Saumyendranath on Rabindranath

Compilation and Editing: AMIT DAS

Genre: Non-Fiction
Language: English
ISBN: 978-93-92281-38-9
Published: 31 January 2025
Pages: 116
Binding: Hardbound
Published by: Virasat Trade

The ancestral home of the Tagores in Jorasanko was the epicentre of ideas, both cultural and social as well as political that inspired the rest of Bengal in the 19th century.

A towering member of the remarkable family was Saumyendranath Tagore — an embodiment of the best of the East and the West. A powerful and eloquent speaker, he was mellifluous—or devastating when discussing metaphysics or economic theories or the discussions on various aspects of Rabindranath and his thought— he held his audience spell-bound for hours. Rabindranath Tagore, as the writer of this anthology, Saumyendranath said, was one of the very few supreme artists of this world. He realised the underlying unity between the individual and the Universal being. While discussing the poet’s philosophy of life, concept of universal humanism and ideas of aesthetics, Saumyendranath has shown how the worldview of the Poet-Philosopher-Artist has been manifested in his music, poems, Hibbert lectures on Nationalism and Humanism. The selected articles mainly deal with poet’s English writings and lectures.

The present collection of Saumyendranath writings on Tagore’s contribution to Indian music, his ideas on aesthetics, the poet’s philosophy of life and concept of Universal Humanism confirms Saumyendranath’s unique understanding of Tagore, not only as a poet, but also as a philosopher, musician and proponent of Aesthetics based on Ananda.

Tagore’s music, according to Saumyendranath, introduced a new note, his songs gave expression to the moods of the flowing movement of life, ‘music’ was rescued from the status of an impersonal exercise. Tagore achieved a fine blend between the lyric and melody. The words and melody find a synthesised form. A song, therefore is not merely a melody, it is a blending of words pregnant with deep emotion.

Saumyendranath feels that as a poet and artist, Tagore always aspired for freedom and the realisation of a transcendental personality. In his writings on personality, lecture on nationalism, he laid stress on the realisations of the spirit of unity, the unity between the individual and universal being.

Saumyendranath’s understanding of Tagore touched the chord of the poet’s fear of the consequences of aggressive nationalism, his warning against it, ‘nationalism as a great menace, came true in its wild form in Nazism. Poet philosopher Tagore was prophetic in refuting the western model of nation, the great menace. Poet warned the west, ‘it is not a question of a particular country’s travail and misery. It is the world of humanity that suffers.’ The writings included have been taken from various sources, viz the Centenary volume of Calcutta Municipal Gazette and Gujarat University’s Tagore Centenary Volume. ‘Rabindranath Tagore and Universal Humanism’ was a booklet published by Standard Vacuum Oil Company. ‘The Poets Philosophy of Life’ was published first by ‘Baitanik’, and has been included in the present compilation.