RABINDRA NATH TAGORE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1909, 18 November 1913, Page 2

RABINDRA NATH TAGORE.

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER, [By InOQiji.] It was only last week that tie news was ca-bled oftt to New Zealand that the Nobol Prize for literature had been awarded to Rabindra Natli Tagore, the Bengali poet, who has been acclaimed in India' as the greatest poet of . his period and whom W, B, Yeats, and others well qualified to judge, hafe pronounced as being the greatest of his poetical compeers, not only among those, of India, but also among those belonging to the Western world. It is true that London "discovered'' him gome years ago, but it was really only about two or three years ago that the rare beauty of hie poetry became in any . way generally acclaimed, the first public recognition being made at a dinner at which were gathered notable people iii the literary ivorld of London* It was tlien that some of his poetry was read by W. B, Yeats, who paid an eloquent tribute to the genius of the Indian poet, • • It has been rather curious to read the compliments that have been paid, in one or two eases, to the impartiality_af the judges in awarding the Nobel prize to one of another race and to the fast that they recognised genius rose su- : pe-riar to the barriers of race and cclour. What right had that to ho mentioned in tho matter at all, or if it' were then the tremendous debt that the Western world owes to the East, (and when one speaks of the East oiie means India), should have been'mentioned in a spirit of the greatest humility. Wore it not for tEe East- we might bo barbarians still, or _at least centuries behind the civilisation we have now acquired. What literature havo wo produced' that can rival in. beauty, in grandnesS of conception, in greatness of spirit that of tho books of the East? As for our philosophy, how dense, how jj clumsy, how halting a thing it is com- | pared to that handed down for centuries in the marvellous teachings of the East —teachings that by their complexity, th«r subtlety, their piercing of "the veil of Maya," leave tho Western mind incalculably far behind,' lost in the twilight. of half*seen ; liatf-uuderstoo.d truths. The East has forgotten far,, far more wisdom, more knowledge than we mere creatures of a day «an ever hope to acquire. , ltabindrah Naili Tagore, to 'return to tho poet, was horn iii 1860 in the illus- . trious Thakur (Anglicised into Tagore) family, which has loomed high in the horizon of the intellectual and social life of India over since U:.» tenth.century, and he was carefully educated, by a father who believed that the school of nature was superior to the -walls of the classroom,- . In a retreat of the.. snowcrowned Himalayas, wli|to he niigbfc be continually impressed by the nobility of the great- mountains, Tagore learnt English, Sanscrit, Bengali, and in the sciences—botany atid astronomy. At seventeen he was talsen to Europe, and there he perfected his knowledge of English, and acquired a lucid prose style wh&b few havo equalled in India. J.-B. Anderson. a writer in the "Asiatic Quarterly," says ef him that he is as great a master of the short story as Guy do Maupassant, and not only is ho known as a post but also as a musician, critic, essayist, novelist, dramatist, philosopher, .grammarian, and as a mystic filled with the riddlo ef ! life and ever trying to penetrate beyond tho veil of illusion. He is as various a genius as a Voltaire or as a Goethe." Recently Tagore has published a novel, "Choker ,Bali," which is fo- ■ viewed at length in the "Quarterly' already mentioned, fo tho Eastern mystic the Transcendant Being is over omnipresent, and omniscient, and over ho is reaching out {or close communion with the Divine Being hidden behind tho veil of. illusion,. Of this Divine all-porvading Presence, Tagore writes;— <'It is he who weaves the iveb of this' Maya in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the folds his feet, at whose touch I forgot- myself. "Days come and ages pass, and it is ever jio who moves iti my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and sorrow.' And again there is this fragment:— "I was not aware of tho moment when I first crossed the' threshold of this life. - , "What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery life a bud in th-6 forest at midnight? "When iii the morning I looked upon, the light I felt in a moment I was bo stranger in this World, that tho inscrutable without n.#me_ and form had taken me in its arms in the form qi my own mother. "Even so in death the same wnJoiown .will appear as ever known to me. And because I love this life I know. I, shall, ■ love death as well,'? Thomas a Kempis could not bo more ; austere, more simple, than Tagore, and' . while there- is an extreme subtlety in. feeling and rhythm in the letter's poetry, the impression left upon one curiously enough is of absolutely crystalline transparency and simplicity ef thought. It is as spontaneous m . its outpouring, and as full of joy in life as is tho song' of tihe lark heard in the ■ ' early morning hours. Could lore of life ' and love of ' death be more fully and • more exquisitely expressed than by this: "When I go from honeo, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. . ; "J have tasted of the hidden honey ' of this lotus.that expands on the, ocean. ! of light, and thus am I blessed—let this J be my parting word, "In this playhonse of infinite forms ' I have had my play, and hero have I caught sight of him that is formless. "j[v whole body and my limbs havo tlvrilied with his touch who is beyond touch: and if the end comes here, let \ it come—let this be roy parting word-." a There is nothing in. the Western - wafld to compare with thews poems but 5 the writings of those mystics who were > also saints —St. Augustine, St. Thomas a Kempis, St. Francis, of Assisi, St, 1 Julian of Norwich, St. Catherine of r Genoa. and above all St. John of the 1 Gross in-"The Dark. Night of tho.Soul" ' (writes May Sinclair in an American ; I review), but at. the same; time with the t exception' of 'Dante's "I'aradiso" and "Vita NuoVa," it would be hard to find s jit, all tho poetry ot .Western .mysticism a perfect parallel. to the passion, of "Gitanjali." There ,arc- also songs of » children, which are -included in it beo caus.o they are not vanity secular.