DR.
S. V. JOGA RAO
Visiting
Professor of Telugu,
Men
lived in
Born
in 340 B. C., in a nobles’ family in the State of Chu,
Chu Yuan soon became a statesman, held high offices,
endeared himself to the king, rose to the position of a ‘left minister’ and for
sometime moved with the king very closely in matters of counsel and policy. At
a time when the safety of
An
eventful time it was when Chu Yuan, the forlorn
statesman, turned into a blooming poet at the age of sixty-two. During twenty
more years of his life’s sojourn as an at-home exile, he made his score as a
poet, but he no longer could see any future for his native land and one day on
the fifth month of the lunar calendar he drowned himself in the
Chu Yuan was a great
patriot and philanthropist. He loved deep his motherland, and deeper the
people, the common folk, though being a Nobleman. He struggled for them and
suffered for them. So naturally they loved him, adored him and grieved for the
man who grieved for them. He lodged his soul for them in fine poems which are
still green in the memory of his people and are sure to perpetuate his name.
Great poets will never die. They always live in their poetry.
Men
with heart usually do not prove themselves to be successful statesmen. The same
is true of Chu Yuan. But as poet he leaves behind him
a great legacy of about twenty-five poems and ranks amongst the galaxy of the
great poets of the world. He draws material for his poems from his own
surroundings and circumstances and eventful experiences, poetic forms from folk
poetry, and his language from the speech of the common people and kindles the
whole with the spirit from within. All his poems have a lyrical flavour and folk vitality about them. He is considered to
be a literary revolutionist of his times and his influence on Chinese
literature has been felt for the last two thousand years.
Some
of his poems are odes dedicated to the gods, dealing with matters of sacrifice
and courtship, some of them in dramatic and some in narrative form. Some poems
are elegies which voice the extreme anguish of the author at the bitter
experiences that befell him and show the Confucian, the Taoist and the Legalist
thoughts, all in a happy combination. His ‘Sooth Sayer’
portrays him as a rationalist and his ‘Requiem’ proves him to a patriot of the
first order. The most extraordinary of his poems is the ‘Tien
Wen’ meaning the riddles. In this, like in the Nasadiya Sukta, the
famous Hymn of Creation in our Rigveda, Chu Yuan dives deep into his imagination in quest of the
Absolute Truth that has been existing since times
immemorial even before the creation of the universe. He rallies round scores of
his doubts and advances a series of questions such as: ‘Who built the sky?
Where does it end? What supports it? Why the division into twelve Zodiac signs?
How are the stars and planets suspended in space? How many miles does the sun travel in one
day? What makes the moon wax and wane? Where does sun hide before dawn?
Enough, undoubtedly, these reveal the mind of an aspirant at
the portals of Absolute Knowledge.
The
‘Li Sao’, meaning the Lament, is Chu Yuan’s master-
piece, and an immortal one in world’s poetry. In this, the poet sinks into the
soul of his feeling and flies into the skies of imagination. This is almost an
autobiography of his soul. It begins like this:
“A
prince am I of ancestry renowned
Illustrious
name my royal sire hath found
When
Sirius did in spring its light display,
A
child was born, and tiger marked the day.”
So moves on the theme
of his career behind a transparent veil of poetry. He narrates further that his
father gave an auspicious name to him ‘denoting the Heaven’s divine marks
should combine with the virtues of earth in him’. ‘With lavished innate
qualities indeed’, Chu Yuan ‘renewed his talents by
art and skill’. He lived in pomp ‘till creeping time, like flowing water, stole
away his prime.’ ‘Spring and Autumn passed in swift
succession and the fallen flowers lay scattered on the ground.’ That means his
hopes did not bear fruit. He fears and says, ‘the dusk might fall before my
dream was found’. What was his dream?–the well being of his country. He
proclaims that his sole design was to guide the king. How has he made his
approach? “My chariot drawn by steeds of race divine I urged,” he says. We
infer his plans are sound and noble. He compares the greatness of the ancient
kings with the pettiness of the kings of his time and laments the peril of an
invasion by a foreign power. He never cares for himself but fears for the fall
of his king, whatever his attitude to him might be. Forward and backward he
hastens in an incessant quest. The prince defames his integrity, gives ear to
slander and flames with anger. Yet still he endures and vows, “My Lord, I would
not fail, celestial spheres my witness be on high; I strove but for His Sacred
Majesty’. ‘For me departure could arouse no pain; I grieved to see his royal
purpose vain.” he declares. Such was his loyalty.
He
describes the toil of his service, comparing the hopes he cherished and the
plans he designed for the good of the king and the people, with crops and
gardens which failed to yield on account of the pests of the evil counsels of
others. He says, ‘I did not grieve to see them die away, but grieved because
midst weeds they did decay.’ Then the saint in him comes out announcing:
“Life
I adapted to the ancient way,
Leaving
the manners of the present day;
Thus
unconforming to the modern age,
The
path I followed of a bygone sage.”
Once again he is
amidst his people. He whispers to himself:
“Long
did I sigh and wipe away my tears,
To
see my people bowed with griefs and fears.”
In
another couplet, he reveals his heart:
“I
marvel at the folly of the king
So
heedless of his people’s suffering”
Even
in his “Stray Thoughts”, he voices his feelings:
“The
people’s sufferings move my heart,
Our
land I cannot leave.”
He
is human to the core, a lover of not only his motherland but mankind. It is
interesting to note that these sentiments were expressed over two thousand
years ago. The modern Chinese Golliath should
remember it.
When
antagonists mocked at his simple Melilotus demeanour, he affirms his stand:
“But
since my heart did love such purity,
I’d
not regret a thousand deaths to die.
“In
sadness plunged and sunk in deepest gloom
Alone
I drove on to my dreary doom.
In
exile rather would I meet my end,
Than
to the baseness of their ways descend.”
“To
die for righteousness alone I sought
For
this was what the ancient sages taught”
He
considers himself to be a misfit in their company, like a circle in a square
design.
In
his moments of solitude, he murmurs to himself in plaintive lines:
“Rejected
now and in disgrace,
I
would retire to cultivate my grace.
Why
should I grieve to go unrecognised,
Since,
in my heart fragrance was truly prized?
My
innocence is proof against abuse.
All
men had pleasures in their various ways
My
pleasure was to cultivate my grace.”
May
the noble heart behind these lines sprout in
Chu Yuan was a man of
illuminated insight. Once when lentils and weeds fill the prince’s chamber, his
inner voice whom he calls ‘My handmaid fair’ asks him
why he holds himself aloof with stubborn will and advises him to ‘Persuade the
crowd’. Had he done so, it would have been the first people’s revolution in the
history of mankind against despotic autocracy. He is a staunch advocate of the
people’s cause, a believer in the freedom of the individual and cannot brook
any kind of foreign rule or oppression. But he never designs a revolt against
the king. He wanders in wilderness at will. He makes an adventurous journey
from earth to heaven, of course, in his own poetic fancy, invoking the spirits
of the great kings of the bygone ages. He gives the reader a vivid pen-picture
of his fantastic journey during which he feels life everywhere in Nature and
employs wind, rain, thunder and lightning, clouds and moon to be his attendants
and charioteers and the Dragon and the
“Wide
though the world, no wisdom can be found,
I’ll
seek the stream where once the sage was drowned.”
So ends the epilogue
of his poem and his life as well. The great soul has departed unhonoured, unwept and unsung. But he lives in his poetry.
May his spirit once again hover on the Chinese horizon!
Mr.
Kuo Mo-jo observes. “Few
poets indeed in the world can rival him in his sincerity, imaginative power and
brilliance, nor in the wealth of imagery, lyrical qualities and the diversity
of forms of his poems.”
1 Li
Sao and other poems of Chu Yuan,
published by the Foreign Languages Press, 1953 (with a sketch of Chu Yuan by Kuo Mo-jo); translated into English by Mr. Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang.