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THE NICKNAMES of party warfare have often passed into the accepted terminology used by serious politicians and perpetuated by history, and it is possible that the same immortality may await the designations of Moderate and Extremist by which the two parties now contending for the mind of the nation are commonly known. The forward party Nationalism: but what is Nationalism? The word has only recently begun to figure as an ordinary term of our politics and it has been brought into vogue by the new, forward or extreme party which, casting about for a convenient description of themselves, selected the name as the only one covering in a word their temper and their gospel. For there is a great deal in a name in spite of Shakespeare. A name attached to a political party or school of thought not only serves to show the temper and point of view of the giver, but it helps greatly to colour contemporary ideas about the party it seeks to exalt or disparage. The advanced men whom Anglo-Indian and Moderate unite in branding as Extremists, have always repudiated the misleading designation. At first they preferred to call themselves the New School; they now claim the style of Nationalists: a claim which has been angrily objected to on the ground that the rest of the Congress party are as good Nationalists as the forward party. This The New Nationalism, I said in a former article, in this Review, is a negation of the old bourgeois ideals of the nineteenth century. It is an attempt to relegate the dominant bourgeois in us to his old obscurity, to transform the bourgeois into the Samurai and through him to extend the workings of the Samurai spirit to the whole nation. Or to put it more broadly, it is an attempt to create a new nation in India by reviving in spirit and action ancient Indian character, the strong, great and lofty spirit of old Aryavarta. and setting it to use and mould the methods and materials of modernity for the freedom, greatness and well-being of a historic and immortal people. This is not. I am well aware, a description under which the ordinary Congress politician will recognize what he prefers to disparage as Extremism, but it will be well understood by those who are constant readers of the Nationalist journals in Bengal.1 whether the Bande Mataram or New India or vernacular journals like the Yugantar, the Nabasakti or the Sandhya. Whatever their differences of temper, tone or style, however the methods they recommend may differ in detail, they are united by a common faith and a common spirit; a common faith in India, not in an Anglicised and transmogrified nation unrecognizable as Indians, but in India of the immemorial past. India of the clouded but fateful present. India leonine, mighty, crowned with her imperial diadem of the future, a common spirit of enthusiasm, hope, the desire to dare and do all things so that our vision of her future may be fulfilled greatly and soon. This is the heart of Nationalism. The ordinary Congress politician's ideas of Nationalism are associated with heated discussions in Committee and Congress, altercations at public meetings, unsparing criticisms of successful and eminent respectabilities, sedition trials. National Volunteers, East Bengal disturbances, Rawalpindi riots. To him the Nationalist is nothing more than an "Extremist", a violent, unreasonable, uncomfortable being whom some malign power has raised up to disturb with his Swaraj and Boycott, his lawlessness and his lathies. the respectable ease and safety of Congress politics.2 He finds him increasing in numbers and influence with an alarming rapidity which it is convenient to deny but impossible to ignore; but he has no clear idea of the aim and drift of Extremism. He imagines it to be our object to drive out the English and make India free by Boycott and the lathie, and, having thus erected a scarecrow to chuck stones at. he thinks himself entitled to dismiss the new party in his mind as a crowd of enthusiastic lunatics who talk nonsense and advocate impossibilities. Nationalism cannot be so easily dismissed. A force which has shaken the whole of India, trampled the traditions of a century into a refuse of irrecoverable fragments and set the mightiest of modern Empires groping in a panic for weapons strong enough to meet a
1 Nationalism existed in India before it became definite and articulate in Bengal, but it is Bengal that gave it a philosophy, a faith. a method, a mantra 2 It is the bourgeois view of the type destined to push him aside and supplant him and like all such views born of a panic fear and hatred, it is a caricature and not a description. new and surprising danger, must have some secret of strength and therefore of truth in it which is worth knowing. To get at the heart of Nationalism we must first clear away some of the misconceptions with which its realities have been clouded. We must know what Nationalism is not before we ask what it is. Extremism in the sense of unreasoning violence of spirit and the preference of desperate methods, because they are desperate, is not the heart of Nationalism. The Nationalist is no advocate of lawlessness for its own sake, on the contrary he has a deeper respect for the essence of law than anyone else, because the building up of a nation is his objective and he knows well that without a profound reverence for law national life cannot persist and attain a sound and healthy development. But he qualifies his respect for legality by the proviso that the law he is called upon to obey is the law of the nation, an outgrowth of its organic existence and part of its own accepted system of government. A law imposed from outside can command only the interested obedience of those whose chief demand from life is the safety of their persons and property or the timid obedience of those who understand the danger of breaking the law. The claim made by it is an utilitarian, not a moral claim. Farther the Nationalist never loses sight of the truth that law was made for man and not man for the law. Its chief function and reason for existence is to safeguard and foster the growth and happy flowering into strength and health of national life and a law which does not subserve this end or which opposes and contradicts this end, however rigidly it may enforce peace, order and security, forfeits its claim to respect and obedience. Nationalism refuses to accept Law as a fetish or peace and security as an aim in themselves; the only idol of its worship is Nationality and the only aim in itself it recognizes is the freedom, power and well-being of the nation. It will not prefer violent or strenuous methods simply because they are violent or strenuous, but neither will it cling to mild and peaceful methods simply because they are mild and peaceful. It asks of a method whether it is effective for its purpose, whether it is worthy of a great people struggling to be, whether it is educative of national strength and activity, and these things ascertained, it asks nothing farther. He does not love anarchy and suffering, but if anarchy and suffering are the necessary passage to the great consummation he seeks, he is ready to bear them himself, to expose others to them, till the end is reached. He will embrace suffering as a lover and clasp the hand of Anarchy like that of a trusted friend, — if so it must be; for it is not his temper to take the inevitable grudgingly or to serve or struggle with half a heart. If that is Extremism and fanaticism, he is an Extremist and a fanatic; but not for their own sake, not out of a disordered love for anarchy and turmoil, not in madness and desperation, but out of a reasoned conviction and courageous acceptance of the natural laws that demand this sacrifice in return for so great a promise. The same natural law by which a man who aspires to reach a difficult height, must clamber up the steep rocks and risk life and limb in arduous places, has decreed that men who desire to live as freemen in a free country must not refuse to be ready to pay toll for freedom with their own blood and the blood of their children, and still more the nation which seeks to grow out of subjection into liberty, must consent first to manure the soil with the tears of its women and the bodies of its sons. The Nationalist knows what he asks from Fate and he knows the price that Fate asks from him in return. Knowing it, he is ready to drag down the nation with him into the valley of the shadow of Death, dark with night and mist and storm, sown thick and crude with perils of strange monsters and perils of morass and fire and flood, holding all danger and misery as nothing because beyond the valleys are the mountains of Beulah where the nation shall enjoy eternal life. He is ready to lead the chosen people into the desert for its long wanderings, though he knows that often in the bitterness of its sufferings it will murmur and rebel against his leadership and raise its hand to stone him to death as the author of its misery, for he knows that beyond is the promised land flowing with milk and honey which the Divine Voice has told him that those who are faithful, will reach and possess. If he embraces Anarchy, it is as the way to good government. If he does not shrink from disorder and violent struggle, it is because without that disorder there can be no security and without that struggle no peace, except the security of decay and the peace of death. If he has sometimes to disregard the law of man. it is to obey the dictates of his conscience and the law of God.
So the mighty ones of the Kurus and they of their faction performed joyously the marriage of Abhimanyu, and that night they rested but at dawn fared, pleased of heart, to the Council Hall of Virata. The Hall of the Lord of the Matsyas, opulent, curious with workings of pearl and the best of jewels, with seats disposed, and wreathed with garlands and full of fragrance, thither they fared, the Elders of the Kings of men. And of those that took their seats in the Hall, the first place was for both the Princes of the folk, even Virat and Drupad and those that were aged and revered among the Masters of Earth, and Rama and Janardan with their sire. Next to the King of the Panchalas sat the mighty one of the Shinis with the son of Rohinnie and very nigh to the Matsya King both Janardan and Yudhisthere. and all the sons of Drupad the King, and Bhema and Urjoon. and the sons of Madrie. and Pradyumna and Samba mighty in the battle and with the sons of Virata, Abhimanyu. And all those heroes equal to their sires in prowess and beauty and strength, the princes, sons of Draupadie, sat on noble thrones curious with gold. High shone that opulent Place of Kings with the warriors there sitting in glittering ornaments and gleaming robes as heaven shines invaded by the clear bright stars. Then when those mighty ones had done with varied talk (of general import) they tarried in thought a moment, all these Kings gazing towards Krishna: and talk being over, spurred by the Madhav for the business of the sons of Pandu the lords assembled hearkened to his word of import mighty and majestic. Srikrishna spake: "Known is it to you all how Yudhisthere here was conquered of Subala's son in the Hall of Dicing, beaten by fraud, and his kingdom wrested from him and compact made of exile in the forest. Though able to win the Earth by violence, yet the sons of Pandu stood firmly in the truth, for truth is their chariot, and for years six and seven all the severity of that law has been kept by these first of men. And hardest to pass this thirteenth year, lo they have passed it undiscovered before your eyes, bearing intolerable ills, even as they had sworn, — that too is known of you all, — appointed to servile office in a house of Strangers, mighty, in their own might, O King, they have won through all. Since so it is, ponder now what may be for the good of the King, the son of Righteousness, and the good of Duryodhan and of the Kurus and the Pandavas, and just also and right and for the honour and glory of all. For Yudhisthere the Just would desire not the kingship of the gods itself if with unrighteousness it came. But to lordship of earth he would aspire though even in some hamlet, so it went with justice and prosperous doing. For it is known to the Kings how his father's kingdom was torn from him by the children of Dhritarashtra and how by that false dealing he fell into great peril and very hard to bear: for neither was the son of Pritha overthrown in battle by the children of Dhritarashtra in the energy of their own might. Yet even so the King and his friends desire that these should not come to hurt; but what the sons of Pandu gathered with their own conquering hands by force done on the lords of land, this these mighty ones seek for. Coonty's sons and the sons of Madrie. But all this is known to you enough, how these even when they were children were pursued to slay them with various device by those their foemen, dishonest and fierce and bent to rob them of their realm. Seeing how that greed of theirs is grown and looking to the righteous mind of Yudhisthere and looking also to their kinship, form ye your separate minds and an united counsel. For ever have these made truth and honour their delight and wholly have they kept the compact, and now if they have dealing from the others otherwise than in truth and honour, they will slay the assembled children of Dhritarashtra: for when 'tis heard that these have been evilly dealt by their cousins, the friends of Dhritarashtra's sons will gather to protect the ill doers and they will oppose these with war, and they, opposed with war, will slay them all. And even if 'tis your mind that these by their fewness are not strong for victory, they will band themselves all together with their friends and yet strive for the destruction of the Dhritarashtrians. Neither do we know aright the mind of Duryodhan and what it is that he will do, and unknowing the mind of the foe, what can ye decide that would be truly right to start upon? Therefore let one go hence, a man righteous, pure, well-born and heedful, a fit envoy, for pacifying Dhritarashtra's sons and the gift to Yudhisthere of half the kingdom."
HYMNS TO THE ASHWINS THE FIRST HYMN TO THE ASHWINS
V. 73
1. Whether your station be in the supreme world or in this of the descent, whether you range multitudinously enjoying the world of the Multitude or in the mid-habitation, — come to me, O Riders on the Steed of Life. 2. 1 approach the Twins, children of the highest who are its rays on this hill of Matter, and they become in the multiplicity of its forms here upon earth and bear up the manifoldness of its works. I call them to me for world-enjoying in their utter multiplicity. 3. One moving wheel of your chariot ye keep in governed labour, form for that which takes form; two others ye set shining (or moving) by your might throughout these kingdoms and these periods of man's pilgrimage. 4. Well by this that is here has that been worked out by you, O ye universal Twain, and I affirm it in me according to your making of it; born separately in us, you come wholly into union and brotherhood without any hurt. 5. For the daughter of the Sun of Truth ever ascends your swift-running car, therefore red of action and full of the heat of her force are the winged powers that draw you and they guard us from attack on every side by their burning clarity. 6. O twin divine Souls, by your bliss the Enjoyer of things awakens to knowledge in his conscious mind when he bears in his mouth of enjoyment your burning clarity that yet hurts not. O ye leaders of man's pilgrimage. 7. Heard in man's voyagings is the
clanging voice of the Bird of strength that leads your movement when the Enjoyer
of things, O strong souls, O Riders of Life, by his works sets you moving
towards his paths. 9. Truth have they spoken, 0 Riders
upon Life, when they called you creators of the Beatitude. Therefore in our
journey most ready are you for the call to the journeying, therefore in our
journey you give us wholly bliss.
THE SECOND HYMN TO THE ASHWINS V. 74
1. Where are ye today. O Riders on the Steed of Life, O divine Twins rich in mental power, in the divine world of mind and of That ye have the inspiration, O abundant rainers of substance; the Enjoyer of things labours to establish you in all his dwelling. 2. Where are they? where now is your word audible in heaven, O gods who lead our pilgrimage? In what creature born are ye labouring? who is your companion by the rivers of being? 3. To whom come ye or to whom do ye go, towards whose dwelling do ye yoke your car? In whose soul-thoughts are ye taking your delight? We for the sacrifice desire you. 4. O twin power of the multiplicity, ye have joy for man born in the multiplicity in the pouring out of the waters of its multitude, when for man seized fast and bound in his self-extension ye come to him as to a lion snared in this world of harms. 5. From the mover in things when he has grown old ye loose his faded covering like a worn raiment; young he grows again when you form him afresh and he meets the desire of the Bride. 6. Verily, there is one here who would affirm you and in the vision of you we abide for the glory. Now hear, now come to us with your fosterings, O gods who are rich in the force of the plenitude. 7. Who today takes delight of you among mortals that have realised their multiplicity? What illumined soul. O you who bear up the illumined in his voyage? who wins you by his sacrifices, O gods rich in the force of the plenitude? 8. Most mobile for our paths of all divine chariots is the chariot of your movement, O Riders on the Life, let it come to us. seeking us, breaking through that world of the multitude and becoming a movement of power in mortals. 9. O seekers of honey, let our constant action be wholly full of bliss; downward yet keeping the wide and complete consciousness, come flashing (or cleave) swift as eagles drawn by your winged powers. 10. O Riders on the Life, whensoever ye are ready to hear this call of man, utterly full of a rich substance are your enjoyings, your satisfactions fill our cup to the brim. THE THIRD HYMN TO THE ASHWINS V. 75
1. Towards the abundant movement of your utter delight, your car that bearest our rich substance, O Riders on the Life, the seer who affirms you grows by his affirmation to that in his being. O Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 2. Come breaking through beyond to me; I call to you, O ye universal, O ye eternal Twain, O fulfillers of the Work, O treaders of the path of gold, O keepers of the perfect peace, O voyagers on the upper Waters, Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 3. Bearing to us the Delights, O Riders on the Life, come, ye Twain; O violent ones who tread the ways of golden light, choosing and cleaving to us, gods rich in the force of plenitude. Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 4. She who is as the speech of the perfect Affirmer of things, ye have taken her and set by you in your car, O ye abundant rainers of our substance; so indeed your clanging swan of the paths creates for you your rich-bodied satisfactions. O Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 5. Ye who have the mind that wakes to knowledge, drivers of your chariot, man's impetuous impellers, hearers of his cry, drawn by your winged energies you come, O Riders on the Life, to the mover in things when he has freed himself from the duality. O Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 6. O divine Souls, let your chariot-horses that are yoked by the mind, that eat of the streaming honey, let your winged powers bear you to the drinking of the wine with all kinds of bliss in your car, O Riders on the Steed of Life. Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 7. O Riders on the Life, come hither, let not your delight ever turn away from us, O aspirers in our pilgrimage, and let your movement pervade our path and speed beyond, O invincible! Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 8. O invincible, O Lords of Bliss, ye in this sacrifice grow in your being, upon your adorer who in his desire of increase expresses by the word the Riders on the Steed of Life. Sons of the sweetness, hear my call. 9. Dawn has been born with her shining herds, the fire of the Will has been established and it observes the order of the Truth, yoked is your immortal car, O abundant rainers of our substance, O achievers of the Works. Sons of the sweetness, hear my call.
THE FOURTH HYMN TO THE ASHWINS V. 76
1. Strength shines out as the might of the dawns, upward rise the Words of the illumined minds, words that travel towards the godheads. Downward now come to us hither. O Drivers of the Chariot, O Riders on the Life, to the swelling clarity. 2. When it is perfected ye diminish it not. O swift voyagers. O Riders on the Life, now here affirmed within us; swift are ye in your coming with increase for the Caller drinking in the soul's daytime and when he rests from the journey ye create the utter peace for the giver. 3. Yea, come when the rays of the Truth gather together in its evenings and in the dawn of its day; in its midday come and when the sun of Truth is rising, by day and by night with your blissful increasing. Not now first, O Riders on the Life, is lengthened out the drinking of the honey. 4. This is your station in the front of heaven and your dwelling place; these are your houses, O Riders on the Life, and this your gated mansion. Come to us from the mountain of the vastest Heaven and from the waters of that Ocean bearing to us the impulsion, carrying to us the energy. 5. May we attain by their perfect leading, by this new manifestation of the Ashwins that creates the Beatitude. Bring to us felicity, bring to us hero-strengths, all immortal enjoyings.
THE FIFTH HYMN TO THE ASHWINS V. 77
1. Sacrifice to the Twins supreme who come with the Dawn,— they shall drink before the greed of the Devourer makes war upon us, — in the dawn the Riders on the Life uphold the sacrifice and the Seers of the Truth express the Word when they enjoy the first pourings. 2. In1 the dawn sacrifice to the Riders on the Life and set them galloping on their paths, not at the falling of the night does the sacrifice journey to the gods nor is it accepted by them; yea, and another than ourselves sacrifices and discovers his increase; he who sacrifices first is stronger for the conquest. 3. Your chariot comes to you with the bride of your satisfying pleasures, its surface is that golden light, its hue is the honey of sweetness, it rains down clarities, it has the swiftness of the mind, it has the rush of the life, your chariot in which you pass beyond all evil stumblings. 4. He who has entered into the largest kingdom by the strength of the lords of the voyage and enjoys that delightfullest essence of the food of the gods in their apportioning, carries his creation
1 Or. At to its goal by the achieving of his works and ever he breaks through beyond all the lights that aspire not to the highest. 5. May we attain by their perfect leading, by this new manifestation of the Riders on the Life that creates the Beatitude. Bring to us felicity, bring to us hero-strengths, — all immortal enjoyings.
THE SIXTH HYMN TO THE ASHWINS
V. 78
1. Hither arrive, O Riders on the Life, O Leaders of our voyage, let not our delight turn away from us; like twin swans come flying to the outpourings of the wine. 2. O Riders on the Life, like twin stags, like two bulls that hasten to the pastures, like twin swans come flying to the outpourings of the wine. 3. O Riders on the Life, gods rich in force of the plenitude, cleave to the sacrifice for the offering of our desire; like twin swans come flying to the outpourings of the wine. 4. When the eater of things descended down into Hell, then he called to you like a woman that woos her paramour and new was your speed as of the eagle with which you came to him and it was full of the purest bliss. 5. O Tree that keepest the Delight, start apart like the womb of a mother giving birth; hear my cry, O Riders on the Life, and deliver me who am smitten with the seven pains. 6. For the seer smitten with the seven pains in his fear and in his crying joy, O Riders on the Life, by the powers of your knowledge, bring together over him the Tree, tear it apart. 7. As a wind sets the pool rippling from bank to bank, so let thy child move in thee, O Tree, and in the tenth month come forth. 8. As the wind moves and as the wood and as the sea, so, O ten months' child, do they descend with [. . .]1 in which thou art wrapped. 9. Ten months let the Boy lie in his mother and then come forth living and unhurt, living in her alive.
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