OLD INDIAN POETRY AND RELIGIOUS

THOUGHT.1

BY MRS. FREDERIKA MACDONALD.

SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD, in his important work on the Industrial Arts of India, has said that no one can properly understand Indian art who has not learned from the study of old Indian poetry something about the myths, traditions, and beliefs that this art embodies and illustrates.

He

goes farther than this. He says that people do not understand the customs, and ways of thinking and feeling, of the modern Hindu population unless they have some familiarity with the sacred poetry, that is still the influence lending colour, variety, and animation to the lives of the great mass of the people of India.

Now I am going to ask you to apply this statement to the study of Indian religion. In my lecture on Buddhism, I said that students who are pleased to follow the modern method, and who commence their study of Indian religious thought with Buddhism, are actually beginning to read a large volume at the closing chapters. Buddhism is the highest and most perfect development of a system of ideas and beliefs that are different from the ideas and beliefs that form the groundwork of western religious systems. And, therefore, the western student cannot easily appreciate these ideas in their latest development, unless he has made himself familiar with them in the earlier and simpler stages of their growth. In other words, he does not understand the philosophy of Indian religion unless he has penetrated to, and been to some extent penetrated by, the Indian religious sentiment.

The home of the Indian religious sentiment, and the place where it may be familiarly studied, is in those two Poems, or storehouses of poetry, that may rightly be described as the sources of the imaginative life of India. I am speaking of the Ramayan and the Mahābhārat. I need not trouble you now with the different opinions of various authors upon the actual antiquity and positive historical worth of the Ramayan and Mahābhārat; because we are not at present attempting to establish the relation which this sacred poetry has to the early history of India: we are endeavouring to see it as the home of the Indian religious sentiment, and the birthplace of that higher idealism that has its noblest expression in Buddhism. But I may say, in passing, that it is now as difficult to

1 This lecture, given at South Place Institute, Finsbury, was published in the Woman's World for June, 1889. It is reprinted here by kind permission of Messrs. Cassell.

establish the actual date of the Ramayan and Mahābhārat, as to give their true authorship. No doubt the original thread of tradition that has supplied the central stories of the Ramāyan and Mahābhārat may be traced back to a very remote period, to eighteen hundred or two thousand years B.C.,—a time when the Aryan settlers in India found themselves brought into frequent conflict with the barbarous indigenous tribes, whom we find spoken of in these Poems as "Asuras," or "Rakshasas," ie. demons; or else, with more condescension, but even less respect, as "wild men of the woods"; in other words, a race of intelligent monkeys. But this thread of early tradition has to-day become overladen and over-clustered with later traditions, superstitious fancies, and sentimental romances. And we can readily understand how this has come about, when we remember that these great Poems have been preserved to the people of India, from generation to generation, and from age to age, not by the aid of priests and sages, kept in check by the authority of sacred volumes, but mainly by the free gifts of memory and imagination of the professional poets and story-tellers, who, from the most remote times, have wandered about India, as they still wander, from town to town and village to village, reciting and relating these cherished legends and traditions that are a part of the national life. So that the Ramayan and Mahābhārat exist to-day, not as the creation of one Poet nor of several poets, nor are they even the poetical record of one age. They are the comprehensive record of the imaginative life of India, expanding under the social, political, and religious influences of ages whose precise and literal history is lost to

us.

And it is in this record of the imaginative life of India that we find the traditions, convictions, and sentiments that every Indian Philosopher and Prophet had to count with, and, to some extent, to adapt and utilize, as the medium for conveying his spiritual lessons to the multitude. But even this is not all. These Indian prophets and philosophers were not themselves independent of the influences amidst which they were reared. It was in this atmosphere, saturated with the sentiments and traditions of ancient India, that their abstruse speculations and profound meditations were carried on. In other words, they too were children of the Ramayan and Mahābhārat: and it is quite easy to trace this parentage, and the influence of the old Indian sentimental temper, even in the intellectual religion of Buddha, or in the mystical pantheism of the Vedanta philosophy.

But this is just what is lost sight of by the uninitiated student, who starts off in life with the study of Buddhism and the higher schools of Brahman philosophy. And here we have, I think, the explanation of the astonishing difficulties these students assure us lie in the way of a proper understanding of Indian philosophical and religious thought-difficulties that they declare can only be elucidated by "esoteric" methods; and by the assistance of "psychological telegrams" sent from the Mahatmas in Tibet to the Theosophical Society in St. John's Wood

But it will be admitted, I think, that there is some inherent probability that a safer clue to the meaning of Indian religious thought may be found through the study of the conditions of sentiment and belief amidst which these higher phases of thought arose. And I shall presently hope to prove to you that even the serious student of the spiritual religions of India will not lose his time, and may possibly derive many advantages, if he will consent to pass a season of preparation in what Heine has called so well the "immense Flowering Forests of old Indian Poetry." What is more, I shall hope to show you that the modern idealist may find in this old storyworld some strange resemblances to the sentiments and enthusiasms that he is wont to describe as the peculiar characteristics of the "Modern Spirit."

Now, these resemblances do not lie upon the surface. The first impression made upon the Western reader by old Indian poetry is the impression that he has entered upon a strange world; a world of marvels and miracles, where common sense and common experience are entirely neglected, and where nothing is more unusual than to come upon any incident that lies within the bounds of possibility. But this is only the first impression. Let the explorer penetrate deeply enough into these immense "Flowering Forests," and very soon he discovers the charm that puts him in posses sion of the secret of the place, and enables him to count at its true worth this fantastic play of an imagination that is never enslaved by the dreams of its own creation. The true explanation of the miraculous atmosphere that pervades old Indian poetry is to be found, not in the Indian poet's superstition or credulity, but rather in his incredulity-his inability to take very seriously the mere show of things that is made to pass before the Soul for its instruction and entertainment.

Where all the outer life is regarded as Maya, Illusion, a dream, and a vision, there can be no objection felt to some incidents of the dream being incredible and extraordinary. And when this discovery is once made, the modern idealist will find himself far more at home in the spiritual atmosphere of old Indian poetry than he is in the spiritual atmosphere of the Romance Country, that is so much nearer to him in point of time, but that is haunted by the medieval religious sentiment. I think, if the truth is told, it must be admitted that the modern idealist is not at all at home in the medieval Romance Country. The mystical aspiration after superhuman beauty and supernatural delight that is the animating enthusiasm of mediæval poetry and art has its other side, in a contempt for nature and the natural life of man, that jars upon the modern sentimental temper. You have this disdain, and even disgust, for common nature expressed in the effort to attain an ideal type of beauty as little natural as possible—a type where human mind and will, as well as human body and passion, are attenuated, and as far as possible effaced, lost in celestial meekness and self-abandonment. Now, to satisfy the modern conception of beauty, will, mind, and a noble self-possessing energy need to be expressed. Then you

have this disdain and disgust expressed also in medieval comedy, in the choice of natural human love as a favourite theme for gross jesting; and especially in the medieval delight in the grotesque representation of the dominion of Death over the body, in the grim humour of pictures of dancing skeletons and grinning deaths' heads, in the constant legend of the worm, corruption, crawling over the fair flower of life.

In old Indian poetry you have nothing of all this, that the modern imagination feels so morbid. Nothing, indeed, is more characteristic of the Indian poet than his failure when he attempts to deal with supernatural terrors or morbid horrors. He has his demons, as we have seen; his Asuras, Rakshasas, and others; but it is amusing to observe his inability to deal with them as bonâ-fide demons. The demons of Indian poetry generally become praiseworthy characters at the close of their career, and die in the odour of sanctity. Ravana, for instance, the King of the Rakshasas, the Demon of the Ramayan, dies a valorous death; and the perfect hero, Rama, pronounces a complimentary speech over his funeral pyre. Then, in Indian poetry you have a great love of the grotesque: but the Indian grotesque has nothing morbid about it; it deals with life, not with death, and means only an extreme pleasure in the quaint and humorous aspects of nature. The mysticism of old Indian poetry, too, is the mysticism of pantheism-a mysticism that does not see in nature the enemy of the soul, but that sees all visible nature as the dream of the universal Soul or Mind that is the one true existence. And the dreamer has no disgust for his dream, but only tenderness and compassion. He takes pleasure in his dream, in its admirable and beautiful features, only the pleasure is tinged with melancholy, because he feels that-even whilst he is watching it-the dream is vanishing away.

And here you have the first point of resemblance between the Indian and the modern sentimental tempers-in a certain enthusiasm of compassion, that touches with pathos, and even with sublimity, the common face of nature and of man-looking at all common things from a visionary's standpoint, a visionary, free from supernatural terror, but never entirely free from the world's sorrow,-from the consciousness of age waiting upon youth, of fatigue following after pleasure, of love ending in loss, and life vanishing in death. And then, amidst the mingled reverence and compassion of this sentimental temper, you have the awakenings of the higher spiritual temper, that has its finest expression in Buddhism, and its counterpart in what the modern idealist describes as the "cosmic emotion;" the effort to set life's purposes and hopes beyond the personal state, the endeavour to "make the mind its own state," by training it to take its stand by the facts of thought and intellect; and the attempt to liberate the Soul from the painful sense of the impermanency and imperfection of material conditions, not by encouraging it to hope for a change of these external conditions, but by urging it to the conquest of spiritual disinterestedness. Now, the only means of proving to you that these are the essential

VOL. I.

K

qualities of old Indian poetry will be to send you to the Ramayan and Mahābhārat; and all that I can do now is to direct your attention to some stories, here and there, that may illustrate these qualities, and prove to you that they do not exist merely in my own imagination. These stories them selves you will, of course, expect to find Eastern, and of the old world. It is the sentiment these stories express that I am supposing you will find more in harmony with modern feeling than the sentiment that pervades mediæval romance.

The first story I have chosen from the Mahābhārat is a curious example of the exactly opposite sentiments that inspire Indian and mediæval legends. I need not remind you of the beautiful story of the perfect knight Sir Galahad, and of many other stories of sinless knights and holy maidens, who are made indifferent to earthly love by the vision of celestial beauty? In the Indian story you have the opposite of this: you have the ideal maiden rendered indifferent to celestial beauty by the vision of human

sorrow.

Once upon a time, then,-to begin my story in good old orthodox fashion,—there was a young Rajah, named Nala, who was famous throughout all India for his good looks, kind heart, and many accomplishments. In a neighbouring country to Rajah Nala's, reigned another rajah, who had a daughter of astonishing goodness and beauty. Now Rajah Nala had heard so much of the beauty of Rajah Bhima's daughter, that he fell deeply in love with her, although, of course, he had never seen her; and so much in love was he that he gave up all his studies and favourite amusements, and spent the leisure that the affairs of State left him in wandering to and fro in a solitary and shady grove near his palace, meditating upon the beautiful young princess, and repeating her name over and over again with all manner of endearing epithets. Now the name of Rajah Bhima's daughter was Damayanti. One day, when the young Rajah was wandering thus in his favourite grove, a flock of swans flew by him, and Rajah Nala, stretching forth his hand carelessly, caught one of the beautiful birds. Then the swan said to him: "Rajah Nala, do let me go, and I will carry a message for you to the maiden whom you love."

"Who is the maiden I love, you foolish swan?" asked the Rajah.

And the swan replied: "I had need be foolish, indeed, if I did not know that! My home is in this wood; and do I not hear you every day murmur over and over, in the most tiresome fashion, the name of the Princess Damayanti ?"

Then Rajah Nala was a little confused. But he was pleased, on the whole, with the swan's proposal, and he began a very long message; but the swan stopped him in the midst of it saying: "Hush! I should never remember all that. Better leave the message to me, and be sure I will plead your cause well with the Princess."

So Rajah Nala consented; he opened his hand, and the swan flew away, straight off in the direction of the country ruled over by Rajah Bhima.