Popular Language

The creator of the Epochal Literature is a sage (rśi).

• The sage goes on establishing coordination and adjustment, stage by stage, among time, space and person.

The creator of the Coastal Literature is a seer (kavi).

• The seer goes on establishing contact between time, space and person and the Entity which transcends all of them.

Epochal Literature will give expression to the minute details of common people’s daily lives:

• their hopes and aspirations
• sorrows and joys

This is done through the medium of language that will easily touch their hearts.

• The creator of Epochal Literature will have to give maximum importance to the people’s popular language.

But if the people’s language is not given much importance in Coastal Literature, it will not cause much inconvenience.

If Tulsidása in his Rámacharita Mánasa and Cańd́iidása in his Padávalii had used the then scholarly Saḿskrta language, could they have wielded so much influence over the people?

Similarly, the popular language of any part of the world as a vehicle of Epochal Literature does not carry very much weight in another part of the world, or with people speaking another language.

There are many well-written English and Bengali books about the history and culture of Rajasthan.

• But how much can the people of Rajasthan, speaking Rajasthani language, be benefited by them?

The poetic genius of Michael Madhusudhan Dutt could have produced remarkable English compositions.

• but the marked extent to which his genius found expression in the Bengali language, the way a wonderful Epochal Literature came into being – perhaps could not have been achieved in the English language.

It is not that Epochal Literature has to be written in the popular language alone, but the litterateurs should write their compositions in their own mother-tongues as much as possible.

The demand for popular language is not so very strong or rigid in respect to Coastal Literature.

We should not be unduly concerned if books about any subtle theory or principle, or any complicated sciences, are written only in the principal languages of the world. If they are written in the popular local language, there would be only a few who could study them.

But those litterateurs who think that their works will be less in demand if produced in their local languages, and thus instead create literature in the more widely known languages, cannot be called true litterateurs, for they lack the mentality of moving together with all.

Rather it will be more proper to call such writers pot-boilers or literary traders.

Symbol of the People’s Hopes

It is through clashes that power finds expression.

In a life which is averse to fight – where the urge for fight is feeble – there life’s expression also remains vague and indistinct.

Human intellect is indeed awakened through various kinds of natural, social, psychic and economic struggles. Those who seek the awakening of their intellects should not be afraid of struggle. Each of the social, economic and psychological principles of human life keep on changing from age to age.

Endowed with the strength of past experiences, human beings seek to create their future wealth: this is an undeniable truth. With their eye on the future, those who try to create something by cutting off the past, will utterly fail, for the creation of literature or art can only justify its existence by maintaining its relation between the past and the future.

That art or literature which suddenly appears also vanishes equally abruptly, leaving everything in turmoil. Due to changes in the wake of its sudden appearance and disappearance, society has no doubt achieved some gains and sustained some losses, but we cannot accept these changes as the fulfilment of any constructive endeavour.

Litterateurs are the seers of truth, and so naturally we cannot expect anything irrelevant from them. We want to see in their contributions keenness of intellect, wise discrimination, and the sweet touch of a sympathetic heart.

Where the society is caught in the whirlpool of superstitions and prejudices – where it has lost its vision in the darkness of ignorance – there litterateurs and artists will have to come forward, even by taking risks. They will have to show the path to others with a flaming torch in hand. It is not proper for them to remain inert and inactive, out of fear of stumbling.

It is only through waging a ceaseless struggle against all opposing forces that they will lead humanity forward. For their offense of outspokenness, the vested interests of the different sections of society may threaten them menacingly, but they must remain undaunted by this. As the symbol of the hopes and desires of millions of people, they will have to hold aloft the possibilities of the next era, after transcending the limits of this one. In this undertaking there is as much responsibility as there is hard labour, not a bit less. Taking into account the natural means of expression of human aspirations, the artists will have to portray the ideal in a mode which is easily understandable by the masses.

The Language of the Era

Litterateurs who are born in a particular age or environment cannot completely transcend the influence of that particular environment, creating a literature based on an altogether different idea language.

Human taste is advancing through changes; not only is language and its style of expression changing, but it is gradually losing its simplicity due to more complicated modes of thought. I am not referring here to the litterateurs’ unnecessary endeavours to create linguistic intricacies and complexities.

Whether they like it or not, due to unavoidable necessity, they are gradually being compelled to use more and more complex language. This state of affairs also existed in the past, exists in the present, and will remain in the future. So taking into account the peculiarities of the underlying ideas and language, the insightful critic can very easily detect the lapses of the litterateur. The language of one era will become archaic or awkward in the next: no epic verse can be composed today with the simplicity of Valmiki’s(2) language.

The use of denominative verbs as in the era of Michael Madhusudhan Dutt would only provoke laughter in this age.

The ideas and language of Bháratacandra’s Vidyasundara received great approbation from the cultured people of that time, and used to be recited with great appreciation in the royal court. The poet, too, was honoured with a royal title in recognition of his work. But today this work is considered obscene in its ideas and language, unfit to be read in the society. Even the word that the litterateurs of today unhesitatingly express will perhaps one day become considered indecent in civilized society.

But litterateurs are absolutely helpless in this regard, for it is impossible for them to completely shake off the thought and language of their era. In spite of the expansion of their vision over all the eras, their physical existence indeed remains embedded in a particular age. How is it possible for them to cut themselves off from the influence of their era, whose light and air, soil and water, fruits and flowers, have saturated their whole lives? Cańd́idása in his Shriikrśńa-Kiirtana portrayed Rádhá far more crudely than Jnánadása and Govindadása did in their literary creations, and yet in simplicity and sincerity Shriikrśńa-Kiirtana is impeccable, regardless of its valuation in the royal courts of literature.

The Taste of the Age

An age advances though the physical, psychic, and causal spheres.

The hands may not move as fast as the feet. The intellect may move a thousand times faster than the hands.

Therefore, different eras unfold at the same time in the life of an individual or a society.

While evaluating literature, we should remember this fact, otherwise we may do injustice to the litterateurs and artists.

It is necessary to have different kinds of yardsticks for measuring different things.

Those who are awed by the unique artistic expression of the Końárka Temple sneer in contempt at its obscene sculptures.

From the viewpoint of the modern era, they are perhaps correct, for their minds are conditioned by the taste of this era.

But those sculptures possessed within them the combined expressions of other eras as well – that those artistic creations are the eloquent proofs of those very combined expressions.

With the dawn of civilization, humanity’s artistic mind was developed.

People expressed themselves through the media of arts and crafts.

Primitive humans depicted in stone the images:

• of the birds or animals that they hunted
• of their own internal conflicts.

Small groups constantly thought of reinforcing and increasing the strength and number of their respective groups in order to be victorious in their battles.

This in the arts of those days we find the appearance of Phallus worship as the symbol of numerical maximisation.

This Phallus worship was prevalent among primitive non-Aryans. The refined Aryans gave it a new philosophical interpretation and transformed into Shiva-liuṋga.

In spite of the subtlety or refinement behind this philosophical substantiation, the more developed people lacked that simplicity of taste which the primitive people possessed.

But the expressions of both groups have now become offensive to the taste of the people of today. Of course these are the results of epochal changes.

If 2 eras are expressed simultaneously through some artists’ hands and feet, thought and expression, then they may possess all the faculties of mind. Their contributions may be enriched with all the sweetness of their hearts. But there will certainly be no harmonious balance between their actions and their feelings.

The thought-waves of the sculptors of Końárka could not flow at the same speed towards subtlety as did their chisels and hammers.