Poets as Interpreters

                                  POEMS AND POETS

                        21.POETS AS INTERPRETERS

Great or important truths need to be interpreted ie their inner meaning or significance or import has to be brought out for people at large to understand things correctly. In these days of the media, this hardly,ever, happens. This is the age of specialists and jargon. Once some 'authority' uses it, it is repeated by every one else, most of whom may not understand what it means. But if you can use the jargon, you pass for a man of knowledge.

Take this term "stronger" or "strengthened" used in Indian media about the Rupee vis a vis the US$. What does it mean? Does it mean India has become strong? Is it beneficial for India? It does not mean either. It means simply that the same $ commands less rupees. This is good for Indian importers- as imports become cheaper and bad for exporters- as every $ they earn will fetch less rupees.So a strong Rupee does not mean the same thing for every one. But the leftists will raise a hue and cry if the rupee 'weakens'! ( which is good for the country- it will make imports costlier and exports cheaper, thereby benefiting the country).

Some old wisdom requires to be 'interpreted' in this manner for proper understanding. When we were in school, one teacher used to repeat a verse in Tamil which said:

When you find the dog, there is no stone;

When you see the stone there is no dog. 

What did it mean? We boys thought  , like Sherlock Holmes, that it was 'elementary': when you see a dog in the street and want to hit it, you don't find a piece of stone; but when you get it, the dog has gone away! How simple!

But the teacher explained: When you see a fine stone carving of a dog, you think it is a dog. So long as you 'see' the dog like this, the stone is not on your mind. But once you know it is made of stone, you will never again take it for a dog!

When we grew up and read a little religious literature, we found that this truth had been stated by an ancient teacher with a different analogy:

The big elephant has hidden the wood,

The big elephant is hidden in the wood;

The elements have hidden the Reality of the world,

The elements are hidden in the Reality of the world.

The original Tamil is simple and mellifluous:

marattai maraittadu mamada yanai

marattil maraindadu  mamada yanai.

parattai maraittadu par mudal bhutam

parattil maraindadu par mudam bhutam!

                                  St. Tirumular.

When you see the big elephant sculpted from wood, the wood is not noticed- the wood 'hides' in the elephant. But when you understand that it is sculpted from wood, the reality of the elephant disappears; it is a mere appearance.Wood alone is real. Likewise, this universe composed of the five elements  hides from view God who is the sole reality behind the world. But when the Sage understands the Reality of God, he sees that this world is mere appearance!

This is lofty philosophy, but stated in simple poetry. It interprets philosophy for us. But first the verse needs interpreting, for ordinary people.

In the olden days, a Rupee in India consisted of 16 annas. An elderly relative who used to visit us would ask: 'How many rupees are there in the anna?'. We thought he was overtaken by senility and had lost sense. There were 16 annas in the Rupee, how could there be Rupees in the anna? But he would explain: There were 16 annas in the rupee, but there was 1/16 rupee in the anna!   Those days we had indigenous tables for fractions like this, before they were replaced by the decimal system.It needed interpretation!

With age, other 'facts' have cropped up, which need interpretation. We are educated in science, and 'know' light travels at 1,86,000 miles/hour.But do we, really? What does it mean? What do we understand?

Eknath Easwaran, that venerated teacher of Meditation of Blue Mountain fame explains thus:

Suppose you sit on a ray of light, and travel at the speed of light.

• it takes only  a second and a quarter to reach the moon
• it takes 8 minutes to reach the sun
• it takes 4 years to reach the nearest star
• Even if you travel a hundred thousand years, you could never get out of our Milky Way
• it takes 2 million more years to reach the nearest neighbouring galaxy
• there are believed to be 200 billion galaxies within the observable universe.

We cannot even absorb what these figures mean.

We can never "see' or know the whole universe.

The speed of light itself limits us.

Further:

The Milky Way galaxy has billions of stars which make a great wheel about a hundred thousand light years across.

 Astronomers now believe there are billions of such galaxies  in the 'observable' universe.

                                      (Taken from Sri Easwaran's books:
                                           1.1000 Names of Vishnu
                                            2.Constant Companion )


Can we really say we comprehend anything?
 Let us listen to contemporary philosopher Jacob Needleman  reflect on the front cover of an issue of National Geographic,containing a photo of  a " tiny speck of black sky about the size of a dime  75 feet away", captured through the Hubble Telescope:

".........   a nearly microscopic point in an apparently empty patch of the night sky was here shown to be a window on to hundreds,thousands of stars,many certainly greater than our own sun...

  "  What had I actually seen?....I looked at the picture again....very attentively read the explanation of the photograph:THESE WERE NOT STARS AT ALL,THEY WERE GALAXIES! HUNDREDS,THOUSANDS OF GALAXIES NEVER BEFORE KNOWN OR SEEN INHABITED THAT INFINITESIMAL SPECK OF "EMPTY' SKY, each galaxy itself containing billions of suns. I suddenly became very quiet inside."

                                               From Preface to "A Sense Of The Cosmos ",
                                    Monkfish Edition, 2003. Capitalisation mine


Yet , people go about, glibly claiming 'scientific advances' have blown away the idea of God.

When it comes to scriptures or religious literature, every one with average literacy thinks he can read and understand for himself, that traditional explanations are foggy and not reliable. Any one can understand what is meant by I AM THAT I AM. Any one can say what is meant by 'I and My Father  are one' or 'The Kingdom of God is within you', etc.
And about Sanskrit scriptures it is even easier. There are 'scholars' sitting in American academies, who know what is Kali, or Krishna, or Shiva! They know Manu, they know Patanjali! No one would dare interpret E=mc2 just because he knew the alphabet. But any one can interpret scriptures if he knows the alphabet!

This is so outrageous. Nowhere in the world were scriptures 'read'. They were 'studied', for years; even then people hesitated to claim  they ''knew".

Two kinds of Interpretation

1. Interpretation of past for the present generation
2. Interpretation of current developments to bring out their implications for the future.

History is basically an interpretation of the past.
Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is an interpretation  of the Genesis story. Goldsmith's long poem The Deserted Village is an interpretation of the implications of socio-economic developments of the 18th century. T.S.Eliot's ' The Waste Land' is an interpretation of contemporary society, among other things.

The broader implications of many scientific facts   and ideas become clear only when interpreted and presented in an intelligible,jargon free manner, outside the circle of the peers or academies. Students of physics knew of 'entropy' as a technical concept. But what does it mean for life on earth? It is only a popular exposition and interpretation by one like Jeremy Rifkin which brought it to popular notice. Fritjof Capra performed a double interpretation: combining modern particle physics and ancient wisdom in his 'Tao Of Physics'. E.F.Schumacher's 'Small Is beautiful' interpreted the meaning of modern economics: living out of non-renewable capital! John Kenneth Galbraith had earlier brought out the inherently iniquitous tendencies of modern capitalism, in his interpretation of American Capitalim and The Affluent Society. Currently, Prof.Michael Sandel of Harvard is interpreting the ethical implications of our public practices and policies, for a world which has almost totally lost its sense of virtue. Howard Gardner's theory of 'multiple intelligences' has the potential to revolutionise education, but is confined to academics.It awaits popular interpretation and advocacy.   In the long run. it is such interpreters who open the minds of society, and keep its conscience alive. Rene Guenon interpreted the the spiritual deficiencies of modern civilisation, and also the greatness of authentic ancient spiritual traditions for the modern man.


It is in this sense that I use the word interpretation here. In modern literary fashion, it is used for extracting fanciful meaning out of familiar facts, through the slanted eyes and coloured vision of Feminism, Marxism, Post-modernism,Deconstruction and what not! Mercifully, I don't have to study literature formally for a degree now! 

Religious literature makes use of different devices, like symbols, mythology, adoption of uncommon language, etc. In Sanskrit, we have a clear division and distinction, indicated even by their very names:
Veda: ( Including Upanishad) : Shruti- to be heard, not to be written down. Veda means "knowledge". So it does not contain history!
Upanishad: also Shruti. means 'Sitting near'. It had to be learned by approaching a teacher personally. It also occurs as part of "Aranyaka" -the forest book. It means that it has to be pursued exclusively, intensely.
Smriti: Remembered ; arranged treatises based on Veda. Covers rules for rituals , and individual and social conduct.
Itihas: Actually means:  iti ha asa= it happened thus. It is history. Ramayana and Mahabharata are our only two itihasas.
Purana: Literally means very ancient: they are the legends, mythologies.The stories are symbolic, allegorical.
It is clear that all this needs proper 'interpretation' ie explaining. And many types of explanations do exist.In the Bible, all these elements are mixed up. Those who interpret Indian 'Itihas' as mere epic in the western sense are doing great injustice to the subject.

Interpretation becomes necessary since successive generations lose touch with the original views, and purpose, and language undergoes change in meaning and usage.  

 The important task of interpreting them for the common man was done by the Poet-singers in India who went round the country, clothing the old knowledge in current idiom and common parlance. The oral method had this advantage that it did not require literacy on the part of the listener. It was enough if they could follow the common spoken language. Ironically, it is the modern educated ones who need their interpretation, often in English, even from their vernacular languages!

The West faced a problem. Christianity destroyed all the old religions of Greek and Roman world. They ceased to exist as practical systems.Some literature survived, but their study was neglected. So when in the Renaissance the old Greek literature was rediscovered, it revolutionised European thought. Richard Tarnas has stated it beautifully:

 "Instead of Scholasticism's concern with logic,science, and Aristotle, and with the constant imperative of Christianizing the pagan conceptions, Petrarch and his followers saw value in all the literary classics of antiquity- poetry,essays,letters,histories and biographies,philosophy in the form of elegant Platonic dialogues rather than dry Aristotelian treatises- and embraced these on their own terms, not as needing Christian modification, but as noble and inspirational just as they stood in the radiance of classical civilization. Ancient culture was a source not just for scientific knowledge and rules for logical discourse but for the deepening and enrichment of the human spirit. The classical texts provided a new foundation for the appreciation of man; classical scholarship constituted the "humanities."

                                                             From: Richard Tarnas: 'The Passion of the                                                     Western Mind' p.209

   Poets duly wove the legends into their poetry.  Scholars started interpreting them. Even the despised legends got a new life and meaning and respectability when scholars like Jung and Joseph Campbell interpreted them in the 20th century.

Some instances

We all know the world is an imperfect place. On the earth, the broken arcs- said Browning. But it is this very imperfection which gives us an opportunity and inducement to seek to become perfect! If every thing is just fine, why should any one strive for anything? How will our politicians, social reformers,etc make a living (or killing)?

An incident is related in the Tamil epic Manimekalai. There the story of Aaputran is told. This boy gets a wonderful 'vessel' out of which he could feed every one, without limit. (Another story, how he got this) He feeds the poor tirelessly,  till there are no more hungry people. Indra gets alarmed! Indra is the host of 'devas'-the gods. This is a post acquired by merit of good deeds. Any one who accumulates enormous merit could become the next Indra, knocking out the current one. So the current Indra gets frightened at the prospect of losing his position by the merit of Aaputran. He appears before Aaputran and tells him: 'I am Indra, come before you! Ask any boon you want as reward for your great charity!' The idea is that if people ask for worldly boons, they will exhaust their merit,deviate from pursuing virtue, and so Indra is safe!. ( The same idea is reiterated differently in the Katha Upanishad) Aaputran is amused and bursts out in wild laughter and exclaims:

Indra Indeed!
What a great god you are!
What is it that you gods do in your world there?
You are just reaping there the fruits of the good deeds you have done on earth.Does your world contain-

• people who strive for righteousness?
• those who observe the austerities? 
• those who help the world by maintaining charities?
• those who ceaselessly strive to give up attachment ?

Your world is great indeed without these categories!

And just what can you give me?

Food? Fancy clothes? Women? Protectors?

Keep them yourself, and clear out of here!

Indra gets offended,and in his anger causes continuous rain so that food grows in plenty, every one is fed well, there is no hunger in the world, and Aaputran and his wondrous vessel are rendered useless!

The moral is that the world is imperfect and full of suffering but these are the very things through which we struggle to perfection. Imperfection is another name for the possibility of perfection.

This is stated differently by another Tamil poet-saint, Manikkavachakar. He depicts the sports of the Lord in his manifestation as Shiva. This is a poem in the form of question and answer, between two girls, engaged in a game. 

Girl 1 : See, my dear! Your great Lord south-facing Shiva, dancing gleefully at Chidambaram! What does he do? After all, he has taken after a woman, and made her a part of him! How infatuated he is!

Girl 2:  There, there, you fool! If the Lord had not done that, all the people in the world would have taken after Yoga and attained Liberation! How will the world go on?

This can be interpreted at many levels.One sense is that the world is God's making. Even the love impulse is God-given. ( I am kama not opposed to Dharma, says Krishna in the Gita) Both the good and bad aspects are steps for perfection. Man has to rise through them. In a sense, perfection means there is no scope for anything further! 
But the philosophical significance is different. The Absolute has no form or sex. But when we think of God, we also think of His power. Hindus speak of it as Shiva and Shakti, which are always inseparable. The world is a manifestation of this Truth-Power: They are always together. So, in poetic language this is described as Shakti being a part of Shiva- Shiva being so infatuated  he can't bear to be separated from her physically! If there is separation, manifestation will cease!

The idea of perfection-imperfection is conveyed beautifully by a modern Sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj:

"The world (your world) had all the time to get better. It has not. What hope is there for the future? Of course, there have been and will be periods of harmony and peace when sattva is in ascendance.But things get destroyed by their own perfection. A perfect society is necessarily static, and therefore it stagnates and decays. From the summit all roads lead downwards. Societies are like people- they are born,they grow to some point of relative perfection and then decay and die."

"Whatever has a beginning must have an end. In the timeless, all is perfect,here and now." 

                                                            (Nisargadatta Maharaj in
                                I Am That, page 400 )

Wisdom is the quest for this "timeless".

Will Durant and Arnold Toynbee seek to record and interpret the rise and fall of societies and civilisations  through the ages. Such knowledge should give this generation a due sense of humility and perspective. Do become better, but don't blame the past. The past brought us here.