Shelley considered the distinction between poetry
and prose to be a vulgar error. If that observation were true, the distinction
between poetry and drama should also be considered to be non-philosophical. In
all primitive literature, where the sense of form has not yet dominated the
minds of men, the various literary forms tend to flow together. We see such a
merging of literary forms in the story of Nachiketas as given to us in the Kathopanishad.
Here the epic and the dramatic elements so blend together that we are compelled
to re-examine the fundamental principles of literary criticism.
The first act of every drama is narrative in spirit
though it is dramatic in form. It tells us all that has happened before the
drama begins, introduces us to the persons, tells us in what relation they
stand to each other, and helps us to become interested participants in that
interplay of character upon situation which is the essence of a drama. In the Kathopanishad
this non-dramatic part of the story is given to us in narrative form. The
form in which we have it, is therefore more in keeping with the spirit of
literature.
A sacrifice forms the background of the story and
knits together the two principal human characters in the story, Vajasravas the
man in quest of a soul and Nachiketas, his son, who represents the soul in
quest of God. A third character, Death, which is a super-human being completes
the group. The term sacrifice implies giving up what we love. It is not
associated with getting rid of what we do not want. It is this law of life
which is broken by Vajasravas. The world is too much with him. In this respect
he represents average humanity which substitutes the form for the spirit.
It is against this narrative background of the
story that the dramatic element emerges. Every drama implies a conflict. What
is of interest to us is not the external conflict between Vajasravas and
Nachiketas, but the conflict within the mind of Nachiketas himself. This latter
conflict is between the sense of reverence which he owes to the parent, and the
sense of reverence which he owes to the ideal to which the parent himself
offers such formal homage. There is always some disparity between theory and
practice, between the ideal and the actual. This is due to the limitation of
instruments through whom the ideal is expressed. Such limitations are found in
every society and in every individual. The satirist sits on the brink of this
gap between theory and practice and laughs at it. The idealist tries to bridge
the gulf. It is because Nachiketas is the child of light that he feels keenly
this tragic burden of life. But he is saved from becoming a moral prig by his
sense of reverence for the parent. His protest takes the form of self-surrender
to death, the hound of heaven. While the earth-bound parent seeks death in
life, the pilgrim soul of the young idealist seeks life in death.
It is at this stage that the dramatic element in
the story emerges. It is the conversation between Nachiketas and Death. Death
is the ideal spectator of the drama of life. Death sees life entire. He is
therefore the conscience and the articulate voice of the Cosmos. The drama of
Nachiketas thus becomes the drama of humanity itself. Every civilisation has its
book of the dead, The ancient Egyptians believed that Anubis would weigh the
soul of man against a feather, and if it were pure and light as a feather, it
would go to heaven. Plato in his Phaedo tried to dispel the doubts of
the shadow gazers. The Kathopanishad similarly turns the light of the
spirit upon the darkness of the flesh. But it does not give to us a ready-made
formula. It puts within reach of the adventurous spirit the means of becoming
the discoverer of the Self.
The dialogue between Nachiketas and Death, between
the soul and the knower of the Self, is the drama of every man, with Time as
the stage and the stars as the spectators. Though Nachiketas may appear to be
wiser than Vajasravas, he is yet in the penumbra of the spirit. His divine discontent
is a proof of his being awake in the spirit, and his voluntary renunciation is
a sign of his fitness to be initiated into cosmic wisdom. Realising as he does
that death is only the death of the non-atman, he asks Death to enlighten him
on the nature of the residuary nature of the Self. He asks Death, “That which
thou beholdest as different from Dharma and Adharma, as different from cause
and effect, as different from what has been and what shall be, please tell me
that.” (II, 14). He desires to know the nature of pure consciousness.
The dialogue between Death and Nachiketas is a
progressive lifting of the veil. The man who has liberated himself from the
trammels of the flesh discovers the soul. The soul which has liberated itself
from the senses, in and through which it functions, discovers the Self. In
either case the higher values are discovered by a voluntary surrender to it. Sah
nau bhunaktu “May it devour us.” Death, similarly, when approached from its
brighter side is the illuminator. From the darker side it is the devourer, the
compulsory separator of man from the good things of life. It is because
Nachiketas approaches Death as the illuminator of life that Death answers him
and says: “He, the eternal among non-eternals, the intelligence in the
intelligent, who though one, fills the desires of many–those wise men who
perceive Him as existing within their own self, to them belongs eternal peace
and to none else.” (V, 13). Death enforces this point of view not by logic, but
by drawing upon experience which is the poetry of life. The unity of the Self
is brought out by the simile of the one sun that illumines the world, the one
air that sustains all life, and the one fire that takes many shapes according
to the form of the substance which sustains it. It is also enforced by the
simile of the many rivers merging in the one ocean.
Truth, like sunlight, has a universal democracy.
The way to seek life, said Shelley, is to go to Death as a pupil. He said in
his Adonais:
“The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light for ever shines. Earth’s shadows
fly.
Life, like a dome of many coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments,–Die
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek.”