THE MODERN REVIEW
No. 3
No. 63
INDIA'S EPIC
From the Bengali of Ravindranath Tagore.
GENERALLY speaking poetry may be divided into two classes: some of them are the individual utterances of their authors, others breathe the voice of a large community.
By 'the individual utterance of a poet' we do not mean that the work is not intelligible to other men, for then it would be mere raving. The phrase means that the peculiar genius of the poet expresses the eternal sentiments and heart's secrets of universal Humanity through the medium of his personal joys and sorrows, his fancies, and his life's experiences.
Another class of poets reveal through their compositions the feelings and experiences of an entire country or age, and make them the eternal property of Man. These are the master-poets (mahá-kavi.) The Muse of a whole country or race speaks through them. Such a master poet's work does not look like the composition of any particular individual. It springs like the tallest forest tree out of the deep bowels of the country and spreads its sheltering shade over the land of its origin. In Kalidas's Sakuntala and Kumar-sambhav we see their author's peculiar skill of hand. But the Ramayan and the Mahabharat seem to be India's, like the Ganges and the Himalayas; their authors, Vyas and Valmiki, seem to have been set up for show only.
In truth Vyas and Valmiki were not the names of any real men; they are names given at a guess. These two vast works, these two epics which embrace all India,—have lost the names of their authors; the poet has been completely hidden by his own poem!
What the Ramayan and the Mahabharat are to us, the Iliad was to Ancient Greece. It was born and seated in the heart of the entire Greek world. The poet Homer merely gave voice to his country and age. Like a fountain his speech gushed out of the deep secret heart of his country and flooded it for ever.
No modern poem has this universality. Milton's Paradise Lost has no doubt much sublimity of style, glory of metre, and depth of sentiment; but it is not the property of his whole country; it is only a treasure for the library.
Hence we must regard the few ancient epics as a class apart. They were large-limbed like the gods and Titans of old; their breed is now extinct.
The ancient Aryan civilisation flowed in two streams,—into Europe and India. In each of these lands two great epics have preserved the message and music of that civilisation.
As a foreigner, I cannot say for certain whether Greece has succeeded in expressing her entire genius in her two epics. But I am sure that India has left no part of herself unembodied in the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.
Hence it is, that centuries have rolled on, but the Ramayan and the Mahabharat have
