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Hindi Literature* Narendra Sharma
ONE wonders why Sri Aurobindo's impact on Indian Literature in general and on Hindi literature in particular has not been as great as it should have been. In direct proportion to the greatness of his personality and work, his impact has been less than expected. One reason for this, perhaps, is that Sri Aurobindo's personality and work are too unique and great to be comprehended by the average Indian middle-class mind. This mind, the by-product of colonial rule, is nurtured on job-orientation, professional advancement, insecurity and fear on the one hand, and on the other, on revivalism, political ambition, derivative idea, secondary concept, unoriginal inspiration and simulated idealism. It takes two to register an impact. The wax in this case has not been worthy of the seal. The Indian middle-class was born of the impact of the West on Indian society. It happened a couple of centuries ago. Raja Ram Mohun Roy, whose bicentenary India celebrates this year, may well be called the founder-member of this class. He threw open the doors and windows of the Indian mind to receive the progressive breeze of change. He tried a spring-cleaning of the House. He kept himself busy preparing his class to graduate into its further role of leadership of the country. Although as a man of affairs he represented the medieval political leadership in India, he went all out for social reform, resulting in the emergence of a middle-class India, which will replace the medieval. His response to the impact of the West was favourable. Not that he was wanting in patriotism, but the time to resist foreign rule had not then arrived. The note of resistance was sounded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who was not a member of the English-educated Indian middle-class. He was a de-classed Sannyasi. And he was a greater reformer than Raja Ram Mohun Roy, whom he surpassed in effectiveness and influence. Swami Ramakrishna Paramahansa was also a non-English knowing Sannyasi. He was non-political as well. He neither responded to nor resisted the West. He could not even be called a reformer. And yet his contribution to the reawakening of India is immense. His disciple, Swami Vivekananda,
proved to be a forerunner of both Gandhiji and Sri Aurobindo. He warmly advocated the cult of wholehearted devotion to Bharat Mata and of selfless service of Daridra Narayan. He was a yogi too. Sri Aurobindo was born exactly a century after Raja Ram Mohun Roy's birth. His father was a westernized Indian gentleman. A doctor by profession, Sri Krishnadhan Ghosh had prescribed a thoroughly western education for the benefit of his sons. Sri Aurobindo had the utmost of it. Even his earliest education was received in a convent. At the age of seven he was shipped away to England, where he studied and lived for fourteen years. When he came back to India in 1893, he knew no Indian language. He lived at Baroda for twelve years, during which period he completely Indianized himself. He was in the Swadeshi movement as an extremely activist leader for four years, and at the time his identification with India was as great as his alienation had been in earlier years abroad. None of the leaders of the new India had travelled the road to alienisa-tion further than Sri Aurobindo. And none travelled back to the core of his country's mind closer than he. There is no other Indian, whose response to the West has been so constructive, and none whose resistance to its influence so sharp. Though of the English-educated middle-class, he has been too far above it to be universally understood or readily received. He does sum up all the middle-class movements for reform and reawakening, but he is very much more too. He is a yogi and a recluse, but very much with a difference. He is a philosopher and a poet, but not merely these. In the realms of the mind and the word, he is truly a godly titan. Above all, he is a great creative spirit. But in the context of his land and people, his choice of the medium, mode and manner of expression constitutes a disadvantage. Bridges of communication are hard to establish. Not that Sri Aurobindo is uncommunicative. He invites us to participate in the creative activity of his mind. Here is his Invitation, one of his early poems:
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This indeed is an invitation to power of passion and to light of thought. Few of us could accept it. But one man did. It was Sumitranandan Pant, himself a seeker of light. It was not for power of passion so much as for light of thought that Pantji discovered his affinity with Sri Aurobindo. The call of the sturdy oak was responded to by the lonesome pine. Sri Aurobindo's impact on Pantji resulted in confirming the validity of some of Pantji's own conclusions and in reassuring him of the viability of some of his own dreams. What Pantji had stated mjyotsna in 1934, seemed to be amply borne out in 1944, in the light of the discovery Pantji had made of Sri Aurobindo. Pantji paid two visits to Pondicherry in 1946. Twice again he visited the Ashram, in the lifetime of Sri Aurobindo. But what does a river flowing into an ocean discover? Is it loss of identity? Or is it that it discovers its own identity? We generally seek what we have, may be the correct answer. Ever since Pantji knew Sri Aurobindo, he has known himself better. It is Pantji, as he alone knows himself, whom we see in Lokayatan, his longest poem, and indeed in most of his not-so-long poems, written after he registered Sri Aurobindo's impact. It may perhaps be said that the event has helped Pantji to realize himself better and more fully, resulting in a constant flow of creative work, not lacking in self-assurance. Pantji was, early in his youth, attracted to Gurudev Tagore, in whom he found, not only a wealth of poetry, but also the personality of a poet, accepted and extolled by the two worlds of the East and the West. Pantji was attracted a decade later to Gandhiji for his great humanity and for what was greater still, his service to human values. Concurrently he found in Marx all that the dynamic purposiveness of the West can put to use for the universal good of humanity. The Heaven of Gandhian idealism, he thought, should have an earthly Marxian base. Thus the Gandhian synthesis of Sarvodaya was to be supported by analytical scientific socialism. Pantji acquainted himself with the outlines of modern science. He delved into the psychology of the sub-conscious of the West and he refreshed himself with the vital life of Bergson. But all the analysis and synthesis of the West was soon to be transcended by what Pantji discovered in Sri Aurobindo. In him he found a poet, a philosopher and a yogi, who was of the ages and yet ageless. All the earlier guiding stars seemed to have Page-99 merged into the effulgent sun of Sri Aurobindo's life and work. Sri Aurobindo could be all things to all men. And if Pantji approached Sri Aurobindo for the light of thought, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar went to him for the power of passion. In his powerfully passionate poem, Urvashi, Dinkarji seems to have been inspired by Sri Aurobindo's own original poem of the same name and by his translation of Kalidasa's play on the theme. But more than these, Sri Aurobindo's poem, Love and Death, may have cast its spell on Dinkarji's images of power and passion. Dinkarji's metaphysics of love or kdmadhyatma may also be traced to Sri Aurobindo's impact on his mind. For some of his ideas on the creative process and the future of poetry, Dinkarji may perhaps be indebted to Sri Aurobindo. If Pantji was reassured by Sri Aurobindo, Dinkarji was stimulated. Different from either is Vidyavati Kokilji, who arrived where she is, not so much for Sahitya, as for Sadhana. But for all that, she has been translating Sri Aurobindo's Savitri with devoted zeal. Efforts have been made to translate Sri Aurobindo into Hindi. This centenary year of Sri Aurobindo's birth may bring to light many of the translations done so far. And it is hoped Sri Aurobindo's impact will be felt by many more men and women of letters in Hindi. Not unresponsive to the sublime and simple in life and literature, the Hindi world waits to be introduced to Sri Aurobindo's work through Hindi translations. As for Sri Aurobindo himself, he loses nothing in waiting, for his work does not date. He seems to be in no hurry for his impact to be registered. The registrar called Time is on his side. Page-100
Sundaram
SRI Aurobindo stands in a unique relation with Gujarat. He lived in ~ Gujarat for nearly 13 years, from 1893 to 1906, the longest stretch of time he passed in any part of India before he went over to Pondicherry in 1910. Here at Baroda he developed from a young highly brilliant intellectual of 21, in a miraculously short time, into a flaming leader of Indian nationalism, and moving to Calcutta he gave the trumpet-call for India's freedom through his editorship of the Bande Mataram, and led the sluggish political life of India to a great revolutionary struggle full of heroic effort for the first time in India's life. This growth of the new spirit was equally shared by the young people of Gujarat along with the rest of India. They eagerly waited for hours in advance around the book-stalls for the arrival of copies of the Bande Mataram every time. It brought to them an ever fresh message of new light, of new force, of an adventure unknown hitherto. But along with the political greatness, a secret inside growth, a serious and monumental spiritual development also was there in Sri Aurobindo during his stay in Gujarat, which ultimately took him to Pondicherry to start his great work of Yoga. The people of Gujarat absorbed Sri Aurobindo's impact in both the spheres, political as well as spiritual, but as Sri Aurobindo's work took a pure spiritual turn after 1910, this impact also took later on a predominantly spiritual form. The decisive change came after 1914 when Sri Aurobindo started his Arya monthly from August of that year. The reading of Arya awakened in a number of young brilliant men the search for a higher life, and they read the Arya and straightaway started translating something from it. Sri Aurobindo's writings got being published in Bengal by the Prabartak Sangh, an organisation by Motilal Roy working for Sri Aurobindo. And almost immediately some of these books were translated and published in Gujarati in Gujarat under the aegis of the same organisation. Thus begins the impact of Sri Aurobindo on Gujarati Literature. Among the first translations, the most notable is that done by Motilal
Page-101 Mehta who later on took to Sanyas as Madhavtirth. He translated some important articles from the Arya under the title Aravind Ghoshnum Tattva-jnan, a book of about 200 pages. A line in his offering of the book to Sri Aurobindo bespeaks how Sri Aurobindo worked upon people: 'Presented with the greatest reverence to my Lord ... the mere remembrance of whose name fills me with the Divine presence' (8-7-1920). The next to follow him was Ambalal Purani, with his flood of translations and publications, a highly tough job in those days. Better known as Ambubhai among his youthful students, Purani was the younger of the well-known Purani brothers, who were a typical expression of the young spirit of Gujarat. The elder brother, Chhotubhai was more political minded and he eagerly joined hands with Sri Aurobindo in his revolutionary activities, and remained in politics all his life. But the younger brother, the backbone of the physical gymnastic activity started by both of them, had a deeper vein in his being and he accepted the call of the Arya and whole-heartedly handed himself over to Sri Aurobindo's work and joined him in 1923 and remained in the Ashram for the rest of his long life, for nearly 45 years. Himself a talented writer, he became a living link between the people of Gujarat and Sri Aurobindo. His relations and correspondence with a large number of people brought about a great opening and the light of Sri Aurobindo reached the heart of Gujarat through him, through his translations and his own writings. His most noteworthy translations are that of The Synthesis of Yoga and Essays on the Gita and a few chapters from The Life Divine. His original writings, essays, letters, stories, etc. are quite plentiful, and everything that he wrote bears the serene touch of Sri Aurobindo's supernal light. The most eloquent expression of Sri Aurobindo's impact is found in K. M. Munshi, now the well-known multi-faceted personality in our general life. Along with his brilliant legal career, he started as a bright literary luminary also with his novels. He was a student of Sri Aurobindo at the Baroda College, and from the very first till the last he was deeply receptive to the charm and force of Sri Aurobindo, and he has given it a highly literary expression in his romantic novel Swapnadrashta (The Dreamer). He describes there the historical Surat Congress of 1907 and depicts Sri Aurobindo as 'The Incarnate Divine'. And now we come to the poets who, though late-comers in a way, were the most sensitive and creative expression of Sri Aurobindo's impact in literature. By age and his self-offering, Pujalal is the first among them. He almost followed Purani to the Ashram about 1925 and offered himself to Sri Aurobindo. The natural gift of poetry that he already had from his young days got a great uplift here and the deeper feelings that he expe- Page-102 rienced now in Yoga found their suitable expression in song and verse of the newly modern type that was taking shape after 1930. His poetical creation is still a living stream of profound sentiments with an equally profound expression in his latest book. There were others to follow, though not many, but numerous enough to indicate the convincing growth of Sri Aurobindo's influence. Sundaram, who unwittingly accepted this word from the South as a pen-name for himself, is naturally the first among them. By 1933 he had bloomed up as the first eloquent expression of the new trend in Gujarati poetry, which though following in the footsteps of the older generation, was evolving its own form, new in its expression and substance. Immediately he was followed by Umashankar. There were others also, Snehrashmi, Chandravadan, Betai, Sridharani, a whole group of the nationalist spirit who were marching with giant strides to their fulfilment in the near future. All of them had a rich output of poetry to their credit and all were happy with the new music in the air. But the Time Spirit was moving fast and it demanded a further search for a greater Truth and a greater Force to bring upon earth the Heaven that everybody was aspiring for. The force that had expressed itself through Gandhiji had as it were completed its first round by 1934 when the first phase of the Freedom Struggle had come to a close and there were preparations for the second round. And what was the second round of the Time Spirit ? It happened as if the single front that was there till then got split up into several separate fields and people started their struggle on these according to their inner aptitudes. Sundaram was the one who got somehow, we can also say mysteriously, into the hands of Sri Aurobindo and the same call that had taken Sri Aurobindo away from here to the shrine of Pondicherry, took him also there, to become a modest corporal in the vast army of the Master. And he gave a full-blooded expression to the new things that started coming to him from Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo himself was a poet, a creator of great heights, a man of action who had moved the whole of India from the abyss of lethargy to great surges of ardour, and now he was something more and was talking of things, not only talking, but bringing within the range of normal experience things that were quite super-normal till now. It was this realm of supra-normal things, their concrete experience and the promise they brought for the whole life, that became the moving theme of Sundaram's poetry. His accomplished verse now offered itself to this new richness and thereby also acquired a new dimension, a new inner Page-103 movement, a new creativity for itself. Over and above being a good hand at verse, Sundaram had a fairly good range of prose also. With an expressive style in prose he had written almost everything in prose by way of short stories, playlets, essays, literary criticism, etc. After his switching over to Sri Aurobindo he started the quarterly journal in Gujarati Dakshina, which became a forum for a varied type of translations from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and of others. These translations have brought a new richness to Gujarati prose and his translation of Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri, though yet incomplete, is a new expression by itself. After 1947, the advent of India's political freedom, which acquired a real mystic significance as it coincided with the birthdate of Sri Aurobindo, 15th August, brought in a new era of general awakening to Sri Aurobindo's mission and the younger generation of writers began to breathe the fresh climate. Sri Aurobindo's thought was reflected by almost all the writers of significance. It brought a refreshing touch to fiction also in the writings of Pannalal and Petlikar and several others. But it is, again, the greater sensitive poetic mind that absorbed and responded more richly to Sri Aurobindo's touch. The more eloquent among the younger poets who followed Sundaram and Umashankar are Rajendra, Prajaram, Ushanas, Harindra and Suresh who have sung full-throatedly the glory that Sri Aurobindo reveals of the higher light that is preparing its manifestation in life. Especially the last two mentioned here, Harindra and Suresh, have acquired a pure expression of the inner growth that Sri Aurobindo brings to all those who offer themselves to the call of the New Age — the Supra-mental Creation. Thus Gujarat is almost a homeland, as good as Bengal, for Sri Aurobindo's impact on literature. By its longer and deeper contact with Sri Aurobindo than other parts of India, Gujarat also has had the good fortune of housing the great mystic fire that Sri Aurobindo has brought down to earth. And the day is not very far when the whole earth will be the manifest home of the Divine, a veritable garden — Nandan Van — of Sri Krishna. Page-104
Sri Aurobindo's Impact on Oriya Literature* M. N. Sahoo
IN every age, and in every country, the creative talents await a high ideal, an illumined dream, which if they get they try to realize for themselves and then depict the process of their realisation in their poetry, story, drama and essay. The poet or writer follows a great man of personality and high achievements who has striven and struggled in his life to give human society a push to progress from its stagnancy and decadence, and to give individuals the inspiration to change their existing narrow limited consciousness to a more enlightened state. Those great men are few. Ramachandra inspired Valmiki, Sri Krishna inspired Vyasa, and in modern times Lenin, Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo too have inspired likewise many authors. They bring down to this earth a new light, and by this light a poetic personality is at first enlightened in every age. The mind and heart of the poet or the artist is first thrilled by the words uttered by these great masters. The poet's process of thinking, feeling and perceiving the truth of things is oriented by this new philosophy or ideology. He expresses it in a new form, in a new language; and a new voice is heard through his creation. All the great literatures of the world are the inspired reflections of this higher realisation of great men who are the saviours of mankind. Since long many sages and thinkers like Shankara, Ramanuja, Kabir and Chaitanya have come to Orissa to pay their homage to Lord Jagannatha the National Deity of Orissa, and they have also preached their ideologies here. The highly receptive mind of Orissa has been influenced by their philosophy. Buddhism, Jainism, Advaitism and Vaishnavism have influenced the ancient and medieval literature of Orissa. The Shunya Cult and Brahmoism have already been reflected in the 18th and 19th century literature. But one can see clearly that the tendency of Orissa's intellectual development, religious aspiration, or social outlook is to grow towards a more and more integral and spiritual consciousness rather than to stick to a narrow sectarian idea or to a fanatic ideology. It may be for this reason that the impact of Sri Aurobindo's integral philosophy has so widely and deeply spread out in Orissa within a few years. Oriyas are by
Page-105 nature very optimistic and more receptive to abstract ideas, and they are the people who strive to live always with brighter dreams and a pious imagination. Since a long time saintly poets like Achutananda, Yasobanta, Hadu and Bhima Bhoi have dreamt of Satyayuga that would very soon approach the earth. Their followers still cherish the faith that the Divine-Kingdom will soon be established on this earth which will then be the abode of truth, light, wisdom, peace and bliss. During the last part of the 19th and the middle part of the 20th century, our literature has been influenced by the West, accepting its political, social, scientific, psychological and aesthetical ideologies. In modern Oriya literature till 1950, socialism whether of Gandhi or of Marx was the main theme in our poetry, fiction and drama. Mainly, Marx and Freud were the philosophers whom the pre-1950 writers adored as their guides. After 1950, a group of young writers took Kierkegaard, Camus, Heidegger and J. P. Sartre as their philosophers, and existentialism was the main philosophy that inspired them. They took the modern feelings of alienation, despair, loneliness, fear and anguish of the individual as their theme. But very soon there arose a vacuum and literature seemed not to have progressed, after all. Stereotyped ideas and pseudo-rebellious thoughts and feelings of light despair aroused by their egoistic transactions were expressed in peculiar forms and attractive techniques, and most of the young writers were becoming disillusioned by the state of affairs going on in the world and in their own country in the names of Democracy, Socialism and Religion. All the lights of old ideals have now blown off. The self-conscious writer of today is tired and disgusted with his own morbid feelings springing from his own perverted nature. He is much more tired of his own intellectualism that has so far only discriminated and analysed the forms and functions of relative truth and leads the seeker nowhere. That does not give him a synthetic whole meaning of self or of the world. But the conscious modern writer is very eager to enter into the heart of the whole truth and not to brood on its surface. He has now come to appreciate the truth of Sri Aurobindo's criticism: "The poetry of Europe has been a voice intensely eager and moved but restless, troubled and without a sure base of happiness and repose, vibrating with the passion of life and avid of its joy and pleasure and beauty, but afflicted also by its unrest, grief, tragedy, discord, insufficiency, incertitude, capable only of its lesser harmonies, not of any great release and satisfaction" (The Future Poetry). This statement applies also to our literature and the literature of modern India, which is mostly a reflection or an imitation of Western art and literature. Most of the writers of this time were really eager to get into an altogether Page-106 new field of consciousness where they can envisage the self, the spirit of man and the spirit of the universe, not as separate entities, but as the whole truth. But for this vision, the writer or the artist has to become a Yogi, and a Yogi in the line of Sri Aurobindo — not like the ancient Yogi who had a vision "something hierarchically remote, mystic, inward, shielded from the profane, but rather he seeks for a sight which will endeavour to draw the godheads again to a close and familiar intimacy with our earth and embody them not only in the heart of religion and philosophy, not only in the higher flights of thought and art, but also, as far as may be, in the common life and action of man" (The Future Poetry). Sri Aurobindo — and only Sri Aurobindo the greatest Yogi, Rishi, humanitarian and poet of the age and of ages to come — has shown the path. He has established that consciousness in the earth — the Supra-mental consciousness as it is called — and he is the leading philosopher and guide of mankind, its present and future. Every poet, philosopher and writer of this age cannot but open his mind to try to understand his all-embracing and completely new philosophy that can solve the problems that mankind faces now. The cry for surpassing the limitations of mankind had started from Nietzsche. He dreamt of a superman who would be gigantically a demonlike being, a superman of mental will and vital power. The superman of Bernard Shaw would be a highly self-conscious mental being. But for Sri Aurobindo this is no more a dream or merely a conception; it has become a possibility and reality. He is sure that man will certainly evolve into a higher level. Man is not the last creation. The ultimate goal of mankind is to become divine, by jumping out from the clutch of mental consciousness and the lower nature, to supramental consciousness which has been brought down by his tapasya and has begun to work here. But to achieve this, man must transform his lower nature, his physical, vital and mental being, by a higher light. Sri Aurobindo speaks with a clear and direct voice in his The Life Divine and in his great epic, Savitri, that man will conquer his doom, his destiny of Sorrow, and disharmony in his own being and Society, and then by a spiritual transformation of the body, life and mind, man will enter into higher regions of consciousness and then death, the cause of all evils and sorrows, will be conquered. In his The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity, he has given the idea of a Divinised Society. Well, this is no mere Utopia, for many people living in the Ashram and outside are experimenting with this system of Yoga to achieve the higher consciousness and transform their lower nature. Naturally, the writers in Orissa who were awaiting such an ideal have Page-107 very warmly embraced it. Fifteen years ago, two or three people of Orissa felt an enchanting attraction for Sri Aurobindo: these were the late N. K. Dass a businessman, L. M. Ghose an ideal teacher, and Dr. H. K. Mahatab the then Chief Minister of Orissa and an original thinker and writer. Then Sri K. C. Pati (now Prapatti), a teacher of philosophy, came into contact with Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, accepted it as his life's ideal, left his State, and joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram. There he established the Navajyoti Karya-laya and published a first-rate magazine Navajyoti in the Oriya language with the assistance of Ramakrishna Das and Dr. Raghunath Pani. Prof. Manoj Das, an eminent young socialist poet, scholar and story-writer of Orissa, joined the Ashram with his wife Pratijna and brother-in-law Biswambhar Samant. They all worked together and published books and booklets in Oriya with original articles on Sri Aurobindo's literature and philosophy. Afterwards many intellectuals, poets, writers, and artists like Prof. Rajakisor Ray, Mrs. Nandini Satpathy and her husband Devendra Satpathy, Mr. Chittaranjan Das, Dr. Sudhakar Acharya, Mohapatra Nilamani Sahoo, Sri Nimai Mohapatra, Prof. Chandra Sekhar Rath, Ramanath Panda, Mrs. Vidyutprava, Prof. Hrudananda Ray and Prof. Pramod Kumar Mohanty and B. L. Pattnaik accepted Sri Aurobindo as their master, guide and philosopher, and with the leadership of Prof. Prapatti and Sri Ramakrishna Das, they made it a social cultural and spiritual movement throughout the State. Within these seven or eight years, nearly two thousand study circles are working all over the State in cities, towns and villages. Thousands of our people, common and uncommon, are in a way converted to this new way of life and are determined to change the social and individual consciousness to a higher order. They are engaged in their own way in Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga to make themselves ready for the progress of evolution towards a supramental stage. For the benefit of these awakened mass of readers, Navajyoti Karya-laya has published nearly forty books and more than fifty booklets in Oriya. Besides, regular journals and magazines like Navajyoti, Pathachakra Patra and Nava Prakash are published with original and translated articles of a very high standard. In Orissa different study circles also have published books, journals and souvenirs regularly each year at the time of their annual functions. Along with these, Satyasri edited by Biswambhar Samant and Ravi Padhi, the Oriya Aurovillian edited by Amar Singh and Mohapatra Nilamani Sahoo, and Ahil Vart Patrika edited by Moheswar, Bhim Singh and others are being published regularly from Orissa, and many philosophical, social, political and literary articles based on Sri Aurobindo's philosophy are being published there. Prof. Manoj Das is Page-108 writing regularly in the Sunday Samaj under the heading of "Sandhan and Samikhya" articles on various subjects from the angle of Sri Aurobindo's thought. Likewise Dr. H. K. Mahatab, Prof. Prapatti, Dr. S. K. Acharya, Nimai Mohapatra and Mohapatra N. Sahoo are writing articles based upon Sri Aurobindo's philosophy in Prajatantra, Jhankar, Sarnanda and Samabesta, the literary magazines of Orissa. All the works of Sri Aurobindo are being translated in commemoration of his centenary under the guidance of Navajyoti Karyalaya. The Life Divine has been translated by the renowned essayist Sri Chitta-ranjan Das, Essays on the Gita by Lalitmohan Ghose and others, and Savitri the great epic by Nimai Mohapatra. Dramas written by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo are being translated by different authors, and enacted by Sri Biswajit Das and Mr. Gobind Tej the noted modern dramatists of Orissa. There is no doubt that Navajyoti Karyalaya through its publications has created a new phase in our literature by its fresh contents and expression. One can very well mark in these books a new trend in language and style to express completely a new thought process, feelings and realisations. Old words like Atimanasha, Adhimanasha, Aloka, Gativritti, Chetana, Virodhi Sakti, Nischetana, Rupantar, Deha, Prana, Mana, Chaitya Purusha, and numerous other words, old and new, have taken a new connotation in meaning and have acquired new intensity in essays, poems, stories and dramas. Our prolific writers and poets like Prof. Chandra Sekhar Rath, a story writer and essayist, and Sri Sitakanta Mohapatra, a noted poet and essayist, have been clearly influenced by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy in their essays and poems. In their writings we get a new way of analysing things and arriving at a new point of conclusion, and in their poems — particularly in the poems of Sitakanta Mohapatra — we get surely a freshness in idea, realisation and expression of a meditative mood, mostly oriented by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of higher consciousness. Two of the most prolific story-tellers, like Prof. Manoj Das and Prof. Mohapatra Nilamani Sahoo, have already used new forms to express new materials in their stories. They have started to understand the incidents, situations and characters in the light of a completely new Aesthetic sense aroused in them by the Master. They have left the old way and their writings are remarkably distinguished from that of others in their form and spirit. In poetry, Ravi Padhi, Manoj Das, Jivan Pani, Bhagaban Naik Burma, Vidutprava and Pramod Mohanty have expressed new ideas and feelings with new types of images with a flavour of purity, freshness, and aspirant Page-109 optimism in the line of Sri Aurobindo's aesthesis. In his The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo says that the literature of the future will come from the soul-feeling of realisation of the Yogi or sadhak-poet of the future: "His vision will search all the ways of the present and interpret deeply to man the sense of that which is making him and which he is making. It will reveal the Divinity in all its disguises, face even all that is ugly and terrible and baffling in the enigma of our actual human life, find its deeper aesthesis, disengage what is struggling untransformed in its out-sides and make out of it by poetic sympathy material of spiritual truth and beauty." Of couse, we have to admit with all humbleness that this has not yet been possible in our literature in all its fullness. It is not so easy. But there is much to hope, as the progressive writers and intellectuals of Orissa are very much aspirant now to surpass the existing decadent state of affairs and arrive at a bright new age of consciousness that will certainly produce masterpieces in creative art and literature in the near future. Page-110 Sri Aurobindo's Impact on Kannada Literature* Vinayak Krishna Gokak THIS survey does not set out to mention every single name that has figured in Aurobindonian writings in Kannada. It aims only at discussing trends in Kannada writing which have been stimulated or released by a' study of Sri Aurobindo so that these can be compared with similar trends in other modern Indian languages. It will be observed that there is a great deal of literary consanguinity in Aurobindonian circles all over India. In fact, I found some years ago that, among the fourteen or fifteen poets from all parts of India invited by the All India Radio to recite their poems on Republic Day, six or seven were Aurobindonians. This is, therefore, a phenomenon that requires to be studied closely. One has first to inquire why Sri Aurobindo's influence tends to be so pervasive. His revolutionary zeal, his flaming nationalism, his fiery leadership in the early days of the freedom struggle and his incarceration, trial and triumphant release made him an idol and a hero in the eyes of the people. His journalistic writings stirred their blood. His spirituality, heralded by his famous Uttarpara speech, aroused their curiosity. Reading the Arya journal issued from Pondicherry, they realised that here was no traditional, world-shunning, negative spirituality. On the other hand, it was a spirituality that was dynamic. It aimed at transforming the world itself. Sri Aurobindo combined in his own equipment the best that the West and the East had to give. His The Life Divine formulated a metaphysics that comprehended creative evolution and the way to the very summit of individual as well as collective perfection. The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity set forth in detail his vision of how the collectivity was to be transformed. The Synthesis of Yoga sketched the integral path that he traced for the development of the individual. In his essays on the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita, Sri Aurobindo offered a new interpretation of these sacred texts from the point of view of his dynamic spirituality. In The Future Poetry and in The Foundations of Indian Culture he showed how each aspect of life fulfils itself only when it is permeated by Spirit. One was
Page-111 confronted, in Sri Aurobindo's writings, by a philosophy of change based on a perfect reconciliation of spirit and matter.
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The revolutionary phase of Sri Aurobindo's life, which culminated in his retirement to Pondicherry, had a lasting impact on Karnataka, as on the rest of India. Sri S. B. Joshi's biography of Sri Aurobindo, published during the second decade of this century, sums up this period in Sri Aurobindo's career and points to the future. D. R. Bendre was a subscriber to the Arya as a college student in Poona. He eagerly read every issue as it came and had the various volumes carefully bound. He moved with these volumes to Dharwar when he started life there as a teacher about 1920. His pupils at school and college-students attracted to him by his poetry gathered around him there. Madhura Chenna of Halasangi was also an aspirant that came to him. It was through Bendre and his Gelayara Gumpu or 'Circle of Friends' that Sri Aurobindo's impact was received in Karnataka. Dharwar became the centre for radiating and diffusing it. Bendre and his friends celebrated 15th August, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, from these early days. Through Madhura Chenna the impact spread to Halasangi and the area around in Bijapur district. Shri Shankaragauda Patil, nephew of the Rajasaheb of Vantmuri and a friend of D. R. Bendre, was attracted to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It was through him while in Belgaum that Dr. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar was introduced to the Ashram, an event which resulted later in the writing of Sri Aurobindo's biography by Dr. Iyengar. Shri Patil joined the Ashram, offering at the Mother's feet the second big donation of a lakh of rupees, the first one being an offering by Shri Dilip Kumar Roy. I wrote about Shri Patil:
His premature demise was a great blow to the associations that were fast evolving between Karnataka and the Ashram. Quite a few cultural workers in Karnataka used to go for the dar-shans in Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Shri Sathyavanth Malebennur was one of the earliest of these. Bendre and his friends and Madhura Chenna and his Page-112 group followed suit. Professor and Smt. S. S. Malawad went there in the forties and became regular visitors thereafter. Dr. K. V. Puttappa, the distinguished poet, paid a tribute in a moving sonnet to Sri Aurobindo after reading The Life Divine, which was first published in book-form around 1940. Shri K. Chennabasappa, a young friend of Dr. Puttappa, eventually went to the Ashram and became a regular visitor there. When Shri B. D. Jatti was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Pondi-cherry, he came into close contact with the Ashram and his association opened up opportunities for many more from Karnataka to get to know the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
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Some of the less sustained writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have been translated into Kannada. A list not necessarily exhaustive, is given below: Titles Translators 1.Sri Aurobindo's The Mother N. Sangam, R. S. Mugali 2.Yoga and its Objects D. R. Bendre, R. G. Kulkarni 3.A few lyrics including The Rose of God D. R. Bendre 4.Sri Aurobindo's Essay on Rebirth Shri Joshi 5.A few passages from Savitri D. R. Bendre, Deshpande 6.Some of Sri Aurobindo's letters and V. K. Gokak, S. S. Malawad, Mother's Prayers and Meditations P. B. Naregal, Vasanth Kulkarni, N. K. Kulkarni and others 7.The Life Divine Being prepared by Sri K. Chenna- basappa 8.Essays on the Gita Shri Agaram Venkataram and others It is difficult to translate Sri Aurobindo. To translate him amounts to mutilating the grandeur of his diction and the presentation of the complex pattern of his thinking. Bendre wished to translate Savitri and he shut himself up in a room, translating a passage or two. But if the translation was to catch the magic of the mantric utterance, it flashed on Bendre that the translator would have to court silence for thirty or forty years in a room as Sri Aurobindo did. Page-113 This is why the translation of Sri Aurobindo's major works has not yet been accomplished in Kannada. The prose works could be taken up as projects by universities and they could be got translated by competent scholars. A workman-like translation of the major poetry could also be attempted. In the meanwhile, the Annual called Samarpana and the Quarterly Dipti have published quite a few translations.
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In what manner has Sri Aurobindo's impact been experienced by Kannada writers? I should say that it has transformed the life-vision of those writers who have come under his spell. The perspective in which they see the world, its problems and their solutions, the fulfilment of the individual's life, the consummation of artistic and cultural activity: the entire perspective changes. In any colloquium or seminar, it is easy to distinguish an Aurobindonian among traditionalists, humanists, socialists or Marxists. In Hridayasamudra and other collections, D. R. Bendre has given us the poetry of vision in the manner of Sri Aurobindo. His meditations on numerology have an Aurobindonian ring. His essays in literary criticism present axioms based on Sri Aurobindo's aesthetics. Bendre's cosmic imagery, sublimity and gigantic laughter are all Aurobindonian. On the very day, 29 February 1956, on which the Mother experienced the Supramental Descent, which is going to transform the human race into a race of supermen, Bendre had the vibrations of an Aurobindonian disciple without being aware of it:
Page-114 Mention has already been made of the sonnet in which Dr. K. V. Puttappa pays a moving tribute to Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine as the completest synthesis of East and West. His celebrated epic, Shree Ramayana Darshanam, for which he received the Jnan Pith Award, has its own links with Sri Aurobindo. The Darshanam combines the structure of the classical epic with the motifs of Romance and Allegory. The allegory here is based on Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. Shree Rama is the Divine and Supramental Will out to liberate Seetha, the Super-Nature, living a life of exile in the midst of the demoniac powers of the Ignorance. The allegory is worked out in considerable detail and it gives a great deal of solidity to the substance of the epic. A collection of 72 poems on the Mother by Aurobindonians has been published recently. Ranganath S. Mugali has composed a number of devotional lyrics and written reflective essays in prose. In his epic novel, Samarasave Jivana, Vinayak K.Gokak presents Narahari, the hero, as an Aurobindonian figure. In collections like Ugama, Kashmeera and Dyava-Prithvi, he has quite a few poems which could be called Aurobindonian. Ramachandra Vineeth, Prahlad Naregal, K. Chennabasappa, Datthamurthi Desai and others have published collections of poems which hark back to Sri Aurobindo, either by way of philosophic reference or devotional fervour. S. S. Malawad has written on the psychology of meditation and Venkappa Shastri in English on Sri Aurobindo's historical vision. P.B. Naregal has published an introductory essay on Savitri. R. G. Kulkarni, the youngest of these Aurobindonians, has written a beautiful ballad on Sri Aurobindo's life and work and also a ballad on Bangla Desh which reveals an Aurobindonian vision. A noble vision of Bharat in the midst of unscrupulous politicians all the world over, unfurls itself in the poem:
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Madhura Chenna is another key figure in this movement. His autobiography is his spiritual odyssey, Pondicherry being the spiritual heaven. His My Beloved recounts in simple but sublime poetry his quest ending in a glimpse of the Earth Soul. He also inspired others like Dhoola, Madhu, Simpi Linganna and Deshpande to study the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and write about it. Simpi Linganna is a veteran man of letters and he has done his best, through poetry as well as prose, to interpret the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Among women-writers, mention may be made of Smt. S. S. Malawad and Smt. Sharada V. Gokak. The former presents the drift of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in several of her prose writings. She tries to illumine the life of the Veerashaiva saints of the 12th century on the basis of what she has seen and experienced in Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The latter has published a collection of poems called Sumangalakshathe in which there are lyrics of vision and quite a few poems on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I may venture to include a translation here, in order to illustrate feminine sensibilities in the field:
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