BY C. JINARAJADASA, M.A. (Cantab.)

It is well known that Europe discovered Tagore before some of us did in India, particularly South India. I happened to be in Italy when the first English translation of Gitanjali appeared, and I well remember the impressions of some of my Italian friends. In Italy, as in other Western countries, artists had been exploring the field of sensations, and it seemed to them as if there were no new fields whence to create new masterpieces. A sentiment of staleness was evident in many of them. When, then, Tagore appeared on the scene, it seemed as if once again something of the tender bloom of Spring was to be felt in the invisible field of events which is the domain of Art. It was the artlessness and child-like response of Tagore to Life which seemed so deliciously fresh and young. Of course, behind his art, there lay a philosophy that was exquisite to the materialistic mind of the West. But above all things, it was the new glow of youth which charmed all in the West who discovered Tagore.

It is this element which has moved Europe and the two Americas very deeply. Three years ago, I spent twelve months in travel in seventeen countries of Latin America. In everyone of them, all the educated men and women knew of Tagore–whose name, however, they pronounced in the Spanish fashion ‘Tagoree’– and through his writings had contacted what was to them the romance of India. Not only had most of them read his writings, but I think there was scarcely a home among them where I was a guest which did not have several of his works in translation.

All those who have had the privilege of knowing Tagore, know how one of the most lasting impressions about him is his youthfulness. Who of us, who has ever seen him dance, will forget the sense of delight at seeing an elderly man throw himself with the abandon of a child into an artistic creation like the dance? The unity of the various aspects of Art is so strong in him that he is not solely a poet, as are so often poets in the West. He is a musician, actor and dancer too, and therefore every song and every play of his has a larger content than is the case with similar creations in the West.

Tagore’s work at Shanti Niketan is now famous, and is a matter of pride for India. His contributions in the domain of education show, particularly to us in India, what is the only way to build the new Indian Nation. For that Nation must retain its Indian soul, though it may accept in some fashion some of the adornments of Western civilisation.

If we recognise that first and last Tagore is an artist in every cell of his being, then we shall understand the excellencies as well as the deficiencies of his creations. Tagore does not set out to be a reformer, but is bent on giving out of his soul the Art which is weaving itself there in many forms of creation. All the more he is a true reconstructor of civilisation.

It is just because Tagore is supremely the artist, that he has such a powerful influence in binding the Nations more closely in the bonds of peace. As the artist belongs to no one Nation, so in every one of his creations Tagore is speaking not of India but of all Humanity. Therefore Humanity, as represented by the many Nations, greet in him a brother to all men. So strong is this international and humanitarian spirit in Tagore that one cannot help thinking that sometimes he appears as if torn between his World Soul and his Indian Soul. Not a few have been the occasions when Gandhiji has launched some campaign that Tagore has instinctively held back, feeling intuitively that the outcome of the campaign would be to narrow the consciousness of Indians and not to expand it to embrace the whole world.

The West is beginning to discover through the work of Tagore and others something of a unity of Art–or rather the unity of the Indian soul–which is characteristic of India. Western civilisation has divorced religion from science, and philosophy from philanthropy, and all of them from Art, in a way that has never happened in India. It is because this unity is sensed in India that she has a unique message for the whole world. Tagore is one of the brilliant exponents of her message and a pioneer in giving it. Others will no doubt come who may be greater than he, but none will surpass him in his particular uniqueness as Nature's exquisite child who sings because Life sings.

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