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Emerson's “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā

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Emerson's “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā JAST ©2016 M.U.C.Women’s College, Burdwan ISSN 2395-4353 -a peer reviewed multidisciplinary research journal Vol.-02, Issue- 01 Emerson’s “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā: A Revaluation Pradipta Sengupta M.U.C.Women’s College, Burdwan Burdwan; West Bengal; India-713104 pradiptasg.eng/[email protected] Abstract: Given Emerson’s filiations with Indian scriptures and religions, and his being influenced by the charm of the eternal message of the Bhagavad-Gitā, the parallels between the Emerson’s “Brahma” and the Hindu scripture become an interesting area for exploration. Both “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā dwell on the idea of evenness, oneness and sameness; both celebrate the supremacy of “Brahma” over other things, other gods and religions; both privilege the role of the subjective self over the remaining world; and both enjoin an absolute surrender to the supreme pure consciousness embodied in Brahma. This paper tries to find out the exact parallels between the two texts hitherto unexplored by any critic. Keywords: Emerson, Indian, scriptures, Bhagavad-Gitā, Brahma, Krishna, sameness, oneness, evenness, gods, religions, surrender, consciousness, supreme, absolute To tread a trodden path in research is a difficult job, and when one thinks of such an eminent figure as Emerson, it appears all the more difficult, for critics have almost exhausted their critical research on him from every critical angle. Given Emerson’s filiations with Indian and Oriental thoughts, a revaluation of his poem “Brahma” seems both daring and worth- considering: daring because it is an oft-discussed poem where there is hardly any scope for further research, and worth-considering because of the gnomic and esoteric nature of the poem which elicits and invites further clarification. Yet my humble submission in this article is to show some revealing resemblances between the poem and the famous Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gitā. Emerson’s preoccupation with Indian and Oriental philosophy did not elude the critical ken. Swami Paramananda in his Emerson and Vedanta(1919) explores the impact of the Upanishads on Emerson. Emerson’s affiliation with the Oriental and the Asian is explored by Frederic Ives Carpenter in Emerson and Asia(1930), while Arthur Christy analyses the impact of oriental philosophy in American Transcendentalism in The Orient in American Transcendentalism(1932). Following in the toes of Christy, Leyla Goren examines the traces of Brahmanistic philosophy in Emerson in Elements of Brahmanism in the Transcendentalism of Emerson (1959). Dale Riepe’s research, The Philosophy of India and Its Impact on American Thought (1970), illustrates the role of Indian thought in shaping American philosophical thoughts. Most of these researches veer around generalisations, and lack any sharp focus. Critics have poured in their critical focus on this particular poem. In her wonderful research, The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shanta Acharya devotes a separate chapteri to this poem. Acharya casts her net wide and tries to analyse the poem with the Indian concept of the Brahma in general, and the Upanishads and The Vishnu Purana in particular. But strangely enough, there is hardly any reference to Bhagavad-Gitā to which its resemblances are conspicuous, and yet unexplored. Other researches on this poemii, too, miss [Article History: Received on 24.03.2016, Accepted on 27.05.2016, Published on 28th June, 2016] [7] Emerson’s “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā: A Revaluation Author: P. Sengupta its precise affinities with the Bhagavad-Gitā. Given Emerson’s filiations with the Oriental philosophy and considering this research gap, I offer to illustrate the amazing parallels between this poem and the Bhagavad-Gitā. II Emerson’s initiation to Indian thoughts is a well-known fact. For him the Hindu scriptures are “learning’s El Dorado”iii. Emerson’s interest in Indian philosophy and Indian religions was shaped by many factors and influences. One of the earlier influences to chisel it was Robert Southey’s The Curse of Kehama. Besides, his family was well equipped with a good collection of books on oriental literature and philosophy. His father Rev.William Emerson’s library comprised books like Elizabeth Hamilton’s Translations of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah: Written Previous to, and during the period of his residence in England, J.Priestly’s A Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with Those of the Hindoos and Other Ancient Nations, Lord Teignmouth’s Life of Sir William Jones, among other worksiv. Apart from his essays on “Veda”, “Menu” and “Berkeley and Viasav” which appeared in 1836, it is worth-considering what he said in his “Divinity School Address”: This thought dwelled deepest in the minds of men in the devout and contemplative East; not alone in Palestine, where it reached its pure expression, but in Egypt, in Persia, in India, in China. Europe has always owed to oriental genius, its divine impulses.vi Shanta Acharya notes how “[b]etween July 23 and September 22, 1840, Emerson borrowed from the Boston Athenaeum the third volume of Sir William Jones’ Works, which includes the Institutes of Hindu Law: or The Ordinances of Menu, the 1799 edition”(89). These sporadic evidences amply attest to Emerson’s filiations with Indian philosophy, and religious thoughts. The moment the first English translation of the Bhagavad-Gitā by Charles Wilkins came out in 1785, it made great ripples on the intellectual world in either sides of the Atlantic, i.e., in Europe and in the U.S.A.: Blake and Carlyle in England, and Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson in the U.S.A., among others, were charmed by its message. Southey’s “Notes” to The Curse of Kehama which Emerson was thoroughly conversant with, contained a passage on the disposition of the soul taken from the Bhagavad-Gitā: The Soul is not a thing of which a man may say, it hath been, it is about to be, or is to be hereafter, for it is a thing without birth; it is ancient, constant, and eternal, and is not to be destroyed in this its mortal frame(280). Emerson’s reading of Victor Cousin’s Introduction to the History of Philosophy (1832) which contained an illustration of the Bhagavad-Gitā shows his early initiation to this Hindu scripture. In September 1845 Emerson acquired a copy of Wilkins’s The Bhagavat Geeta: or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon(1785)vii. Emerson’s indebtedness to Wilkins’s translation is further attested by what he wrote to Max Muller in a letter in 1873: All my interest in the Aryan is old reading of Marsh’s Menu, then Wilkins’ Bhagavat Geeta; Burnouf’s Bhagavat Purana, and Wilson’s Vishnu Purana,— yes & a few other translations. I remember I owed my first taste for this fruit to Cousin’s sketch, in his first Lectures, of the Dialogue between Krishna & Arjun, & I still prize the first chapters ‘JAST’-2016, Vol.-02, Issue-01 [8] JAST-a peer reviewed multidisciplinary research journal Vol.-02, Issue-01 of that Bhagvat as wonderful, & would gladly learn any accurate date of their age.viii Thoreau, Emerson’s fellow-transcendentalist, was equally influenced by the compelling verses of the Bhagavad-Gitā. In his famous Walden, Thoreau admits his indebtedness to this Hindu scripture in effusive terms: In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gitā, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial(266). This observation of Thoreau seems to find a correspondence in Emerson who was equally charmed by the message of this holy book. Emerson’s opinion of the book is equally encomiastic: It was the first of the books, it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small of unworthy but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age & climate had pondered & thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.ix Little wonder then, the influence of the Bhagavad-Gitā on Emerson was conspicuous, a fact which justifies the rationale behind my paper which attempts to explore the parallels between his poem “Brahma” and the Hindu scripture. III The poem “Brahma” made its appearance in late 1845 in Emerson’s Journals. In stark contrast to his previous poem “Indian Superstition” where Indian culture has been decimated and where Brahma is presented a weak and ineffectual god, “Brahma” celebrates the supremacy of the god Brahma who is too vast and too variegated to be described in precise terms. He is so infinite a being as not to be put into the straitjacket of a definite formula or any precise description. Thus He is, paradoxically, neither the “slayer” nor the “slain”: If the red slayer thinks he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, turn againx. Now let us compare these lines with what Krishna says to Arjuna in the second chapter: Ya enam vetti hantāram yaścainam manyate hatam; Ubhau tau na vijanito nāyam hanta na hanyate. ( 2.19) (Who considers the Atman as the slayer and who considers this Atman as the slain, both of them do not know that It does not kill nor is It killed”.)xi What Krishna means to suggest, and what has been almost exactly replicated by Emerson in “Brahma” is that the Atman or the soul is immune from demolition. The nature of Brahma, in the Indian scriptural parlance, has multiple interpretations. It is sometimes identified with the Atman or the soul; sometimes it is identified with the non-dual pure consciousness, and sometimes with the essence of this egg-like universe or Brahmanda.
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