THE MIND OF INDIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 529, 12 August 1949, Page 5

THE MIND OF INDIA

Sir-Recently you reviewed two books under the heading "The Mind of India." In reviewing’ the first, yeur critic quoted a fragment from the Bhagavadgita, while the second book was a new translation of this ancient Hindu poem. Some of his remarks suggest that he was unable to penetrate far beneath the surface of "the mind of India." It is difficult to see, for example, how he could write of "the sheer inconsequence" of the fragment he quotes from the first Discourse of the Bhagavadgita, The Blessed Lord speaks of man’s essential nature and reminds: Arjuna that although, in the battle about to commence, he may slay or be slain, the Spirit or Self within man, is not affected by the death of the body.’ This concept of man, as an evolving spiritual being is so revolutionary that it surely cannot be dismissed in such terms, while to Arjuna, about’ to enter a tonflict in which loved friends. and comrades stood on both sides, the reiteration of. this teaching must have seemed significant and timely, and probably brought hima little comfort in a most difficult situation. ‘ Your reviewer asks: "What was Arjuna’s duty?" The duty of the soldier has always been the same: to fight those declared to be the enemies of his king or country. In Arjuna’s case his task was to vindicate his brother’s title, and to destroy a usurper who was oppressing the land, "Why -do it," your reviewer also asks, "if all would be the same in the end?" This question also reveals a failure to understand the passage under discussion. The fact that the self is unborn and undying, and cannot therefore be "slain" does not mean that

we have to sit with folded hands and take no action against the Hitlers of the wofld. They are a cancer in the body politic and must be destroyed just as @ surgeon must remove a cancerous growth in the body, even though the self (as distinct from the body) is unaffected by its presence. So far as our every-day lives and human affairs are concerned, a great deal depends on our actions, for ‘we all have a unique contribution to make in the great cosmic drama, one that no other individual can make. Your. reviewer states that the idea of non-attachment (the main theme of the Gita) awakens in him an "unshakable antipathy." This is a personal re« action, to which he has every right, but’ it is only fair to add that many Western thinkers, notably Aldous Huxley, Gerard Heard, Christopher Isherwood and others see ip this philosophy a solution to many of our problems.

H. M.

THORNTON

(Auckland),