Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
27 January 1940
Purani: Anilbaran was asking if a contradiction of Basanta Chatterji could be written, pointing out his mistake or his ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that can be done.
Satyendra: Who is this man?
Sri Aurobindo: He is Anilbaran’s pet controversialist. (Laughter)
Satyendra: He hasn’t read your Hymns of the Atris probably. There you have distinctly spoken about the Vedic gods.
Purani: In The Life Divine’s chapter on the Overmind, too.
Satyendra: He can be referred to that chapter.
Purani: Better not refer him to it. He will say, “Now what is this Overmind?”
Nirodbaran: He is sure to misunderstand it.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know what he will not misunderstand.
Nirodbaran: He says the Gita is Sri Aurobindo’s favourite book. But the Gita also speaks of the gods.
Sri Aurobindo: Not only the Gita, but also Sri Aurobindo speaks of them. (Laughter)
After the sponging Sri Aurobindo asked for the Hymns of the Atris. He said he had forgotten what he had written there and wanted to verify Satyendra’s reference.
Nirodbaran: Your critic also says that you have criticised Sayana’s polytheistic interpretation of the Vedas.
Sri Aurobindo: Where have I done so?
Nirodbaran: He doesn’t say.
Purani: We find that you have translated most of the Suktas of the Swetashwatara Upanishad.
Sri Aurobindo: I translated this Upanishad long ago and the book came out from somewhere. I don’t remember who published it, but I know that the publisher didn’t even take my permission. I translated the Swetashwatara Upanishad while I was in Bengal. The manuscript is still with me.
Evening
Sri Aurobindo (before Purani and Satyendra came in): I have read the Hymns. There I have distinctly said that the Vedic gods are no mere imageries but realities. I don’t understand where this Basanta Chatterji found me denying them.
Nirodbaran: Satyendra has also shown me what you have written.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t remember if I have written anything against Sayana in my introduction to The Secret of the Veda. I have to ask Purani.
When Purani came in, Sri Aurobindo asked him the question.
Purani: I don’t think you have written anything against Sayana’s polytheism. However, I’ll look up the introduction.
Sri Aurobindo: In the Hymns I have clearly held the gods to be realities and I have marked two or three passages saying so.
Purani: Going back to Armando Menezes and his work, do you know that Harin told Armando that his poetry has a mystic element? Armando replied that he wasn’t aware of it.
Sri Aurobindo: What is meant by “mystic”? If you mean something beyond the external material existence, then there are several mystic passages in his poems.
Nirodbaran: Dilip asks whether Francis Thompson can be called a great poet.
Sri Aurobindo: Here, again, we must ask: what is meant by “great”? At any rate, Thompson has written one great poem, “The Hound of Heaven”, and he who writes a great poem is necessarily great.
Nirodbaran: Dilip does admit that he has written a great poem.
Sri Aurobindo: But he holds, I suppose, that the writer is still a small poet?
Nirodbaran: No. What he wants to ascertain is whether by writing a single great poem one becomes a great poet. In that case Oscar Wilde and Chesterton are also great because they have each written a great poem.
Sri Aurobindo: Thompson’s poem is great in a peculiar way. Of course, if you take the mass of his work into account you may say he is not great. “Greatness” too can be variously defined.
Nirodbaran: I can only say that poets like Shakespeare are great. Also Wordsworth and Shelley can be called great poets.
Purani: Through “The Hound of Heaven” Thompson has expressed a whole life-experience and has achieved the summit of art while doing so. Considering these two points I think he must be called great.
Sri Aurobindo: I may add that he has expressed a whole life-experience not only in an individual sense but also in a universal one. Whoever goes through the spiritual life experiences what he has expressed. And yet can one jump to an absolute assertion from single poems? As I said, greatness can be variously defined. Look at the French poet Villon. He is called great. If you take his poems one by one he is equal in greatness to any other poet. But if you take his work in a mass you can’t justify his greatness.
Petrarch has written only sonnets and these too on merely one subject. And yet he is considered a great poet and given a place next to Dante. Simonides has not a single surviving complete poem; he is known only by his fragments. But he is ranked as a great poet, second only to Pindar who is the greatest Greek lyricist. Nor has Pindar himself written very much. Sappho has come down to us in only one complete poem: the rest of her is in mere snatches. Still, she is hailed as a great poet. So there can be no fixed standard by which one can judge the greatness of a poet.
As to Thompson and Wilde and Chesterton, I believe “The Hound of Heaven” is greater than any poem by the last two.