The Genius of India

7/28/2019 The Genius of India

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T H E 'G E N I U SO F I N D I A

AN E XT RAC T FROM " T HE R E NAI S SAN C E I N I N DI A "

BY

S R I A UROB I NDO


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T H E G E N I U S

OF I ND I A


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T H E

O F

G E N I U S

I N D I A

AN EX TRACT FROM " T H E RENA I S SANCE IN I N DI A"

BY

S R I AUROB I NDO


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ISBN : 8 1-90058 4-6- 0

This text was f irst published in the English monthly Arya (1918 ) .

Introduction by Ch ristine Devin C 1998,EditionsAuroville Press International

Photogra phs by Olivier Ba ret cO 1998 , Editions Auroville Press International

Pu blished b y E d it ion s A uroville Press I nternational,

Aur oville, 60 5101, T amil Nadu - IND IA .

Pr in te d at t he Au r ovi l le P ress , 1998 .


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VANDE MATARAM SERIES

Vo lume 4

Th is book is the fourth in a series entitled "Vande Mataram "

which ha s a s it s g oal to m ake kno wn a number of t exts

inspired b y a similar v ision o f a ne w Ind ia . For , as Sri

Aurobindo saw, "India of the a ges i s not dead nor ha s she

spoken her last creative w ord; she li ves and has still some-

thin g to do for herself and the human peoples .. ." He further

said , "India is the guru o f the nations , the physician of the

human soul in its profounder maladies ; she is de stined once

m ore to n ew -mould the life of the w orld and restore the peace

of th e human spirit." Thu s, " the sun of Ind ia's destiny w ould

rise and f ill all India wi th its light and ove rflow India and

overflow Asia a nd ove rflow th e wor ld .. ."


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PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The text presented here is taken from a series o f essayswrittenby Sri Aurobindo in 1918 and published in the Arya , an

English monthly , under the title The Renaissance in India .

Our aim in publishing this short extract is to trigger a

reflection on what constitutes the specific genius o f this

country and what it is that Sri Aurobindo meant by a rebirth

or a resurgence o f India.


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I N T R ODU C T I O N

When one thinks o f India's future, two thingsimmediately come to the mind: first that India'sculture, lik e that o f many other countries, isincreasingly threatened by the tendency towardsuniformisation; and secondly, that t he concep t o f

rebirth necessarily implies a new body, it cannotmean a return to the past. So the on ly so lutionseems to lie in a two-fo ld movement: on oneside, to become conscious o f what was, is, a ndwill be the essentia l spirit o f I nd ia, tha t w hic hconstitutes her uniqueness a nd can never bedestroyed, in other words to discover again wha tat the deepest level I ndiann ess means; and then,once this has been found, to make it the centre o feverything else, assimilate to it a ll that is recei-ved from the outside, and evo lve out o f it a newcreation.


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12 TH E G E N IU S O F I N D I A

In today's world, external influences areinevitable and a certain number o f them perhapsnot wholly undesirable, but the way in whichthese are assimilated is crucial. The reaction toexternal influences, says Sri Aurobindo, shouldbe nei ther out righ t rejection, nor blind andmechanical imitation. I f

certain elements areseen as desirable, because they would contributeto the richness o f India, then when absorbedthey should be transmuted and Indianised.

"Now that the salvation, the reawakeninghas come, said Sri Aurobindo, India will cer-tainly keep her essential spirit, will keep hercharacteristic soul, but there is likely to be a .great change in the body. The shaping for itselfo f a new body, o f new philosophical, artistic, lit-erary, cultural, political, social forms by thesame soul rejuvenescent will, I should think, bethe type o f the Indian renascence, - forms notcontradictory o f the truths o f life which the oldexpressed, but rather expressive o f those truths

restated, cured o f defect, completed."In the light o f this, without going further, it

becomes imperative to reflect on the first ques-tion: what is the essential spirit of India, what


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I N T R O D U C T I O N 13

does Indianness mean? To this question, whichis often dealt w i th in a superficia l or incompleteway, these few pages o f Sri Aurobindo are amasterly, all-embracing, yet concise answer . SriAurobindo looks here at the past o f India, notfor the sake o f the past, but to find hidden in itsfolds a finger pointing towards the future. Hetells us : this is the Indian spirit, this is the Indianideal, this is the bent o f the genius o f the race;now that is your center; from this centre, act andcreate .

This text is not a study o f ancient India , although it does analyse the powers o f the ancient

spirit o f India. It is rather a very precise description o f the instruments that are at the disposal o fIndia for building her future . One cannot butwish that this text form part o f the curriculum o fal l Ind ian schools, as w ell as that o f schools allover the world . For indeed to understand thetrue nature o f India is not only indispensable for

her children , but necessary for all those whoaspire to a rebirth o f the entire earth .

The Editor


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T H E G E N I U S OF INDIA ' : -

WHAT WAS THIS ANCIENT SPIRIT and character

istic soul of India? European writers, struck by

the general metaphysical bent of the Indian

mind, by its strong religious instincts and reli-

gious idealism, by its other-worldl iness, are

inclined t o write as if this were all the Indian

spirit. An abstract, metaphysical, religious mind

overpowered by the sense of the infinite, not

apt for life, dreamy, unpract ical , turning away

from life and action as Maya, this, they said, is

~ ,The title is ours (the Editor)


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THE GENIUS OF I N D I A 17

and been unable t o make the most of its materi

als, that this wa s a nation o f unpra ctical dream

e rs , ideali st s, erudite s and s ent im e nt alists,

p atient , do cile a n d indu striou s c e rt ainly, but

po litically inapt, - "admirable , ridiculous Ger

m an y"? E u ro p e ha s h ad a terribl e awakening

fro m th at error. Wh en the ren asc ence of India

is complete, s he will have an awakening, not of

the same brutal k ind, cer ta in ly, but startl ing

enough , as to the real nature and capacity of the

Indi an s pirit.

S PI RIT UALITY IS IND EED T H E MAST E R-KEY of

th e Indian mind ; the s ense o f the infinite is

n ative t o it. Indi a saw from the be ginnin g,

and, eve n in her age s of reason and her age of

incr easin g ignoran ce , s he never lo st hold of the

in si ght, - that life cannot be ri ghtly seen in


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18 T H E GEN IUS O F I N D I A

the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the

sole power of its externalities . She was alive to

the greatness of material laws and forces; she

had a keen eye for the importance of the physi

cal sciences; she knew how to organise the arts

of ordinary life. But she saw that the physical

does not get its full sense until it stands in right

relation to the supra-physical; she saw that the

complexity of the universe could not be explai-

ned in the present terms of man or seen by his

superficial sight, that there were other powersbehind, other powers within man himself of

which he is normally unaware, that he is con

scious only of a small part of himself, that the

invisible always sur rounds the visible, the supra

sensible the sensib le , even as infinity always

surrounds the finite. She saw too that man has

the power of exceeding himself , of becoming


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T H E G E N I U S O F I N D I A 1 9

him self more entirel y and profoundly than he

is, - truth s which have only recentl y begun to

be see n in Europe and se em even now too great

fo r it s co mmon int elligence. She saw the m yr-

iad go ds be yond m an , God be y ond the gods ,

and b ey ond G od hi s own ineff able eternit y; she

saw th at there w ere ran ges of life be yond our

lif e, ran ges of mind be yond our pre sent m ind

and above these s he saw the splendour s of the

spirit. Then with that calm audacity of her intui-

t io n w hich kne w no fear o r l it tlenes s and shrank

from no ac t w hether of spiritual or intellectual ,

e thical o r vi t al courage, s h e decl ared that there

wa s no ne o f th ese thin gs whi ch m an c ould not

a ttai n if h e tr ain ed hi s w ill and kno wledge; hecould conque r the se ranges of mind , become

the spirit, become a god, become one with God,

b ecome the ine ffable Br ahman . And with the


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Spirituality is indeed the master-key of the

I nd ian mind ...


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THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A 21

logical p ra ctic ality an d sen se of science and

or gani sed method which distinguished her men

tality , she set for th immedia te ly to find out the

wa y. Hence from long ages of this insigh t and

practice there was ingrained in her her spiritual

it y , her powerful p sychic tendency, her great

yea rn ing to g rapple with the infinite and pos

se ss i t , her iner adicable religious sense, her ide

alism, her Yoga, the constant turn of her art and

her philo sophy.

B UT T H IS W AS NOT AND CO ULD NOT BE her

w hole mentality, her entire spir i t ; spirituality

it s elf d oes not flouri sh o n e arth in the void,

even as our mounta in-top s do not ri se like those

of an encha nt ment of dream out of the clouds

with out a base. When we look at the past of

India, what s t rikes u s next is her stupendous


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22 T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A

vitality, her inexhaustible power of life and joy

of life, her almost unimaginably prolific cre-

ativeness. For t hree thousand years at least ,

it is indeed much longer, - she has been c reat -

ing abundantly and incessantly, lavishly, with

an inexhaustible manysidedness, republics and

kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cos-

mogon ies and sciences and creeds and arts and

poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and

temples and public works , commun it ie s and

societies and religious orders, laws and codes

and rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences,

systems of Yoga, systems of politics and admin-

istration, arts spiritual, arts worldly, trades,

industries, fine crafts, - the list is endless and

in each item there is almost a plethora of activ

ity. She creates and creates and is not satisfied

and is not tired; she will not have an end of it,


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T H E GEN IUS O F I N D I A 23

seems hardly to need a space for rest, a time for

inertia and lying fallow. She expands too out

side her borders; her ships cross the ocean and

the fine superfluity of her wealth brims over to

Judea and Egypt and Rome; her colonies spread

her arts and epics and creeds in the Archipe

lago; her traces are found in the sands of Meso

potamia; her religions conquer China and Japan

and spread westward as far as Pale stine and

Alexandria, and the figures of t he Upanishads

and the sayings of the Buddhists are re-echoed

on the lips of Christ. Everywhere, as on her soil,

so in her works there is the teeming of a super

abundan t ene rgy of life . European critics com

plain that in her ancient architecture, sculptureand art there is no reticence, no holding back

of riches, no blank spaces, that she labours to

fill every rift with ore, occupy every inch with


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She creates and crea tes and is no t satisf ied

and is no t t i red ...


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T H E G E N I U S O F I N D I A 25

plent y . W ell, but defect or no, that is the neces-

s ity of her superabundance of life, of the teem-

ing of the infinite within her. She lavishes her

riche s becau se s he must, as the Infinite fills

every inch of space with the s ti rr ing of life andenergy because it is the Infinite.

B UT T H IS S UPR EME SPIRIT U ALITY and this

prolific abundance of the ene rgy and jo y of life

and creation do not make all that the spirit of

India has been in its pa st. It is not a confused

splendour of tropical vegetation under heavens

of a pur e s apphire infinity. I t is only to eyes

unaccu stomed to such wealth that there seems

to b e a c on fu sion in thi s cro wdin g of space

with rich forms of life , a luxurious disorder of

exce ss o r a wanton lack of measure, clear bal-

a nce an d d esign. For the third power of the


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ancient Indian sp irit wa s a stron g intellectual-

it y, at once austere and rich, robu st and minut e,

powerful and del icate, ma ssive i n principle and

curious in detail. I t s chi ef impul se was th at of

order and arrangement , but an order found ed

upon a seeking for the inner law and truth o f

things and having in view always th e po ssibility

of conscientiou s practice. India h as b een pr e-

eminentl y the land of the Dharma and th e Sh as-

tra. She searched for the inner truth and law of

each human or cosmic activit y, it s Dharm a; th atfound, she labour ed to c ast into elab or ate fo rm

and det ailed law of arrangeme nt it s appli cation

in f act and rule of life . H er fir st p eri od was

luminou s with the discovery of th e Spirit; h er

second completed the di scovery of the Dharma ;

her third elabor ated into detail the fir st s im-

pler formulati on of the Sh astr a; but n one was


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exclusive, the three elements are always pre-

sent.

In this third period the curious elaboration

of all life into a science and an art assumes

extraordinary proportions. The mere mass ofthe intellectual product ion during the period

from Asoka well into t he Mahomedan epoch is

something t ru ly prodigious, as can be seen at

once if one studies the account whic h re cent

scholarship gives of it, and we must remember

that that scholarship as yet only deals with a

fraction of what is still lying exta nt a nd what is

extant is only a small percentage of what was

once written and known. There is no historical

parallel for such an intellectual l abou r and activ-

i ty before the invention of print ing and the

facilities of modern science; yet all that mass of

research and production and curiosity of detail


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There is no historical parallel for such an intellectual

l abour and activi ty before the inven tion of printing

and the facilities of modern science ...


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T H E GEN IU S OF I N D I A 2 9

was accomplished without these facilities and

wi th no better record than the memory and for

an a id th e p eri shable p alm-leaf. Nor wa s all thi s

co lossa l liter ature con fined to philosophy and

the ology, reli gion and Yo ga, lo gic and rhetoric

and g rammar and lin gui sti cs , poetry and drama,

med icine an d a s t ronom y and the sciences; it

embr a ced all life , polit ics and socie ty , all the

a rts from paintin g to d ancin g, all the sixty-fo ur

accomplishme nt s, everything then known that

co u ld b e u seful to li fe or intere stin g to the

m ind , eve n, fo r ins ta nce , to such pract ical s ide

minutiae as t he b reed ing and training of horses

a nd elephant s , e ach o f which had its Shastra

and it s a rt, it s a ppara tus o f technical t erm s, it s

copi ou s l i terature. In each subject from the

large st a nd mo st m omentou s to the smallest

an d m o st tri vial th er e wa s exp ended th e sa me


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30 THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A

all-embracing, opu lent , m inut e and thorough

intellectuality . On one side there is an insa

tiable curiosity, the desire of life t o know itself

in every detail, on the other a spirit of organisa

tion and scrupulous order , the desire of the

mind t o tread through life with a harmoni sedknowledge and in the right rhythm and mea

sure. Thus an ingrained and dominan t spiritual

ity, an inexhaustible vital creativenes s and gu st

of life and , mediating between them, a power

ful, penetrating and scrupulous intelligencecombined of the rat ional, e thical and aesth etic

mind each at a high intensit y of action, created

the harmony of the ancient Indian culture.

INDEED WITHOUT THIS OPULENT VIT ALITY

and opulent i nt el le ctual it y Indi a cou ld never

have done so much as she did with her spiritual


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tendencies. I t is a great error t o suppose that

spirituality flourishes best in an impoverished

soil with the life half-killed and the intellect

d iscouraged and intimidated. The spirituality

that so flourishes is something morbid, hecticand exposed t o per ilous react ions . I t is when

the race has lived most richly and thought most

profoundly that spirituality finds its heights

and its depths and its constant and many -sided

fruition. In modern Europe it is after a long

explosion of vital force and a stupendous activ-

ity of the intellect that spirituality has begun

really t o emerge and with some promise of

being not, as it once was, t he sor rowful physi -

cian of the malady of life, but the beginning of

a large and profound clarity . The European eye

is struck in Indian spiritual th ough t by the Bud -

dhist ic and illusionist denial of life. But it must


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I t knew t ha t w i thout a "fine excess " we cannot break

down th e limits whi ch t he dull temper of t he norma l

mind opposes to know ledge . . .


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be remembered that this is only one side of its

philo sophic tendency which assumed exagger-

ated proportions only in the perio d of decline.

I n it self too that wa s s imply one resul t, in one

d irection, of a tend enc y of the Indian mind

w hich is common to all it s activities, the impulse

to fo llow each mot ive, each spec ia li sation of

moti ve e ven, spiri tual , intellectual , ethical, vital ,

to it s extreme point and to sound it s utmost

po s sibilit y . Part of it s innate direction was to

se ek in eac h not onl y for it s fullnes s of detail,

but fo r it s infinit e, it s absol ute , it s profoundest

depth o r it s hi ghe st pinnacle . I t knew t ha t with-

o u t a " fin e ex cess" we c anno t break down the

l imit s w hich th e dull temper of the norm al

mind o ppos es to knowledge and thought and

experience; and it had in seeking this point a

boundl ess c ourage and yet a sure tread. Thus it


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34 T H E GENIUS OF I N D I A

ca rried each tangent of philosophic thought,

each line of spiritual experience to its farthest

point, and chose to look from that farthest

point at all existence, so as to see what truth or

power such a view could give it. It tried to know

t he whole of divine nature and to see too as high

as it could beyond nature and into whatever

there m igh t be of supradivine. When it formu-

lated a spiritua l atheism, it followed that to its

acme of possible vision. When, too, it indulged

in materialist ic atheism, - though it did thatonly with a side glance, as the freak of an insa

tiable intellectual curiosity, - yet it formulated

it straight out, boldly and nakedly, without the

least concession to idealism or ethicism,

EVERYWHERE WE FIND THIS TENDENCY . The

ideals of the Indian m ind have included the


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THE GEN IU S OF I N D I A 35

height of self-assertion of the human spir it and

its thirst of independence and mastery and posses

sion and the height also of its self-abnegation,

dependence and submission and self-giving. In

life the ideal of opulent living and the ideal ofpoverty were carried t o the extreme of regal

splendour and the extreme of satisfied nudity.

I ts intui tions were suff icient ly clear and cou ra

geous not to be blinded by its own most cher

ished ideas and fixed habits of life. I f it was

obliged to stereotype caste as th e symbo l of its

social order, it never quite forgot, as the caste

spirit is apt t o forget, that the human soul and

the human mind are beyond caste. For it had

seen in the lowest human being the Godhead,

Narayana. I t emphasised distinctions only to

turn upon them and deny all distinctions . I f all

its political needs and circumstances compelled


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Its spiritual extremism could not prevent i t from

fathoming through a long er a the life of the senses andits enjoyments ...


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T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A 3 7

it at la st to exag gerate the monarch ical princi-

ple and declare the divinity of the king and to

abolish it s e arlier republican cit y states and

independent federations as too favourable to

the cent rif uga l tendenc y , if ther efore it could

no t d evelop demo cr acy, y et it h ad the demo-

crat ic ide a, appl ied it in the village , in council

and muni cipality , with in the caste, was the fir st

to as sert a divinity in the people and could cry

to the monarch at the height of his power, " 0

kin g, what art thou but the head servant of the

demo s ?" I t s idea of the golden age was a free

spiritual anarchism. Its spiritual extremism could

not pre vent it from fathoming through a long era

the lif e o f the s ens es and its enjoyments, and

there too it sought the utmost richnes s of sensu-

ou s detail and the depths and intensities of sen-

suous expenence. Yet it is notable that this


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38 T H E G E N IU S OF I N D I A

pursuit of the most opposite extremes never

resulted in disorder; and its most hedonistic

period offers no th in g th at at all resembles the

unbridled corruption which a similar tendency

has more than once produced in Europe . For

the Indian mind is not only spiritual and ethi-

cal, but intellectual and artistic, and both the

rule of the intellect and the rhythm of beauty

are hostile to the spirit of chaos. In every ex-

treme the Indian spirit seeks for a law in that

extreme and a rule, measure and structure in itsapplication. Besides, this sounding of extremes

is balanced by a still more ingrained character-

istic, the synthe t ica l tendency, so that having

pushed each motive to its far thes t possibi li ty

the Indian mind returns always towards somefusion of the knowledge it has gained and to a

resulting harmony and balance in action and


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T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A 3 9

in stitution. B alance and rhythm which the

Gre ek s a rrived a t b y s elf-limitation, India arri-

ve d at b y i ts se nse o f intelle ctual, e thical and

aes thetic order and the sy nt hetic impulse of its

mind and life.

I HAVE DWELT ON TH ESE FACTS b ecau se the y

are apt t o be ignored by tho se who look onl y at

certain sides of the Indian mind and spiri t which

a re mo st prominent in the last epochs. By

in si stin g o n ly upon the se we get an inaccurate

o r incomple te id ea of th e p ast of India and of

t he inte gral me anin g o f it s civilisation and the

sp iri t th at a nimated it. The pre sent is onl y a last

d eposit of the pa st at a time of ebb; it has no

doubt also t o be the s tarting point of the future,

but in thi s pre sent all th at was in India' s past is

s ti ll d orm ant , it is not de stro yed ; it is waitin g


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In every ext reme the Indian spiri t seeks for a law

in that extreme and a rule, measure and s truc tu re in its

application.


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T H E GEN IUS OF I N D I A 41

there to a ssume new form s. The decline was the

ebb- movem e nt of a creative s pirit which can

o nly b e under sto od by see ing it in the full tide of

it s g reatn ess ; the rena scence is the return of the

tid e and it i s th e s ame spirit that is likely to animate it, althou gh th e forms it take s may be quite

new. To jud ge there fo re the pos sibilities of the

rena scence, th e power s that it ma y reveal and the

scope that it may take, we must dismiss the idea

th at th e tendenc y of met aph ysical abstraction is

the one note of the Indian spirit which dom i

nat es or in spires all it s cadences. It s real key-note

is the tendenc y of spiritual realisation , not cast at

all into an y white monotone, but many-faceted,

man y-coloured, as supple in it s adaptabilit y as it

is intense in it s hi ghe st pitch es. The note of spir

ituality is dominant, initial, constant, always

recurrent; it i s the support of all the rest. The


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first age of India's greatness was a spiritual age

when she sought passionately for the truth of

existence through the intuitive mind and through

an inner experience and interpretat ion both of

the psychic and the physical existence . The

stamp put on her by that beginning she ha s

never lost, but rather always enriched it with

fresh spiritual experience and discovery at each

step of the national life. Even in her hour of

decline it was the one thing she could never

lose.

BUT THIS SPIRITUAL TENDENCY does not

shoot upward only t o the abstract, the hidden

and the intangible; it cast its rays downward

and outwardt o

embrace the multiplicities ofthought and the richness of life. Therefore the

second long epoch of India's greatness was an


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age of the intellect, the ethical sense, the dyna-

mic will in action enlightened to formulate and

govern life in the lustre of spiritual truth. After

the age of the Spirit, the age of the Dharma;

after the Veda and Upanishads, the heroic cen-

turies of action and social formation, typal con-

s t ruct ion and thought and philosophy, when

the outward forms of Indian life and c ultu re

were fixed in their large lines and even their

later d ev elopments were b eing determined inthe seed . The great classical age of Sanskri t cul -

ture was the flowering of this intellectuality

i nt o cur io si ty of detail in th e r ef in emen ts of

scholarship, s cie nc e, a rt, l it era tu re, po li ti cs ,

sociology , mundane life. We see at this time

too t he sounding not only of aesthetic, but of

emotional and sensuou s, even of vital and sen-

sual experience. But the old spirituality reigned


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. .. a still more engrained characteristic.

th e synthetical tendency ...


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T H E GEN IUS O F I N D I A 45

behind all this mental and all this vita l activity,

and it s later period, the post-classica l, saw a lift-

in g up o f th e who le lower life and an impressing

upon it of the value s of the Spirit . This was the

sense of the Puranic and T antric sys t ems andth e reli gion s of Bhakti . Later Vaishnavism, the

last fin e flower of the Indian spirit, was in it s

esse nc e the t akin g up of the aesthetic, emo

tional and sensuous being into the service of the

spiri tua l. It co mpleted the curve o f the cycle.

T HE EVEN ING OF DECLINE which followed

th e co mplet ion of the curve wa s prepared by

thr ee m ov em ent s of retrogre ssion . First there is,

co mparatively, a sinking of th at supe r -abundant

vital ene rgy and a fading of the joy of life and

th e joy o f creat ion. Even in the decline this ener

gy is s till some thing splendid and extraordinary


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46 THE GEN IUS OF I N D I A

and only for a very brief period s inks nearest to

a complete torpor; but still a comparison with

its past greatness will show that the decadence

was marked and progressive. Secondly, there is

a rapid cessa tion of the old free intellectual

activity, a slumber of the scientific and the c rit

ical mind as well as the creative intui tion; what

remains becomes more and more a repetition

of ill-understood fragments of past knowledge.

There is a petrification of the mind and life in

the relics of the forms which a great intellectualpast had created. Old authority and rule become

rigidly despotic and, as always then happens,

lose their real sense and spirit. Finally, spiritual-

ity remains but burns no longer with the large

and clear flame of knowledge of former times,but in intense jets and in a d ispe rs ed act ion

which replaces the old magnificent synthesis


43/55


and in which certain spiritual truths are empha -

sised to the neglect of others. This d iminut ion

amounts to a certain failure of the great endeav -

our which is the whole meaning of Indian cul-

ture, a falling short in the progress towa rds the

perfect spiritualisation of the mind and the life.

The beg innings were superlative, the develop-

ments very great, but at a certain point where

progress, adaptation; a new flowering should

have come in, the old civilisation s topped short ,

partly drew back, partly lost its way. The essen-

tial no doubt rema ined and still remains in the

heart of the race and not only in its habits and

memories, but in its action it was covered up in a

great smoke of confusion . The causes internal

and external we need not now discuss; but the

fact is there. I t was the cause of the momentary

helplessness of the Indian mind in the face of


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all that was in India 's past is still dormant, it is not

destroyed; i t is wait ing there to a ssume new forms . ..


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TH E GENIUS O F INDIA 49

new and unprecedented conditions .

IT WAS ATTHIS MOMENT that th e Eur op ean

wave swept over India . The fir st e ff ect of this

ent ry of a new and quite opposite civilisation

was the de struction of much that had no longer

the power to live, the deliquescence of much

el se , a t endency to the devitalisation of the rest.

A new a ctiv ity c ame in, but this was at first

c rudely and confusedly imitative of the foreign

culture. It was a crucial moment and an ordeal

of perilou s s ev erit y; a les s vigorou s energy of

life might well have foundered and pe rished

under the double wei ght of the deadening of its

old in na te motiv e s and a servile imitat ion of

ali en idea s and habits. His to ry s how s us howdi sa strous this situation can be to nations and

civili sations . But fortunately t he energy of life


46/55

50 THE GEN IU S O F I N D I A

was there , sleeping onl y for a momen t , not

dead , and, given that ener gy , the evil c arri ed

within itself its own cure . F or whatever temp o-

rary rotting and de struction thi s crude imp act

of European life and cul tu re has cau sed , it ga ve

three needed impulse s. I t revived the dormant

intellectual and critical impul se; it rehabilit ated

life and awakened the de sire of new creati on; it

put the reviving Indian spirit face t o fac e w it h

novel condit ion s and ideal s and the ur gent

necess it y of understandin g, as simil atin g a ndconquering them . The national m ind tu rned a

new eye on it s pa st cul ture , reawoke t o it s s ense

and import, but also, a t the same time, saw it in

relation t o modern knowledge and idea s. Out

of this awakening vision and impul se the Indian

renaiss ance is arising , and th at mu st determin e

it s future tendency. The r eco ve ry o f th e o ld


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THE G EN IUS OF I N D I A 51

s pir i tual kno wled ge and experience in a ll I tS

sp lendour, depth and fullne ss is it s first , mo st

esse ntia l wo rk; the flowin g of this spirituali ty

int o n ew f orms of phi lo soph y, literature , art,

scie nce and critical knowled ge is the second; an

o rig ina l d ealin g wi th mod ern problem s in the

light o f Indi an s pirit and the ende av our to for-

mul ate a g rea ter sy nt hesis of a spirituali sed

so cie ty is the third and mo st diff icult. I t s s uc-

cess o n th ese thr ee line s w ill be the mea sure of

it s help to th e fu t ure o f humanit y.

TH E SPIRIT IS A HIGH ER INFINIT E of veritie s;

life is a lower infinite of po ssibilities w hich seek

to grow and f ind their own tru th and fulfilment

in th e light o f the se veritie s . Our intellect, our

will, o u r ethical and o ur a esthetic bein g are the

reflec tor s and th e med iator s . The method of the


48/55

It is when a greater light prevails and become s generalthat we shall be able to speak ... of the renaissance of Indi a.


49/55

THE GEN IU S OF I N D I A 53

West is t o exaggerate life and to call down as

much - or as little - as may be of the higher

powers to s timula te and embellish life. But the

method of India is, on the contrary, t o discover

the spirit within and the higher hidden intensi -

ties of the superior powers and t o dominate life

in one way or another so as t o make it respon-

sive t o and expressive of the spirit and in that

way increase the power of life. Its tendency

with the intellect, will, ethical, aesthetic and

emotional being is t o sound indeed the ir normal

mental possibilities, but also t o upraise them

towards the greater light and power of their

own highest intuitions. The work of the renais-

sance in India must be t o make thi s sp iri t, the

higher view of life, this sense of deeper poten-

tiality once more a creative, perhaps a dominant

power in the wor ld . But t o that truth of itself it is


50/55


as yet only vaguely awake; the mass of Indian

action is still at the moment proceeding under the

impress of the European motive and method and,

because there is a spirit within us to which they

are foreign, the action is poor in will, feeble in

form and ineffective in results , for it does notcome from the roots of our being. Only in a few

directions is there some clear light of self-knowl

edge. I t is when a greater light prevails and be-

comes general that we shall be able t o speak, not

only in prospect, but in fact, of the renaissance of

India .

Sri Aurobindo


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BOOKS OF SRI AUROBINDO ON INDIA

INDIA'S REBIRTH

A selection from Sri Aurobindo 's writings ,

talks and speecheson India .

Availab le in English , H indi, Telugu ,

Ma layalam , Oriya, French .

(Mira Aditi Centre, Mysore)

*

BANDE MATARAM

THE KARMAYOGIN

THE SECRET OF THE VEDA

ESSAYS ON THE G ITA

THE FOUNDAT IONS O F I ND IAN CULTURE

(Sri Aurobin do Ashram, Pondicherry)


52/55

SELECTED B IO GRAPHIES

(Mira Aditi C entre, Mysore)

SRI A URO BIND O

OR THE ADVENTU RE O F C ONS CI O USNESS

Satpr em*

MOTH ER'S CHRON I CLES

Sujata Nahar

Book 4 : Mi rra - Sri Aurobindo

Book 5: M irra Meets the R evolutionary

*

MOTH ER

Satprem

I - The D iv in e Mat erialism

I I - The N ew Sp ecies

I I I - The Mutation o f De ath

*

MOTHER'S AGENDA - 1 9 5 1 - 1 9 7 3 , 13 v olum es

Mi ra Aditi Centre - 62 'Sriranga ', 2'" Main, l "Cro ss,T.K. Layout, Saraswatipuram - Mysore 5 70009 - India


53/55

COLL EC T I ON VAN DE M AT ARAM

Already Pub lished

B ANDE MATARAM

Bank im Chandra Chatterji's great son gw ith an introduction

by Sri Aurobindo .

48 pages , hardbound o r paperback

AT THE FEET OF M OTH ER I ND IA

A selectio n of poems , wri tings a nd speeches

from great I ndian Seers ,

illustrated w ith photographs .

60 pages , hardbound .

INDEPENDEN CE DAY MESSAGE

Gi ven by Sri Aurobindo on 15 August 1947 .

48 pages, paperback .


54/55

Printed atA UR 0 VILLE PRESS

Auroville

605101 Tamil NaduINDIA

1998


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T H E G E N I U S OF I N D I A

This text, taken fr o m The Renai ssance in India by Sri Auro bin do ,

is not a study of ancient India, although it does analyse th e

powers of th e ancient spirit of India . It is rather a very precise

descr iption of the instruments that are at th e disposal of India for

build ing her future . One cannot but wis h that this text form part

of the curriculum of all Indian schools. as well as that of schoo ls

a ll over th e world . For indeed to understand th e true nature of

Ind ia is not onl y indispensable for her ch ildren , but necessary for

a ll those who asp ire to a re b irth of the entire earth .

Documents

The Genius of India