I have readKiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004) Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997) Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (1981), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) Mulk Raj Anand, Selected Short Stories (ca. 1934-1953) Rabindranath Tagore, ঘরে বাইরে | Ghare Baire | The Home and the World (1916), Sadhana: The Realisation of Life (1913) Kabir, poems translated into Polish by Czesław Miłosz as Hymn o Perle (15th c.) श्रीमद भगवद्गीता | Bhagavadgītā (some time between 5th and 2nd century BC) |
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The Song in my library
Bhagavadgītā, or a Polish translation of it, a modest, badly printed volume from a series on world literature published by Ossolineum at the time of East European economic crisis that preceded the fall of Soviet empire, was one of those books were everything began, both in world literature and in my life. Even if I do not actually remember having read it in my youth. For many years, I just kept it in my possession like a sacred relic, a symbol of the destiny I chose for myself, of my aspiration, of everything. One of those books that transform, emanating an invisible light.
One of those summers when I returned to my flat in Krakow between stays in western Europe, I took it in my hands, brittle and yellowed with age, and read, just like Augustin might have read his epistles of Paul, obeying to a mysterious voice telling him Tolle, lege. How Krishna explained to Arjuna the virtue of his participation in the battle that was just about to begin, why he should take part in the bloodshed. A pervert form of "inner renunciation" and of "selfless action", one might say. Nonetheless, as more than two thousand years passed by, we are still sending soldiers to Afghanistan to seek some sort of virtue in the selfless fulfilment of what we call their duty. They lose their legs on old Soviet mines, certainly reaching far greater abnegation than those archers of the dawn of History, asking their divine mentors why on earth they should do such things. And Krishna explains.
Shooting at his adversaries during the great epic battle (the philosophical dialogue of some 700 verses make a part of Bhishma Parva, the 6th book among the 18 that make an even greater epic whole, Mahabharata), Arjuna is supposed to achieve some sort of synthesis of three spiritual dimensions, action (karma), knowledge (gyaana), and devotion (bhakti). This is what Krishna says, and Krishna is none other than the Lord Vishnu, i.e. his avatar. Although the text has a presumed human author, a rishi (sage) called Vyasa, it may be considered as a book of Revelation. This is why Bhagavadgītā is equally seen as a part of Prasthanatrayi, the Three Sources, together with Upanishads and Brahma sutras.
Part of many overlapping wholes, Bhagavadgītā's great wisdom may be resumed as a recommendation to look beyond the perspective of profit and loss, just like the outcome of the battle, a victory or a disaster, lays inward of the warrior's heroism. This is why I ask myself what actually happened, did Arjuna win this war, or to the contrary. In fact, it is not so very obvious. I suppose many an erudite person would be in trouble of telling who won in the Mahabharata. And who won in the Iliad? I suppose the Greek did, but it is all about the anger of Achilles, isn't it?
Well, in general, Mahabharatha is all about a war between two groups of cousins, Kauravas and Pandavas, who competed for the throne of Hastinapura (a city somewhere in Uttar Pradesh). It opens the Kali Yuga, the eon of cruelty and conflict in which we still live today (some people say it has been going on and on and on since the year 3102 BC). In the end, Pandavas won. Yudhishthira occupied the throne, and after many years he passed it on to Arjuna's grandson, Parikshit. So, in the end, it was worth it. Or not, because Arjuna died during the journey into the Himalayas, where the remaining Pandavas were to seek final enlightenment. So it was once again the pious Yudhishthira who was the sole survivor and the sole victor in the heaven of Dharma.
It is, as I presume, another important piece of wisdom to recall. However virtuous and heroic be the war we wage, it is usually someone else who takes the great prize. The hero's heroism is his sole reward.
One of those summers when I returned to my flat in Krakow between stays in western Europe, I took it in my hands, brittle and yellowed with age, and read, just like Augustin might have read his epistles of Paul, obeying to a mysterious voice telling him Tolle, lege. How Krishna explained to Arjuna the virtue of his participation in the battle that was just about to begin, why he should take part in the bloodshed. A pervert form of "inner renunciation" and of "selfless action", one might say. Nonetheless, as more than two thousand years passed by, we are still sending soldiers to Afghanistan to seek some sort of virtue in the selfless fulfilment of what we call their duty. They lose their legs on old Soviet mines, certainly reaching far greater abnegation than those archers of the dawn of History, asking their divine mentors why on earth they should do such things. And Krishna explains.
Shooting at his adversaries during the great epic battle (the philosophical dialogue of some 700 verses make a part of Bhishma Parva, the 6th book among the 18 that make an even greater epic whole, Mahabharata), Arjuna is supposed to achieve some sort of synthesis of three spiritual dimensions, action (karma), knowledge (gyaana), and devotion (bhakti). This is what Krishna says, and Krishna is none other than the Lord Vishnu, i.e. his avatar. Although the text has a presumed human author, a rishi (sage) called Vyasa, it may be considered as a book of Revelation. This is why Bhagavadgītā is equally seen as a part of Prasthanatrayi, the Three Sources, together with Upanishads and Brahma sutras.
Part of many overlapping wholes, Bhagavadgītā's great wisdom may be resumed as a recommendation to look beyond the perspective of profit and loss, just like the outcome of the battle, a victory or a disaster, lays inward of the warrior's heroism. This is why I ask myself what actually happened, did Arjuna win this war, or to the contrary. In fact, it is not so very obvious. I suppose many an erudite person would be in trouble of telling who won in the Mahabharata. And who won in the Iliad? I suppose the Greek did, but it is all about the anger of Achilles, isn't it?
Well, in general, Mahabharatha is all about a war between two groups of cousins, Kauravas and Pandavas, who competed for the throne of Hastinapura (a city somewhere in Uttar Pradesh). It opens the Kali Yuga, the eon of cruelty and conflict in which we still live today (some people say it has been going on and on and on since the year 3102 BC). In the end, Pandavas won. Yudhishthira occupied the throne, and after many years he passed it on to Arjuna's grandson, Parikshit. So, in the end, it was worth it. Or not, because Arjuna died during the journey into the Himalayas, where the remaining Pandavas were to seek final enlightenment. So it was once again the pious Yudhishthira who was the sole survivor and the sole victor in the heaven of Dharma.
It is, as I presume, another important piece of wisdom to recall. However virtuous and heroic be the war we wage, it is usually someone else who takes the great prize. The hero's heroism is his sole reward.
