It is true that the English reading public has a rough idea of Tagores religious thought through some of his essays but they belong to a period when he had reached only the end of the first stage of his spiritual development which consists chiefly of what he had received from his father, the Maharshi. He speaks of the Brahman as realized by the Upanishadic rishis and reinterprets their vision in his characteristic lyrical style. Being a poet and thus attached to the world and its creatures he rejects Shankaras position of regarding them as mere illusions : for him the seekers of vidya only or Avidya only both go unto perdition, the Lord is rather to be sought every-where, in the Fire, in Water, in the innermost recess of Creation (Ye deva agnau yo apsau etc.), and this vision has to be translated into aesthetic expression. Thus, when he remembers his departed beloved, be sees her everywhere, she is transformed into the greenness of the green vegetation, the azure of the blue sky (shyamale shyamal tumi, nilimay nil). Though English translations we know Tagore thus far, and no farther.
He then gives up composing devotional songs addressed to Brahman. One wonders why. The clue is to be found in his next great poem called Tapobhanga. It becomes clear to the reader in retrospect that the im personal Brahman lacked the warmth and colour to appease the disire of the mundane heart which years to love, the hungry eyes which want to see God-it not the direct vision, at least in the mind, through forms they have already seen on the earth. To which God was Tagore to tur kasmai devaya havisha vidhenua?
Bengali poetry is based on Vaishnava traditions. Chandidasa and Vidyyapati, the two great predecessors of Tagore had followed the footsteps of Jayadeva and countless poets after them have also sung the love of Radha and Krishna but nineteenth century Bengal had no great Vaishnava figure like Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda who as henotheists had Shakti to the most exalted eminence. Tagore turned to Shiva, for, is not Rudra also the Nataraja, and had not the Poet as a small boy learnt from his father to seek the benign face of Rudra for protection, Rudra yat te dakshinam niukhani tena manı pahi nityanı?
Tapobhanga is a great poem. In it Tagore sees the Lord of Time deep in tapas. It is during these necessary and inevitable periods of tapas that the creation becomes dry and shrivels up in the heat (tapas), pain, suffering and all the miseries of the world are nothing but the creation of Natarajas dance and all these find their symbol in the resplendent sufferings of Uma in her separation (vichchheder dipta duhkhadahe) caused by Shivas having withdrawn himself into himself– for is he not the Yogisha also? At this stage enters the poet. He calls himself the emissary of the conspiring Heaven (tapobhanga duta ani Mahendrer). Shiva wakes up, the auspicious moment of the marriage of the celestial couple has come, smile blossoms forth on the cleeks of Uma in sweet bashfulness (smita hasya suniadhur laj). The Lord calls the poet, and taking the flower garland and mangalyas, he joins the seven rishis in the marriage procession (saptarshir dale, kavi sange chale). This time it is not Madana, it is the Poet. And what an imagery! Along with the saptarshi, on the high firmament, it is the Poet, for the whole universe to gaze at and admire. What a role for all poets of all ages to play!
And then Tagore composed the famous Nataraja Odes. Oh, Nataraja, thy matted locks become loose when Thou commences Thy Pralayadance, Nataraja, break my slumber with Thy dance steps. (nrity er tale tale supti bhangao). They have the same motif as in the Bharatanritya song, Oh, Lord of Chidamabaram, with Thou not stop Thy chariot at my cottage door for a moment? Tagore in indebted to South India for his Nataraja cycle. The God is practically unknown as Nataraja in the North.
Tagore passes through several tragic experiences before he reached the third and the final stage. The world knows how the Poet, shaking with age, and rage composed the epistles in defense of Indias national heroes, of the correspondence between the two poets, Tagore and Naguchi. It has and inkling also of the Poets feeling when he saw the World War II shat tering to bits the edifice of international peace and goodwill he had been building up but alas, it known nothing of the greatest tragedy of his life the Indian nation had not come forward to receive his favorite child, the Vishvabharati, As the aged Poet proceeded along the dolorous path carrying his cross, no St. Veronica came to offer him the kerchief to wipe his perspiration and blood. The poet fell under the weight.
