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T H E 'G E N I U SO F I N D I A
AN E XT RAC T FROM " T HE R E NAI S SAN C E I N I N DI A "
BY
S R I A UROB I NDO
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T H E G E N I U S
OF I ND I A
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T H E
O F
G E N I U S
I N D I A
AN EX TRACT FROM " T H E RENA I S SANCE IN I N DI A"
BY
S R I AUROB I NDO
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ISBN : 8 1-90058 4-6- 0
This text was f irst published in the English monthly Arya (1918 ) .
Introduction by Ch ristine Devin C 1998,EditionsAuroville Press International
Photogra phs by Olivier Ba ret cO 1998 , Editions Auroville Press International
Pu blished b y E d it ion s A uroville Press I nternational,
Aur oville, 60 5101, T amil Nadu - IND IA .
Pr in te d at t he Au r ovi l le P ress , 1998 .
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VANDE MATARAM SERIES
Vo lume 4
Th is book is the fourth in a series entitled "Vande Mataram "
which ha s a s it s g oal to m ake kno wn a number of t exts
inspired b y a similar v ision o f a ne w Ind ia . For , as Sri
Aurobindo saw, "India of the a ges i s not dead nor ha s she
spoken her last creative w ord; she li ves and has still some-
thin g to do for herself and the human peoples .. ." He further
said , "India is the guru o f the nations , the physician of the
human soul in its profounder maladies ; she is de stined once
m ore to n ew -mould the life of the w orld and restore the peace
of th e human spirit." Thu s, " the sun of Ind ia's destiny w ould
rise and f ill all India wi th its light and ove rflow India and
overflow Asia a nd ove rflow th e wor ld .. ."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The text presented here is taken from a series o f essayswrittenby Sri Aurobindo in 1918 and published in the Arya , an
English monthly , under the title The Renaissance in India .
Our aim in publishing this short extract is to trigger a
reflection on what constitutes the specific genius o f this
country and what it is that Sri Aurobindo meant by a rebirth
or a resurgence o f India.
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I N T R ODU C T I O N
When one thinks o f India's future, two thingsimmediately come to the mind: first that India'sculture, lik e that o f many other countries, isincreasingly threatened by the tendency towardsuniformisation; and secondly, that t he concep t o f
rebirth necessarily implies a new body, it cannotmean a return to the past. So the on ly so lutionseems to lie in a two-fo ld movement: on oneside, to become conscious o f what was, is, a ndwill be the essentia l spirit o f I nd ia, tha t w hic hconstitutes her uniqueness a nd can never bedestroyed, in other words to discover again wha tat the deepest level I ndiann ess means; and then,once this has been found, to make it the centre o feverything else, assimilate to it a ll that is recei-ved from the outside, and evo lve out o f it a newcreation.
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12 TH E G E N IU S O F I N D I A
In today's world, external influences areinevitable and a certain number o f them perhapsnot wholly undesirable, but the way in whichthese are assimilated is crucial. The reaction toexternal influences, says Sri Aurobindo, shouldbe nei ther out righ t rejection, nor blind andmechanical imitation. I f
certain elements areseen as desirable, because they would contributeto the richness o f India, then when absorbedthey should be transmuted and Indianised.
"Now that the salvation, the reawakeninghas come, said Sri Aurobindo, India will cer-tainly keep her essential spirit, will keep hercharacteristic soul, but there is likely to be a .great change in the body. The shaping for itselfo f a new body, o f new philosophical, artistic, lit-erary, cultural, political, social forms by thesame soul rejuvenescent will, I should think, bethe type o f the Indian renascence, - forms notcontradictory o f the truths o f life which the oldexpressed, but rather expressive o f those truths
restated, cured o f defect, completed."In the light o f this, without going further, it
becomes imperative to reflect on the first ques-tion: what is the essential spirit of India, what
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I N T R O D U C T I O N 13
does Indianness mean? To this question, whichis often dealt w i th in a superficia l or incompleteway, these few pages o f Sri Aurobindo are amasterly, all-embracing, yet concise answer . SriAurobindo looks here at the past o f India, notfor the sake o f the past, but to find hidden in itsfolds a finger pointing towards the future. Hetells us : this is the Indian spirit, this is the Indianideal, this is the bent o f the genius o f the race;now that is your center; from this centre, act andcreate .
This text is not a study o f ancient India , although it does analyse the powers o f the ancient
spirit o f India. It is rather a very precise description o f the instruments that are at the disposal o fIndia for building her future . One cannot butwish that this text form part o f the curriculum o fal l Ind ian schools, as w ell as that o f schools allover the world . For indeed to understand thetrue nature o f India is not only indispensable for
her children , but necessary for all those whoaspire to a rebirth o f the entire earth .
The Editor
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T H E G E N I U S OF INDIA ' : -
WHAT WAS THIS ANCIENT SPIRIT and character
istic soul of India? European writers, struck by
the general metaphysical bent of the Indian
mind, by its strong religious instincts and reli-
gious idealism, by its other-worldl iness, are
inclined t o write as if this were all the Indian
spirit. An abstract, metaphysical, religious mind
overpowered by the sense of the infinite, not
apt for life, dreamy, unpract ical , turning away
from life and action as Maya, this, they said, is
~ ,The title is ours (the Editor)
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THE GENIUS OF I N D I A 17
and been unable t o make the most of its materi
als, that this wa s a nation o f unpra ctical dream
e rs , ideali st s, erudite s and s ent im e nt alists,
p atient , do cile a n d indu striou s c e rt ainly, but
po litically inapt, - "admirable , ridiculous Ger
m an y"? E u ro p e ha s h ad a terribl e awakening
fro m th at error. Wh en the ren asc ence of India
is complete, s he will have an awakening, not of
the same brutal k ind, cer ta in ly, but startl ing
enough , as to the real nature and capacity of the
Indi an s pirit.
S PI RIT UALITY IS IND EED T H E MAST E R-KEY of
th e Indian mind ; the s ense o f the infinite is
n ative t o it. Indi a saw from the be ginnin g,
and, eve n in her age s of reason and her age of
incr easin g ignoran ce , s he never lo st hold of the
in si ght, - that life cannot be ri ghtly seen in
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18 T H E GEN IUS O F I N D I A
the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the
sole power of its externalities . She was alive to
the greatness of material laws and forces; she
had a keen eye for the importance of the physi
cal sciences; she knew how to organise the arts
of ordinary life. But she saw that the physical
does not get its full sense until it stands in right
relation to the supra-physical; she saw that the
complexity of the universe could not be explai-
ned in the present terms of man or seen by his
superficial sight, that there were other powersbehind, other powers within man himself of
which he is normally unaware, that he is con
scious only of a small part of himself, that the
invisible always sur rounds the visible, the supra
sensible the sensib le , even as infinity always
surrounds the finite. She saw too that man has
the power of exceeding himself , of becoming
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T H E G E N I U S O F I N D I A 1 9
him self more entirel y and profoundly than he
is, - truth s which have only recentl y begun to
be see n in Europe and se em even now too great
fo r it s co mmon int elligence. She saw the m yr-
iad go ds be yond m an , God be y ond the gods ,
and b ey ond G od hi s own ineff able eternit y; she
saw th at there w ere ran ges of life be yond our
lif e, ran ges of mind be yond our pre sent m ind
and above these s he saw the splendour s of the
spirit. Then with that calm audacity of her intui-
t io n w hich kne w no fear o r l it tlenes s and shrank
from no ac t w hether of spiritual or intellectual ,
e thical o r vi t al courage, s h e decl ared that there
wa s no ne o f th ese thin gs whi ch m an c ould not
a ttai n if h e tr ain ed hi s w ill and kno wledge; hecould conque r the se ranges of mind , become
the spirit, become a god, become one with God,
b ecome the ine ffable Br ahman . And with the
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Spirituality is indeed the master-key of the
I nd ian mind ...
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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 21
logical p ra ctic ality an d sen se of science and
or gani sed method which distinguished her men
tality , she set for th immedia te ly to find out the
wa y. Hence from long ages of this insigh t and
practice there was ingrained in her her spiritual
it y , her powerful p sychic tendency, her great
yea rn ing to g rapple with the infinite and pos
se ss i t , her iner adicable religious sense, her ide
alism, her Yoga, the constant turn of her art and
her philo sophy.
B UT T H IS W AS NOT AND CO ULD NOT BE her
w hole mentality, her entire spir i t ; spirituality
it s elf d oes not flouri sh o n e arth in the void,
even as our mounta in-top s do not ri se like those
of an encha nt ment of dream out of the clouds
with out a base. When we look at the past of
India, what s t rikes u s next is her stupendous
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22 T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A
vitality, her inexhaustible power of life and joy
of life, her almost unimaginably prolific cre-
ativeness. For t hree thousand years at least ,
it is indeed much longer, - she has been c reat -
ing abundantly and incessantly, lavishly, with
an inexhaustible manysidedness, republics and
kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cos-
mogon ies and sciences and creeds and arts and
poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and
temples and public works , commun it ie s and
societies and religious orders, laws and codes
and rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences,
systems of Yoga, systems of politics and admin-
istration, arts spiritual, arts worldly, trades,
industries, fine crafts, - the list is endless and
in each item there is almost a plethora of activ
ity. She creates and creates and is not satisfied
and is not tired; she will not have an end of it,
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T H E GEN IUS O F I N D I A 23
seems hardly to need a space for rest, a time for
inertia and lying fallow. She expands too out
side her borders; her ships cross the ocean and
the fine superfluity of her wealth brims over to
Judea and Egypt and Rome; her colonies spread
her arts and epics and creeds in the Archipe
lago; her traces are found in the sands of Meso
potamia; her religions conquer China and Japan
and spread westward as far as Pale stine and
Alexandria, and the figures of t he Upanishads
and the sayings of the Buddhists are re-echoed
on the lips of Christ. Everywhere, as on her soil,
so in her works there is the teeming of a super
abundan t ene rgy of life . European critics com
plain that in her ancient architecture, sculptureand art there is no reticence, no holding back
of riches, no blank spaces, that she labours to
fill every rift with ore, occupy every inch with
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She creates and crea tes and is no t satisf ied
and is no t t i red ...
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T H E G E N I U S O F I N D I A 25
plent y . W ell, but defect or no, that is the neces-
s ity of her superabundance of life, of the teem-
ing of the infinite within her. She lavishes her
riche s becau se s he must, as the Infinite fills
every inch of space with the s ti rr ing of life andenergy because it is the Infinite.
B UT T H IS S UPR EME SPIRIT U ALITY and this
prolific abundance of the ene rgy and jo y of life
and creation do not make all that the spirit of
India has been in its pa st. It is not a confused
splendour of tropical vegetation under heavens
of a pur e s apphire infinity. I t is only to eyes
unaccu stomed to such wealth that there seems
to b e a c on fu sion in thi s cro wdin g of space
with rich forms of life , a luxurious disorder of
exce ss o r a wanton lack of measure, clear bal-
a nce an d d esign. For the third power of the
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26 T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A
ancient Indian sp irit wa s a stron g intellectual-
it y, at once austere and rich, robu st and minut e,
powerful and del icate, ma ssive i n principle and
curious in detail. I t s chi ef impul se was th at of
order and arrangement , but an order found ed
upon a seeking for the inner law and truth o f
things and having in view always th e po ssibility
of conscientiou s practice. India h as b een pr e-
eminentl y the land of the Dharma and th e Sh as-
tra. She searched for the inner truth and law of
each human or cosmic activit y, it s Dharm a; th atfound, she labour ed to c ast into elab or ate fo rm
and det ailed law of arrangeme nt it s appli cation
in f act and rule of life . H er fir st p eri od was
luminou s with the discovery of th e Spirit; h er
second completed the di scovery of the Dharma ;
her third elabor ated into detail the fir st s im-
pler formulati on of the Sh astr a; but n one was
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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 27
exclusive, the three elements are always pre-
sent.
In this third period the curious elaboration
of all life into a science and an art assumes
extraordinary proportions. The mere mass ofthe intellectual product ion during the period
from Asoka well into t he Mahomedan epoch is
something t ru ly prodigious, as can be seen at
once if one studies the account whic h re cent
scholarship gives of it, and we must remember
that that scholarship as yet only deals with a
fraction of what is still lying exta nt a nd what is
extant is only a small percentage of what was
once written and known. There is no historical
parallel for such an intellectual l abou r and activ-
i ty before the invention of print ing and the
facilities of modern science; yet all that mass of
research and production and curiosity of detail
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There is no historical parallel for such an intellectual
l abour and activi ty before the inven tion of printing
and the facilities of modern science ...
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T H E GEN IU S OF I N D I A 2 9
was accomplished without these facilities and
wi th no better record than the memory and for
an a id th e p eri shable p alm-leaf. Nor wa s all thi s
co lossa l liter ature con fined to philosophy and
the ology, reli gion and Yo ga, lo gic and rhetoric
and g rammar and lin gui sti cs , poetry and drama,
med icine an d a s t ronom y and the sciences; it
embr a ced all life , polit ics and socie ty , all the
a rts from paintin g to d ancin g, all the sixty-fo ur
accomplishme nt s, everything then known that
co u ld b e u seful to li fe or intere stin g to the
m ind , eve n, fo r ins ta nce , to such pract ical s ide
minutiae as t he b reed ing and training of horses
a nd elephant s , e ach o f which had its Shastra
and it s a rt, it s a ppara tus o f technical t erm s, it s
copi ou s l i terature. In each subject from the
large st a nd mo st m omentou s to the smallest
an d m o st tri vial th er e wa s exp ended th e sa me
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30 THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A
all-embracing, opu lent , m inut e and thorough
intellectuality . On one side there is an insa
tiable curiosity, the desire of life t o know itself
in every detail, on the other a spirit of organisa
tion and scrupulous order , the desire of the
mind t o tread through life with a harmoni sedknowledge and in the right rhythm and mea
sure. Thus an ingrained and dominan t spiritual
ity, an inexhaustible vital creativenes s and gu st
of life and , mediating between them, a power
ful, penetrating and scrupulous intelligencecombined of the rat ional, e thical and aesth etic
mind each at a high intensit y of action, created
the harmony of the ancient Indian culture.
INDEED WITHOUT THIS OPULENT VIT ALITY
and opulent i nt el le ctual it y Indi a cou ld never
have done so much as she did with her spiritual
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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 31
tendencies. I t is a great error t o suppose that
spirituality flourishes best in an impoverished
soil with the life half-killed and the intellect
d iscouraged and intimidated. The spirituality
that so flourishes is something morbid, hecticand exposed t o per ilous react ions . I t is when
the race has lived most richly and thought most
profoundly that spirituality finds its heights
and its depths and its constant and many -sided
fruition. In modern Europe it is after a long
explosion of vital force and a stupendous activ-
ity of the intellect that spirituality has begun
really t o emerge and with some promise of
being not, as it once was, t he sor rowful physi -
cian of the malady of life, but the beginning of
a large and profound clarity . The European eye
is struck in Indian spiritual th ough t by the Bud -
dhist ic and illusionist denial of life. But it must
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I t knew t ha t w i thout a "fine excess " we cannot break
down th e limits whi ch t he dull temper of t he norma l
mind opposes to know ledge . . .
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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 33
be remembered that this is only one side of its
philo sophic tendency which assumed exagger-
ated proportions only in the perio d of decline.
I n it self too that wa s s imply one resul t, in one
d irection, of a tend enc y of the Indian mind
w hich is common to all it s activities, the impulse
to fo llow each mot ive, each spec ia li sation of
moti ve e ven, spiri tual , intellectual , ethical, vital ,
to it s extreme point and to sound it s utmost
po s sibilit y . Part of it s innate direction was to
se ek in eac h not onl y for it s fullnes s of detail,
but fo r it s infinit e, it s absol ute , it s profoundest
depth o r it s hi ghe st pinnacle . I t knew t ha t with-
o u t a " fin e ex cess" we c anno t break down the
l imit s w hich th e dull temper of the norm al
mind o ppos es to knowledge and thought and
experience; and it had in seeking this point a
boundl ess c ourage and yet a sure tread. Thus it
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34 T H E GENIUS OF I N D I A
ca rried each tangent of philosophic thought,
each line of spiritual experience to its farthest
point, and chose to look from that farthest
point at all existence, so as to see what truth or
power such a view could give it. It tried to know
t he whole of divine nature and to see too as high
as it could beyond nature and into whatever
there m igh t be of supradivine. When it formu-
lated a spiritua l atheism, it followed that to its
acme of possible vision. When, too, it indulged
in materialist ic atheism, - though it did thatonly with a side glance, as the freak of an insa
tiable intellectual curiosity, - yet it formulated
it straight out, boldly and nakedly, without the
least concession to idealism or ethicism,
EVERYWHERE WE FIND THIS TENDENCY . The
ideals of the Indian m ind have included the
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THE GEN IU S OF I N D I A 35
height of self-assertion of the human spir it and
its thirst of independence and mastery and posses
sion and the height also of its self-abnegation,
dependence and submission and self-giving. In
life the ideal of opulent living and the ideal ofpoverty were carried t o the extreme of regal
splendour and the extreme of satisfied nudity.
I ts intui tions were suff icient ly clear and cou ra
geous not to be blinded by its own most cher
ished ideas and fixed habits of life. I f it was
obliged to stereotype caste as th e symbo l of its
social order, it never quite forgot, as the caste
spirit is apt t o forget, that the human soul and
the human mind are beyond caste. For it had
seen in the lowest human being the Godhead,
Narayana. I t emphasised distinctions only to
turn upon them and deny all distinctions . I f all
its political needs and circumstances compelled
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Its spiritual extremism could not prevent i t from
fathoming through a long er a the life of the senses andits enjoyments ...
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T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A 3 7
it at la st to exag gerate the monarch ical princi-
ple and declare the divinity of the king and to
abolish it s e arlier republican cit y states and
independent federations as too favourable to
the cent rif uga l tendenc y , if ther efore it could
no t d evelop demo cr acy, y et it h ad the demo-
crat ic ide a, appl ied it in the village , in council
and muni cipality , with in the caste, was the fir st
to as sert a divinity in the people and could cry
to the monarch at the height of his power, " 0
kin g, what art thou but the head servant of the
demo s ?" I t s idea of the golden age was a free
spiritual anarchism. Its spiritual extremism could
not pre vent it from fathoming through a long era
the lif e o f the s ens es and its enjoyments, and
there too it sought the utmost richnes s of sensu-
ou s detail and the depths and intensities of sen-
suous expenence. Yet it is notable that this
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38 T H E G E N IU S OF I N D I A
pursuit of the most opposite extremes never
resulted in disorder; and its most hedonistic
period offers no th in g th at at all resembles the
unbridled corruption which a similar tendency
has more than once produced in Europe . For
the Indian mind is not only spiritual and ethi-
cal, but intellectual and artistic, and both the
rule of the intellect and the rhythm of beauty
are hostile to the spirit of chaos. In every ex-
treme the Indian spirit seeks for a law in that
extreme and a rule, measure and structure in itsapplication. Besides, this sounding of extremes
is balanced by a still more ingrained character-
istic, the synthe t ica l tendency, so that having
pushed each motive to its far thes t possibi li ty
the Indian mind returns always towards somefusion of the knowledge it has gained and to a
resulting harmony and balance in action and
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T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A 3 9
in stitution. B alance and rhythm which the
Gre ek s a rrived a t b y s elf-limitation, India arri-
ve d at b y i ts se nse o f intelle ctual, e thical and
aes thetic order and the sy nt hetic impulse of its
mind and life.
I HAVE DWELT ON TH ESE FACTS b ecau se the y
are apt t o be ignored by tho se who look onl y at
certain sides of the Indian mind and spiri t which
a re mo st prominent in the last epochs. By
in si stin g o n ly upon the se we get an inaccurate
o r incomple te id ea of th e p ast of India and of
t he inte gral me anin g o f it s civilisation and the
sp iri t th at a nimated it. The pre sent is onl y a last
d eposit of the pa st at a time of ebb; it has no
doubt also t o be the s tarting point of the future,
but in thi s pre sent all th at was in India' s past is
s ti ll d orm ant , it is not de stro yed ; it is waitin g
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In every ext reme the Indian spiri t seeks for a law
in that extreme and a rule, measure and s truc tu re in its
application.
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T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A 41
there to a ssume new form s. The decline was the
ebb- movem e nt of a creative s pirit which can
o nly b e under sto od by see ing it in the full tide of
it s g reatn ess ; the rena scence is the return of the
tid e and it i s th e s ame spirit that is likely to animate it, althou gh th e forms it take s may be quite
new. To jud ge there fo re the pos sibilities of the
rena scence, th e power s that it ma y reveal and the
scope that it may take, we must dismiss the idea
th at th e tendenc y of met aph ysical abstraction is
the one note of the Indian spirit which dom i
nat es or in spires all it s cadences. It s real key-note
is the tendenc y of spiritual realisation , not cast at
all into an y white monotone, but many-faceted,
man y-coloured, as supple in it s adaptabilit y as it
is intense in it s hi ghe st pitch es. The note of spir
ituality is dominant, initial, constant, always
recurrent; it i s the support of all the rest. The
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42 T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A
first age of India's greatness was a spiritual age
when she sought passionately for the truth of
existence through the intuitive mind and through
an inner experience and interpretat ion both of
the psychic and the physical existence . The
stamp put on her by that beginning she ha s
never lost, but rather always enriched it with
fresh spiritual experience and discovery at each
step of the national life. Even in her hour of
decline it was the one thing she could never
lose.
BUT THIS SPIRITUAL TENDENCY does not
shoot upward only t o the abstract, the hidden
and the intangible; it cast its rays downward
and outwardt o
embrace the multiplicities ofthought and the richness of life. Therefore the
second long epoch of India's greatness was an
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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 43
age of the intellect, the ethical sense, the dyna-
mic will in action enlightened to formulate and
govern life in the lustre of spiritual truth. After
the age of the Spirit, the age of the Dharma;
after the Veda and Upanishads, the heroic cen-
turies of action and social formation, typal con-
s t ruct ion and thought and philosophy, when
the outward forms of Indian life and c ultu re
were fixed in their large lines and even their
later d ev elopments were b eing determined inthe seed . The great classical age of Sanskri t cul -
ture was the flowering of this intellectuality
i nt o cur io si ty of detail in th e r ef in emen ts of
scholarship, s cie nc e, a rt, l it era tu re, po li ti cs ,
sociology , mundane life. We see at this time
too t he sounding not only of aesthetic, but of
emotional and sensuou s, even of vital and sen-
sual experience. But the old spirituality reigned
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. .. a still more engrained characteristic.
th e synthetical tendency ...
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T H E GEN IUS O F I N D I A 45
behind all this mental and all this vita l activity,
and it s later period, the post-classica l, saw a lift-
in g up o f th e who le lower life and an impressing
upon it of the value s of the Spirit . This was the
sense of the Puranic and T antric sys t ems andth e reli gion s of Bhakti . Later Vaishnavism, the
last fin e flower of the Indian spirit, was in it s
esse nc e the t akin g up of the aesthetic, emo
tional and sensuous being into the service of the
spiri tua l. It co mpleted the curve o f the cycle.
T HE EVEN ING OF DECLINE which followed
th e co mplet ion of the curve wa s prepared by
thr ee m ov em ent s of retrogre ssion . First there is,
co mparatively, a sinking of th at supe r -abundant
vital ene rgy and a fading of the joy of life and
th e joy o f creat ion. Even in the decline this ener
gy is s till some thing splendid and extraordinary
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46 THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A
and only for a very brief period s inks nearest to
a complete torpor; but still a comparison with
its past greatness will show that the decadence
was marked and progressive. Secondly, there is
a rapid cessa tion of the old free intellectual
activity, a slumber of the scientific and the c rit
ical mind as well as the creative intui tion; what
remains becomes more and more a repetition
of ill-understood fragments of past knowledge.
There is a petrification of the mind and life in
the relics of the forms which a great intellectualpast had created. Old authority and rule become
rigidly despotic and, as always then happens,
lose their real sense and spirit. Finally, spiritual-
ity remains but burns no longer with the large
and clear flame of knowledge of former times,but in intense jets and in a d ispe rs ed act ion
which replaces the old magnificent synthesis
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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 47
and in which certain spiritual truths are empha -
sised to the neglect of others. This d iminut ion
amounts to a certain failure of the great endeav -
our which is the whole meaning of Indian cul-
ture, a falling short in the progress towa rds the
perfect spiritualisation of the mind and the life.
The beg innings were superlative, the develop-
ments very great, but at a certain point where
progress, adaptation; a new flowering should
have come in, the old civilisation s topped short ,
partly drew back, partly lost its way. The essen-
tial no doubt rema ined and still remains in the
heart of the race and not only in its habits and
memories, but in its action it was covered up in a
great smoke of confusion . The causes internal
and external we need not now discuss; but the
fact is there. I t was the cause of the momentary
helplessness of the Indian mind in the face of
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all that was in India 's past is still dormant, it is not
destroyed; i t is wait ing there to a ssume new forms . ..
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TH E GENIUS O F INDIA 49
new and unprecedented conditions .
IT WAS ATTHIS MOMENT that th e Eur op ean
wave swept over India . The fir st e ff ect of this
ent ry of a new and quite opposite civilisation
was the de struction of much that had no longer
the power to live, the deliquescence of much
el se , a t endency to the devitalisation of the rest.
A new a ctiv ity c ame in, but this was at first
c rudely and confusedly imitative of the foreign
culture. It was a crucial moment and an ordeal
of perilou s s ev erit y; a les s vigorou s energy of
life might well have foundered and pe rished
under the double wei ght of the deadening of its
old in na te motiv e s and a servile imitat ion of
ali en idea s and habits. His to ry s how s us howdi sa strous this situation can be to nations and
civili sations . But fortunately t he energy of life
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50 THE GEN IU S O F I N D I A
was there , sleeping onl y for a momen t , not
dead , and, given that ener gy , the evil c arri ed
within itself its own cure . F or whatever temp o-
rary rotting and de struction thi s crude imp act
of European life and cul tu re has cau sed , it ga ve
three needed impulse s. I t revived the dormant
intellectual and critical impul se; it rehabilit ated
life and awakened the de sire of new creati on; it
put the reviving Indian spirit face t o fac e w it h
novel condit ion s and ideal s and the ur gent
necess it y of understandin g, as simil atin g a ndconquering them . The national m ind tu rned a
new eye on it s pa st cul ture , reawoke t o it s s ense
and import, but also, a t the same time, saw it in
relation t o modern knowledge and idea s. Out
of this awakening vision and impul se the Indian
renaiss ance is arising , and th at mu st determin e
it s future tendency. The r eco ve ry o f th e o ld
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THE G EN IUS OF I N D I A 51
s pir i tual kno wled ge and experience in a ll I tS
sp lendour, depth and fullne ss is it s first , mo st
esse ntia l wo rk; the flowin g of this spirituali ty
int o n ew f orms of phi lo soph y, literature , art,
scie nce and critical knowled ge is the second; an
o rig ina l d ealin g wi th mod ern problem s in the
light o f Indi an s pirit and the ende av our to for-
mul ate a g rea ter sy nt hesis of a spirituali sed
so cie ty is the third and mo st diff icult. I t s s uc-
cess o n th ese thr ee line s w ill be the mea sure of
it s help to th e fu t ure o f humanit y.
TH E SPIRIT IS A HIGH ER INFINIT E of veritie s;
life is a lower infinite of po ssibilities w hich seek
to grow and f ind their own tru th and fulfilment
in th e light o f the se veritie s . Our intellect, our
will, o u r ethical and o ur a esthetic bein g are the
reflec tor s and th e med iator s . The method of the
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It is when a greater light prevails and become s generalthat we shall be able to speak ... of the renaissance of Indi a.
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THE GEN IU S OF I N D I A 53
West is t o exaggerate life and to call down as
much - or as little - as may be of the higher
powers to s timula te and embellish life. But the
method of India is, on the contrary, t o discover
the spirit within and the higher hidden intensi -
ties of the superior powers and t o dominate life
in one way or another so as t o make it respon-
sive t o and expressive of the spirit and in that
way increase the power of life. Its tendency
with the intellect, will, ethical, aesthetic and
emotional being is t o sound indeed the ir normal
mental possibilities, but also t o upraise them
towards the greater light and power of their
own highest intuitions. The work of the renais-
sance in India must be t o make thi s sp iri t, the
higher view of life, this sense of deeper poten-
tiality once more a creative, perhaps a dominant
power in the wor ld . But t o that truth of itself it is
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54 T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A
as yet only vaguely awake; the mass of Indian
action is still at the moment proceeding under the
impress of the European motive and method and,
because there is a spirit within us to which they
are foreign, the action is poor in will, feeble in
form and ineffective in results , for it does notcome from the roots of our being. Only in a few
directions is there some clear light of self-knowl
edge. I t is when a greater light prevails and be-
comes general that we shall be able t o speak, not
only in prospect, but in fact, of the renaissance of
India .
Sri Aurobindo
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BOOKS OF SRI AUROBINDO ON INDIA
INDIA'S REBIRTH
A selection from Sri Aurobindo 's writings ,
talks and speecheson India .
Availab le in English , H indi, Telugu ,
Ma layalam , Oriya, French .
(Mira Aditi Centre, Mysore)
*
BANDE MATARAM
THE KARMAYOGIN
THE SECRET OF THE VEDA
ESSAYS ON THE G ITA
THE FOUNDAT IONS O F I ND IAN CULTURE
(Sri Aurobin do Ashram, Pondicherry)
-
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SELECTED B IO GRAPHIES
(Mira Aditi C entre, Mysore)
SRI A URO BIND O
OR THE ADVENTU RE O F C ONS CI O USNESS
Satpr em*
MOTH ER'S CHRON I CLES
Sujata Nahar
Book 4 : Mi rra - Sri Aurobindo
Book 5: M irra Meets the R evolutionary
*
MOTH ER
Satprem
I - The D iv in e Mat erialism
I I - The N ew Sp ecies
I I I - The Mutation o f De ath
*
MOTHER'S AGENDA - 1 9 5 1 - 1 9 7 3 , 13 v olum es
Mi ra Aditi Centre - 62 'Sriranga ', 2'" Main, l "Cro ss,T.K. Layout, Saraswatipuram - Mysore 5 70009 - India
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COLL EC T I ON VAN DE M AT ARAM
Already Pub lished
B ANDE MATARAM
Bank im Chandra Chatterji's great son gw ith an introduction
by Sri Aurobindo .
48 pages , hardbound o r paperback
AT THE FEET OF M OTH ER I ND IA
A selectio n of poems , wri tings a nd speeches
from great I ndian Seers ,
illustrated w ith photographs .
60 pages , hardbound .
INDEPENDEN CE DAY MESSAGE
Gi ven by Sri Aurobindo on 15 August 1947 .
48 pages, paperback .
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Printed atA UR 0 VILLE PRESS
Auroville
605101 Tamil NaduINDIA
1998
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T H E G E N I U S OF I N D I A
This text, taken fr o m The Renai ssance in India by Sri Auro bin do ,
is not a study of ancient India, although it does analyse th e
powers of th e ancient spirit of India . It is rather a very precise
descr iption of the instruments that are at th e disposal of India for
build ing her future . One cannot but wis h that this text form part
of the curriculum of all Indian schools. as well as that of schoo ls
a ll over th e world . For indeed to understand th e true nature of
Ind ia is not onl y indispensable for her ch ildren , but necessary for
a ll those who asp ire to a re b irth of the entire earth .