{"id":54,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=54"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:35","slug":"23-vyasa-some-characteristics-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/23-vyasa-some-characteristics-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-23_Vyasa Some Characteristics.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\n\t\tVyasa: Some
\nCharacteristics<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE
\n<\/font><\/b>Mahabharata, although neither
\nthe greatest nor the richest masterpiece of the secular literature of India, is
\nat the same time its most considerable and important body of poetry. Being so,
\nit is the pivot on which the history of Sanskrit literature and incidentally the
\nhistory of Aryan civilisation in India, must perforce turn. To the great
\ndiscredit of European scholarship the problem of this all-important work is one
\nthat remains not only unsolved, but untouched. Yet until it is solved, until the
\nconfusion of its heterogeneous materials is reduced to some sort of order, the
\ndifferent layers of which it consists separated, classed and attributed to their
\nrelative dates, and its relations with the Ramayana on the one hand and the
\nPuranic and classic literature on the other fully and patiently examined, the
\nhistory of our civilisation must remain in the air, a field for pedantic
\nwranglings and worthless conjectures. The world knows something of our origins
\nbecause much labour has been bestowed on the Vedas, something of our decline
\nbecause post-Buddhistic literature has been much read, annotated and discussed,
\nbut of our great medial and flourishing period it knows little, and that little
\nis neither coherent nor reliable.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll that we know of the Mahabharata at
\npresent is that it is the work of several hands and of different periods \u2014 this
\nis literally the limit of the reliable knowledge European scholarship has so far
\nbeen able to extract from it. For the rest we have to be content with arbitrary
\nconjectures based upon an unwarrantable application of European analogies to
\nIndian things or random assumptions snatched from a word here or a line there,
\nbut never proceeding from that weighty, careful and unbiassed study of the work,
\ncanto by canto, passage by passage, line by line, which can alone bring us to
\nany valuable conclusions. A fancy was started in Germany that the Iliad of Homer
\nis really a pastiche or clever rifacimento of old ballads put together in the
\ntime of Pisistratus. This truly barbarous imagination with its rude<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 142<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nignorance of the psychological bases of
\nall great poetry has now fallen into some discredit; it has been replaced by a
\nmore plausible attempt to discover a nucleus in the poem, an Achilleid, out of
\nwhich the larger Iliad has grown. Very possibly the whole discussion will
\nfinally end in the restoration of a single Homer with a single poem, subjected
\nindeed to some inevitable interpolation and corruption, but mainly the work of
\none mind, a theory still held by more than one considerable scholar. In the
\nmeanwhile, however, haste has been made to apply the analogy to the
\nMahabharata; lynx-eyed theorists have discovered in the poem \u2014 apparently
\nwithout taking the trouble to study it \u2014 an early and rude ballad epic worked
\nup, doctored and defaced by those wicked Brahmins, who are made responsible for
\nall the literary and other enormities which have been discovered by the bushelful, and not by Europeans alone \u2014 in our literature and civilisation. A
\nsimilar method of "arguing from Homer" is probably at the bottom of Professor
\nWeber’s assertion that the War Parvas contain the original epic. An observant
\neye at once perceives that the War Parvas are more hopelessly tangled than any
\nthat precede them except the first. It is here and here only that the keenest
\neye becomes confused and the most confident explorer begins to lose heart and
\nself-reliance. Now whether the theory is true or not, \u2014 and one sees nothing in
\nits favour, \u2014 it has at present no value at all; for it is a pure theory without
\nany justifying facts. It is not difficult to build these intellectual
\ncard-houses. Anyone may raise them by the dozen if he can find no better manner
\nof wasting valuable time. But the Iliad is all battles and it therefore follows
\nin the European mind that the original Mahabharata must have been all battles.
\nAnother method is that of ingenious, if forced, argument from stray Slokas of
\nthe poem to the equally stray and obscure remarks in Buddhist compilations. The
\ncurious theory of some scholars that the Pandavas were a later invention and
\nthat the original war was between the Kurus and Panchalas only and Professor
\nWeber’s singularly positive inference from a Sloka\u00b9 which does not at first
\nsight bear<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Adiparva,<\/i> I. 81.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 143<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe meaning he puts on it, that the
\noriginal epic contained only 8,800 verses, are ingenuities of this type. They are
\nbased on the Teutonic art of building a whole mammoth out of a single and often
\nproblematical bone and remind one strongly of Mr. Pickwick and the historic
\ninscription which was so rudely, if in a Pickwickian sense, challenged by the
\nrefractory Mr. Blotton. All these theorisings are idle enough; they are made of
\ntoo airy a stuff to last.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet to extricate the original epic from
\nthe mass of accretions is not, I believe, so difficult a task as it may at first
\nappear.  One is struck in perusing the Mahabharata by the presence of a mass of
\npoetry which bears the style and impress of a single, strong and original, even
\nunusual mind, differing in his manner of expression, tone of thought and stamp
\nof personality not only from every other Sanskrit poet we know, but from every
\nother great poet known to literature. When we look more closely into the
\ndistribution of this peculiar style of writing, we come to perceive certain very
\nsuggestive and helpful facts. We realise that this impress is only found in
\nthose parts of the poem which are necessary to the due conduct of the story;
\nseldom to be detected in the more miraculous, Puranistic or trivial episodes,
\nbut usually broken up by passages and sometimes shot through with lines of a
\ndiscernibly different inspiration. Equally noteworthy is it that nowhere does
\nthis part admit any trait, incident or speech which deviates from the strict
\npropriety of dramatic characterisation and psychological probability. Finally,
\nin this body, Krishna’s divinity is recognised but more often hinted at than
\naggressively stated. The tendency is to keep it in the background as a fact to
\nwhich, while himself crediting it, the writer does not hope for a universal
\nconsent, still less is able to speak of it as a general tenet and matter of
\ndogmatic belief; he prefers to show Krishna rather in his human character,
\nacting always by wise, discerning and inspired methods, but still not
\ntransgressing the limit of human possibility. All this leads one to the
\nconclusion that in the body of poetry I have described, we have the real
\nBharata, an epic which tells plainly and straight-forwardly of the events which
\nled to the great war and the empire of the Bharata princes. Certainly, if
\nProfessor Weber’s venture-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 144<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsome assertion as to the length of the
\noriginal Mahabharata be correct, this conclusion falls to the ground; for the
\nmass of this
\npoetry amounts to considerably over 20,000 Slokas. Professor Weber’s inference,
\nhowever, is worth some discussion; for the length of the original epic is a very
\nimportant element in the problem. If we accept it we must say farewell to all
\nhopes of unravelling the tangle. His assertion is founded on a single and
\nobscure verse in the huge prolegomena to the poem which takes up the greater
\npart of the Adiparva, no very strong basis for so far-reaching an assumption.
\nThe Sloka itself says no more than this that much of the Mahabharata was written
\nin so difficult a style that Vyasa himself could remember only 8,800 of the
\nSlokas, Suka an equal amount and Sanjaya perhaps as much, perhaps something
\nless. There is certainly here no assertion such as Prof. Weber would have us
\nfind in it that the Mahabharata at any time amounted to no more than 8,800
\nSlokas. Even if we assume what the text does not say that Vyasa, Suka and
\nSanjaya knew the same 8,800 Slokas, we do not get to that conclusion. The point
\nsimply is that the style of the Mahabharata was too difficult for a single man
\nto keep in memory more than a certain portion of it. This does not carry us very
\nfar. Following the genius of the Sanskrit language we are led to suppose the
\nrepetition was intended to relate astau ślokasahasrāni<\/i> etc. with each
\nname, otherwise the repetition has no raison d’\u00eatre<\/i> and it is otiose and
\ninept. But if we understand it thus, the conclusion is irresistible that each
\nknew a different 8,800. The writer would have no object in wishing us to repeat
\nthe number three times in our mind. If, however, we are to assume that this
\nverse means more than meets the eye, that it is a cryptic way of stating the
\nlength of the original poem \u2014 and I do not deny that this is possible, perhaps
\neven probable \u2014 we should note the repetition of vetti \u2014 aham vedmi śuko
\nvetti sa\u00f1jayo vetti vā na vā.<\/i> The length of the epic as derived from this
\nsingle Sloka should then be 26,000 Slokas or
\nless, for the writer hesitates about the exact number to be attributed to
\nSanjaya. Another passage farther on in the prolegomena agrees remarkably with
\nthis conclusion and is in itself much more explicit. It is there stated plainly
\nenough that Vyasa first wrote the Mahabharata in 24,000 Slokas and afterwards
\nenlarged<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 145<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nit to 100,000 for the world of man as well
\nas a still more unconscionable number of verses for the Gandharva and other
\nworlds.\u00b9 In spite of the embroidery of fancy, of a type familiar enough to all
\nwho are acquainted with the Puranic method of recording facts, the meaning of
\nthis is unmistakable. The original Mahabharata consisted of 24,000 Slokas; but
\nin its final form it runs to 100,000. The figures are probably loose and
\nslovenly, for at any rate the first form of the Mahabharata is considerably
\nunder 100,000 Slokas. It is possible therefore that the original epic was
\nsomething over 24,000 and under 26,400 Slokas, in which case the two passages
\nwould agree well enough. But it would be unsafe to found any dogmatic assertion
\non isolated couplets; at the most we can say that we are justified in taking the
\nestimate as a probable and workable hypothesis and if it is found to be
\ncorroborated by other facts, we may venture to suggest its correctness as a
\nmoral certainty.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis body of poetry then, let us suppose,
\nis the original Mahabharata. Tradition attributes it to Krishna of the Island
\ncalled Vyasa who certainly lived about this time and was an editor of the Vedas;
\nand since there is nothing in this part of the poem which makes the tradition
\nimpossible and much which favours it, we may as a matter both of convenience and
\nof possibility accept it at least provisionally. Whether these hypotheses can be
\nupheld is a question for long and scrupulous consideration and analysis. In this
\narticle I wish to formulate, assuming their validity, the larger features of
\npoetical style, the manner of thought and creation and the personal note of
\nVyasa.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nVyasa is the most masculine of writers.
\nWhen Coleridge spoke of the femineity of genius he had in mind certain features
\nof temperament which, whether justly or not, are usually thought to count for
\nmore in the feminine mould than in the masculine, the love of ornament,
\nemotionalism, mobile impressionability, the tyranny of imagination over the
\nreason, excessive sensitiveness to form and outward beauty, tendency to be
\ndominated imaginatively by violence and the show of strength; to be prodigal of
\noneself, not to husband the powers, to be for showing them off, to fail in
\nself-restraint is also feminine. All these are natural<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Adiparva,<\/i> I. 102-107.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 146<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nproperties of the quick artistic
\ntemperament prone to lose balance by throwing all itself outward and therefore
\nseldom perfectly sane and strong in all its parts. So much did these elements
\nform the basis of Coleridge’s own temperament that he could not perhaps imagine
\na genius in which they are wanting. Yet Wordsworth, Goethe, Dante and Sophocles
\nshow however that the very highest genius can exist without them. But none of
\nthe great poets I have named is so singularly masculine, so deficient in
\nfemineity as Vyasa, none dominates so much by intellect and personality, yet
\nsatisfies so little the romantic imagination. Indeed no poet at all near the
\nfirst rank has the same granite mind in which impressions are received with
\ndifficulty but once received are ineffaceable, the same bare energy and strength
\nwithout violence and the same absolute empire of inspired intellect over the
\nmore showy faculties. In his austere self-restraint and economy of power he is
\nindifferent to ornament for its own sake, to the pleasures of poetry as
\ndistinguished from its ardours, to little graces and indulgences of style. The
\nsubstance counts for everything and the form has to limit itself to its proper
\nwork of expressing with precision and power the substance. Even his most
\nromantic pieces have a virgin coldness and loftiness in their beauty. To
\nintellects fed on the elaborate pomp and imagery of Kalidasa’s numbers and the
\nsomewhat gaudy, expensive and meretricious spirit of English poetry, Vyasa may
\nseem bald and unattractive. To be fed on the verse of Spenser, Shelley, Keats,
\nByron and Tennyson is no good preparation for the severe classics. It is,
\nindeed, I believe, the general impression of many "educated" young Indians that
\nthe Mahabharata is a mass of old wives’ stories without a spark of poetry or
\nimagination. But to those who have bathed even a little in the fountain-head of
\npoetry, and can bear the keenness and purity of these mountain sources, the
\nnaked and unadorned poetry of Vyasa is as delightful as to bathe in a chill
\nfountain in the heats of summer. They
\nfind that one has an unfailing source of tonic and refreshment to the soul; one
\ncomes into relation with a mind whose bare strong contact has the power of
\ninfusing strength, courage and endurance. There are certain things which have
\nthis inborn power and are accordingly valued by those who have felt deeply its
\nproperties<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 147<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\u2014<\/i> the air of the mountains or the
\nstruggle of a capable mind with hardship and difficulty; the Vedanta philosophy,
\nthe ideal of the niskāma dharma<\/i>, the poetry of Vyasa, three closely
\nrelated entities are intellectual forces that exercise a similar effect and
\nattraction.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe style of this powerful writer is
\nperhaps the one example in literature of strength in its purity, a strength
\nundefaced by violence and excess, yet not weakened by flagging and negligence.
\nIt is less propped or helped out by any artifices and aids than any other poetic
\nstyle. Vyasa takes little trouble with similes, metaphors, rhetorical turns, the
\nusual paraphernalia of poetry, nor when he uses them, is he at pains to select
\nsuch as will be new and curiously beautiful; they are there to define more
\nclearly what he has in mind, and he makes just enough of them for that purpose,
\nnever striving to convert them into a separate grace or a decorative element.
\nThey have force and beauty in their context but cannot be turned into elegant
\nexcerpts; in themselves they are in fact little or nothing. When Bhima is spoken
\nof as breathing hard like a weakling borne down by a load too heavy for him,
\nthere is nothing in the simile itself. It derives its force from its aptness to
\nthe heavy burden of unaccomplished revenge which the fierce spirit of the strong
\nman was condemned to bear. We may say the same of his epithets, that great
\npreoccupation of romantic artists; they are such as are most natural, crisp and
\nfirm, but suited to the plain idea and only unusual when the business in hand
\nrequires an unusual thought, but never recherch\u00e9<\/i> or existing for their
\nown beauty. Thus when he is describing the greatness of Krishna and hinting his
\nclaims to be considered as identical with the Godhead, he gives him the one
\nepithet aprameya,<\/i> immeasurable, which is strong and unusual enough to
\nrise to the thought, but not to be a piece of literary decoration or a violence
\nof expression. In brief, he religiously avoids overstress, his audacities of
\nphrase are few, and they have a grace of restraint in their boldness. There is
\nindeed a rushing vast Valmikian style which intervenes often in the Mahabharata,
\nbut it is evidently the work of a different hand, for it belongs to a less
\npowerful intellect, duller poetic insight and coarser taste, which has yet
\ncaught something of the surge and cry of Valmiki’s oceanic poetry. Vyasa in fact
\nstands at the opposite pole from<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 148<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nValmiki. The poet of the Ramayana has a
\nflexible and universal genius embracing the Titanic and the divine, the human
\nand the gigantic at once or with an inspired ease of transition. But Vyasa is
\nunmixed Olympian, he lives in a world of pure verse and diction, enjoying his
\nown heaven of golden clearness. We have seen what are the main negative
\nqualities of the style; pureness, strength, grandeur of intellect and
\npersonality are its positive virtues. It is the expression of a pregnant and
\nforceful mind, in which the idea is sufficient to itself, conscious of its own
\nintrinsic greatness; when this mind runs in the groove of narrative or emotion,
\nthe style wears an air of high and pellucid ease in the midst of which its
\nstrenuous compactness and brevity moves and lives as a saving and strengthening
\nspirit; but when it begins to think rapidly and profoundly, as often happens in
\nthe great speeches, it is apt to leave the hearer behind; sufficient to itself,
\nthinking quickly, briefly and greatly, it does not care to pause on its own
\nideas or explain them at length, but speaks as it thinks, in a condensed often
\nelliptical style, preferring to indicate rather than expatiate, often passing
\nover the steps by which it should arrive at the idea and hastening to the idea
\nitself; often it is subtle and multiplies many shades and ramifications of
\nthought in a short compass. From this arises that frequent knottiness and
\nexcessive compression of logical sequence, that appearance of elliptical and
\nsometimes obscure expression, which so struck the ancient critics in Vyasa and
\nwhich they expressed in the legend that when dictating the Mahabharata to
\nGanesha \u2014 for it was Ganesha’s stipulation that not for one moment should he be
\nleft without matter to write \u2014 the poet in order not to be outstripped by his
\ndivine scribe threw in frequently knotty and close-knit passages which forced
\nthe lightning swift hand to pause and labour slowly over the work.<\/font>\u00b9<\/font>
\nTo a strenuous mind these passages are, from the exercise they give to the
\nintellect, an added charm, just as a mountain climber takes an especial delight
\nin steep ascents which let him feel his ability. Of one thing, however, we may
\nbe confident in reading Vyasa that the expression will always be just to the
\nthought; he never palters with or labours to dress up the reality within him.
\nFor the rest we must<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Adiparva, I. 78-83.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 149<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nevidently trace this peculiarity to the
\ncompact, steep and sometimes elliptical, but always strenuous diction of the
\nUpanishads in which the mind of the poet was trained and his personality
\ntempered. At the same time, like the Upanishads themselves or like the enigmatic
\nAeschylus, he can be perfectly clear, precise and full whenever he chooses; and
\nhe more often chooses than not. His expression of thought is usually strong and
\nabrupt, his expression of fact and of emotion strong and precise. His verse has
\nsimilar peculiarities. It is a golden and equable stream that sometimes whirls
\nitself into eddies or dashes upon rocks, but it always runs in harmony with the
\nthought. Vyasa has not Valmiki’s movement as of the sea, the wide and unbroken
\nsurge with its infinite variety of waves, which enables him not only to find in
\nthe facile anustup<\/i> metre a sufficient vehicle for his vast and
\nambitious work but to maintain it throughout without its palling or losing its
\ncapacity of adjustment to ever-varying moods and turns of narrative. But in his
\nnarrower limits and on the level of his lower flight Vyasa has great subtlety
\nand fineness. Especially admirable is his use, in speeches, of broken effects
\nsuch as would in less skilful hands have become veritable discords; and again
\nin narrative of the simplest and barest metrical movements, as in the opening Sarga of the Sabhaparva, to create certain calculated effects. But it would be
\nidle to pretend for him any equality as a master of verse with Valmiki. When he
\nhas to rise from his levels to express powerful emotion, grandiose eloquence or
\nswift and sweeping narrative, he cannot always effect it in the anustup<\/i>
\nmetre; he falls back more often than not on the rolling magnificence of the
\ntristup<\/i> (and its variations) which best sets and ennobles his
\nstrong-winged austerity.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBe its limits what one will, this is
\ncertain that there was never a style and verse of such bare, direct and
\nresistless strength as this of Vyasa’s or one that went so straight to the heart
\nof all that is heroic in a man. Listen to the cry of insulted Draupadi to her
\nhusband:<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

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

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Virataparva, 17.
\n15.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 150<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n"Arise, arise, O Bhimasena, wherefore
\nliest thou like one that is dead ? For nought but dead is he whose wife a sinful
\nhand has touched and lives."<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nOr the reproach of Krishna to Arjuna for
\nhis weak pity which opens the second Sarga [Adhyaya] of the Bhagavadgita. Or
\nagain hear Krishna’s description of Bhima’s rage and solitary brooding over
\nrevenge and his taunting accusations of cowardice:<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n"At other times, O Bhimasena, thou
\npraisest war, thou art all for crushing Dhritarashtra’s heartless sons who take
\ndelight in death; thou sleepest not at night, O conquering soldier, but wakest
\nlying face downwards, and ever thou utterest dread speech of storm and wrath,
\nbreathing fire in the torment of thy own rage and thy mind is without rest like
\na smoking fire, yea, thou liest all apart breathing heavily like a weakling
\nborne down (distressed) by his load, so that some who know not, even think thee
\nmad. For as an elephant tramples on uprooted trees and breaks them to fragments,
\nso thou stormest along with labouring breath hurting earth with thy feet. Thou
\ntakest no delight in all these people but cursest them in thy heart, O Bhima,
\nson of Pandu, nor in aught else hast thou any pleasure night or day;<\/font>
\n<\/font>but thou sittest in secret like one
\nweeping and sometimes of a sudden laughest aloud, yea, thou sittest for long
\nwith thy head between thy knees and thy eyes closed; and then again thou starest
\nbefore thee frowning and clenching thy teeth, thy every action is one of wrath.
\n‘Surely as the father Sun is seen in the East when luminously he ascendeth and
\nsurely as wide with rays he wheeleth down to his release in the West, so sure is
\nthis oath I utter and never shall be broken. With this club I will meet and slay
\nthis haughty Duryodhana,’ thus touching thy club thou swearest among thy
\nbrothers. And today thou thinkest of peace, O Warrior! Ah yes, I know the hearts
\nof those that clamour for war alter very strangely when war showeth its face,
\nsince fear findeth out even thee, O Bhima! Ah yes, son of Pritha, thou seest
\nomens adverse both when thou sleepest and when thou wakest, therefore thou
\ndesirest peace. Ah yes, thou feelest no more the man in thyself, but an eunuch
\nand thy heart sinketh with alarm,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 151<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntherefore art thou thus overcome. Thy
\nheart quakes, thy mind fainteth, thou art seized with a trembling in thy thighs,
\ntherefore
\nthou desirest peace. Verily, O son of Pritha, wavering and inconstant is the
\nheart of a mortal man, like the pods of the silk-cotton driven by the swiftness
\nof every wind. This shameful thought of thine, monstrous as a human voice in a
\ndumb beast, makes the heart of Pandu’s son to sink like (ship-wrecked) men that
\nhave no raft. Look on thine own deeds, O seed of Bharata, remember thy lofty
\nbirth! Arise, put off thy weakness; be firm, O heart of a hero; unworthy of thee
\nis this languor; what he cannot win by the mightiness of him, that a Kshatriya
\nwill not touch."\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nThis passage I have quoted at some length
\nbecause it is eminently characteristic of Vyasa’s poetical method. Another poet
\nwould have felt himself justified by the nature of the speech in using some wild
\nand whirling words seeking vividness by exaggeration, at the very least in
\nraising his voice a little. Contrast with this the perfect temperance of this
\npassage, the confident and unemotional reliance on the weight of what is said,
\nnot on the manner of saying it. The vividness of the portraiture arises from the
\nquiet accuracy of vision and the care in the choice of simple but effective
\nwords, not from any seeking after the salient and graphic such as gives Kalidasa
\nhis wonderful power of description; and the bitterness of the taunts arises from
\nthe quiet and searching irony with which the shaft is tipped and not from any
\nforce used in driving them home. Yet every line goes straight as an arrow to its
\nmark, every word is the utterance of a strong man speaking to a strong man and
\ngives iron to the mind. Strength is one constant term of the Vyasic style;
\ntemperance, justness of taste is the other.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nStrength and a fine austerity are then the
\ntwo tests which give us safe guidance through the morass of the Mahabharata;<\/font> 
\n<\/font>where these two exist together, we
\nmay reasonably presume some touch of Vyasa; where they do not exist or do not
\nconjoin, we feel at once the redactor or the interpolator. I have spoken of
\nanother poet whose more turbid and vehement style breaks con-<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Udyogaparva, 75.4 – 23.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 152<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntinually into the pure gold of Vyasa’s work. The
\nwhole temperament of this redacting poet, for he is something more than an
\ninterpolator, has its roots in Valmiki; but like most poets of a secondary and
\nfallible genius he exaggerates, while adopting the more audacious and therefore
\nthe more perilous tendencies of his master. The love of the wonderful touched
\nwith the grotesque, the taste for the amorphous, a marked element in Valmiki’s
\ncomplex temperament, is with his follower something like a malady. He grows
\nimpatient with the apparent tameness of Vyasa’s inexorable self-restraint, and
\nrestlessly throws in here couplets, there whole paragraphs of a more flamboyant
\nvigour. Occasionally this is done with real ability and success, but as a rule
\nthey are true purple patches, daubs of paint on the stainless dignity of marble.
\nFor his rage for the wonderful is not always accompanied by the prodigious sweep
\nof imagination which in Valmiki successfully grasps and compels the most
\nreluctant materials. The result is that puerilities and gross breaches of taste
\nfall easily and hardily from his pen. Not one of these could we possibly imagine
\nas consistent with the severe, self-possessed intellect of Vyasa. Fineness,
\njustness, discrimination and propriety of taste are the very soul of the man.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nNowhere is his restrained and quiet art
\nmore visible than when he handles the miraculous. But since the Mahabharata is
\nhoneycombed with the work of inept wondermongers, we are driven for an
\nundisturbed appreciation of it <\/b>to works which are not parts of the
\noriginal Mahabharata and are yet by the same hand, the Nala and the Savitri.
\nThese poems have all the peculiar qualities which we have decided to be very
\nVyasa: the style, the diction, the personality are identical and refer us back
\nto him as clearly as the sunlight refers us back to the sun, and yet they have
\nsomething which the Mahabharata has not. Here we have the very morning of
\nVyasa’s genius, when he was young and ardent, perhaps still under the immediate
\ninfluence of Valmiki (one of the most pathetic touches in the Nala is borrowed
\nstraight out of the Ramayana), at any rate able, without ceasing to be finely
\nrestrained, to give some rein to his fancy. The Nala therefore has the delicate
\nand unusual romantic grace of a young and severe classic who has permitted
\nhimself to go a-maying in the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
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\n

\nfields of romance. There is a remote charm
\nof restraint in the midst of abandon, of vigilance in the play of fancy which is
\npassing sweet and strange. The Savitri is a maturer and nobler work, perfect and
\nrestrained in detail, but it has still some glow of the same youth and grace
\nover it. This then is the rare charm of these two poems that we find there the
\nsoul of the pale and marble Rishi, the philosopher, the great statesman, the
\nstrong and stem poet of war and empire, when it was yet in its radiant morning,
\nfar from the turmoil of courts and cities and the roar of the battlefield and
\nhad not yet scaled the mountain-tops of thought. Young, a Brahmacharin and a
\nstudent, Vyasa dwelt with the green silences of earth, felt the fascination and
\nloneliness of the forests of which his earlier poetry is full, and walked by
\nmany a clear and lucid river white with the thronging water-fowl, perhaps
\nPayoshni, that ocean-seeking stream, or heard the thunder of multitudinous
\ncrickets in some lone tremendous forest, or with Valmiki’s mighty stanzas in his
\nmind saw giant-haunted glooms, dells where faeries gathered, brakes where some
\nPython from the underworld came out to bask or listened to the voices of
\nKinnaris on the mountain-tops. In such surroundings wonders might seem natural
\nand deities as in Arcadia might peep from under every tree. Nala’s messengers to
\nDamayanti are a troop of golden-winged swans that speak with a human voice;<\/font> 
\n<\/font>he is intercepted on his way by
\ngods who make him their envoy to a mortal maiden; he receives from them gifts
\nmore than human, fire and water come to him at his bidding and flowers bloom in
\nhis hands; in his downfall the dice become birds who fly away with his remaining
\ngarment; when he wishes to cut in half the robe of Damayanti, a sword comes
\nready to his hand in the desolate cabin; he meets the Serpent-King in the ring
\nof fire and is turned by him into the deformed charioteer, Bahuka; the tiger in
\nthe forest turns away from Damayanti without injuring her and the lustful hunter
\nfalls consumed by the power or offended chastity. The destruction of the caravan
\nby wild elephants, the mighty driving of Nala, the counting of the leaves or the
\ncleaving of the Vibhitaka tree; every incident almost is full of that sense of
\nbeauty and wonder which were awakened in Vyasa by his early surroundings. We ask
\nwhether this beautiful fairy-tale is the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\nwork of that stern and high poet with whom
\nthe actualities of life were everything and the flights of fancy counted for so
\nlittle. Yet if we look carefully, we shall see in the Nala abundant proof of the
\nsevere touch of Vyasa, just as in his share of the Mahabharata fleeting touches
\nof wonder and strangeness, gone as soon as glimpsed, evidence a love of the
\nsupernatural, severely bitted and reined in. Especially do we see the poet of
\nthe Mahabharata in the artistic vigilance which limits each supernatural
\nincident to a few light strokes, to the exact place and no other where it is
\nwanted and the exact amount and no more than is necesssary. (It is this sparing
\neconomy of touch almost unequalled in its beauty of just rejection, which makes
\nthe poem an epic instead of a fairy-tale in verse.) There is, for instance, the
\nincident of the swans; we all know to what prolixities of pathos and bathos
\nvernacular poets like the Gujarati Premanand have enlarged this feature of the
\nstory. But Vyasa introduced it to give a certain touch of beauty and strangeness
\nand that touch once imparted, the swans disappear from the scene; for his fine
\ntaste felt that to prolong the incident by one touch more would have been to
\nlower the form and run the risk of raising a smile. Similarly in the Savitri
\nwhat a tremendous figure a romantic poet would have made of Death, what a
\npassionate struggle between the human being and the master of tears and
\npartings! But Vyasa would have none of this; he had one object, to paint the
\npower of a woman’s silent love and he rejected everything which went beyond this
\nor which would have been merely decorative. We cannot regret his choice. There
\nhave been plenty of poets who could have given us imaginative and passionate
\npictures of Love struggling with Death, but there has been only one who could
\ngive us a Savitri.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn another respect also the Nala helps us
\nmaterially to appreciate Vyasa’s genius. His dealings with Nature are a strong
\ntest of a poet’s quality; but in the Mahabharata proper, of all epics the most
\npitilessly denuded of unnecessary ornament, natural description is rare. We must
\ntherefore again turn for aid to the poems which preceded his hard and lofty
\nmaturity. Vyasa’s natural description as we find it there corresponds to the
\nnervous, masculine and hard-strung make of his intellect. His treatment<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 155<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nis always puissant and direct without any
\nsingle pervasive atmosphere except in sunlit landscapes, but always effectual,
\nrealizing the scene strongly or boldly by a few simple but sufficient words.
\nThere are some poets who are the children of Nature, whose imagination is made
\nof her dews, whose blood thrills to her with the perfect impulse of spiritual
\nkinship; Wordsworth is of these and Valmiki. Their voices in speaking of her
\nunconsciously become rich and liquid and their words are touched with a subtle
\nsignificance of thought or emotion. There are others who hold her with a strong
\nsensuous grasp by virtue of a ripe, sometimes an over-ripe delight in beauty;
\nsuch are Shakespeare, Keats, Kalidasa. Others again approach her with a fine or
\nclear intellectual sense of charm as do some of the old classical poets. Hardly
\nin the rank of poets are those who like Dryden or Pope use her, if at all, only
\nto provide them with a smoother well-turned literary expression. Vyasa belongs
\nto none of these, and yet often touches the first three at particular points
\nwithout definitely coinciding with any. He takes the kingdom of Nature by
\nviolence. Approaching her from outside his masculine genius forces its way to
\nher secret, insists and will take no denial. Accordingly he is impressed at
\nfirst contact by the harmony in the midst of variety of her external features,
\nabsorbs these into strong retentive imagination, meditates on them and so reads
\nhis way to the closer impression, the inner sense behind that which is external,
\nthe personal temperament of a landscape. In his record of what he has seen, this
\nimpression more often than not comes first as that which abides and prevails;
\nsometimes it is all he cares to record; but his tendency towards perfect
\nfaithfulness to the vision within leads him, when the scene is still fresh to
\nhis eye, to record the data through which the impression was reached. We have
\nall experienced the way in which our observation of a scene, conscious or
\nunconscious, forms itself out of various separate and often uncoordinated
\nimpressions which, if we write a description at the time or soon after and are
\nfaithful to ourselves, find their way into the picture, even at the expense of
\nsymmetry; but if we allow a long time to elapse before we recall the scene,
\nthere returns to us only a single self-consistent impression which without
\naccurately rendering it, retains its essence and its atmosphere.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 156<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSomething of this sort occurs in our poet;
\nfor Vyasa is always faithful to himself. When he records the data of his
\nimpression,
\nhe does it with force and clearness, frequently with a luminous atmosphere
\naround the object, especially with a delight in the naked beauty of the single
\nclear word which at once communicates itself to the hearer. First come the
\nstrong and magical epithets or the brief and puissant touches by which the soul
\nof the landscape is made visible and palpable, then the enumeration sometimes
\nonly stately, at others bathed in a clear loveliness. The fine opening of the
\ntwelfth Sarga of the Nala is a signal example of this method. At the threshold
\nwe have the great and sombre line,<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nA void tremendous forest thundering<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWith crickets,<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nstriking the keynote of gloom and
\nloneliness, then the cold stately enumeration of the forest’s animal and
\nvegetable peoples, then again the strong and revealing epithet in his "echoing
\nwoodlands sound-pervaded"; then follows "river and lake and pool and many
\nbeasts and many birds" and once more the touch of wonder and weirdness:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nShe many alarming shapes
\nOf fiend and snake and giant… beheld,<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nmaking magical the bare following lines
\nand especially the nearest,<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd pools and tarns and summits
\neverywhere,<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Vanaparva, 64.1.    <\/font>\u00b2<\/font>ibid<\/i>.,
\nVanaparva, 64.7,9.     <\/font>\u00b3<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, 64.8.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 157<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwith its poetical delight in the bare
\nbeauty of words. It is instructive to compare with this passage the wonderful
\nsilhouette of night in Valmiki’s Book of the Child:<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n"Motionless are all trees and shrouded the
\nbeasts and birds and the quarters filled, O joy of Raghu, with the glooms of
\nnight; slowly the sky parts with evening and grows full of eyes; dense with
\nstars and constellations it glitters with points of light; and now yonder with
\ncold beams rises up the moon and thrusts away the shadows from the world
\ngladdening the hearts of living things on earth with its luminousness. All
\ncreatures of the night are walking to and fro and spirit-bands and troops of
\ngiants and the carrion-feeding jackals begin to roam."<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nHere every detail is carefully selected to
\nproduce a certain effect, the charm and weirdness of falling night in the
\nforest; not a word is wasted; every epithet, every verb, every image is sought
\nout and chosen so as to aid this effect, while the vowelisation is subtly
\nmanaged and assonance and the composition of sounds skilfully yet unobtrusively
\nwoven so as to create a delicate, wary and listening movement, as of one walking
\nin the forests by moonlight and afraid that the leaves may speak under his
\nfooting or his breath grow loud enough to be heard by himself or by beings whose
\npresence he does not see but fears. Of such delicately imaginative art as this
\nVyasa was not capable, he could not sufficiently turn his strength into
\nsweetness. Neither had he that rare, salient and effective architecture of style
\nwhich makes Kalidasa’s<\/font><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nRamayana<\/i>, Bala Kanda, 34. 15-18.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 158<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\n"Night on the verge of dawn with her faint gleaming moon<\/font>
\n<\/font>and a few just decipherable stars."<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nVyasa’s art, as I have said, is singularly disinterested,
\nniskāma<\/i>; he does not write with a view to sublimity or with a view
\nto beauty, but because he has certain ideas to impart, certain
\nevents to describe, certain characters to portray. He has an
\nimage of these in his mind and his business is to find an expression
\nfor it which will be scrupulously just to his conception. This is
\nby no means so facile a task as the uninitiated might imagine; it
\nis indeed considerably more difficult than to bathe the style in
\ncolour and grace and literary elegance, for it demands vigilant
\nself-restraint, firm intellectual truthfulness and unsparing rejection, the three virtues most difficult to the gadding, inventive and
\nself-indulgent spirit of man. The art of Vyasa is therefore a great,
\nstrenuous art; but it unfitted him, as a similar spirit unfitted
\nthe Greeks, to voice fully the outward beauty of Nature. For to
\ndelight infinitely in Nature one must be strongly possessed with
\nthe sense of colour and romantic beauty, and allow the fancy
\nequal rights with the intellect.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor all his occasional strokes of fine Nature-description he
\nwas not therefore quite at home with her. Conscious of his
\nweakness Vyasa as he emancipated himself from Valmiki’s influence ceased to attempt a kind for which his genius was not the
\nbest fitted. He is far more in his element in the expression of the
\nfeelings, of the joy and sorrow that makes this life of men; his
\ndescription of emotion far excels his description of things.
\nWhen he says of Damayanti:<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n  \n<\/p>\n

\nIn grief she wailed,
\nErect upon a cliff, her body aching
\nWith sorrow for her husband,<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Raghuvamsha<\/i>, 3.2.     <\/font>
\n\u00b2<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Vanaparva, 64.12.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 159<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe clear figure of the abandoned woman lamenting on the cliff
\nseizes indeed the imagination, but it has a lesser inspiration than
\nthe single puissant and convincing epithet bhartrśokaparītāngī<\/i>,
\n<\/i>her whole body affected with grief for her husband. Damayanti’s
\nlonger laments are also of the finest sweetness and strength; there
\nis a rushing flow of stately and sorrowful verse, the wailing of
\na regal grief; then as some more exquisite pain, some more
\npiercing gust of passion traverses the heart of the mourner, golden felicities
\nof sorrow leap out on the imagination like lightning in their swift clear greatness.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\nStill more strong, simple and perfect is the grief of Damayanti when she wakes to find herself alone in that desolate cabin.
\nThe restraint of phrase is perfect, the verse is clear, equable and
\nunadorned, yet hardly has Valmiki himself written a truer utterance of emotion than this:<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n"Ah my lord! Ah my king! Ah my husband! Why hast
\nthou forsaken me ? Alas, I am slain, I am undone, I am afraid
\nin the lonely forest. Surely, O king, thou wert good and truthful,<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Vanaparva, 64.19.      <\/font>
\n\u00b2<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Vanaparva, 63.3,4,8-12.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 160<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhow then having sworn to me so, hast thou abandoned me in my
\nsleep and fled ? Long enough hast thou carried this jest of thine, O lion of men, I am frightened,
\nO unconquerable; show thyself,
\nmy lord and prince. I see thee! I see thee! Thou art seen, O lord
\nof the Nishadas, covering thyself there with the bushes; why dost
\nthou not speak to me? Cruel king! that thou dost not come to
\nme thus terrified here and wailing and comfort me! It is not for
\nmyself I grieve nor for aught else; it is for thee I weep thinking
\nwhat will become of thee left all alone. How wilt thou fare under some tree at
\nevening, hungry and thirsty and weary, not beholding me, O my king?"<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe whole of this passage with its first pang of terror and the
\nexquisite anticlimax, "I am slain, I am undone, I am afraid in the
\ndesert wood", passing quietly into sorrowful reproach, the despairing and pathetic attempt to delude herself by thinking the
\nwhole a practical jest, and the final outburst of that deep maternal love which is a part of every true woman’s passion, is great in
\nits truth and simplicity. Steep and unadorned is Vyasa’s style,
\nbut at times it has far more power to move and to reach the
\nheart than mere elaborate and ambitious poetry.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs Vyasa progressed in years, his personality developed
\ntowards intellectualism and his manner of expressing emotion
\nbecame sensibly modified. In the Savitri he first reveals his power
\nof imparting to the reader a sense of poignant but silent feeling,
\nfeeling in the air, unexpressed or rather expressed in action.
\nSometimes even in very silence; this power is a notable element
\nin some of the great scenes of the Mahabharata: the silence of
\nthe Pandavas during the mishandling of Draupadi, the mighty
\nsilence of Krishna while the assembly of kings rages and roars
\naround him and Shishupala again and again hurls forth on him
\nhis fury and contempt and the hearts of all men are troubled,
\nthe stern self-restraint of his brothers when Yudhishthira is
\nsmitten by Virata, are instances of the power I mean. In the
\nMahabharata proper we find few expressions of pure feeling,
\nnone at least which have the triumphant power of Damayanti’s
\nlaments in the Nala. Vyasa had by this time taken his bent; his<\/font>
\n<\/font>heart and imagination had become filled with the pomp of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 161<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthought and genius and the greatness of all things mighty and
\nbold and regal; when therefore his characters feel powerful emotion, they are impelled to express it in the dialect of thought. We
\nsee the heart in their utterances but it is not the heart in its nakedness, it is not the heart of the common man; or rather it is the
\nuniversal heart of man but robed in the intellectual purple. The
\nnote of Sanskrit poetry is always aristocratic; it has no answer to
\nthe democratic feeling or to the modern sentimental cult of the
\naverage man, but deals with exalted, large and aspiring natures
\nwhose pride it is that they do not act like common men (prākrto janah)<\/i>. They are the great spirits, the mahājanāh<\/i>, in whose footsteps the world follows. Whatever sentimental objections may be
\nurged against this high and arrogating spirit, it cannot be doubted
\nthat a literature pervaded with the soul of hero-worship and noblesse oblige<\/i> and full of great examples is eminently fitted to
\nelevate and strengthen a nation and prepare it for a great part in
\nhistory. And with this high tendency of the literature there is no
\npoet who is so deeply imbued as Vyasa. Even the least of his
\ncharacters is an intellect and a personality; and of intellectual
\npersonality their every utterance reeks, as it were, and is full.
\nI have already quoted the cry of Draupadi to Bhima; it is a supreme utterance of insulted feeling, and yet note how it expresses
\nitself, in the language of intellect, in a thought:<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n  <\/font>
\n  <\/p>\n

\nThe whole personality of Draupadi breaks out in that cry, her
\nchastity, her pride, her passionate and unforgiving temper, but
\nit flashes out not in an expression of pure feeling, but in a fiery
\nand pregnant apophthegm. It is this temperament, this dynamic
\nforce of intellectualism blended with heroic fire and a strong personality that gives its peculiar stamp to Vyasa’s writing and distinguishes it from that of all other epic poets. The heroic and
\nprofoundly intellectual rational type of the Bharata races, the
\nKurus, Bhojas and Panchalas who created the Veda and the
\nVedanta, find in Vyasa their fitting poetical type and exponent,<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Virataparva, 17.15.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 162<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\njust as the mild and delicately moral temper of the more eastern
\nKoshalas has realised itself in Valmiki and through the Ramayana so largely dominated Hindu character. Steeped in the
\nheroic ideals of the Bharata, attuned to their profound and
\ndaring thought and temperament, Vyasa has made himself the
\npoet of the high-minded Kshatriya caste, voices their resonant
\nspeech, breathes their aspiring and unconquerable spirit, mirrors
\ntheir rich and varied life with a loving detail and moves through
\nhis subject with a swift yet measured movement like the march
\nof an army towards battle.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA comparison with Valmiki is instructive of
\nthe varying genius of these great masters. Both excel in epical rhetoric, if
\nsuch a term as rhetoric can be applied to Vyasa’s direct and severe style, but
\nVyasa’s has the air of a more intellectual, reflective and experienced stage of poetical advance. The longer
\nspeeches in the Ramayana, those even which have most the appearance of set, argumentative oration, proceed straight from
\nthe heart, the thoughts, words, reasonings come welling up from
\nthe dominant emotion or conflicting feeling of the speaker; they
\npalpitate and are alive with the vital force from which they have
\nsprung. Though belonging <\/b> to a more thoughtful, gentle and
\ncultured civilisation than Homer’s, they have, like his, the large
\nutterance which is not of primitive times, but of the primal
\nemotions. Vyasa’s have a powerful but austere force of intellectuality. In expressing character they firmly expose it rather
\nthan spring half-unconsciously from it; their bold and finely
\nplanned consistency with the original conception reveals rather
\nthe conscientious painstaking of an inspired but reflective artist
\nthan the more primary and impetuous creative impulse. In their management of
\nemotion itself a similar difference becomes prominent. Valmiki, when giving utterance to a mood or passion
\nsimple or complex, surcharges every line, every phrase, turn of
\nwords or movement of verse with it; there are no lightning
\nflashes but a great depth of emotion swelling steadily, inexhaustibly and increasingly in a wonder of sustained feeling, like a
\ncontinually rising wave with low crests of foam. Vyasa has a
\nhigh level of style with a subdued emotion behind it occasionally
\nbreaking into poignant outbursts. It is by sudden beauties that<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 163<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhe rises above himself and not only exalts, stirs and delights us at
\nhis ordinary level, but memorably seizes the heart and imagination. This is the natural result of the peculiarly disinterested
\nart which never seeks out anything striking for its own sake, but
\nadmits it only when it arises uncalled from the occasion.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nVyasa is therefore less broadly human than Valmiki, he is at
\nthe same time a wider and more original thinker. His supreme
\nintellect rises everywhere out of the mass of insipid or turbulent
\nredaction and interpolation with bare and grandiose outlines. A
\nwide searching mind, historian, statesman, orator, a deep and
\nkeen looker into ethics and conduct, a subtle and high-aiming
\npolitician, theologian and philosopher, it is not for nothing that
\nHindu imagination makes the name of Vyasa loom so large in
\nthe history of Aryan thought and attributes to him work so important and manifold. The wideness of the man’s intellectual
\nempire is evident throughout the work; we feel the presence of
\nthe great Rishi, the original thinker who has enlarged the boundaries of ethical and religious outlook.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nModern India since the Musulman advent has accepted the
\npolitics of Chanakya in preference to Vyasa’s. Certainly there
\nwas little in politics concealed from that great and sinister spirit.
\nYet Vyasa perhaps knew its subtleties quite as well, but he had to
\nennoble and guide him a high ethical aim and an august imperial
\nidea. He did not, like European imperialism, unable to rise
\nabove the idea of power, accept the Jesuitic doctrine of any
\nmeans to a good end, still less justify the goodness of the end by
\nthat profession of an utterly false disinterestedness which ends
\nin the soothing belief that plunder, arson, outrage and massacre
\nare committed for the good of the slaughtered nation. Vyasa’s
\nimperialism frankly accepts war and empire as the result of man’s
\nnatural lust for power and dominion, but demands that empire
\nshould be won by noble and civilised methods, not in the spirit
\nof the savage, and insists, once it is won, not on its powers, but
\non its duties. Valmiki too has included politics in his wide
\nsweep; his picture of an ideal imperialism is sound and noble
\nand the spirit of the Koshalan Ikshwakus that monarchy must be broad-based on
\nthe people’s will and yet broader-based on justice, truth and good government, is admirably developed as an<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 164<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nundertone of the poem. But it is an undertone only, not as in the
\nMahabharata its uppermost and weightiest drift. Valmiki’s
\napproach to politics is imaginative, poetic, made from outside.
\nHe is attracted to it by the unlimited curiosity of an universal
\nmind and still more by the appreciation of a great creative artist ;<\/font>
\n<\/font>only therefore when it gives opportunities for a grandiose imagination or is mingled with the motives of conduct and acts on
\ncharacter. He is a poet who makes occasional use of public
\naffairs as part of his wide human subject. The reverse may, with
\nsome appearance of truth, be said of Vyasa that he is interested
\nin human action and character mainly as they move and work in
\nrelation to a large political background.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nFrom this difference in temper and mode of expression
\narises a difference in the mode also of portraying character. Vyasa’s knowledge of character is not so intimate, emotional
\nand sympathetic as Valmiki’s; it has more of a heroic inspiration,
\nless of a divine sympathy. He has reached it not like Valmiki
\nimmediately through the heart and imagination, but deliberately
\nthrough intellect and experience, a deep criticism and reading of
\nmen; the spirit of shaping imagination has come afterwards like
\na sculptor using the materials labour has provided for him. It
\nhas not been a light leading him into the secret places of the heart.
\nNevertheless the characterisation, however reached, is admirable
\nand firm. It is the fruit of a lifelong experience, the knowledge
\nof a statesman who has had much to do with the ruling of men
\nand has been himself a considerable part in some great revolution full of astonishing incidents and extraordinary
\ncharacters. With that high experience his brain and his soul are full. It has
\ncast his imagination into colossal proportions, provided him with
\nmajestic conceptions which can dispense with all but the simplest
\nlanguage for expression; for they are so great that the bare precise
\nstatement of what is said and done seems enough to make language epical. His character-drawing indeed is more epical, less
\npsychological than Valmiki’s. Truth of speech and action gives
\nus the truth of nature and it is done with strong purposeful
\nstrokes that have the power to move the heart and enlarge and
\nennoble the imagination which is what we mean by the epic in
\npoetry. In Valmiki there are marvellous and revealing touches<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 165<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhich show us the secret something in character usually beyond
\nthe expressive power either of speech and action; they are
\ntouches oftener found in the dramatic artist than the epic, and
\nseldom fall within Vyasa’s method. It is the difference between
\na strong and purposeful artistic synthesis and the beautiful,
\nsubtle and involute symmetry of an organic existence evolved
\nand inevitable rather than shaped and purposed.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHis deep preoccupation with the ethical issues of speech and
\naction is very notable. His very subject is one of practical ethics,
\nthe establishment of a Dharmarajya, an empire of the just, by
\nwhich is meant no millennium of the saints, but the practical ideal
\nof government with righteousness, purity and unselfish toil for
\nthe common good as its saving principles. It is true that Valmiki
\nis a more humanely moral spirit than Vyasa, in as much as ordinary morality is
\nmost effective when steeped in emotion, proceeding from the heart and acting through the heart. Vyasa’s
\nethics like everything else in him takes a double stand on intellectual scrutiny and acceptance and on personal strength of
\ncharacter; his characters having once adopted by intellectual
\nchoice and in harmony with their temperaments a given line of
\nconduct, throw the whole heroic force of their nature into its
\npursuit. He is therefore pre-eminently a poet of action. Krishna
\nis his authority in all matters, religious and ethical, and it is
\nnoticeable that Krishna lays far more stress on action and far
\nless on quiescence than any other Hindu philosopher. Quiescence
\nin God is with him as with others the ultimate goal of existence,
\nbut he insists that that quiescence must be reached through action
\nand, so far as this life is concerned, must exist in action; quiescence of the soul from desires there must be but there should
\nnot be and cannot be quiescence of the Prakriti from action.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Bhagavadgita<\/i>, III. 4,5,8.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 166<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n"Not by refraining from actions can a man enjoy actionlessness, nor by mere renunciation does he reach his soul’s perfection ; but no man in the world can even for one moment remain
\nwithout doing works; everyone is forced to do works, whether
\nhe wills or not, by the primal qualities born of Prakriti…. Thou
\ndo action self-controlled (or else "thou do action ever"); for
\naction is better than inaction; if thou actest not, even the maintenance of thy body cannot be effected."<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHence it follows that merely to renounce action and flee
\nfrom the world to a hermitage is but vanity, and that those who
\nrely on such a desertion of duty for attaining God lean on a broken reed. Their professed renunciation of action is only a nominal renunciation, for they merely give up one set of actions to
\nwhich they are called for another to which in a great number of
\ncases they have no call or fitness. If they have that fitness, they
\nmay certainly attain God, but even then action is better than sannyāsa<\/i>. Hence the great and pregnant paradox that in action
\nis real actionlessness, while inaction is merely another form of
\naction itself.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\n"He who quells his sense-organs of action but sits remembering in his heart the objects of sense, that man of bewildered
\nsoul is termed a hypocrite." "Sannyasa (renunciation of works)
\nand Yoga through action both lead to the highest good but of the
\ntwo, Yoga through action is better than renunciation of action.
\nKnow him to be the perpetual Sannyasi who neither loathes
\nnor longs, for he, O great-minded, being free from the dualities
\nis easily released from the chain." "He who can see inaction in<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Bhagavadgita<\/i>,
\nIII. 6.     <\/font>
\n \u00b2<\/font>ibid<\/i>., V. 2.     <\/font>
\n \u00b3<\/font>ibid<\/i>.,
\nV. 3.      4<\/sup>ibid<\/i>., IV. 18.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 167<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\naction and action in inaction, he is the wise among men, he
\ndoes all actions with a soul in union with God."<\/font><\/p>\n

\nFrom this lofty platform the great creed
\nrises to its crowning ideas, for since we must act, but neither for any human or
\nfuture results of action nor for the sake of the action itself, and
\nyet action must have some goal to which it is devoted, there is no
\ngoal left but God. We must then devote our actions to God and
\nthrough that rise to complete surrender of the personality to
\nhim, whether in the idea of him manifest through Yoga or the
\nidea of him unmanifest through God-Knowledge. "They who
\nworship Me as the imperishable, illimitable, unmanifest, controlling all the organs, one-minded to all things, they doing good to
\nall creatures attain to Me. But far greater is their pain of endeavour whose hearts cleave to the Unmanifest, for hardly can
\nthe salvation in the unmanifest be attained by men that have a
\nbody. But they who reposing all actions in Me, to Me devoted
\ncontemplate and worship Me in single-minded Yoga, speedily
\ndo I become their saviour from the gulf of death and the world,
\nfor their hearts, O Partha, have entered into Me. On Me repose
\nthy mind, pour into Me thy reason, in Me wilt thou then have
\nthy dwelling, doubt it not. Yet if thou canst not steadfastly repose thy mind in Me, desire,
\nO Dhananjaya, to reach Me by
\nYoga through askesis. If that too thou canst not, devote thyself
\nto actions for Me, since also by doing actions for My sake thou
\nwilt attain to thy soul’s perfection. If even for this thou art too
\nfeeble, then abiding in Yoga with Me with a soul subdued abandon utterly desire for the fruits of action. Far better than askesis
\nis knowledge and better than knowledge is concentration and
\nbetter than concentration is renunciation of the fruit of deeds,
\nfor on such renunciation followeth the soul’s peace."<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> Such is
\nthe ladder which Vyasa has represented Krishna as building up to God with action for its firm and sole basis. If it is questioned
\nwhether the Bhagavadgita is the work of Vyasa (whether he be
\nKrishna of the Island is another question to be settled on its own
\nmerits), I answer that there is nothing to disprove his authorship, while on the other hand, allowing for the exigencies of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Bhagavadgita<\/i>, XII. 3-12.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 168<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nphilosophical exposition, the style is undoubtedly his or so
\nclosely modelled on his as to defy differentiation. Moreover,
\nthe whole piece is but the philosophical justification and logical
\nenlargement of the gospel of action preached by Krishna
\nin the Mahabharata proper, the undoubted work of the poet. I have here no space
\nfor anything more than a quotation. Sanjaya has come to the Pandavas from Dhritarashtra and dissuaded
\nthem from battle in a speech taught him by that wily and unwise
\nmonarch; it is skilfully aimed at the most subtle weakness of the
\nhuman heart representing the abandonment of justice and their
\nduty as a holy act of self-abnegation and its pursuit as no better
\nthan wholesale murder and parricide. It is better for the sons of
\nPandu to be dependents and beggars and exiles all their lives than
\nto enjoy the earth by the slaughter of their brothers, kinsmen
\nand spiritual guides. Contemplation is purer and nobler than
\naction and worldly desires. Although answering firmly to the
\nenvoy, the children of Pandu are in their hearts shaken, for as
\nKrishna afterward tells Kama, when the destruction of a nation
\nis at hand, wrong comes to men’s eyes clothed in the garb of
\nright. Sanjaya’s argument is one Christ and Buddha would have
\nendorsed; Christ and Buddha would have laboured to confirm
\nthe Pandavas in their scruples. On Krishna rests the final word
\nand his answer is such as to shock seriously the conventional ideas
\nof religious teachers to which Christianity and Buddhism have
\naccustomed us. In a long and powerful speech he deals at great
\nlength with Sanjaya’s arguments. We must remember therefore
\nthat he is debating a given point and speaking to men who have
\nnot like Arjuna the adhikāra<\/i> to enter into the "highest of all mysteries". We shall then realise the close identity between his
\nteaching here and that of the Gita.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                            <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Page <\/font>
\n\u2013 169<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\nThe drift of Vyasa’s ethical speculation has always a definite
\nand recognisable tendency; there is a basis of customary morality and there is a higher ethic of the soul which abolishes in its
\ncrowning phase the terms of virtue and sin, because to the pure
\nall things are pure through an august and selfless disinterestedness. This ethic takes its rise naturally from the crowning height
\nof the Vedantic philosophy, where the soul becomes conscious
\nof its identity with God who, whether acting or actionless, is<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nMahabharata<\/i>, Udyogaparva, 29.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"With regard to the matter at present under discussion the opinions of the Brahmanas
\ndiffer.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOne school say that it is by work that we obtain salvation and again another school say
\nthat it is by putting aside work, and through knowledge, that we attain to salvation. It has been
\nso laid down by the superior beings that a man, even knowing all the properties of food, will
\nnot be satisfied without eating.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat knowledge alone bears fruit, which does work, not others. In this world the result
\nof action admits of ocular proof; one oppressed by thirst is satisfied by drinking water.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore it has been ordained by the
\ncreator that through work results, O Sanjaya, work.
\nTherefore the opinion that anything other than work is good, is nothing but the uttering of a
\nfool and of a weak man.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nElsewhere (i.e., in the other world) the gods are resplendent through work, the wind
\nblows through work. Causing day and night, through work, the sleepless sun rises every day.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe sleepless moon, too, goes through half months and months and certain peculiar positions of the moon (through work) and the sleepless fire enkindled (by work) burns, doing good
\nto the creatures of the Earth.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe goddess Earth, sleepless, carries this great load through her strength and the sleepless rivers carry their waters with speed, satisfying the desire of all beings.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe sleepless one of mighty strength (Indra) showers rain, resounding every corner and
\nthe cardinal points; and desiring kingship among the gods he practised the austerities of a
\nBrahmacharya life, being sleepless.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nGiving up pleasure and the satisfaction of his desires, the position of a chief was obtained
\nby Shakra by means of work. He strictly observed truth, virtue."<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Mahabharata<\/i> (English Translation) Edited by Sri Manmatha Nath Dutt.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 170<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nuntouched by either sin or virtue. But the crown of the Vedanta
\nis only for the highest; the moral calamities that arise from the
\nattempt of an unprepared soul to identify self with God is sufficiently indicated in the legend of Indra and Virochana. Similarly
\nthis higher ethic is for the prepared, the initiated only, because
\nthe raw and unprepared soul will seize on the non-distinction
\nbetween sin and virtue without first compassing the godlike purity
\nwithout which such non-distinction is neither morally admissible nor actually conceivable. From this arises the unwillingness of Hinduism, so ignorantly attributed by Europeans to
\npriestcraft and the Brahmin, to shout out its message to the man
\nin the street or declare its esoteric thought to the shoeblack and
\nthe kitchen-maid. The sword of knowledge is a double-edged
\nweapon; in the hands of the hero it can save the world, but it
\nmust not be made a plaything for children. Krishna himself ordinarily insists on all men following the duties and rules of conduct
\nto which they are born and to which the cast of their temperaments predestined them. Arjuna he advises, if incapable of rising
\nto the higher moral altitudes, to fight in a just cause, because it is
\nthe duty of the caste, the class of souls to which he belongs.
\nThroughout the Mahabharata he insists on this class-standpoint
\nthat every man must meet the duties to which his life calls him
\nin a spirit of disinterestedness, \u2014 not, be it noticed, of self-abnegation, which may be as much a fanaticism and even a selfishness
\nas the grossest egoism itself. It is because Arjuna has best fulfilled this ideal, has always lived up to the practice of his class
\nin a spirit of disinterestedness and self-mastery that Krishna
\nloves him above all human beings and considers him and him
\nalone fit to receive the higher initiation.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\n"This is the ancient Yoga which I tell thee today; because
\nthou art My adorer and My heart’s comrade; for this is the
\nhighest mystery of all."<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Bhagavadgita<\/i>, IV. 3.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\nAnd even the man who has risen to the heights of the initiation must cleave for the good of society to the pursuits and
\nduties of his order; for, if he does not, the world which instinctively is swayed by the examples of its greatest will follow in his
\nfootsteps; the bonds of society will then crumble asunder and
\nchaos come again; mankind will be baulked of its destiny. Sri
\nKrishna illustrates this by his own example, the example of God
\nin his manifest form.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n"Looking also to the maintenance of order in the world
\nthou shouldst act: for whatever the best practises, that other
\nmen practise; for the standard set by him is followed by the
\nwhole world. In all the Universe there is for Me no necessary
\naction, for I have nothing I do not possess or wish to possess,
\nand I abide always doing. For if I so abide not at all doing action
\nvigilantly, men would altogether follow in my path, O son of Pritha; these worlds would sink if I did not actions, and I should
\nbe the author of confusion (literally, illegitimacy, the worst and
\nprimal confusion, for it disorders the family which is the fundamental unit of society) and the destroyer of the peoples. What
\nthe ignorant do, O Bharata, with their minds enslaved to the
\nwork, that the wise man should do with a free mind to maintain
\nthe order of the world; the wise man should not upset the mind
\nof the ignorant who are slaves of their deeds, but should apply
\nhimself to all works doing customary things with a mind in
\nYoga."\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt is accordingly not by airy didactic teaching so much as in
\nthe example of Krishna \u2014 and this is the true epic method \u2014
\nthat Vyasa develops his higher ethic which is the morality of the
\nliberated mind. But this is too wide a subject to be dealt with in
\nthe limits I have at my command. I have dwelt on Vyasa’s ethical
\nstandpoint because it is of the utmost importance in the present
\nday. Before the Bhagavadgita with its great epic commentary,
\nthe Mahabharata of Vyasa, had time deeply to influence
\nthe national mind, the heresy of Buddhism seized hold of it.
\nBuddhism with its exaggerated emphasis on quiescence and the<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Bhagavadgita<\/i>, III. 20-26.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\nquiescent virtue of self-abnegation, its unwise creation of a
\nseparate class of quiescents and illuminati, its sharp distinction
\nbetween monks and laymen implying the infinite inferiority
\nof the latter, its all too facile admission of men to the higher
\nlife and its relegation of worldly action to the lowest importance possible stands at the opposite pole from the gospel
\nof Sri Krishna and has had the very effect he deprecates; it has been the author of confusion and the destroyer of the
\npeoples. As a result, under its influence half the nation moved in
\nthe direction of spiritual passivity and negation, the other by a
\nnatural reaction plunged deep into a splendid but enervating
\nmaterialism. Our race lost three parts of its ancient heroic manhood, its grasp on the world, its magnificently ordered polity and
\nits noble social fabric. It is by clinging to a few spars from the
\nwreck that we have managed to perpetuate our existence and this
\nwe owe to the overthrow of Buddhism by Shankaracharya. But
\nHinduism has never been able to shake off the deep impress of the
\nreligion it vanquished; and therefore though it has managed to
\nsurvive, it has not succeeded in recovering its old vitalising force.
\nThe practical disappearance of the Kshatriya caste (for those who
\nnow claim that origin seem to be, with a few exceptions, Vratya
\nKshatriyas, Kshatriyas who have fallen from the pure practice
\nand complete temperament of their caste) has operated in the
\nsame direction. The Kshatriyas were the proper depositaries of
\nthe gospel of action; Sri Krishna himself declares:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\n"This imperishable Yoga I revealed to Vivaswan, Vivaswan
\ndeclared it to Manu, Manu told it to Ikshwaku; thus did the
\nroyal sages learn this as a hereditary knowledge."<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAnd when in the immense lapse of time it was lost, Sri
\nKrishna again declared it to a Kshatriya. But when the Kshatriyas disappeared or became degraded, the Brahmins remained<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00b9<\/font>Bhagavadgita<\/i>, IV. 1,2.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\nthe sole interpreters of the Bhagavadgita, and, they, being the
\nhighest caste or temperament and their thoughts therefore naturally turned to knowledge and the final end of being, bearing
\nmoreover still the stamp of Buddhism in their minds, dwelt mainly
\non that in the Gita which deals with the element of quiescence.
\nThey have laid stress on the goal, but they have not echoed Sri
\nKrishna’s emphasis on the necessity of action as the one sure road
\nto the goal. Time, however, in its revolution is turning back on
\nitself and there are signs that if Hinduism is to last and we are
\nnot to plunge into the vortex of scientific atheism and the breakdown of moral ideals which is engulfing Europe, it must survive
\nas the religion of Vyasa for which Vedanta, Sankhya and Yoga
\ncombined to lay the foundations, which Sri Krishna announced
\nand which Vyasa formulated.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut Vyasa has not only a high political and religious thought
\nand deep-seeing ethical judgments, he deals not only with the
\nmassive aspects and world-wide issues of human conduct, but
\nhas a keen eye for the details of government and society, the
\nceremonies, forms and usages, the religious and social order on
\nthe due stability of which public welfare is grounded. The principles of good government and the motives and impulses that
\nmove men to public action, no less than the rise and fall of States
\nand the clash of mighty personalities and great powers form,
\nincidentally and epically treated, the staple of Vyasa’s epic. The
\npoem was therefore, first and foremost, like the Iliad and Aeneid
\nand even more than the Iliad and Aeneid, national \u2014 a poem in
\nwhich the religious, social and personal temperament and ideals
\nof the Aryan nation have found a high expression and the
\ninstitutions, actions and heroes in the most critical period of its history
\nreceived the judgments and criticisms of one of its greatest and soundest minds. If this had not been so we should not
\nhave had the Mahabharata in its present form. Valmiki had also
\ndealt with a great historical period in a yet more universal spirit
\nand with finer richness of detail, but he approached it in a poetic
\nand dramatic manner, he created rather than criticised; while
\nVyasa in his manner was the critic far more than the creator.  Hence later poets found it easier and more congenial to introduce
\ntheir criticisms of life and thought into the Mahabharata than<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\ninto the Ramayana. Vyasa’s poem has been increased to three-fold its original size; the additions to Valmiki, few in themselves
\nif we set apart the Uttara Kanda, have been immaterial and for
\nthe most part of an accidental nature.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nGifted with such poetical powers, limited by such intellectual and emotional characteristics, endowed with such grandeur
\nof soul and severe purity of taste, what was the special work
\nwhich Vyasa did for his country and in what, beyond the ordinary elements of poetical treatise, lies his claim to world-wide
\nacceptance ? It has been suggested already that the Mahabharata
\nis the great national poem of India. It is true the Ramayana also
\nrepresents an Aryan civilisation idealised: Rama and Sita are
\nmore intimately characteristic types of the Hindu temperament
\nas it finally shaped itself than are Arjuna and Draupadi; Sri
\nKrishna, though his character is founded in the national type, yet
\nrises far above it. But although Valmiki, writing the poem of
\nmankind, drew his chief figures in the Hindu model and Vyasa,
\nwriting a great national epic, lifted his divine hero above the basis
\nof national character into an universal humanity, yet the original
\npurpose of either poem remains intact. In the Ramayana under
\nthe disguise of an Aryan golden age, the wide world with all
\nits elemental impulses and affections finds itself mirrored. The
\nMahabharata reflects rather a great Aryan civilisation with the
\ntypes, ideas, aims and passions of a heroic and pregnant period
\nin the history of a high-hearted and deep-thoughted nation. It  has, moreover, as I have attempted to indicate, a formative
\nethical and religious spirit which is absolutely corrective to the
\nfaults that have most marred in the past and mar to the present
\nday the Hindu character and type of thought. And it provides 
\nus with this corrective not in the form of an alien civilisation difficult to assimilate and associated with other elements as dangerous
\nto us as this is salutary, but in a great creative work of our own
\nliterature written by the mightiest of our sages (munīnāmapyaham vyāsah<\/i>, Krishna has said), one therefore who speaks our own
\nlanguage, thinks our own thoughts and has the same national
\ncast of mind, nature and conscience. His ideals will therefore
\nbe a corrective not only to our own faults but to the dangers of
\nthat attractive but unwholesome Asura civilisation which has<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 175<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninvaded us, especially its morbid animalism and its neurotic
\ntendency to abandon itself to its own desires.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut this does not say all. Vyasa too, beyond the essential
\nuniversality of all great poets, has his peculiar appeal to humanity
\nin general making his poem of world-wide as well as national
\nimportance. By comparing him once again with Valmiki we
\nshall realize more precisely in what this appeal consists. The
\nTitanic impulse was strong in Valmiki. The very dimensions
\nof his poetical canvas, the audacity and occasional recklessness
\nof his conceptions, the gust with which he fills in the gigantic outlines of his Ravana are the essence of Titanism; his genius was
\nso universal and Protean that no single element of it can be said
\nto predominate, yet this tendency towards the enormous enters
\nperhaps as largely into it as any other. But to the temperament
\nof Vyasa the Titanic was alien. It is true he carves his figures so
\nlargely (for he was a sculptor in creation rather than a painter
\nlike Valmiki) that looked at separately they seem to have colossal
\nstature, but he is always at pains so to harmonise them that they
\nshall appear measurable to us and strongly human. They are
\nlargely and boldly human, oppressive and sublime, but never
\nTitanic. He loves the earth and the heavens but he visits not
\nPatala nor the stupendous regions of Vrishaparvan. His Rakshasas, supposing them to be his at all, are epic giants or matter-of-fact ogres, but they do not exhale the breath of midnight and terror like Valmiki’s demons nor the spirit of world-shaking anarchy like Valmiki’s giants. This poet could never have conceived
\nRavana. He had neither unconscious sympathy nor a sufficient
\nforce of abhorrence to inspire him. The passions of Duryodhana
\nthough presented with great force of antipathetic insight are
\nhuman and limited. The Titanic was so foreign to Vyasa’s habit
\nof mind that he could not grasp it sufficiently either to love or
\nhate. His humanism shuts to him the outermost gates of that
\nsublime and menacing region; he has not the secret of the storm
\nnor has his soul ridden upon the whirlwind. For his particular
\nwork this was a real advantage. Valmiki has drawn for us both
\nthe divine and anarchic in extraordinary proportions; an Akbar
\nor a Napoleon might find his spiritual kindred in Rama or
\nRavana, but with more ordinary beings such figures impress the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\nsense of the sublime principally and do not dwell with them as
\ndaily acquaintances. It was left for Vyasa to create epically
\nthe human divine and the human anarchic so as to bring idealisms of the conflicting moral types into line with the daily
\nemotions and imaginations of men. The sharp distinction between
\nDeva and Asura is one of the three distinct and peculiar contributions to ethical thought which India has to offer. The legend
\nof Indra and Virochana is one of its fundamental legends. Both
\nof them came to Brihaspati to know from him of God; he told them to go home and look in the mirror. Virochana saw himself there and concluding that he was God, asked no farther; he
\ngave full rein to the sense of individuality in himself which he
\nmistook for the deity. But Indra was not satisfied; feeling that there must be
\nsome mistake he returned to Brihaspati and received from him the true God-Knowledge which taught him that
\nhe was God only because all things were God, since nothing
\nexisted but the One. If he was the one God, so was his enemy,
\nthe very feelings of separateness and enmity were not permanent
\nreality but transient phenomena. The Asura therefore is he who
\nis profoundly conscious of his own separate individuality and
\nyet would impose it on the world as the sole individuality; he is
\nthus blown along on the hurricane of his desires and ambitions
\nuntil he stumbles and is broken, in the great phrase of Aeschylus,
\nagainst the throne of Eternal Law. The Deva, on the contrary,
\nstands firm in the luminous heaven of self-knowledge, his actions
\nflow not inward towards himself but outwards toward the world.
\nThe distinction that Indra draws is not between altruism and
\negoism but between disinterestedness and desire. The altruist is
\nprofoundly conscious of himself and he is really ministering to
\nhimself even in his altruism; hence the hot and sickly odour of
\nsentimentalism and the taint of the Pharisee which clings about
\nEuropean altruism. With the perfect Hindu the feeling of self
\nhas been merged in the sense of the universe; he does his duty
\nequally whether it happens to promote the interests of others or
\nhis own; if his action seems oftener altruistic than egoistic it is
\nbecause our duty oftener coincides with the interests of others
\n\u2014 than with our own. Rama’s duty as a son calls him to sacrifice himself, to leave the empire of the world and become a beggar<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\nand a hermit; he does it cheerfully and unflinchingly; but when
\nSita is taken from him, it is his duty as a husband to rescue her
\nfrom her ravisher and as a Kshatriya to put Ravana to death
\nif he persists in his wrong-doing. This duty also he pursues with
\nthe same unflinching energy as the first. He does not shrink from
\nthe path of the right because it coincides with the path of self-interest. The Pandavas also go without a word into exile and
\npoverty, because honour demands it of them; but their ordeal
\nover, they will not, though ready to drive compromise to its utmost verge, consent to succumb utterly to Duryodhana, for it is
\ntheir duty as Kshatriyas to protect the world from the reign of
\ninjustice, even though it is at their own expense that injustice
\nseeks to reign. The Christian and Buddhistic doctrine of turning
\nthe other cheek to the smiter, is as dangerous as it is impracticable. The continual European see-saw between Christ on the
\none side and the flesh and the devil on the other, with the longer
\ntrend towards the latter comes straight from a radically false
\nmoral distinction and the lip profession of an ideal which mankind has never been either able or willing to carry into practice.
\nThe disinterested and desireless pursuit of duty is a gospel worthy
\nof the strongest manhood; that of the cheek turned to the smiter
\nis a gospel for cowards and weaklings. Babes and sucklings may
\npractise it, because they must, but with others it is a hypocrisy.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe gospel of the niskāma dharma<\/i> and the great poetical
\ncreations which exemplify and set it off by contrast, this is the
\nsecond aspect of Vyasa’s genius which will yet make him interesting and important to the whole world.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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Vyasa: Some Characteristics   THE Mahabharata, although neither the greatest nor the richest masterpiece of the secular literature of India, is at the same time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","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=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}