'Rose of God’ by Sri Aurobindo : A Critical Summary and Analysis

'Rose of God’by Sri Aurobindo unfolds before us in the succession of vibrant images the whole mystical metaphysics and psychology-many-sided system exploring the secrets of the Divine Rose. In the poem, Rose of God, There are two main concepts rounds which the words are woven the descending super mind and the ascending sun. 

The Rose of God which is equated with the rising sun and the descending super mind is characterized in the opening stanza by two attributes, bliss and passion. The vermillion sun on the blue sky appears like a Kumkumam mark on the forehead of a beautiful woman. The redness is the symbol of passion and the sapphire of blue heaven stands for the limitless infinity. Therefore the Sun is called the Passion Flower of the Nameless. God, the Absolute, cannot be comprehended through qualities. So, man attributes qualities to Him for the purpose of realization or it can be said that the absolute itself manifests to man through assumed qualities. This is the passion of God, who is really beyond all naming. 

Man has to use symbols to express the indefinable. So the poet calls the Sun’bud of the mystical name’, that is, the Prijakshara OM, which stands for all the Mantras. ‘OM’ or pravana is taken to be the truest symbol of God head. The poet invoices this passion flower to rise up in the human heart, like an upward streaming flame. This is an allusion to the Kundalini which rises from the Muladhara and passing through four more plexes goes up to the Sahasrara. The consequence of the up going flame is bliss. The poet calls it fire-sweet, that is, as flaming as the fire and as sweet as nectar. He says the rising of the sun in the sky at the dawn produces the seven – coloured spectrum which is the symbol for the seven levels of ecstasy defined in Yoga tents like ‘Yoga – Vasishta’. Thus in the first stanza, the eagerness of God to come to man is powerfully underlined by the symbol of the sun eagerly  rising in the Eastern sky.

In the second stanza, the attributes dealt with are those of Light and time. In the first stanza, the miracle was said to happen in the heart of man. In this stanza the transformation is in the mind of man. Light stands for unclouded knowledge. The Sun is obviously the symbol of the grandest light. In the Gita we find that the splendor of the Lord’s Visvarupa or cosmic from has been hesitatingly described as a splendors of a thousand suns rising simultaneously. The sun drives away all darkness and takes us to the summit of wisdom. n terms of the kumkumam the summit stands for the thousand – petal led Lotus, reeling which the Yogi has nothing more to achieve. It is theultimate seeing , and it is immaculate in the sense that the Sahasra is represented as pure white. So , he calls the sun a golden flower of mystery.

The sun is the maker of time and as such represents the God head which is beyond all time, but comes down to man in time as an incarnation. And this incarnation, the poet calls the guest of the marvelous hour. A quest is called an atithi, that is, one who comes without previous appointment. The descent of the super mind depends on the Grace of God and cannot be scheduled according to any time – table. But once the super mind arrives time itself becomes a marvel, because hence forth the shackling effect if time is lost living in time the aspirant becomes timeless. This is the result of the divine quest arriving unexpectedly. So, he is called the quest of marvelous hour. 

In the third stanza, the attribute dealt with are power and Immortality. The poet calls the sun the source of all power. This is scientifically true because all the sources of energy with which we run our industries can be traced ultimately to the sun. Science tells us that the four fuels. firewood, coal, water power and petroleum, all originate from solar light and heat. Hence it is extremely appropriate that the sun is worshiped as the grants of power. So, the poet calls the sun the granter of right. Icon means image. He calls it also the damask force of infinity. Damask is defined as blush red. So, it brings to our mind the scene of an infinite power that is also infinitely tenders. The sun not only gives us power but tenderly. Nourishes the smallest life. 

The power of sun shatters the darkness of ignorance. This is composed to a diamond drill breaking up rocks and releasing the life – giving waters. The power resides in the will and therefore the poet entreats the sun to set ablaze the will of man,and make him relies the pattern of the lord’s creation. When we know the design our own lines into great elegance and fulfillment, drawing power from the source of all power. There fore, for poet calls the sun the Image of Immortality. An image is finite, but what it represents is Infinite. Man lives only for a brief period. But within the period if the life is divinized, it can have eternal significance. He calls it an outbreak because the power of the Divine Shatters all limitations.

It is the desire of God that is the source of creation. We cannot know why God choose of creation. We cannot know why God choose to have a desire. But we cannot, with out human understanding, explain creation as anything but the sport of God undertaken in cutler freedom. Man are driven by desire to do things but God uses desire as the instrument for his creation. So the poet says that the blooming of life on creation is simulations with the rising of the sun,. and in the redness of the sun, he sees God’s purple desire. Life is multifaceted and comparable to a flower with multi – layered petals. The colours run the whole gamut even as a lyre spans all the octaves of music. The poet has in mind the sahasrara or the thou – sand petal lotus which overtops the sin charkas of the koundolini and where siva and parvathi, the parents of the universe are said to sport. From that sport does the divinity of tile issue.

According to Tantric lore, the Kundalini that has risen up to the sahasrara returns down words by the Grace of God. The result is the physical body of man is transformed into finest expression of divinity. The poet calls it a sweet rhyme. When the super mind descents, earth heaven get inter – mingled and mortal man becomes immortal. Life becomes eternal. So he calls it ‘The Rose of Life’.

In the concluding stanza, the poet invokes “God’s grace as the Rose of Love” In shakthi worship, the composition of the Divine Mother is called Aruna or Pink. The poet calls it the blush of rapture on the face to the Eternal. It is ruby – red in colour signifying the blood relationship between the victory and the deity. He points out that nature by itself is Tamasic. It is like a deep abyss or pit completely dark. Man who finds himself cast into that bottomless pit cries out in despair. The poet asks the Grace of God to descend to this pit and raise up the suffering mortal. So, that earth itself turns into heaven and life is thrilled as it kissed by the eternal bliss.

It should be noted that the suprarenal is expected to device every accepted to to divinize every aspect of human life. That is why he refers to its symbol, the sun, as the Rose of Life, Rose of Power, Rose of life, Rose of  Love and of Bliss. The change takes place in man’s body, wil, mind and heard. The Rose Stands for Bright hope and so the poem is a testament of the poet’s faith that sooner or later the super mind will descend and divinize life on earth at all levels. Considered merely as a poet and critic of poetry, Sri Aurobindo would still rank among the supreme masters of our time. His poetical output represents the creative effort of about sixty years and, on a modest estimate, may run to some three thousand pages.

K. D. Sethna remarks about the poem, “The most famous of mystical symbols he has steeped in the.intensest inner light and lifted it on a material base of pure stress into an atmosphere of rhythmic ecstasy.”3 The ‘Rose’ is here the supreme symbol of the essence and efflorescence of God. Bliss, Light,Power, Life and Love are the five essences that fuse as the integral perfection of God. In every stanza, the first half names a power above and the second half invokes that Power to inhabit, inform and recreate the corresponding instrument below—Bliss for the human heart. Light for the human mind, Power for the human will, Life for the body terrestrial, and Love to ‘make earth the home of the wonderful and life Beatitude’s Kiss’. Everywhere in ‘Rose of God’ we have a profound and life-packed language as a natural vehicle attempting the revelation of spiritual reality.

Rose of God, like a blush of rapture on Eternity’s face, Rose of Love, ruby depth of all being, fire-passion of Grace! Arise from the heart of the yearning that sobs in Nature’s abyss: Make earth the home of the Wonderful and life beatitude’s kiss.

“River, Once” by R. Parthasarathy: A Critical Summary and Analysis

The title of R. Parthasarathy's poem “River, Once” is highly suggestive. It indicates that it was a river once and it is no longer a river due to man’s indifference to the beauty of nature. The poet expresses his sense of shock at the degradation of the river Vaigai, which flows through the city of Madurai. Using the device of contrast effectively, the poet shows how the river that was once the cradle of a glorious culture has now become a sewer. The river is personified as a mother. The mother river feels for her lost glory and speaks about her present pitiable condition. The Vaigai was a fast flowing perennial river once and a glorious civilisation flourished on its banks. Now it has become a play-field for boys and the mischievous boys “tickle the ribs” with paper boats. The word “ribs” has been used metaphorically for the banks of the rivers. Buffaloes have turned the river into a pond and are wallowing in it. Once there were flower gardens on the banks of the river and now one finds only thorny bushes and shrubs.
 

“There is eaglewood in my hair / and state flowers. Now a lot of eaglewood floats on the water and state flowers that are thrown into it can also be sun. Once she was the refuge of emperors and poets. The poets of the past came to her for inspiration. She inspired them to write great poetry. Here the poet makes a reference to the three great Tamil Academies that flourished at Madurai in the ancient past and to the great contribution made by the sangam poets to the richness of the ancient Tamil Poetry. In the past, birds like Kingfishers and egrets were regular visitors and as a mother the river fed them. Now they have flown away as she is unable to feed them. The poet presents an altogether different scene of the river today in a humorous and ironic vein. Every evening “When bells roll in the forehead of temples”, a man comes to the river for defacating in it unmindful of the divine call of the temple bell. The poet presents this ugly scene to highlight man’s indifference to the beauty of nature. Once people congregated on the banks of the river Vaigai for noble purposes but ironically now they do so for different and unholy purposes. Now the river Vaigai has become a receptacle of refuse..

“River, Once” is indeed a powerful poem deeply felt and powerfully expressed. The river is a symbol of the flow of life but in its present contaminated state it is only a symbol what human life has become. Anguished over decay of the river the poet seems to convey the idea that nature has made everything beautiful but man has rendered it ugly because he has lost the sense of wonder and beauty. The poet has succeeded in presenting this idea tellingly through contrastive pen-pictures.

‘Under Another Sky’ by R. Parthasarathy : A Critical Summary and Analysis

In the poem, ‘Under Another Sky’, R. Parthasarathy expresses his disenchantment with the language and the country of his dreams – English and England. The poem begins with the poets return to Chennai from his self-imposed exile. The poem begins with the poet’s return to Chennai from his self –imposed exile. The sea believe fort st. George and Santhome in Chennai appears old and tired. The mood here is reflective of exhaustion of the poet’s own feeing of exhaustion ofter his journey to England. The sea and the land between fort st. George and Santhome pahaps remind him of the British rule in India. The poet gives a vivid picture of the commercial glory of Chennai in the past. In the distant past, long before the advent of the British. The Harbour at Chennai in the past. In the distant past, long before the advent past, long before the advent of the Bristish, the Harbour at Chennai was busy with many trade activities. A number of ships laden with merchandise from far off countries were anchored at the port and there ships traded in spices and other commodities. Now, it is a tired sea that accosts the visitor. The idea suggested here is that the Indians were in no way interior to the English in Conducting international trade even before their arrival.

Very close to the seashore, in the inland of Chennai, a great cirlization of the Tamils flourished. It is to be remembered that people led a Simple lift of leisure. The alleys, lands and wells are symbolic of this life of simplicity. Even today the last remnants of native inclusive are to be found in the wells and alleys of the interior parts of India and Chennai. “The sun has done its wornst” is a reference to the British rule and the change it with their serey smiles and seductive poses delight the people. Temple - Visiting culture has been replaced by the artificial make – believe cinema – visiting culture.
 

No doubt one could find great developments on the material plane. During the British rule a number of bridges were constructed. It has a suggestive meaning too. The river stands for the uncontrollable force of national resurgence but it is contained by the “bridges” of British rule. The hourglass was replaced by the “exact chronometer” of Europe. The idea suggested is that the Tamils were using the indigenous system of measuring time through hourglass but that was replaced by the modern clock. The poet rigidly portrays that under the impact of technological civilization mechanisation of life has been the main change in India after the British lionization.

The modern Indian culture is compared to an old dying beast without teeth. It has lost its strength and naturalness and rigor under the impact of the Western Culture. “Francis Day has seen to that” recalls here that in 1639 Francis Day of the East India Company obtained a grant of a East India Company obtained a grant of a strip of land on the coast of coramandel from the Rajah of chandragiri. He built fort St. George in Chennai and it became the white town. The poet’s hope of writing poetry about the greatness of his great culture is shattered. He is unable to see the real Indian culture in Chennai. The poet goes to calcutta in search of the real India and the real Indian Culture. He expresses his sense of futility and despair in the question he poses to himself.

“ .................. what have I come
here far from a thousand miles ?”

As in Chennai, he finds the impact of the Western Culture in Calcutta. The human nature remains the same everywhere. There are a number of clubs, bass and golf-links for the “wogs” to spend their time idly. The great irony is that these “wogs” talk about the “impact of the west on India”. They are in a
way worse than the westerners. In calcutta the dismal scene of porters, rickshaw pullers, barbers, beggars, haurcers, fortune – tellers and loungers makes him sad.

The meaning implied is that the aliens who 25 ruled us had plundered our wealth and made us poor. It may also be indicative of man’s inhumanity to man. In India the rich people exploit the poor. The rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer after the “wogs” took over the rule from the “real” Westerners. The grey sky in calcutta oppresses the eyes of the poet. It is a reference to the industrial pollution. The Howrah Bridge reminds the poet of the British rule. It now looks like a pale diamond in the water. The poet is sad and is not in a mood to write poems.

With weighty unexpressed words he goes to Jadavpur. It is here that the poet finds his beloved. He thinks that she will be a personification of ideal Indian womanhood. But she represents the degenerate Indian culture, which has yielded to cheap materialism. She is not the loy maiden he expected her to be but very business like in her attitude to life and sex. The poet is shocked beyond description. His feelings which arise in “the dark alleys of his mind” cannot even be identified by himself. He is in a confused state of mind. He is acutely of his loneliness. This reinforces his sense of frustration and disappointment. To his dismay he finds that the so called new culture cannot be dispensed with. He tries to console himself saying that “the heart needs all”. He feels that one has to undergo all kinds of experiences and emotional disturbances to understand life.

The poet feels that he has come back to India only to feel that he has gained little wisdom. But he has gained a little of it on the banks of Hooghly in Calcutta, a city designed and built by Job Charnok and it will help the poet to find his moorings. He says he would carry this wisdom to another city in “the bone urn of his mind”. The mind is compared to an urn. Just as an urn carries the ashes of the dead, the mind of the poet would carry the memories of what he has seen and experienced.

The poet points out that he has reached the age of thirty and his life has come full circle. Now he has decided “to give quality the other half” of his life by writing poetry. He has decided to give up all that is puerite and would show wisdom and quality. “He is alone now, loving only words”. Finally he finds
anchor in his loneliness. He finds no one to share his emotions; and words are his only faithful companions. He refers to the process of growing up and this forms the kernel of the poem. The poet feels that he has lost the gift of childhood innocence and the brightness of youth in the process of becoming a man but he has gained knowledge and wisdom. Though stripped of innocence and brightness, his life has come full wide. He is going to use the newfound wisdom to write poetry.

Ramanujam’s 'A River: A Critical Summary and Analysis

“A River” is one of Ramanujam’s finest poems appeared in “The Striders” in 1966. It is a poem on the vaigai which flours through Madurai. A City that has been the seat of Tamil Culture. The poem is an evocation of a river. The poet refers to the river as a helping as well as a destructive force. In the Sangam Period the city had many great pundits who sang the glory of their town, Language asd river, They wrote profusely when the river was in spate. At the same time there were times when the river remained dry. On the Sandy bed could be seen he hair and stow dogging the Watergates. The iron bars under the bridge are in need of repair. The wet stones all like the sleeping crocodiles. The dry stones look like the sharen buffaloes. It is a wonder for the poet because not too often such scenes are described by the poets.

The water in the river makes all the poets imaginative and sing verses about it. A poet visits the river and examines the scene quite closely. But the scene witnessed by him is different. As it was raining the level of the water in the river kept rising. The whole city was flooded. Three village houses were swept away. The news came of a pregnant lady and a couple of cows being washed away. Even the new poets do not bother to write about all these things. They look at it still in the old way as seen by the old poets. A careful, imaginative consideration should bring in many things so far unsaid about the river. It is a pity that no one has the heart to feel about the heart with twin children in her womb getting drowned in the river.

In “A River” Ramanujan throws light on the reality of the present and the past. In the past, the poets were the appreciators of the cities, temples, rivers, streams and are indifferent to the miseries of human beings and animals. The river dries to a trickle in every summer the “poets sang only of the floods.” Flood is the symbol of destruction to person and property. The poets of today still quoted the old poets sans the relevancy of life:

“The new poets still quoted

the old poets, but no one spoke

in verse of the pregnant woman –
drowned, with perhaps twins in her,
kicking at the blank walls even before birth.”
 

The image of “pregnant woman” implies a fine example of two generations, the present and the future. R. Parthasarathy verily remarks “The relative attitudes of the old and new Tamil poets, both of whom are exposed for their callousness to suffering, when it is so obvious as a result of the flood.”6 This statement is, no doubt, corroborated by K. Sumana in a lucid manner:
 

“The poet narrates the poem through the mouth of a visitor to make it objective. The greatness of the poem lies in the fact that the traditional praise for river has been contrasted with what is actually experienced by the people during the floods. Apart from presenting the grim realities of a rover in spate,
Ramanujan hints at the sterility of new Tamil poets who still quoted the old poets.”
 

“A River” and “Epitaph on a Street Dog” ironically present the same reality : “She spawned in a hurry a score of pups/all bald, blind, and growing old at her paps.” The cosmic vision of India in “A River” and “Epitaph on a Street Dog” is contrasted to “Love Poem for a Wife.” Ramanujan’s attempt to squire the ancient circle/of you and me is fascinating in its varying moods. His lover claims that he cannot recollect the face and the words of his absent beloved, though his memory is not explained. “Love Poem for a Wife” is an imposing comment on how an unshared childhood eliminates a dedicated couple and “Still Life” is an appraisal of love as an abiding presence. These love poems are conspicuous for their insight, splendour and deep emotion.

Ramanujan’s “Snakes”: A Critical Summary and Analysis

Ramanujan’s “Snakes” points out the touching truth, the truth of insensibility and indifference of the modern society. The poor do not hesitate to face danger. No doubt, snake-charmers take any risk only to extinguish the starvation of the family by providing entertainment or pastime to the rich.

Here it appears that their lives are for the sake of snakes :
“The snakeman wreathes their writhing
round his neck
for father’s smiling money.”

Another reference is made to snakes, flies and frogs. The poet brings out the puzzled association of snakes with the family. The snakes are “like some terrible aunt.” Whenever his sister entwines her hair he conceives it as ophite. The poet as a child does not get rest from the fear of snakes till they
are killed.

“Now
frogs can hop upon this sausage rope
flies in the sun will mob the look in his eyes,
and I can walk through the woods.”

The poet is placid and lepid that small creature like frog can now hop on the serpent which is just like a “sausage rope” and flies will mob the look in his eyes. Another reaction of his parents and the poet to the snake can be seen here. His mother gives it milk; the father cheerily pays the snakecharmer, but the poet screams at its sight. The poet adroitly depicts the

“The twirls of their hisses
rise like the tiny dust-cones on slow noon roads
Winding through the farmers feet.
Black lorgnettes are etched on their hoods,
ridiculous, alien, like some terrible aunt,
a crest among tiles and scales
that moult with the darkening half
of every moon.”

Bruce King has corroborated this poetic feeling in his own words : “The poem presents an image, a complex of feelings, distilled memories and events which are not elaborated or commented upon. But as it begins in the present ‘now’ of museums of book stacks which contrast with rural India and family life, the poem celebrates the liberation from the fears of the past, ‘ghosts’ from which Ramanujan now feels safe.”

Ramanujan illustrates the pathetic picture of the poor in his many poems. In “Elements of Composition” he feels deep grief over the pitiable position of the leprous men of Madurai. The deformed postures of lepers and their troublesome movement reduce them to a skeleton, “Pillars” :

“add the lepers of Madurai
male, female, married with children, lion faces, crabs for claws,
clotted on their shadows under the stone-eyed goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
moving as nothing on earth can move.”

The poet is anxious about the miserable condition of the lepers and so he calls gods and goddesses as “stone-eyed.” S.S. Dulai expressively says : “Ramanujan observes closely and often laments poignantly the human misery resulting from material want and moral corruption in contemporary India.”

"Snakes" is among the best poems of Ramanujam. The poem begins on a note of suspense with an emphatic, "No, it decs not happen when I walk through the wood". This happens when he is walking through museums or libraries. The description is of a snake that induces fear in the minks of all. The snakes take shelter in the museums, book shelves, glass-shelves, etc., The Poet says that the book of yellow vein, yellow amber would remind him of snakes, the shelf which is arranged in geometric lines would remind him of snakes.Ramajujam can be distracted by his own skill for description is seen in the apparently irrelevant but rived detail of" the yellow vein in the yellow amber" or "the book with gold on its spine". The amber yellow and gold and the curves with the imagination think of snakes.

The Poet compares the intermittent hissing of the snakes to the little clouds of dust that arise one walks along a dusty road. They have the nature of winding through one's feet exactly the way the snacks do. The hoods, the snacks have display a kind of design resembling the etched black lorgnettes. It looks ridiculous all the same. It is likened to the terrible aunt who is proud of her titles. The snake's scales mount with the warning of the moon. Them, he explains a real incident. One day a snake man has brought a basket full of cobras to the poet's home. The snakes are Jet out and the person watches them more on the floor. Their bodies are wheat - brown in colour with rings all over. The way they move on the floor looks like a strange alphabet written here and there. The poet's mother feeds the snakes with saucers of milk. As they suck the milk, the etched design on the brass reappears. The snake man then wears them on his neck in order to impress the poet's father. The latter gives him money.

The Poet has a sister who has long hair touching the ground. He notices her tying her hair in braids. She takes great care in tending them and decorates them with tassels. These braids look very much like the snakes and the wa^/es themselves resemble the scales on the body. Both have the nature of shinning
brightly. In other works the poet is often reminded of snakes when he looks at the braids of his sister. He is so afraid that he waits impatiently to see hair trimmed and tried up neatly.

Then, the poet narrates the happening while he walks along the forest path suddenly he feels as if he is walking on a slippery surface. It is a snake and it writhes in pain. Its body is green -white the bluish nodes resemble a lotus stalk that has been plucked lately. He steps on it until it is dead; He is now confident and is not afraid. He expects the frogs to hop over the sausage rope without fear of being eaten up. The flies can come round the eye part of the snake and he himself has grown at all.

Portrayal of the Market scene in Ramanujan's Snakes.

A.K. Ramanujam brings out the market scene in this poem. He feels provoked on seeing the oranges in the city market. They are carried in wicker baskets. The oranges fill the gaps inside these baskets woren in intricate designs. The fruits are of various colours. Some are still green, others are over ripe with a pot of fungi-ash in a hollow; some others are of saffron colour; others are puply and velvet - sinned. Some of the fruits resemble the inner first of fingers held rather loosely. It is compared to the loosening skin andweakening nerves in the part of a grand old man who is termed by the poet as 'Grandpa's grip'.

Noticing the orange tree the poet looks at the small branch which once served as an extension is found to be intact. The same is described as the human umbilical cord. The tree once nourished the young bud, the power coming from the root part of the tree. The fruit has come out at this mature stage and the tree holds it even now. There is now no connection between the fruit and the tree. The fruit itself finds its way into the basket. The fruits in the tree every seed of the tree can produce thousands of oranges in turn. The cycle goes on like this and it is a never ending process. As is characteristic of Ramanujam, there is no real conclusion.