Here is another Confluence

From very early times, and among various peoples of the world, the number “three” has been regarded as memorable and mystic, and has gripped the imagination with something akin to awe and wonder. The “Trinities” of the Hindu, Christian and Moslem faiths; the divisions of time–past, present and future; the dimensions of space–length, breadth and thickness (height or depth); earth, sky and heaven; sun, moon and stars; thought, word and deed; prose, poetry and drama; and so on and on, have been conceived and regarded as three. The idea has permeated religion and faith, politics and even science. We have the three states of matter (solid, liquid and gas); and the three fundamental particles of the atom (electron, proton and neutron). There are several other confluences of three–Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati; of Love, Wisdom and power. The Triveni is declaredly devoted to Art, Literature and History and its symbol is a combination of three–the Lotus, the Flame and the Thunderbolt. The ancient kings of the Tamil country were three–Chera, Chol and Pandya. We are said to be governed by the “Three Language Formula”–the International, the National and the Regional languages. What these three are, or should be, is a matter of personal preferences, and of acrimonious debates. For the purpose of this article they have been conceived to be English, Samskrit and Tamil (the writer’s regional language). We shall look at a few selected examples where the poets in these languages agree in a remarkable degree, though, at the times in which they wrote, they could not have been aware of each other’s writings–which, perhaps is a strong indication that, divided though it may be by space, time, colour, faith, or even culture, all mankind is fundamentally one in thought and spirit, and in expression as well.

Every nation, and group of people, have from time immemorial conceived of a God or gods, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere. Each man and woman has sought solace from the god of his or her own mind–imposed though it may be by birth or environment–and has sought also guidance from it; and has tried to gain both by prayer and offerings. Early thoughts about God and the external world, rising from the unploughed field of ignorance, started with fear–an abysmal and all-pervading fear. They took shape with a vague impression of magic, and developed into philosophical speculation, and then case-hardened to various and specific religions, each with its own galaxy of gods, and devils, beliefs and rituals.

There were great thinkers in all the countries where civilisation and culture developed, and some of them created magnificent poetry, which may be said to be fine thought clad in finer art, and expressed in finer words.

Like the worship of God, which may be universal and magnificent, or narrow, sectarian, and fanatically crooked, cruel and intolerant, patriotism too may be wide and tolerant, or narrow and inhibited. It also stimulates great poetic urges. So too does the first and greatest love, the love of man and maid. Poets have felt that the anguish of parted lovers inspires greater poetry than the delights of united lovers.

Moralising is a common failing, though men, whose hearts are sapless and dry, may indulge in it, mostly in their old age, after much licence in their youth.

Of God

This is a translation of the Dhyaana Sloka (meditative verse) Vishnu Sahasranaama (The thousand names of Vishnu, God the Protector of the Hindu Trinity). The language is Samskrit.

I bow to Vishnu,
Whose feet are the earth,
Whose navel is the sky,
Whose breath is the wind,
Whose eyes are the moon and the sun,
Whose ears are the eight directions,
Whose head is the firmament,
Whose mouth is fire,
Whose garment is the ocean of water,
Who contains within His body
All the three worlds
Of many and varied shapes and forms–
As gods, and men,
As birds of the air, and beasts
As hooded snakes, and singing celestials,
And as beings of the nether world,
Which please and rejoice by their variety.
To Him who is Lord over all
I bow.

We have a parallel in Tamil. This is a translation of the benedictory verse by Perum- Tevanaar–who sang the Bhaarata. It is prefixed to Narrinai, one of the anthologies of what is now known as The Sangam Anthologies. In translation it runs thus:

The spacious earth
Is His comely rose-hued feet;
The clear-watered sea,
Where the whorled conchs resound,
Is His raiment;
The ethereal sky is His body;
The four quarters are His arms;
The cool-rayed moon and the fiery sun
Are his twin eyes;
He pervades all things that are,
And enfolds them within Himself.
He is the Supreme God
Of whom the Vedas speak
So declare the wise of Him,
Who, in order to destroy evil altogether,
Wields the flashing discus.

This is not to be wondered at, perhaps, for, notwithstanding all the diversities of languages, regions, and faiths, India has been one country in thought and culture. But here is another parallel from ancient Greek of an Egyptian God. It is a poem entitled Oracle of Serapis, by a Greek poet named philetas. His date is uncertain. Nicocreon, King of Cyprus, asked the Oracle of Serapis, what sort of God He was, and this poem is the answer. It is No. 482, in Higham and Bowra’s Greek poetry in translation.

Listen and learn
What manner of God I am:
My head, the firmament;
the sea, my belly;
Earth for my feet;
my ears in aether fixed;
And radiant sunlight,
my far-flashing eye.

Of Love

We shall now look at another theme–Love; and lovers’ joy, and lovers’ anguish.

The second poem in Kuruntokaione of the Sangam Anthologies is in the form of an address by a delighted lover to a bee. It runs thus:

O Honey-bee with dainty wings,
Whose life is a quest
Of flowers’ dust!
I charge thee speak,
But not as thou listeth;
And tell me truly
What, in sooth, thou knowest.
Is there aught
Among the flowers thou knowest,
Which hath the fragrance
Of her flowing tresses–
Of her with peacock’s grace,
And shining, even teeth
Who is sweet surrender
Has loved me for aye?

We have a surprising parallel in Robert Browning's Nay But You. This rhapsody too is about the beloved’s hair, but of its colour, and not of its perfume. This poem of two verses runs thus:

Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught,–speak truth–above her?
Aught like this tress see, and this tress,
And this last, fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall.
Because you spend your lives in praising,
To praise you search the wide world over,
Then, why not witness calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught–speak truth–above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch,
But cannot praise, I love so much.

Here is something from the Samskrit–by a lover not about a maid but about a flower, and its fragrance. This too is in the form of a question to a bee. It is No. 107 in John Brough’s Poems from the Samskrit.

Bee, you fly so far around:
Tell me, have you ever found,
Seen, or ever heard men tell,
Of a flower to match the grace–
Speak, and do not fear to tell–
Of the gentle lily’s face.

In the following set of three poems–one is translation from Kuruntokai (Tamil), another directly From Tennyson’s Oenone, and thethird in translation by HelenWaddel of a poem from Medieval Lyrics, we find the anguished expression of love-lorn maids lying lonely in the night. Sleepless, and with only their sorrow for company.

The Tamil poem in translation:
Pitch dark
Is this midnight hour;
All speech is hushed,
And mankind is lapped in slumber sweet,
Anger and hate are laid aside;
And the whole wide world
Sleeps–now;
But, alas! I am sleepless,
I’m sure, I alone.

The Latin Lyric in translation runs thus:

Laid on my bed in silence of the night,
There is no sound of voices; hushed the street,
Not a bird twitters; even the dogs are still;
I alone of all men dare not sleep.

The poet is Petronius Arbiten.

Tennyson has this in his Oenone

The grasshopper is silent on the grass;
The lizard with his shadow on the stone
Rests like a shadow; and the cicada sleeps,
The purple flowers droop; the golden bee
Is lily cradled: I alone awake.

Of Patriotism

And now for another triad dealing with the devotion of a patriot to his Motherland. The basis is Bankim Chandra’s famous Vande Mataram song, which yielded the first place to Tagore’s ‘Jana-gana-mana’ as our National Anthem.

A fairly close, but not an inspired translation of the first two verses, is given below:

Good and plentiful are thy waters;
Good and abundant are thy fruits;
And cool art thou
With mountain breezes;
Dark green are thy pastures,
And thy fields of corn.
Mother, I salute thee.

Thy nights are thrilled
With pure moonlight;
Splendid art thou
With the blossomed flowers
Of thy branching trees soaring high,
Delightful is thy smile;
Dulcet sweet are the words thou speakest;
O giver of happiness;
O bestower of boons;
O my mother!
Mother, I salute thee.

Subrahmanya Bharati, the Tamil poet, felt that this poet was so good that he must translate it; and he has given us two translations–one beginning with the words “iniya neer-p-perukkinai” and consisting of twenty-six lines, and the other beginning with the words, “Nalir mani neerum” and running to twenty-nine lines.

Sri Aurobindo, another patriot-poet who like Bharati found political asylum in Pondicherry, has translated the first two verses in twelve lines as below. In the Sanskrit original the first two verses run to six lines only. The other verses are not given here to save space. Sri Aurobindo says:

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard blooms,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free!

Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, Giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet.

This is a poet’s free translation of a poet. He has also sought to use rhyme, which, while it makes the translation stray, adds other beauties to it.

The above selections have brought together not merely Samskrit, English, and Tamil, but Greek and Latin as well; not merely North India, South India and England, but Greece, Crete, Egypt, Italy, Bengal and Pondicherry as well. Languages provide links, if only we have the heart and mind to use them.

We can and should feel if we are men and women of culture, that all the world is kin, and we should behave and act accordingly.

May Triveni, which has been endeavouring to promote such a feeling and attitude, flourish. May Triveni live for ever.