life and work of Guru Nanak. Class XI Science and Values The role of intuition in discoveries and inventions of science. Yoga as a conscious ...
... in the poet's outlook. He is always more emotional and intellectual than spiritual, like Shakespeare to whom he has so many striking resemblances. We must not expect from him the magical insight of Valmiki, still less the spiritual discernment of Wordsworth. He looks inside, but not Page 178 too far inside. But he realises always the supreme importance of life as the only abiding foundation ...
... written, but they have written nothing on a larger scale which would place them among the greatest creators." Among the latter, Sri Aurobindo makes three rows: First row - Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki, Vyasa. Second row - Dante, Kalidasa, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Virgil, Milton. Third row - Goethe. In Sri Aurobindo's view, Dante and Kalidasa would rank beside those in the first row ...
... times before in Savitri and everywhere with a vicious meaning? I believe we have to remember what Sri Aurobindo replied to Dilip Kumar Roy when the latter asked how Rama couid be an Avatar when Valmiki attributes kama (lust) to him. Sri Aurobindo pointed out that an Avatar need not come as a Yogi. Rama was an exemplar of the enlightened ethical mind and he functioned as an ideal son, an ideal ...
... aspiration for universal fraternity, the sense of vasudhaiva kutumbakam, this cannot be achieved if our students do not have a direct contact with texts of the Vedas and the Upanishads, of Vyasa, Valmiki and Kalidasa, of the great Indian scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, historians, linguists and artists or of great men and women of action, and if this is not coupled with an original acquaintance ...
... He names three as the supreme poets of Europe, of the very first rank: Homer of ancient Greece, Dante in the Middle Ages, and nearer to us, Shakespeare. Along with these Sri Aurobindo mentions also Valmiki of India. However I shall speak of Dante not so much as a poet but as a seer: as such he was a Traveller of the Worlds in the path of the life Divine in his own way; His poem is his autobiography. ...
... been downgraded, but its high status as a pan-Indian language and also as a language in which highest treasures of Indian systems of knowledge have been stored. The three greatest poets of India — Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa have written in Sanskrit, and just like no educated Englishman can be unread on the works of Shakespeare, no Indian should be unable to read the works of these great poets. In ...
... Eric (Ashram, 1960). Prince of Edur (Ashram, 1961). Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol (Ashram, 1995) The Future Poetry (Ashram, 1953). Vyasa and Valmiki (Ashram, 1956). Kalidasa (Arya Publishing House, Calcutta, 1929). Bankim-Tilak-Dayananda (Arya Publishing House, Calcutta, 1940). Heraclitus (Arya Publishing House ...
... far-off human hearth, Shakespeare riding in his surge of the manifold colour and music and passion of life, or Dante errant mid his terrible or beatific visions of Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, or Valmiki singing of the ideal man embodying God and egoistic giant Rakshasa embodying only fierce self-will approaching each other from their different centres of life and in their different law of being for ...
... unleashing of the fount of the creative which spurs forth the act of creation. There might be many external agents that trigger off like the episode of the hunter and the wounded bird as in the case of Valmiki. There might also be many internal causes that could account for the act. However, the creative is so amorphous and protean that it takes many shapes - any shape - and remains the elusive and also ...
... The unsealing of grandeurs from subtle dimensions of Nature to cast an interpretative light on the world-pageant through a rich packed poetry could very well be true of ancient epics like Valmiki's R ā m ā ya ṇ a and Vyasa's Mah ā bh ā rata or mediaeval ones like Kalidasa's Kum ā rasambhava and Raghuva ṁś a. The last phrase about man's word being upraised to neighbour a divine utterance... fulfilment of the World-Soul's venture across the ages to revel here and now the arcade Eternal, the masked Absolute. Yes, the poems spoken of in our earlier quotation are like the masterpieces of Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa rather than like the Vedic hymns, the Upanishadic slokas or that super-Vyasan rarity—the Gita—in the midst of the Mah ā bh ā rata. But these too, in Sri Aurobindo's imagination ...
... The unsealing of grandeurs from subtle dimensions of Nature to cast an interpretative light on the world-pageant through a rich packed poetry could very well be true of ancient epics like Valmiki's Ramāyana and Vyasa's Mahabharata or mediaeval ones like Kalidasa's Kumārasambhava and Raghuvamsa. The last phrase about man's word being upraised to neighbour a divine utterance, rather... fulfilment of the World-Soul's venture across the ages to revel here and now the arcade Eternal, the masked Absolute. Yes, the poems spoken of in our earlier quotation are like the masterpieces of Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa rather than like the Vedic hymns, the Upanishadic slokas or that super-Vyasan rarity - the Gita - in the midst of the Mahabharata. But these too, in Sri Aurobindo's imagination ...
... The unsealing of grandeurs from subtle dimensions of Nature to cast an interpretative light on the world-pageant through a rich packed poetry could very well be true of ancient epics like Valmiki's Ramayana and Vyasa's Mahabharataor mediaeval ones like Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava and Raghuvamsha. The last phrase about man's word being upraised to neighbour a divine utterance, rather than... fulfilment of the World-Soul's venture across the ages to revel here and now the arcade Eternal, the masked Absolute. Yes, the poems spoken of in our earlier quotation are like the masterpiece; of Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa rather than like the Vedic hymns, the Upanishadic slokas or that super-Vyasan rarity — the Gita — in the midst of the Mahabharata. But these too, in Sri Aurobindo's imagination ...
... way. Disciple : Did Rama live, or is he merely the creation of Valmiki ? Sri Aurobindo : There is no ground to believe that Rama is a historical figure. Disciple : But the account of the conquest and other things ? Sri Aurobindo : Do you believe a king marches to Lanka with an army of monkeys ? Valmiki may have taken it from tradition, or from imagination and, created figures... temperament that the whole race took them into its consciousness, and assimilated them. Some even believe that there were Ramayanas before Valmiki's and that even in the Veda you find Rama symbolising the divine and Sita standing for the earth. It also may be that Valmiki-brought it over from some Daivic plane to this earth. Rama might have lived but one cannot say anytiling definite. Disciple : ...
... — was it really possible? How indeed had a change so catastrophic really come to pass? Having spiralled up to the peaks of divine endeavour in the Vedic and Upanishadic Ages, and in the Ages of Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa, how had the curve of Indian civilisation been deflected from its high altitudes, how had its movements been strained lower and lower, even to be level with the rugged and forbidding... and yogis it is no use attempting a biography, because they do not live in their external life.... It is different with men of action like Napoleon or Julius Caesar...." 38 What do we know of Valmiki, for instance? Only this and what more do we want? that he was the kind of man (or superman) who could have written (because he did in fact write) the immortal Ramayana. Likewise, Sri Aurobindo ...
... of follower and subject, the greatness of the great and the truth and worth of the simple, toning things ethical to the beauty of a more psychical meaning by the glow of its ideal hues. The work of Valmiki has been an agent of almost incalculable power in the moulding of the cultural mind of India: it has presented to it to be loved and imitated in figures Page 350 like Rama and Sita, made ...
... the magic roll and wash of the Aegean around the isles of Greece. What he has not, is the unfailing poetic beauty and nobility which saves greatness from its defects—that supreme gift of Homer and Valmiki—and the self-restraint and obedience to a divine law which makes even the gods more divine. Whitman will remain great after all the objections that can be made against his method or his use of it, ...
... humanity. He therefore affirmed - Religion and caste shan't divide us. We conclude with tributes paid by Shri C Rajagopalchari and Shrimati Sarojini Naidu. 'Just as in ancient days, Vyasa and Valmiki served human progress, Poet Subramania Bharati has served the Tamils in recent times by his writings. There can be no limit to reading Bharati's poems. The more they are read, the more do they bestow ...
... from the Karmayogin; Speeches. Volume 3 — The Harmony of Virtue, EARLY CULTURAL WRITINGS: The Harmony of Virtue; Bankim Chandra Chatterjee; The Sources of Poetry and Other Essays; Valmiki and Vyasa; Kalidasa; The Brain of India; Essays from the Karmayogin; Art and Literature; Passing Thoughts; Conversations of the Dead. Volume 4 — Writings in Bengali: Hymns to Durga; ...
... Literature and Life, p.61 . 7. A History of Indian Literature, Vol. I, (Tr.by Mrs. S. Ketkar), p. 397. 8. ibid.., p. 398. 9. ibid.., p. 398. 10. Vyasa and Valmiki, p. 22. Sri Aurobindo seems to have attempted a rendering of the Nala story too, but only an unrevised fragment remains, and it has been posthumously published in Mother India, December, 1953, pp... Dr. L. Ron Hubbard, the noted psychiatrist, nuclear physicist and 'scientologist'. 112. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IX. 113. See H.P. Sastri, The Ramayana of Valmiki, Vol. III, p. 218. 114. See G.R. Levy, Tie Sword from the Rock, pp. 134-40. 115. The World as Power, Section 'Reality', pp. 95-6. 116. Personal Idealism and Mysticism... 4. The Idea of Great Poetry, pp. 72-3. 5. Heroic Poetry, Preface, p. v. 6. (Italics mine) Sri Aurobindo, Foundations of Indian Culture, pp. 330-1; also see his Vyasa and Valmiki, P . 53. 7. Iyengar, The Indian P.E.N., June 1956, p. 178. Donald Davie's recent poem, The Forests of Lithuania, is admittedly adapted from Pan Tadeusz. 8. Originally ...
... said that it has been doing little else since it began to serve the human imagination from its first grand epic exaggerations to the violences of modern romanticism and realism, from the high ages of Valmiki and Homer to the day of Hugo and Ibsen. The means matter, but less than the significance and the thing done and the power and beauty with which it expresses the dreams and truths of the human spirit ...
... Sri Aurobindo: What is this superstition? At that rate Sophocles, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth are not good poets because their poetry is not full of images? Is Kalidasa a greater poet than Vyas or Valmiki because he is full of images? Then on April 1st he wrote something about Virgil and myself, so I asked him: Question: I hope you didn't intend to make me an April ...
... SRI AUROBINDO: What is this superstition? At that rate Sophocles, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth are not good poets because their poetry is not full of images? Is Kalidasa a greater poet than Vyas or Valmiki because he is full of images? Then on April 1st he wrote something about Virgil and myself, so I asked him: QUESTION: I hope you didn't intend to make me an April fool ...
... by many Indian men. It is usually tied round the waist and covers the legs. 174Being pious regarding food. 175Religious scriptures. 176The story is in the 'Bala Kanda' portion of the Valmiki Ramayana: Trishanku, a king of the Solar Dynasty, wished to ascend to heaven in his mortal body. His Guru, Vasishta, refused to perform the needful rites as it would be against the laws of nature. ...
... made an object of ridicule. It is not a mere waste of energy, there is a definite feature of gain. An old man doting on his pretty young wife? Perhaps so, if you like: you know the famous line of Valmiki on Dasharatha, how he held his young wife dearer even than life, vrddhasya tarunī bhāryā prānebhyo'pi garīyasi. An old man may very well fall in love with exercise much in the same way. To young ...
... to prevent her then! I am rather perplexed by your strictures on Rama. Cowardice is the last thing that can be charged against Valmiki's Rama; he has always been considered as a warrior and it is the "martial races" of India who have made him their god. Valmiki everywhere paints him as a great warrior. His employment of ruse against an infrahuman enemy does not prove the opposite—for that is... equilibrium—but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such—it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus—you efface the main lines of the characters, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and some parts of shadow which... is always how the human (even great warriors and hunters) has dealt with the infrahuman. I think it is Madhusudan who has darkened Valmiki's hero in Bengali eyes and turned him into a poor puppet, but that is not the authentic Rama who, say what one will, was a great epic figure—Avatar or no Avatar. As for conventional morality, all morality is a convention—man cannot live without conventions, mental ...
... criticism, (an essay he sent long ago on the "Ashram poets"—what a phrase!—made me aghast with horror at its Pindaric—or rather Swinburnean—tone, it gave me an impression that Homer and Shakespeare and Valmiki had all been beaten into an insignificant jelly by our magnificent creations.) He is also sometimes too elaborately ingenious in his hunt for detail significances. But what he says is usually acute ...
... though not strictly appropriate in the context, but a striking example of patience, good humour and an ideal yogic samatā. It is about Amal (K. D. Sethna) giving lessons in Sri Aurobindo’s Vyasa and Valmiki, Ilion, The Life Divine and what not, to a sadhak who was extremely keen to learn, but alas, God gave him not much of grey matter! Amal used to come every day for Pranam upstairs and, while waiting ...
... would find in Kamban's image of the sea for the colour and depth of Sita's eyes clear evidence of a still more primitive savagery and barbaric worship of inanimate Page 256 nature, or in Valmiki's description of his heroine's "eyes like wine", madirekṣaṇā , evidence of a chronic inebriety and the semi-drunken inspiration of the Indian poetic mind. This is one example of Mr. Archer's most telling ...
... different lines. This is a common enough experience, illustrated in the lives of many great men, such as St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, Luther, and Kant (among the Westerners); and Valmiki, Tulsidas, Vivekananda, to name only a few, among the Indians. This proves that there is nothing permanent and sacrosanct about our mental structures, which are but ephemeral things, constructed out ...
... imagination and is at once a story of the divine Avatar and a long chant of religious devotion. An English historian of the literature has even claimed for Tulsidas's poem superiority to the epic of Valmiki: that is an exaggeration and, whatever the merits, there cannot be a greater than the greatest, but that such claims can be made for Tulsidas and Kamban is evidence at least of the power of the poets ...
... The Voices of the Poets . Circa 1912. Editorial title. The text of this piece, like the preceding one, was written under the heading "The Genius of Valmekie". There is no explicit mention of Valmiki in either piece. Pensées . Circa 1912. A Dream . 1910-14. Editorial title. Written under the heading "Srevian [?Srevina] / A Tale of Prehistoric ...
... only the Sh ā h-N ā meh, the R ā m ā yana and the Mah ā bh ā rata exceed it in length—three works which, like it, are products of the East. And indeed Savitri stands with the masterpieces of Valmiki and Vyasa in more than one respect. It has been conceived with something of the ancient Indian temperament which not only rejoiced in massive structures but took all human life and human thought into ...
... now appears that my translations have been child's play before yours.' Besides translations, Sri Aurobindo wrote some 'Notes' on the Mahabharata as well as comments on the poetic genius of Vyasa and Valmiki. Also, he drew on the Mahabharata for a number of his own narrative poems of which Love and Death is the most outstanding. And, of course, for his supreme creation Savitri , the story was taken ...
... the original. But, more importantly, it is the spiritual inspiration that here matters the most. Not that all great Sanskrit poetry is so, nor do all spiritual compositions give us such poetry; but Valmiki and Vyasa are at first poets as much as they are, unlike Kalidasa, Rishis and the underlying aesthesis of their poetry is overhead. The first quality of this Rishi-hood we recognise in Vyasa is... under the conditions of aesthetic vision and a perfect execution. Or, to put it otherwise, there are not only aesthetic values, but life-values, mind-values, soul-values that enter into Art... In Valmiki and Vyasa there is the constant presence of great Idea-Forces and Ideals supporting life and its movements which were beyond the scope of Homer and Shakespeare..." Thus more appealing, even gripping ...
... maybe he simply lacked love. Yet many people loved and revered him. As to the Mahabharata, I am most interested in Sri Aurobindo's description of Vyasa as a supremely masculine writer. Certainly Valmiki has more flowers of beauty, yet dramatically and psychologically Vyasa is extraordinary. I am going with friends to the dramatized version of the Mahabharata by Peter Brook, now playing in Glasgow... swiftly intuitive with the surge of the Life Force, his thought rising not in its own right but as thrown up by passion and emotion, Shakespeare may have some affinity with the wide-glancing prolific Valmiki. His manner, marvellous though it be, is too rich and romantic to compare with the intellectual masculinity of Vyasa's. Sri Aurobindo writes: "Be its limits what one will, this is certain that there... of Indian Atlantis in the form of an insular land-mass where now Sri Lanka is situated. Rama Dasarathi is the Avatar of the Dharmic Mind fighting to establish this psychological level in the race. Valmiki, according to Sri Aurobindo, has truly caught the nature of the Avatar who acts not from the individual standpoint but from a universal plane, the plane of supreme mental ideals. Of course a lot of ...
... quality, only the Shah-Nameh, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata exceed it in length - three works which, like it, are products of the East. And indeed Savitri stands with the masterpieces of Valmiki and Vyasa in more than one respect. It has been conceived with something of the ancient Indian temperament which not only rejoiced in massive structures but took all human life and human thought into ...
... though very indirectly, that he was they in his past births. I used to pester Sri Aurobindo with all sorts of questions, dangling a long string of names: "Were you Homer, were you Shakespeare, were you Valmiki, Dante, Virgil, Milton?" And he stoutly said "No." I asked him also whether he had been Alexander and Julius Caesar. He replied that Alexander was too much of a torrent for him and, as for Caesar, ...
... wrong in thrilling to these things but that it is sadly wrong in thrilling to them only. It means that your plexus remains deaf and dead to most of the greater poetry of the world—to Homer, Milton, Valmiki, Vyasa, a great part even of Shakespeare. That is surely a serious limitation of the appreciative faculty. What is strange and beautiful has its appeal, but one ought to be able also to stir to what ...
... India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement ...
... original. But, more importantly, it is the spiritual inspiration that here matters the most. Not that all great Sanskrit poetry is so, nor do all spiritual compositions give us such poetry; but Valmiki and Vyasa are at first poets as much as they are, unlike Kalidasa, Rishis and the underlying aesthesis of their poetry is overhead. The first quality of this Rishihood we recognise in Vyasa... under the conditions of aesthetic vision and a perfect execution. Or, to put it otherwise, there are not only aesthetic values, but life-values, mind-values, soul-values that enter into Art... In Valmiki and Vyasa there is the constant presence of great Idea-Forces and Ideals supporting life and its movements which were beyond the scope of Homer and Shakespeare..." Thus more appealing, even gripping ...
... quality, only the Shah Nameh, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata exceed it in length — three works which, like it, are products of the East. And indeed Savitri stands with the masterpieces of Valmiki and Vyasa in more than one respect. It has been conceived with something of the ancient Indian temperament which not only rejoiced in massive structures but took all human life and human thought ...
... spiritual word. We should not look at it as the Page 145 work of a poet like Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, or Keats, even like that of Dante or Kalidas. It must be seen as the work of Valmiki or Vyasa though not on that level of aesthetic-spiritual creativity. Textbook or academic criteria are certainly not applicable to it nor should we judge it as “noble” or “elevating” merely in the ...
... incidents, word and phrase. An unfailing variety or the outward appearance of it is one of the elegances of this art. But all poetry is not of this kind; its rule does not apply to poets like Homer or Valmiki or other early writers. The Veda might almost be described as a mass of repetitions; so might the work of Vaishnava poets and the poetic literature of devotion generally in India. Arnold has noted ...
... swallow this mountainous absurdity that any man can be made a Krishna or a Sri Aurobindo, any woman a Mother, any X a Tyagaraj, any Y a Tansen, any Z a Shakespeare, any A a Raphael, any B a Vyasa or a Valmiki? ... I have never said any or all of these things. These egoistic terms Page 280 are not those in which I think any more than these egoistic ambitions are those in which my vital moves ...
... dramas . While we are about Bacon we may quote what Sri Aurobindo says in another context - the discussion of "Sight" as "the essential poetic gift" which renders Homer, Shake-speare, Dante, Valmiki, Kalidasa supreme poets. "There is often more thought in a short essay of Bacon's than in a whole play of Shakespeare's, but not even a hundred cryptograms can make him the author of the dramas; for ...
... I talking too much? To learn to speak only what is necessary. 8. Am I lazy? To resolve to remove idleness. 9. How to organize my life and my activities? V. Study of selections from Valmiki and Vyasa VI. A detailed study of the life and work of Guru Nanak. Page 100 Class XI I. Science and Values 1. The role of intuition in discoveries and inventions of ...
... Necessarily they will resist. Action must enter into it, but only temporarily as an end to inefficiency of the siddhi. The morning is not over yet. The other movement of the automatic script. Valmiki— संजन तायु दिलं ममनस्कुमि तायु परामि जल्वनम् अभ्रम् अदे करया च पिप्रामनि हेडः । पार दलं सद पाकि पयं ततरायिमि जान । Ritadharma— अंग पद ह योनिं रथस्य पथं दृशे । रथो ह प्रतमः रथो अन्तमः रथं मये ...
... the magic roll and wash of the Aegean around the isles of Greece. What he has not, is the unfailing poetic beauty and nobility which saves greatness from its defects—that supreme gift of Homer and Valmiki—and the self-restraint and obedience to a divine law which makes even the gods more divine." Thus, in Sri Aurobindo's estimate, Whitman, with the help of his modern intellectualism, is a pioneer ...
... stupefying ingenuity he would find in Kamban's image of the sea for the colour and depth of Sita's eyes clear evidence of a still more primitive savagery and barbaric worship of inanimate nature, or in Valmiki's description of his heroine's 'eyes like wine', madireksana, evidence of a chronic inebriety and semi-drunken inspiration of the Indian poetic mind. This is one example of Mr. Archer's most telling ...
... Bankim Chandra Chatterji was first published in book-form by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1954. Some of the material on the Mahabharata was first published in book-form in Vyasa and Valmiki by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1956 and 1964. In 1989 all the material on the Mahabharata, augmented and reorganised, was published in volume 13 of Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research . In 1991 ...
... tremendous mental energy and of course a command of the English language and the Greek hexameter. But why should any twentieth-century poet want to write in the metre of Homer? If I remember aright Valmiki's 'inspiration' came in the form of the metre in which he wrote the Ramayana. Homer may have used a metre current in his day or likewise have received that 'form', as the ballad metre is the expression... poetry, even in translation (I have several different translations, and many volumes) of Tagore, whom I am prepared to believe may be a poet equal to Yeats. And even in translations, Kalidasa; and Valmiki, and many other Indian poets. I have searched in vain for a complete translation of the Mahabharata but I am prepared even from the several abridgements I know to believe it surpasses Homer as the ...
... he still labour like us mortals at his Savitri .Why should not the inspiration burst out like the "champagne bottle"? Now I witnessed that miracle and imagined that it also must have been the way Valmiki composed his Ramayana. At this rate, I thought, Savitri would not take long to finish. On everyone's lips was the eager query, "How far are you with Savitri ?" But Savitri , as I have mentioned ...
... the Miltonic amplitude, something of the Racinian suavity; I was not incapable of the simplicity of Wordsworth at his best, nor was even the Shakespearean magic quite unknown to me. The sublimity of Valmiki and the nobility of Vyasa were not peaks too high for me to compass. And yet I have not achieved. I am not satisfied. I am unhappy. For, after all, these are dreams that I have created, "dreams ...
... recommended. From the point of view of history (itihāsa), Rāmāyana, Mahābharata and Purānas are consulted. But in Indian literature the word "itihāsa" refers mainly to Mahābhārata. Maharshi Valmiki is the author of Rāmāyana and Mahābharata was composed by Maharshi Vedavyāsa. According to the tradition, the word Purāna is so-called because it is supposed Page 105 to refer to the ...
... hands. There is the original Vyasa with his strong, bare, terse, direct style of vivid ideative illumination. He is overlaid by another poet who is more' romantic and decorative, a sort of secondary Valmiki -a good competent bard. Then we have a third layer -somebody continuing the trend of the Valmikiesque inspiration but with less poetic power and a more and more elaborative and decorative movement ...
... too much? To learn to speak only what is necessary. 8. Am I lazy? To resolve to remove idleness. 9. How to organise my life and my activities? V. Study of selections from Valmiki and Vyasa VI. A detailed study of the life and work of Guru Nanak. Class XI I. Science and Values: 1. The role of intuition in discoveries and inventions of science. Yoga ...
... before? Was it the face of Zeus as it had appeared in an old book of mythology - or that of Aeschylus? Rishi Vasishtha had, perhaps, worn such radiance when he blessed King Dasharatha's son; perhaps Valmiki had sat even like that when the Ramayana in its entirety shaped itself before his wise and lustrous eyes. And hour later - and hours later - the vision remained, the experience persisted, the memory... that in abundance, in others it comes by occasional jets or flashes. 79 Equally illuminating is the distinction Sri Aurobindo draws, in the course of the same letter, between Vyasa and Valmiki on the one hand and Homer and Shakespeare on the other. In another letter, Sri Aurobindo elaborates the point that, although in the Yogin's vision of universal beauty, all is indeed beautiful, yet ...
... possible. What is this superstition? At that rate Sophocles, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth are not good poets, because their poetry is not full of images? Is Kalidasa a greater poet than Vyas or Valmiki because he is fuller of images? After what you have seen of my English poetry, is there any chance for me? Certainly I have looked at the Ox. Dictionary here and I find it clearly puts the ...
... that the education, culture and realisation of the Vedic age should have been similar to those of modern times. But their widely differing outlook and activities need not be inferior to ours. True, Valmiki and Rabindranath are not peers of the same grain. On that account we cannot definitely assign a higher status to Rabindranath. To consider the Vedic seers inferior to the modern scientists simply because ...
... Overmind or Supermind could produce philosophies more perfect in themselves than the systems of Shankara or Plato or Plotinus or Spinoza or Hegel, poetry superior to Homer's, Shakespeare's, Dante's or Valmiki's, music more superb than the music of Beethoven or Bach, sculpture greater than the statues of Phidias and Michael Angelo, architecture more utterly beautiful than the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon or Borobudur ...
... p. 73. 51. Ibid., p. 60 52. Sri Rama, ancient King of Ayodhya, beloved hero and victor, whose exemplary virtues and life have been recounted most admirably in Page 43 Valmiki's Ramayana, one of the greatest epics of India, which along with another equally great epic, Mahabharata, has determined the value-system of Indian culture. His exile, ordained by his father under ...
... "He ranked Valmiki above Vyas. He regarded the former as the greatest epic poet in the world. He once said: 'I was captivated by the poetic genius of Dante, and immensely enjoyed Homer's Iliad - they are incomparable in European literature. But in the quality of his poetry, Valmiki stands supreme. There is no epic in the world that can compare with the Ramayana of Valmiki 64 .... "Aurobindo... worldly knowledge, he was often cheated; but one who has no attachment to money has no regrets, 63. "Anger has always been foreign to me." Nirodbaran's Notes. 64. In his Vyasa and Valmiki Sri Aurobindo says: "The Ramayana is a work of the same essential kind as the Mahabharata; it differs only by a greater simplicity of plan, a more delicate ideal temperament and a finer glow of ...
... basis of ojas. Now supposing the artist or poet to conserve his retas and turn it into ojas, the result would be an increased power of creative productivity. Q.E.D., sir! Logic, sir! I suppose Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa were complete abstainers, though there is doubt about the last two. Excuse me, there are no doubts about Kalidasa. Very much to the contrary. December 4, 1935 I ...
... narrative, sonnet, long meditative lyric, ode. His drama form is not dramatic. Kalidas, narrative epic, drama, one elegiac poem, one poem of nature description—not an inexhaustible variation of metres. Valmiki, Vyasa epic only— anuṣṭubh and triṣṭubh metres. Dante, terza rima metre—little variation of kind in his poetic writing. I am rejecting the impulse to do other literary work—stories, novels ...
... the magic roll and wash of the Aegean around the isles of Greece. What he has not, is the unfailing poetic beauty and nobility which saves greatness from its defects - that supreme gift of Homer and Valmiki - and the self-restraint and obedience to a divine law which makes even the gods more divine. 14 Sri Aurobindo wrote these articles before the work of Hopkins, Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Auden ...
... 30. Sri Aurobindo, Vol. 8, p. 359 31. Ibid., p. 362 32. Ibid., p. 371 33. Ibid., p. 378 34. Ibid., p. 382 35. A later edition of Vyasa and Valmiki (1964) includes also a fragment of the Page 790 Tale of Nala, a fragment of Chitrangada and a fragment of Uloupie (another version of the Chitrangada ...
... delicate tenderness or the most noble sublimity." This is justification enough to take for themes these legends and myths. But there are other aspects of 'influence' also. From the Indian tradition Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are present in Savitri as far as possible in the genius of the English language. Both inspiration and vision of the early Vedic poets have left their mark on Savitri; but it ...
... different, those long majestic slokas have quite a different movement. Sri Aurobindo was trying to 'pour a quart into a pint pot' in using Blank Verse. The metre of the Ramayana was 'revealed' to Valmiki, was it not, and is surely to India what Blank Verse has been to English poets, the very shape of the mind itself that created it. Not that Sri Aurobindo's blank verse is not perfectly correct - any ...
... in their scope and touch too the things which the Greeks and Elizabethan poets could not even glimpse. But as poets—as masters of rhythm and language and the expression of poetic beauty—Vyasa and Valmiki are not inferior, but also not greater than the English or the Greek poet. I leave aside the question whether the Mahabharata was not the creation of the mind of a people rather than of a single ...
... makes beauty out of man's outward life and action and stops there. Shakespeare rises one step further and reveals to us a life-soul and life-forces and life-values to which Homer had no access. In Valmiki and Vyas there is the constant presence of great Idea-Forces and Ideals supporting life and its movements which were beyond the scope of Homer and Shakespeare. And beyond the Ideals and Idea-Forces ...
... any man can be made a Krishna or a Sri Aurobindo, any woman a Mother, any Venkataraman a Tyagaraj, any Harin a Tansen, any Manodhar a Shakespeare, any Sita91 a Raphael, any Radhananda 92 a Vyas or Valmiki. You really want me to swallow this [even?] if I suffocate? If you do I will try to but then you mustn't blame me if I do suffocate in the end. Agreed? For your logical proposition "Everything is possible" ...
... expression. Still as he is a Rabindrian, his wholehearted welcome of Suryamukhi is of value. I have written to him explaining that I don't belittle expression at all and don't mean any Rishi must be a Valmiki or a Vyas. Yet he is greatly attracted by the originality—please note, for which your inspiration is no doubt responsible. When I despair of yoga, I derive some consolation at least that in poetry ...
... 1952 Conversations of the Dead, 1909-1910.- 1st ed. 1951 The Phantom Hour (a short story), 1910-1912.- 1st ed. 1951 Kalidasa, 2 volumes, 1893-1905 (Baroda).- 1st ed. 1929 Vyasa and Valmiki, 1893-1905 (Baroda).- 1st ed. 1956 Page 322 The Future Poetry, 'Arya' Dec. 1917-July 1920.- 1st ed. 1953 Collected Poems and Plays, 2 volumes.- 1st ed. 1942 Poems Past and ...
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