The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore
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The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore (Ashgate World Philosophies Series) (Ashgate World Philosophies Series) by Kalyan Sen Gupta (z-lib.org)
Communion with Nature
67 There is a not dissimilar portrayal of the relation between man and nature in Milton’s writings. In Paradise Lost, Milton, it is true, describes the beauties of the Garden of Eden, where humans and animals live together in amity and peace. Yet there is no real kinship between them. Man is the lord and master of the beasts, who have been placed there only for man’s benefit. Again, there is no indication that the love between the first man and woman is anything that goes beyond themselves and extends to God’s other creatures – no intimation, of the kind found in Kalidasa’s Shakuntala or in Vaishnava lyrics, that love finds its symbol in the beauty of all natural objects. Instead, Milton tells us that the garden of paradise, where the first man and woman take rest, was one where Bird, beast, insect or worm Durst enter none, such was their awe of man. Rabindranath readily admits, of course, that there are exceptions in the Western literary tradition, such as Wordsworth and Shelley who indeed speak of an identity with nature. These are poets for whom, in Wordsworth’s words, ‘the world is too much with us’ – for whom, that is, most of us waste most of our powers by remaining within the pragmatic horizon of getting and spending, thereby failing to see in nature anything that is ours. This attitude, which is exceptional in Western writings, is precisely the one that, says Rabindranath, imbues the whole classical Indian literature – for example, the works of great poets composing in the Sanskrit language, such as Kalidas, Banbhatta, and others. In Kalidasa’s poetic drama, Shakuntala, for instance, the hermitage plays the central role, overshadowing that of the king’s palace. The hermitage, here, signifies the kinship between man and his natural surroundings. This drama opens with a hunting scene where the king, Dushyanta, is hunting an antelope. This indulgence in a blood sport symbolizes how the character of the king’s life clashes with the spirit of the forest retreat, where all creatures find protection and love. The passionate appeal of the forest dwellers to the king not to pierce the deer with his arrow is really an appeal not to violate our harmony with nature. At the end of the first act, the forest itself exhorts ‘the people of the hermit’ to hasten to the rescue of the living spirit of the sacred forest, for Dushyanta, ‘the lord of earth, whose pleasure is in hunting, has come’. Again, in the Meghduta, another powerful work of Kalidasa, the exiled Yaksha refuses to remain shut up within himself in his grief. The very agony of his separation from his beloved is, so to speak, extended over the woods and streams, and a dark cloud acts as the messenger to convey his love to his beloved. The longing of a love-sick man has become, one might say, a component part of the symphony of nature. Similar themes are found in the poetry of Banbhatta. Thus, when he is describing a hermitage in his 68 The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore Communion with Nature 69 Kadambari, the main intention is to evoke our close union with nature by writing of the flowering plants as they bow to the wind, of the trees scattering their blossoms, and of the deer that caress the hermit boys with their tongues. 41 In this section, to summarize, we have explored how Tagore conceives of nature, how he regards the harmony of nature as embracing our own being, and how he locates the spiritual kinship that he enjoins in the culture and literature of the Indian tradition. These aspects of Tagore’s thinking will enable us, in the following section, to understand why, for him, it is imperative for us to care for and protect the natural world. In this respect, of course, Tagore has a very contemporary relevance, having anticipated by many years today’s environmentalist preoccupations. Download 467.3 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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