Gitanjali

The book, Gitanjali opens with the image of a ‘frail vessel’ which suggests the empty and destitute life of a man. The empty vessel of man longs for the rain of love, grace and sympathy of the Omnipotent God so that the empty vessel may overflow with new the fresh life: “This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.” Through this image the poet means to suggest that life without the grace or rain of God is as worthless as a pitcher without water. Unless God showers love to this empty pitcher, we cannot gain perfectness; we cannot see him face to face. Commenting on this opening image, lyengar observes: “The human body is the temple of the soul, the human soul is the temple of God. The human soul is naught unless it is inhabited or `filled’ by the spirit. Birth and death are but the feeling and the emptying of the soul by the spirit, and the individual-insignificant as he may seem to be-verily partakes of God’s endless life. His immortality.” The music that flows on the lips and breathes through the flute is nothing but God’s grace and love. It is God who provides this perennial source of music to the poor flute: “This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.” The image of flute reminds us of Lord Sri-Krishna who used to shower the rain of melodies on the bank of the river, Yamuna.

This book shows, apart from many other things a fine use of apt symbolism which is a unique blend of mysticism and music, religion and poetry. Suffused with mystical imagination and aided by the free flowing movement, the book creates a universe of haunting beauty that expresses God’s finite love and humanity’s deep compassion for all things beautiful. Though the poet is amply influenced by the rich symbolism and profound thoughts of the Vedas and the Upanishads, this thought had “its root in the ancient wisdom of his land, but it is as different from the roots as the blossom is from the roots of the tree on which it appears.” K.R.S. lyengar has also rightly observed: “The current coin of India’s devotional poetry is melted and minted anew by Rabindra Nath, but the pure gold shines, as brightly as ever, even though the inscription on the coin is in English. The image of lyre in Gitanjali is so beautifully woven into the fabric of the book that it always comes back and forth like that of Shakespeare.Tagore has used apt images and symbols to convey his thoughts and feelings.  W.B. Yeats observes ‘The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soil as the grass and the rushes. Atradition where poetry and religion are the same thing, has passed through the centuries, gathering from learned and unlearned metaphor and emotion, and carried back again to the multitude the thought of the scholarand of the noble.’