Subramania Bharati and Sri Aurobindo

Subramania Bharati ranks among the master spirits of the modern Indian Renaissance, along with such philosopher-poets as Tagore and Sri Aurobindo and scholar-interpreters like Tilak and Ananda Coomaraswamy. Less of a professional philosopher than his contemporaries, Bharati added a new dimension to Tamil poetry by his searching inquiry into the history and civilization in which he created his poetic world. In all his writing there is, within the setting of imaginative realism in which he functioned, a fundamental belief in man's victory over death and timelessness. Indeed from the earlier national perspective, Bharati, over the years moved into the wider and deeper waters of the perennial philosophy. And like Sri Aurobindo, Bharati was endowed with a creativity that fulfilled itself in four different spheres of intellectual and poetic endeavour–creative journalism, interpretations of Indian culture, the literature of patriotism and epic poetry.

In order to understand Bharati’s importance as a journalist, it is necessary to know something of the ground of his times. To cite an example, he had to reckon with a generation to whom Indian art conveyed no meaning. It was during this period that men like Coomaraswamy, Sri Aurobindo and Havell had to defend the ideals on which Indian art was based to answer the criticisms of many Western intellectuals, beginning with Ruskin who may be termed as the father of the school of misunderstanding of Indian art in the West. It was also during this period that Coomaraswamy had clashed with Foucher regarding the Greek origin of the Buddha image. In fact this period witnessed such publications as Havell’s The Ideals of Indian Art, Coomaraswamy’s Art and Swadeshi and Essays in National Idealism, Sister Nivedita’s The Web of Indian Life, Sir John Woodroffe’s Is India Civilized? Lord Ronaldshay’s The Heart of Aryavarta and Sri Aurobindo’s The Foundations of Indian Culture. And here is a passage from a Bharati piece which revealed his insight into the nature of this theme: “Our forefathers were as well acquainted with the secular branches of human knowledge as they were in the sphere of the spirit in man. They were masters of various secular works of their time and were all abreast of the intellectual life of the Western world. Furthermore, the sculptures of ancient India are at least as aesthetically significant as Greek art in the history of ideas. And great savants like Dr Ananda Coomaraswamy (Ananda Coomaraswamy, Havell, Sri Aurobindo and Sir John Woodroffe) are fruitfully engaged in bringing into light this important fact.”

Just as Sri Aurobindo ushered in Bharati to the intimations of the Vedic dawn, so did Bharati introduce Sri Aurobindo to the world of the Tamil Vaishnavite saints. In fact the Bharati-Sri Aurobindo dialogue reverberated with the rhythms of their search for wisdom. Here it is worth-noting that apart from contributing perceptive essays on Nammalwar and Andal, Sri Aurobindo had commented on some aspects of the similarities between the Tamil and Sanskrit languages. Similarly Bharati’s record as an expositor of Indian culture was impressive. For he had such publications as Veda Rishikalin Kavitai (the poetry of the Vedic Rishis), Vedanta Padalgal, a translation of the Gita with a long introduction, and a translation of the Isavasya Upanishad to his credit.

Sri Aurobindo from the beginning of his career as an expositor of Indian culture was not only concerned with the symbolism or Indian art, but also with the symbol of dawn in Vedic ontology. In fact his unique distinction lies in his translation of some sections of the Vedas. Incidentally Coomaraswamy has argued in A New Approach to the Vedas that a deeper understanding of the Vedas is possible only from the point of view of the history of religion. The Vedas have been interpreted in the past as a system of rituals in the light of Sayana’s commentaries or as a naturalistic body of knowledge by Western scholars. Sri Aurobindo, however has interpreted the Vedas in their esoteric sense. As he observe Vedic chants “are episodes of the lyrical epic of the soul in its immortal ascension.” Perhaps Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of Agni as a spiritual fire in matter, is a key to his aesthetics.

“I cherish God the Fire, not God the Dream!” exclaims Savitri.
“A fire to call eternity into Time
Make body’s joy as vivid as the soul’s.”

Here it is well to stress that Bharati found in Sri Aurobindo a conception also shared with Coomaraswamy of the perennial tradition of the Vedic poets. In his Agni–The God-Will, Bharati suggests that knowledge (symbolized by the descent of Shakti in response to an ascending aspiration) is sustained in an ambience of creative endeavour. Equally imaginative is his interpretation of The Dawn. For he observed that “the Dawn is never a product of existing earthly conditions. It always comes on us from the extremity of Heaven. It is even from the realms above the mental that the great Light descends which makes for regeneration in men and in nations ……….. “Agni, says Sri Aurobindo, “is the illumined Will.” Let your higher will, the “fire” in you meet the Dawn. It shall then seek and attain to the “substance of Delight.” And his piece, Rasa–the key-word of Indian Culture is less an exercise in aesthetic sensibility than an imaginative interpretation of Shakti. Indeed according to Bharati, Rasa “is the form of Shakti, the feminine aspect of the Supreme Being……..that has awakened the mother (Mother India) from her slumber of centuries.”

In his work entitled The Way of Light, T. V. Kapali Sastri, a distinguished exponent of the Aurobindo Darshana, gives a moving account of his meeting with Bharati in 1917. Bharati greeted Kapali Sastri with these words:

Intha janmathil jayamundu bayamillai manamey

“Victory in this life is certain
O Mind, fear there is none.”

Soon he burst forth

Guhaney, paraman mahanay, guhayil valarum kanalay
“In the secret cave, O growing Flame
Son of the Supreme.”
Here the poet not only highlights a quint essentially Vedic conception as the growing Flame in the heart of man, but also identifies Agni as Guha, Son of the Supreme.

“The body of national thought that Bharati wove into song” observed Rajaji, “was that which preceded Gandhiji; it was Vivekananda’s and Dadhabhai Naoroji’s and Tilak’s India and not that which most of the present-day admirers of India’s struggle may have in mind–that forms the material of his poetry.” In fact, some of Bharati’s patriotic poems such as Liberation and In Thy Arms, Again–apoem which was composed in the wake of Tilak’s release from the Mandalay jail in 1914–not only reflect the Pre-Gandhian era of Indian nationalism but are also reminiscent of the heroic Aurobindo poems like Baji Prabhou and Vidula. For these poems reflect the first phase of the heroic age of Indian Nationalism.

Bharati’s Panchali Sapatham and Sri Aurobindo’s Savitriconstitute that part of modern India’s poetic achievement which history will find memorable. In Bharati’s Panchali Sapatham Panchali’s or Droupadi’s moment of crisis while being outraged by Duhshasana in the court of Duryodhana is transmuted into the moment of triumph through Krishna’s grace. Again, significantly enough, just as Bharati recreated a Mahabharata theme, so did the legend of Savitri take Sri Aurobindo to the Vedas, where it was a feminine principle sustaining the Universe. In the Mahabharata it was a symbol of love over death. Sri Aurobindo imparts to the legend a contemporary relevance by projecting it as a symbol of the conquest of darkness by light, of ignorance by knowledge. Here Savitri symbolizes the new knowledge in man. Similarly Droupadi’s moment of triumph symbolizes the descent of Shakti into her being. Furthermore Sri Aurobindo’s concept of the new dawn unveils the vistas of Ahana and Usha in an expanding horizon of aesthetic consciousness. Likewise, Droupadi symbolizing Mahashakti in the plenitude of her splendour, helps the Pandavas in winning the Dharma- Yuddha. Furthermore, Droupadi is at once a projection of the political consciousness and a symbol of the glory of the new womanhood of modem India. And the totality of aesthetic effect in Bharati’s epic Panchali Sapatham as well as in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitrireminds one of the celebrated Bharati translation and interpretation of a Rigvedic poem on Dawn: “She widens from the extremity of Heaven over the earth, Meet Ye the Dawn as she shines wide towards you and with surrender bring forward your complete energy ... … By Heaven’s illuminings one perceives her a bearer of Truth” – Rig veda, III, 61. “In this deathless imagery of the great seer, Viswamitra, we have a fine picture of all types of Renaissance individual or national, material are spiritual.”