Romain Rolland

SWAMY RANGANATHANANDA

Monsieur Romain Rolland, one of the greatest thinkers of the modern age, was an artist, and a literary genius and, apart from all this, he was a humanist. Hailing from France he did not like the warlike atmosphere of his country and the whole of Europe. He was in search of some spiritual inspiration from any part of the world which could help to compose the distractions of the age in which he lived. Just after the First World War, being a pacifist, he had to go out of his country and stay in Switzerland. That was the time when he had already written the novel for which he got his Nobel Prize, and another great book, The Life of Beethoven, the famous German composer. He was in search of some profound humanistic vision which can help the modern age. It was at that point of time our country, India, was passing through a tremendous struggle, a revolutionary struggle of non-co-operation, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji’s life and his methods and outlook attracted Romain Rolland and he started writing a book on Gandhi. That is the first book he wrote concerning the East, and particularly India. That book is entitled Mahatma Gandhi, published in 1924. During that time he was deeply impressed by Gandhiji’s stress on non-violence and peace and the book is full of praise for Gandhiji’s approach to the battle for freedom against the British rule, a battle conducted on highly ethical and humanistic planes. As he was completing this book our great poet Rabindranath Tagore visited him in Europe and during the conversation Tagore was impressed by Romain Rolland’s deep interest in India and India’s great ancient heritage. It was then he made a famous remark to Romain Rolland –  “If you want to understand India, study Vivekananda. In him everything is positive, nothing negative.” That was a tremendous statement, and that impressed Romain Rolland very much. He had not read much ofRamakrishna or Vivekananda till then. But he knew while writing this book on Mahatma Gandhi that there were personalities behind Gandhi, and a great renaissance move­ment that had prepared tile way for the great work of Mahatma Gandhi. Immediately he started getting books on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda from various sources. He never knew English, knew only French and most of the books were in English. But fortunately his sister knew English and with the help of his sister and other friends Romain Rolland started a thorough study of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda literature. By the end of the 1920’s he had produced a remarkable literature on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda himself–The Life of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda’s Life and Gospels. In these books he showed his keen understanding of the Indian spirit and a profound comprehension ofthe depth of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. In the introduction to The Life of Ramakrishna he presents these two teachers ofmodern India as the “splendid symphony of the universal soul” and especially mentions that “I have chosen these two people out of the many great galaxies that India has produced in the modern period because they have won my heart’s regard and love.”

He presented Ramakrishna in that introduction as “the consummation of the two thousand years of spiritual life of three, hundred million people.” Romain Rolland also made a beautiful observation which I consider to be a thing possible only by a great artist who can see through the inner eye. He writes that “Ramakrishna’s external life was set in a very limited frame outside the currents of the contemporary world. But his inner life embraced the entire multiplicity of men and gods.” That was Ramakrishna’s infinite dimensions within, outwardly extremely ordinary, inwardly deep and far-reaching. Also he mentions, that all of us are engaged in studying the book of life, but even the greatest of us may not have grasped a page or two of the book. And then he adds, “But what was my wonder when I found this illiterate priest of Kali, namely Sri Ramakrishna, holding out the book of life towards me of which he has studied every page! That is an artist’s estimation of Sri Ramakrishna – a very deep personality.

When he turns over to Swami Vivekananda in the second volume, Romain Rolland goes into ecstasy while dealing with the great philosophy of Humanism, that Swamy Vivekananda expounded, based on the Vedantic teaching of the ancient philosophy of India, of the divine spark in every human being. Vivekananda’s universal outlook, his intense practicality, his intense human passion, these find expression in Romain Rolland’s delineation of Swami Vivekananda’s life and message. Particularly when he deals with India’s awakening through the great lectures Vivekananda delivered in India from Colombo in the south to Almorah in the Himalayas in far north, Romain Rolland goes into ecstasy once again. Awakening a sleeping nation, a sleeping leviathan, to the realities of the contemporary world setting it on to the road of modern development, denouncing its caste, in untouchability, its suppression of women for centuries, which Swami Vivekananda initiated towards the end of the last century, Romain Rolland appreciates tremendously. He also speaks of Swamiji’s great work in the Western world particularly in America by presenting India’s age-old philosophy of man as a spark of the divine and his infinite capacity for evolution. He considers this central truth as of supreme importance to modern civilization. Later on he sums up Vivekananda’s literature and personality. The eight volumes of Vivekananda’s complete works (during his time it was seven) Romain Rolland speaks of in these words, “Vivekananda’s words are great music. They are like Beethoven’s symphonies, they are like the stirring rhythms of the Handel’s Chnrus. I cannot touch these utterances of Vivekananda without getting a thrill through my body as of an electric shock. And what shocks and transports must have been produced when in burning words they are issued from the lips of the hero!”

That is regarding Vivekananda’s literature. This remark by a foreigner, it is wrong to call Romain Rolland a foreigner, because he had entered into the spirit of India, but physically speaking he was a foreigner, but one who could appreciate the tremendous message that Swamiji gave through his writings and through his speeches. But the personality behind those speeches, Romain Rolland appreciates even more. Here is a great passage where he sums up Vivekananda’s personality, “Equilibrium and synthesis are the keynotes of Vivekananda’s personality. In him is harmonised all the various energies like faith, and reason, science and religion, East and West, which are at variance and conflict with each other everywhere, but in Vivekananda’s per­sonality they became perfectly harmonised.” And the last sentence of that paragraph says, “He has the personification of that harmony of all human energies.” A similar testament of Vivekananda’s personality is found in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore also especially this beautiful idea of synthesising the East and West not only in his own personality but his desire that it is to be done with respect to modern India. This developing nation must take in the great contributions of the ancient Greeks and Romans, modern Western people, assimilate them to its own culture, and develop a modern culture neither Eastern nor Western, but just human. This was Swami Viveka­nanda’s great work, and for this he tried to bring about harmony between the East and the West. In the last para of Romain Rolland’s Life of Vivekananda you find this great idea presented. Addressing his Western readers he writes in the closing pages of the book – “Vivekananda tried to build a bridge of understanding between East and West. He is starting His end of the tunnel, we can hear the sound of the tunnel-making by Vivekananda. I tell my country men in the West, ‘You start building the tunnel from your side, so that both the ends of the tunnel can meet together and thus a tremendous harmony can be created between East and West.’ This is one of the greatest contributions of Swami Vivekananda.”

In Romain Rolland’s statements you will find Ramakrishna and Vivekananda presented in this language. That is why they appear to the readers of Romain Rolland’s works as outstanding spiritual teachers whose message has a tremendous contemporary relevance.

–COURTESY All India Radio, Delhi