Emerson's “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā

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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

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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. In this connection the interpretation of Swami Ranganathananda Maharajjixii is illuminating: In the Taittiriya Upanisad, ‘enquiry into the nature of Brahman’ begins with the statement: Annam brahmeti vyājanāt.’(The disciple) understood annam, i.e., food as Brahman’. When you put food into the stomach, out of the food comes energy for you....Then the Upanisad continues to say that prāna, manas, vijnana, etc., were taken to be Brahman. Ultimately, the true Brahman, of the nature of

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infinite, non-dual, pure Consciousness, was realized as the true Brahman. These others are all the same Brahman at various levels of experience (Universal Message, I, 460).

Emerson proceeds to illuminate the otherwise inexplicable nature of the Brahma in whom we find an inextricable inseparability between the incongruous and the opposite: Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. The otherwise dichotomous and the incompatible seem to be dissolved in the unique identity of the Brahma in whom all the opposites are harmoniously fused together into oneness and one identity, such that no distinction is possible. Interestingly, it is this spirit of oneness that strikes the chord of harmony in Indian religious and philosophical thought. This paradoxical nature of the Brahma in whom the binaries like ‘far’ and ‘forgot’, ‘sunlight’ and ‘shadow’, appearance and disappearance, ‘shame’ and ‘fame’, and so forth, get inextricably enmeshed and fused into the spirit of oneness, can also be compared with some similar verses from the Bhagavad-Gitā. Let us consider the following verse from the second chapter: Sukhaduhkhe same kritvā lābhālābhau jayājayau; Tato yuddhāya yujyasva naivam pāpamavāpsyasi( 2.38). (“Having made pain and pleasure, gain and loss, conquest and defeat, the same, engage yourself then in battle. So shall you incur no sin”.) (Universal Message, I, 158). The real yogi, explains Krishna to Arjuna, is immune from the distinction between the opposites, and strikes a spirit of sameness and oneness. In fact, in the forty eighth verse of the second chapter Krishna defines “yoga” as the ability to achieve this sameness of mind: “samobhutvā samatvam yoga ucyate”(2.48) (Universal Message, I, 186).In the fifty sixth verse of the second chapter Krishna virtually reiterates this message of sameness as being the characteristic of the sage of wisdom: Duhkhesvanudvignamanāh sukhesu vigatasprihah; Vitaragābhayakrodhah sthitadhirmunirucyate(2.56) (“One whose mind is not shaken by adversity, one who does not hanker after happiness, who has become free from blind attachment, fear, and anger, is indeed the muni or sage of steady wisdom”) (Universal Message, I, 221). The same spirit of equality and sameness characterizes a person possessed with self- knowledge, comments Krishna in the fifth chapter: Vidyā vinaya sampanne brāhmane gavi hastini; Śuni caiva śvapāke ca panditah samadarśinah(5.18) [“The panditas or knowers of the Self look with an equal eye on a brāhmana endowed with learning and humility, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and an eater of dogs(low-caste person)”] (Universal Message, II, 67). Emerson’s inseparability between “shame and fame” may remind any perceptive reader of what Krishna says to Arjuna in the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses from the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad-Gitā. For example in the seventh verse Krishna says: ‘JAST’-2016, Vol.-02, Issue-01 [10]

JAST-a peer reviewed multidisciplinary research journal Vol.-02, Issue-01 Jitātmanah praśantasya paramātmā samāhitah; Śitosna sukhadukhesu tathā mānāpamānayoh(6.7) (“To the self-controlled and serene person, the Supreme Self is the object of constant realization, in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, as well as in honour and dishonour”) (Universal Message, II, 123). Similarly in the next verse Krishna reiterates, “Whose heart is filled with satisfaction through knowledge and wisdom, and is steady, whose senses are conquered, and to whom a lump of earth, stone, and gold are the same, that yogi is called steadfast” (Universal Message, II, 125)xiii. Such a yogi is well akin to the spirit of the Brahma for whom there is no room for dichotomy and difference, and who treats the entire world with a sense of evenness and equality. Krishna’s advice to Arjuna in the next verse(6.9), therefore, is to achieve this sense of equality of judgement: “One who looks with equal regard upon well-wishers, friends, enemy, neutrals, arbiters, the hateful, the relatives, and upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike, attains excellence” (Universal Message, II, 128). The equal judgement towards “shame” and “fame” finds its correspondence in Krishna’s comment, “I am the same in all beings; to Me there is none hateful or dear”(9.29)xiv. But this objectivity leading to this spirit of equality is possibly rendered in a more conspicuous way in the eighteenth and nineteenth verses from chapter twelve of the Bhagavad-Gitā. That devotee is dear to Him, says Krishna, whom he describes as follows in these verses: Samah śatrau ca mitre ca tathā mānāpamānayoh; Śitosna sukhadukhhesu samah sangavivarjitah.(12.18). (One who is same to friend and foe, and also honour and dishonour, who is the same in heat and cold, and in pleasure pain, who is free from attachment,”) Tulyanindā stutirmauni santusto yena kenacit; Aniketah sthiramatih bhaktimān me priyo narah(12.19) (“To whom censure and praise are equal, who is silent, content with anything, homeless, steady-minded, full of devotion, such a person is dear to Me”.) (Universal Message, III, 26, 27). Any perceptive reader cannot but compare these verses with that of the seventh verse in chapter six, explicated earlier. Little wonder then, both the Bhagavad-Gitā and Emerson’s “Brahma” are dominated by the spirit of sameness, evenness, and oneness. While the predominance of the self or “I” characterizes a large section of the Bhagavad-Gitā, we find such a privileging of the self over others in Emerson’s “Brahma” where the speaker is the subjective self who almost egotistically relates his whereabouts: They reckon ill who leave me leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. The role of the other becomes subservient to the predominance of the self expressed in the reiterative use of “I”. And one may well compare it with a similar privileging of the self over the other in the Bhagavad-Gitā: Aham kratuh aham yajnah svadhāham aham ausadham; Mantro’ham ahamevājyam ahamagniraham hutam(9.16) (“I am the kratuxv,I am the yajna, I am the svadhā, I the ausadha, I am the mantra, I am the ājya, I the fire, and I the oblation”) (Universal Message, III, 367)xvi.

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Interestingly, in Emerson’s “Brahma” the singer and the song (“hymn”) are the same. This inextricability between the actor and the act, or what W.B.Yeats puts it in an altogether different context in his famous query in the last linexvii of his poem “Among School Children”, strikes resemblance to the inalienability among the mantra, the ghee, the fire, and the act of oblation mentioned in the Bhagavad-Gitā. It was not possible for Emerson to go through Shankara’s hymn “Nirvanashatkam”, translated by Swami Vivekananda, when he wrote “Brahma”. Whether he read it later is a matter of research, but nowhere is the predominance of the self better expressed than in this poem of Shankara. To do justice to this claim one may just have a cursory glance at the concluding part of this translated version: I am untouched by the senses; I am neither mukti nor knowable; I am without form, without limit, beyond space, beyond time; I am in everything; I am the basis of the universe; everywhere am I. I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute— I am He, I am He(Shivoham, Shivoham).xviii In fact Brahma combines the tripartite qualities of existence(sat), knowledge(chit) and bliss(ānanda), and is thus embodied in what is known as Satchidānanda. The final stanza of the poem is a privileging of Brahma over other gods, and a plea to others to surrender themselves completely to Him. Emerson came to know about the gods like Varuna(wind), Vritra(cloud), Aswins(water), Indra(firmament), and Agni(fire)—or whom he refers to as the “strong gods” in “Brahma”— from Horace H. Wilson’s translation of the Rig Veda Sanhita. The final message of the poem is to find refuge in Brahma through an absolute surrender to Him and a renunciation of the world: Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. And let us compare it with what Krishna says to Arjuna: Manmanā bhava madbhakto madyāji mām namaskuru; Mām eva esayasi yuktvaivam ātmānam matparāyanah(9.34) (“Fill thy mind with Me, be My devotee, sacrifice unto Me, bow down to Me; thus having made your heart steadfast in Me, taking Me as the supreme Goal, you shall come to Me”) (Universal Message, II, 395). The idea of turning one’s “back on heaven” is an attempt to renounce the external world, and attests to preferring Brahma to the remaining gods and religions in the world. And when we look at the Bhagavad-Gitā, we find how in the final sections, Krishna in a similar way, exhorts and counsels Arjuna to renounce other religions and establish his steadfast, and unwavering faith in Him through an absolute surrender. In the eighteenth and final chapter of the Bhagavad-Gitā Krishna demands such an absolute surrender through the abandonment of other religions: Sarvadharmān parityajya māmekam śaranam vraja; Aham tvā sarvapāpebhyo moksayisyāmi mā śucah(18.66) (“Relinquishing all dharmas take refuge in me alone; I will liberate you from all sins; grieve not”) (Universal Message, III, 395). Conclusion: 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 two texts are amply-justified. Both “Brahma” and the Bhagavad-Gitā dwell on the idea of evenness, oneness and sameness; both celebrate the supremacy of “Brahma” over other things and other gods ‘JAST’-2016, Vol.-02, Issue-01 [12]

JAST-a peer reviewed multidisciplinary research journal Vol.-02, Issue-01 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.

Works Cited Acharya, Shanta. The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson .Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. Cameron, Kenneth Walter Emerson, the Essayist: An Outline of His Philosophical Development through 1836 with Special Emphasis on the Sources and Interpretation of “Nature”, 2 vols. Raleigh, North Carolina: The Thistle Press, 1945. Carpenter, Frederick Ives Emerson and Asia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930. Christy, Arthur E. The Orient in American Transcendentalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932. Cousin, Victor. Introduction to the history of Philosophy. Trans. Henning Gotfried Linberg. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, 1832. Gilman, William H., et al. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, eds. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1960-82. Goren, Leyla. Elements of Brahmanism in the Transcendentalism of Emerson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Paramananda, Swami. Emerson and Vedanta. Boston: Vedanta Center, 1918. Parini, Jay. ed. The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Ranganathananda, Swami. Universal Message of the Bhagavad-Gitā: An Exposition in the Light of Modern Thought and Modern Needs, 3 vols. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 2000. Riepe, Dale. The Philosophy of India and Its Impact on American Thought. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1970. Sanborn, F.B. ed., The Genius and Character of Emerson. Boston: J.R.Osgood & Co., 1885. Spiller, Robert E., and Alfred R. Ferguson, eds. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson .Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Southey, Robert. The Curse of Kehama. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme &Brown, 1810. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New Delhi: S.Chand & Co.,1962. Vivekananda, Swami. Vedanta: Voice of Freedom, ed. Swami Chetanananda. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1987. Wilkins, Charles. trans. The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon; in Eighteen Lectures; With Notes. London: British East India Company, 1785. Wilson, Horace Hayman. trans. Rig-Veda-Samhita: A Collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns. London: W.H.Allen & Co. , 1850-1866. i See ‘”Brahma”: The Essential Man’ in Shanta Acharya, The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 173-190. Further references to this book have been cited as Acharya. ii See William T. Harris, “Emerson’s Orientalism”, F.B.Sanborn, ed., The Genius and Character of Emerson(Boston: J.R.Osgood & Co.,1885),372-385; Frederick Ives Carpenter, Emerson and Asia(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930),110-122. iii Quoted in Acharya, 48. iv Kenneth Walter Cameron, Emerson, the Essayist: An Outline of His Philosophical Development through 1836 with Special Emphasis on the Sources and Interpretation of “Nature”, 2 vols.(Raleigh, North Carolina: The Thistle Press, 1945), II,136. v Emerson meant Vyāsa, the poet of The Mahābhārata. vi Robert E. Spiller and Alfred R. Ferguson, eds. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971) I,80. vii Quoted in Acharya, 60. viii Quoted in Acharya, 79. ix The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, eds. William H. Gilman, et al (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960-82),X, 360. All further references to this book have been cited as JMN. x In this article I have used the text of Emerson’s “Brahma” from Jay Parini, ed. The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry(New York: Columbia University Press, 1995),103. xi Swami Ranganathananda, Universal Message of the Bhagavad-Gitā: An Exposition in the Light of Modern Thought and Modern Needs, 3 vols.(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 2000), I,127. All my quotations from and translations of the Bhagavad-Gitā are from this book, further referred to as Universal Message. xii Swami Ranganathananda was the 13th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, and one of the greatest exponents of Vedantic philosophy.

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xiii One may compare this with verse 24 from Chapter 14: “Samaduhkhasukhah svasthah samalostāśmakāncanah;/Tulyapriyāpriyo dhirah tulyanindātmasamstutih”(14.24)(“He or she who is alike in pleasure or pain, Self-abiding, who regards a clod of earth, a stone, and gold alike; who is same to agreeable and disagreeable events, who is wise and same in censure and praise”), Universal Message, III,126. xiv Universal Message, II,388. xv While kratuh and yajnah are forms of Vedic sacrifice, ājya is the ghee that is poured into the scared fire. Svadhā is the holy mantra or hymn, and ausadha in Sanskrit means medicine. xvi One may compare this predominance of the self with the next three verses(9. 17-19) of the Bhagavad-Gitā. xvii “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” But one should note that Yeats’s context was totally different from that of Emerson. xviii Swami Vivekananda, Vadanta: Voice of Freedom, ed. Swami Chetanananda(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1987),270.

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