The Foundations of Indian Culture And the Renaissance in India - By Sri Aurobindo | POST 0

The Foundations of Indian Culture

- By Sri Aurobindo

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INTRODUCTION

• By / Sisirkumar Ghose (THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN CULTURE)

Sri Aurobindo was not averse to polemics, even aggressive defence, when it suited his purpose. Poor Archer, rationalist hoist with his own petard, must have regretted his indiscretion! But the sweep of Sri Aurobindo’s thought easily gets rid of the pinpricks and perversities of the puerile protagonist and moves majestically into larger realms and finer tones. Essentially a reconciler and a futurist, the balance of his outlook is revealed in his own words: ‘If we define civilisation as a harmony of spirit, body and mind, where has that harmony been altogether real? The real and perfect civilisation waits to be discovered.’ Few authors can help us to that discovery better than Sri Aurobindo.

Not only has he come out with a ringing rationale of the values of Indian society, its religion, spirituality, art, literature and polity, but he has also pointed to the need for a larger reconciliation beyond a cultural quarrel complicated with a political question (as it then was).

There is a consistency and centrality in his approach, even a profound simplicity. True to the Indian insight, he holds on to the idea of the law of one’s inner being, svabhava, svadharma. Not a revivalist or a reactionary, no idle worshipper of the past, not unmindful of its errors and limitations and of the factors that made for deviation and decadence, Sri Aurobindo concedes — indeed insists — on the need for new forms in keeping with changed circumstances. We cannot be ‘ourselves alone’. But the novel formations will be a self-expression from within and not servilely borrowed from abroad, assimilation and not imitation. It is hard to quarrel with these self-evident propositions.

And yet — a revised semantics and our post-independence intellectuals have reduced the claims of Indian civilisation and the Renaissance to a cliché. Was there a Renaissance? they ask in a surprised, sceptical tone. Also, alas, whatever remained of the idea, modern politics, and politicians, seem to have taken the life out of it. Especially since 1947 the elders of the tribe grow ever more remote. In such an eroded milieu, it becomes a moral duty to draw attention to the lost horizon.

When an ancient wisdom fades into the past all cannot be well. Because of a false self-view the nation has been running after wrong and inferior aims and methods; generally speaking, it has moved out of the centre. Hence the continuing crisis. But, Sri Aurobindo will not allow us to forget the fact, India can develop and serve humanity only by being herself.

Earlier civilisations had been able to contain instrumental values, like politics and economics; ours has succumbed to these. Sri Aurobindo’s idea of spirituality, of spirit returning upon life and not away from it, makes possible a breakthrough and a total civilisation which has all the fascination of the difficult.

Undeterred by deviations, Sri Aurobindo had seen this to be the inner meaning, the unfinished chapter of Indian history as of the worldwide crisis today. The suggestion was meant not to flatter but to challenge us.

In the meditation between life and spirit — the essence of the Indian civilization and experiment — Sri Aurobindo has given us a passionate purpose, the hope of a generalised spiritual life or society as the true sense of the past. Let young India, lost and bewildered, earn it the hard way. Decision is another name for destiny and the law of one’s being.