“RIPENESS IS ALL”
By K. CHANDRASEKHARAN
Bernard
Shaw in one of his natural moods of provocation at the complacency of most of
our ‘compulsorily educated ones’ said: “Naked bodies no longer shock us, but
the horror of the naked mind is still more than we can bear.” Indeed nothing
can plainer and more truculent than this remark of his. But yet how very rare
for anyone to clothe the mind carefully and yet not too much drape it
also in heavy folds!
Two
main currents of thought have always been coursing down some decades now in our
country, at any rate since our national consciousness awakened in us the desire
for a status of equality with other modern countries of the world. The first of
them is for eradication of illiteracy among the masses. This naturally led to a
country-wide propaganda and experimentation of compulsory elementary education
for all. Before there has been any perceptible improvement felt by us, there is
growing, with the impetus supplied by the Mahatma, another movement for Basic
education, encompassing the training of both body and mind simultaneously. In
between, have also risen other movements such as the one for adult education,
which envisages prevention lapsing into illiteracy of people who have picked up
a smattering of knowledge to read and write, but who, owing to either inborn
indifference or inability, for want of leisure from their occupational
pursuits, have allowed their capacities to rust or lie dormant. Again one feels
anxious to know why at all this furore for education, if ultimately life’s main
purpose of
“Service
that should claim a mind serene, aloof,
And
a heart too great for fear”
remains as much a
distant goal to reach as before.
Still
more urgent a necessity than all others is what politicians of front rank,
including our own Prime Minister, have been incessantly harping upon, namely,
the raising of our material standards of living. As a result, we look for the
industrialisation of India on a large-scale as a panacea for most of our
economic evils. Rather we have begun to feel it quite inevitable, owing perhaps
to repeated diagnosis of the same origin for our present diseased system.
Furthermore, happiness seems to be bound up with comforts of life and every
attempt to advance material circumstances becomes a blessing, according to the
protagonists of industrialisation. In “The Bugbear of Literacy”, one of the
last publications of the late Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, he says “An
industrialisation of the East may be inevitable, but do not let us call it a
blessing that a folk should be reduced to the level of a proletariat, or assume
that materially higher standards of living necessarily make for greater
happiness.” Viewed in that light, one may get alarmed at the thought that
people should strive for acquiring more and more of life’s equipment ignoring
all other claims on them. It is increasingly evident from what we see of the
modern age, that the time-taken for acquisition of materials is greater than
what is devoted to actual enjoyment in the correct sense of the term. In fact,
life itself is made secondary to life’s materials, even as a garden is buried
under the bricks gathered for the garden wall.
Reflection
may tell us that the type of education we are forced to receive at present may
not be preparing us towards the end of securing adequate growth of the human
personality. Doubts have often crossed the minds of reformers here as
else-where, as to the profit of an en masse coaching up of minds upon
particular patterns of thought. Bit by bit the conviction has also gained
ground in certain quarters that, greatly coveted as democracy may be and does
much to level up the lowest class, it is unfortunately more successful in
levelling down the highest and the best. It is the impression of those who have
become closely acquainted with American Democracy that “no land on earth has
been so friendly to the poor illiterate toilers and at the same time no
land so contemptuous-cold to the thinkers and artists, the guides of humanity”.
Let us just turn to an old country like ours, where literacy may be negligible,
still education of a kind and standards of taste and regard for higher values
have never shown any the least sign of waning, despite so many inroads upon
them by Western thought. Instances can be multiplied from our epics and
classics how kingly power and temporal authority have stood mute before the
repositories of culture. It is said that when Bharata, led by Vasishta, entered
the Ashrama of Bharadvaja, the sage, seeing the arrival of the great Vasishta
instantaneously rose from his seat, calling upon his disciples to bring the
necessary materials for offering the guest a good welcome. Now the point to be
noted in this context is that the very same sage did not show any the least
visible disturbance of his self-collected mind when the princes, Sri
Ramachandra or Lakshmana or Bharata waited on him. The poet Valmiki is careful
to mention this, though he himself tells us, that Bharadvaja played without
fail the celebrated host to them afterwards by causing his disciples to do the
needful to welcome them. One perceives how, in our land, learning and
spirituality evoked instinctive respect, more than mere power or position.
So
it all comes to the one question, what exactly is denoted as man’s progress. We
cannot for one moment forget the salutary principle that “the highest education
is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony
with all existence”. Perhaps this education of sympathy is not only
systematically ignored in our present educational institutions but sometimes
even severely repressed. In a way the young are treated worse today than in the
days of India’s past. Everyone here is familiar with what goes tinder the title
of “Children’s Books”. Being written expressly for children, they are such as
no mature mind could tolerate. It is now only the comic strips that appeal
alike to children, who have been given nothing better, and
at the same time to adults, who have never grown up. At this juncture, it may
be useful to recall the episode, in the Chandogya Upanishad,
of Svetaketu, the son of Aruni, who left for schooling at the age of twelve,
and, after staying in the Gurukula for nearly fourteen years, returned to his
father with a head bloated with pride and haughtiness that he knew a lot. The
father saw the total lack of humility in the boy and asked him whether he
learnt of his preceptor knowledge of That, knowing which made everything else
self-evident. As the son blinked, the father admonished him that learning was
not everything, but wisdom should be the ultimate aim. Certainly learning and
wisdom are often divided; perhaps the significant result of mere book-fed
knowledge will be to maintain and enlarge the gulf.
Much of what has come down from our
past is undoubtedly precious knowledge to us now. For we cannot live in the
present that is charged with the past and pregnant of the future without sufficient knowledge of the dairy of
our race. Nevertheless, books have to serve as only a complement to our own
study of life. The drawback in constant reading is that, at critical moments
when the mind has to get to grips with an idea, the recollection that somebody
else has said something or written about it is apt to usurp original thought.
Further, one who thinks out for himself is invariably abler than a Pundit with
all his paraphernalli od books and passages at his finger tips.
A point of further importance for our country is that the traditional oral literature through ‘Pravachana’ and ‘Katha Kalakshepa’ has interested not only all classes, but also all age-groups of the population. The gathered wisdom of the old times is equally handed down in custom, in tradition, in ritual, in the sayings and proverbs and the oracular utterances of a still remoter past; but all this is, as it were, a mass of information, only of un-written books, so that even the originator and the prophet gets his inspiration from what has gone before. A little reflection is enough to tell us that all the progress in ideas is spiral, for ever returning upon itself.
Truly
it is all now in books; only often it becomes necessary for us to scrape off
the rubble of pedagogy and release the living stream which has flowed down the
ages since the beginning. For, unfailingly among books as among people and
events, our character is our destiny. We can widen, by learning, the boundaries
of our personality, we can enrich our native roots; but it will be absolutely
waste of time to struggle to attain what we are not fated to enjoy by reading
books alone.
As
a matter of profound experience, one can say the meaning of life lies in the
opportunity it gives us to produce or to contribute to something greater than
ourselves. Normally it is the family which provides the direct and broadest
road to achieve it. Again it may be any group or movement that can draw out all
the inner nobility of the individual and give him scope to express his entire
personality that shall not vanish with his death. It may be something removed
from the ordinary or the normal, the association with which makes a man or
woman devote himself or herself unstintingly to its cause; or it may be a great
national organisation like our own Congress to whose preservation and
exaltation a Mahatma or a Pandit Jawaharlal dedicates his genius and life. Also
it may be some work of art that absorbs the social in its making and proves a
boon to coming generations. Nevertheless, in every case it must, if it will
give a life meaning, lift the individual out of himself and make him a
co-operating part of a vaster scheme. Really what imparts a sense of confidence
and contentment to an individual is to have an occupation which would absorb
all his energy and imagination and make his life a little richer than before.
Therefore
it is clear that man cannot be said to thrive unless he cultivates his heart
with ever so many interests. In fact he should have many irons in the fire. He
should not let his happiness be bound up entirely with his children or his fame
or his prosperity or even his health. He should be able to find nourishment for
his serenity and joy through any one of the interests, even if all the rest are
snatched away from him. The epics and classics of India are replete with
wonderful stories of how culture alone sustained the vitality of life of many a
prince and princess when destiny drove them out to the forest
or the mountain cave. If Arjuna, disguised as Brihannala at the
Virata Court, conveyed to the King of the Matsyas his capacity to engage
himself in so many ways, once entertained in the palace, it only proves beyond
doubt how much of arts and crafts formed part of the scheme of education in the
royal households and stood the recipients in good stead: “I sing, I dance and I
play on instruments. I am quite good in dance and versed in music. If only, O
King! you direct me, I shall of my own accord be an instructor to your
daughter, Princess Uttara.” More than the description here is the
representation of the artist looking unaware of the aesthetic processes of his
own making, even as a person enjoying good health is unconscious of the
processes of that well-balanced condition in him.
Arts
have always played a great part in the process of the refinement
of the mind. Why, some of the masters of old have reached their great destiny
and salvation through practice of some one of the arts. It must be first made
clear that in the real India we know of, no fine arts as we now try to
enumerate like poetry, music, dance, sculpture and painting, ever existed.
Because everything was art which demanded of its votary undiverted devotion along
with natural aptitude for it. Yogah karmasu kausalam. As the Gita has
confirmed, the way to excellence in any work is surely through
self-integration. In an essay called “What is Art?” of Tagore, we light upon a
passage which is not only valuable for its penetrativeness but also for its
suggestiveness of the same process of reasoning as applicable to other
branches of knowledge like philosophy or religion. “Should we begin a
definition?” he asks, and adds, “But definition of a thing which has a life-growth
is really limiting one’s own vision in order to be able to see clearly. And
clearness is not the only or the most important aspect of Truth. A bulls-eye
lantern view is a clear view, but not a complete view.” When we speak of
religion, we may have to answer in the same way the questions of doubting
Thomases. The Vedanta of our country is the basis of all true life lived. And
if Indian art, which is not at all different from life, baffles outsiders as
much as some of us who are aliens in our own country, we can only tell them the
way that all art proceeds upon cannot be different from life. Rajaji said once
of our Vendanta:
“In
India there is a religious philosophy as old as civilization itself,
which, strange as the claim may seem to outsiders, is remarkably consistent
with science. Out of that philosophy has been evolved a code of ethics which
can be a firm spiritual basis for a juster social and economic organisation.
The God of Vedanta is not an anthropomorphic creation of human fancy. Divine
sovereignty is explained in the Gita in a language which anticipates and meets
the difficulties that modern science raised against religious cosmology. The
sovereignty of God is exercised in and through the unchangeable law of cause
and effect, through laws of nature in all spheres.”
How
true his statement of the principle is and how it can hold good in regard to
the basic philosophy of all arts must be, to thinkers, only a matter of easy
deduction and application. If the temple architecture with its imposing Gopuram
weans away the eye of anyone, be he born of this country or otherwise, the
explanation for it is in the very concept of an edifice of that massive
proportions and perfect symmetry raising its form towards Heaven. A careful
look at the crowded figures of the Gopuram, of man and beast, leaf and insect,
demon and god, will show the universe in miniature it represents, with the
additional symbolical idea of everything being sustained, tier over tier, by a
principle called Dharma in the evolutionary process. If at all anything remains
today reminding us of an age-long civilisation unchanged, it is our temple.
Further, to the art-loving Indian, the ruined temple is more interesting
sometimes than even the living one; for in the ruins the glory of a living art shines
with more lustre than in all the art of the present day.
Similarly
in music, the soul of India has been for long realising itself. The power of
music has led, by its impersonal aspect, the mind of India on to spiral heights
of spiritual experience. Every inspired saint and savant has sung paeans of
victory to God. It is the easiest vehicle for self-expression of the universal
spirit in man. If the entire Ramayana, the earliest poem; was sung to the
accompaniement of tuned strings, we can well conceiye of a much more ancient
origin for music in this land. Indeed one wonders at the precision in
the audition of notes or music scales, when we come across a verse in the Mahabharata
thus:
Veeneva
madhuraalaapaa gaandhaaram saadhu moorchatee.
Draupadi,
in trying to wake up Bhimasena from slumber, intoned her voice to such a soft
pitch which reminded one of the Gaandhaara note
on the Veena being dwelt upon. Incidentally one is struck also by the
correctness of appreciation of the Gaandhaara note on the Veena
especially.
The
culture of a race does not stop with the development of the arts, but takes us
to the life lived by men and women. The characters in our epics like Rama,
Hanuman, Karna, Bhishma, and Vidura have extorted, for thousands of years, our
admiration for strength of arm, power of austerity, sense of loyalty, value of
celibacy and devotion to duty. A host of other such winning characters from our
classics as well can easily take a high place. The women have shown no less
restraint and self-abnegation than the men; For sacrifice and capacity of
endurance, we can recall through the long ages of the recently constructed
history as well, how great queens and enlightened women have played their parts
with maximum profit to the culture of our race. If Sita is the brightest jewel
in the crown of India’s civilisation and refinement, no less powerfully moving
are the heroines of the classical dramas in Sanskrit, which followed in the
foot-steps of the epics. To prove by even a single instance, let us for a moment
glance at the scene in the justly famous play of ‘Swapnavasavadattam’ of Bhasa.
The situation referred to is a conversation between the King and his intimate
friend, the Vidushaka. The King is represented as having married a second time
because of the loss of his first wife. The newly married queen, Padmavati, is
actually eavesdropping as the two friends are discussing personal matters. The
Vidushaka in confidence asks the King, whom, of the two queens, he loved best.
The King is embarrassed at the question. But the fool worries him saying:
“Speak out boldly. One is no longer alive, the other is not near.” The King
replies: “No, friend. I shall not. You are a very communicative fellow.”
Padmavati who along with her maid had been listening to the conversation is
shrewd enough not to miss the subtle suggestion and she says to herself:
“Saying this, my Lord has answered the question.” Normally we should have
expected her to grow resentful at the King’s partiality to his first wife. She
remained not only unaffected, but waited patiently for the King’s further
elaboration of the theme, namely, that for beauty, grace and suavity, Padmavati
was no doubt superior, though Vasavadatta alone held his heart in utter love.
Here the playwright has made the heroine rise to extraordinary heights when she
is made to contradict her own maid who had expressed, in surprise, that the
King was utterly wanting in courtesy, “Friend, not at all; My Lord is really
full of nobility. For he still remembers his dear old queen’s qualities.” For
portraiture of characters in such colours, the culture and
tradition of the country were alone responsible. Western critics and some of
our own misled political leaders have often asserted that the Oriental woman is
a slave and that we have made her what she is. On the other hand, with Dr.
Ananda Coomaraswamy, we can contradict it by saying: “Exquisite as the Indian
woman may be in literature and art, we dare not claim for ourselves as men, the
whole honour of creating such a type however persistently the industrious
industrial critic would thrust it upon us.” If a sense of nobility and
self-restraint marks the Indian woman, it does not depend upon the race alone,
but upon the ideals she has chosen; it is the outcome of a certain view of
life. In the ‘Uttara Ramacharita’ of Bhavabhuti, we get an idea of how love
transcends the body for its final consummation:
Kaalenaavaranaatyayaat
parinate yatsnehasaaresthitam.
Again,
it proves so forcibly the concept of Hindu Marriage ‘as a high and religious ideal
which justifies sexual relations only as the outward expression demanded by
passionate love, and regards an intimacy continued or begun for mere pleasure
as essentially immoral or unworthy of the married couple voyaging forth
together to understand and unite and thereby enlarge their experience.
It
will not be fair to ourselves if the great ideal of Renunciation, which has
attained immense vitality by the establishment of the holy order of Sanyasa, is
not referred to in this context. The ochre-robed monk is a very familiar sight
here, perhaps much more familiar than the present day cinema star or the
race-goer. We have to thank our forbears for this great institution, which is a
constant reminder for us to lighten our hands whenever they are burdened
with good things and feel the freedom for service.
The
very value of culture, as observed already, is its effect on character. It
avails nothing unless it elevates and strengthens that. Sometimes the very
traits which appear contradictory, when found reconciled in a happy manner,
induce us to think with pride of the enviable nature of the person who affords
them impartial refuge. Thus, when Valmiki speaks of Rama being tender (mriduscha)
and at the same time firm of mind (sthirachittascha),
pleasant of speech (priyavaadeecha bhootanam) as well as never given to
uttering an untruth (satyavadeecha Raghavah), it brings out the function
of true culture or the ripeness of judgment in him. In a similar manner
traits that at first conflict with one another must be controlled; one should
neither rush blindly to the hill-top forgetting sometimes the precipice
awaiting rashness and misjudgment, nor get choked at the very mouth of action
by too great a speculation of the pros and cons of action. Values ought
not to get inverted to such an extent as to mistake action, properly means to
an end, as the end itself, or make contemplation, a pre-requisite to action, a
cloak for escape from responsibilities of action.
Perhaps
nothing else is so very deceptive as touchiness in man and woman, especially
when it is seeking to be excused as but a just reaction to unkindness or
violence from outside. On the other hand, looked at carefully, it is a sign of
formidable egotism. In the “Incidents of Gandhiji’s life” it is reported that Rajkumari
Amrit Kaur was the recipient of a healthy piece of advice
from him, which is well worth quoting here owing to its relevancy to the point
of discussion. The Mahatma said: “Tears are not the expression
of the sorrow that should be yours. They are a token of the pride and anger in
you. You do not understand the first principle of non-violence, which is
infinite humility”. We can infer therefore that touchiness, however
justifiable, has to be gradually removed, if the mind has to rise above
personal claims and the heart has to be purified of every vestige of dross.
Life’s true experience ending in a sense of humour can alone save man from
himself. It is therefore that life is said to be better than literature. It is
therefore again that reading of books must be only for more life and not for
more of books.
At
long last, one has to save oneself even from a heavier dosage of culture. Too
often, culture gives rise to self-complacency. Who has not known of the erudite
Pundit’s smile of contempt as he corrects a misquotation and the connoisseur’s
pained countenance when someone grows hysterical over a work of art he does not
care for? Satyam, Sundaram and Sivam are not perquisites only of
those who have been to expensive schools, frequented libraries and rummaged
art-treasures. He must be a fool who imagines his knowledge greater than that
of others, and a veritable prig if he cannot comfortably meet them on an equal
footing. G. K. Chesterton it was, who once said: “The real great man is the man
who makes every man feel great”. In one word, ripeness of culture is all that
we need for making of this dull earth a paradise enough.
Let
us not be too sure of any recipe for true culture. Everybody, whether big or
small, has to pass through his allotted experience. Some quail much during the
process; others pass off for victorious marchers. Still others seem almost
exhausted at the very outset. But none can positively claim to have roughed it
all with an evenness of disposition. It all can come only of more and more life
and more and more of intense understanding of it. If the great Vyasa himself
should have felt, after finishing his great works of poetry and philosophy,
that his heart craved for infinite peace and therefore the solace-giving
‘Srimad Bhagavatam’ slid down the flourishing tree of his knowledge like a
ripened fruit,
Nigamakalpatarorgalitam
Phalam
Sukamukhadamritadravasamyutam,
no need for ordinary
mortals to complain of waiting, for they “also serve who stand and wait”.