The 'Songs From Prison'

A song is a rhythmic flow of the soul, a tuneful movement of the expanding heart. Emanating, it may be, from the imprisoned soul, it is yet the product of the eternal chainless mind. That is why the ancient Hindus called their scripture Sruti, the ‘rhythm of the Infinite heard by the soul,’ and their book of wisdom. The Song Celestial. The Songs from Prison is, indeed, presented to the world as a bouquet of flowers picked from the Hindu scriptures, and the poetic lore of our saints, by Mahatma Gandhi, the finest representative of the Hindu spirit and culture of our day. It embodies the fundamental thoughts of basic Hinduism common to all. As has been well and truly said, Hinduism lays emphasis only on spiritual experience, and on the discipline of the individual life towards that end. It is more a way of life than a type of thought. Hence, as is inevitable when the lessons of individual experience guide the ways of men, divergent paths were pursued from different angles of vision, and, in the course of the long history of Hindu India, sects and schools came into existence.

But, unfortunately, the sects degenerated into cults, and the schools of thought became petrified into sectarian groups. These divided men sharply. As a result, the original fundamental concepts and the underlying unity of thought receded into the ground, and were lost amidst the maze of conflicting ideals, theories and systems of discipline, established by the different founders of these sects and schools. Further, the reactions created by the dissenting systems of Buddhism and Jainism also produced confusion, by leaving their mark on the parent system. Fortunately for us, the main current of thought has never disappeared but has continued to flow throughout the ages, and, from time to time, in the firmament of Hindu religious thought, there arose bright stars shedding lustre on the religious life of the people. The saints and sages of India restored, to the divided nation, the fundamentals and re-established them by giving them a new orientation suited to the changing conditions. But as, from the beginning, religion had always a fascination for the best minds of the Hindu race, there accumulated, in the course of centuries, a vast mass of religious literature. Naturally, as many minds tackled the problems of religion, differences and conflicts became acute, and the polemical literature on religious questions attained undue proportions. The energies of many intellectual giants were frittered away on barren discussions about the superiority of Siva or Vishnu or Shakti, and on purely metaphysical speculations on the impersonality or otherwise of the Godhead, and on interminable wrangles on the interpretations of various texts.

As schism arose among the religious teachers, sharp divisions followed among their disciples and adherents, and these became stereotyped into hereditary groups or sects. By reason of the mere birth of a man in anyone of these sects, the opinions he entertained became also pre-ordained. Hence, the tendency for even the most cultured men was to become narrow-minded and incapable of seeing the usefulness or appreciating the value of any other set of opinions or practices, or of the literature of other sects. Real culture, therefore, becomes tainted at its very source and runs in narrow grooves, uninfluenced by the sunshine and the open air of a liberal outlook and a genuine taste. We often find instances of even the most cultured men being kept ignorant of some of the priceless treasures of Hindu religious literature, simply because that literature did not pertain to the particular sect in which they were born. A scholar brought up in the Saivite tradition, and belonging to that sect, is often ignorant of some of the most valuable literature of the Vaishnavite persuasion and unable to appreciate it.

At the present day, on account of these schismatic tendencies and the tangled mass of differing religious precepts, the influence of Hinduism on the life of the individual Hindu is at its lowest ebb. There is a formal adherence to some of the outworn symbols of religious discipline, and an ignorant adoption and observance of some of the customary ceremonies and rituals; but the main value and force of real spiritual experience is generally absent. If there is to be a revival of the true spirit of Hinduism in all its pristine purity and intensity, and if the solidarity of the Hindu community is to be achieved,–so that the Hindu religion can hold its own against the prosleytizing influences of the militant religions of the world and the aggressive forces of materialism,–it is absolutely necessary that the vital, basic, unifying principles should be brought to the forefront and made to operate, and the fissiparous elements thrust out by the healthy current of cultural unity. The rigid formalism of the distinctive religious practices of the sects should be rendered elastic. They should more and more become things of private observance in the home rather than be publicly paraded in institutions and organizations established for that very purpose. The contempt and ridicule with which the various sects have been trained to look upon the practices of one another should be transformed into an attitude of tolerance and sympathetic understanding. The habit should be developed of not attaching any importance to mere symbolism; and undue sentiment should not be fostered in preserving, undiminished, the distinctive elements of everyone of these sects, for their own sake.

The best training for the development of such an attitude of mind on the part of every Hindu is to instill into the minds of our younger generation the common elements and fundamental concepts of Hinduism, so that the breadth of outlook resulting from a liberal culture may be achieved. Indeed, the time has come when a supreme effort should be made by the various sects of Hinduism to sink their differences and to unitedly evolve the common basis of Hindu thought and spirituality, which will be the only distinguishing mark of Hinduism. Otherwise, the alternative is to rule out religion altogether and banish it from the thoughts of men. But it is difficult to imagine any time when the Hindu race and culture can exist without the truth and vitality of Hindu religion. In spite of the great example of Russia in the West, it is suicidal even to visualize the possibility, in the remote future, of Hindu India existing without Hinduism; for, it is accepted by the thinkers of all nations that Hinduism has a distinct contribution to make, as a separate entity, to world-thought, and a unique message to deliver to the war-weary peoples of the world. It is, therefore, worth our while to keep intact our individuality as a race, in culture and in religion. In order to keep this individuality vital and strong, the obliteration of all differences between the various sects of Hinduism is absolutely necessary. To achieve this purpose, the vital centres of the unifying thought of Hinduism have to be suffused with energy to function effectively, so as to achieve the solidarity of the community; and it will do incalculable harm to harp on our differences, with a pessimistic outlook, or to dwell upon the injustices, real or imaginary, of former ages. The Songs From Prison, issuing forth as a message from the Mahatma, will, I am sure, be one of the most potent unifying forces in this direction.