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OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Letters_On_Poetry_And_Art
My_Burning_Heart
Writings_In_Bengali_and_Sanskrit

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
02.10_-_Two_Mystic_Poems_in_Modern_Bengali
02.12_-_Mysticism_in_Bengali_Poetry
20.01_-_Charyapada_-_Old_Bengali_Mystic_Poems
31.02_-_The_Mother-_Worship_of_the_Bengalis
41.03_-_Bengali_Poems_of_Sri_Aurobindo
41.04_-_Modern_Bengali_Poems

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME
10.01_-_A_Dream
10.04_-_Lord_of_Time
10.06_-_Looking_around_with_Craziness
10.07_-_The_Demon
10.10_-_A_Poem
10.11_-_Savitri
10.12_-_Awake_Mother

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0.00_-_INTRODUCTION
0.00_-_Publishers_Note_C
0.00_-_THE_GOSPEL_PREFACE
0_1958-07-02
0_1962-07-21
0_1964-01-28
0_1966-10-29
0_1969-01-04
0_1970-08-01
0_1971-02-03
0_1971-10-27
0_1971-11-20
0_1972-04-03
0_1973-04-07
02.09_-_Two_Mystic_Poems_in_Modern_French
02.10_-_Two_Mystic_Poems_in_Modern_Bengali
02.11_-_Hymn_to_Darkness
02.12_-_Mysticism_in_Bengali_Poetry
02.13_-_Rabindranath_and_Sri_Aurobindo
02.14_-_Appendix
03.11_-_Modernist_Poetry
03.11_-_The_Language_Problem_and_India
03.12_-_TagorePoet_and_Seer
04.13_-_To_the_HeightsXIII
10.01_-_A_Dream
10.04_-_Lord_of_Time
10.06_-_Looking_around_with_Craziness
10.07_-_The_Demon
10.10_-_A_Poem
10.11_-_Savitri
10.12_-_Awake_Mother
1.01_-_An_Accomplished_Westerner
1.02_-_Meeting_the_Master_-_Authors_second_meeting,_March_1921
1.02_-_Taras_Tantra
1.03_-_Meeting_the_Master_-_Meeting_with_others
1.03_-_The_End_of_the_Intellect
1.03_-_The_House_Of_The_Lord
1.03_-_VISIT_TO_VIDYASAGAR
1.04_-_ADVICE_TO_HOUSEHOLDERS
1.07_-_Savitri
1.08_-_THE_MASTERS_BIRTHDAY_CELEBRATION_AT_DAKSHINESWAR
1.10_-_The_Revolutionary_Yogi
1.10_-_The_Secret_of_the_Veda
1.11_-_Correspondence_and_Interviews
1.12_-_Dhruva_commences_a_course_of_religious_austerities
1.12_-_God_Departs
1.13_-_THE_MASTER_AND_M.
1.16_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_AT_DAKSHINESWAR
1.17_-_The_Transformation
1.2.1.03_-_Psychic_and_Esoteric_Poetry
1.22_-_ADVICE_TO_AN_ACTOR
1.240_-_Talks_2
1.300_-_1.400_Talks
13.02_-_A_Review_of_Sri_Aurobindos_Life
1.39_-_Prophecy
1.63_-_Fear,_a_Bad_Astral_Vision
17.00_-_Translations
18.01_-_Padavali
18.02_-_Ramprasad
18.03_-_Tagore
18.04_-_Modern_Poems
18.05_-_Ashram_Poets
19.26_-_The_Brahmin
1953-11-25
1954-09-08_-_Hostile_forces_-_Substance_-_Concentration_-_Changing_the_centre_of_thought_-_Peace
1956-03-07_-_Sacrifice,_Animals,_hostile_forces,_receive_in_proportion_to_consciousness_-_To_be_luminously_open_-_Integral_transformation_-_Pain_of_rejection,_delight_of_progress_-_Spirit_behind_intention_-_Spirit,_matter,_over-simplified
1957-07-10_-_A_new_world_is_born_-_Overmind_creation_dissolved
1.rmpsd_-_Come,_let_us_go_for_a_walk,_O_mind
1.rmpsd_-_Conquer_Death_with_the_drumbeat_Ma!_Ma!_Ma!
1.rmpsd_-_I_drink_no_ordinary_wine
1.rmpsd_-_In_the_worlds_busy_market-place,_O_Shyama
1.rmpsd_-_Its_value_beyond_assessment_by_the_mind
1.rmpsd_-_Kulakundalini,_Goddess_Full_of_Brahman,_Tara
1.rmpsd_-_Love_Her,_Mind
1.rmpsd_-_Ma,_Youre_inside_me
1.rmpsd_-_Meditate_on_Kali!_Why_be_anxious?
1.rmpsd_-_Mother,_am_I_Thine_eight-months_child?
1.rmpsd_-_Mother_this_is_the_grief_that_sorely_grieves_my_heart
1.rmpsd_-_O_Death!_Get_away-_what_canst_thou_do?
1.rmpsd_-_Of_what_use_is_my_going_to_Kasi_any_more?
1.rmpsd_-_O_Mother,_who_really
1.rmpsd_-_Once_for_all,_this_time
1.rmpsd_-_So_I_say-_Mind,_dont_you_sleep
1.rmpsd_-_Tell_me,_brother,_what_happens_after_death?
1.rmpsd_-_This_time_I_shall_devour_Thee_utterly,_Mother_Kali!
1.rmpsd_-_Who_in_this_world
1.rmpsd_-_Who_is_that_Syama_woman
1.rmpsd_-_Why_disappear_into_formless_trance?
1.rt_-_(101)_Ever_in_my_life_have_I_sought_thee_with_my_songs_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(103)_In_one_salutation_to_thee,_my_God_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(1)_Thou_hast_made_me_endless_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(38)_I_want_thee,_only_thee_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(63)_Thou_hast_made_me_known_to_friends_whom_I_knew_not_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(75)_Thy_gifts_to_us_mortals_fulfil_all_our_needs_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(80)_I_am_like_a_remnant_of_a_cloud_of_autumn_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_(84)_It_is_the_pang_of_separation_that_spreads_throughout_the_world_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_Accept_me,_my_lord,_accept_me_for_this_while
1.rt_-_A_Hundred_Years_Hence
1.rt_-_At_The_End_Of_The_Day
1.rt_-_Hes_there_among_the_scented_trees_(from_The_Lover_of_God)
1.rt_-_I_touch_God_in_my_song
1.rt_-_Kinu_Goalas_Alley
1.rt_-_Listen,_can_you_hear_it?_(from_The_Lover_of_God)
1.rt_-_On_many_an_idle_day_have_I_grieved_over_lost_time_(from_Gitanjali)
1.rt_-_Ungrateful_Sorrow
1.rt_-_Who_are_You,_who_keeps_my_heart_awake?_(from_The_Lover_of_God)
1.rt_-_Your_flute_plays_the_exact_notes_of_my_pain._(from_The_Lover_of_God)
1.sk_-_Is_there_anyone_in_the_universe
1.vpt_-_As_the_mirror_to_my_hand
1.vpt_-_My_friend,_I_cannot_answer_when_you_ask_me_to_explain
1.vpt_-_The_moon_has_shone_upon_me
20.01_-_Charyapada_-_Old_Bengali_Mystic_Poems
20.02_-_The_Golden_Journey
2.00_-_BIBLIOGRAPHY
2.01_-_On_Books
2.02_-_THE_DURGA_PUJA_FESTIVAL
2.04_-_ADVICE_TO_ISHAN
2.05_-_On_Poetry
2.05_-_VISIT_TO_THE_SINTHI_BRAMO_SAMAJ
2.07_-_BANKIM_CHANDRA
2.07_-_On_Congress_and_Politics
2.08_-_On_Non-Violence
2.09_-_On_Sadhana
2.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_IN_CALCUTTA
2.14_-_AT_RAMS_HOUSE
2.15_-_On_the_Gods_and_Asuras
2.16_-_The_15th_of_August
2.17_-_December_1938
2.18_-_January_1939
2.21_-_1940
2.23_-_THE_MASTER_AND_BUDDHA
2.24_-_THE_MASTERS_LOVE_FOR_HIS_DEVOTEES
2.2.7.01_-_Some_General_Remarks
30.01_-_World-Literature
30.05_-_Rhythm_in_Poetry
30.08_-_Poetry_and_Mantra
30.09_-_Lines_of_Tantra_(Charyapada)
30.11_-_Modern_Poetry
30.13_-_Rabindranath_the_Artist
30.14_-_Rabindranath_and_Modernism
30.15_-_The_Language_of_Rabindranath
30.16_-_Tagore_the_Unique
31.01_-_The_Heart_of_Bengal
31.02_-_The_Mother-_Worship_of_the_Bengalis
31.03_-_The_Trinity_of_Bengal
31.07_-_Shyamakanta
3.1.10_-_Karma
3.1.11_-_Appeal
33.02_-_Subhash,_Oaten:_atlas,_Russell
33.03_-_Muraripukur_-_I
33.05_-_Muraripukur_-_II
33.06_-_Alipore_Court
33.08_-_I_Tried_Sannyas
33.09_-_Shyampukur
33.10_-_Pondicherry_I
33.11_-_Pondicherry_II
33.13_-_My_Professors
33.14_-_I_Played_Football
33.15_-_My_Athletics
33.17_-_Two_Great_Wars
33.18_-_I_Bow_to_the_Mother
3.4.1.06_-_Reading_and_Sadhana
38.01_-_Asceticism_and_Renunciation
38.02_-_Hymns_and_Prayers
38.03_-_Mute
38.04_-_Great_Time
38.05_-_Living_Matter
38.06_-_Ravana_Vanquished
38.07_-_A_Poem
39.08_-_Release
39.09_-_Just_Be_There_Where_You_Are
39.10_-_O,_Wake_Up_from_Vain_Slumber
39.11_-_A_Prayer
3_-_Commentaries_and_Annotated_Translations
40.02_-_The_Two_Chains_Of_The_Mother
41.02_-_Other_Hymns_and_Prayers
41.03_-_Bengali_Poems_of_Sri_Aurobindo
41.04_-_Modern_Bengali_Poems
5.4.01_-_Notes_on_Root-Sounds
9.99_-_Glossary
r1913_11_15
r1914_07_18
r1914_11_20
r1914_11_21
r1916_03_14
Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(text)
Talks_076-099
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_2

PRIMARY CLASS

Language
SIMILAR TITLES
Bengali
Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH

bengali ::: n. --> The language spoken in Bengal.


TERMS ANYWHERE

abhasa ::: appearance; (in Bengali) glimmer, hint.

aksaravrtta ::: [in Bengali prosody, a type of metre in which a syllable ending in a consonant possesses a metrical value of two units when it occurs at the end of a word; otherwise it is generally considered to possess a value of one unit. (cf. matravrtta)].

Ananda Temple. A monumental THERAVADA Buddhist monastery located outside the Tharba Gate in the medieval Burmese capital of Pagan. The Ananda was built around 1105 by King Kyanzittha (r. 1084-1111), third monarch of the Pagan empire, and is dedicated to the four buddhas who have appeared during the present auspicious age: Krakucchanda (P. Kakusandha), Kanakamuni (P. KonAgamana), KAsYAPA, and GAUTAMA. In architectural style, the Ananda represents a fusion of Bengali, Burmese, and Pyu (precursors of the ethnic Burmans) elements. Legend states that eight ARHATs from Mount Gandhamadana in India visited King Kyanzittha, and he was so impressed that he constructed a monastery for them, and next to it founded the Ananda. Like all temples and pagodas of the city of Pagan, the Ananda is built of fired brick and faced with stucco. It is cruciform in plan following a Pyu prototype and crowned with a North Indian style tower, or sikhara. Its interior consists of two circumambulatory halls pierced by windows that allow a limited amount of light into the interior. The hallways are decorated with terracotta plaques depicting episodes from the PAli JATAKAs, the MahAnipAta, and NIDANAKATHA. The inner hall contains niches housing numerous seated images of the Buddha that are rendered in a distinctive Pala style. The temple is entered from four entrances facing the four cardinal directions, which lead directly to four large inner chambers, each containing a colossal standing statue of a buddha. Two of the statues are original; a third was rebuilt in the eighteenth century; and the fourth has been repaired. Three of the statues are flanked by smaller images of their chief disciples. The exception is the statue of Gautama Buddha, located in the western chamber, which is flanked by what is believed to be portrait statues of King Kyanzitha and SHIN ARAHAN, the Mon monk said to have converted Pagan to TheravAda Buddhism, who was also Kyanzittha's preceptor.

ApabhraMsa. In Sanskrit, literally "corrupt," or "ungrammatical"; a term used in ancient Sanskrit works to refer to the dialects of northern India. The term is used with reference to a number of north Indian languages, including Bengali, between the sixth and thirteenth centuries CE. A number of important tantric texts, such as the CARYAGĪTIKOsA, were composed in ApabhraMsa.

Arabindo, mandir karo, mandir karo [Bengali] ::: "Aurobindo, make a temple, make a temple."

babu [Hind.] ::: [gentleman], especially, a Bengali of the higher and middle class; [often used with the name like the English "Mr."].

bengalee ::: n. --> Alt. of Bengali

bengali ::: n. --> The language spoken in Bengal.

Bka' brgyud. (Kagyü). In Tibetan, "Oral Lineage" or "Lineage of the Buddha's Word"; one of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism. The term bka' brgyud is used by all sects of Tibetan Buddhism in the sense of an oral transmission of teachings from one generation to the next, a transmission that is traced back to India. Serving as the name of a specific sect, the name Bka' brgyud refers to a specific lineage, the MAR PA BKA' BRGYUD, the "Oral Lineage of Mar pa," a lineage of tantric initiations, instructions, and practices brought to Tibet from India by the translator MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS in the eleventh century. Numerous sects and subsects evolved from this lineage, some of which developed a great deal of autonomy and institutional power. In this sense, it is somewhat misleading to describe Bka' brgyud as a single sect; there is, for example, no single head of the sect as in the case of SA SKYA or DGE LUGS. The various sects and subsects, however, do share a common retrospection to the teachings that Mar pa retrieved from India. Thus, rather than refer to Bka' brgyud as one of four sects (chos lugs), in Tibetan the Mar pa Bka' brgyud is counted as one of the eight streams of tantric instruction, the so-called eight great chariot-like lineages of achievement (SGRUB BRGYUD SHING RTA CHEN PO BRGYAD), a group which also includes the RNYING MA, the BKA' GDAMS of ATIsA, and the instructions on "severance" (GCOD) of MA GCIG LAB SGRON. In some Tibetan histories, Mar pa's lineage is called the Dkar brgyud ("White Lineage"), named after the white cotton shawls worn by its yogins in their practice of solitary meditation. The reading Dka' brgyud ("Austerities Lineage") is also found. The lineage from which all the sects and subsects derive look back not only to Mar pa, but to his teacher, and their teachers, traced back to the tantric buddha VAJRADHARA. Vajradhara imparted his instructions to the Indian MAHASIDDHA TILOPA, who in turn transmitted them to the Bengali scholar and yogin NAROPA. It was NAropa (in fact, his disciples) whom Mar pa encountered during his time in India, receiving the famous NA RO CHOS DRUG, or the six doctrines of NAropa. Mar pa returned to Tibet, translated the texts and transmitted these and other teachings (including MAHAMUDRA, the hallmark practice of Bka' brgyud) to a number of disciples, including his most famous student, MI LA RAS PA. These five figures-the buddha Vajradhara, the Indian tantric masters Tilopa and NAropa, and their Tibetan successors Mar pa and Mi la ras pa (both of whom were laymen rather than monks)-form a lineage that is recognized and revered by all forms of Bka' brgyud. One of Mi la ras pa's chief disciples, the physician and monk SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN united the tantric instructions he received from Mi la ras pa and presented them in the monastic and exegetical setting that he knew from his studies in the Bka' gdams sect. Sgam po pa, therefore, appears to have been instrumental in transforming an itinerant movement of lay yogins into a sect with a strong monastic element. He established an important monastery in the southern Tibetan region of Dwags po; in acknowledgment of his importance, the subsequent branches of the Bka' brgyud are sometimes collectively known as the DWAGS PO BKA' BRGYUD. The Bka' brgyud later divided into what is known in Tibetan as the "four major and eight minor Bka' brgyud" (BKA' BRGYUD CHE BZHI CHUNG BRGYAD). A number of these subsects no longer survive as independent institutions, although the works of their major figures continue to be studied. Among those that survive, the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD, 'BRI GUNG BKA' BRGYUD, and 'BRUG PA BKA' BRGYUD continue to play an important role in Tibet, the Himalayan region, and in exile.

Blo sbyong don bdun ma. (Lojong Dondünma). In Tibetan, "Seven Points of Mind Training"; an influential Tibetan work in the BLO SBYONG ("mind training") genre. The work was composed by the BKA' GDAMS scholar 'CHAD KA BA YE SHES RDO RJE, often known as Dge bshes Mchad kha ba, based on the tradition of generating BODHICITTA known as "mind training" transmitted by the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA. It also follows the system laid out previously by Glang ri thang pa (Langri Tangpa) in his BLO SBYONG TSHIG BRGYAD MA ("Eight Verses on Mind Training"). Comprised of a series of pithy instructions and meditative techniques, the Blo sbyong don bdun ma became influential in Tibet, with scholars from numerous traditions writing commentaries to it. According to the commentary of the nineteenth-century Tibetan polymath 'JAM MGON KONG SPRUL, the seven points covered in the treatise are: (1) the preliminaries to mind training, which include the contemplations on the preciousness of human rebirth, the reality of death and impermanence, the shortcomings of SAMSARA, and the effects of KARMAN; (2) the actual practice of training in bodhicitta; (3) transforming adverse conditions into the path of awakening; (4) utilizing the practice in one's entire life; (5) the evaluation of mind training; (6) the commitments of mind training; and (7) guidelines for mind training.

Blo sbyong tshig brgyad ma. (Lojong Tsikgyema). In Tibetan, "Eight Verses on Mind Training"; a text composed by the BKA' GDAMS scholar Glang ri thang pa (Langri Thangpa, 1054-1123), based upon the instructions for generating BODHICITTA transmitted to Tibet by the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA. The work became famous in Tibet for its penetrating advice for the practice of compassion (KARUnA). It formed the basis for future influential works, including the often-quoted BLO SBYONG DON BDUN MA ("Seven Points of Mind Training"), by the Bka' gdams scholar 'CHAD KA BA YE SHES RDO RJE, written several decades later. The first seven verses teach the practice of conventional (SAMVṚTI) bodhicitta, and the last verse ultimate (PARAMARTHA) bodhicitta. The first training is to view sentient beings as wish-granting gems because it is only by feeling compassion for beings that bodhisattvas reach enlightenment; the second is to cultivate an attitude similar to a person of low status whose natural place is serving others; and the third is to immediately confront and counteract afflictions (KLEsA) (here understood specifically as selfishness, attachment to one's own interests, and hatred for those who oppose them). The fourth training is to treat people who are actually cruel as extremely rare and precious because they present an opportunity to practice patience and compassion, without which enlightenment is impossible; the fifth is the famous advice to "give all victory to others; take all defeat for yourself;" the sixth is to treat ungrateful persons as special gurus, and the seventh is to practice GTONG LEN (giving and taking), a practice of breathing out love and compassion and breathing in the sufferings of others. The eighth training is in a mind free from all conceptions.

BodhgayA. (S. BuddhagayA). Modern Indian place name for the most significant site in the Buddhist world, renowned as the place where sAKYAMUNI Buddha (then, still the BODHISATTVA prince SIDDHARTHA) became a buddha while meditating under the BODHI TREE at the "seat of enlightenment" (BODHIMAndA) or the "diamond seat" (VAJRASANA). The site is especially sacred because, according to tradition, not only did sAkyamuni Buddha attain enlightenment there, but all buddhas of this world system have or will do so, albeit under different species of trees. BodhgayA is situated along the banks of the NAIRANJANA river, near RAJAGṚHA, the ancient capital city of the MAGADHA kingdom. Seven sacred places are said to be located in BodhgayA, each being a site where the Buddha stayed during each of the seven weeks following his enlightenment. These include, in addition to the bodhimanda under the Bodhi tree: the place where the Buddha sat facing the Bodhi tree during the second week, with an unblinking gaze (and hence the site of the animesalocana caitya); the place where the Buddha walked back and forth in meditation (CAnKRAMA) during the third week; the place called the ratnagṛha, where the Buddha meditated during the fourth week, emanating rays of light from his body; the place under the ajapAla tree where the god BRAHMA requested that the Buddha turn the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA) during the fifth week; the lake where the NAGA MUCILINDA used his hood to shelter the Buddha from a storm during the sixth week; and the place under the rAjAyatana tree where the merchants TRAPUsA and BHALLIKA met the Buddha after the seventh week, becoming his first lay disciples. ¶ Located in the territory of MAGADHA (in modern Bihar), the ancient Indian kingdom where the Buddha spent much of his teaching career, BodhgayA is one of the four major pilgrimage sites (MAHASTHANA) sanctioned by the Buddha himself, along with LUMBINĪ in modern-day Nepal, where the Buddha was born; the Deer Park (MṚGADAVA) at SARNATH, where he first taught by "turning the wheel of the dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA); and KUsINAGARĪ in Uttar Pradesh, where he passed into PARINIRVAnA. According to the AsOKAVADANA, the emperor AsOKA visited BodhgayA with the monk UPAGUPTA and established a STuPA at the site. There is evidence that Asoka erected a pillar and shrine at the site during the third century BCE. A more elaborate structure, called the vajrAsana GANDHAKUtĪ ("perfumed chamber of the diamond seat"), is depicted in a relief at BodhgayA, dating from c. 100 BCE. It shows a two-storied structure supported by pillars, enclosing the Bodhi tree and the vajrAsana, the "diamond seat," where the Buddha sat on the night of his enlightenment. The forerunner of the present temple is described by the Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG. This has led scholars to speculate that the structure was built sometime between the third and sixth centuries CE, with subsequent renovations. Despite various persecutions by non-Buddhist Indian kings, the site continued to receive patronage, especially during the PAla period, from which many of the surrounding monuments date. A monastery, called the BodhimandavihAra, was established there and flourished for several centuries. FAXIAN mentions three monasteries at BodhgayA; Xuanzang found only one, called the MahAbodhisaMghArAma (see MAHABODHI TEMPLE). The temple and its environs fell into neglect after the Muslim invasions that began in the thirteenth century. British photographs from the nineteenth century show the temple in ruins. Restoration of the site was ordered by the British governor-general of Bengal in 1880, with a small eleventh-century replica of the temple serving as a model. There is a tall central tower some 165 feet (fifty meters) in height, with a high arch over the entrance with smaller towers at the four corners. The central tower houses a small temple with an image of the Buddha. The temple is surrounded by stone railings, some dating from 150 BCE, others from the Gupta period (300-600 CE) that preserve important carvings. In 1886, EDWIN ARNOLD visited BodhgayA. He published an account of his visit, which was read by ANAGARIKA DHARMAPALA and others. Arnold described a temple surrounded by hundreds of broken statues scattered in the jungle. The MahAbodhi Temple itself had stood in ruins prior to renovations undertaken by the British in 1880. Also of great concern was the fact that the site had been under saiva control since the eighteenth century, with reports of animal sacrifice taking place in the environs of the temple. DharmapAla visited BodhgayA himself in 1891, and returned to Sri Lanka, where he worked with a group of leading Sinhalese Buddhists to found the MAHABODHI SOCIETY with the aim of restoring BodhgayA as place of Buddhist worship and pilgrimage. The society undertook a series of unsuccessful lawsuits to that end. In 1949, after Indian independence, the BodhgayA Temple Act was passed, which established a committee of four Buddhists and four Hindus to supervise the temple and its grounds. The Government of India asked AnagArika Munindra, a Bengali monk and active member of the MahAbodhi Society, to oversee the restoration of BodhgayA. Since then, numerous Buddhist countries-including Bhutan, China, Japan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam-have constructed (or restored) their own temples and monasteries in BodhgayA, each reflecting its national architectural style. In 2002, the MahAbodhi Temple was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Brag yer pa. [alt. Yer pa; G.yer pa] (Drak Yerpa). A complex of meditation caves and temples northeast of LHA SA, regarded as one of the premier retreat locations of central Tibet. The ancient hermitage complex was founded by queen Mong bza' khri lcam (Mongsa Tricham) and her children and was inhabited during the imperial period by Tibet's religious kings SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO, KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN, and RAL PA CAN. The Indian sage PADMASAMBHAVA is said to have spent some seven months in retreat there and hid numerous treasure texts (GTER MA) in the area. Brag yer pa is considered one of his three primary places of attainment (grub gnas), together with CHIMS PHU and Shel brag (Sheldrak). Lha lung Dpal gyi rdo rje (Lhalung Palgyi Dorje), assassin of King GLANG DAR MA, is said to have spent more than twenty-two years in retreat there. Brag yer pa later gained prominence under the influence of the BKA' GDAMS sect after the Bengali scholar ATIsA passed some three years at the site.

'Brom ston Rgyal ba'i 'byung gnas. (Dromton Gyalwe Jungne) (1004-1064). The foremost Tibetan disciple of the Bengali scholar ATIsA, and central figure in the founding of the BKA' GDAMS sect of Tibetan Buddhism during the period known as the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. Born in central Tibet, he began his education at an early age. Toward the middle years of his life, news of Atisa's arrival in western Tibet reached him, and he set out on the arduous journey to meet the master. 'Brom ston pa became an early and close student of Atisa and made arrangements for his Indian guru's tour of central Tibet in 1045. After Atisa's death, 'Brom ston pa established RWA SGRENG monastery in 1056, consolidating his career as translator and teacher at this important religious institution. He is remembered especially for the firm austerity of his religious practice. 'Brom ston pa's instructions, as recorded in Bka' gdams pa works such as the Bka' gdams gtor bu ("Bka' gdams Miscellania"), perhaps wary of the potential abuses of tantric practice, instead emphasize meditation on impermanence and compassion coupled with adherence to strict ethical principles and monastic discipline.

bujruki [Bengali] ::: hocus-pocus; imposture.C

CaryAgītikosa. (T. Spyod pa'i glu'i mdzod). In Sanskrit, "Anthology of Songs on Practice"; a collection of fifty songs, dating from the eighth through the twelfth centuries, that represent some of the oldest examples of specifically tantric literature written in an Indian vernacular language (see APABHRAMsA). The manuscript was discovered in Nepal in 1907 and published in 1916, and contained four sections. The first section in the collection, CaryAcaryAbhiniscaya, was written in the Bengali vernacular, while the three other sections were written in Eastern ApabhraMsa, a late Middle Indic dialect from the Bengal region. The original manuscript of the CaryAgītikosa contained sixty-nine folios, which included the fifty songs, with exegeses in Sanskrit. By the time of the text's rediscovery, however, five folios were lost, leaving sixty-four folios containing the text of forty-six full songs and the first six lines of another ten-lined song. The names of twenty-three different authors are ascribed to the songs themselves; the authorship of the Sanskrit commentary to the Bengali songs is attributed to Munidatta. The songs were handed down orally before they were committed to writing, and even today they are sung in the Buddhist communities of Nepal, Tibet, and other neighboring areas of the HimAlayas. Most of the songs deal with gaining release from the bondage of the illusory world and enjoying the great bliss of enlightenment, by employing worldly similes drawn from marriage and such daily activities as fermenting wine and rowing a boat.

Coilas ::: Tehmi: “Coilas is the old Bengali spelling of Kailas and is the heaven of Shiva.”

geruya [Bengali] ::: cloth dyed with red ochre, worn by sannyasis. geruya

haṁd.i (handi) [Bengali, Hindi] ::: pot. hamdi

Hodgson, Brian Houghton. (1801-1894). An early British scholar of Sanskrit Buddhism. He was born in Derbyshire. At age fifteen, he gained admission to Haileybury, the college that had been established by the East India Company in 1806 to train its future employees. He excelled at Bengali, Persian, Hindi, political economy, and classics. Following the standard curriculum of the company, after two years at Haileybury, he went to the College of Fort William in Calcutta to continue his studies. Once in India, he immediately began to suffer liver problems and was eventually assigned to Kathmandu as Assistant Resident and later Resident to the Court of Nepal. He began his studies of Buddhism at this time (Buddhism, although long dead in India, still flourished in the Newar community of the Kathmandu Valley). Working with the assistance of the distinguished Newar scholar Amṛtānanda, Hodgson published a number of essays on Buddhism in leading journals of the day. However, he is largely remembered for his collection and distribution of Sanskrit manuscripts. In 1824, he began accumulating Buddhist works in Sanskrit (and Tibetan) and dispatching them around the world, beginning with the gift of sixty-six manuscripts to the library of the College of Fort William in 1827 and continuing until 1845: ninety-four to the Library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, seventy-nine to the Royal Asiatic Society, thirty-six to the India Office Library, seven to the Bodleian, eighty-eight to the Société Asiatique, and later fifty-nine more to Paris. A total of 423 works were provided. The manuscripts sent to Paris drew the immediate attention of EUGÈNE BURNOUF, who used them as the basis for his monumental 1844 Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien. Hodgson's contributions to the study of Buddhism occurred in the early decades of his career; he later turned his attention to Himalayan natural history and linguistics, where he made important contributions as well.

jonaki [Bengali] ::: firefly. jonaki

kalasi [Bengali] ::: pitcher.

karan.a (karana; karanam) ::: cause; causal; "the Causal Idea which, by supporting and secretly guiding the confused activities of Mind, Life and Body ensures and compels the right arrangement of the Universe", same as vijñana or vijñanamaya; (especially in Bengali) consecrated wine, used in Tantric rituals. k karana-indriya

. kar korbbo? [Bengali] ::: shall I clean it right now? electric ananda

khata [Bengali, etc.] ::: notebook. khata

laghu-guru ::: [in Bengali prosody: a metrical system in which long and short vowels are given their full quantitative value; quantitative verse].

Lam rim chen mo. In Tibetan, "Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path"; the abbreviated title for one of the best-known works on Buddhist thought and practice in Tibet, composed by the Tibetan luminary TSONG KHA PA BLO BZANG GRAGS PA in 1402 at the central Tibetan monastery of RWA SGRENG. A lengthy treatise belonging to the LAM RIM, or stages of the path, genre of Tibetan Buddhist literature, the LAM RIN CHEN MO takes its inspiration from numerous earlier writings, most notably the BODHIPATHAPRADĪPA ("Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment") by the eleventh-century Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA. It is the most extensive treatment of three principal stages that Tsong kha pa composed. The others include (1) the LAM RIM CHUNG BA ("Short Treatise on the Stages of the Path"), also called the Lam rim 'bring ba ("Intermediate Treatise on the States of the Path") and (2) the LAM RIM BSDUS DON ("Concise Meaning of the Stages of the Path"), occasionally also referred to as the Lam rim chung ngu ("Brief Stages of the Path"). The latter text, which records Tsong kha pa's own realization of the path in verse form, is also referred to as the Lam rim nyams mgur ma ("Song of Experience of the Stages of the Path"). The LAM RIM CHEN MO is a highly detailed and often technical treatise presenting a comprehensive and synthetic overview of the path to buddhahood. It draws, often at length, upon a wide range of scriptural sources including the SuTRA and sĀSTRA literature of both the HĪNAYĀNA and MAHĀYĀNA; Tsong kha pa treats tantric practice in a separate work. The text is organized under the rubric of the three levels of spiritual predilection, personified as "the three individuals" (skyes bu gsum): the beings of small capacity, who engage in religious practice in order to gain a favorable rebirth in their next lifetime; the beings of intermediate capacity, who seek liberation from rebirth for themselves as an ARHAT; and the beings of great capacity, who seek to liberate all beings in the universe from suffering and thus follow the bodhisattva path to buddhahood. Tsong kha pa's text does not lay out all the practices of these three types of persons but rather those practices essential to the bodhisattva path that are held in common by persons of small and intermediate capacity, such as the practice of refuge (sARAnA) and contemplation of the uncertainty of the time of death. The text includes extended discussions of topics such as relying on a spiritual master, the development of BODHICITTA, and the six perfections (PĀRAMITĀ). The last section of the text, sometimes regarded as a separate work, deals at length with the nature of serenity (sAMATHA) and insight (VIPAsYANĀ); Tsong kha pa's discussion of insight here represents one of his most important expositions of emptiness (suNYATĀ). Primarily devoted to exoteric Mahāyāna doctrine, the text concludes with a brief reference to VAJRAYĀNA and the practice of tantra, a subject discussed at length by Tsong kha pa in a separate work, the SNGAGS RIM CHEN MO ("Stages of the Path of Mantra"). The Lam rim chen mo's full title is Skyes bu gsum gyi rnyams su blang ba'i rim pa thams cad tshang bar ston pa'i byang chub lam gyi rim pa.

lam rim. In Tibetan, "stages of the path"; a common abbreviation for byang chub lam gyi rim pa (jangchup lamkyi rimpa), or "stages of the path to enlightenment," a broad methodological framework for the study and practice of the complete Buddhist path to awakening, as well as the name for a major genre of Tibetan literature describing that path. It is closely allied to the genre known as BSTAN RIM, or "stages of the doctrine." The initial inspiration for the instructions of this system is usually attributed to the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA, whose BODHIPATHAPRADĪPA ("Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment") became a model for numerous later stages of the path texts. The system presents a graduated and comprehensive approach to studying the central tenets of MAHĀYĀNA Buddhist thought and is often organized around a presentation of the three levels of spiritual predilection, personified as "three individuals" (skyes bu gsum): lesser, intermediate, and superior. The stages gradually lead the student from the lowest level of seeking merely to obtain a better rebirth, through the intermediate level of wishing for one's own individual liberation, and finally to adopting the MAHĀYĀNA outlook of the "superior individual," viz., aspiring to attain buddhahood in order to benefit all living beings. The approach is most often grounded in the teachings of the sutra and usually concludes with a brief overview of TANTRA. Although usually associated with the DGE LUGS sect, stages of the path literature is found within all the major sects of Tibetan Buddhism. One common Dge lugs tradition identifies eight major stages of the path treatises:

maran.a ::: hitting, striking (as in the related Bengali and Hindi verbs, marana not in the normal Sanskrit sense of "killing").

matravrtta ::: [in Bengali prosody, a type of metre in which a syllable ending in a consonant always possesses a metrical value of one unit. [cf. aksaravrtta]

ṁpegach (pepegach) [Bengali] ::: papaya tree. perceptional thought; perceptive j ñana

namasi [Bengali] ::: mother"s younger sister. namasi

phyi dar. (chi dar). In Tibetan, "later dissemination." Tibetan historians have traditionally divided the dissemination of Buddhist teachings in Tibet into two periods. The "earlier dissemination" (SNGA DAR) began in the seventh century with the conversion of king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO to Buddhism and continued with the arrival of the Indian masters sĀNTARAKsITA and PADMASAMBHAVA and the founding of the first monastery at BSAM YAS during the reign of king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN. This period ended in 842 with the assassination of king GLANG DAR MA and the fall of the Tibetan monarchy. There ensued a "dark period" of almost two centuries, during which recorded contact between Indian and Tibetan Buddhists declined. The "later dissemination" commenced in earnest in the eleventh century. It is marked by patronage of Buddhism by king YE SHES 'OD in western Tibet and especially the work of the noted translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO, who made three trips to India to study and to retrieve Buddhist texts, as well as the work of RNGOG LEGS PA'I SHES RAB. The noted Bengali monk ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA arrived in Tibet in 1042. The "later dissemination" was a period of extensive translation of Indian texts; these new (GSAR MA) translations of tantras became central to the so-called "new" sects of Tibetan Buddhism: BKA' GDAMS, SA SKYA, BKA' BRGYUD, and later DGE LUGS, with the RNYING MA ("ancient") sect basing itself on "old" translations from the earlier dissemination. Of particular importance during this later dissemination was the resurgence of monastic ordination, especially that of the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA. New artistic styles were also introduced from neighboring regions during this period.

Prakrit. (S. Prākṛta). A term that literally means "natural" in Sanskrit, used to designate a group of Indo-Āryan vernacular languages in ancient India. The term "Sanskrit" (saMskṛta) has the sense both of "constructed," "perfected," or "refined," and thus describes a classical language that may not ever have been used for everyday verbal communication. The earliest extant written forms of Prakrit are found in the inscriptions of AsOKA. The Buddha is said to have spoken the Prakritic dialect of Māgadhī, the vernacular language of the Indian state of MAGADHA. Also important for Buddhism is the GĀNDHĀRĪ form of Prakrit, from the GANDHĀRA region of northwest India. These Prakrit dialects eventually evolved into many of the modern Indian vernacular languages, such as Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, and Hindi. Although some scholars do not consider PĀLI and BUDDHIST HYBRID SANSKRIT to be Prakrits in the technical sense, they are clearly influenced by various Prakrits current at the time of their formation.

rajii holo [Bengali] ::: he has agreed.

Rin chen bzang po. [alt. Lo tsā ba chen po, Lo chen] (Rinchen Sangpo) (958-1055). A Tibetan translator of Sanskrit Buddhist texts who helped to initiate the revival of Buddhism in Tibet known as the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) of the dharma. He was born in the western Tibetan region of GU GE. According to traditional histories, at the age of seventeen, he was sent to India together with a group of twenty other youths by King YE SHES 'OD to study Sanskrit and Indian vernacular languages. Rin chen bzang po made several trips to India, spending a total of seventeen years in Kashmir and the monastic university of VIKRAMAsĪLA before returning the Tibet. During the last years of his life, he collaborated with the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA at THO LING monastery. Rin chen bzang po's literary career concentrated on new and revised translations of important Indian Buddhist works; he is credited with 178 translations spanning the SuTRAs, TANTRAs, and commentarial literature. Apart from his literary activities, he also brought with him numerous artisans and craftsmen from Kashmir and, with their aid, was highly active in the construction of new monasteries, temples, and shrines across western Tibet. These institutions, and the artwork they house, were strongly influenced by the artistic styles and religious practices of northwest India and now serve as important records of a tradition otherwise nearly lost. Most important among these temples are Tho ling, KHA CHAR, and NYAR MA, although tradition ascribes him with founding 108 buildings in all. Rin chen bzang po is still considered a local hero in the regions of western Tibet, Ladakh, Lahul, Spiti, and Kinnaur, and the current reincarnation, LO CHEN SPRUL SKU, maintains his monastic seat at Kyi monastery in Spiti.

Rngog Legs pa'i shes rab. (Ngog Lekpe Sherap) (fl. eleventh century). Tibetan scholar and translator venerated as an important founder of the BKA' GDAMS sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The exact year of his year of birth is unclear, although it is known that he was born in the western Tibetan region of GU GE. According to Tibetan histories, he was one of twenty-one young scholars sent to India by the region's king, YE SHES 'OD, to study Sanskrit, Buddhist philosophy, and TANTRA. He returned to Tibet and became an important disciple of the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA. He also studied under and collaborated with the famed translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO. Together with Atisa and 'BROM STON RGYAL BA'I 'BYUNG GNAS, Ngog Legs pa'i shes rab is considered an important Bka' gdams forefather. In 1073, he laid the foundations for an early monastic center for Buddhist learning, GSANG PHU NE'U THOG, south of LHA SA. He is also known as Rngog lo tsā ba (Ngog, the translator) and Rngog lo chung (Ngog, the junior translator) in distinction to Rin chen Bzang po, the great translator (lo chen).

rut.i [Bengali] ::: flat unleavened bread; chapati.S

Rwa sgreng. (Reting). A principal monastery of the BKA' GDAMS sect in central Tibet, located in the region of 'Phan po north of LHA SA. The monastery was established in 1056 by 'BROM STON RGYAL BA'I 'BYUNG GNAS, foremost disciple of the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA. The institution was greatly expanded under the direction of 'Brom ston pa's successors Rnal 'byor pa chen po and Po to ba (b. 1031), although it was sacked by Mongol invaders in 1240. In 1397, the eminent scholar TSONG KHA PA visited Rwa sgreng and experienced a vision of Atisa, prompting him to compose his celebrated work LAM RIM CHEN MO there. The monastery subsequently became an important DGE LUGS institution. The monastery was severely damaged during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but has since been partially rebuilt. From the time of the seventh DALAI LAMA, the abbots of Rwa sgreng became eligible to serve as regents during the interegnum between the Dalai Lama's death and his reincarnation's majority. The Rwa sgreng lamas served as regent two times: between the reigns of the eleventh and twelfth Dalai Lamas and between that of the thirteenth and fourteenth.

sahaja. (T. lhan skyes; C. jushengqi; J. kushoki; K. kusaenggi 生起). A polysemous Sanskrit term, variously translated as "coemergence," "connate," "simultaneously arisen," and "the innate." This term is used frequently in the tantric Buddhist verses composed by the SIDDHAs of medieval north India such as SARAHA, Kānha, and TILOPA; these include collections of DOHĀ recorded in APABHRAMsA and Bengali compilations of caryāgīti (see CARYĀGĪTIKOsA). In these contexts, sahaja refers most generally to the ultimate and innermost true nature, as well as to its realization through the spontaneous and uninhibited lifestyle and practice associated with tantric adepts. The term may be used as a noun for the ultimate state itself, or as an adjective describing a state or condition as natural and uncontrived. In the context of the YOGINĪ tantras such as the HEVAJRATANTRA, the term sahaja is used to refer to the highest of four states of ecstasy-innate ecstasy (sahajānanda)-which can be gained through the visualized or actual practice of sexual yoga, and through which one comes to realize the mind's luminosity and natural purity. Early twentieth-century authors-beginning with the Bengali scholars and translators who first published studies on the collections of tantric verses-described what they called the sahajayāna ("path of sahaja") and the sahajiyās who followed it, although neither term is found in traditional Indian Buddhist literature. The Tibetan form, lhan skyes (short for lhan cig tu skyes pa) appears widely in the subsequent literature of MAHĀMUDRĀ.

Saraha. (T. Sa ra ha; C. Shaluohe; J. Sharaka; K. Saraha 沙羅訶). An eighth-century Indian tantric adept, counted among the eighty-four MAHĀSIDDHAs and renowned for his songs of realization (DOHĀ); also known as Sarahapāda. There are few historical facts regarding Saraha, but according to traditional sources he was born into a Bengali brāhmana family. He is often known by the appellation "Great Brāhmana." In his youth he entered the Buddhist monastic order but later abandoned the clergy in favor of living as a wandering YOGIN. During a visionary experience, he was exhorted to train under a female arrowsmith, who, by means of symbolic instruction, taught Saraha the means for piercing through discursiveness and dualistic thought. Having realized the nature of MAHĀMUDRĀ, he earned the name Saraha, lit., "piercing arrow" or "he who has shot the arrow." Saraha is an important member in Tibetan lineages for the instructions on mahāmudrā. He also composed numerous spiritual songs (dohā) popular among Newari and Tibetan Buddhists. Originally recorded in an eastern Indian APABHRAMsA dialect, these songs were later collected and translated into Tibetan as the well-known DO HA SKOR GSUM ("Three Cycles of Songs").

Sgrol ma lha khang. (Drolma Lhakhang). In Tibetan, "Tārā Temple," a temple in the central Tibetan region of Snye thang (Nyetang) where the Bengali scholar ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA lived for much of his time in Tibet, where he made his principal seat, and later died. The primary image is a statue of TĀRĀ (T. Sgrol ma), the female bodhisattva of compassion who served as Atisa's personal protector, after which the temple takes its name. Constructed in the mid-eleventh century, it was spared major damage during the Chinese Cultural Revolution due to the intervention of officials from the Indian state of Bengal, which was ruled at the time by the Communist Left Front. Consequently, the temple still houses Atisa's relics and original artwork of great value and beauty.

siṁhavahini (singhabahini) [Bengali] ::: the Goddess (devi) riding on simhavahini a lion, "the symbol of the Divine Consciousness acting through a divinised physical-vital and vital-emotional force".

simul [Bengali] ::: silk-cotton tree. simul

srīvijaya. (T. Dpal rnam par rgyal ba; C. Shilifoshi; J. Shitsuribussei; K. Sillibulso 室利佛逝). A kingdom located on the island of Sumatra (in modern Indonesia) which was an important center of Buddhism from the seventh through the eleventh centuries. Located along the key maritime routes of Southeast Asia, it was a major political power in the region. The Chinese pilgrim YIJING (635-713 CE) made extended stays in the kingdom on both his trip to India and his return to China, stopping there first for six months to study Sanskrit, and then making a more lengthy stay beginning in 687, where he translated a number of texts, including much of the massive MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA, and wrote an account of his journey, the NANHAI JIGUI NEIFA ZHUAN; because there was no paper and ink in Sumatra, Yijing made a short trip to China to retrieve these items before returning to srīvijaya to continue his work. He reported that in the city of Bhoga there were more than a thousand monks, whom he praised for their learning and their adherence to the vinaya, which he said was the same as that practiced in India. He advised Chinese monks to stop in srīvijaya for preparatory studies before proceeding to India. In the eleventh century, the Bengali monk ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA may have visited srīvijaya to study with DHARMAKĪRTIsRĪ; the sources say that he visited Suvarnadvīpa, a term that seemed to encompass a larger region, which included Sumatra.

telugu ::: n. --> A Darvidian language spoken in the northern parts of the Madras presidency. In extent of use it is the next language after Hindustani (in its various forms) and Bengali.
One of the people speaking the Telugu language. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the Telugu language, or the Telugus.


Tho ling gtsug lag khang. (Toling Tsuklakang). One of the principal religious institutions of the GU GE kingdom in the western Tibetan region of Mnga' ris, established in 996 by King YE SHE 'OD and translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO; also spelled Mtho lding, Tho gling, and 'Thon 'thing. It was the first residence of the Bengali scholar ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA during his stay in Tibet, where he composed his famous treatise, the BODHIPATHAPRADĪPA. It also served as the seat for much of Rin chen bzang po's literary career. The main image in the central temple was of the buddha VAIROCANA.

Tilopa. (T. Ti lo pa) (988-1069). An Indian tantric adept counted among the eighty-four MAHĀSIDDHAs and venerated in Tibet as an important source of tantric instruction and a founder of the BKA' BRGYUD sect. Little historical information exists regarding Tilopa's life. According to his traditional biographies, Tilopa was born a brāhmana in northeast India. As a young man he took the vows of a Buddhist monk, but later was compelled by the prophecies of a dĀKINĪ messenger to study with a host of tantric masters. He lived as a wandering YOGIN, practicing TANTRA in secret while outwardly leading a life of transgressive behavior. For many years Tilopa acted as the servant for the prostitute Barima (in truth a wisdom dākinī in disguise) by night while grinding sesame seeds for oil by day. The name Tilopa, literally "Sesame Man," derives from the Sanskrit word for sesamum. Finally, Tilopa is said to have received instructions in the form of a direct transmission from the primordial buddha VAJRADHARA. Tilopa instructed numerous disciples, including the renowned Bengali master NĀROPA, who is said to have abandoned his prestigious monastic position to become Tilopa's disciple, undergoing many difficult trials before receiving his teachings. Those teachings were later received by MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS, who brought Tilopa's teachings to Tibet. As with many Indian siddhas, Tilopa's main instructions are found in the form of DOHĀ, or songs of realization. Many of his songs, together with several tantric commentaries and liturgical texts, are included in the Tibetan canon. Among the teachings attributed to him are the BKA' 'BABS BZHI ("four transmissions"), the LUS MED MKHA' 'GRO SNYAN RGYUD CHOS SKOR DGU ("nine aural lineage cycles of the formless dākinīs"), and the MAHĀMUDROPADEsA.

Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa. (Tsong kha pa Losang Drakpa) (1357-1419). A Tibetan scholar and teacher venerated as the founder of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism; typically known simply as Tsong kha pa. Born in the Tsong kha region of A mdo in northeastern Tibet, he received his initial lay vows under the fourth KARMA PA and began his religious education in the BKA' GDAMS tradition. In 1372, he traveled to central Tibet for further study. He became a disciple of the SA SKYA scholar Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros (Rendawa Shonu Lodro, 1349-1412) but went on to study under many of the leading scholars of the day, including masters of various schools and sectarian affiliations. Another influential teacher was the lama Dbu ma pa (Umapa), from whom he received instructions on the KĀLACAKRATANTRA. He distinguished himself as a brilliant scholar and exegete of both SuTRA and TANTRA. According to his traditional biographies, Tsong kha pa experienced visions of Indian masters such as NĀGĀRJUNA and BUDDHAPĀLITA, who helped to clarify difficult points of doctrine. He is also said to have maintained a special relationship with MANJUsRĪ, the bodhisattva of wisdom, who appeared in visions throughout Tsong kha pa's life offering instruction and advice; Tsong kha pa is sometimes called 'Jam mgon, or "protected by MaNjusrī." Tsong kha pa's biographies speak of four major deeds undertaken during his lifetime. The first, in 1399, was his restoration of an image of the future buddha, MAITREYA. The second was a council to reform the code of VINAYA, convened in 1403 and attended by monks representing all sects of Tibetan Buddhism. The third was the Great Prayer Festival (SMON LAM CHEN MO) inaugurated in 1409 at the JO KHANG in LHA SA, in which he offered the ornaments of a SAMBHOGAKĀYA to the famous statue of JO BO SHĀKYAMUNI, celebrating the Buddha's performance of the sRĀVASTĪ MIRACLES. The festival became an important annual event, drawing thousands of participants from all quarters of the Tibetan Buddhist world. The fourth was the founding in 1409 of DGA' LDAN monastery, which would become one of principal religious institutions in the Lha sa region and seat of the leader of the Dge lugs sect. Tsong kha pa was an original and penetrating philosopher, who saw reason and intellectual development as key aspects of the path to enlightenment. Born during a period when the Tibetan Buddhist canon had been newly formulated, he sought a comprehensive explanation of the Buddhist path, with the PRĀSAnGIKA-MADHYAMAKA of BUDDHAPĀLITA and CANDRAKĪRTI as the highest philosophical view. His works are marked with a concern with systematic consistency, whether it be between sutra and tantra or PRAMĀnA and MADHYAMAKA. A prolific author, Tsong kha pa's works fill eighteen volumes. Among his best known writings are the LAM RIM CHEN MO ("Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment"), composed in 1402 at RWA SGRENG monastery, the SNGAGS RIM CHEN MO ("Great Treatise on the Stages of Mantra"), and the Drang nges LEGS BSHAD SNYING PO ("Essence of Eloquence on the Definitive and Interpretable"). Tsong kha pa called his system of religious practice the Bka' gdams gsar ma, or "New Bka' gdams," after the sect founded by the Bengali master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA. His followers were later known as Dga' ldan pa (Gandenpa), "those of Dga' ldan," after the monastic seat established by Tsong kha pa. This was sometimes abbreviated as Dga' lugs pa, "those of the system of Dga' ldan," eventually evolving into the current name Dge lugs pa, "those of the system of virtue." Tsong kha pa's fame was greatly elevated through the political power of the Dge lugs sect after the establishment of the institution of the DALAI LAMA. His tomb at Dga' ldan became an important site of pilgrimage prior to its destruction during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Tsong kha pa's fame in Tibet was sufficiently great that he is commonly known simply as Rje rin po che, the "precious leader."

turi [Bengali] ::: horn.

Zhwa lu. (Shalu). A modest but important monastery near the Tibetan city of Gzhis ka tse (Shigatse), famous as the seat of fourteenth-century polymath BU STON RIN CHEN GRUB, and renowned for its unusual architectural features. The earliest foundations were laid circa 997 by Lo ston Rdo rje dbang phyug (Loton Dorje Wangchuk, b. tenth century), an active teacher during the outset of the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. His disciple, Lce btsun Shes rab 'byung gnas (Chetsün Sherap Jungne, d.u.), established a larger structure in 1027, having promised his master to construct a temple "as large as a small hat," from which its name is derived. The project was completed just prior to a visit of the illustrious Bengali scholar ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA. During the thirteenth century, Zhwa lu formed close ties with the ruling SA SKYA hierarchs and their Mongol patrons. In 1306, the Yuan emperor Temür (1265-1307) appointed Grags pa rgyal mtshan (Drakpa Gyaltsen, d.u.) as prelate, under whom the institution flourished. Bu ston's rise to the abbacy in 1320 is traditionally viewed as the beginning of a new lineage, the so-called Zhwa lu pa ("Those of Zhwa lu") or Bu lugs tshul ("Tradition of Bu [ston]"). It was at Zhwa lu that Bu ston famously redacted the several hundred volumes that would comprise his influential edition of the Tibetan Buddhist canon. The monastery is equally famous for its unique blend of Tibetan and Chinese architecture (most notably, its pagoda-style roof of glazed turquoise tiles) and murals executed under the direction of Newar artist-disciples of the master Newari artisan Arniko.



QUOTES [3 / 3 - 73 / 73]


KEYS (10k)

   1 Satprem
   1 Rabindranath Tagore
   1 Sri Aurobindo

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   8 Sri Aurobindo
   5 Shashi Tharoor
   4 Husain Haqqani
   3 Vidyapati
   3 Mithun Chakraborty
   3 Bharati Mukherjee
   3 Anonymous
   3 Amit Chaudhuri
   2 Satyajit Ray
   2 Devdutt Pattanaik
   2 Amitav Ghosh

1:Poet, who first with skill inspired did teach
Greatness to our divine Bengali speech. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Madhusudan Dutt,
2:it can only find itself in changing forms." ~ Rabindranath Tagore, (1861-1941), a Bengali poet & musician, reshaped Bengali literature & music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism, Wikipedia.,
3:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:[My mother tongue is] Albanian. But, I am equally fluent in Bengali (language of Calcutta) and English. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:The Bengali was the Marwari of the early nineteenth century. ~ Amit Chaudhuri,
2:I am neither a Bengali nor am I from Delhi's St Stephen's. I am an Allahabad boy. ~ Vikas Swarup,
3:If Bengali cuisine were Wimbledon, the hilsa would always play on Centre Court. ~ Samanth Subramanian,
4:The worst... was what the Pakistani soldiers did to the Bengali women after their failed rebellion. ~ Iris Chang,
5:The terrible sacrifice offered to Kali in the name of religion enhanced my desire to know Bengali ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
6:In the Bengali language, there's not a real word for blow job. They call it "doing the ice cream." ~ Michael Glawogger,
7:[My mother tongue is] Albanian. But, I am equally fluent in Bengali (language of Calcutta) and English. ~ Mother Teresa,
8:At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music. ~ Satyajit Ray,
9:The joke is that one Bengali is a poet, two Bengalis is an argument, three Bengalis is a political party, ~ Shashi Tharoor,
10:Yes, I am a Bengali. We talk a lot, we shout a lot, we argue a lot and we are a perennially hyper-vocal community. ~ Anonymous,
11:Poet, who first with skill inspired did teach
Greatness to our divine Bengali speech. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Madhusudan Dutt,
12:Fazulr Khan, a Bengali Muslim, designed the Sears Tower in Chicago. It was the world's tallest building when it opened in 1973. ~ Firas Alkhateeb,
13:I used to crack A joke when Sourav Ganguly is upset and make him happy , i usually speak in bengali which would make him laugh ~ Sachin Tendulkar,
14:I learnt to sing in Bengali, my mother tongue, then went on to sing in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and every possible Indian language. ~ Shreya Ghoshal,
15:After his retirement, Pranabananda wrote Pranab Gita, a profound commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, available in Hindi and Bengali. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
16:Being a Bengali, one is surprised when all the endless spume and froth of talk suddenly reveals itself to be the front of a gigantic wave of action. ~ Neel Mukherjee,
17:I discovered that Native languages, Cherokee and others--like Bengali and other ancient languages--didn't have gendered pronouns like "he" and "she. ~ Gloria Steinem,
18:The intention (of the puja pandals) is not so much to entertain as to disorient and astonish; to tap into the Bengali’s appetite for the bizarre, the uncanny. ~ Amit Chaudhuri,
19:I want to live in Kolkata; I don't want to live in Europe - I can't write there. I write in Bengali, and I need to be surrounded by the Bengali language and culture. ~ Taslima Nasrin,
20:the Bengali intellectual and author of the bestselling Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951), with its cringe-worthy dedication to the British empire in India: To ~ Shashi Tharoor,
21:To me he will not just be remembered as a great player and a lovely human being, but as somebody who tried to learn Bengali for the last 14 years but never managed to do so! ~ Sourav Ganguly,
22:Whenever I get married, it will be a Bengali wedding. If I won't have a Bengali wedding, my mother won't come. She has warned me. So, I am going to have a Bengali wedding for sure. ~ Bipasha Basu,
23:Growing up in an old-fashioned Bengali Hindu family and going to a convent school run by stern Irish nuns, I was brought up to revere rules. Without rules, there was only anarchy. ~ Bharati Mukherjee,
24:My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population. ~ Satyajit Ray,
25:Oddly, it was his grandson, who was only half-Bengali to begin with, who did not even have a Bengali surname, with whom he felt a direct biological connection, a sense of himself reconstituted in another. ~ Anonymous,
26:Most of the private “physicians” visited by the people we talked to in Rajasthan were not qualified doctors but quacks of one kind or another—what in Rajasthan are slightingly referred to as “Bengali doctors. ~ Angus Deaton,
27:Orthodox South Indian Brahmins are vegetarians, Bengali Brahmins eat fish, and Swami Vivekananda ate everything. Do you know that? All rubbish, this religion of the kitchen. Don’t eat this, don’t touch that. What comes out of ~ Sri M,
28:Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay. ~ Aishwarya Rai Bachchan,
29:I’ve felt infinity too, late in my twenties, when I discovered a word in English I’d only ever known in Bengali. Or when I spot, with hours still left in the day, the moon’s hazy thumbprint. How the moon enjoys debunking the day. ~ Durga Chew Bose,
30:In a small village near Calcutta, in 1998, a villager who could not speak English sang me What Did You Learn In School Today? in Bengali! Tom Paxton’s songs are reaching around the world more than he is, or any of us could have realized. Keep on, Tom! ~ Tom Paxton,
31:The psychic being is a portion of the Divine; it has a natural attraction for the truth and the Divine but that attraction is desireless, free from demands and lower cravings. The psychic emotion is pure and stainless.

Writings In Bengali, p.395 ~ Sri Aurobindo,
32:Bengali poem by Ram Mohun Roy which bears on the subject matter of this essay.* Roy explains what is really dreadful about death: Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be. Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back. ~ Amartya Sen,
33:I began to feel that this city is my home. It came nearer to my heart, not so distant. That’s how it started, but now it’s different. I am enjoying making friends my age in my church-non-Bengali friends who don’t know the customs that keep a widow so lonely. ~ Mitali Perkins,
34:Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic, said that the essence of The Gita can be deciphered simply by reversing the syllables that constitute Gita. So Gita, or gi-ta, becomes ta-gi, or tyagi, which means 'one who lets go of possessions. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,
35:The Puranas are authoritative scriptures of the Hindu dharma. Like the “Sruti” (the audible word), the “Smriti” (the divine word remembered) is an authoritative scripture though not of the same order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, in Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English,
36:The soldiers of the East India Company obliged, systematically smashing the looms of some Bengali weavers and, according to at least one contemporary account (as well as widespread, if unverifiable, belief), breaking their thumbs so they could not ply their craft. ~ Shashi Tharoor,
37:I would say the film world has stopped operating as one. We have divided it into Hindi movies, Bengali movies, Tamil movies and so on. Earlier, there was only one channel and we all knew what was going on. Today, it is hard to keep track of programmes due to the advent of regional channels. ~ Mithun Chakraborty,
38:Bengali leader, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (who served as Pakistan’s prime minister in 1956) had noted as early as March 1948 that Pakistan’s elite was predisposed to ‘raising the cry of “Pakistan in danger” for the purpose of arousing Muslim sentiments and binding them together’ to maintain its power. ~ Husain Haqqani,
39:a country which would never exist except by the efforts of a phenomenal collective will—except in a dream we all agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the sanctification and renewal which can only be provided by rituals of blood. ~ Salman Rushdie,
40:His words contain the essence of Vedic wisdom, the keystone of Hinduism. Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic, said that the essence of The Gita can be deciphered simply by reversing the syllables that constitute Gita. So Gita, or gi-ta, becomes ta-gi, or tyagi, which means 'one who lets go of possessions. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,
41:In traditional Hindu families like ours, men provided and women were provided for. My father was a patriarch and I a pliant daughter. The neighborhood I'd grown up in was homogeneously Hindu, Bengali-speaking, and middle-class. I didn't expect myself to ever disobey or disappoint my father by setting my own goals and taking charge of my future. ~ Bharati Mukherjee,
42:The composers of the Puranas are either accomplished yogis or seekers of Truth. The Knowledge and spiritual realisations obtained by their sadhana remain recorded in the respective Puranas. The Vedas and the Upanishads are the fundamental scriptures of the Hindu religion, the Puranas are commentaries on these scriptures. ~ Sri Aurobindo, in "Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English".,
43:A little smile on your face, because you’d just untangled a new translation.” He cleared his throat. “Like this one. Tumi amar jeeboner dhruvotara.” She tilted her head, puzzling over the phrase. “That’s not Hindustani.” “Bengali. It means ‘You are my life’s bright star’ in Bengali.” The sweet words were edged with frustration, not tenderness. His knuckles cracked. “Obviously, I was saving that one. For the right morning. ~ Tessa Dare,
44:In Bilaath, I said. Bilaath, or Vilayet as it has otherwise been transcribed into English, derives from Persian and Ottoman Turkish, in which the word meant governorate or district. In Bengali, the word is used to refer to Britain. In fact, one English colloquial name for Britain, Blighty, somewhat archaic these days and mainly reserved for comedy, is derived from the word Bilaath, which was current in India in the time of the British Raj. ~ Zia Haider Rahman,
45:The Puranas are the most important among the “Smritis”. The spiritual knowledge contained in the Upanishads has, in the Puranas, been transformed into fiction and metaphors; we find in them much useful information on Indian history, the gradual growth and expression of the Hindu dharma, the condition of the society in ancient times, social customs, religious ceremonies, Yogic methods of discipline and ways of thinking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, in "Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English".,
46:The detective embodies, even more than the romantic drifter, rationality; this intriguing and apparent dichotomy pertains to a significant part of Bengali children’s literature as well – that ofen, especially in the proliferation of adventure, spy and mystery genres in Bengali in the first half of the twentieth century, children’s literature is not so much an escape from the humanist logos of ‘high’ literary practice, but a coming to its irreducible possibilities from a different direction. ~ Amit Chaudhuri,
47:Sur un même ring de boxe sont réunis Mike Tyson, le champion du monde en titre des poids lourds, et un chômeur bengali sous-alimenté.
Que disent les ayatollahs du dogme néolibéral ? Justice est assurée, puisque les gants de boxe des deux protagonistes sont de même facture, le temps du combat égal pour eux, l'espace de l'affrontement unique, et les règles du jeu constantes. Alors que le meilleur gagne !
L'arbitre impartial, c'est le marché.
L'absurdité du dogme néolibéral saute aux yeux. (p. 193) ~ Jean Ziegler,
48:As the mirror to my hand, the flowers to my hair, kohl to my eyes, tambul to my mouth, musk to my breast, necklace to my throat, ecstasy to my flesh, heart to my home -- as wing to bird, water to fish, life to the living -- so you to me. But tell me, Madhava, beloved, who are you? Who are you really? Vidyapati says, they are one another. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov

~ Vidyapati, As the mirror to my hand
,
49:In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly. ~ Victoria Finlay,
50:West Pakistani soldiers, politicians, and civil servants dominated Pakistan’s government. Within a year of independence, Bengalis in East Pakistan were rioting in the streets, demanding recognition of their language, Bengali, as a national language. Soon thereafter, in the western wing of the country, ethnic Sindhis, Pashtuns (also known as Pathans), and Balochis also complained about the domination of the civil services and the military’s officer corps by ethnic Punjabis and Urdu-speaking migrants from northern India. ~ Husain Haqqani,
51:Human mental identities are not like shoes, of which we can only wear one pair at a time. We are all multi-dimensional beings. Whether a Mr. Patel in London will think of himself primarily as an Indian, a British citizen, a Hindu, a Gujarati-speaker, an ex-colonist from Kenya, a member of a specific caste or kin-group, or in some other capacity depends on whether he faces an immigration officer, a Pakistani, a Sikh or Moslem, a Bengali-speaker, and so on. There is no single platonic essence of Patel. He is all these and more at the same time. ~ Eric Hobsbawm,
52:The division created by the English educated scholars who separate the Vedas and the Upanishads from the Puranas and thus make a distinction between the Vedic dharma and the Puranic dharma is a mistake born of ignorance. The Puranas are accepted as an authority on the Hindu dharma because they explain the knowledge contained in the Veda and the Upanishads to the average man, comment upon it, discuss it at great length and endeavour to apply it to the commonplace details of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, in "Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English".,
53:If the Purana written by Vyasa were still existing, then it would be honoured as a “Sruti”. In the absence of this Purana and the one written by Lomaharshana, the eighteen Puranas that still exist cannot all be given the same place of honour; among them, the Vishnu and the Bhagwata Purana composed by accomplished yogis are definitely more precious and we must recognise that the Markandeya Purana written by a sage devoted to spiritual pursuits is more profound in Knowledge than either the Shiva or the Agni Purana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, in "Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English".,
54:There was a time when the Bengali language was an angry flood trying to break down her door. She would crawl into a closet and lock herself in, stuffing her ears to shut out those sounds. But a door was no defense against her parents' voices: it was in that language that they fought, and the sounds of their quarrels would always find ways of trickling in under the door and thorugh the cracks, the level rising until she thought she would drown in the flood...The accumulated resentsmnets of their life were always phrased in the language, so that for her its sound had come to represent the music of unhappiness. ~ Amitav Ghosh,
55:There were other well-known Indian supporters of Empire, most notably the Bengali intellectual and unabashed Anglophile, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, who in a series of books extolled the virtues of the British empire and lamented its passing. (We will discuss specific examples later in this book.) Many ordinary Indians, too, went along with the British; many never felt they had a choice in the matter. But when a marauder destroys your house and takes away your cash and jewellery, his responsibility for his actions far exceeds that of the servant who opened the door to him, whether out of fear, cupidity or because he simply didn’t know any better. ~ Shashi Tharoor,
56:The moon has shone upon me, the face of my beloved. O night of joy! Joy permeates all things. My life: joy, my youth: fulfillment. Today my house is again home, today my body is my body. The god of destiny smiled on me. No more doubt. Let the nightingales sing, then, let there be myriad rising moons, let Kama's five arrows become five thousand and the south wind softly, softly blow: for now my body has meaning in the presence of my beloved Vidyapati says, Your luck is great; may this return of love be blessed. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov

~ Vidyapati, The moon has shone upon me
,
57:Then I went down to the banks of the Yamuna River and said a prayer, asking for the strength to become a Baul and never to give up and go back home and submit to my father. With that prayer on my lips, I threw my sacred thread into the river. ‘For me, that ended for ever my identity as a Brahmin. That very day I changed my name. I had been Dev Kumar Bhattacharyya – any Bengali knows that that is a Brahmin name, with all the privileges that go with it. But a Baul has to name himself as a Das – a slave of the Lord – so I became simple Debdas Baul. The Brahmins had rejected me, so I rejected them, just as I rejected their whole horrible idea of caste and the divisions it creates. I ~ William Dalrymple,
58:Genes,” he said, frowning. “Is there a Bengali word?” I asked. He searched his inner lexicon. There was no word—but perhaps he could find a substitute. “Abhed,” he offered. I had never heard him use the term. It means “indivisible” or “impenetrable,” but it is also used loosely to denote “identity.” I marveled at the choice; it was an echo chamber of a word. Mendel or Bateson might have relished its many resonances: indivisible; impenetrable; inseparable; identity. I asked my father what he thought about Moni, Rajesh, and Jagu. “Abheder dosh,” he said. A flaw in identity; a genetic illness; a blemish that cannot be separated from the self—the same phrase served all meanings. He had made peace with its indivisibility. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee,
59:author class:Sri Aurobindo
Appeal
Thy youth is but a noon, of night take heed, -
A noon that is a fragment of a day,
And the swift eve all sweet things bears away,
All sweet things and all bitter, rose and weed.
For others' bliss who lives, he lives indeed.
But thou art pitiful and ruth shouldst know.
I bid thee trifle not with fatal love,
But save our pride and dear one, O my dove,
And heaven and earth and the nether world below
Shall only with thy praises peopled grow.
Life is a bliss that cannot long abide,
But while thou livest, love. For love the sky
Was founded, earth upheaved from the deep cry
Of waters, and by love is sweetly tied
The golden cordage of our youth and pride.
(Suggested by an old Bengali poem)
~ Sri Aurobindo, - Appeal
,
60:My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain what has befallen me. Love is transformed, renewed, each moment. He has dwelt in my eyes all the days of my life, yet I am not sated with seeing. My ears have heard his sweet voice in eternity, and yet it is always new to them. How many honeyed nights have I passed with him in love's bliss, yet my body wonders at his. Through all the ages he has been clasped to my breast, yet my desire never abates. I have seen subtle people sunk in passion but none came so close to the heart of the fire. Who shall be found to cool your heart, says Vidyapati. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov

~ Vidyapati, My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain
,
61:She had no right to live there. She doesn't belong there. It took those people a long time to build that country; hundreds of years, years and years of war and bloodshed. Everyone who lives there has earned his right to be there with blood: with their brother's blood and their father's blood and their son's blood. They know they're a nation because they have drawn their borders with blood. Regimental flags hang in their cathedrals and all their churches are lined with memorials to men who died in wars, all around the world. War is their religion. That's what it takes to make a country. Once that happens people forget they were born this or that, Muslim or Hindu, Bengali or Punjabi: they become a family born of the same pool of blood. That is what you have to achieve for India, don't you see? ~ Amitav Ghosh,
62:...[A] poor priest, Chandi Das, was shocking Bengal by composing Dantean songs to a peasant Beatrice, ideal­izing her with romantic passion, exalting her as a symbol of divinity, and making his love an allegory of his desire for absorption in God; at the same time he inaugurated the use of Bengali as a literary language. "I have taken refuge at your feet, my beloved. When I do not see you my mind has no rest .... I cannot forget your grace and your charm,—and yet there is no desire in my heart." Excommunicated by his fellow Brahmans on the ground that he was scandalizing the public, he agreed to renounce his love, Rami, in a public ceremony of recantation; but when, in the course of this ritual, he saw Rami in the crowd, he withdrew his recanta­tion, and going up to her, bowed before her with hands joined in adora-
tion. ~ Will Durant,
63:Dhiren broke the silence by starting to hum a tune under his breath,,,, 'The smile of the moon has spilled over its banks'......I was filled with - with what? An affectionate contempt? A sense of ridicule? Shock that Dhiren, the earthy, self-styled tough guy, had any truck with the kind of music he'd consider effeminate? Tagore seemed to be carried inside all Bengalis, regardless of class or social background, like some inheritable disease, silent, unknown, until it manifested itself at the unlikeliest of times. How irredeemably middle class all this was: The Little Red Book and On Practice on the one hand; on the other hand, the poetry of Jibanananda Das in his cloth sidebag and a coy, cloying Tagore song almost involuntary on his lips. There really was no hope of escape for us.

...... For god's sake, Mao by day and Tagore by moonlight?

Dhiren didn't miss a beat - That's quintessential Bengali soul for you. ~ Neel Mukherjee,
64:author class:Sri Aurobindo
Karma
(Radha's Complaint)
Love, but my words are vain as air!
In my sweet joyous youth, a heart untried,
Thou tookst me in Love's sudden snare,
Thou wouldst not let me in my home abide.
And now I have nought else to try,
But I will make my soul one strong desire
And into Ocean leaping die:
So shall my heart be cooled of all its fire.
Die and be born to life again
As Nanda's son, the joy of Braja's girls,
And I will make thee Radha then,
A laughing child's face set with lovely curls.
Then I will love thee and then leave;
Under the codome's boughs when thou goest by
Bound to the water morn or eve,
Lean on that tree fluting melodiously.
Thou shalt hear me and fall at sight
Under my charm; my voice shall wholly move
Thy simple girl's heart to delight;
Then shalt thou know the bitterness of love.
(From an old Bengali poem)
~ Sri Aurobindo, - Karma
,
65:But despite these signs of ill-omen, the city was poised, with a new myth glinting in the corners of its eyes. August in Bombay: a month of festivals, the month of Krishna's birthday and Coconut Day; and this year - fourteen hours to go, thirteen, twelve - there was an extra festival on the calendar because a nation which had never previously existed was about to win its freedom, catapulting into a world which, although it had five thousand years of history, although it had invented the game of chess and traded with Middle Kingdom Egypt, was nevertheless quite imaginary; into a mythical land, a country which would never exist except by the efforts of phenomenal collective will - except in a dream we all agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the satisfaction and renewal which can only be provided by rituals of blood. India, the new myth - a collective fiction in which everything was possible, a fable rivaled only by the two other mighty fantasies: money and God. ~ Salman Rushdie,
66:I know, this day will come to an end
At the end of the day
Wanly smiling
The dying sun will look at my face
Bidding me its last farewell.
The flute will play by the side of the way
The cattle will graze on the banks of the river
In the courtyard the children will play
And the birds will sing -
Still the day will come to an end.

To you I only pray
Before I go let me know
Looking at the sky
Why mother earth so green
Gave me a call
Why the silence of the night
Told me the stories of the stars
Why the lights of the day
Raised waves in my mind
This is what I pray.

When on this earth
The game of my life will be over
In a harmony may I stop my song
May I fill with fruits and flowers
The trays of the seasons.
May I see you in the light of my life
And give you my garland
When I shall end my days on this earth.
Transcreation of the devotional song Jani go din jabe e din jabe from the collection Gitalekha 3 by Rabindranath Tagore. Its notation is to be found in Swarabitan number 41. There is a good recording of this song is by Arghya Sen. The original is in the Bengali language, transcreated into English by Kumud Biswas.
Translated by Kumud Biswas
~ Rabindranath Tagore, At The End Of The Day
,
67:Tagore claims that the first time he experienced the thrill of poetry was when he encountered the children’s rhyme ‘Jal pare/pata nare’ (‘Rain falls / The leaf trembles) n Iswrchandra Vidyasagar’s Bengali primer Barna Parichay (Introducing the Alphabet). There are at least two revealing things about this citation. The first is that, as Bengali scholars have remarked, Tagore’s memory, and predilection, lead him to misquote and rewrite the lines. The actual rhyme is in sadhu bhasha, or ‘high’ Bengali: ‘Jal paritechhe / pata naritechhe’ (‘Rain falleth / the leaf trembleth’). This is precisely the sort of diction that Tagore chose for the English Gitanjali, which, with its these and thous, has so tried our patience. Yet, as a Bengali poet, Tagore’s instinct was to simplify, and to draw language closer to speech. The other reason the lines of the rhyme are noteworthy, especially with regard to Tagore, is – despite their deceptively logical progression – their non-consecutive character. ‘Rain falls’ and ‘the leaf trembles’ are two independent, stand-alone observations: they don’t necessarily have to follow each other. It’s a feature of poetry commented upon by William Empson in Some Versions of Pastoral: that it’s a genre that can get away with seamlessly joining two lines which are linked, otherwise, tenuously. ~ Amit Chaudhuri,
68:At dawn shey(1) departed
My mind tried to console me -
" Everything is Maya(2)".
Angrily I replied:
"Here's this sewing box on the table,
that flower-pot on the terrace,
this monogrammed hand-fan on the bed---
all these are real."

My mind said: "Yet, think again."
I rejoined: " You better stop.
Look at this storybook,
the hairpin halfway amongst its leaves,
signaling the rest is unread;
if all these things are "Maya",
then why should "shey" be more unreal?"

My mind becomes silent.
A friend arrived and says:
"That which is good is real
it is never non-existent;
entire world preserves and cherishes it its chest
like a precious jewel in a necklace."

I replied in anger: "How do you know?
Is a body not good? Where did that body go?"

Like a small boy in a rage hitting his mother,
I began to strike at everything in this world
that gave me shelter.
And I screamed:" The world is treacherous."

Suddenly, I was startled.
It seemed like someone admonished me :" You- ungrateful ! "

I looked at the crescent moon
hidden behind the tamarisk tree outside my window.
As if the dear departed one is smiling
and playing hide-and-seek with me.

From the depth of darkness punctuated by scattered stars
came a rebuke: "when I let you grasp me you call it an deception,
and yet when I remain concealed,
why do you hold on to your faith in me with such conviction?"
(1): "Shey" in Bengali can mean either he or she.
(2): "Maya" meaning Unreal.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Ungrateful Sorrow
,
69:A hundred years hence
Who it is
With such curiosity
Reads my poems
A hundred years hence!
Shall I be able to send you
An iota of joy of this fresh spring morning
The flower that blooms today
The songs that the birds sing
The glow of todays setting sun
Filled with my feelings of love?

Yet for a moment
Open up your southern gate
And take your seat at the window
Look at the far horizon
And visualize in your minds eye
One day a hundred years ago
A restless ecstasy drifted from the skies
And touched the heart of this world
The early spring mad with joy
Knew no bounds
Spreading its restless wings
The southern breeze blew
Carrying the scent of flowers pollen
All on a sudden soon
They coloured the world with a youthful glow
A hundred years ago.
That day a young poet kept awake
With an excited heart filled with songs
With so much ardour
Anxious to express so many things
Like buds of flowers straining to bloom
One day a hundred years ago.

A hundred years hence
What young poet
Sings songs in your homes!
For him
I send my tidings of joy of this spring.
Let it echo for a moment
In your spring, in your heartbeats,
In the humming of the bees
In the rustling of the leaves
A hundred years hence.
A transcreation of the poem 1400 Sal (The year 1400) from the collection Chitra by Rabindranath Tagore.
It was written on the 2nd of Falgun (first month of spring), 1302 (1895-96), of the Bengali calendar. Translated by Kumud Biswas.
Translated by Kumud Biswas
~ Rabindranath Tagore, A Hundred Years Hence
,
70:So they went out for a walk. They went through narrow, lightless lanes, where houses that were silent but gave out smells of fish and boiled rice stood on either side of the road. There was not a single tree in sight; no breeze and no sound but the vaguely musical humming of mosquitoes. Once, an ancient taxi wheezed past, taking a short-cut through the lane into the main road, like a comic vintage car passing through a film-set showing the Twenties into the film-set of the present, passing from black and white into colour. But why did these houses – for instance, that one with the tall, ornate iron gates and a watchman dozing on a stool, which gave the impression that the family had valuables locked away inside, or that other one with the small porch and the painted door, which gave the impression that whenever there was a feast or a wedding all the relatives would be invited, and there would be so many relatives that some of them, probably the young men and women, would be sitting bunched together on the cramped porch because there would be no more space inside, talking eloquently about something that didn’t really require eloquence, laughing uproariously at a joke that wasn’t really very funny, or this next house with an old man relaxing in his easy-chair on the verandah, fanning himself with a local Sunday newspaper, or this small, shabby house with the girl Sandeep glimpsed through a window, sitting in a bare, ill-furnished room, memorising a text by candlelight, repeating suffixes and prefixes from a Bengali grammar over and over to herself – why did these houses seem to suggest that an infinitely interesting story might be woven around them? And yet the story would never be a satisfying one, because the writer, like Sandeep, would be too caught up in jotting down the irrelevances and digressions that make up lives, and the life of a city, rather than a good story – till the reader would shout "Come to the point!" – and there would be no point, except the girl memorising the rules of grammar, the old man in the easy-chair fanning himself, and the house with the small, empty porch which was crowded, paradoxically, with many memories and possibilities. The "real" story, with its beginning, middle and conclusion, would never be told, because it did not exist. ~ Amit Chaudhuri,
71:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness,
72:This is the alley
Named after Kinu the milkman.
By its side stands
A two-storey building
Its ground floor room
Is enclosed by iron railings.
It is thoroughly damp
Here and there its walls
Bear ugly damp marks
In places their plasters are also peeling off.
On its door hangs a rag
Torn from a bale of plain cloth
Stamped on it is
An image of Lord Ganesh,
The god who gives one success
In all enterprises.
With me
In that room lives another creature
Who of course pays no additional rent
Its a common lizard
Found in dwelling houses
The only difference is this -
It is in no want of food.

For my food
I have to give tuition
To the young son of the Duttas
For I am only a junior clerk
In a business house
And my pay is only twenty-five rupees.
In the evenings
I go to the Sealdah railway station
There I spend my time
For it saves me the cost
Of lighting my room.
There is a lot of noise
Of rail engines and their whistles
And a lot of hustles and bustles
Among passengers and porters
At half past ten
I return to my lonely den
Utterly dark and silent.

In a village
On the banks of the river Dhaleswari
Lives my paternal aunt
It was settled
That a hapless fellow like me
Should marry the daughter
Of her husbands younger brother.
The date fixed for the ceremony
Was found to be very auspicious
But on that very day I fled away
At least it saved the girl from a calamity
And of course me too.
To me she never came
But now she always moves about in my mind
Clad in a Dhakai sari
And on her forehead with a blob of vermilion.

When the rains come very heavy and thick
I have to spend some extra money
For my journeys to the office by trams.
For late attendance
Often I have to suffer cuts in my salary.
In every nook and corner of the alley
There gather heaps of putrid wastes
Peelings of fruits and vegetables,
Carcasses of cats and dogs
And various other things.
Like my deducted salary
My umbrella is full of holes
And my office dress is always wet
Like the mind of Gopikanta Gosain
Over-saturated with devotion to his deity.
In my damp room
Like a beast caught up in a trap,
Delirious and unconscious,
The shadow of rain clouds broods.
Day and night it seems
Without any hope of release
Forever I am condemned to a half-dead world.

At the bend of the lane lives Kantababu
With well-groomed hair
And a pair of large eyes
He is a man of refined tastes
His hobby is to play on a cornet.
At times the vicious air of this alley
Becomes alive with music
Sometimes it is in the dead of night
Or at dawn, half in darkness and half in light,
Or again in the afternoons glimmering twilight
In the evening all on a sudden
When the sindhu-baroan raga is played on
The whole sky resonates
With the timeless cry of a pining love
Separated from her beloved.
At moments like these
I realize
This alley is so absurdly unreal
Like the ravings of an insufferable drunkard
It also seems
There is no difference
Between a mighty emperor and a poor clerk
Along this plaintive note of music
Both the prince and the pauper
Travel together towards the same heaven.

And where this music is true
There in a timeless twilight
The Dhaleswari flows on
Its banks are deeply shaded by tamal trees
And one who keeps waiting in the courtyard
Is clad in a Dhakai sari
And on her forehead with a blob of vermilion.
A transcreation of the poem Banshi from the collection Punascha by Rabindranath Tagore.
In the compilation Sanchayita it is entitled Kinu goalar goli. Among the poems written by the poet on the theme of music this one is the most famous. In Bengali a milkman is called a goala. Translated by Kumud Biswas.
Translated by Kumud Biswas
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Kinu Goalas Alley
,
73:September On Jessore Road
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
Millions
Millions
Millions
Millions
of
of
of
of
fathers in rain
mothers in pain
brothers in woe
sisters nowhere to go
One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad
Millions of daughters walk in the mud
Millions of children wash in the flood
A Million girls vomit & groan
Millions of families hopeless alone
Millions of souls nineteenseventyone
homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan
Taxi September along Jessore Road
Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load
past watery fields thru rain flood ruts
Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts
Wet processions Families walk
Stunted boys big heads don't talk
Look bony skulls & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise
Mother squats weeping & points to her sons
Standing thin legged like elderly nuns
small bodied hands to their mouths in prayer
Five months small food since they settled there
70
on one floor mat with small empty pot
Father lifts up his hands at their lot
Tears come to their mother's eye
Pain makes mother Maya cry
Two children together in palmroof shade
Stare at me no word is said
Rice ration, lentils one time a week
Milk powder for warweary infants meek
No vegetable money or work for the man
Rice lasts four days eat while they can
Then children starve three days in a row
and vomit their next food unless they eat slow.
On Jessore road Mother wept at my knees
Bengali tongue cried mister Please
Identity card torn up on the floor
Husband still waits at the camp office door
Baby at play I was washing the flood
Now they won't give us any more food
The pieces are here in my celluloid purse
Innocent baby play our death curse
Two policemen surrounded by thousands of boys
Crowded waiting their daily bread joys
Carry big whistles & long bamboo sticks
to whack them in line They play hungry tricks
Breaking the line and jumping in front
Into the circle sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward on the mud stage
Teh gaurds blow their whistles & chase them in rage
Why are these infants massed in this place
Laughing in play & pushing for space
Why do they wait here so cheerful & dread
Why this is the House where they give children bread
The man in the bread door Cries & comes out
71
Thousands of boys and girls Take up his shout
Is it joy? is it prayer? "No more bread today"
Thousands of Children at once scream "Hooray!"
Run home to tents where elders await
Messenger children with bread from the state
No bread more today! & and no place to squat
Painful baby, sick shit he has got.
Malnutrition skulls thousands for months
Dysentery drains bowels all at once
Nurse shows disease card Enterostrep
Suspension is wanting or else chlorostrep
Refugee camps in hospital shacks
Newborn lay naked on mother's thin laps
Monkeysized week old Rheumatic babe eye
Gastoenteritis Blood Poison thousands must die
September Jessore Road rickshaw
50,000 souls in one camp I saw
Rows of bamboo huts in the flood
Open drains, & wet families waiting for food
Border trucks flooded, food cant get past,
American Angel machine please come fast!
Where is Ambassador Bunker today?
Are his Helios machinegunning children at play?
Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID?
Smuggling dope in Bangkok's green shade.
Where is America's Air Force of Light?
Bombing North Laos all day and all night?
Where are the President's Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam and causing more grief?
Where are our tears? Who weeps for the pain?
Where can these families go in the rain?
Jessore Road's children close their big eyes
72
Where will we sleep when Our Father dies?
Whom shall we pray to for rice and for care?
Who can bring bread to this shit flood foul'd lair?
Millions of children alone in the rain!
Millions of children weeping in pain!
Ring
Ring
Ring
Ring
O ye tongues of the world for their woe
out ye voices for Love we don't know
out ye bells of electrical pain
in the conscious of America brain
How many children are we who are lost
Whose are these daughters we see turn to ghost?
What are our souls that we have lost care?
Ring out ye musics and weep if you dare-Cries in the mud by the thatch'd house sand drain
Sleeps in huge pipes in the wet shit-field rain
waits by the pump well, Woe to the world!
whose children still starve in their mother's arms curled.
Is this what I did to myself in the past?
What shall I do Sunil Poet I asked?
Move on and leave them without any coins?
What should I care for the love of my loins?
What should we care for our cities and cars?
What shall we buy with our Food Stamps on Mars?
How many millions sit down in New York
& sup this night's table on bone & roast pork?
How many millions of beer cans are tossed
in Oceans of Mother? How much does She cost?
Cigar gasolines and asphalt car dreams
Stinking the world and dimming star beams-Finish the war in your breast with a sigh
Come tast the tears in your own Human eye
Pity us millions of phantoms you see
Starved in Samsara on planet TV
73
How many millions of children die more
before our Good Mothers perceive the Great Lord?
How many good fathers pay tax to rebuild
Armed forces that boast the children they've killed?
How
How
How
How
many
many
many
many
souls walk through Maya in pain
babes in illusory pain?
families hollow eyed lost?
grandmothers turning to ghost?
How
How
How
How
many
many
many
many
loves who never get bread?
Aunts with holes in their head?
sisters skulls on the ground?
grandfathers make no more sound?
How
How
How
How
many
many
many
many
fathers in woe
sons nowhere to go?
daughters nothing to eat?
uncles with swollen sick feet?
Millions
Millions
Millions
Millions
of
of
of
of
babies in pain
mothers in rain
brothers in woe
children nowhere to go
~ Allen Ginsberg,

IN CHAPTERS [183/183]



  108 Integral Yoga
   46 Poetry
   18 Yoga
   6 Philosophy
   4 Mysticism
   2 Occultism
   1 Hinduism
   1 Buddhism


   57 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   27 Sri Aurobindo
   21 Ramprasad
   19 Sri Ramakrishna
   17 Rabindranath Tagore
   15 The Mother
   15 Satprem
   12 A B Purani
   4 Nirodbaran
   3 Vidyapati
   2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   2 Mahendranath Gupta
   2 Aleister Crowley


   26 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
   17 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
   12 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
   8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
   7 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
   6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
   4 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
   4 Tagore - Poems
   4 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   4 Record of Yoga
   3 Letters On Poetry And Art
   3 Agenda Vol 12
   2 Vedic and Philological Studies
   2 Talks
   2 Magick Without Tears
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
   2 Collected Poems
   2 Agenda Vol 13


0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
   Eight years later, some time in November 1874, Sri Ramakrishna was seized with an irresistible desire to learn the truth of the Christian religion. He began to listen to readings from the Bible, by Sambhu Charan Mallick, a gentleman of Calcutta and a devotee of the Master. Sri Ramakrishna became fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus. One day he was seated in the parlour of Jadu Mallick's garden house (This expression is used throughout to translate the Bengali word denoting a rich man's country house set in a garden.) at Dakshineswar, when his eyes became fixed on a painting of the Madonna and Child. Intently watching it, he became gradually overwhelmed with divine emotion. The figures in the picture took on life, and the rays of light emanating from them entered his soul. The effect of this experience was stronger than that of the vision of Mohammed. In dismay he cried out, "O Mother! What are You doing to me?" And, breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day, in the afternoon, as he was walking in the Panchavati, he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Ramakrishna's soul: "Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood for the redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish for love of men. It is He, the Master Yogi, who is in eternal union with God. It is Jesus, Love Incarnate." The Son of Man embraced the Son of the Divine Mother and merged in him. Sri Ramakrishna krishna realized his identity with Christ, as he had already realized his identity with Kali, Rama, Hanuman, Radha, Krishna, Brahman, and Mohammed. The Master went into samadhi and communed with the Brahman with attributes. Thus he experienced the truth that Christianity, too, was a path leading to God-Consciousness. Till the last moment of his life he believed that Christ was an Incarnation of God. But Christ, for him, was not the only Incarnation; there were others — Buddha, for instance, and Krishna.
   --- ATTITUDE TOWARD DIFFERENT RELIGIONS
  --
   The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
   By far the ablest leader of the Brahmo movement was Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884). Unlike Raja Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore, Keshab was born of a middle-class Bengali family and had been brought up in an English school. He did not know Sanskrit and very soon broke away from the popular Hindu religion. Even at an early age he came under the spell of Christ and professed to have experienced the special favour of John the Baptist, Christ, and St. Paul. When he strove to introduce Christ to the Brahmo Samaj, a rupture became inevitable with Devendranath. In 1868 Keshab broke with the older leader and founded the Brahmo Samaj of India, Devendra retaining leadership of the first Brahmo Samaj, now called the Adi Samaj.
   Keshab possessed a complex nature. When passing through a great moral crisis, he spent much of his time in solitude and felt that he heard the voice of God, When a devotional form of worship was introduced into the Brahmo Samaj, he spent hours in singing kirtan with his followers. He visited England land in 1870 and impressed the English people with his musical voice, his simple English, and his spiritual fervour. He was entertained by Queen Victoria. Returning to India, he founded centres of the Brahmo Samaj in various parts of the country. Not unlike a professor of comparative religion in a European university, he began to discover, about the time of his first contact with Sri Ramakrishna, the harmony of religions. He became sympathetic toward the Hindu gods and goddesses, explaining them in a liberal fashion. Further, he believed that he was called by God to dictate to the world God's newly revealed law, the New Dispensation, the Navavidhan.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna, dressed in a red-bordered dhoti, one end of which was carelessly thrown over his left shoulder, came to Jaygopal's garden house accompanied by Hriday. No one took notice of the unostentatious visitor. Finally the Master said to Keshab, "People tell me you have seen God; so I have come to hear from you about God." A magnificent conversation followed. The Master sang a thrilling song about Kali and forthwith went into samadhi. When Hriday uttered the sacred "Om" in his ears, he gradually came back to consciousness of the world, his face still radiating a divine brilliance. Keshab and his followers were amazed. The contrast between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmo devotees was very interesting. There sat this small man, thin and extremely delicate. His eyes were illumined with an inner light. Good humour gleamed in his eyes and lurked in the corners of his mouth. His speech was Bengali of a homely kind with a slight, delightful stammer, and his words held men enthralled by their wealth of spiritual experience, their inexhaustible store of simile and metaphor, their power of observation, their bright and subtle humour, their wonderful catholicity, their ceaseless flow of wisdom. And around him now were the sophisticated men of Bengal, the best products of Western education, with Keshab, the idol of young Bengal, as their leader.
   Keshab's sincerity was enough for Sri Ramakrishna. Henceforth the two saw each other frequently, either at Dakshineswar or at the temple of the Brahmo Samaj. Whenever the Master was in the temple at the time of divine service, Keshab would request him to speak to the congregation. And Keshab would visit the saint, in his turn, with offerings of flowers and fruits.
  --
   This contact with the educated and progressive Bengalis opened Sri Ramakrishna's eyes to a new realm of thought. Born and brought up in a simple village, without any formal education, and taught by the orthodox holy men of India in religious life, he had had no opportunity to study the influence of modernism on the thoughts and lives of the Hindus. He could not properly estimate the result of the impact of Western education on Indian culture. He was a Hindu of the Hindus, renunciation being to him the only means to the realization of God in life. From the Brahmos he learnt that the new generation of India made a compromise between God and the world. Educated young men were influenced more by the Western philosophers than by their own prophets. But Sri Ramakrishna was not dismayed, for he saw in this, too, the hand of God. And though he expounded to the Brahmos all his ideas about God and austere religious disciplines, yet he bade them accept from his teachings only as much as suited their tastes and temperaments.
   ^The term "woman and gold", which has been used throughout in a collective sense, occurs again and again in the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna to designate the chief impediments to spiritual progress. This favourite expression of the Master, "kaminikanchan", has often been misconstrued. By it he meant only "lust and greed", the baneful influence of which retards the aspirant's spiritual growth. He used the word "kamini", or "woman", as a concrete term for the sex instinct when addressing his man devotees. He advised women, on the other hand, to shun "man". "Kanchan", or "gold", symbolizes greed, which is the other obstacle to spiritual life.
  --
   In the year 1879 occasional writings about Sri Ramakrishna by the Brahmos, in the Brahmo magazines, began to attract his future disciples from the educated middle-class Bengalis, and they continued to come till 1884. But others, too, came, feeling the subtle power of his attraction. They were an ever shifting crowd of people of all castes and creeds: Hindus and Brahmos, Vaishnavas and Saktas, the educated with university degrees and the illiterate, old and young, maharajas and beggars, journalists and artists, pundits and devotees, philosophers and the worldly-minded, jnanis and yogis, men of action and men of faith, virtuous women and prostitutes, office-holders and vagabonds, philanthropists and self-seekers, dramatists and drunkards, builders-up and pullers-down. He gave to them all, without stint, from his illimitable store of realization. No one went away empty-handed. He taught them the lofty .knowledge of the Vedanta and the soul
  -melting love of the Purana. Twenty hours out of twenty-four he would speak without out rest or respite. He gave to all his sympathy and enlightenment, and he touched them with that strange power of the soul which could not but melt even the most hardened. And people understood him according to their powers of comprehension.
  --
   Girish Chandra Ghosh was a born rebel against God, a sceptic, a Bohemian, a drunkard. He was the greatest Bengali dramatist of his time, the father of the modem Bengali stage. Like other young men he had imbibed all the vices of the West. He had plunged into a life of dissipation and had become convinced that religion was only a fraud. Materialistic philosophy he justified as enabling one to get at least a little fun out of life. But a series of reverses shocked him and he became eager to solve the riddle of life. He had heard people say that in spiritual life the help of a guru was imperative and that the guru was to be regarded as God Himself. But Girish was too well acquainted with human nature to see perfection in a man. His first meeting with Sri Ramakrishna did not impress him at all. He returned home feeling as if he had seen a freak at a circus; for the Master, in a semi-conscious mood, had inquired whether it was evening, though the lamps were burning in the room. But their paths often crossed, and Girish could not avoid further encounters. The Master attended a performance in Girish's Star Theatre. On this occasion, too, Girish found nothing impressive about him. One day, however, Girish happened to see the Master dancing and singing with the devotees. He felt the contagion and wanted to join them, but restrained himself for fear of ridicule. Another day Sri Ramakrishna was about to give him spiritual instruction, when Girish said: "I don't want to listen to instructions. I have myself written many instructions. They are of no use to me. Please help me in a more tangible way If you can." This pleased the Master and he asked Girish to cultivate faith.
   As time passed, Girish began to learn that the guru is the one who silently unfolds the disciple's inner life. He became a steadfast devotee of the Master. He often loaded the Master with insults, drank in his presence, and took liberties which astounded the other devotees. But the Master knew that at heart Girish was tender, faithful, and sincere. He would not allow Girish to give up the theatre. And when a devotee asked him to tell Girish to give up drinking, he sternly replied: "That is none of your business. He who has taken charge of him will look after him. Girish is a devotee of heroic type. I tell you, drinking will not affect him." The Master knew that mere words could not induce a man to break deep-rooted habits, but that the silent influence of love worked miracles. Therefore he never asked him to give up alcohol, with the result that Girish himself eventually broke the habit. Sri Ramakrishna had strengthened Girish's resolution by allowing him to feel that he was absolutely free.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna also became acquainted with a number of people whose scholarship or wealth entitled them everywhere to respect. He had met, a few years before, Devendranath Tagore, famous all over Bengal for his wealth, scholarship, saintly character, and social position. But the Master found him disappointing; for, whereas Sri Ramakrishna expected of a saint complete renunciation of the world, Devendranath combined with his saintliness a life of enjoyment. Sri Ramakrishna met the great poet Michael Madhusudan, who had embraced Christianity "for the sake of his stomach". To him the Master could not impart instruction, for the Divine Mother "pressed his tongue". In addition he met Maharaja Jatindra Mohan Tagore, a titled aristocrat of Bengal; Kristodas Pal, the editor, social reformer, and patriot; Iswar Vidyasagar, the noted philanthropist and educator; Pundit Shashadhar, a great champion of Hindu orthodoxy; Aswini Kumar Dutta, a headmaster, moralist, and leader of Indian Nationalism; and Bankim Chatterji, a deputy magistrate, novelist, and essayist, and one of the fashioners of modern Bengali prose. Sri Ramakrishna was not the man to be dazzled by outward show, glory, or eloquence. A pundit without discrimination he regarded as a mere straw. He would search people's hearts for the light of God, and if that was missing he would have nothing to do with them.
   --- KRISTODAS PAL
  --
   Two more young men, Sarada Prasanna and Tulasi, complete the small band of the Master's disciples later to embrace the life of the wandering monk. With the exception of the elder Gopal, all of them were in their teens or slightly over. They came from middle-class Bengali families, and most of them were students in school or college. Their parents and relatives had envisaged for them bright worldly careers. They came to Sri Ramakrishna with pure bodies, vigorous minds, and uncontaminated souls. All were born with unusual spiritual attributes. Sri Ramakrishna accepted them, even at first sight, as his children, relatives, friends, and companions. His magic touch unfolded them. And later each according to his measure reflected the life of the Master, becoming a torch-bearer of his message across land and sea.
   --- WOMAN DEVOTEES

0.00 - Publishers Note C, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The present volume consists of three books: Light of Lights, Eight Talks and Sweet Mother; there are also translations from Sanskrit, Pali, Bengali and French. These, along with the translations of the Dhammapada and Charyapada, have been mostly serialised in Ashram journals.
   His original writings in French have also been included here. We are grateful to the Government of India for a grant towards meeting the cost of publication of this volume.

0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Translated from the Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda
  Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission
  --
  The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is the English translation of the Sri Sri Rmakrishna Kathmrita, the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees, and visitors, recorded by Mahendranth Gupta, who wrote the book under the pseudonym of "M." The conversations in Bengali fill five volumes, the first of which was published in 1897 and the last shortly after M.'s death in 1932. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, has published in two volumes an English translation of selected chapters from the monumental Bengali work. I have consulted these while preparing my translation.
  M., one of the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, was present during all the conversations recorded in the main body of the book and noted them down in his diary.
  --
  In the life of the great Saviours and Prophets of the world it is often found that they are accompanied by souls of high spiritual potency who play a conspicuous part in the furtherance of their Master's mission. They become so integral a part of the life and work of these great ones that posterity can think of them only in mutual association. Such is the case with Sri Ramakrishna and M., whose diary has come to be known to the world as the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in English and as Sri Rmakrishna Kathmrita in the original Bengali version.
  Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta, familiary known to the readers of the Gospel by his pen name M., and to the devotees as Master Mahashay, was born on the 14th of July, 1854 as the son of Madhusudan Gupta, an officer of the Calcutta High Court, and his wife, Swarnamayi Devi. He had a brilliant scholastic career at Hare School and the Presidency College at Calcutta. The range of his studies included the best that both occidental and oriental learning had to offer. English literature, history, economics, western philosophy and law on the one hand, and Sanskrit literature and grammar, Darsanas, Puranas, Smritis, Jainism, Buddhism, astrology and Ayurveda on the other were the subjects in which he attained considerable proficiency.
  He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were that he could not get on with some of the managements on grounds of principles and that often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so that his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
  Imparting secular education was, however, only his profession ; his main concern was with the spiritual regeneration of man a calling for which Destiny seems to have chosen him. From his childhood he was deeply pious, and he used to be moved very much by Sdhus, temples and Durga Puja celebrations. The piety and eloquence of the great Brahmo leader of the times, Keshab Chander Sen, elicited a powerful response from the impressionable mind of Mahendra Nath, as it did in the case of many an idealistic young man of Calcutta, and prepared him to receive the great Light that was to dawn on him with the coming of Sri Ramakrishna into his life.
  --
  During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition that when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility that he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason that no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, ( Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all that." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
  The two pamphlets in English entitled the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared in October and November 1897. They drew the spontaneous acclamation of Swami Vivekananda, who wrote on 24th November of that year from Dehra Dun to M.:"Many many thanks for your second leaflet. It is indeed wonderful. The move is quite original, and never was the life of a Great Teacher brought before the public untarnished by the writer's mind, as you are doing. The language also is beyond all praise, so fresh, so pointed, and withal so plain and easy. I cannot express in adequate terms how I have enjoyed them. I am really in a transport when I read them. Strange, isn't it? Our Teacher and Lord was so original, and each one of us will have to be original or nothing.
  --
  And Swamiji added a post script to the letter: "Socratic dialogues are Plato all over you are entirely hidden. Moreover, the dramatic part is infinitely beautiful. Everybody likes it here or in the West." Indeed, in order to be unknown, Mahendranath had used the pen-name M., under which the book has been appearing till now. But so great a book cannot remain obscure for long, nor can its author remain unrecognised by the large public in these modern times. M. and his book came to be widely known very soon and to meet the growing demand, a full-sized book, Vol. I of the Gospel, translated by the author himself, was published in 1907 by the Brahmavadin Office, Madras. A second edition of it, revised by the author, was brought out by the Ramakrishna Math, Madras in December 1911, and subsequently a second part, containing new chapters from the original Bengali, was published by the same Math in 1922. The full English translation of the Gospel by Swami Nikhilananda appeared first in 1942.
  In Bengali the book is published in five volumes, the first part having appeared in 1902
  and the others in 1905, 1907, 1910 and 1932 respectively.

0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   Bishnupriya, a Bengali film.
   ***

0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ah, look at thisyesterday someone read me a letter Sri Aurobindo wrote to Barin in April 1920, a few days before I returned from Japan. It was written in Bengalitremendously interesting! He speaks of the state of the world, particularly India, and of how he envisaged a certain part of his action after completing his yoga. Its extremely interesting. And theres some very high praise for Europe. Sri Aurobindo says something like this: You all think Europe is over and done with, but thats not true, its not finished yet. In other words, its power is still alive.
   This was in 1920.
  --
   I have your letter, but have not succeeded in writing an answer till now. That I have even sat down to write now is a miracle; for me to write a letter is an event that takes place once in a blue moonespecially to write in Bengali, a thing I have not done for five or six years. If I can manage to finish this letter and put it in the post, the miracle will be complete!
   First, about your yoga. You wish to give me the charge of your yoga and I am willing to take it, but that means to give its charge to Him who is moving by His divine Shakti [Energy], whether secretly or openly, both you and me. But you must know that the necessary result of this will be that you will have to walk in the special path which He has given to me, the path which I call the path of the Integral Yoga. What I began with, what Lele1 gave me, was a seeking for the path, a circling in many directionsa first touch, a taking up, a handling and scrutiny of this or that in all the old partial yogas, some sort of complete experience of one and then the pursuit of another.
  --
   The peculiarity of this yoga is that until there is siddhi above the foundation does not become perfect. Those who have been following my course had kept many of the old samskaras; some of them have dropped away, but others still remain. There was the samskara of Sannyasa, even the wish to create an Aravinda Math [Sri Aurobindo monastery]. Now the intellect has recognized that Sannyasa is not what is wanted, but the stamp of the old idea has not yet been effaced from the prana [breath, life energy]. And so there was next this talk of remaining in the midst of the world, as a man of worldly activities and yet a man of renunciation. The necessity of renouncing desire has been understood, but the harmony of renunciation of desire with enjoyment of Ananda has not been rightly seized by the mind. And they took up my Yoga because it was very natural to the Bengali temperament, not so much from the side of Knowledge as from the side of Bhakti and Karma [Works]. A little knowledge has come in, but the greater part has escaped; the mist of sentimentalism has not been dissipated, the groove of the sattwic bhava [religious fervor] has not been broken. There is still the ego. I am not in haste, I allow each to develop according to his nature. I do not want to fashion all in the same mould. That which is fundamental will indeed be one in all, but it will express itself in many forms. Everybody grows, forms from within. I do not want to build from outside. The basis is there, the rest will come.
   What I am aiming at is not a society like the present rooted in division. What I have in view is a Samgha [community] founded in the spirit and in the image of its oneness. It is with this idea that the name Deva Samgha has been given the commune of those who want the divine life is the Deva Samgha. Such a Samgha will have to be established in one place at first and then spread all over the country. But if any shadow of egoism falls over this endeavor, then the Samgha will change into a sect. The idea may very naturally creep in that such and such a body is the one true Samgha of the future, the one and only centre, that all else must be its circumference, and that those outside its limits are not of the fold or even if they are, have gone astray, because they think differently.
  --
   In Bengal this weakness has gone to the extreme. The Bengali has a quick intelligence, emotional capacity and intuition. He is foremost in India in all these qualities. All of them are necessary but they do not suffice. If to these there were added depth of thought, calm strength, heroic courage and a capacity for and pleasure in prolonged labor, the Bengali might be a leader not only of India, but of mankind. But he does not want that, he wants to get things done easily, to get knowledge without thinking, the fruits without labor, siddhi by an easy sadhana [discipline]. His stock is the excitement of the emotional mind. But excess of emotion, empty of knowledge, is the very symptom of the malady. In the end it brings about fatigue and inertia. The country has been constantly and gradually going down. The life-power has ebbed away. What has the Bengali come to in his own country? He cannot get enough food to eat or clothes to wear, there is lamentation on all sides, his wealth, his trade and commerce, his lands, his very agriculture have begun to pass into the hands of others. We have abandoned the sadhana of Shakti and Shakti has abandoned us. We do the sadhana of Love, but where Knowledge and Shakti are not, there Love does not remain, there narrowness and littleness come, and in a little and narrow mind there is no place for Love. Where is Love in Bengal? There is more quarreling, jealousy, mutual dislike, misunderstanding and faction there than anywhere else even in India which is so much afflicted by division.
   In the noble heroic age of the Aryan people4 there was not so much shouting and gesticulating, but the endeavor they undertook remained steadfast through many centuries. The Bengalis endeavor lasts only for a day or two.
   You say that what is needed is maddening enthusiasm, to fill the country with emotional excitement. In the time of the Swadeshi [fight for independence, boycott of English goods] we did all that in the field of politics, but what we did is all now in the dust. Will there be a more favorable result in the spiritual field? I do not say there has been no result. There has been. Any movement will produce some result, but for the most part in terms of an increase of possibility. This is not the right method, however, to steadily actualize the thing. Therefore I no longer wish to make emotional excitement or any intoxication of the mind the base. I wish to make a large and strong equanimity the foundation of the yoga. I want established on that equality a full, firm and undisturbed Shakti in the system and in all its movements. I want the wide display of the light of Knowledge in the ocean of Shakti. And I want in that luminous vastness the tranquil ecstasy of infinite Love, Delight and Oneness. I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God. I have no faith in the customary trade of the guru. I do not wish to be a guru. If anybody wakes and manifests from within his slumbering godhead and gets the divine lifebe it at my touch or at anothersthis is what I want. It is such men that will raise the country.
  --
   Translated from the original Bengali, Cent. Ed., IV.327.
   Sejda: Elder brother.

0 1964-01-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (The following conversation between Mother and a Bengali disciple, B., was not tape-recorded but only noted from memory in English:)
   (B.) I am going to Calcutta. There they will ask me one question regarding the present situationcommunal riots.1 What is the solution?

0 1966-10-29, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   A Bengali disciple who is a musician.
   ***

0 1969-01-04, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Theyre preparing here a publication in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, and two other languages I forget, to which they intend to add Tamil and Telugu, of all the works of Sri Aurobindo. Its a tremendous task.
   At the same time, in America, there are two or three editions of Sri Aurobindos complete works: one edition for libraries, one for America, and one for India. Theyve sent me samples theyre magnificent! The edition for America is a marvel: big like this, with a marvelous paper

0 1970-08-01, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But there is I think its the Chief Minister, or a minister from Madras,2 who went to France because a Tamil congress was held there, and he met Z, who is our friend.3 And he told Z that he and the Madras government in general are very guarded about the Ashram because we are Bengalis (I forgetabsolutely stupid!) and what we say isnt true. Anyway such stupid things that I cant even remember them. And thats the official attitude. He said, Wed rather have foreigners there than Bengalis, because we will be more secure. There you are! Absolutely imbecile.
   So we are in a bizarre situation: the whole anti-government movement in India doesnt want us to be helped by the government; and the government of one province says we are friends with another province and we shouldnt be friends So to please them, we would have to become as stupid as they are.

0 1971-02-03, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (After Satprems reading of the book, Mother asks that it be translated into the languages of India and mentions Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, and Tamil.)
   (To Sujata:) You dont know an Indian language well enough to translate it?

0 1971-10-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Sri Aurobindo! For them Sri Aurobindo is a foreigner (!) because he comes from Bengalits dismaying! He who did everything for this country. Its dismaying. Really only the Divine can put up with that.
   Yes.

0 1971-11-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   "Mukti Bahini" army of liberation or Bengali resistance.
   ***

0 1972-04-03, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mothers attendant, speaking in Bengali to Sujata:) He knows.
   It seems silly to make a fuss. Better say nothing. Its enough if just a few people know.

0 1973-04-07, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Pranab, in Bengali:) Nonsense! Nobody can fool me. I know everything.
   (Then in English, quoting a Bengali saying:) Our bed is sea, what do we care for this dew?
   (Mother comes out of her concentration, she speaks to Satprem:)

02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Jules Supervielle Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsTwo Mystic Poems in Modern French
  --
   Jules Supervielle Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali

02.10 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
  object:02.10 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali
  author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
  --
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsTwo Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali
   Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali
   Here is the first one as I translate it:
  --
   There is a call for all the parts of the being to precipitate to the very foundation of the being, coalesce and evoke a wild and weird, doleful and discordant symphonya painful cry. Unrealised dreams, that had faded into oblivion, are now like possessed beings and hang like bats on darkling branches:they are about to begin their phantom dance. Even so, the body, the material precipitate into which they gather, gives them a basic unity. These elements with their ardour and zeal kindle a common Fire. There is a divine Flame, Agni, burning within the flesh, burning brighter and brighter, making the bones whiter and whiter, as it were the purificatory Flame,Pvaka, of which the Vedic Rishis spoke, Master of the House, ghapati, dwelling in the inner heart of the human being, impelling it to rise to purer and larger Truth. But here our modern poet replaces the Heart by the Liver and makes of this organ the central altar of human aspiration and inspiration. We may remember in this connection that the French poet Baudelaire gave a similar high position and functionto the other collateral organ, the spleen. The modern Bengali poet considers that man's consciousness, even his poetic inspiration, is soaked in the secretion of that bilious organ. For man's destiny here upon earth is not delight but grief, not sweetness but gall and bitterness; there is no consolation, no satisfaction here; there is only thirst, no generosity but narrowness, no consideration for others, but a huge sinister egoism.
   The cry of our poet is a cry literally deprifundis, a deep cavernous voice surging, spectral and yet sirenlike, out of the unfathomed underground abysses.

02.11 - Hymn to Darkness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali Mysticism in Bengali Poetry
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsHymn to Darkness
  --
   Here is a modern poem in Bengali. It is characteristically modern, though perhaps not quite modernist. It is an invocation to Darkness:
   That darkness is no more,
  --
   Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali Mysticism in Bengali Poetry

02.12 - Mysticism in Bengali Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
  object:02.12 - Mysticism in Bengali Poetry
  author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
  --
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsMysticism in Bengali Poetry
   Mysticism in Bengali Poetry
   Bengali poetry was born some time towards the end of an era of decline in the Indian consciousness, almost towards the close of what is called the Buddhist period, but it was born with a veritable crown on its head. For it was sheer mystic poetry, mystic in substance, mystic in manner and expression. The poets were themselves mystics, that is to say spiritual seekers, sadhaks they were called Siddhas or Siddhacharyas. They told of their spiritual, rather occult experiences in an occult or oblique manner, the very manner of the ancient Vedic Rishis, in figures and symbols and similes. It was a form of beauty, not merely of truthof abstract metaphysical truth that rose all on a sudden, as it were, out of an enveloping darkness. It shone for a time and then faded slowly, perhaps spread itself out in the common consciousness of the people and continued to exist as a backwash in popular songs and fables and proverbs. But it was there and came up again a few centuries later and the crest is seen once more in a more elevated, polished and dignified form with a content of mental illumination. I am referring to Chandidasa, who was also a sadhak poet and is usually known as the father of Bengali poetry, being the creator of modern Bengali poetry. He flourished somewhere in the fourteenth century. That wave too subsided and retired into the background, leaving in interregnum again of a century or more till it showed itself once more in another volume of mystic poetry in the hands of a new type of spiritual practitioners. They were the Yogis and Fakirs, and although of a popular type, yet possessing nuggets of gold in their utterances, and they formed a large family. This almost synchronised with the establishment and consolidation of the Western Power, with its intellectual and rational enlightenment, in India. The cultivation and superimposition of this Western or secular light forced the native vein of mysticism underground; it was necessary and useful, for it added an element which was missing before; a new synthesis came up in a crest with Tagore. It was a neo-mysticism, intellectual, philosophical, broad-based, self-conscious. Recently however we have been going on the downward slope, and many, if not the majority among us, have been pointing at mysticism and shouting: "Out, damned spot!" But perhaps we have struck the rock-bottom and are wheeling round.
   For in the present epoch we are rising on a new crest and everywhere, in all literatures, signs are not lacking of a supremely significant spiritual poetry being born among us.
  --
   The significance of the human personality, the role of the finite in the play of the infinite and universal, the sanctity of the material form as an expression and objectification of the transcendent, the body as a function of Consciousness-Force Delight are some of the very cardinal and supreme experiences in Bengali mysticism from its origin down to the present day.
   A mysticism that evokes the soul's delights and experiences in a language that has so transformed itself as to become the soul's native utterance is the new endeavour of the poet's Muse.

02.13 - Rabindranath and Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Mysticism in Bengali Poetry Appendix
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsRabindranath and Sri Aurobindo
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   Mysticism in Bengali Poetry Appendix

02.14 - Appendix, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   [Translated from the original Bengali by Sri Sanat Kumar Banerji]
   I did not come to appreciate the poetry of Wordsworth in my school days, it happened in college, and to a large extent thanks to Professor Manmohan Ghose. In our school days, the mind and heart of Bengali students were saturated with the poetry of Tagore: .
   In the bower of my youth the love-bird sings,
  --
   For us in India, especially to Bengalis, the first and foremost obstacle to accepting Wordsworth as a poet would be his simple, artless and homely manner:
   Behold her, single in the field,

03.11 - Modernist Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   A modern artist when he creates, as he cannot but create himself, will have to embrace and express something of this peculiar cosmopolitanism or universalism of today. When Ezra bursts into a Greek hypostrophe or Eliot chants out a Vedic mantra in the very middle of King's English, we have before us the natural and inevitable expression of a fact in our consciousness. Even so, if we are allowed the liberty of comparing the flippant with the serious, even so, a fact of Anglo-vernacular consciousness was given graphic expression in the well-known lines of the famous Bengali poet and dramatist, D. L. Roy, ending in
   mara (we) ...

03.11 - The Language Problem and India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   French and English being given the place of honour, now the question is with regard to the vernacular of those who do not speak either of these languages. We have to distinguish two categories of languages: national and international. French and English being considered international languages par excellence, the others remain as national languages, but their importance need not be minimised thereby. First of all, along with the two major international languages, there may be a few others that can be called secondary or subsidiary international languages according as they grow and acquire a higher status. Thus Russian, or an Asiatic, even an Indian language may attain that position, because of wide extension or inherent value of popularity or for some other reason. Indeed, a national language cultivated and enriched by its nationals can force itself on the world's attention and fairly become a world language. Tagore was able to give that kind of world importance to the Bengali language.
   It may be questioned whether too many languages are not imposed on us in this way and whether it will not mean in the end a Babel and inefficiency. It need not be so and it is not going to be so. We must remember the age we are in, its composite structure, its polyphonic nature. In the ancient and mediaeval ages, the ages of separatism and exclusiveness of clans and tribes and regions, even in the later age of the states and nations, the individual group-consciousness was strong and sedulously fostered. Languages and literature grew and developed more or less independently and with equal vigour, although always through some kind of give and take. But the modern world has been made so inextricably one, ease of communication and free interchange have obliterated the separating boundaries, not only geographical but psychological. The modern consciousness has so developed and is so circumstanced that one can very easily be bi-lingual or even trilingual: indeed one has to be so, speaking and writing with equal felicity not only one's mother tongue but one or more adopted tongues. Modern culture means that.
  --
   The cultivation of a world language need not mean a neglect or discouragement of the national or regional language. Between the two instead of there being a relation of competition there can be a relation of mutual aid and helpfulness. The world language can influence the local language in the way of its growth and development and can itself be influenced and enriched in the process. The history of the relation of English and the Indian languages, especially Bengali, is an instance in point.
   A question has been raised with regard to the extent of that influence, involving a very crucial problem: the problem of Indian writers in English. Itis said Indians have become clever writers in English because of English domination. Now that India is free and that domination gone, the need of English will be felt less and less and finally it may even totally disappear from the Indian field. What has become of the Persian language in India? There were any numbers of Indian writers in Persian but with the disappearance of the Muslim rule the supremacy, even the influence of that imperial language has disappeared. At the most English may remain as the necessary medium for international affairs, cultivated, that is to say, just learnt by a comparatively few for the minimum business transaction. The heart of the country cannot express itself in that foreign tongue and no literature of the Indo-Anglian type can grow permanently here.

03.12 - TagorePoet and Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Such a great name is Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali literature. We need not forget Bankim Chandra, nor even Madhusudan: still one can safely declare that if Bengali language and literature belonged to any single person as its supreme liberator and fosterer savitand pit is Rabindranath. It was he who lifted that language and literature from what had been after all a provincial and parochial status into the domain of the international and universal. Through him a thing of local value was metamorphosed definitively into a thing of world value.
   The miracle that Tagore has done is this: he has brought out the very soul of the raceits soul of lyric fervour and grace, of intuitive luminosity and poignant sensibility, of beauty and harmony and delicacy. It is this that he has made living and vibrant, raised almost to the highest pitch and amplitude in various modes in the utterance of his nation. What he always expresses, in all his creations, is one aspect or another, a rhythm or a note of the soul movement. It is always a cry of the soul, a profound experience in the inner heart that wells out in the multifarious cadences of his poems. It is the same motif that finds a local habitation and a name in his short stories, perfect gems, masterpieces among world's masterpieces of art. In his dramas and novels it is the same element that has found a wider canvas for a more detailed and graphic notation of its play and movement. I would even include his essays (and certainly his memoirs) within the sweep of the same master-note. An essay by Rabindranath is as characteristic of the poet as any lyric poem of his. This is not to say that the essays are devoid of a solid intellectual content, a close-knit logical argument, an acute and penetrating thought movement, nor is it that his novels or dramas are mere lyrics drawn out arid thinned, lacking in the essential elements of a plot and action and character. What I mean is that over and above these factors which Tagores art possesses to a considerable degree, there is an imponderable element, a flavour, a breath from elsewhere that suffuses the entire creation, something that can be characterised only as the soul-element. It is this presence that makes whatever the poet touches not only living and graceful but instinct with something that belongs to the world of gods, something celestial and divine, something that meets and satisfies man's deepest longing and aspiration.
  --
   The breath of modernism that Tagore has brought into the life and letters of the Bengali race is, I repeat, suffused with a soul-feelinga sense of refinement and dignity, wideness and catholicity and urbanity in the inner make-up of life-attitude and consciousness, a feeling that one no longer lives in his village, confined to its insular limits, but that one lives a life coterminous with human life at large and at its best; one is cosmopolitan in the noblest sense of the word and one has to move and act and speak in a manner becoming such a position. A high sense of all the aristocratic virtues, plus a certain sunshine of wit and playful intelligence that prevents the serious and the lofty from becoming grim and Dantesque are part of the gifts that Tagore has brought us and made a living element of our literary and even social character.
   Tagore is modern, because his modernism is based upon a truth not local and temporal, but eternal and universal, something that is the very bed-rock of human culture and civilisation. Indeed, Tagore is also ancient, as ancient as the Upanishads. The great truths, the basic realities experienced and formulated by the ancients ring clear and distinct in the core of all his artistic creation. Tagore's intellectual make-up may be as rationalistic and scientific as that of any typical modern man. Nor does he discard the good things (preya)that earth and life offer to man for his banquet; and he does not say like the bare ascetic: any vco vimucatha, "abandon everything else". But even like one of the Upanishadic Rishis, the great Yajnavalkya, he would possess and enjoy his share of terrestrial as well as of spiritual wealthubhayameva. In a world of modernism, although he acknowledges and appreciates mental and vital and physical values, he does not give them the place demanded for them. He has never forgotten the one thing needful. He has not lost the moorings of the soul. He has continued to nestle close to the eternal verities that sustain earth and creation and give a high value and purpose to man's life and creative activity.

04.13 - To the HeightsXIII, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   October 29, 1932 [Translated from Bengali]
   ***

10.01 - A Dream, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

10.04 - Lord of Time, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

10.06 - Looking around with Craziness, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

10.07 - The Demon, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

10.10 - A Poem, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

10.11 - Savitri, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

10.12 - Awake Mother, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga

1.01 - An Accomplished Westerner, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  but also with an English governess, Miss Pagett, and then sent off at the age of five to an Irish convent school in Darjeeling among the sons of British administrators. Two years later, the three Ghose boys would leave for England. Sri Aurobindo was seven. Not until the age of twenty would he learn his mother tongue, Bengali. He would never see his father again, who died just before his return to India, and barely his mother, who was ill and did not recognize him on his return. Hence, this is a child who grew up outside every influence of family, country, and tradition a free spirit. The first lesson Sri Aurobindo gives us is perhaps, precisely, a lesson of freedom.
  Sri Aurobindo and his two brothers were entrusted to an Anglican clergyman of Manchester, with strict instruction that they should not be allowed the acquaintance of any Indian or undergo any Indian influence.4 Dr. Ghose was indeed a peculiar man. He also ordered Pastor Drewett not to give his sons any religious instruction, so they could choose a religion themselves, if they so wished, when they came of age. He then left them to their fate for thirteen years. He believed his children should become men of character. Dr. Ghose may appear to have been a hardhearted man, but he was nothing of the kind; not only did he donate his services as a doctor but also gave his money to poor Bengali villagers (while his sons had hardly anything to eat or wear in London), and he died of shock when he was mistakenlyinformed that his favorite son, Aurobindo, had died in a shipwreck.
  The first few years in Manchester were of some importance to Sri Aurobindo because this is where he learned French (English was his "mother tongue") and discovered a spontaneous affinity for France:

1.02 - Meeting the Master - Authors second meeting, March 1921, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   But the greatest surprise of my visit in 1921 was the 'darshan' of Sri Aurobindo. During the interval of two years his body had undergone a transformation which could only be described as miraculous. In 1918 the colour of the body was like that of an ordinary Bengali rather dark though there was a lustre on the face and the gaze was penetrating. This time on going upstairs to see him (in the same house) I found his cheeks wore an apple-pink colour and the whole body glowed with a soft creamy white light. So great and unexpected was the change that I could not help exclaiming: "What has happened to you?"
   Instead of giving a direct reply he parried the question, as I had grown a beard: "And what has happened to you?"

1.02 - Taras Tantra, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
  done by a Bengali monk called Hayap ala who
  belonged to the Brahmin caste. After havin g

1.03 - Meeting the Master - Meeting with others, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   The talk then turned to a shooting tragedy at Calcutta. A young Bengali shot Mr. Day, mistaking him for Mr. Tegart, the Chief of Police in Bengal.
   Disciple: It would have been better if the young man had killed himself immediately after the shooting so that he would at least have had the satisfaction of thinking that he had killed Tegart! Now, perhaps, he will be transported for life and he knows that he has not killed Tegart.

1.03 - The End of the Intellect, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  However, this young man was neither restless nor fanatical: "His smile was simple like that of a child, as limpid and as sweet," wrote his Bengali teacher who lived with him for two years (Sri Aurobindo had naturally begun to study his mother tongue). With touching ingenuousness, his teacher adds: "Before meeting Aurobindo, I had imagined him as a stalwart figure dressed like a European from head to foot, immaculate, with a stern look behind his spectacles, a horrible accent (from Cambridge, of course!) and a very difficult disposition.
  Shri Aurobindo, 342
  --
  his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I
  would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea.

1.03 - The House Of The Lord, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  The long stretch of silence ceased only with the arrival of his first and principal meal of the day. Still we hardly ever heard him express that his "stomach was getting unsteady". The day's second meal, supper, had to be quite light. Let me stress one thing at the very outset: in his whole tenor of life, he followed the rule laid down by the Gita, moderation in everything. This was his teaching as well as his practice. To look at the outward commonplaceness of his life, eating, sleeping, joking, etc., and to make a leaping statement that here was another man like oneself, would be logical, but not true. Similarly in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, even a high experience must not disturb the normal rhythm of life. Naturally, I was extremely curious, and so were the others, I believe, to see what kind of food he took; had he any preference for a particular dish and how much had he in common with our taste? We had to wait a long time before he regained his health, and could sit up and "enjoy" a proper meal. As soon as people learnt about it, dishes from various sadhikas began to pour in as for the Deity in the temple. And just as the Deity does, so did he, or rather the Mother did on his behalf: only a little from a dish was offered to him and all the rest was sent back as prasd. For his regular meal, there were a few devotees like Amiya, Nolina and Mridu selected by the Mother for their good cooking, which Sri Aurobindo specially liked. Mridu was a simple Bengali village widow. She, like other ladies here, called Sri Aurobindo her father, and took great pride in cooking for him. Her "father" liked her luchis very much, she would boast, and these creations of hers have been immortalised by him in one of his letters to her. She was given to maniacal fits of threatening suicide, and Sri Aurobindo would console her with, "If you commit suicide, who will cook luchis for me?" Her cooking got such wide publicity that the house she lived in was named Prasd. Food from the devotees, though tasty, was sometimes too greasy or spicy, and once it did not agree with him. So a separate kitchen, known as the Mother's Kitchen, was started for preparing only the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's food. It was done under the most perfect hygienic conditions following the Mother's own special instructions. Her insistence is always on cleanliness. (She said in a recent message: Cleanliness is the first indispensable step towards the supramental manifestation...) I questioned Sri Aurobindo about this: "I wonder why the Divine is so particular about contagion, infection, etc. Is he vulnerable to the virus and the microbe?" He replied, "And why on earth should you expect the Divine to feed himself on germs and bacilli and poisons of all kinds? Singular theology, yours!"
  At the beginning all of us would make it a point to be present during his meal and watch the function as well as the Mother's part in it. When the time was announced, water was brought for Sri Aurobindo to wash his hands, then he started eating with a spoon and rarely with knife and fork. He would take off his ring, place it in Champaklal's hand and wash. Champakal would put it back on his finger afterwards. Sometimes when he forgot to take off the ring, Champaklal caught hold of the hand before it was dipped in the water. Then the Mother would come, prepare and lay the table, push it herself up to Sri Aurobindo and arrange the various foods in bowls or glass tumblers, in the order of savouries, sweets and fruit juices everything having an atmosphere of cleanliness, purity and beauty. Then she would offer, one by one, the dishes to the silent Deity who would take them slowly and silently as if the eating was not for the satisfaction of the palate but an act of self-offering. Steadiness and silence were the characteristic stamps of Sri Aurobindo. Dhra, according to him, was the ideal of Aryan culture. Hurry and hustle were words not found in his dictionary. Be it eating, drinking, walking or talking he did it always in a slow and measured rhythm, giving the impression that every movement was conscious and consecrated. The Mother would punctuate the silence with queries like, "How do you like that dish?" or such remarks as, "This mushroom is grown here, this is special brinjal sent from Benares, this is butterfruit." To all, Sri Aurobindo's reply would be, "Oh, I see! Quite good!" Typically English in manner and tone! His silence or laconic praise made us wonder if he had not lost all distinction in taste! Did rasagolla, bread and brinjal have the same taste in the Divine sense-experience? Making this vital point clear, he wrote in a letter: "Distinction is never lost, bread cannot be as tasty as a luchi, but a yogi can enjoy bread with as much rasa as a luchi which is quite a different thing." He had a liking for sweets, particularly for rasagolla, sandesh and pantua. We could see that clearly: after the Mother had banned all sweets from his menu for medical reasons, one day some pantuas found their way in by chance. The Mother could not send them back from the table. She asked him if he would take some. He replied, "If it is pantua, I can try." Since then this became a spicy joke with all of us. He enjoyed, as a matter of fact, all kinds of good dishes, European or Indian. But whatever was not to his taste, he would just touch and put away. The pungent preparations of the South could not, however, receive his blessings, except the rasam[1]. When on his arrival in Pondicherry he was given rasam, he enjoyed it very much and said in our talks, "It has a celestial taste!" He was neither a puritan god nor an epicure; only, he had no hankering or attachment for anything. His meal ended with a big tumbler of orange juice which he sipped slowly, looking after each sip to see how much was left, and keeping a small quantity as prasd. Once the entire juice had slightly fermented and after one or two sips he left it at the Mother's prompting. We conspired to make good use of it as prasd, but Sri Aurobindo got the scent of our secret design and forewarned us! We had to check our temptation.

1.03 - VISIT TO VIDYASAGAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  PUNDIT ISWAR CHANDRA VIDYASAGAR was born in the village of Beersingh, not far from Kamarpukur, Sri Ramakrishna's birthplace. He was known as a great scholar, educator, writer, and philanthropist. One of the creators of modern Bengali, he was also well versed in Sanskrit grammar and poetry. His generosity made his name a household word with his countrymen, most of his income being given in charity to widows, orphans, indigent students, and other needy people. Nor was his compassion limited to human beings: he stopped drinking milk for years so that the calves should not be deprived of it, and he would not drive in a carriage for fear of causing discomfort to the horses. He was a man of indomitable spirit, which he showed when he gave up the lucrative position of principal of the Sanskrit College of Calcutta because of a disagreement with the authorities. His affection for his mother was especially deep. One day, in the absence of a ferryboat, he swam a raging river at the risk of his life to fulfil her wish that he should be present at his brother's wedding. His whole life was one of utter simplicity. The title Vidyasagar, meaning "Ocean of Learning", was given him in recognition of his vast erudition.
  Master's visit to the scholar
  --
  As soon as the Master and the devotees reached the gate, they saw an unexpected sight and stood still. In front of them was a bearded gentleman of fair complexion, aged about thirty-six. He wore his clothes like a Bengali, but on his head was a white turban tied after the fashion of the Sikhs. No sooner did he see the Master than he fell prostrate before him, turban and all.
  When he stood up the Master said: "Who is this? Balaram? Why so late in the evening?"

1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Ramakrishna's kind inquiries, Manomohan explained that he was taking them to Calcutta. The Master said: "Today is the first day of the Bengali month, an inauspicious day for undertaking a journey. I hope everything will be well with you." With a smile he began to talk of other matters.
  When Narendra and his friends had finished bathing in the Ganges, the Master said to them earnestly: "Go to the Panchavati and meditate there under the banyan-tree. Shall I give you something to sit on?"

1.07 - Savitri, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  [1] Dinendra Kumar Roy, a Bengali literary man who was brought to Baroda to live with Sri Aurobindo and assist him in Bengali conversation.
  [2] An

1.08 - THE MASTERS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  An unknown Bengali, dressed in the ochre cloth of a monk, entered the room and sat on the floor. The Master's mind was coming down to the ordinary plane of consciousness.
  Presently he began to talk, though the spell of samdhi still lingered.

1.10 - The Revolutionary Yogi, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Such are the mental, vital, physical and psychic discoveries that Sri Aurobindo pursued alone, step by step, between the ages of twenty and thirty, simply by following the thread of consciousness. The remarkable thing is that he practiced yoga in circumstances and places where one would usually not do yoga: while giving his lectures in French or English at the State College of Baroda, during his work at the court of the Maharaja, and more and more in the midst of his secret revolutionary activities. The hours of the night that were not devoted to studying his mother tongue or Sanskrit or to political work were spent writing poetry. "Aurobindo had the habit of writing poetry till late into the night," his Bengali teacher recalls, "and consequently he did not get up very early in the morning. . . . He would concentrate for a minute before starting, then the poetry would flow from his pen like a stream." From writing poetry, Sri Aurobindo would pass to his experimental sleep. In 1901, at the age of twenty-nine, he married Mrinalini Devi and tried to share his spiritual life with her. I am experiencing all the signs and symptoms, he wrote to her in a letter found in the archives of the British police. I should like to take you with me along this path. But Mrinalini did not understand him, and Sri Aurobindo would remain alone. We could search Sri Aurobindo's life in vain for those moving or miraculous anecdotes that adorn the lives of great sages and mystics, in vain for sensational yogic methods;
  everything seemed so ordinary, apparently, that nothing attracted one's attention, just as in life itself. Perhaps he had found more miracles in the ordinary than in the extraordinary: With me all is different, all is uncommon, he wrote in a letter to Mrinalini. All is deep and strange to the eyes that see.103 And perhaps that is what he wants us to discover through his example, his work, his yoga all those unknown riches beneath the ordinary crust. Our lives [are] a deeper mystery than we 103

1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  When was this traditional honour first lost or at least tarnished and the ancient Scripture relegated to the inferior position it occupies in the thought of Shankaracharya? I presume there can be little doubt that the chief agent in this work of destruction was the power of Buddhism. The preachings of Gautama and his followers worked against Vedic knowledge by a double process. First, by entirely denying the authority of the Veda, laying a violent stress on its ritualistic character and destroying the general practice of formal sacrifice, it brought the study of the Veda into disrepute as a means of attaining the highest good while at the same time it destroyed the necessity of that study for ritualistic purposes which had hitherto kept alive the old Vedic studies; secondly, in a less direct fashion, by substituting for a time at least the vernacular tongues for the old simple Sanscrit as the more common & popular means of religious propaganda and by giving them a literary position and repute, it made a general return to the old generality of the Vedic studies practically impossible. For the Vedas were written in an ancient form of the literary tongue the real secret of which had already been to a great extent lost even to the learned; such knowledge of it as remained, subsisted with difficulty by means of a laborious memorising and a traditional scholarship, conservative indeed but still slowly diminishing and replacing more & more real knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was no longer possible. The old pre-Buddhistic Sanscrit was, to all appearance, a simple, vigorous, living language understood though not spoken by the more intelligent of the common people just as the literary language of Bengal, the language of Bankim Chandra, is understood by every intelligent Bengali, although in speech more contracted forms and a very different vocabulary are in use. But the new Sanscrit of the revival tended to be more & more a learned, scholarly, polished and rhetorical tongue, certainly one of the most smooth, stately & grandiose ever used by human lips, but needing a special & difficult education to understand its grammar, its rhetoric, its rolling compounds and its long flowing sentences. The archaic language of the Vedas ceased to be the common study even of the learned and was only mastered, one is constrained to believe with less & less efficiency, by a small number of scholars. An education in which it took seven years to master the grammar of the language, became inevitably the grave of all true Vedic knowledge. Veda ceased to be the pivot of the Hindu religion, and its place was taken by the only religious compositions which were modern enough in language and simple enough in style to be popular, the Puranas. Moreover, the conception of Veda popularised by Buddhism, Sanscrit as the more common & popular means of religious propaganda and by giving them a literary position and repute, it made a general return to the old generality of the Vedic studies practically impossible. For the Vedas were written in an ancient form of the literary tongue the real secret of which had already been to a great extent lost even to the learned; such knowledge of it as remained, subsisted with difficulty by means of a laborious memorising and a traditional scholarship, conservative indeed but still slowly diminishing and replacing more & more real knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was no longer possible. The old pre-Buddhistic Sanscrit was, to all appearance, a simple, vigorous, living language understood though not spoken by the more intelligent of the common people just as the literary language of Bengal, the language of Bankim Chandra, is understood by every intelligent Bengali, although in speech more contracted forms and a very different vocabulary are in use. But the new Sanscrit of the revival tended to be more & more a learned, scholarly, polished and rhetorical tongue, certainly one of the most smooth, stately & grandiose ever used by human lips, but needing a special & difficult education to understand its grammar, its rhetoric, its rolling compounds and its long flowing sentences. The archaic language of the Vedas ceased to be the common study even of the learned and was only mastered, one is constrained to believe with less & less efficiency, by a small number of scholars. An education in which it took seven years to master the grammar of the language, became inevitably the grave of all true Vedic knowledge. Veda ceased to be the pivot of the Hindu religion, and its place was taken by the only religious compositions which were modern enough in language and simple enough in style to be popular, the Puranas. Moreover, the conception of Veda popularised by Buddhism, a Scripture of ritual and of animal sacrifice, persisted in the popular mind even after the decline of Buddhism and the revival of great philosophies ostensibly based on Vedic authority. It was under the dominance of this ritualistic conception that Sayana wrote his great commentary which has ever since been to the Indian Pundit the one decisive authority on the sense of Veda. The four Vedas have definitely taken a subordinate place as karmakanda, books of ritual; and to the Upanishads alone, in spite of occasional appeals to the text of the earlier Scriptures, is reserved that aspect of spiritual knowledge & teaching which alone justifies the application to any human composition of the great name of Veda.
  But in spite of this great downfall the ancient tradition, the ancient sanctity survived. The people knew not what Veda might be; but the old idea remained fixed that Veda is always the fountain of Hinduism, the standard of orthodoxy, the repository of a sacred knowledge; not even the loftiest philosopher or the most ritualistic scholar could divest himself entirely of this deeply ingrained & instinctive conception. To complete the degradation of Veda, to consummate the paradox of its history, a new element had to appear, a new form of intelligence undominated by the ancient tradition & the mediaeval method to take possession of Vedic interpretation. European scholarship which regards human civilisation as a recent progression starting yesterday with the Fiji islander and ending today with Haeckel and Rockefeller, conceiving ancient culture as necessarily primitive culture and primitive culture as necessarily half-savage culture, has turned the light of its Comparative Philology & Comparative Mythology on the Veda. The result we all know. Not only all vestige of sanctity, but all pretension to any kind of spiritual knowledge or experience disappears from the Veda. The old Rishis are revealed to us as a race of ignorant and lusty barbarians who drank & enjoyed and fought, gathered riches & procreated children, sacrificed and praised the Powers of Nature as if they were powerful men & women, and had no higher hope or idea. The only idea they had of religion beyond an occasional sense of sin and a perpetual preoccupation with a ritual barbarously encumbered with a mass of meaningless ceremonial details, was a mythology composed of the phenomena of dawn, night, rain, sunshine and harvest and the facts of astronomy converted into a wildly confused & incoherent mass of allegorical images and personifications. Nor, with the European interpretation, can we be proud of our early forefa thers as poets and singers. The versification of the Vedic hymns is indeed noble and melodious,though the incorrect method of writing them established by the old Indian scholars, often conceals their harmonious construction,but no other praise can be given. The Nibelungenlied, the Icelandic Sagas, the Kalewala, the Homeric poems, were written in the dawn of civilisation by semi-barbarous races, by poets not superior in culture to the Vedic Rishis; yet though their poetical value varies, the nations that possess them, need not be ashamed of their ancient heritage. The same cannot be said of the Vedic poems presented to us by European scholarship. Never surely was there even among savages such a mass of tawdry, glittering, confused & purposeless imagery; never such an inane & useless burden of epithets; never such slipshod & incompetent writing; never such a strange & almost insane incoherence of thought & style; never such a bald poverty of substance. The attempt of patriotic Indian scholars to make something respectable out of the Veda, is futile. If the modern interpretation stands, the Vedas are no doubt of high interest & value to the philologist, the anthropologist & the historian; but poetically and spiritually they are null and worthless. Its reputation for spiritual knowledge & deep religious wealth, is the most imposing & baseless hoax that has ever been worked upon the imagination of a whole people throughout many millenniums.

1.11 - Correspondence and Interviews, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  Work of a different sort that did not interfere with his regular schedule was to correct various factual errors perpetrated by his biographers. Quite a number of people from outside started writing in English and Bengali about his life. One biography that gained some Popularity in Bengal and drew public attention was by a Bengali littrateur Shri Girija Shankar Roy Chowdhury. He was reputed to be a scholar and his articles were coming out in the well-known Bengali journal Udbodhan. But many of the facts he had collected and collated from heterogenous sources were entirely baseless and therefore the conclusions he had drawn from them wrong and fanciful. He took them for granted, without caring in the least to refer to Sri Aurobindo for verification. Since he was a man of some consequence, many of his articles were read before Sri Aurobindo who was amazed to find his erudition so muddled, and imagination so fantastic that he asked Purani to compile a sort of factual biography where only the facts of his life would be stated with precise dates and exact descriptions. Both, the Master and the disciple in collaboration, established on a sure and authentic foundation all the main incidents of his life and corrected those that passed into currency on the authority of the biographers. These are given at the end of Purani's book, The Life of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo was very much amused at the fanciful hypothesis drawn from his early love poems that he must have fallen in love more than once while in England! We could hardly control our laughter. Because of such inaccuracies, twisting of facts, colourful and hasty conclusions indulged in quite often by biographers, Sri Aurobindo discouraged the sadhaks from writing about his life since he did not "want to be murdered by his own disciples in cold print". The greatest drawback of Girija Shankar's book is that he does not seem to be an impersonal seeker of the truth about Sri Aurobindo's life. He was already a partisan even when he began his so-called biography.
  Among the interviews granted to public figures by Sri Aurobindo the first one was in September 1947, followed by a few others at a later date. It was a great concession on his part to break his self-imposed seclusion. A prominent French politician Maurice Schumann was deputed by the French Government as the leader of a cultural mission to see Sri Aurobindo and pay him homage from the French Government and to propose to set up at Pondicherry an institute for research and study of Indian and European cultures with Sri Aurobindo as its head. I was happily surprised to hear this great news, great in the sense that Sri Aurobindo had at all consented to the proposal, for I hailed it as an indication of his future public appearance. The fact that it came on the heels of India's Independence pointed to her role as a dominant power in the comity of nations, as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo. It seems Sri Aurobindo asked the Mother in what language he should speak to the delegates. The Mother replied, "Why, in French! You know French." Sri Aurobindo protested, "No, no! I can't speak in French." The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the French delegates were closeted in Sri Aurobindo's room and we don't know what passed among them.

1.12 - Dhruva commences a course of religious austerities, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
  [1]: A marginal note by a Bengali Pundit asserts it to be a fact, then when a jackal carries a piece of meat in his mouth, it shews in the dark as if it was on fire.
  [2]: The commentator understands this passage to imply merely that the supreme pervades both substance and space, being infinitely vast, and without limit. 'Having a thousand heads,' &c. denotes only infinite extension: and the 'ten inches beyond the contact of the universe' expresses merely non-restriction by its boundaries.

1.12 - God Departs, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  On 9th December, the Light faded and signs of discoloration here and there were visible. Then, according to the Mother's direction, the body was put into a specially prepared rosewood casket lined with silver sheet and satin and the bottom made comfortable with cushions. Sri Aurobindo's body was wrapped in a gold-embroidered cloth. At 5 p.m. the body was carried by the sadhaks to the Ashram courtyard under the Service tree where a cement vault had been under construction from 5th December. Udar climbed down into the vault to receive the casket and put it in its proper position. As the box was lowered a friend of mine said that a prayer sprang spontaneously from his heart: "Now that you have gone physically, assure us that your work will be done." Something made him look up at the Service tree and suddenly he saw against it Sri Aurobindo; his undraped upper body was of a golden colour. He said firmly with great energy and power in Bengali, "Habe, habe, habe" "It will be done, it will be done, it will be done." Then, as wished by the Mother, Champaklal came first to place a potful of earth upon the slate of the vault, followed by Moni, Nolini and other sadhaks. The ceremony was quiet and solemn. The Mother watched it from the terrace above Dyuman's room. Hundreds of sadhaks stood in the courtyard in silent prayer and consecration. The most blessed Service tree amply fulfils its name by offering the Samadhi day and night, a cool shade and sweet-scented flowers.
  Thus came to a close the physical life of the One who, without the world knowing it, worked unceasingly for the world and will continue doing so, careless of human reward of any kind and accepting the success of his mission as the only recompense. Of the latter he was absolutely sure, but were it to end in failure, he said that he would still go on unperturbed, because "I would still have done to the best of my power the work that I had to do, and what is so done counts always in the economy of the universe." Was it the sacrifice that he called, "paying here God's debt to earth and man"? Never has there been recorded in earth-history a phenomenon where a person of Sri Aurobindo's supreme eminence has lived secluded from the world-gaze and quietly and unobtrusively passed away. Such a complete self-effacement can be thought of only of one who is a god or has become a god. It is certain that one day the world will wake up to realise who he was and what it owes to him as it becomes more and more enlightened in its consciousness. Already, some faint glimmerings of that recognition are visible in the Eastern sky, "a long lone line of hesitating hue". His Birth Centenary is knocking at our door. Rabindranath's salutation to him in his political days will turn into a salutation of the whole of humanity as its lover and saviour. The long lone hue will be transformed into a full blaze of the living Sun.

1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Narendra explained the sentence in Bengali. The Master beamed with joy and said in English, "Thank you! Thank you!" Everyone laughed at the charming way he said these words. They knew that his English vocabulary consisted of only half a dozen words.
  It was almost dusk when most of the devotees, including Narendra, took leave of the Master. Sri Ramakrishna went out and looked at the Ganges for a few minutes from the west porch. Two priests were bathing in preparation for the evening worship. Young men of the village were strolling in the garden or standing on the concrete embankment, gazing at the murmuring river. Others, perhaps more thoughtful, were walking about in the solitude of the Panchavati.
  --
  As the conversation went on, several Bengali gentlemen entered the room and, after saluting the Master, sat down. One of them was already known to Sri Ramakrishna.
  These gentlemen followed the cult of Tantra. The Master knew that one of them indulged in immoral acts in the name of religion. The Tantra rituals, under certain conditions, allow the mixing of men and women devotees. But Sri Ramakrishna regarded all women, even prostitutes, as manifestations of the Divine Mother. He addressed them all as "Mother".

1.16 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  It was the last day of the Bengali month and the day of the full moon. M. was going to spend a few days with the Master practising spiritual discipline. The Master had said to him, "If an aspirant practises a little spiritual discipline, then someone comes forward to help him."
  The Master had said to M: "You should not eat every day at the guesthouse of the Kli temple. The guesthouse is intended to supply free food to monks and the destitute.

1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Letters (translated from Bengali) 1st ed. 1961
  4 - Literature-Poetry-Drama Views and Reviews, 'Arya' 1914-1920 1st ed. 1941
  --
  Poems from Bengali, 1893-1905 (translation) 1st ed. 1956
  Savitri 1st ed. 1950
  --
  The Chariot of Jagannath, 1918 1st ed. 1972 (translated from Bengali)
  5 - Political Period The Ideal of the Karmayogin, 'Karmayogin' 1909-10 1st ed. 1918
  --
  Tales of Prison Life (translated from Bengali) 1st ed. 1974

1.2.1.03 - Psychic and Esoteric Poetry, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
    Certain poems in Bengali by Dilip Kumar Roy: Agni Disha, Agni Bedan, etc.Ed.
    Now called Moon of Two Hemispheres.Ed.

1.22 - ADVICE TO AN ACTOR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Narendra told the story of two yogis in Bhutan who used to drink daily a pound of the bitter juice of neem-leaves. He had also visited the hermitage of a holy man on the bank of the Narmada. At the sight of the Bengali Babu dressed in European clothes, the sdhu had remarked, "He has a knife hidden under his clothes, next to his belly."
  Keeping the pictures of holy persons

1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Mr. Bose, the Bengali Engineer, asked the meaning of the last stanza of Atma Vidya (Knowledge of the Self). Sri Bhagavan explained on the following lines:
  There is the world perceived, the perception is only apparent; it requires location for existence and light. Such existence and light are simultaneous with the rise of mind. So the physical existence and illumination are part of mental existence and illumination. The latter is not absolute, for the mind rises and sinks. The mind has its substratum in the Self which is self-evident, i.e. its existence and self-luminosity are obvious. That is absolute being, continuous in sleep, waking and dream states also.
  --
  Mr. Bose, the Bengali Engineer, has since read Gaudapada Karikas and Sir S. Radhakrishnans Indian Philosophy and so asked questions as follows:
  D.: Is there any genuine difference between dream experience and waking state?

1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Mr. Bose, the Bengali Engineer, asked the meaning of the last stanza of Atma Vidya (Knowledge of the Self). Sri Bhagavan explained on the following lines:
  There is the world perceived, the perception is only apparent; it requires location for existence and light. Such existence and light are simultaneous with the rise of mind. So the physical existence and illumination are part of mental existence and illumination. The latter is not absolute, for the mind rises and sinks. The mind has its substratum in the Self which is self-evident, i.e. its existence and self-luminosity are obvious. That is absolute being, continuous in sleep, waking and dream states also.
  --
  Mr. Bose, the Bengali Engineer, has since read Gaudapada Karikas and Sir S. Radhakrishnan's Indian Philosophy and so asked questions as follows:
  D.: Is there any genuine difference between dream experience and waking state?

13.02 - A Review of Sri Aurobindos Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   First of alllet us begin from the very beginning. The very first step or turn he took in his early childhood was in fact a complete about turn the antipodes of what he was and where he was. For, he was almost uprooted from his normal surroundings and removed across far seas to a distant land. From out of an Indian Bengali family he was thrown into the midst of a British Christian family. He was made to forget his native language, his country's traditions, his people's customs and manners, he had to adopt an altogether different mode of life and thinking, a thoroughly Europeanised style and manner. Naturally being a baby this was an occasion, the earliest when he had not his choice, his own deliberate decision but had to follow the choice of his father the choice perhaps of his secret soul and destiny. His father meant well, for he wanted his children to be not only good but great according to his conception of goodness and greatness. Now, in that epoch when the British were the masters of India and we their slaves, in those days the ideal for a person of intelligence and promise, the ideal of success was to become a high government official, a district magistrate or a district judge; that was the highest ambition of an Indian of that time and naturally Sri Aurobindo's parents and well-wishers thought of Sri Aurobindo in that line, he would become a very famous district magistrate or a Commissioner even, the highest position that an Indian could achieve. So he had to appear at an examination for that purpose, it was calledthose glittering letters to Indian eyes: I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service). Now here was the very first deliberate choice of his own, the first radical turn he tookto cut himself away from the normally developing past. He turned away from that line of growth and his life moved on to a different scale. His parents and friends were mortified such a brilliant boy come to nought but he had pushed away the past as another vision allured him and he stuck to his decision.
   Next as you all know, he came to Baroda, entered the State serviceas Secretary to the Maharaja and professor of the College. That life was also externally a very normal and ordinary lifean obscure life, so to say, but he preferred obscurity for the sake of his inner development and growth. Still he continued in that obscure position that was practically what we call the life of a clerk. He continued it for sometime, although sometime meant twelve years, the same length as his previous stage. Then a moment came when he changed all that. Another volte-face. If he continued he might have advanced, progressed in his career, that is to say, become Principal of the College, even the Dewan of Baroda, a very lofty position, a very lofty position indeed for an Indian, become another R. C. Dutt. But he threw all that overboard, wiped off the twelve years of his youthful life and came to Bengal as a national leader, a leader of the new movement that wanted freedom for India, freedom from the domination of Britain. He jumped into this dangerous life the uncertain life of a servant of the country, practically without a home, without resources of his own. He ran the risk of being caught by the British, put into prison or shot or hanged even but he chose that life. That was a great decision he took, a turn about entirely changing the whole mode of his life. Eventually as a natural and inevitable result of his political .activities he was arrested by the British and put into prison. He had to pass a whole year in the prison. And this led to another break from the past, ushering in quite another way of life. The course of his life turned inward and moved from depth to depth.

1.39 - Prophecy, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    Representative of the "black" race was a dancing-girl. Indian was a non-English speaking Bengali Muslim, who seemed rather puzzled by the whole business.
    Book contains message dictated to Crowley at Cairo in 1904 "by Aiwass, a Being whose nature he does not fully understand but who described Himself as 'The Minister of Hoor-Paar-Kraat' (the Lord of Silence)."

1.63 - Fear, a Bad Astral Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Well, this is not an example for you to copy, is it? But it gives an idea of the principle "Take the bull by the horns." A practice easier to imitate was this following. In most great cities, always in Eastern cities, are black slums. Here one may find blind alleys, dark doorways open to unlighted houses. One may explore such places, looking for adventure and it was rather a point of honour to accept the challenge in whatever form it took. Again, one may walk with deliberate carelessness into the traffic[118]; this practice does not in my considerable experience, conduce to one's personal popularity. Another idea was to hasten to cholera-stricken cities, to places where Yellow Jack, plague, typhoid and typhus, dysentery (et hc turba malorum) were endemic; and (of course) big-game hunting takes one to the certainty of malarial fever, with no doctors (or worse, Bengali doctors!) within many a league.
  The general principle seems to be "This boat carries Caesar and his Fortunes!" and no doubt Pride in its most Satanic degree is one's greatest asset. But the essence of the practice, as a practice, is to seek out and to face what one fears. Do not forget that courage implies fear what else should fear be useful for?

17.00 - Translations, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Bengali
   French

19.26 - The Brahmin, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The Bhikkhu Old Bengali Mystic Poems
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta DhammapadaPali The Brahmin
  --
   The Bhikkhu Old Bengali Mystic Poems

1953-11-25, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The reference is to a message given to the Bengali journal Srinvantu:
   "Let the Light of the Truth be born upon earth from today and for ever."

1954-09-08 - Hostile forces - Substance - Concentration - Changing the centre of thought - Peace, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  In The Brain of India Sri Aurobindo has written that the Bengalis can think with their hearts.
  Who can think with his heart? I cant hear! The Bengalis can think with their hearts? Thats a poetic way of saying it. (Laughter) Where has he written this? It is indeed a very poetic description. Thats to say that they are essentially emotive beings and that their heart is conscious even in their thought, that their thought is not purely intellectual and dry, and that their heart is aware of their thought. Thats what he meant.
  But I can also tell you that when I was in Japan I met a man who had formed a group, for It cant be said that it was for sadhana, but for a kind of discipline. He had a theory and it was on this theory that he had founded his group: that one can think in any part of ones being whatever if one concentrates there. That is to say, instead of thinking in your head, you can think in your chest. And he said that one could think here (gesture) in the stomach. He took the stomach as the seat of pra, you see, that is, the vital force. He used certain Sanskrit words, you know, half-digested, and all that But still, this does not matter, he was full of goodwill and he said that most human miseries come from the fact that men think in their heads, that this makes the head ache, tires you and takes away your mental clarity. On the other hand, if you learn how to think here (gesture indicating the stomach), it gives you power, strength and calmness. And the most remarkable thing is that he had attained a kind of ability to bring down the mental power, the mental force exactly here (gesture); the mental activity was generated there, and no longer in the head. And he had cured a considerable number of people, considerable, some hundreds, who used to suffer from terrible headaches; he had cured them in this way.

1956-03-07 - Sacrifice, Animals, hostile forces, receive in proportion to consciousness - To be luminously open - Integral transformation - Pain of rejection, delight of progress - Spirit behind intention - Spirit, matter, over-simplified, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
    The reference is to the tale "A Dream", written originally in Bengali and published in The Chariot of Jagannatha.
    "The fruit also of the sacrifice varies according to the work, according to the intention in the work and according to the spirit that is behind the intention."

1957-07-10 - A new world is born - Overmind creation dissolved, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
    A Bengali film, Rani Rasmani, which describes the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Rani Rasmani, a rich, very intelligent and religious Bengali widow, who in 1847 built the temple of Kali at Dakshineshwar (Bengal) where Sri Ramakrishna lived and worshipped Kali.
    On 24 November 1926 Sri Aurobindo withdrew into seclusion and Mother assumed charge of the running of the Ashram.

1.rmpsd - Come, let us go for a walk, O mind, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  [Translated from Bengali by Elizabeth U. Harding]

1.rmpsd - Conquer Death with the drumbeat Ma! Ma! Ma!, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Who is this unique warrior woman?

1.rmpsd - I drink no ordinary wine, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  I drink no ordinary wine,

1.rmpsd - In the worlds busy market-place, O Shyama, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  In the world's busy market-place, O Shyama,

1.rmpsd - Its value beyond assessment by the mind, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Whom could I fear in the universe

1.rmpsd - Kulakundalini, Goddess Full of Brahman, Tara, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Kulakundalini, Goddess Full of Brahman, Tara --

1.rmpsd - Love Her, Mind, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Love Her, Mind;

1.rmpsd - Ma, Youre inside me, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Ma, You're inside me;

1.rmpsd - Meditate on Kali! Why be anxious?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Meditate on Kali! Why be anxious?

1.rmpsd - Mother, am I Thine eight-months child?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Mother, am I Thine eight-months child?

1.rmpsd - Mother this is the grief that sorely grieves my heart, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Mother, this is the grief that sorely grieves my heart,

1.rmpsd - O Death! Get away- what canst thou do?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  O Death! Get away; what canst thou do?

1.rmpsd - Of what use is my going to Kasi any more?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Of what use is my going to Kasi any more?

1.rmpsd - O Mother, who really, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  O Mother, who really

1.rmpsd - Once for all, this time, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Once for all, this time,

1.rmpsd - So I say- Mind, dont you sleep, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  So I say: Mind, don't you sleep

1.rmpsd - Tell me, brother, what happens after death?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Tell me, brother, what happens after death?

1.rmpsd - This time I shall devour Thee utterly, Mother Kali!, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  This time I shall devour Thee utterly, Mother Kali!

1.rmpsd - Who in this world, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Who in this world

1.rmpsd - Who is that Syama woman, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  Who is that Syama woman

1.rmpsd - Why disappear into formless trance?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Original Language Bengali
  O wavering mind,

1.rt - (101) Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs. It was they who led me from door to door, and with them have I felt about me, searching and touching my world. It was my songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they showed me secret paths, they brought before my sight many a star on the horizon of my heart. They guided me all the day long to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain, and, at last, to what palace gate have they brought me in the evening at the end of my journey? [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (103) In one salutation to thee, my God (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali In one salutation to thee, my God, let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet. Like a rain-cloud of July hung low with its burden of unshed showers let all my mind bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee. Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee. Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day back to their mountain nests let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home in one salutation to thee. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (1) Thou hast made me endless (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new. At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable. Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (38) I want thee, only thee (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali 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. As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry -- I want thee, only thee. As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is -- I want thee, only thee. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (63) Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger. I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abidest. Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar. When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (75) Thy gifts to us mortals fulfil all our needs (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali Thy gifts to us mortals fulfill all our needs and yet run back to thee undiminished. The river has its everyday work to do and hastens through fields and hamlets; yet its incessant stream winds towards the washing of thy feet. The flower sweetens the air with its perfume; yet its last service is to offer itself to thee. Thy worship does not impoverish the world. From the words of the poet men take what meanings please them; yet their last meaning points to thee. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (80) I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious! Thy touch has not yet melted my vapour, making me one with thy light, and thus I count months and years separated from thee. If this be thy wish and if this be thy play, then take this fleeting emptiness of mine, paint it with colours, gild it with gold, float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders. And again when it shall be thy wish to end this play at night, I shall melt and vanish away in the dark, or it may be in a smile of the white morning, in a coolness of purity transparent. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - (84) It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky. It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July. It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart. [1884.jpg] -- from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - Accept me, my lord, accept me for this while, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali Accept me, my lord, accept me for this while. Let those orphaned days that passed without thee be forgotten. Only spread this little moment wide across thy lap, holding it under thy light. I have wandered in pursuit of voices that drew me yet led me nowhere. Now let me sit in peace and listen to thy words in the soul of my silence. Do not turn away thy face from my heart's dark secrets, but burn them till they are alight with thy fire. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Lover's Gift and Crossing, by Rabindranath Tagore

1.rt - A Hundred Years Hence, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  It was written on the 2nd of Falgun (first month of spring), 1302 (1895-96), of the Bengali calendar. Translated by Kumud Biswas.
   Translated by Kumud Biswas

1.rt - At The End Of The Day, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  Transcreation of the devotional song Jani go din jabe e din jabe from the collection Gitalekha 3 by Rabindranath Tagore. Its notation is to be found in Swarabitan number 41. There is a good recording of this song is by Arghya Sen. The original is in the Bengali language, transcreated into English by Kumud Biswas.
   Translated by Kumud Biswas

1.rt - Hes there among the scented trees (from The Lover of God), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Tony Stewart and Chase Twitchell Original Language Bengali He's there among the scented trees, playing the notes he has taught you. Too late for embarrassment, shy doe nibbling at the forest's edge, shawled in deep blue shadows. He's calling you. The flower of your soul is opening, little deer. The river of scent will lead you deep into the trees where he waits. The bihanga also plays tonight -- do you hear his more distant flute? Black bees carry the moon's luster from flower to flower. The rest of the grove will bloom tonight, I think. How he looks at you, young animal. He shames the moon with his own dark light. Let's bow down before the young Lord, the deep blue flowers at his feet. [2260.jpg] -- from The Lover of God, by Rabindranath Tagore / Translated by Tony Stewart <
1.rt - I touch God in my song, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali I touch God in my song as the hill touches the far-away sea with its waterfall. The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. Let my love, like sunlight, surround you and yet give you illumined freedom. Love remains a secret even when spoken, for only a lover truly knows that he is loved. Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for thee. In love I pay my endless debt to thee for what thou art. [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Fugitive, by Rabindranath Tagore <
1.rt - Kinu Goalas Alley, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  In the compilation Sanchayita it is entitled Kinu goalar goli. Among the poems written by the poet on the theme of music this one is the most famous. In Bengali a milkman is called a goala. Translated by Kumud Biswas.
   Translated by Kumud Biswas

1.rt - Listen, can you hear it? (from The Lover of God), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Tony Stewart and Chase Twitchell Original Language Bengali Listen, can you hear it? His bamboo flute speaks the pure language of love. The moon enlightens the trees, the path, the sinuous Yamuna. Oblivious of the jasmine's scent I stagger around, disheveled heart bereft of modesty, eyes wet with nerves and delight. Tell me, dear friend, say it aloud: is he not my own Dark Lord Syama? Is it not my name his flute pours into the empty evening? For eons I longed for God, I yearned to know him. That's why he has come to me now, deep emerald Lord of my breath. O Syama, whenever your faraway flute thrills through the dark, I say your name, only your name, and will my body to dissolve in the luminous Yamuna. Go to her, Lord, go now. What's stopping you? The earth drowns in sleep. Let's go. I'll walk with you. [2260.jpg] -- from The Lover of God, by Rabindranath Tagore / Translated by Tony Stewart <
1.rt - On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time (from Gitanjali), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Rabindranath Tagore Original Language Bengali On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands. Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness. I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers. [2652.jpg] -- from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger <
1.rt - Ungrateful Sorrow, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  (1): "Shey" in Bengali can mean either he or she.
  (2): "Maya" meaning Unreal.

1.rt - Who are You, who keeps my heart awake? (from The Lover of God), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Tony Stewart and Chase Twitchell Original Language Bengali Who are You, who keeps my heart awake? Every moment is lit by You, so that I feel no longer separate from You. Whose flute is playing sweet and bitter songs of love? It starts the cuckoos singing, and calls the nectar-heavy bees of my desire. A young wife could be blooming in the season of honey, watching the moon, and be stolen in a moment. Touch Radha, Whoever You are. She shivers at Your feet, risking everything to bear love's searing fire. Master, is that not You? She's grown reckless with her soul. Her fear is gone, her hesitation. Who are You? She'll weep at Your lotus feet until she knows. [2260.jpg] -- from The Lover of God, by Rabindranath Tagore / Translated by Tony Stewart <
1.rt - Your flute plays the exact notes of my pain. (from The Lover of God), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Tony Stewart and Chase Twitchell Original Language Bengali Your flute plays the exact notes of my pain. It toys with me. Where did you learn such stealth, such subtle wounding, Kan? The arrows in my breast burn even in rain and wind. Wasted moments pulse around me, wishes and desires, departing happiness -- Master, my soul scorches. I think you can see its heat in my eyes, its intensity and cruelty. So let me drown in the cool and consoling Yamuna, or slake my desire in your cool, consoling, changing-moon face. It's the face I'll see in death. Here's my wish and pledge: that that same moon will spill its white pollen down through the roof of flowers into the grove, where I'll consecrate my life to it forever, and be its flute-breath, the perfume that hangs upon the air, making all the young girls melancholy. That's my prayer. Oh, the two of you, way out of earshot. If you look back you'll see me, Bhanu, warming herself at the week embers of the past. [2260.jpg] -- from The Lover of God, by Rabindranath Tagore / Translated by Tony Stewart <
1.sk - Is there anyone in the universe, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Lex Hixon Original Language Bengali Is there anyone in the universe, among heavenly or earthly beings, who can understand what Kali is? The systems of all traditions are powerless to describe Her. Is Mother a feminine being or greater than Being itself? Chanting Her transforming Name -- OM KALI OM KALI OM KALI, empowers Lord Shiva, Who is transcendent Knowledge, to drink the negativity of all beings, turning His Throat dark blue. Without Her protection such poison would be deadly, even to the highest Divinity. More than Creator and creation, Mother is sheer Creativity beyond the notion of duality. Universe and Father-God are thrilling glances from Her seductive Eyes. Always pregnant with ecstasy, She gives birth to manifest Being from Her Womb of primal Awareness, nursing it tenderly at Her Breast, then playfully consumes Her Child. The world dissolves instantly upon touching Her white Teeth, attaining the realization of Her brilliant Voidness. The various Divine Forms that manifest throughout history take refuge at Her Lotus Feet. The Essence of Divinity, the Great Ground of Being, lies in ecstatic absorption beneath Her red-soled Feet. Is Mother simply a Goddess? Does She need a male consort to protect or complete Her? The cycle of birth and death bows reverently before Her. Is She simply naked or is She naked Truth? No veil can conceal Her. Her naked radiance slays demons not with weapons but with splendor. If Mother is a conventional wife, why is She dancing fiercely on the breast of Shiva? Her timeless play destroys conventions and conceptions. She is primal purity, Her ecstatic lovers are purity. Purity merges into purity, with no remainder. I am totally inebriated by Her wine of timeless bliss. The wine cup is Her Name -- OM KALI OM KALI OM KALI. Those drunk on ordinary wine assume I am one of them. Not everyone will encounter the dazzling darkness called Goddess Kali. Not everyone can consciously receive the infinite treasure of Her Nature. The foolish mind refuses to perceive and accept that She alone exists. Even the noble Lord Shiva, most enlightened of beings, can barely catch a glimpse of Her flashing crimson Feet. The wealth of world-emperors and the richness of Paradise are but abject poverty to those who meditate on Her. To swim in a single Glance from Her three Cosmic Eyes is to be immersed in an ocean of ecstasy. Not even Shiva, prince of yogis, can focus upon Her dancing Feet without falling into trance. Yet the worthless lover who sings this mad song aspires to conscious union with Her during waking, dream, and deep sleep. [1146.jpg] -- from Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna, by Lex Hixon

1.vpt - As the mirror to my hand, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov Original Language Maithili As the mirror to my hand, the flowers to my hair, kohl to my eyes, tambul to my mouth, musk to my breast, necklace to my throat, ecstasy to my flesh, heart to my home -- as wing to bird, water to fish, life to the living -- so you to me. But tell me, Madhava, beloved, who are you? Who are you really? Vidyapati says, they are one another. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov <
1.vpt - My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov Original Language Maithili My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain what has befallen me. Love is transformed, renewed, each moment. He has dwelt in my eyes all the days of my life, yet I am not sated with seeing. My ears have heard his sweet voice in eternity, and yet it is always new to them. How many honeyed nights have I passed with him in love's bliss, yet my body wonders at his. Through all the ages he has been clasped to my breast, yet my desire never abates. I have seen subtle people sunk in passion but none came so close to the heart of the fire. Who shall be found to cool your heart, says Vidyapati. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov <
1.vpt - The moon has shone upon me, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov Original Language Maithili The moon has shone upon me, the face of my beloved. O night of joy! Joy permeates all things. My life: joy, my youth: fulfillment. Today my house is again home, today my body is my body. The god of destiny smiled on me. No more doubt. Let the nightingales sing, then, let there be myriad rising moons, let Kama's five arrows become five thousand and the south wind softly, softly blow: for now my body has meaning in the presence of my beloved Vidyapati says, Your luck is great; may this return of love be blessed. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov <
20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
  object:20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems
  author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
  --
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta CharyapadaOld Bengali Mystic Poems
   Old Bengali Mystic Poems
   The body is a tree; it has five branches.1
  --
   [The original text of these two pieces is missing. The text is available only in its Tibetan translation, which was translated again into Bengali. The Bengali version is translated here into English in its turn].
   The moon rises, so shines the soul in its kingship:
  --
   Today, O Bhusuku, truly you have become a Bengali,91
   Your own wife is taken away by the outcast villains.
  --
   Bengali: I am now my true self.
   Four square: full, complete.

20.02 - The Golden Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Old Bengali Mystic Poems Act I:The Descent
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta The Golden Journey
  --
   Old Bengali Mystic Poems Act I:The Descent

2.00 - BIBLIOGRAPHY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  RAMAKRISHNA, SRI. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Translated from the Bengali narrative of M by Swami Nikhilananda (New York, 1942).
  RUMI, JALAL-UDDIN. Masnavi. Translated by E. H. Whinfield (London, 1898).

2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   I gave money to one Bengali Sannyasi who was quarrelling with everyone and who used to hate Brahmananda. His boast was that he killed Brahmananda!
   In the Introduction by Sj. K.G. Deshpande, who was Sri Auro-bindo's contemporary at Cambridge and later on joined Sri Aurobindo in 1898 in the Baroda State service, there are some corrections to be made. He was the editor of the English section of the Induprakash and it was he who persuaded Sri Aurobindo on his return to India in 1893 to write a series of articles on Indian politics under the heading "New Lamps for Old" which made a great stir in the Congress of those days.
  --
   He mentions that Shivram Pant Fadke taught Sri Aurobindo Marathi and Bengali. He did not learn these languages from Mr. Fadke.
   It is asserted that one "Bhasker Shastri Joshi gave him lessons in Sanskrit and Gujarati." Sri Aurobindo did not learn Sanskrit from anyone at Baroda. He read the Mahabharata by himself and also read works of Kalidas and one drama of Bhavabhuti as well as Ramayana.

2.02 - THE DURGA PUJA FESTIVAL, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Yogendra, the editor of a Bengali paper, the Bangavasi, entered the room. The conversation turned to the Personal God and God without form.
  MASTER: "God has form; again, He is formless. How many aspects He has! We cannot comprehend Him. Why should we say that God is formless only?"

2.04 - ADVICE TO ISHAN, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "Yes, I visited him. He was 'living then in a garden house on the other side of the Ganges. Keshab was expected there that day. He longed for Keshab as the chatak bird longs for rain. He was a great scholar and made fun of the Bengali language. He admitted the existence of the deities, but Keshab did not. Dayananda used to say: 'God has created so many things. Couldn't He have created the deities?' Dayananda believed the Ultimate Reality to be without form. Captain was repeating the name of Rma.
  Dayananda said to him sarcastically, 'Better repeat "sandesh"!' "

2.05 - On Poetry, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Bengalis in those days were very fond of weeping. I think it was Romesh Dutt who translated "Savitri" from the Mahabharata and portrayed her as weeping, whereas in the Mahabharata there is no trace of it. Even when her heart was being sawed in two not a single tear appeared in her eyes. By making her weep he took away the very strength of which Savitri is built.
   Disciple: He wanted to make it realistic perhaps.

2.05 - VISIT TO THE SINTHI BRAMO SAMAJ, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  The pundit said all this in Hindusthani. The Master explained it to M.in Bengali.
  Different kinds of samdhi

2.07 - BANKIM CHANDRA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Sri Ramakrishna arrived at Adhar's house with his attendants. Everyone was in a joyous mood. Adhar had arranged a rich feast. Many strangers were present. At Adhar's invitation, several other deputy magistrates had come; they wanted to watch the Master and judge his holiness. Among them was Bankim Chandra Chatterji, perhaps the greatest literary figure of Bengal during the later part of the nineteenth century. He was one of the creators of modern Bengali literature and wrote on social and religious subjects. Bankim was a product of the contact of India with England. He gave modern interpretations of the Hindu scriptures and advocated drastic social reforms.
  Sri Ramakrishna had been talking happily with the devotees when Adhar introduced several of his personal friends to him.

2.07 - On Congress and Politics, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   A disciple reported the arrival of a Bengali teacher at Pondicherry to see Sri Aurobindo. He had joined the non-cooperation movement and stayed in the Sabarmati Ashram for seven months and learnt spinning and weaving. He was going to Rajkot as the headmaster of the national school there.
   Disciple: He is very solicitous about humanity and wants your Yoga to help humanity.

2.08 - On Non-Violence, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Disciple: We had a funny argument about language the other day in course of which Upen Banerji said that Sanskrit was derived from Bengali! (Laughter)
   Disciple: He could not have seriously meant it. He must have meant it as a joke. Probably he wanted to impress all particularly the non- Bengalis. But the strange thing is that someone has recently made an effort to prove that Sanskrit is derived from Tamil! (Laughter)

2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: As I said, it depends on the Guru. You don't mean to say that the personal side of the Guru decides voluntarily and independently of the Divine what is to be given to a disciple? Even when it appears to take that form it is something else that decides. The more the personal element (in the sense of the vital or mental preference on the part of the Guru) the more is the likelihood of mistake being committed. If he is a mere human Guru, then if he is a Bengali he would like to give his grace to Bengalis or he would choose his relatives. That has nothing to do with the divine Work. All that idea about patita-pvana and adhama-uddhra means only this that however bad or seemingly wicked the external life may be, the man can yet be saved if he has something in him which can receive the Truth. One may say that even for Grace to descend there are conditions.
   Disciple: Are these conditions determined by the Divine?

2.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES IN CALCUTTA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  The discussion began; but they talked in Bengali. Narendra said: "God is Infinity. How is it possible for us to comprehend Him? He dwells in every human being. It is not the case that He manifests Himself through one person only."
  SRI RAMAKRISHNA (tenderly): "I quite agree with Narendra. God is everywhere. But then you must remember that there are different manifestations of His Power in different beings. At some places there is a manifestation of His avidyaakti, at others a manifestation of His vidyaakti. Through different instruments God's Power is manifest in different degrees, greater and smaller. Therefore all men are not equal."

2.14 - AT RAMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  (Smiling) "He critisized the Bengalis. He said: 'The Bengalis are fools. They have a gem near them, but they cannot recognize it.'
  "Captain's father was a great devotee. He was a Subedar in the English army. Even on the battlefield he would perform his worship at the proper time. With one hand he would worship iva and with the other he would wield his gun and sword.

2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Disciple: One can't say; but Bibhuti Bhushan asked him and he said he was young at the time when the battle of Plassy was fought. It is said that he changed his Bengali body and took up that of a Tibetan.
   Sri Aurobindo: But that is not physical immortality.

2.16 - The 15th of August, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo ( in Bengali) : mr sdhan? mi ki sdhan korchi? [My Sadhana? Am I doing Sadhana?] Ask some other question.
   Disciple: From your experience of the physical plane till now, do you think that it is possible to bring down the Supermind into the physical plane?

2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Disciple: He has developed a powerful Bengali style.
   Sri Aurobindo: Is that so? He was once translating the Veda into Bengali.
   Disciple: His Bengali, you know, was like a Christian missionary's Bengali. You know what it is like.
   23 DECEMBER 1938
  --
   And then in Bengal the West Bengal people used to call East Bengal people Bngl and composed a satire, Bngl mnsh noye, oi ekta jontu. At one time I used to wear socks at all times of the year. The West Bengalis used to sneer at that, saying, "You are a Bngl" They thought that they were the most civilised people on earth. It is a legacy from the animal world, just as dogs of one street do not like dogs of another.
   Disciple: But things will improve, I hope?

2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: There was the case of Shyamakanta, the tiger-tamer. Once in a railway compartment he was travelling there were a Bengali couple and some Tommies. The soldiers began to pester the Bengali's wife and he was so afraid that he didn't know what to do. Shyamakanta got up, caught hold of the soldiers and began to knock their heads against each other so hard that they were glad to get out at the next station. They did not expect a Bengali to be so strong. Once at Howrah station a Bengali was being bullied by an Englishman. Suddenly he shouted "Bande Mataram" and everyone in the train began to shout and the Englishman took alarm. That was the sudden transformation during the Swadeshi days. Before that our people used to tremble before an Englishman. The position was even reversed.
   Before the Swadeshi movement, I wanted to do political work in Bengal and toured the districts of Jessore, Khulna, etc. with Debabrata Bose; we lived simply on plantains. We found the people steeped in pessimism, a black weight of darkness weighed over the country. It is difficult nowadays to imagine those days. Only a few of us stood for independence. Debabrata had a very persuasive way of talking but we had great difficulty in convincing people. At Khulna, we had a right royal reception, not so much because I was a politician, but because I was a son of my father. They served us with seven rows of dishes and I could hardly reach out to them, and even from others I could eat very little.

2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: What I have found in Dilip's poetry is that it is mental poetry connected with the Bengali poetry of the pre-Tagorian era. Perhaps it is due to his father's influence which was also intellectual. What I mean is that Tagore introduced a new element of feeling and imagination in Bengali poetry; as he is a genius his poetry is beautiful but much of what is written under Tagore's influence is wishy-washy stuff, it is poetry without any backbone. There is no sound experience behind it. Even in Tagore you find that his idea is diffused into seventy or eighty lines, yet it does not come out clearly though the idea is there. In pre-Tagorian poetry they had clear intellectual ideas to express and they expressed them poetically. Dilip's poetry has two things: the subject and the treatment. Generally the subject is an idea which he develops, an intellectual thing which he expresses in poetic form; and his technique is a departure both from Tagore and the old tradition.
   Disciple: In novel-writing it is found that Sharat Chatterji was far superior to Tagore as a story writer.

2.23 - THE MASTER AND BUDDHA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  About five o'clock in the afternoon Sri Ramakrishna was sitting on the bed in his room in the Cossipore garden house. Sashi and M. were with him. He asked M., by a sign, to fan him. There was a fair in the neighbourhood in celebration of the last day of the Bengali year. A devotee, whom Sri Ramakrishna had sent to the fair to buy a few articles, returned.
  "What have you bought?" the Master asked him.
  --
  It was the first day of the Bengali year. Many woman devotees arrived. They saluted Sri Ramakrishna and the Holy Mother. Among them were the wives of Balaram and Manomohan, and the brahmani of Baghbazar. Several of them had brought their children along.
  Some of the women offered flowers at the Master's feet. Two young girls, nine or ten years of age, sang a few songs.
  --
  A crazy woman used to accompany Vijay Goswami to the Kali temple at Dakshineswar and sing for Sri Ramakrishna. Her songs were about Kali. She also used to sing the songs of the Brahmo Samaj. The devotees called her "Pagli" (The Bengali word for "crazy woman".) and tried to keep her away from the Master.
  MASTER (to Girish and the others): "Pagli cherishes the attitude of madhur toward me. One day she came to Dakshineswar. Suddenly she burst out crying. 'Why are you crying?' I asked her. And she said, 'Oh, my head is aching!' (All laugh.) Another day I was eating when she came to Dakshineswar. She suddenly said, 'Won't you be kind to me?' I had no idea of what was passing through her mind, and went on eating. Then she said, 'Why did you push me away mentally?' I asked her, 'What is your attitude?' She said, 'Madhur.' 'Ah!' I said. 'But I look on all women as manifestations of the Divine Mother. All women are mothers to me.' Thereupon she said, 'I don't know all that.' Then I called Ramlal and said to him: 'Ramlal, listen to her! What is she talking about — this "pushing away mentally"?' Even now she keeps up that attitude."

2.24 - THE MASTERS LOVE FOR HIS DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
    ^After Sri Ramakrishna's death M. published his notes of conversations with the Master in five volumes. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is an English translation of these books from the original Bengali.

2.2.7.01 - Some General Remarks, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  But what about Dilip? Arjavas poems simply frighten him but mine too he finds difficult. Everybody feels at home in Harins poetry, though I am sure that often, if I catechised them, I would find the deepest felicities missed. Perhaps my tendency to pack too much meaning into my words becomes a difficulty in others, but would they have the same difficulty with Bengali poetry?
  Dilip wrote to me in recent times expressing great admiration for Arjavas poems and wanting to get something of the same quality into his own poetic style. But in any case Dilip has not the mystic mind and visionHarin also. In quite different ways they receive and express their vision or experience through the poetic mind and imaginationeven so because it expressed something not usual, Dilips poetry has had a difficulty in getting itself recognised except by people who were able to give the right response. Harins poetry deals very skilfully with spiritual ideas or feelings through the language of the emotion and the poetic imagination and intelligenceno difficulty there. As regards your poetry, it is indeed much more compressed and carefully packed with substance and that creates a difficulty except for those who are alive to the language or have become alive to subtle shades, implications, depths in the words. Even those who understand a foreign language well in the ordinary way, find it sometimes difficult to catch these in its poetry. Indications and suggestions easy to catch in ones own tongue are often missed there. So probably your last remark is founded.

30.01 - World-Literature, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   In our Bengali literature Vidyapati and Chandidas are the pioneer poets who made an attempt at creating genuine poetry surpassing all plebeian poetry. They had infused the popular literature with a new spirit, and thus formed a basis for real poetic utterance. The joy we derive from the songs of Vidyapati and Chandidas can be called the real poetic pleasure. For example,
   Hearken, O Madhava, Radha is at large.
  --
   It is said that Valmiki is the pioneer poet in Sanskrit literature. In our Bengali literature it is Vidyapati, nay, to be more precise and accurate, it is Chandidas who is the father of poetry. He raised the natural vital experiences to the level of the psychic. He has transformed even colloquial expressions into a deeper rhythm and flow. But even theirs was only the initial stage that required a long time to develop fullness and maturity. In truth, this is the third stage we have already referred to. Throughout the era of the Vaishnava poets, coming down to the time of Bharat Chandra the same line of sadhana, of spiritual practice, continued. The Bengali poets who flourished after Chandidas have hardly made any new contri bution, they have not unveiled another layer of the soul of the poetic genius of Bengali literature. What they have done amounts to an external refinement and orderliness. The literature of this age has tried to transcend the ordinary thoughts, i.e.,the manner of ordinary thinking, and has considerably succeeded too; still the presence of imperfection, the signs of a lower flight loom large there. We do not find there - in the words of Matthew Arnold - 'a humanity variously and fully developed' or a multifarious free scope of the universal life such as we have already mentioned.
   This very achievement of breaking down the limited movements within a narrow compass and spreading it out into the vast has been won by Madhusudan, Bankim and Rabindranath in Bengali literature during the current period of English influence. The day Bankim produced his artistic beauty, 'Kapalkundala', and Madhusudan penned -
   In a battle face to face,
  --
   was a momentous day for Bengali literature to proclaim the message of the universal muse and not exclusively its own parochial note. The genius of Bengal secured a place in the wide world overpassing the length and breadth of Bengal.
   And Bengali poetry reached that fourth stage or the highest status.
   Nevertheless, it may be asked if there has been the acme of literary creation that exceeds even the best creations of Madhusudan, Bankim and Rabindranath, I mean, the "truly classic literature" (littrature vraiment
   classique)of Sainte Beuve which will literally shine in letters of fire in the hearts of all men in all climes and times? Is there in Bengali any literature that consists of words of purest revelation? If so, to what extent? According to us, there is not perhaps an absolute absence of such a literature. No doubt, it is there, but it is very rare, rather exceptional. Bengali literature in its great achievement has not been able to make that its normal stand: the supreme classic heights are still an aspiration, they are yet to be attained and possessed.
   (3)

30.05 - Rhythm in Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   It really belongs to the category of the payarmetre of our Bengali. Payaris the basic foundation or backbone of the metrical structure in Bengali. You know its form: it is a couplet (like the Hindi doha),each line counting fourteen letters, simple or conjunct, the letters being normally arranged in groups of eight and six. Bengali prosody does not recognise long or short syllables; this is made good by the rhymes at the end. To take an example:
   mahabharater katha amrta-saman
  --
   Somewhat similar to Bengali is the basic structure of the French metrical scheme, for French too makes no distinction of long and short vowels. In French as in Bengali the foot is based on a syllable-count, the caesura likewise follows the Bengali pattern. The payarin Bengali has an eight-six break, the basic division in French is six-six, making a total of twelve syllables in the line. This is the Alexandrine, corresponding in structure to the Heroic Couplet in English, as in the famous lines of Pope:
   We call our fathers fools so wise we grow,
  --
   Like the payarin Bengali and the anustubhof Sanskrit, English has its iambic pentameter. This term implies that each line should consist of five feet. In place of the variations of length in the vowel sounds as in Sanskrit, it has its own characteristic variation of accent and stress. The iambic has a foot of two syllables each; the first has a light stress being unaccented, the second bears the accent. Take for example, the line:
   The cur/few tolls/the knell/of part/ing day,
  --
   The metres in languages where the basic unit is the syllable (mainly ending in vowels but secondarily or partially with consonant-endings as well) have a slow flowing movement; ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit follow this line. French has continued in the main this tradition in modern Europe. On our part, in India, Bengali a language formed out of broken Sanskrit, has for the most part adopted this line. The staccato rhythm with its stress on accent has been accepted in Europe, on one hand in the German language, and on the other by its kindred, English (because of its Anglo Saxon structure). Thus, the celebrated German poet says in his well-known line,
   Warum sind denn die Rosen so blass
  --
   Bengali verse too has a considerable element of stress which has brought out a peculiar beauty of its own. This has its origin and main support in the folk-songs, the popular epigrammatic verse and in folk-literature generally. Here I am referring to metrical forms where the consonants predominate. We are all familiar with
    
  --
   But whether it be in Bengali or any other Indian tongue, as in Hindi for example, wherever this element of stress has been introduced, it has left a peculiar mark of its own. It is this that all the sounds are pronounced distinctly no matter where the stress falls. On the other hand, in the staccato rhythms of the European languages, an exclusive prominence is given to the stressed sounds, the others remain partially or almost wholly unpronounced. In Italian or Spanish; for example, it is only the high-pitched accents that are, wherever possible, given all the prominence; the rest are pushed to the background. Thus,
   Nel mezzo del commin di nostra vita
  --
   Word-music in Bengali poetry means Rabindranath. To adapt a well-known English phrase, one may say that Rabindranath is poetry and poetry Rabindranath; there is no need to bring in any other artist. We get this in Rabindranath's early work:
    
  --
   It is this quality of sweetness that has made the fame of Bengali language and literature, from Vidyapati and Chandidas right down to Rabindranath. But the possibilities of this language and literature, not only for sweetness or grace but also for strength and nobility have been brought out by Madhusudan. He has not the power and depth of thought, but there is in his style and manner something reminiscent of that "stepping of the goddess" in Virgil. One hears as if the rumbling of the clouds in the opening lines of Meghnadbadh:
   ...
  --
   We have of course moved a long way off from Madhusudan, and from Rabindranath as well. Bengali verse has enlarged its scope to a surprising degree; in variety as in scope it has grown almost immeasurably. But that is another story.
   Ezra Pound has made an astonishing remark on this question of poetic rhythm. He says that the rhythm or music of poetry is beyond the realm of words and their meaning; it has an existence quite apart and almost independent of them. Poetry in a foreign language, a language that we do not understand by the intellect, has simply to be heard: When we do not grasp the meaning of the words or recognise the form of sentences - when in the words of the Bengali poet, "the form has not been seen, the qualities not heard about" ( ), then and then alone do we get the pure music of the words and can catch its rhythm in our inner hearing. For some time past there has come into vogue in the world of art, especially the art of painting, a phrase called "pure art". This implies an arrangement of form and line free from the burden of subject-matter, a play with pure geometrical lines. This alone is supposed to bring out the true and ultimate beauty of art, its pure harmony. The reason why I have taken my illustrations from so many foreign languages may have been something similar at the back of my mind. In any case, here is an excuse I can offer.
   ***

30.08 - Poetry and Mantra, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Vaikhari vak is predominant in Bengali poetry. Pasyanti vak is hardly available, rare, nay, it will be no exaggeration to say that it is totally lacking. No doubt, beautiful poetry has been written in Bengali. It may be said that the creation of beautiful poetry in Bengali has been considerable. But, as a contrast, what about the seer-poets? Rabindranath? Perhaps the power of poetry has reached its acme in Rabindranath. But what about the mantric power in his creation? In spite of having Rabindranath, it may well be asked to what extent we get the true Aryan speech in our varied and rich creation.
   ***

30.09 - Lines of Tantra (Charyapada), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   This poetry is the record of an inner empire which, it is supposed, may have lasted from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. The story of the discovery of these writings is a fascinating one. Just a little over half a century ago, Pandit Haraprasad Shastri, a, truly gifted scholar and lover of the Bengali language and literature, had been doing some researches into the ancient history of Bengal and was earnestly engaged in the collection of old manuscripts in the villages and the libraries. In this connection he once went to Nepal and there he chanced across some ancient manuscripts, among which there was one that drew his particular attention. At first he thought it might be some work in an earlier form of Hindi and did not accordingly give it much attention.
   But afterwards, when out of curiosity he read through the manuscript with care, he made the startling discovery that here was the earliest and a beautifully poetic form of the Bengali language. The manuscript contained fifty poems or songs; they were the work of a Tantric Buddhist group known as Siddhacharyas.
   Later on, he made the further discovery that there was a Sanskrit commentary on these poems, for without a commentary it is difficult to get at their true import. They abound in suggestive symbols and illustrations of a line of spiritual discipline. Another curious thing about these poems was that he could discover a complete translation of these poems in Tibetan. This in itself indicates the importance and influence of these verses. In fact, these are not ordinary poems. They have the power of the Mantra, they are records of spiritual experiences and are helps to their realisation. Another thing: several pages were found missing in the particular manuscript that the Pandit had discovered, with the result that one or two of the poems were not to be found at all and one or two others were available only in fragments. Luckily, the commentary in Sanskrit and the Tibetan translation were available for the entire series, and with their help the missing parts have been reconstructed in full.
  --
   There is another thing that we find interesting here. Even in those days the condition of the ordinary Bengali was perhaps as miserable as it is now. The Siddhacharya has introduced himself as a Bengali, and he says: Bhusuku, your lot is now truly that of a Bengali; for the robber bands have come and robbed you of your boat, broken into your house, even abducted your wife. Bhusuku, you have now become a veritable Bengali!
    

30.11 - Modern Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   There is the style of poetic prose. It is a special feature of literature of all climes. Since the time prose writing began enriching itself, this mode of composition has been in vogue. In addition to this, there is the prose poem. It is a step to rise from prose to poetry. The next step is free verse. But what the moderns aim at is quite different from these approaches. It will as far as possible contain the structure and outer form of poetry, but the style will be of prose, i.e.,its measure and rhythm will be of poetry, but the tone will be of prose. The French Alexandrine; the high order of twelve-line poetry of Corneille and Racine - if it is read as poetry should be, it would sound totally dry and monotonous, but if despite pause and rhyme, it is read like prose, it would reveal its beauty. Because the noted actress Rachel discovered this, she has become renowned in the world of French drama. The intention of the moderns is somewhat like this. Take, for example, Eliot; but Eliot may be considered afterwards. Let us first take the echo of a Bengali poet:
    

30.13 - Rabindranath the Artist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Among Indians, the Bengalis are supposed to have particularly acquired a capacity for appreciation of beauty. That this acquisition has been largely due to the contri bution of the Tagore family can by no means be denied. We do not know how we fared in this respect in the past. Perhaps our sense of beauty was concerned with the movements of the heart or at most with material objects of art. Perhaps, we had never been the worshippers of beauty in the outer life like the Japanese. Yet whatever little we had of that wealth of perfection within or without had died away for some reason or other. The want of vitality, the spirit of renunciation, poverty, despair, sloth, an immensely careless and extreme indiscipline made our life ugly. At length the influence that had especially manifested around Rabindranath came to our rescue and opened a new channel to create beauty.
   Why should we speak of our own country alone, why should we try to keep his influence confined to Bengal or India only? I believe Europe, the West, have honoured him so much not primarily for his poetry. The modern world, freed from its life devoid of beauty due to the unavoidable necessity of technology and machinery of utility and efficiency, was eager at last to follow in the footsteps of Rabindranath to enter into an abode of peace and beauty, a garden of Eden.

30.14 - Rabindranath and Modernism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Bengali literature has reached the stage of modernism and even ultra-modernism. This achievement is, we may say point-blank, the contri bution of Rabindranath. Not that the movement was totally absent before the advent of Rabindranath. But it is from him that the current has received the high impetus and overflooded the mind and the vital being of the Bengali race. We can recall here the two great artists who commenced modernism - Madhusudan and Bankim. But in their outlook there was still a trace of the past, in their ideas and expressions there was an imprint of the past. The transition from Ishwar Gupta and Dinabandhu to Bankim and Madhusudan - not from the viewpoint of time but from that of quality - is indeed a revolution. Within a short span of years the Bengali way of thinking and the refinement of their taste have taken a right-about turn. It was Bankim and Madhusudan who have placed Bengali literature on the macadamized road of modernism. Still, while walking on that road, somehow we were not able to shake off completely the touch of clay under the feet and the smell of swampy lands around. It was Tagore's mastercraft that enabled Bengali literature to drive in coachand-four through the highways. Not only so, in addition he has enriched and developed it to such an extent that we feel, pursuing the image, as if we could safely drive there the motor car or even the railway train.
   The term modern, no doubt, relates to the present time, but there is in it a factor of space as well. It is the close communion among the different countries of the world that has made modernism modern. The relation of give-and-take among many and various countries and races has given each country a new atmosphere and a new character. The newness that has thus developed is perhaps the fundamental feature of modernism. Bankim and Madhusudan were modern, for they had infused the European manner into the artistic consciousness of Bengal. Europe itself is indeed the hallowed place, the place for pilgrimage of our epoch. Humanity in the modern age plays its great role in Europe. So to come into contact with Europe is to become modern - to take one's seat at the forefront in the theatre of the world. Thus it is that Japan has become modern in Asia. And China lagged behind for want of this contact. In India it was the Bengalis who first of all surpassed all others in adopting European ways. That is why their success and credit have no parallel in India. From Bharatchandra, Ishwar Gupta even up to Dinabandhu the genius of Bengal I was chiefly and fundamehtal1y Bengal's own. The imagination, experience and consciousness of the Bengalis had been I till then confined to the narrow peculiarities of the Bengali race. Bankim and Madhusudan broke the barrier of provincialism and cast aside all parochialism and narrowness of Bengalihood and brought in the imagination, consciousness, manners and customs of other lands.
   Rabindranath too has done the same, but in a subtler, deeper and wider way. Firstly, at the dawn of modernism, the two currents, foreign and indigenous, though side by side did not get quite fused. They stood somewhat apart though contiguous. There was a gulf between - a difference, even a conflict - as of oil and water. In Madhusudan these two discordances were distinct and quite marked. It was in the works of Bankim that a true synthesis commenced. Still, on the whole, the artistic creation of that age was something like putting on a dhoti with its play of creases and folds, and over it a streamlined coat and waistcoat and necktie. Both the fashions are beautiful and graceful in their own way. But there is no harmony and synthesis in, their combination. It was Tagore's genius that brought about a beautiful harmony between the two worlds. In the creation of the artistic taste of Bengal he has opened wide the doors of her consciousness so that the free air from abroad may have full play and all parochialism blown away. Yet she has not fallen a prey to foreign ways to become a mere imitation or a distant echo; it is the vast and the universal that has entered. True, Tagore's genius belonged intimately to Bengal, but not exclusively; for it has been claimed also by humanity at large as its own. The poet's consciousness has returned home after a world-tour, as it were. It has become the Bengali consciousness in a wider and deeper sense. So the poet sings:
   My own clime I find in every clime,
  --
   Thus, for example, the ideas and movements that have taken shape in Swinburne and Maeterlinck have induced some echoing waves in the works of Tagore here and there. Some of the things, specially characteristic of the West, were fused into his inspiration, became his own and formed part of the being of the pure Bengali race: these have grown now its permanent assets. Rabindranath's experience has, so to say, travelled across space to embrace the universe. On the other side, in the matter of time too his experience has far exceeded the present to climb to the lofty past. At times he soared high to the experiences of the seers of the Upanishads or the Vaishnava devotees, and came down with them into the widely extended domain of universal experience. The modernism of his poetic creation, developed on the wings of these two aspects, and its keynote is the harmony and synthesis of the East and the West, the present and the past. Thus the oriental and the occidental thoughts, ideas, experiences and realisations of the present and of by-gone times, that possess any value or special significance, have combined and are fused in the delightful comprehension of the poet giving birth to a new creation in which a great diversity vibrating in a common symphony blossomed with immaculate beauty.
   How the two original streams of thought, oriental and occidental, were synthesised in Tagore's work is a subject that demands a deep study. I do not propose to deal with the subject in its entirety, but I shall try to point out a few salient features. The European consciousness, especially modern, is centred on this physical world, this living body endowed with the ardent senses, on the undeniable reality of the outside world where, after all, things are transitory; and of the dualistic life it espouses, this consciousness lays more stress on death than on life, on misery than on happiness, on shadow than on light; it seeks beauty and fulfilment in contrast and conflict in human life and consciousness. Inspired by this idea our poet sings:
  --
   From this standpoint it will be no exaggeration to say that Rabindranath Tagore has modernised the Bengalis and Bengali literature and the Bengali heart. Madhusudan brought in Blank Verse. But by creating and introducing the metre of stresses Tagore brought about a speciality in modernism. In words, rhythms and concepts he has brought in a freedom of movement and swing, a richer, wider and subtler synthesis and beauty.
   A poet of the olden times sings:
  --
   The sweetness, skill and power of expression that are found in the Bengali literature of today were merely an ideal before Tagore bodied them forth. We, the moderns, who are drawing upon the wealth amassed by him for over half a century and we who are using it according to our capacity often think that it is the outcome of our own genius.
   We are swept by the giant billow caused by Tagore. But being placed at the crest of it we can hardly conceive how far we have come up. Again forgetting all about the wave we claim all the credit for ourselves. One of the signs of the rich and mature language is that every writer has at his comm and a ready-made tool of which he has to know only the proper manipulation. In the literature of that language no writer falls below a particular standard or a level of tune. The writer, who imbibes the genius of a language, and literature and its ways of expression, is carried on by them in spite of himself. Of course, we do not claim that Bengali literature has already reached the acme of perfection. But the growth and the development amounting to a full-fledged youth have been the contri bution solely of Rabindranath. Again, in this respect his indirect thought-influence has far exceeded his direct contri bution.
   We have used the word "modern". Now the question is whether the term "modern" should include the ultra-modern also. The ultra-moderns have gone one step forward. The movement of eternal youth and the overflow of youthful delight in Rabindranath are apt to march towards the ever-new, to commune with the novel, to accord a cordial welcome to the ever-green. There it is quite natural that he should have sympathy and good-will for the ultra-modern also. Nevertheless, it must be kept in view that above all he was the worshipper of the beautiful and of beautiful forms and appearances. However soft and pliant might have been the frame of his poetry, in the end it remained a frame, after all, a delicate and harmonious shape of beauty. It is doubtful whether the ultra-moderns have retained anything like the frame-work of beauty. In fact, under their influence, the frame-work has not only got dissolved but also practically evaporated. Not to speak of rhyme, they have banished the regulated rhythm and pause. They have adopted a loud rhetoric and an over-decorated personal emphasis. Of course, we may detect a reflection or have a glimpse of ultramodernism in the following lines of Tagore's Purabi and Balaka:

30.15 - The Language of Rabindranath, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   IF Bengali has become a world language transcending its form of a provincial sub-tongue, then at the root of it there is Rabindranath. To-day its richness has become so common and natural that we cannot conceive immediately that it was not so before Tagore's mighty and ceaseless 'creation worked at it for half a century. I am not speaking of the literature, I am speaking only of the richness of the vocabulary, the diversity of the speech form, its modes and rhythms. The capacity of a language lies in its power of expression, that is to say, how many subjects can it express itself on and how appropriately? In the gradual progression of the Bengali language Bankimchandra was one of the main and foremost stepping-stones. But in Bankim's time Bengali was only in its adolescence - at best, its early youth - its formation and movement were rather narrow, experimental and prone to uncertainty. In Rabindranath we find it in its full-blossoming, mature capacity, definiteness and diversified genius. The growth and spread of Bengali has not reached its culmination, the process is still in full swing. And I need not dwell here upon its still more advanced stage and maturity in the future. Up to Bankim's time, the modern and therefore somewhat European way of thought and expression did not come naturally to Bengali - it became difficult, laboured, artificial: e.g., 'An enquiry into the relation between other phenomena and human nature' of Akshay Kumar Dutta or even 'Bodhodaya' of Ishwar Chandra. It was Bankimchandra who was the pioneer in whose hand this line of development attained something like an ease and naturalness of manner. Even then it was no better than a beginning. But to-day Bengali possesses the capacity to express easily and adequately any literature from Greenl and to Zululand, from the most ancient Egypt and Babylon down to modern Europe and America. The goddess of speech who inspired Tagore is a maker of miracles. It was Tagore who, it might be said, all by himself worked this mighty change and transformation.
   Directly - and more indirectly, that is to say, through an impalpable influence - it was his personality that lay behind this achievement.
  --
   vital,natural to the Bengali consciousness. There were two rocks on .his way to linguistic transformation. And he beautifully escaped and eluded them both. On the one hand, there is no heaviness in him, none of the massiveness of correct and flawless words composed by pedants and grammarians. On the other hand, there is no grotesqueness, nothing of what personal whim and. fancy and idiosyncrasy engender. If his words in their structure break certain strict rules and regulations, they yet are quite in tune with the inner nature and form of the language; if free, they are still natural. Secondly, the grace and beauty of the words raise no question. A word, in order to fulfil its role, must have an easy and inherent power of expression - it must be living and full of vitality. Still more it must be sweet and beautiful.
   In the lexicography of Tagore all these qualities are in abundance. Moreover, in his language there is nothing squalid, lifeless, heavy, feeble, harsh and jarring to the ear; indeed, his language is perfectly graceful, beautiful and nonpareil from all sides -
  --
   As regards the third creator of Bengali literature, I mean Saratchandra, we may notice here the difference between him, and Tagore. The language of Saratchandra is as straight, translucent and simple as that of Bankim; but Bankim was not always averse to decoration and embellishment, whereas Saratchandra was wholly without any ornamentation. But the demand of reason and rationality is not the cause of Saratchandra's simplicity. It is because he has shaped his language to suit the common thought, the available feeling, a natural life. But he has polished it in his own way and made it extremely bright, often scintillating. With all its clarity and directness Bankim's language is for the cultured mind - urban or metropolitan, Saratchandra's manner can be called rural. It will be wrong to call it vulgar, even in the Latin sense (plebeina or popular), that is, commonplace - or a language of the country-side.
   The similarity between Saratchandra and Tagore is that both are progressive, rather very progressive, speedy, rather very speedy, but there is a dissimilarity in the manner of their progressiveness and speed. Tagore's Muse moves speedily but in a zigzag way, observing all sides, throwing out various judgments and opinions, scattering flashes all around. Here are all the playful lines of a baroque painting at its best. Saratchandra goes straight to his goal - as straight as it is possible for a romantic soul to be. He allows himself, we may say, a curvilinear path, as that of an arrow heading direct towards its goal. There is a vibration lent to it by the drive of a flashing Damascus blade. It is flexible and yet firm. The flow of Tagore can be compared to that of a fountain - it is rich in sounds and hues. Saratchandra's is the light-pinioned bird that flies in the sky in silence. We find in Bankim a wide calm, happiness, clarity and beauty. In Tagore it is a tapestry woven by the free outpourings of the mind and the heart. In Saratchandra it is the dynamic simplicity of a vitality meaning business.
  --
   To-day the Bengali language is eager and zealous to go forward for an ever new creation. It is quite natural that it may go astray at times in the hands of many of its adorers. In this connection it is good to bear in mind and to keep to the fore the example of Rabindranath as a supreme exemplar even if one does not want to follow or imitate him. Rabindranath himself has also created many new things from his aristocratic pedestal, even he came down and attempted the ultra-modern style. But his speciality and power lie here that he has never transgressed the limit of the beautiful and the appropriate. Besides, wherever or however far he might have ranged, he has given beauty its supreme place. In following the new and modern style he has founded everywhere beauty and bloom and fulfilment. And at the same time he has laid bare his inner soul.
   ***

30.16 - Tagore the Unique, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   IT is no hyperbole to say that Tagore is to Bengali literature what Shakespeare is to English, Goe the to German, Tolstoy to Russian, or Dante to Italian and, to go into the remoter past, what Virgil was to Latin and Homer to Greek or, in our country, what Kalidasa was to ancient Sanskrit. Each of these stars of the first magnitude is a king, a paramount ruler in his own language and literature, and that for two reasons. First, whatever formerly was immature, undeveloped, has become after them mature, whatever was provincial or plebian has become universal and refined; whatever was too personal has come to be universal. The first miracle performed by these great figures was to turn a
   parochial language and a parochial literature into a world language and a world literature. The second was to unfold the inner strength and the deeper genius of the language to reveal and establish the nature and uniqueness of a nation's creative spirit as well as the basic principle of its evolution and culture. These two ways, one tending to expansion, the other to profundity, are in many cases mutually dependent and are often the result of a sudden or rapid outburst.
  --
   These thoughts about the genius of French occurred to me because it seemed to me that there was a marked analogy in this respect between French and Bengali. Certainly it would not be quite' correct to say that the evolution of the Bengali language was slow and steady like that of French. At least one upheaval, a revolution, has taken place on its coming into contact with Europe; under its influence our language and literature have taken a turn that is almost an about-turn. But this revolution was not caused by a single person. Dante and Homer are the creators, originators or the peerless presiding deities of Italian and Greek respectively. Properly speaking Tagore may not be classed with them. But just as Shakespeare may be said to have led the English language across the border or as Tolstoy made the Russian language join hands with the wide world or as Virgil and Goe the imparted a fresh life and bloom, a fuller awakening of the soul of poetry, to Latin and to German, so too is Tagore the paramount and versatile poetic genius of Bengal who made the Bengali language transcend its parochial character. I think that Tagore has in many ways the title and position of a Racine amongst us. There is a special quality, a music and rhythm, a fine sensibility of the inner soul of Bengal. Its uniqueness is in its heart; a sweet ecstasy, an intoxicating magic which Chandidas was the first to bring out in its poignant purity and which has been nourished by Bankim, has attained the full manifestation of maturity, variety, intensity and perfection in Rabindranath. Here too an aspect of supreme elegance is found. Bengali, like French, has a natural ease of flow. Madhusudan took up another line and sought to bring in an austere and masculine element - laCorneille. Some among the modern writers are endeavouring to revive that line and naturalise it; even then the soft elegance, the lyric grace so natural to the language has attained almost its acme in Tagore. To be sure, among us Tagore is the one without a second.
   ***

31.01 - The Heart of Bengal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Boris Pasternak The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On National Heritage The Heart of Bengal
  --
   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
   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 ofday on the soil of Bengal; 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.
   Therefore there is a vacuity, a gap through which the impulse of new creation can constantly come in. In fact, it has happened so. No other province can compete with Bengal in new and brilliant contri butions to the modern age. There is a transparency in the nature of Bengal, so the influence of the spiritual world, the ideal world above, has manifested itself there more than anywhere else. We admit that for want of general strength the result has not been quite satisfactory in a good many cases, but the influence of the Light above has been responsible for the new creation.
   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 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.
  --
   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 and 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 Brahmanis not the aim 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
  --
   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 Mahabharatato indulge in household topics, they seemed to brea the 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.
   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 tri butaries 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 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.
   ***
   Boris Pasternak The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis

31.02 - The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
  object:31.02 - The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis
  author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
  --
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On National Heritage The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis
   The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis
   BENGAL is the hallowed seat of Mother-worship in India. Generally, in India there are two modes of spiritual discipline which are popular. One is the Sakti-sadhanaor Mother-worship; the other is Vedanta.
  --
   Bengal has realised this doctrine of Shakti-worship. Bengalis have realised that liberation may be attained without the Grace of Sakti but the full manifestation of life cannot. Bengalis have not longed for Nirvana, nor for a final plunge into the Supreme. They have pined for victory; they have longed for beauty; they have cried for plenitude. Therefore, the charming and graceful form of Nature - great beauty, great plenitude, great grandeur - are found in Bengal. Bengalis, the worshippers ofNature, do not pray to the gods to the same extent that they pray to the female deities. Consequently, the influence of Sri Radha, the Delight-Power of God, dominates the heart of Bengal more. And that is why we see Siva lying down at the Feet of Sivani, his own Power when he acts in the form of Rudra.
   If we want our nature to blossom and be fruitful, if human life has to be purified and moulded into the image of a greater truth, then we must worship Prakriti or Nature by committing ourselves and our all to the care of the Primal Power. Otherwise, who will establish law and order in our nature? Nature herself can formulate her own laws, can manifest the Law of her true Being. Man's personal efforts can hardly do that, nor can the static and passive Supreme Being by Himself do that.

31.03 - The Trinity of Bengal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis Sri Ramakrishna
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On National Heritage The Trinity of Bengal
  --
   In the literature of Bankim the mind of modern Bengal has begun to take a definite shape. If there is in the Bengali race a capacity to understand and appreciate readily and easily modern thoughts and new ideas, if there is in the Bengalis a keen earnestness to discover and follow revolutionary principles and ideals, then that found an adequate instrument and initiation in Bankim. An alert and capable mind, an intellect shot with lucid humour, not dryly arguing, but inspired with an intuition - dynamic ideas that demand fulfilment, be it in the practical field or in the realm of imagination, by giving a shape to their beauty - this is the domain created by Bankim, this his great gift to the consciousness of modern Bengal.
   Now for the next stage, whatever has thus become manifest and taken form in the mind, becomes living, dynamic and concrete when it descends into the vital. Vivekananda is the living embodiment of the life-energy of modern Bengal. Not simply in the world of mental imagination, not in the mere sport of thought, but in the flesh and blood of life, to make the truth dynamic is the arduous tapasya of Vivekananda. It is from Vivekananda that the life-force, the vitality of the nation has taken a new turn, a fresh and full-flooded stream - the light of a new achievement has glimmered into the people's daily practical life. What was in Rammohan a recondite and deep realisation of the Soul became a dream, imagination, hope and ideal in Bankim and culminated in Vivekananda as an unavoidable necessity of life, as an object to be realised, as a supremely desirable material asset.
   If we look into the personal history of many a Bengali youth of the modern age, we would find almost everywhere an initial inspiration and the influence from Vivekananda. True, not all are influenced or likely to be influenced by this colossal soul so as to follow him solely in the field of religion and spirituality. But it was his ups oaring vitality that quickens the ideal into a reality for which Vivekananda was so dear to one and all.
   ***
   The Mother- Worship of the Bengalis Sri Ramakrishna

31.07 - Shyamakanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   I INTEND to write of another great Bengali who can be looked upon as a model of the Bengali race. He has shown the genius of the Bengalis in quite an unusual field. His name is Shyamakanta, later on known as So'ham Swami.
   I speak of the extraordinary capacity of Shyamakanta and not of So'ham Swami. In fact, for the achievement he attained in the domain of physical strength, he deserves nothing short of the term genius. In this field, too, a Bengali was able to show his unique superiority. His strength was not merely physical strength. It was not the result of any physical culture. For there was a peculiar magic, almost a mantric power in his physical strength and capabilities. He could curb and control wild lions and tigers in the twinkling of an eye, not solely by physical strength but by something else as well. I do not refer to his moral force, though there were in him the qualities of calmness, courage and self-confidence beyond measure, which further enhanced his physical strength. I speak of a unique trait of his physical strength itself. For, it was as though his strength was derived more from his marrow than from his bones, more from his blood than from his muscles, more from his nerves than from his tendons. The well-nourished marrow, the vigour of blood and the firmness of nerves kept up a healthy, harmonious, powerful and unhampered current of vitality, and this current was the perennial fount of Shyamakanta's physical strength. His strength was not like the power of a machine. There was in it a natural and innate liveliness and an irresistible movement of nature itself, so to speak. Wild and ferocious animals used to crouch at his feet, awed by the current of his dynamic vitality. They felt that he was their Lord, their King.
   Shyamakanta was able to invoke and retain in his body the physical strength of the Universal Nature by establishing a union: the identity between his own strength and that of the Universal Nature. Perhaps the realisation of this physical identity - 'I am That' - in the end raised him into the realisation of the Transcendental Identity.

3.1.10 - Karma, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  (From an old Bengali poem)

3.1.11 - Appeal, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  (Suggested by an old Bengali poem)

33.02 - Subhash, Oaten: atlas, Russell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   At a time like this, when the sky was getting red and the air was hot, with so much agitation in the minds of men and the young hearts, one of the Englishmen in our college, Russell, our professor of Logic and philosophy, got it into his head to come out with something tactless against the Bengalis. It was like a spark in a powder dump. There was much excitement and agitation among the students. Could this not be avenged? Should the white man be allowed to escape scot-free, just like that? The day of reckoning came at last, like a bolt from the blue. How did it all happen? One of our classes had just been over and we were going to the next class along the corridor, when all on a sudden there rang out all over the place from a hundred lusty throats shouts of "Bande Mataram" that tore the air with its mighty cry. Everybody ran helter-skelter. "What is the matter? What happened?" "Russell has been thrashed with shoes!" "Who thrashed him? Who?"
   The Principal came - it was Dr. P. K. Roy, the first Bengali to have become Principal of the Presidency College, though in a temporary capacity. We all got into our classes. Reentered our class first as it was nearest to the scene of the incident. Russell was with him, his face red with shame and indignation. He glanced around those present in the class and said that he could spot no one. After the class was over, we went into the Physics Theatre for the Physics class. There too the Principal came in and broke out in a deep thundering tone, "I see, 'Bande Mataram' has become a war-cry." But the whole class was utterly quiet, there was not a sign of movement. All that high excitement and agitation of an hour ago was now hushed in dumb motionless silence. We were all a bunch of innocent lambs!
   But who was the culprit? It was Ullaskar Datta, one of our class-fellows. He was a boarder at the Eden Hindu Hostel. He had come to college with a slipper wrapped up in a newspaper sheet and had made good use of it as soon as he got a chance.

33.03 - Muraripukur - I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   This happened to be my first meeting with Barin. He received me with great kindness and had me seated next to him. I cannot now recall the details of the conversation we had, but perhaps there was nothing much to remember. One thing however I distinctly remember. He asked me if I had read the Gita. I said I had read it in parts. He handed me a copy and asked me to read aloud. I began reciting "Dharmakhetre Kurukhetre..." in a pure and undiluted Bengali style. He stopped me and cried out, "That won't do. One doesn't read Sanskrit here in the Bengali style. Listen, read like this." He gave a recital in the Hindi style, that is, with the pronunciation current in the other parts of India.
   That was my first lesson in Sanskrit pronounced in the Sanskrit way. Later I have heard the correct Sanskrit accent so often from Sri Aurobindo himself. I have heard him recite from the Veda, from the Upanishads, from the Gita. Today, I too do not read from Sanskrit in the Bengali way, even when reading from an article in Bengali.
   It was settled that I would join the Gardens and stay there, But I did not give up my room at the Mess. My books and papers and furniture - a bedstead and the table-lamp, for there was no electric light in those days - were all left in charge of my room-mate, and I paid only an occasional visit. I attended College as well, but at infrequent intervals. College studies could no longer interest me.
  --
   Let me end this story today with something nice and sweet. It was during my stay at the Gardens that I had my first meeting and interview with Sri Aurobindo. Barin had asked me to go and see him, saying that Sri Aurobindo would be coming to see the Gardens and that I should fetch him. Manicktolla was in those days at the far end of North Calcutta and Sri Aurobindo lived with Raja Subodh Mullick near Wellington Square to the South. I went by tram and it was about four in the afternoon when I reached there. I asked the doorman at the gate to send word to Mr. Ghose - this was how he used to be called in those days at the place - saying that I had come from Barin of the Manicktolla Gardens. As I sat waiting in one of the rooms downstairs, Sri Aurobindo came down, stood' near me and gave me an inquiring look. I said, in Bengali, "Barin has sent me. Would it be possible for you to come to the Gardens with me now?" He answered very slowly, pausing on each syllable separately - it seemed he had not yet got used to speaking Bengali - and said, "Go and tell Barin, I have not yet had my lunch. It will not be possible to go today." So, that was that. I did not say a word, did my namaskara- and came away. This was my first happy meeting with him, my first Darshan and interview.
   I have been there once later. It was no longer the old Gardens but a ploughed field. There was no trace of the jungle left, it had all been dug up. The pools too had been drained and filled and the house razed to the ground. The British authorities had dug up every inch of the area to see if any weapons might have been kept hidden anywhere. I found in the case of the Yugantar office also which stood next to the Medical College that it too had been pulled down and there was only a little plot of open ground left in its place.

33.05 - Muraripukur - II, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   But Yugantar shed off all the masks. It was the first to declare openly for an armed revolt and spoke in terms of regular warfare. It wrote out its message in words of fire and spread it to the four corners of the land. Balthazar, the king of Babylon; had once seen similar writings on the wall of his hall of feasting, words that spoke of the imminent doom of his empire. To the country and its youth the Yugantar gave its initiation of fire for nearly a couple of years. It was only after the Yugantar group had decided that the time had now come for action and not propaganda alone that there came to be established the centre at Manicktolla Gardens in Muraripukur. The section entrusted with real work and the people concerned with propaganda were to form two distinct groups; one was to work in secret, the other out in the open. Hence the work of Yugantar was entrusted to the propaganda group. The gentleman who took charge was named Taranath Roy. Those who had hitherto been on the staff of the paper left it and joined the Manicktolla Gardens for intensive training and work. It was however agreed that here too there would be two groups, one for regular work and the other for propaganda. Only, the propaganda here would be of a different kind, for here it would not be possible to speak openly of armed revolt as that would be to draw the attention of the authorities to the regular workers. It was therefore decided to have a paper in Bengali with a policy analogous to that of Bandemataram. A paper named Navashakti was already there, owned and conducted by Sri Manoranjan Guhathakurta. It had a house rented in Grey Street (North Calcutta). An understanding was reached between the parties so that the spirit and letter of Yugantar could continue in and through Navashakti. The house was built more or less on the pattern of the one we had later at Shyampukur. There were two flats. The one in front was used as the Navashakti office; Sri Aurobindo occupied the other with his wife, Mrinalini".
   A word about Manoranjan Guhathakurta will not be out of place here. In that epoch Aswinikumar Dutt and Manoranjan Guhathakurta of Barisal were two of the mighty pillars of nationalism. But whatever their achievements as political leaders and selfless patriots, as writers and orators, it was their greatness of character that mattered more. By a great character I mean one in whom there has awakened in a certain measure and manifested to some extent the inner being and the indwelling spirit; this is what Vivekananda used to call the awakening of the Brahman in the individual. I had come to know Sri Manoranjan Guhathakurta personally and I had been to his house in Giridih and stayed with him more than once. Giridih being not very far from Deoghar, he was aware that we dabbled in the bomb. He was not only aware of it, he also gave us all his help and sympathy. It had even been suggested that a factory for the making of bombs might be tried somewhere around the mica pits he owned in that region. His eldest son Satyendra had been a schoolmate and friend of Barin and the two were practically co-workers. This family had helped Barin a good deal by their offers of money and advice. But what I had in mind was not these external things but an inner life. Manoranjan Guhathakurta had an inner life, a life of sadhana. His wife in particular was known for her sadhana. In his eyes the service of the country was an occasion and a means for the service of God. But his saintliness or sadhana did not stand in the way of his strength of character. In him there was a fine blend of strength and sweetness.

33.06 - Alipore Court, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Afterwards, on coming out of jail, he wrote out the substance of this speech and had it published in one of his papers. It has since been included in his Bengali work, DharmaO Jatiyata.
   Sri Aurobindo had to devote a great deal of his time in jail to his counsel, Chittaranjan Das, for whatever he had to say had to be given in writing. I found they kept him supplied with foolscap sheets and a pencil in the court room itself, and he went on wrting out his statements there. He wrote quite a few pages every day. In these statements he had to explain in lengthy detail his ideas and ideals, the aims and policy of the Bandemataram and Yugantarpapers. Chittaranjan included all that in his speeches in court. Could the original manuscripts be recovered, they would be precious documents today.
  --
   Let me then give out another secret in this connection. Just as Sri Aurobindo had taken up his pen - or shall we say his pencil? - on behalf of the bomb, similarly Nivedita at a later date once took up the cause ofSwadeshi dacoits. The ideas and motives of these patriots, what impelled them to take up this particular line were explained with such fine understanding and sympathy in Nivedita's writing that it read almost like poetry. Here too the manuscript had come to my hands and was in my custody. That was about the time when Sri Aurobindo on coming out of jail had taken up his work again and started the two weeklies, the English Karmayogin and the Bengali Dharma.At that time, Nivedita maintained rather close contacts with Sri Aurobindo and ourselves. She used to write for the Karmayogin, and when Sri Aurobindo went into retirement, it was she who edited the last few issues of the paper almost single-handed, with the sole exception of news-items. She continued all the features which Sri Aurobindo had begun. Thus she too wrote a few "Conversations" on the lines of Sri Aurobindo's "Conversations of the Dead". I translated them into Bengali and have included them in my Mriter Kathopakathan (Conversations of the Dead)in Bengali.
   While in jail, we had the good fortune to read some unpublished writings of Sri Aurobindo's. Each of us had been furnished by the authorities with a printed brochure containing a report of the exhibits - that is to say, all the documents: letters, notebooks, etc. - which concerned us in that case. These included portions of an unfinished article from Sri Aurobindo's notebook, entitled, "What is Extremism, Nationalism?"

33.08 - I Tried Sannyas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Let me here in parenthesis note a few things about Debabrata Basu. He had been a contemporary of Barin, U pen and Hrishikesh and was among the leaders of our group. He was one of the writers. Indeed, it was he and Upen who gave a characteristic stamp to Yugantarby their writings. His was the mind of a meditative thinker. His thought was wide in its range, rich in knowledge, he had insight and inner experience. And all this he could combine with a fine sense of humour which did not, however, as in the case of others always explode in laughter. Nor did his appearance belie his mental stature; he was akara-sadrsa-praja,a tall figure of a man. One would often find him seated in a meditative pose, gathered silently within. When he came back to his waking self he would sometimes impart to those around him something of the knowledge he had gained in the world of thought or of his experiences in the inner worlds. He had a sister, Sudhira, who was also well-known to us, for in spite of her being a woman she too had shared in her brother's work as a revolutionary. On his joining the Ramakrishna Mission, Debabrata Basu was given the name of Prajnananda. He has written a book in Bengali, Bharater Sadhana (The
   Spiritual Heritage of India),which is well-known to select circles.

33.09 - Shyampukur, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   About this time, he went out on tour for a short while in the Assam area in connection with political work and he took the two of us along. On return from tour he told me one day that he had decided to bring out two weekly papers, one in English and the other in Bengali. The premises were ready, the arrangements were practically complete and we could both of us come and stay there. He asked me if I had any practice in writing. I said that I had never written anything beyond college essays, but I could try. "Then get hold of an English newspaper tomorrow," he said, "pick out some of the important items of news, write them out in Bengali and bring them to me. I shall see." I did that the next day. He seemed to be pleased on seeing my writing and said that it might do. He gave me the task of editing the news columns of his Bengali paper Dharma.Half of it would be articles, etc., and the rest would be news. Needless to say, I accepted the offer. He added that for this work he would give me a stipend of ten rupees per month and that I should not take that amiss. For, he explained, this was for him a matter of principle as he did not consider it fair to exact work without giving its due reward. That was why he offered this token payment and I should accept it as part of my pocket-expenses. This was the first time I was going to earn any money.
   So we came to stay at Shyampukur, on the Dharma and Karmayoginpremises. There were two flats or sections. In the front part were set up the press and the office, and at the back, in the inner appartments, so to say, we set up our household. There were three or four rooms on the first floor and downstairs there were the kitchen and stores and things.
  --
   By giving me that work of editing the news he made me slowly grow into a journalist. Next there came to me naturally an urge to write articles. Sri Aurobindo was pleased with the first Bengali article I wrote. Only, he made a slight change at one place, I remember. I had written, "In the past, India held to the illusionist view. But in the present age, she cannot afford to reject life and the physical world; these she must accept." He corrected the first phrase to "At a particular stage in our past...". This my first article was published in the 11th issue of Dharmadated 15th November, 1909. I was twenty then. Some of my other articles came out in Dharmaafterwards. My writings in English began much later.
   Now we started collecting a few books. At the very outset he suggested two titles: Carlyle's French
  --
   Sri Aurobindo himself began about this time his study of the Tamil language, with a Tamil gentleman who used to come to the Karmayoginoffice. A rather amusing incident has been narrated in this connection by Suresh Chakravarti. You should read Suresh Chakravarti's account along with mine in order to get a more complete picture of our life at Shyampukur. His Reminiscences(in Bengali) has been published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. While taking up the study of Tamil, Sri Aurobindo did not have the faintest suspicion that he might have to go to Tamil Nadu one day and make that his permanent home.
   Here in Shyampukur and about the same time, there began for us another kind of education, another type of experience, a rather strange experience I should say. Everybody knows about automatic writing, that is, where the hand of the writer goes on automatically writing without any kind of impulsion, desire or direction on his own part; he remains neutral and lets himself go.

33.10 - Pondicherry I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   According to ancient tradition, the Rishi Agastya came to the South to spread the Vedic lore and the Aryan discipline. His seems to have been the first project for the infusion of Aryan culture into the Dravidian civilisation. Many of you may here recall the lines of Hemchandra the Bengali poet:
   Arise, O Mountain, arise,

33.11 - Pondicherry II, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Gradually, a few books in Sanskrit and Bengali too were added to our stock, through purchase and gifts. As the number of books reached a few hundred, the problem was how to keep them. We used some bamboo strips to make a rack or book-stand along the walls of our rooms; the "almirahs" came later. I do not think there were any "almirahs" at all so long as we were in the Guest House. They came after the Mother's arrival, when we shifted with our books to the Library House. That is why it came to be called the Library House.
   This account would be incomplete without a few details as to our housekeeping. As to the furniture, I have already said the mat alone did duty for everything. Of servants we had only one; he did the shopping. But as we did not know his language, we had just memorised a few words connected with shopping and we somehow managed to make him understand with the help of these words and a good deal of gestures. Bejoy had his standing instructions: "meen moon anna" (fish three annas) - it was lucky meen in Tamil is the same as in Bengali - "if ille, then nal anna" (if not, then four annas), the Tamil equivalents of "if" or "then" were beyond the range of our knowledge. Today we have practically one servant per head, thanks to the boundless grace of the Mother. Sri Aurobindo used to smile and make the comment, "We have as many servants as there are sadhaks here."
   We did the cooking ourselves and each of us developed a speciality: I did the rice, perhaps because that was the easiest. Moni took charge of dal (pulses), and Bejoy being the expert had the vegetables and the curry. What fell to the lot of Saurin I do not now remember - Saurin was a brother-in-law of Sri Aurobindo, a cousin of Mrinalini's. Perhaps he was not in our Home Affairs at all; his was the Foreign Ministry, that is, he had to deal with outsiders. We had our first real cook only after the Mother's arrival, by which time our numbers had grown to ten or twelve. There was a cook who had something rather special about her: she had been to Paris and, made quite a name there on account of certain powers of foreseeing the future and other forms of occult vision which she possessed. The Mother had these powers tested in the presence of some of us. She was asked to take a bath and put on clean clothes and then made to sit with us. The Mother took her seat in a chair. We did a little concentration in silence and then the Mother asked her, "What do you see? Do you see anything about anybody present here?" and so on. She gave truly remarkable answers on several occasions. And yet she had had no sort of formal education, she was absolutely illiterate, had only picked up some French by ear. Another cook who came later has become, as you know, quite a celebrity thanks to his spiritist performance. The story has become well-known, it is now almost a classic. Sri Aurobindo has referred to it, the Mother has spoken and written about it, the well-known French poet and mystic Maurice Magre who had been here and lived in the Ashram for some time has recorded it in one of his books. You must have heard or read what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have said on the subject. I do not wish to add anything of my own, for I was not an eye-witness; I had been away in Bengal for a while.
  --
   Sri Aurobindo has taught me a number of languages. Here again his method has often evoked surprise. I should therefore like to say something on this point. He never asked me to begin the study of a new language with primary readers or children's books. He started at once with one of the classics, that is, a standard work in the language. He used to say that the education of children must begin with books written for children, but for adults, for those, that is, who had already had some education, the reading material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone. I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the state. Whether I did complete the translation I cannot now recollect. I began my Latin with Virgil's Aeneid, and Italian with Dante. I have already told you about my French, there I started with Molire.
   I should tell you what one gains by this method, at least what has been my personal experience. One feels as if one took a plunge into the inmost core of the language, into that secret heart where it is vibrant with life, with the quintessence of beauty, the fullness of strength. Perhaps it was this that has prompted me to write prose-poems and verse in French, for one feels as if identified with the very genius of the language. This is the method which Western critics describe as being in medias res, getting right into the heart of things. One may begin a story in two ways. One way is to begin at the beginning, from the adikada and Genesis, and then develop the theme gradually, as is done in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bible. The other method is to start suddenly, from the middle of the story, a method largely preferred by Western artists, like Homer and Shakespeare for instance.

33.13 - My Professors, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Prafulla Ghose and an Englishman named Tipping, another teacher of English, were the judges. They listened to our pieces and Tipping decided in favour of the other boy. He being the senior man, and an Englishman at that, it was his verdict that prevailed. Prafulla Ghose sent for me afterwards and expressed his opinion that Tipping had not done justice to me. I believe my competitor spoke English with a slightly Anglo-Indian accent, like the one our educated people in Calcutta used to affect once or do even now in imitation, and that must have sounded better in Tipping's ears than my "native" Bengali pronunciation. .
   Now that we have been discussing Mr. Tipping, let me add a little more about him. As a teacher his speciality lay in drawing sketches. That is to say, he tried to present before the students in a concrete, living manner any scene described in the text, by sketching it on the black-board. It can .hardly be said that he was a skilled painter or artist. But perhaps illustrations in literature belong to the same category as advertising posters; they serve the same purpose.
  --
   P. C. Ray was the one person who could set up an intimate personal relationship with the students; that indeed was his outstanding gift, and it was this that enabled him to leave behind a series of disciples. At the very sight of his pleasant smiling face, the students felt their minds and hearts suffused with joy, almost with a light as it were. One day in class he happened to say something in Bengali. We were taken aback: a professor using Bengali in college, at the Presidency of all places! This was unprecedented! He could guess immediately what we felt and came out with the Bengali verse, meaning:
   All over the world there is a babel of tongues;
  --
   While speaking of my professors, I must not omit to mention our Pundit. This was a title given by the students to the teacher of Sanskrit in college as in school, no matter how big a professor he might be - as if to show that the feeling of distance created by English was not there in the case of Sanskrit. Our Pundit was Satischandra Vidyabhushan, who later became a Mahamahopadhyaya, an extremely courteous man, entirely modest, one who behaved as if he were an absolute "nobody". In his class the students had no fear or worry, no constraint, sometimes even no sense of propriety either. One day they said in class, "There is not going to be any reading today, sir; you had better tell us a story. You are familiar with the languages and histories and cultures of so many strange lands, please tell us something." Vidyabhushan was particularly learned in Pali and the Buddhist scriptures. Without a murmur he accepted the order of the boys. While talking of Pali and the Buddhists, he told us something about the Tibetans too. "What you call Darjeeling," he said, "is not a distorted version of Durjayalinga. Actually it is a transcription of a Tibetan word." He spelt out the word on the black-board, in the Tibetan script - it looked somewhat like Bengali - something like Dang-Sang-Ling, I cannot now exatly recall. On another occasion we had the chance to hear a conversation in Sanskrit in his class. The class was on, when one of the officials of the college entered the room with a Ceylonese monk. The monk wanted to meet the Pundit. They talked in Sanskrit. I only remember a single sentence of our professor, "ghatika-catustayam eva agacchatu bhavan,"Be pleased to come at four o'clock." The kindness and affection of our Pundit are still fresh in my mind. He was never afflicted by the weight of his learning, nor did it ever afflict us.
   Now to conclude: let me give you the scene of my final. parting with college, the professors and college life.
  --
   In an earlier talk I told you incidentally that I had a mind to say something about the English poet Wordsworth. I mentioned then that I did not come to appreciate his poetry in my school days; it happened in college, and to a large extent thanks to Professor Manomohan Ghose. In our school days, the mind and heart of Bengali students were saturated with the poetry of Tagore:
   In the bower of my youth the love-bird sings,
  --
   For us in India, especially to Bengalis, the first and foremost obstacle to accepting Wordsworth as a poet would be his simple, artless and homely manner:
   Behold her, single in the field,

33.14 - I Played Football, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   On the next day the hour struck and the players were about to take the field. The team of British soldiers came in carriages (there were horse-carriages in those days), with music, bugle and drum, singing and shouting, sure of their victory. They were giants indeed, each a Hercules, and the Indians were pigmies before them. The play started. Just then our manager noticed that at a distance, away from the field, under a tree was sitting a Sannyasi. Directly he saw the Sannyasi, he ran, ran towards him and sat before him. The Sannyasi asked what was the matter. He answered that there was to be a fight with British soldiers, our Bengali boys had to be protected, they must win. The Sannyasi enquired whether they had guns and cannon and what was the strength of the enemy. He was answered that it was not that kind of battle - it was a football game. The Sannyasi shook his head and sent him away.
   The gentleman returned and saw that with great effort his boys had managed a drawn game and they pulled through till half time. Now the danger was ahead - half an hour more. He could not restrain himself and again he rushed to the Sannyasi who was still sitting there in the same position, and prayed and entreated him saying they were threatened with defeat at the hands of Mlechchhas, their honour and prestige were at stake. The Sannyasi asked, "How many killed and wounded?" The gentleman explained again it was not like that. It was a football game. The Sannyasi asked, "How many on their side?" They were eleven. The Sannyasi then asked the gentleman to get eleven bits of stone. These were collected and placed before him. The Sannyasi arranged them in a row, and then drew some circles around and sprinkled water and uttered something. And then he told the gentleman to go away. He returned, the game had already started after the recess. But a strange thing he began to notice. He saw one of the soldiers - a giant of a fellow - rushing with the ball and nearing the goal and about to shoot into it, when suddenly he tumbled down and rolled over and the ball went off somewhere. In fact all the mighty heroes were behaving in a curious manner. They were running but with difficulty as if with legs tied up. They fumbled, tottered, fell down - moved with great difficulty. Something was restraining and impeding them, pulling them back. So the result was a victory for the Indians by two goals. You can imagine what they did after this miraculous victory. The gentleman manager rushed towards the tree to thank the Sannyasi. But where was he? Nothing was there, barring the row of stones.

33.15 - My Athletics, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   I have told you, we received the call to join the Playground activities. I was enlisted in the Blue Group. In those days it was the Mother who decided who would go to which group; in any case it was done with her knowledge and approval. Udar was our captain. We started learning the steps, "Un, deux, un, deux". Ages ago, I had done some military marching with the Volunteer Corps, but that was only for a few days. I remember how in that enthusiasm for everything Swadeshi, they had started giving the marching orders in Bengali.
   I had to start on this new athletic career without any preliminary practice or training. Many of you may recall how we joined in our first competitive tournament, on the site along the sea-face where the Tennis grounds stand - they had not yet been built. I had no knowledge of the special technique, there was no warming up or anything. We just walked in and took our positions along the starting line, and off we went as soon as the whistle blew. We simply ran for our lives, with the result that I sprained a thigh muscle in my first run. Luckily, this happened near the finishing line, so I could somehow finish the race. The results were not bad: I shared the second place with Pavitra and Yogananda - the first position went to someone, a sadhu who is no longer with us. I took part in the long jump in the "same manner, without any previous practice or warming up. Some people advised me to do a little preliminary training but my reply was, "My sole events in the course of a whole year are a single race and three jumps. They do not deserve more." This is the opening chapter in my new career of athletics.

33.17 - Two Great Wars, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   India had been under the protection of England, so it was Europe that had to bear the brunt of the attack. We escaped with just a mild touch, though it did produce a few ripples here and there. First and foremost of these was the birth of the Bengali army - not a professional army of paid soldiers serving under the Government, but a corps of national volunteers. With the sole exception of the Punjabis and the Gurkhas, Indian troops were not in those days considered as on a par with European soldiers in the matter of fighting capacity. And Bengalis of course were treated with special contempt. They had of late shown some courage or skill in the art of secret assassination, but in the opinion of many that was a "dastardly crime". But a trained and disciplined army was quite another matter. Now, a band of young men from Chandernagor taking the opportunity provided by the War formed themselves into a corps of Volunteers, some fifteen of them. They were French citizens and were therefore to join the War on the side of the French and the British. They arrived in Pondicherry on their way to France, a band of young men beaming with courage and intelligence. Our Haradhan was among their number. The picture of young Haradhan, a tall erect figure of a man, calm and audacious, still lingers in my mind. He used to narrate to us on his return from the War many stories of his experiences. Once he had even been shipwrecked by torpedo and had to swim for his life to a life-boat off the coast of Tunisia. Haradhan has recorded his experience of the War in a booklet entitled "The New Ways of Warfare", modelled on Barin's "Principles of Modern Warfare" that we used to read in our early days.
   Some of the War scenes of Pondicherry come to mind. Here there was no question of Volunteers. France has compulsory military training and Frenchmen on attaining the age of eighteen have to join the armed forces and undergo military training for a full period of one or two years. The Renonants of Pondicherry, that is, those Indians who had secured their full citizenship rights by renouncing their persona! status under the Indian law, were also subject to this obligation of compulsory military service. There was in consequence a great agitation among our local friends and associates. They had to leave in large numbers to join the French forces. Among them was our most intimate friend, David, the noted goalie of our celebrated football team. He had only just been married. I remember how regularly his wife used to offer worship to Mariamma (Virgin Mary) praying for his safety and well-being, during the period of nearly three years that he had to be away: they were of course Christians. The plaintive tones of her hymns still ring in my ears. David returned after the War was over, perhaps with the rank of Brigadier. I still remember the welcome he was accorded on his return. He later became the Mayor of Pondicherry. I also recall the story of our Benjamin. His mother burst into sobs as she learnt he was to leave our shores. There were so many mothers and sisters who had to shed bitter tears as they saw off at the pier the boatloads of men. Benjamin- however did not have to go. He became a "reform", that is, disqualified in the medical test.

33.18 - I Bow to the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   As I was saying, this capacity for an entire rejection of the past has been one of the powers of her spiritual consciousness and realisation. It is not an easy thing for a human being to wash himself clean of all his past acquisitions, be it intellectual knowledge or the habits of the vital, not to speak of the body's needs, and step forth in his nude purity. And yet this is the first and most important step in the spiritual discipline. The Mother has given us a living example of this. That is why she decided to shed all her past, forget all about it and begin anew the a-b-c of her training and initiation with Sri Aurobindo. And it was in fact at the hands of Sri Aurobindo that she received as a token and outward symbol her first lessons in Bengali and Sanskrit, beginning with the alphabet.
   But all this is simply an attempt on the part of the small to comprehend something of the Vast; it is as if a particle of sand was trying to reflect a little of the sun's rays, a dwarf trying to catch at the high tree-top with his uplifted arms, a child prattling of his mother's beauty.

3.4.1.06 - Reading and Sadhana, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  To acquire a good style in prose I am reading any and every book in Bengali.
  Any and every! That is more likely to spoil the style.

38.01 - Asceticism and Renunciation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoAsceticism and Renunciation
   Asceticism and Renunciation

38.02 - Hymns and Prayers, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoHymns and Prayers
   Hymns and Prayers

38.03 - Mute, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoMute
   Mute

38.04 - Great Time, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoGreat Time
   Great Time

38.05 - Living Matter, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoLiving Matter
   Living Matter

38.06 - Ravana Vanquished, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoRavana Vanquished
   Ravana Vanquished

38.07 - A Poem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Bengali Essays and Poems of Sri AurobindoA Poem
   A Poem

39.08 - Release, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Modern Bengali PoemsRelease
   Release

39.09 - Just Be There Where You Are, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Modern Bengali PoemsJust Be There Where You Are
   Just Be There Where You Are

39.10 - O, Wake Up from Vain Slumber, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Modern Bengali PoemsO, Wake Up from Vain Slumber
   O, Wake Up from Vain Slumber

39.11 - A Prayer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Modern Bengali PoemsA Prayer
   A Prayer

3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  literary Bengali, for the spoken Sanscrit of the provinces often
  preserved forms and meanings the literary language lost and
  --
  emphasis, otos, Bengali , , (tuim , tuim). They are all based
  on the original particles a, i and u, meaning, "this here", "this
  --
  in the Bengali bM, and only afterwards came to mean "indeed,
  verily, that and no other, so and not otherwise". In this passage
  --
  wealth, - in Bengali, success, attainment, probably a survival
  of its original sense; in yEvS youngest, from a lost yv,, not lost
  --
  force, rapine; hd^ to discharge (excrement), (cf Bengali hAgA); hn;,
  530
  --
  right order of speech and thought, cf in Bengali the use of rcnA
  for style) his perfect affirmation. The epithets are not chosen
  --
  pleasure, taste, delight; rAslFlA; rBs which still keeps in Bengali
  its original sense of ecstasy; r& & rADs^ in the Veda have the same

40.02 - The Two Chains Of The Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Well, I have talked a lot in my rather long life, have I not? I have talked a good deal, written much more. All that forms now my Collected Works: eight volumes in English and as many volumes in Bengali. ...
   All of you are leaving our Centre of Education, a Centre where you have been for so many years. To complete your Course and come out of the Centre, it's all right; but to go where? It seems you have already come to a decision, there are many amongst you who have made their choice. That's good, for it means choosing one's life. .

41.02 - Other Hymns and Prayers, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   Vedic Hymns Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Appendix - II: Original Texts of TranslationsO ther Hymns and Prayers
  --
   Vedic Hymns Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo

41.03 - Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
  object:41.03 - Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo
  author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
  --
   Other Hymns and Prayers Modern Bengali Poems
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Appendix - II: Original Texts of Translations Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo
   Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo
     ,
  --
   Other Hymns and Prayers Modern Bengali Poems

41.04 - Modern Bengali Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
  object:41.04 - Modern Bengali Poems
  author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
  --
   Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo
   Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Appendix - II: Original Texts of TranslationsModern Bengali Poems
   Modern Bengali Poems
     ?
  --
   Bengali Poems of Sri Aurobindo

5.4.01 - Notes on Root-Sounds, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   (obsolete, extant in Latin, Bengali and Tamil) .. This here.
   hence, henceforward .. from this person.
  --
   to cut, divide .. engrave, inlay, smear, cover, mix. , (lime), , , , , (abandoning, leaving) cf Bengali , to throw
   to cut, clip off
  --
  , offspring, progeny (cf Bengali , )
  ***
  --
  Valenter: strongly, powerfully. For valent-ter; the stem of valens with the suffix ter answering to the O.S. termination tas in itas, tatas, sarvatas, etc, originally tar, meaning way or side. Cf Mahratti tar, tarhi (Sanscrit), Bengali ta or to.
  Valentulus: strong. Latin analogical formation. Valent, stem of valens, and O.S. diminutive suffix ulas.

9.99 - Glossary, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
    baba: The Bengali word for father.
    babaji: A name by which holy men of the Vaishnava sect are called.
  --
    chanabara: A Bengali sweetmeat made of cheese, first fried in butter and then soaked in syrup.
    chandala: An untouchable.
  --
    jal: The Bengali word for water.
    Jamuna: The sacred river Jumna, a tributary of the Ganges.
  --
    Kubir: A Bengali mystic poet.
    Kumara: Sambhava A famous book by Kalidasa.
  --
    Madan(a): The god of love in Hindu mythology; also a Bengali mystic and writer of songs.
    Madhai: See Jagai.
  --
    Ramprasad: A Bengali mystic and writer of songs about the Divine Mother.
    Rani: (Lit., queen) A title of honour conferred on a woman.
  --
    sandesh: A Bengali sweetmeat made of cheese and sugar.
    sandhya: Devotions or ritualistic worship performed by caste Hindus every day at stated periods.

r1913 11 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   BhashaSanscrit, French, Bengali.
   Rupadrishti has advanced a stage in the stability with comparative clearness of certain forms of developed image.

r1914 07 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   1) a girl with a Bengali book, title Kusumanjali in gold letters (jyotirmaya), the title clear & stable after waking
   2) A Bengali with characteristic face & beard first expressing negation & then making namaskara.
   ***

r1914 11 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   Image of large, bare room with one chair etc, & a young Brahmachari, slim & fine-featured of Bengali type, hastening full of respect & bhakti, to answer the call of his Guru.
   Image of self, wearing dress with peculiar border & long hair, some hanging over the breast on the border. Queryfuture or idealised past?

r1914 11 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   1) A young Bengali, known type, saying in Bi [ Bengali] Once we get free from Ashanti, what next. Future?
   2) Sn [Saurin] at end of a table with papers neatly ordered & placed upon it. An opera or field glass near him, at one side. Present or future?

Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  witty sayings, striking analogies and illuminating parables couched in his rustic conversational Bengali of
  a highly expressive type, and delivered in his sonorous voice with a 'slight though delightful stammer' in
  --
  404. In the Bengali alphabet no three letters are alike in sound except the three sibilants (Sa, Sha and Sa
  = a a sa = ); and they all mean for us, 'forbear', 'forbear', 'forbear'. (In Bengali Sa means
  forbear. It is derived from the Sanskrit root Sah.) This shows that even from our childhood we are made
  --
  473. Is it good to create sects (Dal)? Here is a pun on the word 'dal' which means in Bengali both a 'sect'
  or 'party' and 'the rank growth on the surface of a stagnant pool'. The "da I' cannot grow in flowing
  --
  certain couplet in Bengali says: "Though my Guru may visit the tavern, still my Guru is holy Rai
  Nityananda; and though my Guru may visit the unholy haunts of drunkards and sinners, still to me he is

Talks 076-099, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  A Bengali visitor asked: How is the mind controlled?
  M.: What do you call the mind?

Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  and dacoities, which were not at all my idea or intention. Bengalis are too
  emotional, want quick results, can't prepare through a long course of years.
  --
  Once I used to wear socks at all times of the year. The West Bengalis
  used to sneer that I was a Bangal. They thought that they were the most
  --
  "These Bengalis are not men, they are beasts."
  SRI AUROBINDO: Did Avatars come to relieve the sufferings of humanity? It
  --
  surprising that he could write an epic, for Bengalis haven't got an epic mind.
  The Bengali Ramayana and Mahabharata are not worth much. But I believe
  he got his inspiration from Homer and Virgil whom he read a lot.
  --
  change of colour. I know a dark lower-middle- class Bengali named Hesh
  who returned from Europe after some years. He looked almost like a European. He came to see me at Baroda but I couldn't recognise him. Then he
  --
  replied, " Bengali or no Bengali, I am not going to do it!" (Laughter)
  The conversation turned to Tibetan occultism and how Europeans are taken
  --
  While I was residing at Baroda a Bengali Sannyasi came to see me and
  asked me to help him. financially. I did so. But I found that the man was extremely rajasic, jealous and boastful and could not tolerate anyone greater
  --
  compartment with some English soldiers and a Bengali with his wife. The
  soldiers began to molest the Bengali's wife; he was so afraid that he did not
  know what to do. Shamakanta got up, caught hold of the soldiers and began
  --
  I remember once when we were practising shooting, there was a middleaged Bengali in the company. When he was asked to shoot, he became very
  nervous, said he didn't know how to shoot, closed his eyes and then fired.
  --
  One Bengali too has been a success. Somebody else from near Bombay
  made at one time a great name in Europe by his prophecies, but afterwards
  --
  NIRODBARAN: Satuda was lamenting the plight of Bengali Hindus. He says
  there is a cultural conquest taking place.
  --
  into Bengali first to understand.
  SRI AUROBINDO: Why? Doesn't he know English well enough?
  --
  I knew a Bengali Sadhu who fought with a fellow Sadhu for the gadi of an
  Ashram. He was quiet at first but disciples egged him on. When his Guru
  --
  PURANI: In Bengal they write Sanskrit in Bengali script and their pronunciation of Sanskrit is awful.
  SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. I remember in Barin's school he engaged a Bengali to
  teach Sanskrit. When the teacher left, he engaged a Hindustani teacher
  whose pronunciation was quite different from the Bengali way. The students
  found fault with his Pronunciation. I had to take great pains to convince
  --
  Barin that it was the Bengali teacher who was wrong. (Sri Aurobindo related
  the story with much relish and enjoyment.) The Bengali language, I mean the
  written language, is very easy.
  --
  SATYENDRA: Yes, the one Sri Aurobindo has written about was an Arya Samajist, while there was another, a Bengali, who used to keep nothing for the
  next day because he believed in never planning for the future.
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): The editor of the Bengali paper made that remark.
  He also said that I don't know enough about sex; if I did, I wouldn't have
  --
  that there is not a single Bengali unit in India's land forces The majority are
  comprised of Punjab Muslims.
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO: People say the Bengalis and the Madrasis are non-martial
  races. But it has been pointed out that the English conquered Bengal with
  the help of Madrasi sepoys, the United Provinces with that of Bengali sepoys and the Muslim Punjab itself with that of Hindu sepoys. And now they
  are all non-martial races!
  --
  CHAMPAKLAL: It seems the Bengali professor was very much impressed by the
  meditation. He said, "I know now what meditation is." After the meditation
  --
  NIRODBARAN: Oh, that is the Bengali manner.
  SRI AUROBINDO: That is very common in Bengal. They do that to an elderly or
  --
  PURANI: Dilip brought a retired Bengali judge to introduce him to Nolini. The
  judge is a member of the Gita Prachar Party. The man looked at Nolini for
  --
  NIRODBARAN: This old judge who has come here seems to be a typical Bengali. He said that Y has some high realisations. He saw A on the way and declared that she had established peace in herself.
  SATYENDRA: Didn't he want to meet N?
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he simply refused. They said, "You Bengali coward!"
  He replied, " Bengali or no Bengali, I am not doing it." (Laughter)
  366
  --
  NIRODBARAN: It has been translated into Bengali.
  SRI AUROBINDO: Yes? By Hem Banerji?
  --
  were made to think that Bhanu Sinha was some unrecognised Bengali poet
  of Chandidas's time.
  --
  NIRODBARAN: What about Madhusudan's Bengali work, "The Slaying of
  Meghnad"? That surely has a lot of creativeness.
  --
  profusely. That is highly amusing. Bengalis at one time were very fond of
  weeping. I think it was Romesh Dutt who translated the story of Savitri from
  --
  NIRODBARAN: Nolini also says that Nishikanto follows the Bengali tradition
  while Dilip and others have cut a new line and one has to enter into the new
  --
  and Italian, for instance. For Bengali, however, I had a teacher.
  CHAMPAKLAL: Did you learn Gujarati in Pondicherry?
  --
  NIRODBARAN: Now take the Bengali poet Govind Das, he says. His poem beginning, "I love you with your bone and flesh," is regarded as a great poem.
  It has much power but this is the only poem that is great in his works. The
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO: My only Bengali teacher was Dinen Roy unless he had another name.
  PURANI: "Chakravarthy" and "Roy" are a little far off from each other.
  --
  neither Bengali nor Sanskrit. That won't do in Bengali poetry. Of course
  Nishikanto is excluded.
  --
  PURANI: Harin wrote to Dilip that if they want something new in Bengali they
  must get rid of Tagore's influence. Tagore is dominating too much.
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO: About this new poetry, is it true that it is not Bengali?
  NIRODBARAN: I don't know. Tagore admits that there may be a spiritual element.
  --
  his own language. An Englishman won't receive in Bengali or Gujarati. That
  depends on the response of the mind, the vital being or whatever it may be .
  --
  SATYENDRA (seeing N trying to translate A's Bengali into English): Why
  doesn't he write in English? That will save you the trouble of translation.
  --
  But there are other languages in which this is not yet true. Bengali is in its
  youth, in full process of growth and has many things not yet done, many

Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
  SRI AUROBINDO: Of course I didn't speak to him in Bengali.
  PURANI: It seems to me that such things require a bit of rounding off to be
  --
  NIRODBARAN: But we couldn't find the Bengali for "challenge", either.
  Asvikar, amanya, agrahya, etc. - none gives the sense of "defy".
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps you could say in Bose's language: "Give an ultimatum to matter"! But has even "ultimatum" any equivalent in Bengali?
  EVENING
  --
  NIRODBARAN: Tagore places a great value on words and he has developed his new Bengali music with importance given to katha and his own
  particular sur which nobody is allowed to vary.
  --
  NIRODBARAN: He says Bengali music must take its own way of expression and words will have a great place.
  SRI AUROBINDO: Is music to be a commentary on words?
  --
  treatment. As regards the subject, he follows the pre-Tagore Bengali poetry
  363
  --
  sixty lines and even then his idea doesn't come out. After Tagore, Bengali
  poetry has become wishy-washy. There is no intellectual backbone.
  --
  his Bengali.
  SRI AUROBINDO: He is mistaken.
  --
  NIRODBARAN: He says Bengali Sannyasis are not treated well in North
  India by North Indian Sannyasis. "As the Bengalis don't treat us well, why
  440
  --
  chair saying, "Dr. Mullick is a Bengali and Mr. Ghose is a Bengali. So I propose him to the chair." You replied, "I consent to take the chair not because
  Dr. Mullick is a Bengali and I am a Bengali, but because I am an Indian and
  Dr. Mullick is an Indian."
  --
  SRI AUROBINDO: My knowledge of Bengali was very little at that time. I
  couldn't have finished reading all the writings of Bankim or perhaps I wrote
  --
  to shake his head and said, "This can't be Bengali!" (Laughter)
  PURANI: Nolini is very happy that he will get materials for another book.
  --
  NIRODBARAN: How could Madhusudan write so well in Bengali?
  SRI AUROBINDO: He engaged several pundits and he had the inborn poetic faculty.

WORDNET



--- Overview of noun bengali

The noun bengali has 3 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
                  
1. Bengali ::: ((Hinduism) a member of a people living in Bangladesh and West Bengal (mainly Hindus))
2. Bengali ::: (an ethnic group speaking Bengali and living in Bangladesh and eastern India)
3. Bengali, Bangla ::: (a Magadhan language spoken by the Bengali people; the official language of Bangladesh and Bengal)

--- Overview of adj bengali

The adj bengali has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
                    
1. Bengali ::: (of or relating to or characteristic of Bengal or its people; "Bengali hills")


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun bengali

3 senses of bengali                          

Sense 1
Bengali
   => Asian, Asiatic
     => inhabitant, habitant, dweller, denizen, indweller
       => person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
         => organism, being
           => living thing, animate thing
             => whole, unit
               => object, physical object
                 => physical entity
                   => entity
         => causal agent, cause, causal agency
           => physical entity
             => entity
     => person of color, person of colour
       => person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
         => organism, being
           => living thing, animate thing
             => whole, unit
               => object, physical object
                 => physical entity
                   => entity
         => causal agent, cause, causal agency
           => physical entity
             => entity

Sense 2
Bengali
   => ethnic group, ethnos
     => group, grouping
       => abstraction, abstract entity
         => entity

Sense 3
Bengali, Bangla
   => Magadhan
     => Sanskrit, Sanskritic language
       => Indic, Indo-Aryan
         => Indo-Iranian, Indo-Iranian language
           => Indo-European, Indo-European language, Indo-Hittite
             => natural language, tongue
               => language, linguistic communication
                 => communication
                   => abstraction, abstract entity
                     => entity


--- Hyponyms of noun bengali
                                    


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun bengali

3 senses of bengali                          

Sense 1
Bengali
   => Asian, Asiatic

Sense 2
Bengali
   => ethnic group, ethnos

Sense 3
Bengali, Bangla
   => Magadhan


--- Similarity of adj bengali

1 sense of bengali                          

Sense 1
Bengali


--- Antonyms of adj bengali
                                    


--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun bengali

3 senses of bengali                          

Sense 1
Bengali
  -> Asian, Asiatic
   => coolie, cooly
   => Oriental, oriental person
   => Indian
   => Eurasian
   => Afghan, Afghanistani
   => Altaic
   => Armenian
   => Bangladeshi
   => Bengali
   => Bhutanese, Bhutani
   => Burmese
   => Byzantine
   => Cambodian, Kampuchean
   => Chinese
   => East Indian
   => Malay, Malayan
   => Hindu, Hindoo, Hindustani
   => Hmong, Miao
   => Indonesian
   => Irani, Iranian, Persian
   => Iraqi, Iraki
   => Israelite
   => Israeli
   => Japanese, Nipponese
   => Jordanian
   => Korean
   => Kurd
   => Kuwaiti
   => Lao, Laotian
   => Lebanese
   => Malaysian
   => Maldivian, Maldivan
   => Nepalese, Nepali
   => Pakistani
   => Parthian
   => Sinhalese, Singhalese
   => Sherpa
   => Syrian
   => Taiwanese
   => Tajik, Tadzhik
   => Thai, Tai, Siamese
   => Tibetan
   => Turki
   => Kazakhstani
   => Vietnamese, Annamese
   => Singaporean
   => Sri Lankan
   => Trojan, Dardan, Dardanian
   => Iberian
   => Mongoloid
   => Timorese

Sense 2
Bengali
  -> ethnic group, ethnos
   => ethnic minority
   => Azeri
   => Bengali
   => Flemish
   => Hebrews, Israelites
   => Mbundu, Ovimbundu
   => Tajik, Tadzhik
   => Walloons
   => Aborigine, Abo, Aboriginal, native Australian, Australian Aborigine
   => Kurd
   => Igbo
   => Nubian

Sense 3
Bengali, Bangla
  -> Magadhan
   => Assamese, Asamiya
   => Bengali, Bangla
   => Oriya


--- Pertainyms of adj bengali

1 sense of bengali                          

Sense 1
Bengali
   Pertains to noun Bengal (Sense 1)
   =>Bengal
   INSTANCE OF=> geographical area, geographic area, geographical region, geographic region


--- Derived Forms of adj bengali

1 sense of bengali                          

Sense 1
Bengali
   RELATED TO->(noun) Bengali#1
     => Bengali
   RELATED TO->(noun) Bengali#2
     => Bengali
   RELATED TO->(noun) Bengali#3
     => Bengali, Bangla


--- Grep of noun bengali
bengali



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selforum - i feel sad of fact that i am bengali
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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Section_Translation_Usability_(Bengali)_-_Final_Report.pdf
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I Love You (2007 Bengali film)
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List of Bengali films of 1931
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List of Bengali-language authors (alphabetical)
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Portal:India/SC Summary/SA Bengali language
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