...continued We hear on every side a sound of the slow fraying of bonds, here and there a sharp tearing and snapping; but freedom of movement has not yet been attained. The eyes are not yet clear, the bud of the soul has only been partly opened. The Titaness has not yet arisen. Mr Cousins puts the question in his book whether the word renaissance at all applies since India has always been awake and stood in no need of re-awakening. There is a certain truth behind that and to one coming in with a fresh mind from outside and struck by the living continuity of past and present India, it may be especially apparent; but that is not quite how we can see it who are her children and are still suffering from the bitter effects of the great decline which came to a head in the 18th and 19th centuries. Undoubtedly there was a period, a brief but very disastrous period of the dwindling of the dwindling of that great fire of life, even a moment of incipient disintegration, marked politically by the anarchy which gave European adventure its chance, inwardly by an increasing torpor of the creative spirit in religion and art, - science and philosophy and intellectual knowledge had long been dead or petrified into a mere scholastic Punditism, - all pointing to a nadir of setting energy, the evening-time from which according to the Indian idea of the cycles a new age has to start. It was that moment and the pressure of a superimposed European culture which followed it that made the re-awakening necessary. ...continued from The Renaissance in India
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 17:35:21 +0000
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