Japan Experience of Rabindranath Tagore ------------------- Tokyo in 1916, the Great Poet Rabindranath told a Japanese audience: “While travelling in a railway train I met, at a wayside station, some Buddhist priests and devotees. They brought their basket of fruits to me and held their lighted incense before my face, wishing to pay homage to a man who had come from the land of Buddha. The dignified serenity of their bearing, the simplicity of their devoutness, seemed to fill the atmosphere of the busy railway station with a golden light of peace. Their language of silence drowned the noisy effusion of the newspapers. I felt that I saw something which was at the root of Japan’s greatness.” Tagore said he reached the conclusion that the welcome… “which flowed towards me, with such outburst of sincerity, was owing to the fact that Japan felt the nearness of India to herself, and realised that her own heart has room to expand beyond her boundaries and the boundaries of the modern time.” The Nobel Laureate was a great admirer of traditional Japanese martial arts, particularly of jujutsu, the original form of judo. Gurudev was determined to bring this art to India. In 1902 in Kolkata, during a meeting with Tenshin Okakura, the Japanese eminent writer and art critic, Tagore requested him to send judo instructors to Shantiniketan. Jinnutsuke Sano, a student of Keio University, eventually came to Tagore’s school, where he stayed from 1905 to 1908. It is how judo was first introduced to India. An interesting aspect of the training was that girls took part along with boys. Quite a revolution!
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 07:18:17 +0000
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