Egbert Richter-Ushanas Rabindranath Tagore s Poems1 Lecture presented at the German-Indian meeting Tagore besser verstehen [Improve our

understanding of Tagore] Literatur-Forum Indien e.V., Dsseldorf 10.9.2011

In one of his English essays Tagore states: Human beings, who are gifted with the talent of clinging to the letter, are unhappy, because they are always busy with their nets and forget to sh.2 But those human beings who are always intend on catching the sh and to eat it, do not correspond with Tagore s ideal of humanity either, as it follows from another of his essays:3 One day I travelled in a boat on the Ga g. It was a beautiful autumn evening. The sun had just set, the silence of the sky was overown with beauty and an indescribable peace. A long lonely sand-bank was lying there like a huge antediluvian reptile, whose scales were blinking in all colours. When our boat silently glided along the steep stony shore, perforated like a sieve by the nest-caves of a colony of birds, suddenly a big sh emerged at the surface and disappeared again, on whose body all the colours of the evening sky were gleaming. For a moment he draw apart the many-coloured curtain, behind which a silent world of joy is hidden. I felt, as if I had received a friendly greeting from a foreign world in its own language, it touched my heart in a ash of joy. Suddenly the helmsman shouted with obvious regret: Oh, what a big sh! In his mind he saw at once the image of a caught sh
1 Cf. E. Richter-Ushanas, Gitanjali, Fischerhude 2011. 2 Retranslated from Das Goldene Boot, ed. by Martin Kmpchen,

Dsseldorf 2005, p. 451.

3 Retranslated in abridged form from the same source, p. 478.

2 prepared for the dinner. He could see the sh only with his eyes of desire and in this way he missed the truth of its existence. But man is not totally an animal. He is in search of a spiritual vision, the vision of the complete truth. It gives him the highest joy, because it reveals the deep harmony between himself and his surroundings. Our desires restrict the extend of our self-realization and are the cause of the sin, of the inner barrier, that separate us from experiencing god, creating hatred and arrogant pride. Sin is not simply a deed, it is a behaviour that makes us sure, that our aim is conned to the nite world, that our limited self is the ultimate truth and that we are not one in our essence, but that each of us exists separately. This vision and the joy connected with it is also the subject of Tagore s poems. If we read them in and translate them from Bengali, it certainly helps us to attain a better understanding of Tagore, but for a spiritual vision this is not enough. This vision is prevented for the greatest deal through our engagement for the outward world and by our commitment to it we forget the inner world, though it is even more real. To illustrate this I have selected Tagore s poems The golden boat and Gtjali No. 121. The golden boat is known to us through the German translation of Martin Kmpchen and the English of William Radice.4 In my translation from Bengali transposed into English it runs:
The clouds move at the sky, burstingly lled with rain, I sit at the shore, without hope; bundle after bundle lie on the earth in heaps, the whole rice is cut; the river is lled to the brim, it is sharp like a knife, heavy is its touch; as the rice is cut, it starts to rain . A small eld, I am alone (there), in all directions the water runs as if it plays, at the other shore I see the signs 4 The One and the Many, Calgary 22009, p. 21.

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of the shadows of the trees as if painted with ink, behind them half-covered by a cloud lies a hamlet at the beginning of the day. At this shore the small eld, I am alone (therein). Who is driven by the wind to the shore singing? It seems to me, as if I know her already, the sail is swollen by the wind, she looks neither here nor there, the waves are helplessly breaking at the sides of the boat, it seems to me, as if I know her already. Oh, where do you sail, in which foreign country? Lead the boat ashore, come to the coast, go, whereever you want, give to whom you like, only smile at me for a moment, then take my golden rice, for which you have come to the shore. Whatever you want, take on the boat! Is that all? Nothing left! I have given all. As much I was given here at the shore, as much I forgot, I have parted with all of it and given it away, layer after layer! And now take me on the boat! Show mercy! No place is left? No place at all? The boat is too small? My golden rice is lling the whole boat? In the rainy month the sky is covered with thick clouds going up and down, at the empty shore of the river I remain alone, what is that was, the golden boat has taken it all.

The poem cannot be explained by the supercial conception of romanticism attached to it today. In Kmpchen s translation the boat is rowed, being technically impossible for a single boat-

4 man, in Radice translation it is steered, but the boat has neither oars nor a steering wheel, it is drawn by the wind, because it is of divine nature. This is the reason, why it is golden like the sheaves of rice that are related to it, because man is virtually identical to the divine gure in the boat. At the time, when Tagore wrote this poem (1894), he was a leading member of the Brahmo Samaj and a monotheist hence, but in the Indian way. In Christianity and other monotheistic religions god is male, in Bengali he can be female, male or neuter. According to the Bhagavadgt man has a right to work, not to the fruits thereof. This doctrine can be carried out only by the upper classes and in a society with a spiritual fundament. In a society with materialistic aims it can be misused for the justication of suppression and exploitation, as it was done under the British rule. If the workers on the eld that is threatened with rain, i.e. by the power of nature, give away, whatever they have, they become impoverished, as it happened in India. The solution of the problem cannot be achieved either, if India tries to live still more according to Western rules. The boat drives in a foreign country with the experiences in the time, the poet was given, also with that of former births that he has forgotten, but kept safely in his subconsciousness known by the yogi and later discovered to a certain extent by Freud in the dream state of his patients. These implications have not been recognized in the translations of Kmpchen and Radice, because they replace the word for time and experience through the word for work which has Western connotations. The foreign country is a better India in the rst place. In Gtjali 106 Tagore invites the whole of mankind, Aryas and non-Aryas, Hindus, Moslems and Christians to the humanity of his country. In a higher sense the foreign country is the country beyond death that is open to everybody. The last stanza reminds us of the poet s hopelessness that we came have noted already in the rst stanza. Now we learn that it is caused by his having given away everything without having got anything back apparently.

5 In the last line the verb to be (not to have) should be added. To give up everything including the ego is the fundament of yoga. Tagore got the Nobel prize ten years later, but does this lead to a spiritual vision, a vision of the whole truth? Can we understand Tagore without this vision or when we believe that the computer specialist S. Jobs and Columbus were visionaries? If Tagore is a visionary in the spiritual sense, then those who want to understand him, must be or become visionaries too. The deeper layers of Tagore s mind are also reveiled in his relationship to the other sex in his poetry, where he oscillates between mother and daughter as it is known from the g-Veda. It is reected described in the conict between the girl Aparna and the goddess Kali in his drama The sacrice ending up in the removal of the goddess from the temple. Child-marriage prevents the misuse of girls till today. Pederasty is regarded as a relationship as in ancient Greek and Persia. Therefore things that happened in the Odenwaldschule do not occur in ntiniketan.5 Gtjali 121, incorporated by Tagore as no. 56 in his Gtjalianthology, reads in my translation from Bengali:
This your joy in me is marvellous, by it you have come down, if I was not, lord of the three worlds, your love would remain unanswered. Through your love we meet at the celebrations, in my heart you create the play of feelings, in my love you appear in the different forms, through your desire they come up like waves. Through it, o king of kings, you have come back in my heart in so many forms that enchant it. You, o lord, are always awake. In these forms you have come down here, your love is present in the love of the hearts of the bhaktas, in the pairwise union your complete form appears. 5 Cf. Dasgupta, Mein Tagore, Heidelberg 2011, p. 90.

6 This joy is described by Tagore in Gtjali 46 too. It becomes perfect only through the love for a divine form as it is experience by the bhakta, the lover of god in his male and female union also known as Ardhanarvara in medieval Indian art. It can be traced back to the Vedic conception of the cosmic man that has been born by his daughter, the goddess of speech, in his own head as it is described in V X.125. The mutual relationship of the deity and his or her lover is also illustrated in the poems of the Buls, a tantric-vi uitic community of beggars, whose members search throughout their life the man of the heart, who is mentioned already in vetvatara Upani ad III.13 as the cosmic mind (the puru a) living in the heart in the size of a thumb. A similar idea in regard to god is found in an aphorism of Angelus Silesius quoted by A. Dasgupta with regard to Gtjali 46:6 I know, that without me god cannot live for a moment, if I lose my existence, he will lose his too. The name bul can be deduced from the Vedic vratya, whose original meaning was like the wind and mad (vtula, vtya). Like the Vedic vrtyas described in g-Veda X.136 called kein (longhaired) and muni (ecstatic) there, they live outside society, wear a brown dress or nothing, have long hairs and wander around with the wind. The munis do not believe in one god only, but are sometimes the friend of this and sometimes the friend of that god and in this way they contribute to the well-being of everybody ( g-Veda X.136.4). They are known already in the Indus-culture. Their emblem on the Indus-seals is a sevenfold centaurlike composite animal. Like the Vrtyas and the Tibetic monks the Buls live in community with a woman who is regarded as a goddess. In spite of
6 Mein Tagore, Heidelberg 2011, p. 99. Dasgupta contends, that Gtjali cannot be translated, but this would certainly not be in agreement with Tagore s intention. It is preferable to compare different translations, otherwise an improvement is impossible.

7 this she is treated as lower than the man. In the Indus-culture and in the Veda she was regarded as equal as is known from the dialogue of king Purravas and the water-woman Urva.7 The Buls celebrate often festivals (mel), where they venerate Vi u. Such a festival was introduced on their behalf by Tagore in ntiniketan, where it is still celebrated once a year. This proves that Tagore belongs to a greater tradition, that even includes the Indus-culture. In the Indus-script the sh is a symbol of the seer. When it is caught in the mouth of a crocodile, it is an illustration of intuition also known from Akkadian seals, in particular of a seal with the name of Melu a, the Akkadian name of the country at the Indus river.8 By the ship that is depicted on several Indus seals the Indus-culture was connected with Mesopoatamia. In the g-Veda that was regarded as the oldest testimony of the Indian tradition till the excavation of the Indus-culture in the beginning of the last century, in the Veda the ship is mentioned in several hymns.9 It is also contained in the inscription of a seal from Susa in Iran, which can be read in analogy to a Vedic verse (cf. appendix). If we want to improve our understanding of Tagore, it is necessary to realize that he belongs to this older tradition by the deeper layers of his consciousness, which we should think of on the occasion of his 150th birthday, which has brought us together at this place.

6 Cf. my article on this dialogue-hymn in Journal of the Oriental Institute, Sept.-Dec. 2008, p. 1-18. 8 Cf. E. Richter-Ushanas, The message of Indus seals and tablets, p. 71. 9 I do not agree with those Indian scholars who believe that the Veda is older than the Indus-culture and date it before the 6th millennium BCE. For the discussion of the problem cf. E. Richter-Ushanas, Vedic cosmogony and the Indus script, Worpswede 22011.

Appendix: A cylinder seal from Susa (Muse du Louvre; ca. 2600-1700; 2,3 x 1,6 cm)

This cylinder seal, carved with a Harappan inscription, originated in the Indus Valley. It is made of red steatite, a material widely used by craftsmen in Harappa. The animal - a bull with no hump on its shoulders - is also widely attested in the region. The seal was found in Susa, reecting the extent of commercial links between Mesopotamia, Iran, and the Indus.10 White only thinks of commercial links, but there are religious links too as they are reected in the inscription of the seal . By the rst two signs we are directed to V 11 I.25.7,8: Who knows the trace of the birds, that y through the air, and of the ship, the oceanlike (god); who knows the twelve months and the one behind, the supporter of the law, (Varu a), knows also him, that was born afterwards.
10 B. White in http//www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp 11 For the decipherment of the Indus-script cf. E. Richter-Ushanas, Der Fnfte Veda, Die Indus-Siegel im Vergleich zum g-Veda, Nordhausen 22011; The Message of Indus Seals and Tablets, Worpswede 4 2011

9 The literal translation is equal to: Varu a (4) is the knower (3) of the 12 months (1) and of the one coming behind (2), the (unvisible) trace (7) of the birds (5) in the air (6) and of the ship (8). The motif is described in V I.25.16: My thoughts move around like cows an the meadows. The short stroke means one and trace, which is an illustration of the ambivalence of the Indus-signs especially valid for the number-signs. The man-sign depicts a water-carrier without the bags. Knowledge can only be obtained by concentration without work. Varu a is called oceanlike here (samudriya) as it is illustrated by the double comb-sign. The combs depict the waves here. The sign for air can also mean sieve. Both are called pavana in Sanskrit. The birds are probably ha sa-gooses mentioned by Tagore in his last poem of Gitanjali and also known in the Veda. They form a pair. Their trace in the air is invisible,12 nevertheless they always nd their destination through their inner watch. Tagore adopts this image in one of his English aphorisms: I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad I have had my ight.13 The ship-sign at the end of the inscription is also depicting Varu a s threefold noose corresponding to earth, intermediate space and sky, which the poet of the hymn, the boy una epa who has been bound to a sacricial post, wants to get rid of. This is possible only through yoga, that entered the Veda through the Vrtyas. The Veda trancends hence the three gu as or strands though this is refused in the Bhagavadgt, because its author believes that the Veda is simply a book of rituals. The Indus ships that had oars and a sail is an image of yoga like Tagore s golden boat and the water-carrier.

12 Cf. Geldner s note in his translation of the g-Veda. 13 Fireies, quoted from W. Radice, op.cit., p. 43.

10 This illustrates that there is an unbroken though not always visible chain between the Indus-culture and Tagore s poetry as with a river that ows under a mountain for some time. Susa in Persia was reached from the Indus culture like Mesopotamia on the ocean, therefore Varuna is addressed as the deity of the ocean.

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Egbert Richter was born in Bremen in 1938. He works as a free-lanced writer, Sanskrit-translator and lecturer on Indian philosophy since leaving school in 1957 after having studied Sanskrit and Indian philosophy in London at a centre of the Ramakrishna mission, without knowing anything about the civil background of that foundation. From 1961 till 1964 he studied Sanskrit and Hindi at the Free University of Berlin with a Bengali lecturer. In 1966/1967 he travelled through India for the rst time, where he stayed three days at Tagore s place in ntiniketan. After his return from India he became member of a socialistic at-sharing community which became the nucleus of the Green party. He rented a farmhouse near Bremen, where he installed a book-workshop with a hand press, where he printed the Bhagavadgt and poems and a dramatical work on Indian philosophy. From 1976 to 1979 he studied Western philosophy and related subjects in Hamburg. After he had obtained a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a dissertation on the philosophy of the Bhagavadgt in 1979, he studied Indian philosophy and the g-Veda at Heidelberg. Since his work was not supported in the way he expected, he returned the scholarship. Instead he continued his studies of science of religion in Bremen, which he nished with a diploma in 1990. In 1988 he started with the decipherment of the Indus script, with which he had become acquainted on the way back from India by car in 1974. His studies included other word scripts like the script of Easter island and the Minoan hieroglyphs on the disc of Phaistos. In the search of modern relatives of the Indus language he studied Tamil and Bengali, which lead to the translation of Tagore s Gtjali in 2011. Till 2010 he published all his works on his own risk and expenses. Since that time a great deal of them has appeared in the publishing house of Traugott Bautz in Thuringia. Though his decipherings are called subjective or even devaluated as pseudo-scientic in the internet by Western scholars, he obtained a scholarship from the German research association (DFG) for the participation at a congress organized by the World Association for Vedic Studies (WAVES) in Orlando in 2008, where he was awarded the title expert in ancient Indian culture (prachya vidya parangata) by this organisation. With the appendix Ushanas in his pen name he refers to his lifelong relationship to the ancient Indian and the Vedic tradition in particular.