{"id":1071,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:23","slug":"74-passing-thoughts-12-2-1910-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/74-passing-thoughts-12-2-1910-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-74_Passing Thoughts 12-2-1910.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nPassing Thoughts<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVolume I – Feb.
\n12, 1910 – No. 32<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Vedantic Art<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font>he
\nprogress a new tendency or a new movement is making can be measured by the
\namount of opposition it meets, and it is encouraging to note that the revival
\nof Indian Art exciting intellectual opponents to adverse criticism. Mr.
\nVincent Smith, a solid and well-equipped scholar and historian but not hitherto
\nnoted as an art-critic, recently lectured on Indian Art, ancient and modern. It
\nis not surprising that he should find little to praise in the characteristic Vedantic Art of our country and seek to limit its excellence to a few
\nmasterpieces. Neither is it surprising that he should object to the revival of
\nthe national traditions as restoring Brahminic separateness from the traditions of the rest of the world. These are
\narguments that are as obvious as they are superficial. But it is strange to
\nfind him basing his opinion of the inferiority of the Vedantic style on its
\nappeal not being universal. This merely means that the Vedantic motive and
\nconventions are new to the European mind, and the average eye, enslaved to old
\nassociations, cannot immediately welcome what is new and ill-understood. Every
\nnew step forward in artistic tradition within Europe itself has been met by the
\nsame limited comprehension and has had to get the assent first of the trained
\nand sensitive taste and then of the average mind before it could be said to be
\nuniversally recognised. The real question is whether the Vedantic style has
\nanything in it that is true, deep and universal, whether it has a motive, a
\npower of interpretation, a success in making Truth reveal itself in form, such
\nas will ensure its conquest of prejudices based purely on inability to receive
\nor welcome new impressions. The answer to that crucial question cannot be
\ndoubtful. Vedantic Art reveals spirit, essential truth, the soul in the body,
\nthe lasting type or idea in the mutable form with a power and masterly
\nrevelation of which European art is incapable. It is therefore sure to conquer
\nEurope as steadily<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 396<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\nas Indian thought and knowledge are
\nconquering the hard and narrow materialism of the nineteenth century.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Asceticism
\n and Enjoyment<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Small things are
\noften indicative of great and far-reaching tendencies. While glancing at the
\nModern Review<\/i>, \u2014 <\/i>always the best worth perusal of our Indian monthlies, \u2014 our
\nattention was arrested by a slight illustrated article on Railways in India and
\nAmerica. The writer contrasts the squalor, indigence and discomfort of railway
\ntravelling in this Paradise of the efficient Anglo-Indian with the lavish
\ncomfort and opulence of railway furnishings and appointments in the United
\nStates. The contrast is indicative of the immense gulf between the teeming
\nwealth of America and the miserable indigence of India, once the richest
\ncountry in the world. America is the land above all lands where enjoyment, Bhoga, is frankly recognised and accepted. India,
\nmany would say, is the land above all lands where Bhoga is sternly refused.
\nThat is the common view; we are not inclined to think it the correct view. The
\nasceticism of India is a phase, a characteristic of a civilisation dominated by
\nan unfavourable environment and driven in upon itself. The classical period
\nwhen India was full of life, activity, development, abounding vigour, defending
\nherself successfully against the impact of the outer barbarian, was a period of
\nfrank and lavish enjoyment far more intellectual, artistic, perfect than any
\nthing Europe has ever been capable of, even at its best. In yet older
\nliterature we find the true spirit of India, a splendid capacity for Bhoga and Tyaga in their highest terms, the utter enjoyment
\nof the householder, the utter renunciation of the Sannyasin.
\nTo take the utmost joy of life, to be capable of the utmost renunciation of
\nlife, at one and the same time, in the same mind and body, to be master of both
\ncapacities and bound by neither, \u2014 this was the secret of India, the mighty
\ndiscipline of which Janaka was the
\ntraditional exemplar. "Renounce all that thou mayest
\nenjoy all", \u2014 this is India’s characteristic message, \u2014 not Buddha’s
\nabsolute renunciation, not the European’s enslavement to his bodily, vital and intellec-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 397<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

tual desires and appetites. Tyaga within, Bhoga
\nwithout, \u2014 Ananda, the divine delight of the
\npurified soul, embracing both.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Aliens
\n in Ancient India<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We extract
\nelsewhere a brief article on the above subject from the December Indian
\nReview<\/i> for which we had no space in our
\nformer issues. The ancient Indian treatment of foreign residents forms a
\ncurious contrast to the spirit of exclusion which is growing upon modern
\nnations. We have our own doubts about that little privilege of exemption from
\nsuits for debt which Mr. Hayavadana Rau
\nmentions with appreciation; it would obviously place the alien merchant at a
\ndisadvantage when compared with the scrupulous honesty of the Indian traders,
\nand we are not sure that it may not have been a subtle stroke of Chanakya-like diplomacy to coddle the resident
\nforeign middle-man out of existence while favouring the non-resident importer.
\nThe chief importance of the article is, however, the incidental light it throws
\non the organisation of life in ancient India. We are too apt to forget how
\nnoble, great and well-appointed a life it was. There were no railways,
\ntelegraphs or steamships, it is true, and democracy was beginning to go out of
\nfashion in favour of a centralised bureaucratic monarchy. But in spite of
\nthese drawbacks, the ancient life of India was as splendid, as careful, as
\nconvenient, as humane, as enlightened in its organisation as that of any modern
\nsociety or administration.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n The
\n Scholarship of Mr. Risley<\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are not concerned with the political issues of Mr. Risley’s great oratorical effort in connection
\nwith the Press Bill, for we have renounced politics;
\nbut Mr. Risley as a scholar falls within our province, and we can only hope our
\nremarks on that subject will not expose us to the provision against bringing
\nofficials into contempt. Even at that risk we must take leave to say that we
\ncan only hope Mr. Risley’s ethnological science is less remarkably<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 398<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

muddled than his knowledge of Indian civilisation
\nand literature. In his exhortation to Indian womanhood to stand fast to its ancient
\nmoorings he jumbles together Swaymvaras, the
\nrape of the Sabines and Shacuntala in a miraculous fashion ! At no Swayamvara that we are aware of, did the women
\ncome forward as peace\u00admakers between the abducting hero and the disappointed
\nsuitors. Mr. Risley has been misled by
\npitch-forking his early memories of Roman history into Indian epic and
\nnarrative. And need we say that there was neither Swayamvara,
\nnor fighting nor peacemaking in the story of Shacuntala ? This is the first time, moreover, that a
\nstartled Indian public has been pointed to Shacuntala as the ideal Hindu woman. Sita, Draupadi, Savitri, Damayanti,
\n\u2014 these are familiar to us as ideals, but Shacuntala is Mr. Risley’s own addition. To us she is a beautiful
\npoetic creation, not an exemplar of feminine conduct. We observe that the Bengalee
\n<\/i>is full of admiration for Mr. Risley’s poetic rapture over Shacuntala. We
\ndo not know whom we should congratulate more, the poet of the Press Bill or his
\nadmirer.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n Anarchism<\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are we not entitled, by the way, in the
\ninterests of the English language, to protest against the misapplication of the
\nword Anarchists to the Indian Terrorists and Anarchism to their policy ? Their
\nmethods are wild and lawless, their effort is to create anarchy; but Anarchism
\nand Anarchist are terms which imply something very different, a thing as yet
\nunknown either in practice or in theory to India. The Irish Fenians did the
\nsame things as the Indian Terrorists are now practising, but nobody ever called
\nthem Anarchists; to misapply this term is to bring anarchy into the modern use
\nof language. It is doubtful whether any Indian who has not been to Europe,
\nreally knows what Anarchism is. Philosophically, it is the negation of the
\nnecessity of government; in practice, it is often the use of assassination to
\ndestroy all government irrespective of its nationality or nature. Democracy is
\nas abhorrent to the Anarchist as Czarism, a
\nnational government as intolerable as the government of the foreigner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 399<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

All
\ngovernment is to him an interference with the liberty of the individual, and he
\nsets out to assassinate Czar or democratic President, constitutional king or
\nimperial Caesar with a terrible impartiality, an insane logicality. For if we
\nask him how liberty of any kind except the liberty of the strong to prey on the
\nweak can exist in the absence of government, he will probably answer that by
\nright education, right ideas and right feelings will be established and the
\nspirit of brotherhood will prevent the abuse of liberty, and if anyone
\ninfringes this unwritten law, he must be destroyed as if he were a noxious wild
\nbeast. And by a parallel logic he seeks to destroy all the living symbols of a
\nstate of society which stands in the way of the coming of his millennium.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n The
\n Gita and Terrorism<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Risley repeats a charge we have grown familiar
\nwith, that the Gita has been misused as a gospel of Terrorism. We cannot find
\nany basis for this accusation except the bare fact that the teaching of the
\nGita was part of the education given by Upendranath Banerji in the Maniktola
\ngarden. There is no evidence to show that its tenets were used to justify a
\ngospel of Terrorism. The only doctrine of the Gita the Terrorist can pervert to
\nhis use, is the dictum that the Kshatriya
\nmust slay as a part of his duty and he can do it without sin if he puts egoism
\naway and acts selflessly, without
\nattachment, in and for God, as a sacrifice, as an offering of action to the
\nLord of action. If this teaching is in itself false, there is no moral basis
\nfor the hero, the soldier, the judge, the king, the legislature which
\nrecognises capital punishment. They must all be condemned as criminals and offenders against humanity. It is undoubtedly true
\nthat since the revival of religious thought in India the Gita has ceased to be
\nwhat Mr. Risley calls it, a transcendental philosophy, and has been made a rule
\nof life. It is undoubtedly true that selflessness, courage, a free and noble
\nactivity have been preached as the kernel of the ethics of the Gita. That
\nteaching has in no country been condemned as ignoble, criminal or subversive of
\nmorality, nor is a philosophy of any value to any sensible being if it is only
\ntranscendental and<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 400<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

cannot
\nbe lived. We strongly protest against the brand of suspicion that has been
\nsought to be placed in many quarters on the teaching and possession of the Gita, \u2014 our chief national heritage, our hope for
\nthe future, our great force for the purification of the moral weaknesses that
\nstain and hamper our people.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 401<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Passing Thoughts Volume I – Feb. 12, 1910 – No. 32 Vedantic Art   The progress a new tendency or a new movement is making…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}