{"id":329,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:21","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=329"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:21","slug":"080-europe-and-asia-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/080-europe-and-asia-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-080_Europe and Asia.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nEurope and Asia<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n            <\/font><\/span>
\nT<\/font><\/span><\/b>HE<\/b>
\nLondon correspondent of a contemporary quotes, with the apposite change of a
\nword, some verses from a poem by Wilfrid Blunt which so admirably express the
\nbasic motive of the Nationalist movement in India that we reproduce it here. It
\nis often represented by our opponents that the cry for Swaraj is a mere
\nsenseless cry for freedom without any recognition of the responsibilities of
\nfreedom. This is not so. Those who have followed the exposition of the
\nNationalist ideal in Bande Mataram <\/i>know well that we advocate the
\nstruggle for Swaraj, first, because Liberty is in itself a necessity of national
\nlife and therefore worth striving for for its own sake; secondly, because
\nLiberty is the first indispensable condition of national development
\nintellectual, moral, industrial, political (we do not say it is the only
\ncondition) \u2014 and therefore worth striving for for India’s sake; thirdly,
\nbecause in the next great stage of human progress it is not a material but a
\nspiritual, moral and psychical advance that has to be made and for this a free
\nAsia and in Asia a free India must take the lead, and Liberty is therefore worth
\nstriving for for the world’s sake. India must have Swaraj in order to live; she
\nmust have Swaraj in order to live well and happily; she must have Swaraj in
\norder to live for the world, not as a slave for the material and political
\nbenefit of a single purse-proud and selfish nation, but as a free people for the
\nspiritual and intellectual benefit of the human race.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The verses quoted are from a poem called The Wind and the Whirlwind <\/i>addressed
\nto England. England, by her oppression of the Asiatic peoples under her sway, by
\nher selfish and ruthless exploitation of their wealth, by her refusal to allow
\nthem the chance of national life and free development, is sowing the wind, and
\nshe will reap the whirlwind in the loss of her Empire, perhaps in national decay
\nand death.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-465<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\u201cTruth
\nyet shall triumph in a world of justice;<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>This is of faith. I swear it. East and West<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe
\nlaw of Man’s progression shall accomplish<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Even this last great marvel with the rest.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThou
\nwouldst not further it. Thou canst not hinder.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>If thou shalt learn in time, thou yet shalt live.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut
\nGod shall ease thy hand of thy dominion<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>And give to these the rights thou wouldst not give.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe
\nnations of the East have left their childhood.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Thou art grown old. Their manhood is to come;<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd
\nthey shall carry on Earth’s high tradition<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Through the long ages when thy lips are dumb,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTill
\nall shall be wrought out. O lands of weeping,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Lands watered by the rivers of old Time,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nGanges
\nand Indus and the streams of Eden,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Yours is the future of the world’s sublime.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYours
\nwas the fount of man’s first inspiration,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The well of wisdom whence he earliest drew.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd
\nyours shall be the floodtime of his reason,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The means of strength which shall his strength renew.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe
\nwisdom of the West is but a madness,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The fret of shallow waters in their bed.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nYours
\nis the flow, the fullness of man’s patience,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The ocean of God’s rest inherited.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd
\nthou, too, India, mourner of the nations,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Though thou hast died today in all men’s sight,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd
\nthough upon thy cross with thieves thou hangest,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Yet shall thy wrong be justified in right."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>                 
\n<\/span>The view of the East as just emerging from its childhood and the West as
\nold and senile, is contrary to received ideas, but there is a deep truth
\nunderlying it. The East is more ancient by many<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-466<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthousands
\nof years than the West, but a greater length of years does not necessarily imply
\na more advanced age. The years which would mean only childhood to a long-lived
\nspecies would bring old age and death to more ephemeral stocks. Asia is long-lived, Europe brief, ephemeral. Asia is in everything hugely mapped, immense and
\ngrandiose in its motions, and its life-periods are measured accordingly. Europe
\nlives by centuries, Asia by millenniums. Europe is parcelled out in nations,
\nAsia in civilisations. The whole of Europe forms only one civilisation with a
\ncommon, derived and largely second-hand culture; Asia supports three
\ncivilisations, each of them original and of the soil. Everything in Europe is
\nsmall, rapid and short-lived; she has not the secret of immortality. Greece, the
\nchief source of her civilisation, matured in two or three centuries, flourished
\nfor another two, and two more were sufficient for her decline and death. How few
\nin years are the modern European nations, yet Spain is already dead, Austria
\ndeath-stricken and suffering from gangrene and disintegration, France overtaken
\nby a mortal and incurable malady, England already affected by the initial
\nprocesses of decay. Germany and America alone show any signs of a healthy and
\ndeveloping manhood. In the place which is left vacant by the decline of the
\nEuropean nations Asia young, strong, and vigorous, dowered with the gift of
\nimmortality and the secret of self-transmutation, is preparing to step forward
\nand possess the future. She alone can teach the world the secret of immortality
\nwhich she possesses and in order that she may do so, she must reign.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Asia has been described by the Europeans as decrepit; they will find to
\ntheir amazement and dismay that she is rather emerging into her age of robust
\nand perfect manhood. It is true that she reached ages ago heights of science,
\nphilosophy, civilisation which Europe is now toilfully trying to reach and that
\nafterwards there was a slackening down, loss and disturbance from which she is
\nonly now recovering, but there was no decay or decline. It was rather the
\ndisturbance, the temporary arrest, disorganisation and derangement which marks
\nthe transition from boyhood to manhood. Her mighty civilisations, her great
\nphilosophies, her acute scientific observations and intuitions were the toys<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-467<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand
\ngames of her yet immature and imperfect powers, the light and easy play of a
\nchild-giant, and form merely a slight index of the far greater things she will
\naccomplish in the coming days of her ripe strength and maturity. What she did,
\nshe did by the activity of intention and imagination, the first free penetrating
\nsympathy of a mind fresh from the divine source of life. She will now learn the
\nscientific method of the adult and senescent West and apply it with a far
\ngreater force and ability to lines of development in which Europe is a bungler
\nand novice,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe
\nwisdom of the West is but a madness,<\/font><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The fret of shallow waters in their bed.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis
\nshallowness proceeds from the fact that the West has developed materially and on
\nthe surface, but has not sought for strength and permanence in the deeper roots
\nof life of which our outer activity is only a partial manifestation. The
\nfundamental difference between East and West has been exemplified more than once
\nin recent times. What European nation could have changed its whole political,
\nsocial and economic machinery in a few years like Japan, with so little trouble,
\nwith such thoroughness and science, with the minimum of disturbance to its
\nnational economy? The phenomenon is so alien to European nature and European
\nexperience that even to this day Western observers have been unable to
\nunderstand it. Japan is a "weird" nation, that is all the conclusion
\nthey can come to on the subject. What European nation again would deal so
\nswiftly, directly and earnestly with its own national vices as the Chinese are
\ndealing with the opium vice in China? The very idea that China really meant it
\nwas incredible to English observers. And well it might be, for one can imagine
\nwhat would be the fate of any such attempt to deal with the national vice of
\ndrunkenness in England. If India is unable to show such signal triumphs, it is
\nbecause she has been disorganised by the merciless pressure of the alien rule
\nand all her centres of strength and action destroyed or disabled. Yet even so,
\nshe has shown and is still showing signs of a prolonged and unconquerable
\nvitality such as no nation subject for an equally long time has evinced since
\nhistory began. It is this moral strength,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-468<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthis
\nability to go to the roots, this gift of diving down into the depths of self and
\ndrawing out the miraculous powers of the Will, this command over one’s own soul
\nwhich is the secret of Asia. And he who is in possession of his soul, the
\nScripture assures us, shall become the master of the world.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font>July 3, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/h3>\n

\nPage-469<\/font><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe and Asia               THE London correspondent of a contemporary quotes, with the apposite change of a word, some verses from a poem by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","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=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}