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ON NATIONAL HERITAGE The Heart of Bengal BENGAL is a land of many
rivers. The land of Bengal has been formed by the alluvial soil of the Ganges,
the Brahmaputra and their branches. The poet Bankimchandra addressed the
Mother Bengal thus: Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving, Mother of might, Mother free. (translated by Sri Aurobindo) These
words are not merely a hyperbole or an emotional outburst of blind faith. The
truth embodied in these words will not only be felt in the core but will be
felt at every step by all those who have left Bengal .and have become familiar
with other provinces and countries. Such green, fertile and graceful land can
hardly be seen to the same extent elsewhere. Water springs out from the soil
of Bengal at a mere scratch, as it were. The peasantry of Bengal can produce a
bumper crop by the sheer touch of their plowshare. Such is the soil on which
Bengal is founded. And
then, who have been born there, who have grown there, and which is the race
that migrated there? In the Bengalis the blood of the Aryans and the Dravidians
has perfectly blended. We do not actually know how much the
Page – 205 Aryan and the Dravidian
blood has influenced the Bengali race. But we definitely know that the Bengali
race is not totally pure or unalloyed. It is a mixture of many races. But here
in the diversity of many races we are seeing the result of extraordinary capacities. The
nervous system of the Bengalis is not very strong, but it is very sharp. Their
vital energy is not solid, but it is pliant. Prompt are they in their actions,
but not persevering. They have a subtle sensitivity and a quick sensibility. In
addition, they are sentimental and emotional; and consequently, they are
thoughtful and imaginative. They are unsteady; therefore they are ever open to
the new. They do not want to see the world as it is with calm and plain eyes;
they would like to see the world coloured with the collyrium of their heart.
They are swayed to and fro by the impulse of their heart, like a pendulum. No
others can make the impulses of the heart intense and one-pointed to such a
high degree. Chandidas was a typical Bengali poet. Judging from this point of view,
Vidyapati does not seem to be a Bengali poet at all. In him we find a play of
intellect and reasoning, an attitude of casting side glances, and an alertness.
But Chandidas was self-oblivious and beside himself with poetic imagination. The
Bengalis have the power of thinking, and in it we find flashes of genius, a
deep insight and bright glimpses of experience, There the calm, placid and
self-absorbed tenure of the reasoning faculty is not to be found. It is hard
for the Bengalis to derive pleasure from mere intellectual pursuit, setting
aside the feelings of the heart. They have hardly the patience and endurance
necessary for carrying on the intellectual process for its own sake; their
nerves can hardly put up with the tension of doing so. But in the thought that
has once been able to touch their hearts, in the thought that has as its fount
their vital emotion, there they have excelled. They have adhered to it steadily
and persistently like a leech and have brought forth argument after argument,
truth after truth. It would be difficult for a Shankara to see the light of
Page – 206 but the birth of someone like Nimai Pundit (Chaitanya)
is quite consistent, because there was a vast ocean of vital emotion behind his
erudition. The Bengali logician is at his best especially when someone is able
to arouse and excite him. But in the field of calm argumentation, perhaps a
Bengali cannot be a match for a South Indian scholar. Also, in the field of
reasoning, the Bengalis lose all sense of practicality, whereas no one else
does the same. There is an ancient saying that if once the French are seized by
mania (furia franca), then there is no escape from it. They lose the
balance of their consciousness, and are capable of anything. Likewise, the
Bengali race tends to be somewhat crazy. The
Bengali race bears a resemblance to the soil of Bengal. The mind and the vital
of the Bengalis are soft and pliant. New ideas and forms can claim them for
their own. Their brain is not solid and hard as in some dry mountainous
regions. They are ready to receive all new impressions. On the other hand, like
the sticky clay of Bengal, their mind and vital adhere to whatever they
undertake. All things which appeal to the intellect and the curiosity, they can
in no time convert into something that has an appeal to the heart, and once
they take these things up, they will not easily leave them. Of course they do
not always ding to these things with equal tenacity. The springs of their
life-energy droop after a little exertion. But whenever they get time and opportunity
they can overcome their depression and then they do not hesitate to tighten
their grip. In the nerves, the mind and the vital of the Bengalis, there is flexibility in a good sense or instability in a bad sense. This is why there is the possibility of a new creation in them. They are not yet able to conform their soul to a cut and dried way of life. No tradition has taken a deep root in them. There is so much want of pure blood in this race and the river-bed of this province changes so often that the immobile tower of past glory cannot weigh heavily upon it.
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Therefore The
wealth of Bengal is the wealth of her soul from above. Bengalis are not skilful
in work and their special quality is not a calm, clear and firm thinking power;
but there is an urge in their action and an imaginativeness in their thoughts.
Bengalis do not work and think for their own sake. They think and act unawares,
as it were. A deep realisation and an unknown urge possess and overwhelm their
whole being. Bengalis are a race of artists. A deep sense of delight from the
soul regulates and dyes all their faculties and creations, and their life
itself. They are not active in order to follow and fulfil a particular aim or
purpose. Their actions, to a great extent, have no motive, but are for the mere
joy of creation and the appreciation of beauty. They want independence of the
Mother country, not for the sake of good food and drink. This thought does not
arise in their minds at all. They want freedom in order to make their beautiful
country more beautiful. This is the thing that is dearest to their hearts. They
do not understand well their own conveniences and necessities. Nothing can move
them save beauty and emotion. The poets of Bengal have far exceeded her
politicians in greatness. Bengalis
are worshippers of, beauty. They worship more the beauty of ideas than the
beauty of forms. They are attracted more by simple and natural beauty than by
ornaments, decorations and pomp. We have seen the huge works of architecture
of the Deccan. What a huge heap of stones
Page – 208 full
of artistic grandeur! The images of the deities there are covered from head to
foot with jewels and ornaments. But Bengalis want to express beauty not by
weight but by order, by the simple, graceful style of lines. The people of the
Deccan have an attraction for gaudiness and colour in their clothes. But the
Bengalis want only simplicity and decency. No other race prefers the white
colour for their clothing as the Bengalis do. We find this tendency toward
simplicity and purity in the pioneer poet Chandidas of Bengal. Another
touchstone of beauty is woman. Women of beauty abound more in other parts of
India, but Bengal owns graceful women. Some unknown versifier, while describing
the special qualities of the beauties of the different provinces of India,
remarked that the beauty of teeth is the speciality of the women of Bengal. The
famous poet Jayadeva also was enamoured of the lustre of the shining teeth of
the Bengali women. We may not be consciously aware of it, but there is a grace
and a charm on the faces of the women of Bengal. Faultless beauty in the
formation of the body may be absent there, but it will remind us of the words
in The Song of Solomon, “I am black but comely.” The soft, pliant, graceful
and mobile ways of life and character are reflected on the faces of the Bengali
women. In the structure
of the Bengalis, the statuesqueness of the Greeks is not to be found, but there
is gracefulness and charm. And what is this gracefulness? Bergson has given a
nice explanation to the effect: The soul imparts a portion of its winged lightness to the
body it animates: the immateriality which thus passes into matter is what is
called gracefulness. Gracefulness is but a
shadow of the soul on the body. The spiritual lustre in the physical is gracefulness. The special quality of some nations is beauty; of others, vitality; of still others, the brilliancy of mind and intelligence.
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209
But the speciality of the Bengalis is the
intuitive lore of the soul. Imbued and inspired by the inspiration of the soul,
a wide and subtle vision is manifested in their thought-world, a creative
power is at work in their field of actions and a gracefulness is visible in
their bodies. In the person of the Bengalis, there reflects and sports a light
of the luminous world of the Self. This
higher realm is the fount of Truth from which the Bengali race has transmitted
and is transmitting and will continue to transmit Truth-Light, even though they
may be wanting in skill to found the Truth on the basis of reasoning or to
systematize it in action. If they do not do it now, tlley
may do so in the future. But the real part they are to play is to experience
and realise the Truth. Therefore, the Bengali race is the pioneer-guide of the
new age. When we try to understand the truth by proofs and when we want to confine
the Truth to some institutions, then we get an immature truth and a dogmatic
truth. The Bengalis have been able to reach the origin of the Truth-Existence,
so we find in them a deep, whole and natural expression of the Truth. They have
not been able to take a firm stand on external things. They refrain from
limiting themselves to some forms or structures. The people of the Punjab are
endowed with physical strength. The Maharashtrians are adept in action. The
people of the Deccan have the gift of calm reasoning. And what do the Bengalis
possess? If we speak in terms of modern phraseology, we should say that they
have intuition, and in terms of the earlier language, that they have the inner
heart. The very first expression of the pioneer poet of Bengal is: It has
entered the core of my being. Vidyapati, also breathing
the atmosphere of Bengal, as it were, queried, "Do you ask me about my own
experience?" It is the experience of the heart that has mobilized,
glorified
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widened all other faculties of the Bengalis. . Bengal,
the wet and fertile land, has the power to appreciate the essence of the
supreme Delight more than any other province. The creations of Bengal are but
the creations of Delight. We do not know if the Bengalis are the "sons of
Immortalily" (amrtasya putrah), but they are undoubtedly the
children of Delight. The inspiration of their works does not derive from a dry
sense of duty or from stern discipline. There is hardly any place for
austerities in the temperament of the Bengalis. They cannot accept from the
bottom of their hearts the stoic ideal of Mahatma Gandhi. Rabindranath is the
model of a Bengali. The Deccan has produced Shankara; Nanak and Surdas
appeared in the North; but in the fertile soil of Bengal were born Sri
Chaitanya, Chandidas and Ramprasad. The cult of devotion exists, no doubt, in
other parts of India; but the cult of looking upon God as the Lover of the
beloved devotee has blossomed only in Bengal. The worship of Kartikeya prevails
in some parts; Sri Rama or Sita and Rama are worshipped in some parts. But the
full significance of Radha's pining for Krishna has been appreciated only by
the Bengalis. Mahadeva (Siva) has taken his abode in many places, but it is the
Bengalis who have been mad over his consort, Gauri. The doctrine of Vedanta has
spread all over and has absorbed all other doctrines, but the Bengali race has
sought for a way of spiritual culture which transcends the injunctions of the
Vedas. The worship of the Self is not enough. The worship of man, Sahaja
Sadhana, has resulted from the genius of Bengal. Bengalis
as a race are worshippers of the feminine aspect of God. The religion and
literature of Bengal abound in ceremonies of such worship. They do not
generally worship God in his masculine aspect. They have not been able to make
their own the self-poised calmness of samadhi. They have wanted
manifestation of the divine sport. So Bengal is the seat of the Mother, Shakti.
Bengal is the land of Delight. The immobile Brahman is not the aim
Page – 211 of
Bengal. The power of Delight of the Divine is inherent in the heart of Bengal.
We find Rammohan, the worshipper of Shakti, at the dawn of modern Bengal.
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were also the worshippers of Shakti. Howsoever
Vedanta may have influenced them, the worship of Shakti
was very dear to their hearts. And in a different field, what Jagadish Chandra
Bose has been demonstrating as a new aspect of Nature-worship also reflects
nothing but the genius of Bengal. Bengalis
have a bad reputation for being very fond of their homes. They take intense
delight in their family life. They have drawn the picture of the household life
prominently in their literature, verses and songs. The like of this is not to
be seen elsewhere: My love goes elsewhere Across my courtyard. Or another example: I go to the kitchen and
sing Of you, O my love! And she'd tears under the pretext Of being
hurt by smoke. On
hearing such songs, a sympathetic chord in the Bengali heart is intensely
struck. Indeed, we find a complete picture of the household life of Bengal also
in Kavi Kankan's works. When Krittivasa and Kashirama Das digressed from the
high and noble narrations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to
indulge in household topics, they seemed to breathe their own atmosphere. In the works of Bankimchandra
and Sarat Chandra, it is this picture of household life that has fascinated the
Bengali heart. Be that as it may, what is the significance of this fondness for
home? This signifies the attraction of the Bengalis for the intense delight of
life.
Page – 212 This, too, is but an
aspect of their Nature-worship. We may admit that, owing to prevailing
circumstances, this attitude has created narrowness and weakness; but under
other circumstances it could be a social virtue which takes delight in
communion with others within the boundary of life and social gatherings. The
aspiration to found the divine Life among men, in society and in the world,
that is coming to the fore almost everywhere, will stir the Bengali heart to an
extent which will never be excelled by others, we think. An ideal of the
wholeness of life, an attempt at the supreme synthesis, has made its appearance
in the Bengali race, the child of delight, the devotee of the essence of joy,
the worshipper of Nature as the feminine aspect of the Divine. The
rivers and their tributaries washed down the soils of many lands and poured
down their admixture into Bengal to add to the formation of her lands.
Different peoples from different direction – the Dravidians, the Mongolians,
the Aryans and the Non-Aryans – all came down to Bengal to produce the mixed
race known as the Bengali. So we find that the heart of the Bengalis is full of
diverse inspirations. They have curiosity in all areas. In their soul there is
a harmonious union. In Bengal there flows the stream of love and strength.
Tantra is prevalent in Bengal; but the truth of Vedanta, too, is present
therein. This is why Bengalis utter, Tara Brahmamayi, "the Mother
of power" who is but one with the absolute Brahman. There is emotion in
Bengal, but the science of logic is not absent there. Navadwip, the centre of
devotion and love, and Bhattapalli, the centre of Vedanta, are in close
embrace with each other. We
have spoken about the simple and unostentatious beauty of Bengal. But again, it
cannot be denied that Bengal is the worshipper of wealth and grandeur. Bengal
has wanted a synthesis between the glorious and the sweet, between the simple
and the beautiful. She may not like pomp, but she has never disdained
prosperity. Bengal may be fond
Page – 213 of
life-activity, but on that account she is not prepared to forget spirituality.
She might have shunned renunciation, but did not reject liberation. Bengal
wants to remain within herself, but wants to keep communion with the world
abroad. The
fundamental quality of the Bengali race is affectionate attachment, family
closeness. Throughout Bengal flow the sportive ways of Nature's movements. The Bengalis
are often called a feminine race. There is much truth in this saying. A woman's
sensitivity, keenness of sensibility, softness and plasticity, unsteadiness of
mood, yet at the same time her firm tenacity, her beauty and coyness and, above
all, her natural power of direct understanding – these qualities we distinctly
find in the character, action, literature and art of the Bengali race. As the
vital world is the basis of the women-folk, as the vital tune and colour
resound and tinge their entire world, likewise the Bengali race has taken its
stand on the vital plane, in the current of the life-force. Bengalis do not
know how to resort to bare spirituality. This is why they do not want to be
spiritual ascetics in order to understand the meaning of the Illusion; yet they
are not content to live in exclusive materialism. This is one of the reasons
why they are so backward in trade and commerce and mere politics. They have a
reputation for being not at all practical. But actually they have occupied the region
between these two extreme ways of life. Owing to this attitude they have had
to dangle in the air like Trishanku many times. But that through this attitude
they are going to attain to a greater synthesis, .a profounder truth, can
hardly be denied.
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