{"id":95,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=95"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:53","slug":"60-suprabhat-a-review-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\/60-suprabhat-a-review-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-60_Suprabhat A Review.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nSuprabhat: A Review<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE <\/font>
\n<\/b>paper Suprabhat<\/i>, a Bengali monthly
\nedited by Kumari Kumudini Mitra, daughter of Sj. Krishna
\nKumar Mitra, enters this month on its third year. The first issue
\nof the new year is before us. We notice a great advance in the
\ninterest and variety of the articles, the calibre of the writers and
\nthe quality of the writing. From the literary point of view the
\nchief ornament of the number is the brief poem Duhkhabhisar<\/i>,
\n<\/i>by Sj. Rabindranath Tagore. It is one of those poems in which
\nthe peculiar inimitable quality of our greatest lyric poet comes
\nout with supreme force, beauty and sweetness. Rabindra Babu
\nhas a legion of imitators and many have been very successful in
\ncatching up his less valuable mannerisms of style and verse, as is
\nthe manner of imitators all the world over. But the poignant
\nsweetness, passion and spiritual depth and mystery of a poem
\nlike this, the haunting cadences subtle with a subtlety which is not
\nof technique but of the soul, and the honeyladen felicity of the
\nexpression, these are the essential Rabindranath and cannot be
\nimitated, because they are things of the spirit and one must have
\nthe same sweetness and depth of soul before one can hope to
\ncatch any of these desirable qualities. We emphasise this inimitableness because the legion of imitators we mention are doing
\nharm to the progress of our poetry as well as to the reputation of
\ntheir model and we would suggest to them to study this poem and
\nrealise the folly of their persistent attempt. One of the most
\nremarkable peculiarities of Rabindra Babu’s genius is the happiness and originality with which he has absorbed the whole spirit
\nof Vaishnav poetry and turned it into something essentially the
\nsame and yet new and modern. He has given the old sweet spirit of emotional and
\npassionate religion an expression of more delicate and complex richness voiceful of subtler and more penetratingly spiritual shades of feeling than the deep-hearted but simple
\nearly age of Bengal could know. The old Vaishnav bhāva \u2014<\/i> there
\nis no English word for it, \u2014 was easily seizable, broad and strong.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 430<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe bhāva<\/i> of these poems is not translatable in any other language than that the poet has used, \u2014 a striking proof is the unsatisfactory attempt of the poet himself, recorded in another
\narticle in this issue, to explain in prose his own poem, Sonar Tari<\/i>.
\n<\/i>But while the intellect tries in vain to find other intellectual
\nsymbols for the poet’s meaning, the poetry seizes on the heart
\nand convinces the imagination. These poems are of the essence
\nof poetry and refuse to be rendered in any prose equivalent.
\nPoetry is created not from the intellect or the outer imagination
\nbut comes from a deeper source within to which men have no
\nmeans of access except when the divine part within seizes on the
\nbrain and makes it a passive instrument for utterance the full
\nmeaning of which the brain is unable at the moment to grasp.
\nThis is the divine mania and enthusiasm which the subtle spiritual discernment of Plato discovered to be the real meaning of
\nwhat we call inspiration. And of this unattainable force the best
\nlyrics of Rabindranath are full to overflowing.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe article Shantiniketane Rabindranath<\/i> by Sj. Jitendranath
\nBanerji is another feature of great interest. The writer has a good
\ndescriptive gift and the passages which describe the Shantiniketan<\/i> are admirable; but the chief interest naturally centres in
\nthe conversation with the poet which is recorded with great fullness. The private talk of a rich and gifted nature with a power
\nof conversational expression is always suggestive and we await
\nwith interest the future issue of this article. We hope Jitendra
\nBabu will give us a fuller view of the remarkable educational
\nexperiment which this original mind is developing in the quiet
\nshades of Bolpur. The brief hints given of the moral training and
\nthe method of education followed point to a system far in
\nadvance of the National Council of Education which is still tyrannised over by a tradition and method not only European but
\nunprogressively European. A brief instalment of Sj. Aurobindo
\nGhose’s Karakahini<\/i> is also given which describes the identification parades of the Bomb Case, gives some glimpses of the approver Noren Gossain and deals with the personal character of some
\nof the jail officials. Nanak Charit<\/i> by Krishna Kumar Mitra, the
\nfirst instalment of which is given in this issue, commands interest
\nboth by its subject and the name of its writer. The two chapters<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 431<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ngiven are full of interesting details of Nanak’s birth and childhood and promise an attractive biography of one of the greatest
\nnames in religious history. An article of minor importance is the
\ncontinuation of Sj. Jadunath Chakrabarti’s Ekannabarti Paribar
\no Strishiksha<\/i>, which is of considerable merit. The author has
\nseized on two of the great advantages of the joint family system,
\nits ideal of a wider brotherhood and unity and its ample training
\nin morale and capacity. Dainik Bal<\/i> and the poem Bodhan<\/i> seem
\nto us to be failures, but there is no other feature of this number
\nwhich is without merit or interest.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe have left to the last Dr. P. C. Ray’s long article on "The
\nBengali Brain and its Misuse". It is a long indictment of past
\nand present Bengal, covering sixteen pages of the magazine.
\nDr. P. C. Ray is a name which is already a pride to the nation to
\nwhich he belongs and his deep scientific knowledge, original research and
\ncreativeness are one of the most conspicuous instances of that strong, acute and capable Bengali intellect which
\nhe admits to be inferior to none. Any article from his pen must
\nbe of great interest and cannot be without value. But it is one of
\nthe unfortunate results of the denationalising influence of our past education
\nthat a mind like Dr. Ray’s should be without intellectual sympathy for the old culture whose inherited tendencies
\nhis own character, life and achievements illustrate in so distinguished a manner. If it had not been for the past which Dr. P.
\nC. Ray condemns, such noble types as the last fifty years of
\nBengal teems with, would not have been possible. As to the
\nnecessity of far-reaching changes in the future we do not greatly
\ndiffer with the writer. The immediate past has been a period of
\ncontraction and the reservation of strength, the future will be
\na period of expansion and the liberation and expenditure of
\nstrength. The structure of the new age must necessarily differ
\nfrom that of the old. But the spirit of the article is narrow and
\nintolerant. It is couched in that general spirit of self-depreciation
\nand indiscriminate fault-finding which was a characteristic of
\nour people when national hope and energy were at their nadir.
\nThere are all the stock denunciations with which we were familiar before the recent resurgence. Such writings void of the
\nnote of hope, encouragement and energy, will not help a nation<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 432<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nto rise but rather depress it and push it
\nback into the past. Moreover, Dr. Ray makes the same mistake which European writers
\nmade when they condemned the Middle Ages wholesale because
\nthey were a period of contraction and not of expansion. That
\nmistake has now been recognised in Europe and justice has been
\ndone to that which was praiseworthy as well as to that which
\nwas bad in the "Dark Ages". We in India are recovering from a
\nsimilar error and if there are those who go to the opposite extreme
\nand see nothing good outside the mediaeval Hindu culture and
\nforms, the same thing happened in Europe and for the same
\nreason, as a reaction from that very intolerance and sweeping
\ndenunciation which are the spirit of Dr. Ray’s article. It cannot
\nlast any more than it lasted in Europe. Some of the strictures we
\nhold to be too much at secondhand; especially in his criticisms
\nof religion the writer seems to us to be wandering outside the
\nprovince in which he can speak with authority. After all one
\nmust enter into the spirit of an age and civilisation before one
\ncan profitably criticise it, otherwise we miss the meaning of
\nhistory and falsify its values. Nevertheless the article is ably
\nwritten and should be studied as a complete expression of the
\nEuropeanised standpoint in looking at Indian problems. As to
\nthe present, Dr. Ray lays too much stress on the survivals of the
\nend of the nineteenth century when the national consciousness
\ntouched bottom and ignores the youthful strength and energy
\nwhich is preparing the twentieth.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 433<\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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