CHANDALIKA BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

CHANDALIKA 
RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, novelist, short story writer and dramatist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore’s interest in drama was fostered while he was a boy, for his family enjoyed writing and staging plays. The music in his plays is instrumental in bringing out the delicate display of emotion around an idea. The central interest in his plays is the unfolding of character; of the opening up of the soul to enlightenment of some sort.

INTRODUCTION

This short drama is based on the following Buddhist legend. Ananda, the famous disciple of the Buddha, was one day returning from a visit when he felt thirsty and, approaching a well on the way, asked for water from a chandalika, a girl belonging to the lowest untouchable caste. The girl gave him water and fell in love with the beautiful monk. Unable to restrain herself, she made her mother, who knew the art of magic, work her spell on him. The spell proved stronger than Ananda’s will and the spell-bound monk presented himself at their house at night; but, as he saw the girl spread the couch for him, he was overcome with shame and remorse and prayed inwardly to his master to save him. The Buddha heard the prayer and broke the magic spell and Ananda went away, as pure as he came. This crude plot of the popular tale, showing how the psychic power of the Buddha saves his devotee from the lust of a chandal girl, has been transformed by the poet into a psychological drama of intense spiritual conflict. It is not the story of a wicked girl roused to lust by the physical beauty of the monk, but of a very sensitive girl, condemned by her birth to a despised caste, who is suddenly awakened to a consciousness of her full rights as a woman by the humanity of a follower of the Buddha, who accepts water from her hand and teaches her to judge herself not by the artificial values that society attaches to the accidents of birth, but by her capacity for love and service.

This is a great revelation for her, which she calls a new birth; for she is washed clean of her self-degradation and rises up a full human being with her right to love and to give. And since her own self is the most she can give, and since none is more worthy of the gift of her surrender than the bhikshu who has redeemed, or, as she puts it, created her, she yearns to offer herself to him. But Ananda, detached from all earthly cares and immersed in his inner self, knows nothing of all this and passes by without recognising her.

She is humiliated, wounded in her newly awakened sensibility, and determines to drag the monk from his pride of renunciation to the abjectness of desire for her. She has lost all religious scruple or fear, for she owed nothing to religion save her humiliation.

‘A religion that insults is a false religion. Everyone united to make me conform to a creed that blinds and gags. But since that day something forbids me to conform any longer. I’m afraid of nothing now.’

She forces her mother to exercise her art of magic on Ananda. She refers to it as the primeval spell, the spell of the earth, which is far more potent than the immature sadhana of the monks. The ‘spell of the earth’ proves its force and Ananda is dragged to their door, his face distorted with agony and shame. Seeing her redeemer, so noble and resplendent before, thus cruelly transformed and degraded, she is horrified at the selfish and destructive nature of her desire. The hero to whom she yearned to dedicate herself was not this creature, blinded by lust and darkened with shame, but Ananda of the radiant form, who had given her the gift of a new birth and had revealed her own true humanity. In remorse she curses herself and falls at his feet, begging for forgiveness. The mother revokes the spell and willingly pays the price of such revocation, which is death. The chandalika is thus redeemed for the second time, purged of the pride and egoism that had made her forget that love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.

Chandalika is a tragedy of self-consciousness overreaching its limit. Self-consciousness, up to a point, is necessary to self-development; for, without an awareness of the dignity of one’s own role or function, one cannot give one’s best to the world. Without rights there can be no obligations, and service and virtue when forced become marks of slavery. But self-consciousness, like good wine, easily intoxicates, and it is difficult to control the dose and have just enough of it. Vanity and pride get the upper hand and he who clings to his rights very often trespasses on those of others. This is what happened to the heroine. Prakriti, in her eagerness to give, forgot that Ananda need not take; her devotion grew so passionate that she could not make her surrender without first possessing. Yet it was inevitable that it should be so; for a new consciousness, after ages of suppression, is overpowering and one learns restraint only after suffering. Hence the tragedy. The good mother who, so unwillingly, worked the spell to please her importunate daughter, and who so willingly revoked it to save Ananda, dies in the process. The daughter, though chastened and made wise by suffering, has paid a heavy price; for wisdom is not happiness and renunciation is not fulfillment.

ACT – I

MOTHER. Prakriti! Prakriti! Where has she gone? What ails the girl, I wonder? She’s never to be found in the house.

PRAKRITI. Here, mother, here I am.

MOTHER. Where?

PRAKRITI. Here, by the well.

MOTHER. Whatever will you do next? Past noon, and a blistering sun, and the earth too hot for the feet! The morning’s water was drawn long ago, and the other girls in the village have all taken their pots home. Why, the very crows on the amloki branches are gasping for heat. Yet you sit and roast in the Vaisakh sun for no reason at all! There’s a story in the Purana about how Uma left home and did penance in the burning sun—is that what you are about?

PRAKRITI. Yes, mother, that’s it—I’m doing penance.

MOTHER. Good heavens! And for whom?

PRAKRITI. For someone whose call has come to me.

MOTHER. What call is that?

PRAKRITI. ‘Give me water.’ He set the words echoing in my heart.

MOTHER. Heaven defend us! He said to you ‘Give me water’? Who was it? Someone of our own caste? PRAKRITI. That’s what he said—that he belonged to our kind.

MOTHER. You didn’t hide your caste? Did you tell him that you are a chandalini?

PRAKRITI. I told him, yes. He said it wasn’t true. If the black clouds of Sravana are dubbed chandal, he said, what of it? It doesn’t change their nature, or destroy the virtue of their water. Don’t humiliate yourself, he said; self-humiliation is a sin, worse than self-murder.

MOTHER. What words are these from you? Have you remembered some tale of a former birth? PRAKRITI. No, this is a tale of my new birth.

MOTHER. You make me laugh. New birth, indeed! Since when, pray?

PRAKRITI. It was the other day. The palace gong had just struck noon and it was blazing hot. I was washing that calf at the well—the one whose mother died. Then a Buddhist monk came and stood before me, in his yellow robes, and said, ‘Give me water’. My heart leaped with wonder. I started up trembling and bowed before his feet, without touching them. His form was radiant as with the light of dawn. I said, ‘I am a chandalini, and the well-water is unclean’. He said, ‘As I am a human being, so also are you, and all water is clean and holy that cools our heat and satisfies our thirst’. For the first time in my life I heard such words, for the first time I poured water into his cupped hands—the hands of a man the very dust of whose feet I would never have dared to touch.

MOTHER. O, you stupid girl, how could you be so reckless? There will be a price to pay for this madness! Don’t you know what caste you were born in?

PRAKRITI. Only once did he cup his hands, to take the water from mine. Such a little water, yet that water grew to a fathomless, boundless sea. In it flowed all the seven seas in one, and my caste was drowned, and my birth washed clean.

MOTHER. Why, even the way you speak is changed. He has laid your tongue under a spell. Do you understand yourself what you are saying?

PRAKRITI. Was there no other water, mother, in all Sravasti city? Why did he come to this well of all wells? I may truly call it my new birth! He came to give me the honour of quenching Man’s thirst. That was the mighty act of merit which he sought. Nowhere else could he have found the water which could fulfill his holy vow— no, not in any sacred stream. He said that Janaki bathed in such water as this, at the beginning of her forest exile, and that Guhak, the chandal, drew it for her. My heart has been dancing ever since, and night and day I hear those solemn tones— ‘Give me water, give me water’.

MOTHER. I don’t know what to make of it, child; I don’t like it. I don’t understand the magic of their spells. Today I don’t recognise your speech; tomorrow, perhaps, I shall not even recognise your face. Their spells can make a changeling of the very soul itself.

PRAKRITI. All these days you have never really known me, mother. He who has recognised me will reveal me. And so I wait and watch. The midday gong booms from the palace, the girls take up their water-pots and go home, the kite soars alone into the far sky, and I bring my pitcher and sit here at the well by the wayside.

MOTHER. For whom do you wait?

PRAKRITI. For the wayfarer.

MOTHER. What wayfarer will come to you, you crazy girl?

PRAKRITI. That one wayfarer, mother, the one and only. In him are all who fare along the ways of all the world. Day after day goes by, yet he does not come. Though he spoke no word, his word was given—why does he not keep his word? For my heart is become like a waterless waste, where the heat-haze quivers all day long. Its water cannot be given, for no one comes to seek it.

MOTHER. I can make nothing of your talk today; it’s as though you were intoxicated. Tell me plainly, what do you want?

PRAKRITI. I want him. All unlooked for—he came, and taught me this marvellous truth, that even my service will count with the God who guides the world. O words of great wonder! That I may serve, I, a flower sprung from a poison-plant! Let him raise that truth, that flower from the dust, and take it to his bosom.

MOTHER. Be warned, Prakriti, these men’s words are meant only to be heard, not to be practised. The filth into which an evil fate has cast you is a wall of mud that no spade in the world can break through. You are unclean; beware of tainting the outside world with your unclean presence. See that you keep to your own place, narrow as it is. To stray anywhere beyond its limits is to trespass.

PRAKRITI [sings]. Blessed am I, says the flower, who belong to the earth. For I serve you, my God, in this my lowly home. Make me forget that I am born of dust, For my spirit is free from it. When you bend your eyes upon me my petals tremble in joy; Give me a touch of your feet and make me heavenly, For the earth must offer its worship through me.

MOTHER. Child, I’m beginning to understand something of what you say. You are a woman; by serving you must worship, and by serving you must rule. Women alone can in a moment overstep the bounds of caste; when once the curtains of destiny are drawn aside, they all stand revealed in their queenliness. You had a good chance, you know, when the king’s son was deer-hunting and came to this very well of yours. You remember, don’t you?

PRAKRITI. Yes, I remember.

MOTHER. Why didn’t you go to the king’s house? He had forgotten everything in your beauty.

PRAKRITI. Yes, he had forgotten everything—forgotten that I was a human being. He had gone out hunting beasts; he saw nothing but the beast whom he wanted to bind in chains of gold.

MOTHER. At least he noticed your beauty, if only as game to be hunted. As for the Bhikshu, does he see the woman in you?

PRAKRITI. You won’t understand, mother, you won’t! I feel that in all these days he is the first who ever really recognised me. That is a marvellous thing. I want him, mother, I want him beyond all measure. I want to take this life of mine and lay it like a basket of flowers at his feet. It will not defile them. Let everyone marvel at my daring! I shall glory in my claim. ‘I am your handmaid,’ I shall declare—for otherwise I must lie bound for ever at the whole world’s feet, a slave!

MOTHER. Why do you get so excited, child? You were born a slave. It’s the writ of Destiny, who can undo it?

PRAKRITI. Fie, fie, Mother, I tell you again, don’t delude yourself with this self-humiliation—it is false, and a sin. Plenty of slaves are born of royal blood, but I am no slave; plenty of chandals are born of Brahmin families, but I am no chandal.

MOTHER. I don’t know how to answer you, child. Very good. I’ll go to him myself, and cling to his feet. ‘You accept food from every home’, I’ll say. ‘Come to our house too, and accept from our hands at least a bowl of water.’

PRAKRITI. No, no, I’ll not call him in that way, from outside. I’ll send my call into his soul, for him to hear. I am longing to give myself; it is like a pain at my heart. Who is going to accept the gift? Who will join with me in give-and-take? Will he not mingle his longings with mine, as the Ganges mingles with the black waters of the Jumna? For music springs up of itself, and he who came unbidden has left behind him a word of hope. What is the use of one pitcher of water when the earth is cracked with drought? Will not the clouds come of themselves to fill the whole sky, the rain seek the soil by its own weight?

MOTHER. What is the use of such talk? If the clouds come, they come: if they don’t, they don’t; if the crops wither, it’s no concern of theirs! What more can we do than sit and watch the sky?

PRAKRITI. That won’t do for me; I won’t simply sit and watch. You know how to work spells; let those spells be the clasp of my arms, let them drag him here.

MOTHER. What are you saying, wretched girl? Is there no limit to your recklessness? It would be playing with fire! Are these bhikshus like ordinary folk? How am I to work spells on them? I shudder even to think of it.

PRAKRITI. You would have worked them boldly enough on the king’s son.

MOTHER. I’m not afraid of the king; he might have had me impaled, perhaps. But these men—they do nothing.

PRAKRITI. I fear nothing any longer, except to sink back again, to forget myself again, to enter again the house of darkness. That would be worse than death! Bring him here you must! I speak so boldly, of such great matters—isn’t that in itself a wonder? Who worked the wonder but he? Shall there not be further wonders? Shall he not come to my side, and sit with me on the corner of my cloth?

MOTHER. Suppose I can bring him, are you ready to pay the price? Nothing will be left to you.

PRAKRITI. No, nothing will be left. The burden and heritage of birth after birth—nothing will remain. Only let me bring it all to an end, then I shall live indeed. That’s why I need him. Nothing will be left me. I have waited for age after age, and now in this birth my life shall be fulfilled. My mind is saying it over and over again— fulfilled! It was for this that I heard those wonderful words, ‘Give me water’. Today I know that even I can give. Everyone else had hidden the truth from me. I sit and watch for his coming today to give, to give, to give everything I have.

MOTHER. Have you no respect for religion?

PRAKRITI. How can I say? I respect him who respects me. A religion that insults is a false religion. Everyone united to make me conform to a creed that blinds and gags. But since that day something forbids me to conform any longer. I’m afraid of nothing now. Chant your spells, bring the Bhikshu to the side of the chandalini. I myself shall do him honour—no one else can honour him so well.

MOTHER. Aren’t you afraid of bringing a curse upon yourself?

PRAKRITI. There has been a curse upon me all my life. Poison kills poison, they say—so one curse another. Not another word, mother, not another word. Begin your spells, I cannot bear any more delay. MOTHER. Very well, then. What is his name?

PRAKRITI. His name is Ananda.

MOTHER. Ananda? The disciple of the Lord Buddha?

PRAKRITI. Yes, it is he.

MOTHER. O my heart’s treasure, you are the apple of my eye—but it’s a great wrong I’m putting my hand to at your bidding!

PRAKRITI. What wrong? I will bring to my side the one who brings all near. What crime is there in that?

MOTHER. They draw men by the strength of their virtue. We drag them with spells, as beasts are dragged in a noose. We only churn up the mud.

PRAKRITI. So much the better. Without the churning, how can the well be cleansed?

MOTHER (apostrophising Ananda]. O thou exalted one, thy power to forgive is greater far than my power to offend. I am about to do thee dishonour, yet I bow before thee: accept my obeisance, Lord.

PRAKRITI. What are you afraid of, mother? Yours are the lips I use, but it’s I who chant the spells. If my longing can draw him here, and if that is a crime, then I will commit the crime. I care nothing for a code which holds only punishment, and no comfort.

MOTHER. You are immensely daring, Prakriti.

PRAKRITI. You call me daring? Think of the might of his daring! How simply he spoke the words which no one had ever dared to say to me before! ‘Give me water.’ Such little words, yet as mighty as flame—they filled all my days with light, they rolled away the black stone whose weight so long had stopped the fountains of my heart, and the joy bubbled forth. Your fear is an illusion, for you did not see him. All morning he had begged alms in Sravasti city; when his task was done he came, across the common, past the burning-ground, along the river bank, with the hot sun on his head— and all for what? To say that one word, ‘Give me water’, even to a girl like me. O, it is too wonderful! Whence did such grace, such love, come down—upon a wretch unworthy beyond all others? What can I fear now? ‘Give me water’—yes, the water which has filled all my days to overflowing, which I must needs give or die! ‘Give me water.’ In a moment I knew that I had water, inexhaustible water; to whom should I tell my joy? And so I call him night and day. If he does not hear, fear not; chant your spell, he will be able to bear it.

MOTHER. Look, Prakriti, some men in yellow robes are going by the road across the common.

PRAKRITI. So they are; all the monks of the sangha, I see. Don’t you hear them chanting?

[The chant is heard in the distance.]

To the most pure Buddha, mighty ocean of mercy, Seer of knowledge absolute, pure, supreme, Of the world’s sin and suffering the Destroyer— Solemnly to the Buddha I bow in homage.

PRAKRITI. O Mother, see, he is going, there ahead of them all. He never turned his head or looked towards this well. He could so easily have said ‘Give me water’ once more before he went. I thought he would never be able to cast me aside—me, his own handiwork, his new creation. [She flings herself down and beats her head on the ground.] This dust, this dust is your place! O wretched woman, who raised you to bloom for a moment in the light? Fallen in the end into this same dust, you must mingle for all time with this same dust, trampled underfoot by all who travel the road.

MOTHER. Child, dear child, forget it, forget it all. They have broken your momentary dream, and they are going away—let them go, let them go. When a thing is not meant to last, the quicker it goes the better.

PRAKRITI. Day after day this cry of desire, moment by moment this burden of shame; this prisoned bird in my breast, that beats its wings unto death—do you call it a dream? A dream, is it, that sinks its sharp

teeth into the fibres of my heart, and will not loosen its grip? And they, who have no ties, no joy or sorrow, no earthly burden, who float along like the clouds in autumn—are only they awake, are only they real?

MOTHER. O Prakriti, I cannot bear to see you suffer so. Come, get up, I will chant the spells, I will bring him. All along the dusty road I will bring him. ‘I want nothing,’ he says in his pride. I’ll break that pride and make him come, running and crying ‘I want, I want’.

PRAKRITI. Mother, yours is an ancient spell, as old as life itself. Their mantras are raw things of yesterday. These men can never be a match for you—the knot of their mantras will be loosened under the stress of your spells. He is bound to be defeated.

MOTHER. Where are they going?

PRAKRITI. Going? They are going nowhere! During the rains they remain four months in penance and fasting, and then they are off again, how should I know where? That’s what they call being awake!

MOTHER. Then why are you talking of spells, you crazy thing? He is going so far—how am I to bring him back?

PRAKRITI. No matter where he goes, you must bring him back. Distance is nothing for your spells. He showed no pity to me, I shall show none to him. Chant your spell, your cruellest spells; wind them about his mind till every coil bites deep. Wherever he goes, he shall never escape me!

MOTHER. You need not fear, it is not beyond our powers. I will give you this magic mirror; you shall take it in your hand and dance. His shadow will fall on the glass, and in it you will see what happens to him and how near he has come.

PRAKRITI. See there the clouds, the storm clouds, gathered in the west. The spell will work, mother, it will work. His dry meditations will scatter like withered leaves; his lamp will go out, his path will be lost in darkness. As a bird at dead of night falls fluttering into the dark courtyard, its nest broken in the storm, even so shall he be whirled helpless to our doors. The thunder throbs in my heart, my mind is filled with the lightning flash, the waves foam high in an ocean whose shore I cannot see.

MOTHER. Think well even now, lest sudden terror spring upon you with the work half done. Can you endure to the end? When the spell has reached its height, it would cost me my life to undo it. Remember that this fire will not die down till all that will burn is burnt to ashes.

PRAKRITI. For whom are you afraid? Is he a common man? Nothing will hurt him. Let him come, let him tread the path of fire to the very end. Before me I see in vision the night of doom, the storm of union, the bliss of the breaking of worlds.

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ACT – II

[Fifteen days have passed.]

PRAKRITI. O, my heart will break. I will not look in the mirror, I cannot bear it. Such agony, so furious a storm. Must the king of the forest crash to the dust at last, his cloud-kissing glory broken?

MOTHER. Even now, child, if you say so, I will try to undo the spell. Let the cords of my life be torn apart and my life-blood spent, if only that great soul can be saved.

PRAKRITl. That is best, mother. Let the spells stop, I’ll have no more... no, no, don’t! Go on—the end of the path is so near! Make him come to the very end, make him come right to my bosom! After that I will blot out all his suffering, emptying my whole world at his feet. At dead of night the wayfarer will come, and I will kindle the lamps for him in the flames of my burning heart. Deep within are springs of nectar, where he shall bathe and anoint his weary, hot and wounded limbs. Once again he shall say ‘Give me water’—water from the ocean of my heart. Yes, that day will come—go on, go on with the spell.

[Song]

In my own sorrow Will I quit thy sorrow; Thy hurt will I bathe In the deep waters of my pain’s immensity. My world will I give to the flames, And my blackened shame shall be cleansed. My mortal pain will I offer as gift at thy feet.

MOTHER. I never knew it would take so long. My spells have no more power, child; there is no breath left in my body.

PRAKRITI. Don’t be afraid, mother; hold out a little longer, only a little. It will not be long now.

MOTHER. The month of Ashad is here, and their four months’ fast is at hand.

PRAKRITl. They are gone to Vaisali, to the monastery there.

MOTHER. How pitiless you are! That is so far away.

PRAKRITI. Not very far; seven days’ journey. Fifteen days have already passed. His seat of meditation has been shaken at last. He is coming, he is coming! All that once lay so far away, so many million miles away, beyond the very sun and moon, immeasurably beyond the reach of my arms—it is coming, nearer and nearer! He is coming, and my heart is rocked as by an earthquake.

MOTHER. I have worked the spell through all its stages— such force might have brought down Indra of the thunderbolt himself. And yet he does not come. It is a fight to the death indeed. What did you see in the mirror?

PRAKRITI. At first I saw a mist covering the whole sky, deathly pale like the weary gods after their struggle with the demons, Through rifts in the mist there glimmered fire. After that the mist gathered itself up into red and angry clusters, like swollen, festering sores. That day passed. The next day I looked, and all the background was a deep black cloud, with lightning playing across it. Before it he was standing, all his limbs fenced with flame. My blood ran cold, and I rushed to tell you to stop your spells at once - but I found you in deep trace, sitting like a log, breathing hardly, and unconscious. It seemed as though a fierce fire burned in you, and your fire was a flaming serpent that hissed and struck in deadly duel at the fire that wrapped him round. I came back and took up the mirror; the light was gone— only torment, unfathomable torment, was in his face.

MOTHER. Yet that did not kill you? The fire of his suffering burnt into my soul, till I thought I could bear no more.

PRAKRITI. It seemed that the tortured form I saw was not his only, but mine too; it belonged to us both. In those awful fires the gold and the copper had been melted and fused.

MOTHER. And you felt no fear?

PRAKRITI. Something far greater than fear. I beheld the God of Creation, more terrible far than the God of Destruction, lashing the flames to work His purposes, while they writhed and roared in anger. What lay at his feet in the casket of the seven elements—Life or Death? My mind swelled with a joy hard to name— joy in the tremendous detachment of new creation, free of care or fear, of pity or sorrow. Creation breaking, burning and melting among the sparks of the elemental fires. I could not keep still. My whole soul and body danced and danced together, as the pointed flames dance in the fire.

MOTHER. And how did your Bhikshu appear?

PRAKRITI. His eyes were fixed motionless upon the distance, like stars in the evening twilight. I longed to escape from myself far into boundless space.

MOTHER. When you danced before the mirror, he saw you?

PRAKRITI. Fie upon it, how I am shamed! Again and again his eyes grew red, as though he were about to curse. Again and again he trampled down the glowing fires of anger, and at last his anger turned upon himself, quivering, like a spear, and pierced his own breast.

MOTHER. And you bore all this?

PRAKRITI. I was amazed. I, this I, this daughter of yours, this nobody from nowhere—his suffering and mine are one today! What holy fire of creation could have wrought such a union? Who could dream of so great a thing?

MOTHER. When shall his turmoil be stilled?

PRAKRITl. When my suffering is stilled. How can he attain his mukti until I attain mine?

MOTHER. When did you last look into your mirror?

PRAKRITl. Yesterday evening. He had passed through the lion-gate of Vaisali some days before, at dead of night—seemingly in secret, unknown to the monks. After that I had sometimes seen him ferried across rivers or on difficult mountain passes. I had seen the evening fall, and him alone on the wide commons, or on the dark forest paths at dead of night. As the days went by, he fell more deeply under the spell and became heedless of everything, all the conflict with his own soul at an end. His face was mazed, his body slack, his eyes fixed in an unseeing stare, as though for him there were neither true nor false, good nor evil—only a blind and thoughtless compulsion, with no meaning in it.

MOTHER. Can you guess how far he has come today?

PRAKRITI. I saw him yesterday at Patal village on the river Upali. The river was turbulent with new rains; there was an old peepul tree by the ghat, fireflies shining in its branches, and under it a lichened altar. As he reached it he gave a sudden start and stood still. It was a place he had known for a long time; I have heard that one day the Lord Buddha preached there to King Suprabhas. He sat down and covered his eyes with his hands—I felt that his dream-spell might break at any moment. I flung away the mirror, for I was afraid of what I might see. The whole day has passed since then, and torn between hope and fear I have sat on, not daring to know. Now it is dark again; on the road goes the watchman calling the hour, it must be an hour past midnight. O mother, the time is short, so short; don’t let this night be wasted; put the whole of your strength into the spell.

MOTHER. Child, I can do no more; the spell is weakening, I am failing body and soul.

PRAKRITl. It mustn’t weaken now—don’t give up now! Maybe he has turned his face away, maybe the chain we have bound on him is stretched to the uttermost, and will not hold. What if he escapes now, away from this birth of mine, and I can never reach him again? Then it will be my turn to dream, to return to the illusion of a chandal birth. I will never endure that mockery again. I beseech you, mother, put out your whole strength once only; set in motion your spell of the primeval earth, and shake the complacent heaven of the virtuous.

MOTHER. Have you made ready as I told you?

PRAKRITI. Yes. Yesterday was the second night of the waxing moon. I bathed in the river Gambhira, plunging below the water. Here in the courtyard I drew a circle, with rice and pomegranate blossoms, vermilion and the seven jewels. I planted the flags of yellow cloth, I placed sandal-paste and garlands on a brass tray, I lit the lamps. After my bath I put on a cloth, green like the tender rice shoots, and a scarf like the champak flower. I sat with my face to the East. All night long I have contemplated his image. On my left arm I have tied the bracelet of thread—sixteen strands of golden yellow bound in sixteen knots.

MOTHER. Then dance round the circle in your dance of invocation, while I work my spells before the altar.

[Prakriti dances and sings.]

Now, Prakriti, take your mirror and look. See, a dark shadow has fallen over the altar. My heart is bursting and I can do no more. Look into the mirror—how long will it be now?

PRAKRITl. No, I will not look again, I will listen—listen in my inmost being. If he reveals himself I shall see him before me. Bear up a little longer, mother, he will surely, surely reveal himself. Hark! Hark to the sudden storm, the storm of his coming! The earth quivers beneath his tread, and my heart throbs.

MOTHER. It brings a curse for you, unhappy girl. As for me, it means surely death—the fibres of my being are shattered.

PRAKRITI. No curse, it brings no curse, it brings the gift of my new birth. The thunderbolt hammers open the Lion-gates of Death; the door breaks, the walls crumble, the falsehood of this birth of mine is shattered. Tremors of fear shake my mind, but rhythms of joy enrapture my soul. My All-destroyer, my All-in-all, you have come! I will enthrone you on the summit of all my dishonour, and build your royal seat of my shame, my fear and my joy.

MOTHER. My time is near, I can do no more. Look in the mirror at once.

PRAKRITI. Mother, I’m afraid. His journey is almost at an end, and what then? What then for him? Only myself, my wretched self? Nothing else? Only this to repay the long and cruel pain? Nothing but me? Only this at the end of the weary, difficult road?—only me?

MOTHER. Have pity, cruel girl, I can bear no more. Look in the mirror, quick!

PRAKRITI (looks in the mirror and flings it away). O mother, mother, stop! Undo the spell now—at once—undo it! What have you done? What have you done? O wicked, wicked deed!—better have died. What a sight to see! Where is the light and radiance, the shining purity, the heavenly glow? How worn, how faded, has he come to my door! Bearing his self’s defeat as a heavy burden, he comes with drooping head... Away with all this, away with it! [She kicks the paraphernalia of magic to pieces.] Prakriti, Prakriti, if in truth you are no chandalini, offer no insult to the heroic. Victory, victory to him!

[Enter Ananda.]

O Lord, you have come to give me deliverance, therefore have you known this torment. Forgive me, forgive me. Let your feet spurn afar the endless reproach of my birth. I have dragged you down to earth, how else could you raise me to your heaven? O pure one, the dust has soiled your feet, but they have not been soiled in vain. The veil of my illusion shall fall upon them, and wipe away the dust. Victory, victory to thee, O Lord!

MOTHER. Victory to thee, O Lord. My sins and my life lie together at thy feet, and my days end here, in the haven of thy forgiveness. [She dies.]

ANANDA [chanting].

Buddho Susuddho karuna mahannvo

Yoccanta suddhabbara-gnana locano

Lokassa papupakilesa ghatako

Vandami Buddham ahamadarena tam.

To the most pure Buddha, mighty ocean of mercy,

Seer of knowledge absolute, pure, supreme,

Of the world’s sin and suffering the Destroyer -

Solemnly to the Buddha I bow in homage.

ON SCIENCE FICTION BY ISAAC ASIMOV

ON SCIENCE FICTION

 ISAAC ASIMOV

Isaac Asimov was a Russian born American author and biochemist. He was a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works on science fiction and for his popular science books. Most of Asimov’s popularised science books explain science concepts in a historical way, going back as far as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage. He also lent his name to the magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction.

THE PRESCIENTIFIC UNIVERSE - 1

I have often made the point that true science fiction is a creature of the last two centuries. Science fiction cannot exist as a picture of the future unless, and until, people get the idea that it is science and technology that produce the future; that it is advances in science and technology (or, at the very least, changes in them) that are bound to make the future different from the present and the past, and that thereby hangs a tale.

Naturally, no one could possibly get that idea until the rate of scientific and technological change became great enough to be noticed by people in the course of their lifetime. That came about with the Industrial Revolution say, by 1800—and it was only thereafter that science fiction could be written.

And yet there must have been something that came before science fiction, something that was not science fiction and yet filled the same emotional needs. There must have been tales of the strange and different, of life not as we know it, and of powers transcending our own.

Let’s consider ---

The respect that people have for science and for scientists (or the fear that people have or a combination of both) rests on the certain belief that science is the key to the understanding of the Universe and that scientists can use science to manipulate that key. Through science, people can make use of the laws of nature to control the environment and enhance human powers. By the steadily increasing understanding of the details of those laws, human powers will be greater in the future than in the past. If we can imagine the different ways in which they will be greater, we can write our stories. In previous centuries, however, most men had but a dim understanding, if any at all, of such things as laws of nature. They did not know of rules that were unbreakable; of things-as-they-must-be that could serve neither to help us nor to thwart us but that might allow themselves to be ridden to glory, if we but knew how.

Instead, there was the notion that the Universe was the plaything of life and the will; that if there were events that seemed analogous to human deeds but that were far greater in magnitude, they were carried through by lifeform’s resembling those we know but greater in size and power.

The beings who controlled natural phenomena were therefore pictured in human form, but of superhuman strength, size, abilities, and length of life. Sometimes they were pictured as superanimal, or as supercombinations of animals. (The constant reference to the ordinary in the invention of the unusual is only to be expected, for imaginations are sharply limited, even among the best of us, and it is hard to think of anything really new or unusual—as Hollywood ‘Sci-fi’ constantly demonstrates.)

Since the phenomena of the Universe don’t often make sense, the gods are usually pictured as whimsical and unpredictable; frequently little better than childish. Since natural events are often disastrous, the gods must be easily offended. Since natural events are often helpful, the gods are basically kindly, provided they are well-treated and that their anger is not roused.

It is only too reasonable to suppose that people would invent formulas for placating the gods and persuading them to do the right thing. Nor can the validity of these formulas be generally disproven by events. If the formulas don’t work, then undoubtedly someone has done something to offend the gods. Those who had invented or utilised the formulas had no problems in finding guilty parties on whom to blame the failure of the formula in specific instances, so that faith in the formulas themselves never wavered. (We needn’t sneer. By the same principle, we continue to have faith in economists, sociologists, and meteorologists today, even though their statements seem to match reality only erratically at best.)

In prescientific times, then, it was the priest, magician, wizard, shaman (again the name doesn’t matter) who filled the function of the scientist today. It was the priest, etc., who was perceived as having the secret of controlling the Universe, and it was advances in the knowledge of magical formulas that could enhance power.

The ancient myths and legends are full of stories of human beings with supernormal powers. There are the legendary heroes, for instance, who learn to control winged horses or flying carpets. Those ancient pieces of magic still fascinate us today, and I imagine a youngster could thrill to such mystical methods of aeronavigation and long for the chance to partake in it, even if he were reading the tales while on a jet plane.

Think of the crystal ball, into which one can see things that are happening many miles away, and magic shells that can allow us to hear the whisperings of humans many miles away. How much more wonderful than the television sets and the telephones of today!

Consider the doors that open with ‘Open sesame’ rather than by the click of a remote-control device. Consider the seven-league boots that can transport you across the countryside almost as quickly as an automobile can.

Or, for that matter, think of the monsters of legend, the powerful travesties of life invented by combining animal characteristics: the man-horse Centaur, the man-goat Satyr, the woman-lion Sphinx, the woman-hawk Harpy, the eagle-lion Gryphon, the snake-woman Gorgon, and so on. In science fiction we have extraterrestrials that are often built up on the same principle. The goals of these ancient stories are the same as those of modern science fiction—the depiction of life as we don’t know it. The emotional needs that are fulfilled are the same— the satisfaction of the longing for wonder.

The difference is that the ancient myths and legends fulfil those needs and meet those goals against the background of a Universe that is controlled by gods and demons who can, in turn, be controlled by magical formulas either in the form of enchantments to coerce, or prayers to cajole. Science fiction, on the other hand, fulfils those needs against the background of a Universe that is controlled by impersonal and unswervable laws of nature, which can, in turn, be controlled by an understanding of their nature.

In a narrow sense, only science fiction is valid for today since, as far as we can tell, the Universe does follow the dictates of the laws of nature and is not at the mercy of gods and demons.

Nevertheless, there are times when we shouldn’t be two narrow or haughty in our definitions. It would be wrong to throw out a style of literature that has tickled the human fancy for thousands of years for the trivial reason that it is not in accord with reality. Reality isn’t all there is, after all.

Shall we no longer thrill to the climactic duel of Achilles and Hector because people no longer fight with spears and shields? Shall we no longer feel the excitement of the naval battles of the War of 1812 and of the Napoleonic Wars because our warships are no longer made of wood and are no longer equipped with sails?

Never!

Why, then, shouldn’t people who enjoy an exciting science fiction adventure story not enjoy a rousing mythological fiction adventure story? The two are set in different kinds of Universes but follow analogous paths. So though I am sufficiently stick-in-the-muddish to be narrow in my definition of science fiction and would not be willing to consider sword-and-sorcery examples of science fiction, I am willing to consider it the equivalent of science fiction set in another kind of Universe—a prescientific Universe.

I don’t even ask that they be wrenched out of context and somehow be made to fit the universe of reality by being given a scientific or pseudoscientific gloss. I ask only that they be self-consistent in their prescientific Universe— and that they be well-written and exciting stories.

THE PRESCIENTIFIC UNIVERSE – 2

Science fiction is a literary universe of no mean size because science fiction is what it is, not through its content but through its background. Let me explain the difference that makes.

A ‘sports story’ must have, as part of its content, some competitive activity, generally of an athletic nature. A ‘Western story’ must have, as part of its content, the nomadic life of the cowboy of the American West in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The ‘jungle story’ must have, as part of its content, the dangers implicit in a forested tropical wilderness.

Take the content of any of these and place it against a background that involves a society significantly different from our own and you have not changed the nature of the story—you have merely added to it.

A story may involve, not the clash of baseball and bat, or of hockeystick and puck, but of gas gun and sphere in an atmosphere enclosed on a space station under zero gravity. It is still a sports story by the strictest definition you care to make, but it is science fiction also.

In place of the nomadic life of a cowboy and his horse herding cattle, you might have the nomadic life of a fishboy and his dolphin, herding his schools of mackerel and cod. It could still have the soul of a Western story and be science fiction also.

In place of the Matto Grosso, you can have the jungle on a distant planet, different in key factors of the environment, with exotic dangers in atmosphere, in vegetation, in planetary characteristics never encountered on Earth. It would still be a jungle story and be science fiction also.

For that matter, you needn’t confine yourself to category fiction. Take the deepest novel you can imagine, one that most amply plumbs the secret recesses of the soul and holds up a picture that illuminates nature and the human condition, and place it in a society in which interplanetary travel is common, and give it a plot which involves such travel and it is not only great literature—it is science fiction also.

John W. Campbell, the late great science fiction editor, used to say that science fiction took as its domain, all conceivable societies, past and future, probable or improbable, realistic or fantastic, and dealt with all events and complications that were possible in all those societies. As for ‘mainstream fiction’ which deals with the here and now and introduces only the small novelty of make believe events and characters, that forms only an inconsiderable fraction of the whole. And I agree with him. In only one respect did John retreat from this grand vision of the limitless boundaries of science fiction.

In a moment of failure of nerve, he maintained that it was impossible to write a science fiction mystery. The opportunities in science fiction were so broad, he said, that the strict rules that made the classical mystery story fair to the reader could not be upheld.

I imagine that what he expected was the sudden change of rules without warning in the midst of the story. Something like this, I suppose—

Ah, Watson, what that scoundrel did not count on was that with this pocket-frannistan which I have in my pocket-frannistan Container I can see through the lead lining and tell what is inside the casket.’

‘Amazing, Holmes, but how does it work?’

‘By the use of Q-rays, a little discovery of my own which I have never revealed to the world.’

Naturally, there is the temptation to do this. Even in the classical mystery story that is not science fiction there is the temptation to give the detective extraordinary abilities in order to advance the plot. Sherlock Holmes’s ability to distinguish, at sight, the ashes of hundreds of different kinds of tobacco, while not perhaps in the same class as the invention of a Q-ray at a moment’s notice, is certainly a step in the direction of the unfair.

Then, too, there is nothing to prevent even the strictest of strict mystery writers from using actual science, even using the latest available findings of science, which the reader may not have heard of. That is still considered fair.

There are dangers to that, however, since many mystery writers know no science and cannot prevent themselves from making bloopers. John Dickson Carr, in one book, revealed that he didn’t know the difference between the element, antimony, and the compound, antimony potassium tartrate. That was only irritating, but in another book, he demonstrated that he couldn’t tell the difference between carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and reduced the plot to a shambles. One of Dorothy Sayers’ more grisly short stories involved the effect of thyroid hormones and, though she had the right idea, she made the effects impossibly rapid and extreme.

Writing a scientific mystery, then, has its extraordinary pitfalls and difficulties; how much more so the writing of a science fiction mystery. In science fiction, you not only must know your science, but you must also have a rational notion as to how to modify or extrapolate that science.

That, however, only means that writing a science fiction mystery is difficult; it does not mean that it is conceptually impossible as John Campbell thought.

After all, it is as perfectly possible to cling to the rules of the game in science fiction mysteries as in ordinary ones.

The science fiction mystery may be set in the future and in the midst of a society far different from ours; one in which human beings have developed telepathy, for instance, or in which light-speed mass transport is possible, or in which all human knowledge is computerized for instant retrieval—but the rules still hold.

The writer must carefully explain to the reader all their boundary conditions of the imaginary society. It must be perfectly clear what can be done and what can’t be done and with those boundaries fixed, the reader must then see and hear everything the investigator sees and hears, and he must be aware of every clue the investigator comes across.

There may be misdirection and red herrings to obscure and confuse, but it must remain possible for the reader to introduce the investigator, however outré the society.

Can it be done? You bet! Modestly, I refer you to my own science fiction mysteries, The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun which I wrote, back in the 1950s, in order to show John that he was being too modest about science fiction.

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN BY AMARTYA SEN

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN 

AMARTYA SEN

Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his contribution in the field of welfare economics. He is Lamont Professor at Harvard. This text forms the opening sections of the first essay in Sen’s book of the same title published in 2005. The sub-title of the book is ‘Writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity’. Sen argues in this essay that in India there has been a long tradition of questioning the truth of ideas through discussion and dialogue.

Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length. Krishna Menon’s* record of the longest speech ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop), established half a century ago (when Menon was leading the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.

This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally longer than the works that the modest Homer could manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly enriched when I encountered them first as a restless youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to stories woven around their principal tales, and are engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and counterarguments spread over incessant debates and disputations.

DIALOGUE AND SIGNIFICANCE

The arguments are also, often enough, quite substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gita, which is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle between two contrary moral positions —Krishna’s emphasis on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on avoiding bad consequences (and generating good ones), on the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the great war that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the correctness of what they are doing are raised by Arjuna, the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just and honourable royal family (the Pandavas) who are about to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas).

Arjuna questions whether it is right to be concerned only with one’s duty to promote a just cause and be indifferent to the misery and the slaughter—even of one’s kin—that the war itself would undoubtedly cause. Krishna, a divine incarnation in the form of human being (in fact, he is also Arjuna’s charioteer), argues against Arjuna. His response takes the form of articulating principles of action— based on the priority of doing one’s duty—which have been repeated again and again in Indian philosophy. Krishna insists on Arjuna’s duty to fight, irrespective of his evaluation of the consequences. It is a just cause, and, as a warrior and a general on whom his side must rely, Arjuna cannot waver from his obligations, no matter what the consequences are.

Krishna’s hallowing of the demands of duty wins the argument, at least as seen in the religious perspective. Indeed, Krishna’s conversations with Arjuna, the Bhagavad Gita, became a treatise of great theological importance in Hindu philosophy, focusing particularly on the ‘removal’ of Arjuna’s doubts. Krishna’s moral position has also been eloquently endorsed by many philosophical and literary commentators across the world, such as Christopher Isherwood and T. S. Eliot. Isherwood in fact translated the Bhagavad Gita into English. This admiration for the Gita, and for Krishna’s arguments in particular, has been a lasting phenomenon in parts of European culture. It was spectacularly praised in the early nineteenth century by Wilhelm von Humboldt as ‘the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’. In a poem in Four Quartets, Eliot summarises Krishna’s view in the form of an admonishment: ‘And do not think of the fruit of action! Fare forward’. Eliot explains: ‘Not fare well/But fare forward, voyagers’.

And yet, as a debate in which there are two reasonable sides, the epic Mahabharata itself presents, sequentially, each of the two contrary arguments with much care and sympathy. Indeed, the tragic desolation that the postcombat and post-carnage land—largely the Indo-Gangetic plain—seems to face towards the end of the Mahabharata can even be seen as something of a vindication of Arjuna’s profound doubts. Arjuna’s contrary arguments are not really vanquished, no matter what the ‘message’ of the Bhagavad Gita is meant to be. There remains a powerful case for ‘faring well’, and not just ‘forward’.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the American team that developed the ultimate ‘weapon of mass destruction’ during the Second World War, was moved to quote Krishna’s words (‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’) as he watched, on 16 July 1945, the awesome force of the first nuclear explosion devised by man. Like the advice that Arjuna had received about his duty as a warrior fighting for a just cause, Oppenheimer, the physicist, could well find justification in his technical commitment to develop a bomb for what was clearly the right side. Scrutinizing—indeed criticising—his own actions, Oppenheimer said later on: ‘When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success.’ Despite that compulsion to ‘fare forward’, there was reason also for reflecting on Arjuna’s concerns: How can good come from killing so many people? And why should I seek victory, kingdom or happiness for my own side?

These arguments remain thoroughly relevant in the contemporary world. The case for doing what one sees as one’s duty must be strong, but how can we be indifferent to the consequences that may follow from our doing what we take to be our just duty? As we reflect on the manifest problems of our global world (from terrorism, wars and violence to epidemics, insecurity and gruelling poverty), or on India’s special concerns (such as economic development, nuclear confrontation or regional peace), it is important to take on board Arjuna’s consequential analysis, in addition to considering Krishna’s arguments for doing one’s duty. The univocal ‘message of the Gita’ requires supplementation by the broader argumentative wisdom of the Mahabharata, of which the Gita is only one small part.

GENDER, CASTE AND VOICE

There is, however, a serious question to be asked as to whether the tradition of arguments and disputations has been confined to an exclusive part of the Indian population—perhaps just to the members of the male elite. It would, of course, be hard to expect that argumentational participation would be uniformly distributed over all segments of the population, but India has had deep inequalities along the lines of gender, class, caste and community (on which more presently). The social relevance of the argumentative tradition would be severely limited if disadvantaged sections were effectively barred from participation. The story here is, however, much more complex than a simple generalisation can capture. I begin with gender. There can be little doubt that men have tended, by and large, to rule the roost in argumentative moves in India. But despite that, the participation of women in both political leadership and intellectual pursuits has not been at all negligible. This is obvious enough today, particularly in politics. Indeed, many of the dominant political parties in India—national as well as regional—are currently led by women and have been so led in the past. But even in the national movement for Indian independence, led by the Congress Party, there were many more women in positions of importance than in the Russian and Chinese revolutionary movements put together. It is also perhaps worth noting that Sarojini Naidu, the first woman President of the Indian National Congress, was elected in 1925, fifty years earlier than the election of the first woman leader of a major British political party (Margaret Thatcher in 1975).* The second woman head of the Indian National Congress, Nellie Sengupta, was elected in 1933.

Earlier or later, these developments are products of relatively recent times. But what about the distant past? Women’s traditional role in debates and discussions has certainly been much less pronounced than that of men in India (as would also be true of most countries in the world). But it would be a mistake to think that vocal leadership by women is completely out of line with anything that has happened in India’s past. Indeed, even if we go back all the way to ancient India, some of the most celebrated dialogues have involved women, with the sharpest questionings often coming from women interlocutors. This can be traced back even to the Upanisads—the dialectical treatises that were composed from about the eighth century BCE and which are often taken to be foundations of Hindu philosophy.

For example, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad we are told about the famous ‘arguing combat’ in which Yajnavalkya, the outstanding scholar and teacher, has to face questions from the assembled gathering of pundits, and here it is a woman scholar, Gargi, who provides the sharpest edge to the intellectual interrogation. She enters the fray without any special modesty: ‘Venerable Brahmins, with your permission I shall ask him two questions only. If he is able to answer those questions of mine, then none of you can ever defeat him in expounding the nature of God.’

Even though Gargi, as an intellectual and pedagogue, is no military leader (in the mode, for example, of the Rani of Jhansi—another feminine hero—who fought valiantly along with the ‘mutineers’ in the middle of the nineteenth century against British rule—one of the great ‘warriorqueens’ of the world, as Antonia Fraser describes her), her use of imagery is strikingly militant: ‘Yajnavalkya, I have two questions for you. Like the ruler of Videha or Kasi [Benares], coming from a heroic line, who strings his unstrung bow, takes in hand two penetrating arrows and approaches the enemy, so do I approach you with two questions, which you have to answer.’ Yajnavalkya does, however, manage to satisfy Gargi with his answers (I am not competent to examine the theological merits of this interchange and will refrain from commenting on the substantive content of their discussion). Gargi acknowledges this handsomely, but again without undue modesty: ‘Venerable Brahmins, you should consider it an achievement if you can get away after bowing to him. Certainly, none of you can ever defeat him in expounding the nature of God.’

Interestingly, Yajnavalkya’s wife Maitreyi raises a profoundly important motivational question when the two discuss the reach of wealth in the context of the problems and predicaments of human life, in particular what wealth can or cannot do for us. Maitreyi wonders whether it could be the case that if ‘the whole earth, full of wealth’ were to belong just to her, she could achieve immortality through it. ‘No’, responds Yajnavalkya, ‘like the life of rich people will be your life. But there is no hope of immortality by wealth’. Maitreyi remarks: ‘What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?’

Maitreyi’s rhetorical question has been repeatedly cited in Indian religious philosophy to illustrate both the nature of the human predicament and the limitations of the material world. But there is another aspect of this exchange that has, in some ways, more immediate interest. This concerns the relation—and the distance—between income and achievement, between the commodities we can buy and the actual capabilities we can enjoy, between our economic wealth and our ability to live as we would like.* While there is a connection between opulence and our ability to achieve what we value, the linkage may or may not be very close. Maitreyi’s worldly worries might well have some transcendental relevance (as Indian religious commentators have discussed over many centuries), but they certainly have worldly interest as well. If we are concerned with the freedom to live long and live well, our focus has to be directly on life and death, and not just on wealth and economic opulence.

The arguments presented by women speakers in epics and classical tales, or in recorded history, do not always conform to the tender and peace-loving image that is often assigned to women. In the epic story of the Mahabharata, the good King Yudhisthira, reluctant to engage in a bloody battle, is encouraged to fight the usurpers of his throne with ‘appropriate anger’, and the most eloquent instigator is his wife, Draupadi.

In the sixth-century version of this dialogue, presented in the Kiratarjuniya by Bharavi, Draupadi speaks thus ------

For a woman to advise men like you

is almost an insult.

And yet, my deep troubles compel me

to overstep the limits of womanly conduct,

make me speak up.

The kings of your race, brave as Indra,

have for a long time ruled the earth without a break.

But now with your own hand

you have thrown it away,

like a rutting elephant tearing off

his garland with his trunk...

If you choose to reject heroic action

and see forbearance as the road to future happiness,

then throw away your bow, the symbol of royalty,

wear your hair matted in knots,

stay here and make offerings in the sacred fire!

It is not hard to see which side Draupadi was on in the Arjuna-Krishna debate, which deals with a later stage of the same sequence of events, by which time Yudhisthira had made his choice to fight (rather than embrace the life of a local hermit, mockingly assigned to him by his wife, with unconcealed derision).

If it is important not to see the Indian argumentative tradition as the exclusive preserve of men, it is also necessary to understand that the use of argumentative encounters has frequently crossed the barriers of class and caste. Indeed, the challenge to religious orthodoxy has often come from spokesmen of socially disadvantaged groups. Disadvantage is, of course, a comparative concept. When Brahminical orthodoxy was disputed in ancient India by members of other groups (including merchants and craftsmen), the fact that the protesters were often quite affluent should not distract attention from the fact that, in the context of Brahmin-dominated orthodoxy, they were indeed distinctly underprivileged. This may be particularly significant in understanding the class basis of the rapid spread of Buddhism, in particular, in India. The undermining of the superiority of the priestly caste played quite a big part in these initially rebellious religious movements, which include Jainism as well as Buddhism. It included a ‘levelling’ feature that is not only reflected in the message of human equality for which these movements stood, but is also captured in the nature of the arguments used to undermine the claim to superiority of those occupying exalted positions. Substantial parts of early Buddhist and Jain literatures contain expositions of protest and resistance.

Movements against caste divisions that have figured repeatedly in Indian history, with varying degrees of success, have made good use of engaging arguments to question orthodox beliefs. Many of these counterarguments are recorded in the epics, indicating that opposition to hierarchy was not absent even in the early days of caste arrangements. We do not know whether the authors to whom the sceptical arguments are attributed were the real originators of the doubts expressed, or mere vehicles of exposition of already established questioning, but the prominent presence of these anti-inequality arguments in the epics as well as in other classical documents gives us a fuller insight into the reach of the argumentative tradition than a monolithic exposition of the so-called, ‘Hindu point of view’ can possibly provide.

For example, when, in the Mahabharata, Bhrigu tells Bharadvaja that caste divisions relate to differences in physical attributes of different human beings, reflected in skin colour, Bharadvaja responds not only by pointing to the considerable variations in skin colour within every caste (‘if different colours indicate different castes, then all castes are mixed castes’), but also by the more profound question: ‘We all seem to be affected by desire, anger, fear, sorrow, worry, hunger, and labour; how do we have caste differences then?’ There is also a genealogical scepticism expressed in another ancient document, the Bhavisya Purana: ‘Since members of all the four castes are children of God, they all belong to the same caste. All human beings have the same father, and children of the same father cannot have different castes.’ These doubts do not win the day, but nor are their expressions obliterated in the classical account of the debates between different points of view.

To look at a much later period, the tradition of ‘medieval mystical poets’, well established by the fifteenth century, included exponents who were influenced both by the egalitarianism of the Hindu Bhakti movement and by that of the Muslim Sufis, and their far-reaching rejection of social barriers brings out sharply the reach of arguments across the divisions of caste and class. Many of these poets came from economically and socially humble backgrounds, and their questioning of social divisions as well as of the barriers of disparate religions reflected a profound attempt to deny the relevance of these artificial restrictions. It is remarkable how many of the exponents of these heretical points of views came from the working class: Kabir, perhaps the greatest poet of them all, was a weaver, Dadu a cottoncarder, Ravi-das a shoe-maker, Sena a barber, and so on.* Also, many leading figures in these movements were women, including of course the famous Mira Bai (whose songs are still very popular, after four hundred years), but also Andal, Daya-bai, Sahajo-bai and Ksema, among others.

In dealing with issues of contemporary inequality, the relevance and reach of the argumentative tradition must be examined in terms of the contribution it can make today in resisting and undermining these inequities which characterise so much of contemporary Indian society. It would be a great mistake in that context to assume that because of the possible effectiveness of well-tutored and disciplined arguments, the argumentative tradition must, in general, favour the privileged and the well educated, rather than the dispossessed and the deprived. Some of the most powerful arguments in Indian intellectual history have, in fact, been about the lives of the least privileged groups, which have drawn on the substantive force of these claims, rather than on the cultivated brilliance of welltrained dialectics.

DEMOCRACY AS PUBLIC REASONING

Does the richness of the tradition of argument make much difference to subcontinental lives today? I would argue it does, and in a great many different ways. It shapes our social world and the nature of our culture. It has helped to make heterodoxy the natural state of affairs in India; persistent arguments are an important part of our public life. It deeply influences Indian politics, and is particularly relevant, I would argue, to the development of democracy in India and the emergence of its secular priorities.

The historical roots of democracy in India are well worth considering, if only because the connection with public argument is often missed, through the temptation to attribute the Indian commitment to democracy simply to the impact of British influence (despite the fact that such an influence should have worked similarly for a hundred other countries that emerged from an empire on which the sun used not to set). The point at issue, however, is not specific to India only: in general, the tradition of public reasoning is closely related to the roots of democracy across the globe. But since India has been especially fortunate in having a long tradition of public arguments, with toleration of intellectual heterodoxy, this general connection has been particularly effective in India. When, more than half a century ago, independent India became the first country in the non-Western world to choose a resolutely democratic constitution, it not only used what it had learned from the institutional experiences in Europe and America (particularly Great Britain), it also drew on its own tradition of public reasoning and argumentative heterodoxy.

It is very important to avoid the twin pitfalls of (1) taking democracy to be just a gift of the Western world that India simply accepted when it became independent, and (2) assuming that there is something unique in Indian history that makes the country singularly suited to democracy. The point, rather, is that democracy is intimately connected with public discussion and interactive reasoning. Traditions of public discussion exist across the world, not just in the West. And to the extent that such a tradition can be drawn on, democracy becomes easier to institute and also to preserve.

WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS BY D.H. LAWRENCE

WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS 

D.H. LAWRENCE

D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He was the son of an uneducated miner and an ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was German, and the couple lived, at various times, in Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico. Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of an industrial society.

We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away, the body, of course, being the bottle.

It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words, slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i, feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should I imagine that there is a me which is more me than my hand is? Since my hand is absolutely alive, me alive.

Whereas, of course, as far as I am concerned, my pen isn’t alive at all. My pen isn’t me alive. Me alive ends at my fingertips.

Whatever is me alive is me. Every tiny bit of my hands is alive, every little freckle and hair and fold of skin. And whatever is me alive is me. Only my finger-nails, those ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe, they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and things like my pen, which are not alive, in my own sense.

So, seeing my hand is all alive and me alive, wherein is it just a bottle, or a jug, or a tin can, or a vessel of clay, or any of the rest of that nonsense? True, if I cut it will bleed, like a can of cherries. But then the skin that is cut, and the veins that bleed, and the bones that should never be seen, they are all just as alive as the blood that flows. So the tin can business, or vessel of clay, is just bunk. And that’s what you learn, when you’re a novelist.

And that’s what you are very liable not to know, if you’re a parson, or a philosopher, or a scientist, or a stupid person. If you’re a parson, you talk about souls in heaven. If you’re a novelist, you know that paradise is in the palm of your hand, and on the end of your nose, because both are alive; and alive, and man alive, which is more than you can say, for certain, of paradise. Paradise is after life, and I for one am not keen on anything that is after life. If you are a philosopher, you talk about infinity; and the pure spirit which knows all things. But if you pick up a novel, you realise immediately that infinity is just a handle to this self-same jug of a body of mine; while as for knowing, if I find my finger in the fire, I know that fire burns with a knowledge so emphatic and vital, it leaves Nirvana merely a conjecture. Oh, yes, my body, me alive, knows, and knows intensely. And as for the sum of all knowledge, it can’t be anything more than an accumulation of all the things I know in the body, and you, dear reader, know in the body.

These damned philosophers, they talk as if they suddenly went off in steam, and were then much more important than they are when they’re in their shirts. It is

nonsense. Every man, philosopher included, ends in his own finger-tips. That’s the end of his man alive. As for the words and thoughts and sighs and aspirations that fly from him, they are so many tremulations in the ether, and not alive at all. But if the tremulations reach another man alive, he may receive them into his life, and his life may take on a new colour, like a chameleon creeping from a brown rock on to a green leaf. All very well and good. It still doesn’t alter the fact that the so-called spirit, the message or teaching of the philosopher or the saint, isn’t alive at all, but just a tremulation upon the ether, like a radio message. All this spirit stuff is just tremulations upon the ether. If you, as man alive, quiver from the tremulation of the other into new life, that is because you are man alive, and you take sustenance and stimulation into your alive man in a myriad ways. But to say that the message, or the spirit which is communicated to you, is more important than your living body, is nonsense. You might as well say that the potato at dinner was more important.

Nothing is important but life. And for myself, I can absolutely see life nowhere but in the living. Life with a capital L is only man alive. Even a cabbage in the rain is cabbage alive. All things that are alive are amazing. And all things that are dead are subsidiary to the living. Better a live dog than a dead lion. But better a live lion than a live dog. C’est la vie!

It seems impossible to get a saint, or a philosopher, or a scientist, to stick to this simple truth. They are all, in a sense, renegades. The saint wishes to offer himself up as spiritual food for the multitude. Even Frances of Assisi turns himself into a sort of angel-cake, of which anyone may take a slice. But an angel-cake is rather less than man alive. And poor St. Francis might well apologise to his body, when he is dying: ‘Oh, pardon me, my body, the wrong I did you through the years!’ It was no wafer, for others to eat.

The philosopher, on the other hand, because he can think, decides that nothing but thoughts matter. It is as if a rabbit, because he can make little pills, should decide that nothing but little pills matter. As for the scientist, he has absolutely no use for me so long as I am man alive. To the scientist, I am dead. He puts under the microscope a bit of dead me, and calls it me. He takes me to pieces, and says first one piece, and then another piece, is me. My heart, my liver, my stomach have all been scientifically me, according to the scientist; and nowadays I am either a brain, or nerves, or glands, or something more up-to-date in the tissue line.

Now I absolutely flatly deny that I am a soul, or a body, or a mind, or an intelligence, or a brain, or a nervous system, or a bunch of glands, or any of the rest of these bits of me. The whole is greater than the part. And therefore, I, who am man alive, am greater than my soul, or spirit, or body, or mind, or consciousness, or anything else that is merely a part of me. I am a man, and alive. I am man alive, and as long as I can, I intend to go on being man alive.

For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble. Which is more than poetry, philosophy, science, or any other book tremulation can do.

The novel is the book of life. In this sense, the Bible is a great novel. You may say, it is about God. But it is really about man alive.

I do hope you begin to get my idea, why the novel is supremely important, as a tremulation on the ether. Plato makes the perfect ideal being tremble in me. But that’s only a bit of me. Perfection is only a bit, in the strange make-up of man alive. The Sermon on the Mount makes the selfless spirit of me quiver. But that, too, is only a bit of me. The Ten Commandments set the old Adam shivering in me, warning me that I am a thief and a murderer, unless I watch it. But even the old Adam is only a bit of me.

I very much like all these bits of me to be set trembling with life and the wisdom of life. But I do ask that the whole of me shall tremble in its wholeness, some time or other.

And this, of course, must happen in me, living.

But as far as it can happen from a communication, it can only happen when a whole novel communicates itself to me. The Bible—but all the Bible—and Homer, and Shakespeare: these are the supreme old novels. These are all things to all men. Which means that in their wholeness they affect the whole man alive, which is the man himself, beyond any part of him. They set the whole tree trembling with a new access of life, they do not just stimulate growth in one direction.

I don’t want to grow in any one direction any more. And, if I can help it, I don’t want to stimulate anybody else into some particular direction. A particular direction ends in a cul-de-sac. We’re in a cul-de-sac at present.

I don’t believe in any dazzling revelation, or in any supreme Word. ‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of the Lord shall stand for ever.’ That’s the kind of stuff we’ve drugged ourselves with. As a matter of fact, the grass withereth, but comes up all the greener for that reason, after the rains. The flower fadeth, and therefore the bud opens. But the Word of the Lord, being man-uttered and a mere vibration on the ether, becomes staler and staler, more and more boring, till at last we turn a deaf ear and it ceases to exist, far more finally than any withered grass. It is grass that renews its youth like the eagle, not any Word.

We should ask for no absolutes, or absolute. Once and for all and for ever, let us have done with the ugly imperialism of any absolute. There is no absolute good, there is nothing absolutely right. All things flow and change, and even change is not absolute. The whole is a strange assembly of apparently incongruous parts, slipping past one another.

Me, man alive, I am a very curious assembly of incongruous parts. My yea! of today is oddly different from my yea! of yesterday. My tears of tomorrow will have nothing to do with my tears of a year ago. If the one I love remains unchanged and unchanging, I shall cease to love her. It is only because she changes and startles me into change and defies my inertia, and is herself staggered in her inertia by my changing, that I can continue to love her. If she stayed put, I might as well love the pepper-pot.

In all this change, I maintain a certain integrity. But woe betide me if I try to put my figure on it. If I say of myself, I am this, I am that—then, if I stick to it, I turn into a stupid fixed thing like a lamp-post. I shall never know wherein lies my integrity, my individuality, my me. I can never know it. It is useless to talk about my ego. That only means that I have made up an idea of myself, and that I am trying to cut myself out to pattern. Which is no good. You can cut your cloth to fit your coat, but you can’t clip bits off your living body, to trim it down to your idea. True, you can put yourself into ideal corsets. But even in ideal corsets, fashions change.

Let us learn from the novel. In the novel, the characters can do nothing but live. If they keep on being good, according to pattern, or bad, according to pattern, or even volatile, according to pattern, they cease to live, and the novel falls dead. A character in a novel has got to live, or it is nothing.

We, likewise, in life have got to live, or we are nothing.

What we mean by living is, of course, just as indescribable as what we mean by being. Men get ideas into their heads, of what they mean by Life, and they proceed to cut life out to pattern. Sometimes they go into the desert to seek God, sometimes they go into the desert to seek cash, sometimes it is wine, woman, and song, and again it is water, political reform, and votes. You never know what it will be next: from killing your neighbour with hideous bombs and gas that tears the lungs, to supporting a Foundlings Home and preaching infinite Love, and being co-respondent in a divorce.

In all this wild welter, we need some sort of guide. It’s no good inventing Thou Shalt Nots!

What then? Turn truly, honourably to the novel, and see wherein you are man alive, and wherein you are dead man in life. You may eat your dinner as man alive, or as mere masticating corpse. As man alive you may have a shot at your enemy. But as a ghastly simulacrum of life you may be firing bombs into men who are neither your enemies nor your friends, but just things you are dead to. Which is criminal, when the things happen to be alive.

To be alive, to be man alive, to be whole man alive: that is the point. And at its best, the novel, and the novel supremely, can help you. It can help you not to be dead man in life. So much of a man walks about dead and a carcass in the street and house, today: so much of women is merely dead. Like a pianoforte with half the notes mute.

But in the novel you can see, plainly, when the man goes dead, the woman goes inert. You can develop an instinct for life, if you will, instead of a theory of right and wrong, good and bad.

In life, there is right and wrong, good and bad, all the time. But what is right in one case is wrong in another. And in the novel you see one man becoming a corpse, because of his so-called goodness; another going dead because of his so-called wickedness. Right and wrong is an instinct: but an instinct of the whole consciousness in a man, bodily, mental, spiritual at once. And only in the novel are all things given full play, or at least, they may be given full play, when we realise that life itself, and not inert safety, is the reason for living. For out of the full play of all things emerges the only thing that is anything, the wholeness of a man, the wholeness of a woman, man alive, and live woman.