View of RABINDRANATH TAGORE AS A DEVOTIONAL POET

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ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING

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Vol. 02, Issue 11,November 2017 Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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RABINDRANATH TAGORE AS A DEVOTIONAL POET Dr. Shubhlaxmi Tripathi

Associate Professor of English, Govt. Girls Degree College, BLW, Varanasi

Abstract- The strain of devotion runs through a major bulk of Tagore's poetry. He felt the divine presence illuminating the entire creation. Throughout his writings the quest for divinity continued, whether he wrote on nature, on man or on love. Everywhere and in everything he saw the glory and the magnificence of the creator. His deep love for humanity and for all forms of life was rooted in the belief that all creatures are the manifestations of divinity. He was a humanist and was strongly against all forms of idolatry and religious rituals. He proclaimed that true love, sincere devotion and selfless service to humanity were the only means of attaining God.

Keywords: Devotion, bhakti, quest, humanism, renunciation, deliverance ritualism, idolatry.

1 INTRODUCTION

Although Rabindrath Tagore excelled in almost all the literary genres, his genius was primarily poetic. He had penned more than fifty anthologies of poems including the Manasi, Sonar Tori, Naivedya, Gitanjali, Gitimalya, Poems and so on, Tagore remains the supreme lyricist in Bangla language. He was a prolific writer and music composer with more than 2200 songs to his credit. Their unparalled lyricism, embroysal enchantment and magical melody thrills the music and poetry lovers. The English translations of his poems include the Gitanjali, Fruit Gathering, Gardencer, The Fugitive, Lover's Gift and Crossing. He has penned immortal poems and songs on nature, on man, on love, on children, on God and on various other miscellaneous topics. A deep undercurrent of humanism, devotion and the quest for the divine creator is manifested in his nature poems, love poems and humanistic poems.

Though Rabindranath was a devotional poet he was not a religious poet propagating any dogmatic religion.

According to Shishir Kumar Ghose Tagore was not a religious poet in the sense Dante or Tulsidas was. He was a 'quasi- mystic' more romantic than religious.

(Rabindranath Tagore: pg. 45) 2 TEXT

Like saint Kabir Rabindranath refused to accept the oxthodox religious dogmas and ostentatious rituals and proclaimed that the message of God could be easily understood as it was omnipresent in nature:

Your speech is simple, my master but not theirs who talk of you.

I understand the voice of your stars and the silence of your trees.

(Fruit Gathering XV) Yearning and waiting for the divine lover is the keynote of Tagore's poetry.

That I want thee, only thee – let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core.

(Gitanjali, No. 38) Is it only thou who wouldst stand in the shadow silent behind them all? And only I who would wait and weep and wear out my heart in vain longing?

(Gitanjali, No. 41) In the anthologies of Tagore love poems often denote not mundane but transcendental love. As Iyengar rightly points out that with a poet like Tagore the borderline between human love and divine love is apt to be 'tantalizingly indistinct'.

(Indian Writing in English, pg. 116) Rabindranath believed that the entire creation was the expression and manifestation of the infinite. In his poems are enshrined the essence of the Vedas the Vedanta and the Bhagwat Geeta. The infinite had manifested itself in various forms out of unconditional love, sheer joy and infinite bliss. He felt that the divine love was radiating from the entire universe.

Yes, I know, this is nothing but they love, beloved of my heart – this golden light that dances upon the leaves, these idle clouds sailing across the sky, this passing breeze

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leaving its coolness upon my forehead.

(Gitanjali, No. 59) God the creator is present everywhere in the form of love, light, laughter, music and joy of being alive,

... the joy that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass.

(Gitanjali, No. 58) He is the light which radiates form the core of all creation, the light which strikes the chords of love and gleams through laughter and celebration.

Light, my light, the world-filling Light, the eye-kissing light, heart- sweetening light!

(Gitanjali, No. 57) The light of thy music illumines the world.

The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky.

(Gitanjali, No. 3) Like the sages of the Upanishads he believed the entire universe was the manifestation of divinity Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma (Chandogya Upanishad).

His message is evident everywhere It is painted in petals of flowers;

waves flash it from their foam; hills hold it high on their summits.

(Fruit Gathering, No. V) Rabindranath envisaged God as the master singer, the master musician, the master painter and the master dancer on whose tunes the entire cosmos was dancing. He yearned to join the celestial song but vainly struggled for a voice, a tune.

My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice.

(Gitanjali, No. 3) I touch by the edge of the far–

spreading wing of my song thy feet which I could never aspire to reach.

(Gitanjali, No. 2) He felt that the song he had come to sing remained unsung (Gitanjali, No.13). He could only hear the gentle footsteps of the divine singer but he failed ever to grasp him. The quest for this ever elusive supreme deity is echoed in several poems:

Have you not heard his silent steps?

He comes, comes, ever comes....

(Gitanjali, No. 45) He can feel the touch of his steps in his heart in the fragrant days of sunny April and in also in pain, sorrow, suffering and death.

Like Radha he is constantly being called by the enchanting flute music of Sri Krishna. He is restless and impatient for union with the divine and is unable to stay at home as he has heard there footfalls of the 'eternal stranger'.

Alas, I cannot stay in the house ...

for the eternal stranger calls, he is going along the road. O Great Beyond, the keen call of thy flute!

(The Gardener, No. 5) He could hear his name being called in the morning sky and he could wait no longer. (Fruit Ga thering No. VIII) He could hear the song and the flute music of his beloved Lord:

Listen my heart, in his flute is the music of the smell of wild flowers, of the glistening leaves and gleaming water, of shadows resonant with bees wings.

(Fruit Ga thering No. LXVI) Rabindranath's God was not to be found in the stony images of temples. He was the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent lover who responded to the prayers of the devotes. As Iyengar rightly points out:

Gitanjali is half a prayer from below and half a whisper from above.

(Indian Writing in English, pg.111) He madly searches for his beloved lord but fails to find him in the outer world.

I run as a musk-deer runs in the shadow of the forest mad with his own perfume ...

I loose my way and I wander...

(The Gardener, No. 15) Rabindranath believed the God was hidden in the hearts of men and addressed him has the 'Lord of my being'.

Lord of my being, has your wish been fulfilled in me?...

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Let the knot of a new life be tied for us in a new bridal bond.

(The Poems, No. 11) I will meet one day the Life within me, the joy that hides in my life....

(Fruit Gathering, XXI) Rabindranath at times echoes the Upanishadic mantras. The body is said to be a temple and the soul is truly Shiva (Maitrey Upanishad). His songs embody the essence of the Upanishads, the Bhagwat Geeta, the devotional love of Radha and Krishna and the 'ishk habibi' or the spiritual love of the Sufi Saints.

Inspite of being a true devote Tagore never approved of the false outer and rituals, orthodoxy and idolatry. The 'strong protestant' note against religious dogma reverberates in his songs, poems, plays and short stories.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!... He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and the pathmaker is breaking stones.

(Gitanjali, No. 11) Tagore believed that the divine spark illuminated every individual soul and therefore he propounded a new living cult – the Religion of Man. Defying the traditional rules of casteism he proclaimed that God dwelt in the hearts of the poorest of the poor. Like Swami Vivekananda he urged that the service of the suffering humanity is the real service to God.

Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet where live the poorest and lowliest and lost.

(Gitanjali, No. 10) Rabindranath strongly opposed the practice of asceticism and renunciation. He was against the escapist tendency of ascetics who turned away from their duties and responsibilities.

In poem no. 75 in the Gardener he narrates the saga for the 'would-be' ascetic who wanted to renounce the world and seek God.

With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed.

The man said, 'Who are ye that have fooled me so long?

The voice said again, 'They are God', but he heard it not....

God sighed and complained, Why does my servant wander to seek me, forsaking me?

(Gardener, No. 75) Rabindranath firmly believed that the union with the divine was possible not by escaping one's responsibilities but by sincerely and devotedly performing one's duties.

Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom is a thousand bonds of delight...

My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame and place them before the altar of thy temple.

No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight. (Gitanjali, No. 73)

Come out of thy mediations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

(Gitanijali, No. 11) Tagore was a mystic, a devotee, who was always longing, aspiring and yearning for being united with his beloved Lord, his master poet, his 'jibandevta' Never does he falsely boast about self-realization or enlightenment. His quest for divinity permeates all his devotional poems.

I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearls of the formless.

(Gitanjali, No. 100) There is a note of celebration, of life – affirmism of the joi-de-vivre in his poems.

I have had my invitation to this world's festival, and thus my life has been blessed.

(Gitanjali, No. 16) Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel

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thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

(Gitanjali, No. 1) Rabindranath loved God, he loved Man and he was deeply in love with the entire creation. He could feel the presence of the infinite in the finite form. He praised the beautiful earth, the pulsating life and the invisible creator who was omnipresent.

When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed....

My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch.

(Gitanjali, No. 96) 3 CONCLUSION

The eternal quest for the creator, the deep yearning for union with the beloved Lord, the sacred love tryst, the intense pangs of separation, immortalize the devotional poems of Tagore. The benevolence of Buddha, the devotion of Meera, the mercy of Christ, the self-knowledge of the Upanishads, the surrender of Islam, the

Bhakti of the Vaishnava poets, the ishk or love of the Sufis, the simplicity of the Baul singers, the humanism of Kabir all melt into the sweetness of his verse. To a world that is bitterly divided, violence ridden and mammon-intoxicated, his devotional poems come as drops of nectar glittering with the radiance of love, joy, devotion, peace and bliss.

REFERENCES

1. Iyengar, K.R. Sriniva (2005) Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Slerling Publishers.

2. Tagore, Rabindranath (2006) Gitanjali. New Delhi: Full circle Publishing.

3. Tagore, Rabindranath (1986) Poems. Calcutta:

Vishwa-Bharati.

4. Tagore, Rabindranath (1995) Fruit Gathering.

New Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd.

5. Tagore, Rabindranath (1995) The Gardener. New Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd.

6. Tagore, Rabindranath (1995) Lectures and Addresses. New Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd.

7. Chakrabarti, Mohit (2007) Rabindranath Tagor:

Songs of Awakening. New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers.

8. Tagore, Rabindranath (1995) Lovers Gift and Crossing New Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd.

9. Ghose, Sisir Kumar (1994) Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.

10. Thompson, Edward. Rabindrath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist (1998) New Delhi: Oxford.

11. Radhakrishnan, Sarvapalli. (1999) The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. London:

Macmillan.