About Sri Aurobindo's Interpretation of Indian Culture
Sri Aurobindo’s profound exploration of Indian culture revealed the magnificent truths and secret knowledge hidden within the Vedas and Upanishads, the richness of spirit reflected in various hymns and sagas, and the underlying essence among different religions and their impact on shaping life and activities across centuries. Originally published as a series of essays in the journal Sri Aurobindo Circle, this book provides a literate, accessible introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of Indian culture.Choosing to focus on Indian literature,Prema Nandkumar examines Sri Aurobindo’s insights in a comprehensive manner covering the Vedic age, the great Indian epics, Kalidasa’s place in world poetry, the classical age of Sanskrit writers with their cultured thought and high imagination, the Puranas, and several chapters on Indian religion and spirituality, culminating in the Sanatana Dharma, the eternal religion. The depth and breadth of his observations bring a new dimension to our understanding of Indian culture and its relevance in reclaiming her heritage for the modern age.
REVIEW
Dr Prema Nandakumar’s book Sri Aurobindo’s Interpretation of Indian Culture has its origin in a series of articles published in the annual journal Sri Aurobindo Circle beginning in 1979 and continuing up to the mid-1990s. The book gives a sense of the author’s joy both as a budding writer and as a reader entering into the vastnesses of Sri Aurobindo’s writings. As a teenager, she had been gifted a copy of The Foundations of Indian Culture by her father, the well-known author K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, and as a student of Indian history, she had made constant use of The Foundations over many years.
In the book at hand, the page references are to Volume 14 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (1972). Later, in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, the same writings are published as Volume 20 under the title The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture. The order of the essays, and hence the page numbering, is different in this new edition.
The introductory chapter points out some special features of Sri Aurobindo’s view of Indian culture and the situation in India when he returned there after fourteen years in England:
1) Sri Aurobindo’s “Occidental-Oriental comparisons, as if he were testing ... [India’s] accomplishments by the yardstick of European achievement”;
2) The sad fact of India’s degeneration into bourgeois mediocrity and almost total subjection to the English ‘masters’;
3) Sri Aurobindo’s conviction that the stirrings of a renaissance could already be felt, which could restore India to its former glory;
4) In line with his vision of India reclaiming her spiritual and heroic past, Sri Aurobindo set about serialising the greater part of his major works in the Arya, seeking to embody the inner knowledge that had come to him in his practice of Yoga. His original intention to create a vast synthesis of knowledge from the starting point of the knowledge of the West and the knowledge of the East;
5) Several series of essays that appeared in the Arya from August 1918 were published later as The Foundations of Indian Culture, and it is these which form the basis of the present book. Sri Aurobindo took the opportunity to further Sir John Woodroffe’s answer to a book by Mr William Archer (1856–1924) entitled India and the Future (1917), which was a ‘wholesale and unsparing condemnation’ of India and her culture. Mr Archer was a Scottish author and theatre critic who unwittingly ventured into a scathing criticism of India and brought about an unsparing reply from Sri Aurobindo, singling out his ignorance as an example of Europe’s pervasive non-comprehension of Indian culture; and
6) Lastly, there is Sri Aurobindo’s A Defence of Indian Culture. In the SABCL, this covers four areas of Indian culture: religion and spirituality, Indian art, Indian literature and Indian polity.
Following the introductory chapter, the remainder of the book comprehensively deals with two sections of A Defence of Indian Culture, namely, Indian literature and Indian religion and spirituality. Chapters Two to Eight cover the Veda, the Upanishads, the great Indian epics, Kalidasa, the Classical Age, the Puranas, and the New Efflorescence. The final six chapters deal with Indian religion and spirituality.
Following the introductory chapter, the remainder of the book comprehensively deals with two sections of A Defence of Indian Culture, namely, Indian literature and Indian religion and spirituality. Chapters Two to Eight cover the Veda, the Upanishads, the great Indian epics, Kalidasa, the Classical Age, the Puranas, and the New Efflorescence. The final six chapters deal with Indian religion and spirituality.
The chapter called “The New Efflorescence” deals with the period from about 1000 A.D. onwards, when earlier Sanskrit works were recreated and translated into the still-evolving modern languages of India. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, “Most of these tongues have felt the cultural necessity of transferring into the popular speech the...central story of the Mahabharata...and, still more universally, the story of the Ramayana.” This was a period of intense and original creativity in the regional languages.
Overall, the book is treasure trove of gems of Indian culture taken from the pages of Sri Aurobindo’s writings and presented in a more accessible form. However, proofreading of the book seems to have not been done, and there are many typographical errors. This stands in contrast to the original articles in the Sri Aurobindo Circle, where each page was not only free of misprints but also pleasing to the eye. And that too in the days when the pages were set in lead type.
In conclusion, a small selection of interesting passages from the book: Some words from a letter of Amal Kiran: “...since India is still the country with the greatest spiritual experience, the spiritual fulfilment of the English speech...will first come – if it already hasn’t – through Indians and not Englishmen...” Rather than feeling any bitterness towards his critic, Sri Aurobindo took Mr Archer’s attack on Indian culture positively: “...it is useful to have before us an attack which covers the whole field so that we may see in one comprehensive view the entire enemy case against our culture.”
Again, from Sri Aurobindo: “India must defend herself by reshaping her cultural forms to express more powerfully, intimately and perfectly her ancient ideal.” The book contains a wealth of suggestions for further reading for anyone interested in Indian literature, and it will be doing its best service if it encourages readers to go to the source texts found in The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture.
—Bryce Grinlington
Bryce worked as an electrical engineer in Australia before coming to India. At the Sri Aurobindo Ashram he has worked at the Archives and Research Library and at present teaches music at SAICE.
