RELIGION:
ITS INFLUENCE ON INDIAN LITERATURE
Dr. UMASHANKAR JOSHI
President, Sahitya Akademi,
I
am thankful to the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture for inviting me to
deliver the Foundation-Day oration on “Religion: Its Influence on Indian
Literature.” I think it will be rather a talk, a sort of loud thinking on my
part, on a subject, which in a manner of saying, is much “too often profaned,
for me to profane it.” For is one not aware of an element of cant entering into
one’s words when one just speaks about religion and fails to live up to
it? Religion is, if anything, much more than belief, it is a ceaseless
becoming, which should result in achieving an effortless state of being–shall I
say, pure being.
I
am emboldened to make a few observations on the subject assigned to me, in the
time put at my disposal, by the fact of the Institute being associated with Sri
Ramakrishna, a phenomenon in religious living. He lived the truth of all major
religions of man in his own life, thus emphasizing not only sarvadharma-sama-bhava–that
all religions are equal in the eyes of the seeker–but
also what I should prefer to call sarvadharma-mamabhaava–that the seeker feels the truth in
all religions to be his own. In fact, it is the life of the spirit in which all
religions are grounded. So it would be helpful to use the word “religion” in
the larger sense in which dharma is used. Dharma denotes not
merely denominational religions but also the sense of Right–something that is
the ground on which human life stands. (Dhaarayate iti dharmah.)
It
is no use
shying away from denominational religions, especially from the various texts
they swear by, if one is to
discuss the influence of religion on literature. However, the emphasis should
constantly remain on how far those texts converge to the central truth of the
life of the spirit and not to the dogma of individual religions.
Often
the religious texts are couched in inspired language. Paul Valery,
the French poet, while discussing the poetic process talked of “une ligne donnee”–one line given. The religious texts are said to
be wholly “given.” They are the glory and the very backbone of the language.
The translations of the Holy Bible in modern European languages have
contributed to their overall richness. The English language is said to be three
parts Bible and one part Shakespeare. But is the holy book a work of literary
art in the sense that Shakespeare’s plays are? The two experiences are
different, though the word is the medium in both cases.
The
Vedas abound in sublime poetic images. Even the music and the magic of
word-sound is often captivating, e. g. naadonadasya–the
roar of a mighty river. The literal meaning of the onomatopoeic and descriptive
word nada is that which makes a sound, a roarer.
Agni (Fire), the messenger of the earth
to the heavens, is described in glowing images: Yuvaa
kavih priyo atithir amartyo mandrajihvo rtacid rtavaa–” the youthful poet, the beloved,
honey-tongued, immortal guest, the Truth-conscious Truth-finder.” But nobody
wants to treat the Vedas, the Bible, and the Quran as
works of literary art. They permeate a whole culture and influence the literary
art also.
Culture
comprises man’s economic, political, and social life, his use of language, his
world of ideas and beliefs, as also the products of the activity pursued by him
in response to the aesthetic propensity in him. His artistic creations are for
him a source of joy, which comes nearest to the bliss of beatitude–the peak of
religious experience. Our Aacaaryas (Teachers),
therefore, described the aesthetic joy as brahmaasvaada-sahodara,
kindred to the taste of the Absolute Reality, derived as a result of
religious and spiritual pursuits. Brahmaasvaada
(the taste of the Absolute Reality) may not be so easy to attain. But the
aesthetic (brahmaasvaadasahodara) joy is
available to even the pit class viewer of a play, and not merely to the learned
critic. Even the common man, while he is involved in seeing the performance of
the play, loses consciousness of the world around him, does not think of
acquiring or discarding or feeling indifferent to something and becomes for
that period the total dramatic context. His physical) vital and mental
personality is, for the time being, just a consciousness, which, with the help
of the aesthetic artefact, becomes unmixed bliss, Even he, a common worldling, for a moment, is nothing short of aalmaanandamaya–“the self consisting of bliss”–to
become which a yogin or religious
seeker would have to pass through a rigorous and often prolonged discipline,
with this difference, of course, that while the latter would be able to remain
in that state continuously, the former will again revert to his earlier
worldliness as soon as he steps out of the theatre. But what is important is
that he has had a taste of his real self which is Bliss, be it for a moment.
This is why the aesthetic activity is so highly prized by all types of
societies, even by, rather more especially by, the so-called ‘primitive’
societies. This is perhaps what prompted Matthew Arnold, an agnostic, to
suggest, when religion seemed to suffer under the first onslaughts of Science
in the nineteenth century, that poetry should be taking the place of religion
in modern times. But poetry, i.e., the literary art or the fine arts in
general, just could not do that. The aesthetic experience is akin to and gives
an inkling of the experience of the beatific state, but it can go that far and
no further. However, the arts have freely drawn upon religious content and seem
to have thrived on that qua arts.
Itihaasa-puraanabhyaam vedaartham
upabrmhayet–“The secret of the Vedas should be elaborated
with the help of legend and myth.” The two great epics of
The birth of the modern
Indian languages synchronized with the tidal wave of bhakti surging from
the South towards the North and inundating the whole subcontinent. Some of the
first great singers of these languages are saints, quite a few of whom are not
only illiterate but also members of the so-called backward castes. These
God-intoxicated bhakti-singers communicated the Truth of the Spirit to
common people in an intimate manner in their own tongue. Rama and
The influence of
religion on the literatures of modern Indian languages was propitious from
another point of view also. It acted as an integrating force, overcoming with
great ease the differences of language. The same Indian spirit found utterance
through the Aalvaars and Naayanaars,
Basavesvara and Akka Mahaadevi in the South, Jnaanesvara,
Naamadeva, Tukaaraama and Raamadaasa, Narasimha Mehta, Akho,
and Mirabai in the West, Kabir, Nanak, Suradasa and Tulasidasa in the
North, Sankara Deva, Chandidaasa, Krittivaasa, and Saaralaa Daasa in the East.
As a matter of fact, the
integration achieved by the medieval bhakta
saints was of a more comprehensive and profound nature. Although the bhakti
centring round
Nirguna thai e sagunmaan male,
To,
Akhaa, dudhamaan saakar bhale.
[“If after firmly
establishing one’s self in the Absolute (nirguna),
one takes to the personal God (saguna), it
would be, O Akhaa, like sugar being added to milk.”]
Apart from synthesizing
the various approaches of the Hindu religion, some of the medieval saints, like
Kabir, successfully tried to synthesize the Hindu and Muslim approaches,
especially the Vedantist and the Sufi ones, a living
tradition of which is that of the Baauls singing in
Bengali.
Another feature of the
influence of religion on the early literature of the modern Indian languages
was the almost vitriolic attack on all sham, hypocrisy and lifeless ritualism.
Kabir and Akho have written unsparingly about the
pseudo-religious.
With the dawn of the
modern period after our coming in contact with the West, there were attempts at
putting the house in order. The Indian genius for going to the root of the
matter could be seen at work in first throwing up a matching movement for
Reformation before the Renaissance gathered momentum. In Bengal was started the
Aatmiiya Sabhaa in 1815 and
Braahmo Samaj was started
in
Not that all pre-modern
literature was devoid of secular specimens. Even the Rigveda
has the gamblers’ suukta (hymn).
Much of the narrative literature, the Sanskrit renderings of Gunaadhya’s Brhatkathaa
in Paisaacii Prakrit
which is lost, must have been of a secular nature. Though the Jains gave the tales a religious orientation, many of them
became in the hands of the medieval poets of modern Indian languages frankly
secular.
But
on the whole the influence on religion on Indian literature has been
considerable all through the ages. The overall guiding idea seems to have been
the Vedic maxim: Ekam sad vipraa bahudhaa vadanti–Truth is one,
those who apprehend it call it by many names. This has contributed to the
spirit of tolerance, to the absence of anything that would remind one of the
European Inquisitions. The renderings of the Ramayana, and aakhyaanas from the Mahahharata
and the Puraanas in the modern Indian languages
contributed to the aesthetic and moral culture of the vast masses. Till
yesterday there were ladies even in villages who knew whole aakhyaanas–narrative
poems–by heart. Many of the padas–lyrics
of saint poets–are still sung by rural folk. Thanks to
the influence of religion on literature,
Religious epochs have
been epochs of abundant creativity. For sometime all aspects of life seemed to
be determined by religion. Even when there was an ebb
in the religious movement, dharma–the sense of Right–more than anything
else, seemed to give a tone to all cultural activities and can be seen in the
works of Bhasa, Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti.
Two questions remain to be examined: (1) Should creative literature and all fine arts not get weaned away from religion and get completely secularized? (2) Will man’s religious aspiration itself succumb to progressive secularization?
(1) In order to
illustrate the autonomy of the aesthetic experience–which, in principle,
need not lean on man’s religiousness–perhaps Shakespeare’s work comes
handy. Lord Kenneth Clark in his B. B. C. talks on Civilization says: “And then
Shakespeare must be the first and may be the last supremely great poet to have
been without a religious belief, even without the humanist’s belief in man.”
Let us hear, now, what Aldous Huxley has to say in
his essay “Shakespeare and Religion” written only a week before he died. He
says: “Our many-faceted Shakespeare commented on religion in almost all its
aspects.” Huxley adds that what the poet recorded in his plays was “a
pluralistic mystery.” Quoting the very familiar words–“We are such
stuff/As dreams are made on”, etc.,–he says:
“Prospero is here, enunciating the doctrine of Maya” and wisely adds: “we must
learn to come to reality without the enchanter’s wand and his book of the words.
One must find a way of being in this world while not being of it.” And
contemplating on Hotspur’s words– “And time … Must have a step,” –he
says: “we are all well on the way to an existential religion of mysticism.” Macbeth
is being treated as a study in religio-spiritual
problem. Let us also remind ourselves that Milton had on his list of themes
that of Macheth also, and maybe felt
that he could not “justify the ways of God to man” better than the “Bard of
Avon” with the help of this theme.
A great literary work
may vary well do without denominational religion, but not without dharma, the
sense of Right. And in that sense a work of art may not be completely divorced
from dharma.
There are some poets for
whom the search for poetry is also the search for dharma. The names of
some poets immediately suggest themselves, that of Dante, not to talk of Valmiki’s and in our own days those of Rilke
and Tagore. Such poets have a double commitment–to the poetic art as
well as to spiritual life. Ezra pound referred to the ‘poetic piety’ in Tagore.
Rabindranath’s work is enjoyable for its sheer poetic
beauty as well as because of its unmistakable spiritual accent. No wonder, a
hardboiled politician like Clemenceau asked an acquaintance of his on hearing
the news of the outbreak of the First World War, to read to him poems from Gitanjali.
His epic novel, Gora, shows how dharma,
and the saadhana (discipline) of dharma
in
Gora is a religious novel par
excellence. It will be seen that Tagore’s vision of dharma is
universal and profoundly human. For the narrowly dogmatic view he has nothing
but scathing sarcasm. While inviting one and all to the Bhaarata-tirtha
(holy
What is most lovable
about Rabindranath is his courage to look at Truth in the face. He is not to be
mistaken as a mystic of the wooly variety. In the last poem of his, dictated
only eight days before his death, he, who had played with forms all through his
life, addresses ‘The Guileful One’:
Tomaar sristir
path rekhecha aakiirna kari
vicitra chalanaajaale,
he chalanaamayii.
“Your creation’s path
you have strewn
With the net of deceits,
O Deceitful One!”
(2) Will progressive
secularization swallow up the religious instinct in man? As far as literature
is concerned, it will remain a humanizing force, whether it is under the
influence of religion or not. However, religion itself, in its encounter with
science, is if anything, getting rid of much dross. Moreover, science in recent
times has also been doing some positive service to religion, The
juxtaposition of, even the tension between, in Julian Huxley’s phrase,
“luminous science and numinous existence” lends a new credibility to religion.
As Julian Huxley points out, the more science “discovers and the more
comprehension it gives us of the mechanisms of existence, the more clearly does
the mystery of existence itself stand out.” So, Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin was
right when he suggested that religion was not something that primitive man
developed in order to feel secure by believing in quasi-animal forces. It
appears that it was his response to the mystery that existence is. Perhaps one
can say that as the capacity to love–and love best–is independent of the stage
of civilization reached, so may also be the capacity for religious experience.
Modern man seems to be experiencing spiritual nightmare, caught up as he is in
one or many of the present-day maladies–anxiety, uncertainty, doubt,
guilt-sense, fear, alienation, meaninglessness, and existentialist anguish.
Institutional religions fail to adequately help him out. One only hopes that
the recent communication system is geared some day to establishing communion among
fellow human beings–which may especially facilitate the various
religions of man to converge into a basic faith for all–a religion of
the future.
The present-day
world-wide spiritual nightmare is reflected in the modernist literature in
Since science can
neither adequately satisfy nor silence the obstinate questionings about the
“how” and “why” of existence, it is for religion and literature to offer their
answers, not spurning the light that science is in a position to shed on them
at the moment.
The word, the poetic
word, itself a thing of mystery, also attempts to unlock the mystery that
existence is. The poetic word is born of an unswerving faith which can take
doubt in the stride.
We expect literature to
tell us not about the religion of the scriptures or dogma but about the dharma
as visualized by the heart.
While approaching the
master artist, the supreme poet, who with the power of his Pasyantii
Vank–the Seeing Word–i.
e., Speech born of Vision–illuminates the mystery that is at the heart
of things, let our solicitation be:
Hridayenaabkvanujnaato yo dharmastam nibodhaya.
(Make us understand that
dharma which has the sanctions of the heart.)
–Forty-third
Foundation-Day Oration of the Ramakrishna
Mission Institute of
Culture,