Visva Sahitya by Rabindranath Tagore  

[Speech delivered at the National Council for Education and first published in 1907]                             

     Introduction

     All the talents that we possess within ourselves are only for reaching out to everyone else. Through such relationships we realize ourselves, we attain truth. Otherwise, it does not matter whether I am or anything else is.

     Three Links to the Reality of the World: Our link to the reality of the world is of three kinds: the connection made by the intellect, the connection arising out of need, and the connection found in joy.

     Among these, in the connection of the intellect, the intellect grows proud of its truths. The more of truth it knows, the more power it arrogates to itself.

     Next is the connection of need. In this connection, truth joins forces with our own strengths. We use truth to achieve our ends and think we have the ownership of the world. Then we declare that nature is our slave, water, air and fire - our unpaid servants.

     Finally, the connection of joy: this is a connection of beauty or bliss in which all differences dissolve; there remains no pride; we do not hesitate to give ourselves to the very small, to the weak. There the king of Mathura [Krishna] is at his wits’ end trying to find a way to hide his royal dignity from the lowly milkmaid of Vrindavan. Where the connection is that of joy, we are not limited by the power of the intellect or the power of work; we only experience ourselves.

     To put it in one sentence, the connection of the intellect is our school, the connection of need our office, and the connection of joy our home. We do not live completely in the school, nor do we fully manifest ourselves in the office; it is only in our homes that we spread our whole selves out and live. The school is devoid of ornamentation, the office remains undecorated, but we do beautify our homes.

      The Connection of Joy: What is this connection of joy? It is to know another as our very own, and to know ourselves as if we were another’s. When we know in this manner, no questions remain. When we experience ourselves in another, we do not need to ask, why have we liked them. A child laughs at the sight of light or movement. The child finds in that light, that movement, a magnification of its own consciousness; that is why it experiences joy.

     Similarly, to find completely one’s own humanity among other people is the natural dharma of the human soul and in that is its joy. This is why we wish to read the biographies of great men. In their characters we see our flawed and cloaked selves freed and uncovered. We derive pleasure from history when we see our own character manifest in many people, many nations, many eras, many incidents, many varieties, and many shapes.

     Two Kinds of Self-Expression

     Man’s self-expression in the world is of two kinds. One kind is his work, the other his literary creativity. These two modes have always proceeded by side. Man has poured himself forth both in the compositions of his work and in the creations of his imagination.

The more liberal man’s composition of his larger world, the more is he at liberty to express his humanity. To the degree he is inhibited, to that same degree is man’s self-expression impoverished. But the expression of himself in the work sphere is not man’s primary objective—it is merely a by-product. The homemaker expresses herself in her house work but it is not the express intention of her mind to do so. Through house work she fulfils many of her desires; these desires are reflected by her work and illuminate her true nature.

     Occasions to Celebrate our Self-Expression

     There are, however, occasions on which we wish chiefly to celebrate our self-expression. Imagine a wedding day. On the one hand there are all the arrangement to be made, on the other, there is the need to express one’s innermost emotions; on that day people of the house cannot but announce to the world their happiness and joy. What is the way to announce this? Flutes play, lamps are lit, and every room decorated with flowers. Through beautiful music, beautiful aromas, beautiful sights, and dazzling spectacle, the heart spills over like a multi-fauceted fountain. Through all these signs it attempts to spread its joy among others and thereby make it real.

     Puja: The Thinking Person and the Devoted One

     The puja (religious ritual) we perform is done by the thinking person in one way and by the devoted one in another. The intelligent person thinks that by praying I will receive good fortune for myself; and the man of faith thinks that without puja my devotion knows no completeness. The mentality of the calculating person’s puja is akin to investing money for interest, while the devotee’s puja is merely an expenditure. To express itself, the heart hardly notices the losses it incurs.

That is why there is no bar on man’s self-expression in Literature. So what is it that we recognize in literature? Man’s plenitude, his affluence— that by which he has exceeded his necessities, that which could not be consumed in his household.

     Now is the time for me to come to the main point—and this is it—to see literature through the mirror of nation, time and people is to diminish it, not see it fully. If we understand that in literature the universal man (vishva-manav) expresses himself, then we can perceive what is truly worthy of observing in literature. Where the author has experienced in his own being the being of all men, whose writing expresses the pain of every man, that writing has found a place in literature.

     Literature: A Temple Built by the Universal Man

     Thus must one view literature as a temple that the universal man (vishva-manav) has built; writers have come from all times and all nations to work as labourers in that project. The plan of the building is not available to us. Every labourer has to use his natural competence to integrate his own composition into the whole and thereby complete the invisible plan. He does not return after seeing the pilgrims–he looks for the deity that all the pilgrims have congregated to see. Walking through a neighbourhood you notice how busy everybody is: the grocer tending his shop, the blacksmith hammering on the anvil, the labourer carrying his load, the merchant balancing his accounts—what may at first be invisible, you may perceive with your heart—on both sides of the road, in every home, in bazaar and shop, in lanes and by-lanes, how the torrent of rasa (relish) floods through so many streams and tributaries, overrunning so much shabbiness, wretchedness, and poverty. For once we need to see literature as embracing all of humanity. We have to see that in his emotional self, man has expanded his practical being so far in manifold and multi-directional ways.

     Conclusion

     Do not so much as imagine that I will show you the way to such a world literature. Each of us must make his way forward according to his own means and abilities. All I have wanted to say is that just as the world is not merely the sum of your plough field, plus my plough field, plus his plough field–because to know the world that way is only to know it with a yokel–like parochialism–similarly world literature is not merely the sum of your writings, plus my writing, plus his writings. We generally see literature in this limited, provincial manner. To free oneself of that regional narrowness and resolve to see the universal being in world literature, to apprehend such totality in every writer’s work, and to see its interconnectedness with every man’s attempt at self-expression–that is the objective we need to pledge ourselves to.

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