DOCTRINES
OF VEDANTA
IN
SHELLEY’S POETRY
K. NAGARAJA RAO, M. A.
As
is the case with other Western poets like T. S. Eliot, the thoughts expressed
by Shelley in many of his poems are similar to those truths, expounded and
glorified by the ancient Rishis of the East in the Upanishadic age, and no
wonder Shelley, the revolutionary and the visionary, is also called a highly
spiritual and a passionately religious poet.
In
“Ode to the West Wind”, after speaking of the power of the West wind over the
earth, the sea and the sky, Shelley makes a fervent appeal to the mighty West
wind:
“......I
would ne’er have striven
As
thus with these in prayer in sore need.....
I
fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed.”
According
to the Hindu philosophy, the realisation of God is achieved by practice of
meditation and inner purity is achieved by self-abnegation. In this context, it
is worthwhile to bring in the episode of Gajendra, the Elephant King who
struggles hard for long, to free himself from the clutches of the crocodile in
water, and prays to Lord Vishnu only, after all his energy is exhausted. Only
when he surrenders his self to the Lord, he is liberated by the Almighty.
Similarly Shelley, who in his youth could compete with the West wind in
strength, now feels all his energy exhausted and resorts to prayer. This ode is
about “self-abnegation, the absorption of the Individual Ego into a larger
unity.” (“The Imaginal Design of Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’–R.H. Foggle.”)
Again,
in the same ode, the West wind is addressed as ‘the destroyer and preserver.’
It is an echo of the Hindu conception of the Trimurty or Trinity as creator,
preserver and destroyer. Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternative
element that keeps pace with creation. Hindu mythology bears witness to the concept
of creation, taking its birth from destruction (‘Pralaya’ or the deluge).
Similarly, if man were to attain salvation, or rise to a greater existence, he
must destroy his lower-self or his demon-like qualities.
“Adonais”,
the elegy written on the death of Keats, is another remarkable poem, which has
reference to Hindu Upanishads in abundance. The most memorable lines,
“The
One remains, the many change and pass.....
Life
like a many-coloured glass.....
Until
Death tramples it to fragments”
makes one wonder how, Shelley, who could not
study the Upanishads could unwittingly gave expression to his thoughts on Death
and on the immortality of the human soul. ‘One’ is the Supreme Spirit (God or
Brahman). The Rishis (sages) of ancient India postulate the existence of the
eternal super-human being or the Paramatman, the Self and the Brahman. In the
words of Swami Vivekananda, “This is the real soul, the Atman of man...And
seeing that everything material, either you call it fine matter, or mind, must
also be changeful...the external world must also be changeful...this
unchangeable something can no more be of material substance, therefore it is
spiritual, that is to say, it is not matter, indestructible, unchangeable.”
(From Colombo to Almora) Katha Upanishad also speaks of the eternal
banian tree “which alone is bright, and is immortal and it is Brahman.”
After
death, the soul of Keats is said to have awakened to a consciousness of its
nature in an everlasting union of love and bliss with God.
“The
pure spirit shall flow
Back
to the burning fountain whence it came,...
A
portion of the Eternal...”
References
to the conception of God as the creator of all, and as Light are not wanting in
the Hindu Upanishads, God is said to be the “Swayamjyothi” or Self-Luminous.
That the individual soul, after death, becomes mingled with its creator, may find
comparison with the Mundaka, which says:
“As
sparks similar to fire, come out of a blazing fire by thousands, so my dear,
various creatures come out of the undecaying One and also return to it.” To be
brief, being Brahman, he goes to the Brahman. Even Theosophy also agrees with
this view, and in the words of the famous Theosophist Madam Blavatsky, the state of Nirvana implies a complete
purification or “a final riddance from even the most sublimated particle of
matter, a final reunion with God.”
Shelley
imagines that the poets like Chatterton have a special corner in Heaven,
reserved from them
“The
inheritors of unfufilled renown
Rise
from their thrones, build beyond mortal thought.”
Though Shelley fancies that the special corner
is reserved for those who died early and who did not have time to fulfill the
promise of their powers, it may be mentioned that according to the belief of
the Hindus, all blessed souls of our saints, prophets and glorified ones who
have preceded us “Jeevanmuktas” pass through the path called “Devayana” and
reach “Brahroaloka.”
The
whole world, to Shelley, is a manifestation of divine life.
“The
one spirit’s plastic stress
Sweeps
through the dull, dense world.”
The same idea is repeated in the following
lines:
“An
atom of the eternal, whose own smile
Enfolds
itself, and may be felt, not seen
O’er
the grey rock, blue-waves, and forests again.”
(Epipsychidion)
Hindu thought is also akin to this. Supreme
spirit is found in this world, from a noblest person to the tiny insects
crawling on the earth. That is why, where the demon-king Hiranyakasyapa threatened
his son prahlada, “Disclose thy Hari in this pillar of iron, or fall by my sword,”
Prahlada’s serene reply was, “From Gods to grass blades, He permeates all. Him
you shall be told now and here” and Prahlada’s words came true.
In
“Queen Mab” Shelley presents a vivid picture of the millennium where (depicting
man) he says:
“..........no
longer now
He
slays the lamb that looks him in the face
devours
his mangled flesh.”
Shelley seems to be advocating vegetatianism.
Like Prometheus, he does not wish any living creature, to suffer pain.
All
living creatures are the creation of God and the Upanishads proclaim, that we
should preserve a relation of unlimited love, without any animosity or without a desire to kill” with everything whether it is above or below, remote or near,
visible or invisible.” Manu, the great Law-giver
of the Hindus brought home the point clearer when he stated that, not merely the butcher who kills the goat, but also those who cook it and serve it,
along with the man who eats the meat, are answerable to
God, on the day of judgment.
Shelley also considers,
“There
needeth not the hen that bigots
frame
To
punish those who err.”
God is love
and according to the Taithiriya Upanishad also, God is
Anandam, Love itself “Brahma kripahi kevalam.” When God is considered to be Love, Mercy and
Goodness, it runs counter to
the conception of an eternal Hell, created
by Him to punish those whom He has created.
To consider that there in Hell, the
God of Death (Yama) would inflict tormenting punishments is a moral contradiction. In this context, one may pay attention
to the words of Modern Rishi
Venkataratnam, who described real Hell as “the hospital of God
where Love is the Senior
Physician and Mercy the Head
Nurse.”
In
Shelley’s Skylark, there
is reference to pain and
pleasure. “Our Sweetest songs
are those that tell of saddest
thought.” We must not forget that the Nyaya-Vaiseshika regards, “the desire to
avoid pain to be as strong a motive in
prompting the will as
the desire to obtain pleasure.” (Outlines
of Indian Philosophy -Hiriyanna) Pain is not only essential to life, but essential to pleasure. Man
is a mortal being and he is foredoomed
to pass through an ordeal of suffering such
as only God can foresee.
Thus pain and pleasure are
inextricably connected with each
other. Man has to learn by experiment, not by success only, but also by failure.
In
“Prometheus unbound”, Asia speaks
of Prometheus as her animating spirit and he speaks of her as
his means of manifestation. Commenting
on this point, J. H. Cousins in “The Work Promethean” observes,
“Both are bound together by the
cohesive principle in the universe which
is called Love. Their highest expression
is celebrated in Vedic India in the marriage
of Shiva and Parvati.”
This
is symbolised in the Lord being
conceived as “Ardhanareeswara”
(half-God and half-Goddess). Man and woman, Purushha and Prakriti are complimentary to each other and art needed
for the fulness of life.
Shelley
makes frequent references to the
“Veil,” screening the ultimate truth, or severing good from evil and error from
truth. “Death is the veil which those who live call life.” In the famous Indian
epic ‘The Ramayana,’ Viradha, after regaining his original form extols Rama and
marvels at the power of Maya (illusion), that casts a veil between the Jivatma
and the Paramatma, which has the unique characteristic of obstructing the
former’s vision, but not the latter’s
Last,
but not the least, quoting two lines from “The Boat of the Serchio”, S. F.
Gingerich points out that Shelley seems to have identified his own view of
necessity with strict religious pre-destination.
“All
rose to do the task he set to each
Who
shaped us to his ends and not
our own.”
In the words of Maharshi Sri Ramana of
Tiruvannamalai,
“Lord,
I have no will of my own; Thy will is my will.”