-66_Bankim Chamdra.htm

SUPPLÉMENT   TO VOLUME   17

THE  HOUR  OF  GOD  
AND  OTHER  WRITINGS 

l. Bankim Chandra first appeared in the daily Bande Mataram of April 22, 1907. We did not include it previously because we were uncertain about its authorship. We find, however, that it is included in a list of articles identified as Sri Aurobindo’s by Upendranath Bannerji, an associate of Sri Aurobindo on the Bande Mataram staff.

2. Sapta-chatushtaya consists of mantras received by Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Jail in 1908 - 1909. These mantras along with the notes which accompany them were written down by Sri Aurobindo, probably after his release from prison in May, 1909, and certainly before his departure from Chandernagore on March 31, 1910. They have been recently published by Prabartak Sangha in their book, LIGHT TO SUPERLIGHT.

We are indebted to Prabartak Sangha for the photostat copies of Sapta-Chatushtaya, except for two pages dealing with "Virya", which were missing. These pages were later supplied by a devotee of Sri Aurobindo.

3. The Way of Works seems to be the beginning of a book left incomplete by Sri Aurobindo. It is reprinted from a manuscript belonging probably to Sri Aurobindo’s early years in Pondicherry.  

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Bankim Chandra  

(1838 – 1894)  

                                BANKIM Chandra, the poet, the philosopher, and the prophet of the New Thought laboured under a plethora of wit and imagination. He had received from the good fairies an ample dower at his birth; and his mastermind realised that dower to the uttermost farthing.

        Bankim Chandra’s father was a man of culture, and a member of the Subordinate Executive Service. Bankim Chandra entered the Calcutta Presidency College in 1856 and there became a member of the most intellectual coterie. He was the first Bengalee to take the degree of B.A. And in recognition of his successful, College career, the Government appointed him a Deputy Magistrate. As an officer he showed considerable ability and independence and for some time acted as an Assistant Secretary to the Government of Bengal. That his official life enlarged his mental vision, made him acquainted with the thousand and one phases of nature, and conducted him through a wide range of experiences cannot be denied.

        But the service Bankim Chandra rendered to the above Government counts as dust in the balance in which posterity will weigh him to form a just estimate of his talents. And this service pales into insignificance before the brilliant service he rendered to this country and his community.

        He wrote English with facility. And his controversy with the Christian missionaries showed his undoubted argumentative, combative and debating powers.
        In literature Bankim Chandra served his apprenticehood under Ishwar Chandra Gupta, - a master of the vituperative art who had an inexhaustible stock of rollicking humour.
        While still young Bankim Chandra began to write a serial story named "Raj Mohan’s Wife" in the Indian Field, then edited by Kishori Chand Mitra. This was his first public prominent literary effort. But he soon came to realise that a permanent

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 hold on succeeding generations of readers could be got only by writing in the mother tongue. This realisation was most fortunate for Bengalee literature, and marks the dawn of a new era.

        Whenever a civilised people have found their language inadequate to express all sorts of ideas and every shade of thought, they have developed and amplified it to serve their purpose. To the English-educated Bengalees, the poverty of their mother tongue had, at first, appeared an insurmountable difficulty, – and some of them had thought to convert English into their mother tongue. Bankim saw the impossibility of the idea, and set himself to re-cast and re-model the language, - which was found to fetter the free and full expression of modern thought, – to make it the proper vehicle of thought.
        For a parallel we must turn to Greece. There the ancient language was the literary language at the time of the capture of Constantinople, and the use of it as a vehicle of literature has been handed down in unbroken tradition to the present day. The Church service is in ancient Greek, and the New Testament is still read in the original language in Greek Churches. A change took place when Greece revived in the 19th century. All the great writers felt that it was pedantic to adopt many of the old forms of inflection and construction - that, in one word, the ancient language was not fitted to be the vehicle of modern civilisation. They, therefore, resolved to adapt it. And hence has arisen a form of the language which is practically identical with the ancient, but transfused with modern ideas, and fitted for the clear and rapid expression of modern literature. He betook himself to the plain and pleasant paths of prose. He was a voracious reader of English fiction; and his first novel Durgeshnandini bears the influence of Scott. In reviewing this book Professor Cowel remarked (MacMillan’s Magazine, 1872) that Durgeshnandini was a visible result of English education. Cynical critics have long complained that our Calcutta system of education only produces clever automatons, – "books in chaddurs" used to be the favourite phrase, – who reproduced in the examinations a great amount of ill-digested information, but were utterly unable to originate an idea of their own. The present work, as well as several others may well refute these

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assertions. But he was a case of the exception proving the rule.

        In his next novel Bankim Chandra shook off imitation, and cast his work in bronze like a master. The Kapalkundala has all the charms of a poem. The situations are picturesque, the descriptions poetic, and the conception grand. In Mrinalinee, the dramatic element predominates. More characters are introduced, and brighter scenes move rapidly. The freshness of fancy, the glow of youth, the exuberance of energy are evident in the construction, the development and the conclusion of the work. In the Bisabriksha we have some striking and faithful pictures of Indian life. His Chandrasekhar is a more ambitious work. The canvas is crowded, the characters are taken widely different societies and spheres of activity, – and a halo of romance hovers over the work. Rajanee is a new departure. The climax is reached in Krishnakanter Will. It is a work of art done by a man whose gifts have been polished by study and trained by steady practice till they rejoiced in their own power.

        The next novel is the Anandamath. In it occurs the song Bande Mataram which is our clarion call to the field of duty. It is the song that the current of the story sets. The book is meant to explain the significance of the song. It was composed tore the book was written. On the day it was being set to music, Bankim Chandra, on being asked by the manager of his magazine Bangadarsan, to write a novel as a song was not calculated to go a long way to fill the pages of the paper, replied: “You cannot understand the significance of this song now. But if you live 25 years more you will see Bengal in rapture over it." Perhaps the vision and the faculty divine made Bankim Chandra make this prophecy. And the manager has lived to see not only all Bengal but all India accept the song as the National anthem and its opening words engraved on the cenotaph of the great Shivaji.

        Other works followed. But the author had turned his attention to religion, and his later productions, -, save Rajsinha, a historic novel which has no rival in Bengalee literature, are didactic. "For over 20 years," remarks the writer in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "the reading public in Bengal recog-

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nised and felt the power of a talented novelist, and the Bengalee ladies in the Zenana read every new work of Bankim Chandra as it issued from the Press."
        A novel, if it is to live, must deal with one or more of the few great passions of life. The true novelist treats life in a broad human fashion. He watches the stream of life, unmindful of the little eddies that whirl about under the trees in the sunshine of a  summer afternoon. Bankim Chandra’s novels are pre-eminently novels of love. He took up the eternal and perennial passion of love and threw light on its innumerable facets. His novels are in the hand of every educated Bengalee. Their magnificent fullness of life in movement, their sumptuous passages of description, their poignancy in pathos and rapidity in action, their unwavering devotion to veracity of impression, without colour or emphasis, - these qualities have given intellectual enjoyment to thousands of readers. His women are characters from the hand of a lover and an artist.

        The unusual brilliancy of his novels should not make us blind to the other works of Bankim Chandra. He was a versatile and vigorous writer. In 1872 he started the Bangadarsan,- a literary magazine he edited with undoubted ability. And we all know how his severe criticisms on the worthless and ephemeral productions of so many of his fellow-countrymen brought about a complete revolution in the history of Bengalee literature.
        His essays on different subjects as well as his explanation of the ślokas of the Gita bear the stamp of sound judgment and critical insight. He was ever fearless in exposing the hypocrisy and frailty in others but was never blind to merit but rather ever ready to encourage it.

        His Krishnacharitra is undoubtedly a great work. "In it," Mr. Blumhardt truly remarks, "he represents the Hindu deity as the model of a perfect nature, and points out the gradual introduction into the great epic of the Mahabharata of the many popular superstitions, and degrading accounts of the life and character of Krishna which are so entirely at variance with the lofty conception of that deity, as contained in the more ancient Hindu sacred writings."

        Speaking of the old and the new in modern India Mr. Frazer

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in his Literary History of India remarks, - "Nowhere better than in the novels of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee can the full force of this strife between old and new be traced." Late in life Bankim Chandra took upon himself the task of explaining to his countrymen the Vedas. He refuted the opinions of European Orientalists. And sure enough he was a foeman worthy of the steel. But he was not spared to finish this self-imposed task. In the middle of his work his busy fingers dropped the pen and his fertile imagination ceased to produce. Thus passed away Bankim Chandra, the rishi of modern Bengal. But his spirit exists in our midst, - watching us and wishing us every success in our onward march.

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