Rabindranath Tagore: The Guru of Indian Poets

XXXV

Where the mind is without fear,

and the heart is held high,

Where the world is not broken up into fragments

by narrow domestic walls,

Where the words came out from

the depths of truth,

Where tireless striving stretches its arms

towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its

way into the dreary desert sand of dead habits,

Where the mind is led forward by thee into

everwidening thought and action -

Into that heaven of freedom,

My father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore: Gitanjali [Song offerings]. English translation in prose by Tagore himself in a book of 103 of his poems published by London, The Indian Society, 1912.

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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Brahman aristocrat born in Calcutta, poet, music teacher, playwright, visual artist, expert on the rural world and founder of microcredit, was one of the major witnesses and protagonists of the beginning of the industrial era and the first half of the twentieth century. He revealed India to itself by reviving neglected sources in areas that include and extend beyond the scope of politics. From India, whose social, ethnic and cultural divisions he overcame, he brought us his reflections on education, science and the relationship to the Other, in particular the West. His significant work, a cornerstone of pan-Asianism, provides us with a philosophical system emblematic of Asian civilizations since it addresses all the issues and social contradictions underlying the struggle for political independence and respect for cultural and linguistic identity, while offering ideals and practices based on tolerance and dialogue with the West, which have earned him universal respect and admiration. A contemporary of Gandhi and Nehru, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, friend of Einstein and of many artists – such as the Argentine Victoria Ocampo – and scientists, the works of this humanist in search of the universal are at the core of a galaxy of intellectuals and creators from Asia and elsewhere and continue, moreover, to have an impact on the international community as a whole.

Rabindranath Tagore, in Shantiniketan (1938/39)