Upanishadic Traces of Emerson: A Comparative Study of Emerson’s Essays and Indian Philosophy
Abstract:
The present essay elucidates theoretical as well as critical understanding of comparative philosophy by foregrounding a close reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s epistemic engagement of transcendentalism and its shared affinity with Indian philosophy. Emerson who is one of the exponents of the philosophical tenet Transcendentalism, this essay would argue how the Emersonian perceptive has a close and countless resemblances with Indian philosophical voices. This analytical discussion would also consider a cross-cultural or east-west synthesis and overlapping of philosophical as well as spiritual blending that would attempt a deliberate obliteration of the geographical borders by establishing an inclusive space to evolve cosmopolitan philosophy and world literature. This essay primarily focuses on these crucial points highlighting a discourse with Emerson in the light of philosophical and spiritual wisdom of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and various other branches of philosophy which are necessarily oriental and finally shows how this venture of the American scholars create a new passage to India by welcoming notes and tenets of Indian ideas and acumens.
Key Words: Transcendentalism, Over-Soul, Emerson, Upanishads, Comparative Philosophy, Indian Philosophy
Introduction:
The tripartite of American scholars namely Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman is widely regarded as an usher of a new era in the practice and exercise of American literature. One can immediately be appealed by their mode of articulation and their thoughts and ideas are saturated together in such a way that one is bound to do so. The primary focus of this narrative is to draw an analytical synthesis of cross-cultural discourse between east and west by engaging an in-depth discussion with these mentioned American literati in association with the light of various waves of oriental thoughts. Though it is claimed that it is out of sheer interest and curiosity, the Transcendentalists inclined towards Indian philosophy, but enough reasons are there to argue that they took this refuge because it acts as an antidote to the growing American materialism. This essay would argue, the philosophy of the Upanishads has so deeply entrenched and drenched in their hearts that they can be undoubtedly bestowed as the American Brahmins. This discussion considers a simultaneous analysis of these three minds by giving emphasis on Emerson and his association with oriental thoughts. Therefore, the following discussion explicates how Emerson was deeply influenced by Indian thought and furthermore it must be opined that his composition and articulation would have been different if he had not come across and known it. This reflection can be attested not only from American scholars but voluminous Indian literature unfolds that within Emerson a moving spirit was there that responds to the mystic and ascetic call of Indian thoughts. Dale Riepe has rightly observed in his article “Emerson and Indian Philosophy” where he quotes Protap Chunder Mozoomdar’s "Emerson as Seen from India," that pointed out shortly after Emerson's death in 1882, that: “Yes, Emerson had all the wisdom and spirituality of the Brahmans. ... In whomsoever the eternal Brahma breathed his unquenchable fire, he was the Brahman. And in that sense Emerson was the best of Brahmans.” Again, in another note according to S. Radhakrishnan, for example, "Emerson's Oversoul is the paramatman of the Upanishads. This observation directly opens the discussion that unpacks how Emerson moulded his philosophical domain by going through the central postulates of Eastern philosophy as well as Western philosophy and it would also argue whether his essays and particularly The Over-Soul is the accurate synthesis of both the two. While writing his essays, this article would closely observe, if he brings himself to the close affinity with the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhaghwat Gita. And by tracing this argument this treatise critically analyzes how this novel attempt breaks the artificial boundaries between East and West. Transcendentalism is the key concept of his philosophy and this theoretical understanding conforms to the thematic episteme that negates hierarchic contestation of proving one culture’s superiority over another. Transcendentalism is an experience where all the subject-object differences are obliterated. This essay would focus how Emerson echoes the Kantian hypothesis in which our mind is much more reliable and truthful than the mundane world or the world of phenomena that are necessarily built upon binary. Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation (1969) deals with the more prominent function of our ‘will’ than the mortal world. Again, Shankaracharya in his writing the Advaita Vedanta (1973) talks about the illusion aspect of the mundane world and he argues that the only truth is Brahma (Over-Soul, Soul or Being): Jagat mitthya Brahma sattya (Being is the ultimate truth that outgrows mundane illusion). It indicates that Emerson is a close-door neighbour to Advaita Vedanta. The following passage highlights how his intermingling study of Kantianism, Romanticism, dialectical metaphysics and the reading of the Indian Philosophy give birth to the concept of his essays. Again, this essay would also trace various other Eastern philosophical branches like Sufism to understand how the notion of Brahma or the Over-Soul is embedded as ‘Ruh’ (Zaehner, 2016). And as Zaehner argues in Sufism to realize ‘Ruh’ one has to pass through ‘Infirad’(isolation) and ‘Fana’(annihilation) to arrive at the ultimate truth. The attempt of this article is to show the confluence of two different branches of philosophy—Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy. The transaction of the philosophical domain, this essay would discuss, converges with each other and Emersonian ideas of Soul and the Advaitian concept of Brahma are intermingled. Therefore should we call it American literature because of its geographical territory or we should address it as World literature as it transcends all kinds of mundane periphery? Finally, this essay would argue how Emerson’s idea of Transcendentalism breaks the artificial boundary between eastern philosophy and the western philosophy. This essay has drawn its arguments heavily from various significant writings—P.Lal’s Indian Influences on Western Literature (2001), Advaita Vedanta and R.C.Zaehner’s Hindu and Muslim Mysticism (2016).
Transcendentalism and Indian Philosophy
Emerson’s study of transcendentalism resolves the question whether comparative philosophy is possible or not. Because transcendentalism is not purely an American hypothesis but it is a conglomeration of both the oriental and the occidental hypothesis. His essays Self-reliance, Spiritual Laws, The Over-Soul are the beautiful synthesis of this point. Emerson himself asserts that his concept of transcendentalism is the result of his reading of various Eastern philosophies, i.e, Hindu philosophy and his essays echo various branches of Eastern philosophy including Shankaracharya’s notion of Brahma. Thus, it is a derivative discourse and this philosophical notion is the ensamble of different other domain of philosophies. Emerson’s this noble attempt makes it a world philosophy/literature or the philosophy/ literature which are universal by effacing the artificial or the geographical boundaries between east and west.
Transcendentalism is an American literary, political and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century that revolves around the American scholar and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. He generates this typical philosophical notion after a long experimentation with another domain of philosophy. He takes the Lucian and also the Kantian and deliberately questions the prevailing Unitarianism and the conventional religion. Ultimately, he equipped himself with different Indian philosophy, like Brahma and incorporated it in his discussion of transcendentalism. In transcendentalism he finds the chief function of the human mind which Kant termed as ‘Intuition’. In Greek philosophy the faculty of human mind is known as ‘Nous’. The principal of their philosophy is that the human mind is the primary and the only truth where the world is illusion. In order to define transcendentalism, he borrowed the concept of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant—
Kant replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke, which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was not previous in the experience of the senses, but showing that there was a very important class of ideas or imperative forms which did not come by experience, but through experience was acquired; that these were intuition of the kind itself; and he denominated them transcendental form. (Critique of Pure Reason, Kant)
It clarifies the autonomous function of our mind. So, it is our mind that forms the outer world or the world of phenomena. Though the presence of the mundane world is necessary but the primary function is the intuition as Arthur Schopenhauer points out this very notion in his treatise called World as Will and Representation. According to this hypothesis it proves that the so called mundane world or the mortal world nothing but illusion and the only reality is the world of ‘our mind’ or ‘the will’ or’ the being’ or as Martin Heidegger conceptualized it ‘Dasein’ (Being and Time, 2008). This very concept conforms to the concept of Brahma as traced by Shankaracharya in his discussion of Advaita Vedanta.
Shankaracharya’s Concept of Brahma
Shankaracharya defines Brahma as “jaggat mitthya, Brahman sattya”: the world is illusion and the only reality is Brahma. Brahma is the state of ‘being’ where all distinctions between subject-object are obliterated. He also describes the Brahma as Sacchinanda: as ‘being’ (sat), ‘consciousness’ (cit) and ‘bliss’ (ananda). Brahma is the real essence which is in everywhere and in everybody. Again, Brahma is ultimately a name for the experience of the timeless plentitude of being. Thus Shankaracharya time and again traces the priority of our mind or what is called intuition. The glimpses of the Brahma encandles us: ‘attadeepa bhava’ (encandle ourselves). When one gets this glimpse then all the distinctions between the self, the world and the God are transcended and obliterated. Brahma is not the subject of understand but the subject of realization. The realization of the state of Brahma makes one to say-
“Akash jeno koilo katha kane kane”—Rabindranath Tagore (As if the sky were murmuring in the ear)
“Amar hiyar majhe lukiye chhile dekhte tomai paini ami…”—Rabindranath Tagore (You are within me, but I could not find you)
We also find the similar echo in such English poetry –
“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” (Ode to the West Wind: 71, P.B. Shelley)
“In my beginning is my end” (Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)
Therefore, Brahma is infinite, plentiful, timeless and omnipresence. The notion of Brahma is very much in Sufism also. Because, Sufism believes in the idea of unity of the soul or the Over-soul.
Being or Soul in Sufism
Sufism is another trend of oriental philosophy. Sufism talks about ‘Fana’ (annihilation) and ‘Infirad’ (isolation) and if one will follow these aptly then one sees the deepest essence of all the things and thereby one can say ‘I am this all’ or I am Brahma. Because the soul is in everybody and everybody is within the soul. In Sufism the very concept of the soul or the Brahma is known as ‘Nafsi’ or ‘Ruh’ (Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, p-57). It is that common soul which pervades everybody and everything. It is timeless and the relation between the soul and the men is of love. One can get this very realization by abandoning the mundane world or the world of illusion and absorbing oneself into the way of the Oversoul. Dara Shukoh while translating the Upanishad he came across certain ideas and thoughts which are very much similar to that of Shankaracharya. He himself finds and also proves the similarities between the Hindu and the Muslim mysticism. In one of his writing he points to his growing conviction that Islam and Hinduism both speak of the same Ultimate Truth and this very essence is everywhere. Dara Shukoh named his translated version of Upanishad as Sirr-i-akbar (the great secret). He establishes the hypothesis that the Quran and Hinduism speak the same ideals. Again in Christian religion or in the Bible we find “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have light of life.” (Jesus Christ, Book of John, Verse-8, xii).
Emerson’s Postulation of Eastern Philosophy in his Essays
It is believed that the Bhagavad Gita was the prototype Emerson used in most of his writings in which adhydtman easily yields "Oversoul." Again, Dale has argued that it is Leidecker’s conclusion where he articulates in his "Emerson and East-West Synthesis”, after analyzing the "Self-Reliance'' essay of Emerson, that no sense can be made of it without seeing it "against the philosophical or metaphysical background of the 'Indian Self’. One can immediately consider countless epistles written by Emerson in various times to different people that shows his close affinity and kinship with the ascetic and mystic call with the Indian thoughts. Emerson first mentions Buddhism in a letter to Margaret Fuller September 8, 1841, in which he makes the cryptic remark that "Buddhism cometh in like a flood. Sleep is better than waking: Death than life." It seems clear from his letters how he came across umpteen thoughts and ideas and it proves that Emerson was much less influenced by Buddhism than Hinduism. We may also refer from Dale articulation when he mentions various letter correspondences between Emerson and his Friends that witness similar observance when he wrote to John Chapman on May 30, 1845: There is a book which I very much want of which this is the title. "The Bhagavat Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna & Arjoon; in eighteen lectures; with notes. Translated from the original in Sanskreet, or ancient language of the Brahmins, by Charles Wilkins; London: C. Nourse; 1835." In the same volume of letters Emerson mentions that he read the Purana on a trip to Vermont and that he thought of Thoreau as "Our Spartan Buddhist Henry." This epistle-conversation clearly reflects Emerson’s deep sense of regards and love for the philosophy of India. While going through Emerson’s transcendental essays, we get the very concept of Brahma/ Nafsi/Ruh/Soul/Being and it is because of the reason that he had a very close affinity or kinship with the Indian philosophy such as the Bhagwat Gita, the Upanishads, and the Vedas and come under the unified notion the Over-Soul. In this essay he gives certain characteristic features of the Over-Soul and suggests that all the flora and fauna are the part and particle of the Over-Soul. The over soul is a momentum experience and who has experienced this moment “he lives in blest eternity” and due to this reason our one moment is completely different from another. The moment of the over soul is epiphanic or theophanic. He asserts that God is not a separated entity but it is our good senses and therefore a garden can be a temple or the gentle conversation becomes worship. This very moving spirit is manifested in the rising sun, or the living air or the round ocean or the flowing rivulets and even in the blooming flower and the song of the bird. Emerson calls that “within man is the soul of the whole '' and it suggests that man is in everything or everything is in man. So all the entities or all the subjects and objects are equally related with this eternal soul. Again, the soul is not the organ but it animates all organs. The experience or the realization of the soul is like the light that makes us enlighten. Martin Heidegger refers to it as ‘Aletheia’ or the exposer or the revealer of the truth. Like Shankaracharya, Emerson presents two worlds which are completely different from each other and these are – the world of the Over-soul and the mundane world or the world of illusion. If we judge the subjects from objects from the perspective of phenomenology then we completely mislead ourselves and the only and ultimate truth can only be gained when we come across with this Over- soul. Words or language cannot capture the moment of Over-soul because it is a matter of experience and the language of the Over-soul is ‘the wise silence’. This epiphanic experience affects us not like gradation but like metamorphosis. Thus this moment can conquer anything and everything and Emerson points out- “can crowd eternity into an hour or stretch an hour to eternity”. The soul is beyond time and space. The state of the Over- soul is that of ‘Telos’ where all the distinction between subject and objects are obliterated and it is the ‘perceiver and revealer’ of the truth. The emanation of the Over-soul is the ‘incarnation of the spirit in a form’, so, we are all the form and within us this very spirit of the Over-soul exists. Emerson addressed his concepts of over-soul in many of his other essays: “Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.”--Spiritual Laws. Again he composed “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.
From this discussion the points become clear that the two trajectories of the East and the West philosophical tracks come into a confluence and there is a close kinship between the east and the west that disborders the artificial boundaries and makes a universal appeal. Other literary figures who make this kinship by presenting a cosmopolitan presentation through their writings are discussed in the following section.
Western Response to the Indian
Hopkins brings this very notion of the oversoul in his religious context where he refers to the spirit which is embedded with the subject and object as ‘Inscape’. He also suggests that through the journey or travel of ‘Royal Road’ the inscape of the matter or the object is instressed to us.
Walt Whitman in his poem Songs of Myself utters –
“I celebrate myself and sing myself,
What I shall assume you shall assume”.
Whitman at this very first line speaks about his own self. So it may appear as self-centric but the very next line breaks the realm of the self and Whitman here suggests that what is within him it pervades everything and everyone. His other poem, To a Stranger gives the message that nothing in the world is stranger because everything is the part of the unified whole, over soul or the Brahman. The language of poetry is conceived with sublimation and therefore the language of poetry is called ‘the other voice’, a term used by Octavia Paz. Paz brought out a hundred and ten page book in 1997 titled ‘A Tale of Two Gardens: Poems from India (1952-1995)’. Here Paz depicts the two gardens symbolically the two cultures-East and West. He says that we should not give priority to any culture or civilization by diminishing the other but the best way is to transmute and absorb and make paralogous discussion of both the two. Shelley wrote a poem called ‘The Indian Serenade’ and Robert Browning describes the poem as ‘that divine little poem’. Emerson himself was very much plunged into the notion of Hinduism and also the concept of Brahman and wrote a poem called ‘Brahma’. In this poem he describes all the characteristic features of the Brahman which is very much transcendental. Brahman is pure being, without attributes, without form, unclassifiable, unknowable, the everywhere breather who breathes without breath.
The life of W.B Yeats was deeply influenced by three Indians, two of them are Bengalis. He was also highly inspired by the Upanishadic philosophies by the theosophist Mohini Mohun Chatterjee and Yeats revealed ‘ah how many it took me to awake out of that dream’. After that he wrote a poem which is probably the only poem in English literature which has for its title a living Indian name –‘Mohini Chatterjee’. His other poem ‘The Second Coming’ Yeats tells
“The falcon cannot hear the falconer”
Here the poet symbolically presents ‘falcon’ as human being and the ‘falconer’ as the Over soul or the Brahma.
We also find in many of the romantic poetry where the notion of the Over soul is embedded directly or indirectly specially in William Wordsworth’s poems like- ‘Tintern Abbey’, ‘The Immortality Ode’, or ‘The Prelude’. In all these poems there is presence of the very living spirit which is the very important aspect of Wordsworth’s pantheism as Wordsworth clarifies –
“A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.” (Tintern Abbey)
T.S Eliot was highly and deeply influenced and inspired by the Indian philosophy including the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred texts. The life of Eliot was also largely influenced by the Budhist thought and in his poem ‘The Waste Land’ is the outcome of these influences. It is clear from the concluding line of the poem – “shantih, shantih, shantih”. The poem also ends with the reiteration of the three cardinal virtues from the Second Brahmana Passage in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ‘Damyata’ (Restraint or the be self-control), ‘Dayadhvam’ (be compassionate) and ‘Datta’ (give). Again in his ‘The Four Quartets ‘he articulates –
“Do not think of the fruit of the action”
It echoes his direct influence from the Geeta. His reading of the Geeta was so strong that it deeply rooted and impressed in his heart. Eliot’s use of several images is directly drawn from the elements and aspects of eastern philosophy.
Again, many Indian literati are also influenced by various western philosophical hypotheses and also inspired in the domain of literature.
Indian Response to the Western
Indian response to the western literature reflected in many criticism and creative writing. Some features of that influence may be common to all the modern literature. The Indian response to the Western began with the introduction of English education in the country and also the emergence of the middle class English educated community like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Sri Aurobindo. Raja Rammohan Roy was highly influenced by the British culture and he requested them for the dissemination of the English culture in India. Thirty years later Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, the architect of the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 gave a lecture on the Indian metaphysical system like Shankhya and Vedanta should be countered with lectures on the positivist philosophy of Bentham and Mill. Michael Madhusudan Dutt inaugurated the modern age in Indian literature by innovating the blank verse, sonnet and drama on the European model. He knew Greek, Latin, French and Italian and about his Meghnathbadhkavya he said that he would try to write as a Greek. He himself confesses his debt to the poets of Europe as Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tasso and Milton.Sri Aurobindo, in his composing the mystical verses he took the theme as well as the form or style from the American scholar Walt Whitman.
Conclusion
In conclusion we may come to the point that how the east and the west are related and overlapped with each other both in the domain of philosophy and in the literary domain. The east and the west are symbiotically related with each other and their existence highlights the same unified notion or into the confluence point by obliterating all the artificial boundaries. The philosophical domain like- Indian, Western, Sufism, Christian: they are inseparably related with each other. They are all inseparable and therefore the Indian or the Western is a derivative discourse and the literature emerging from this confluence is like the cosmopolitan or the universal literature. Because, what Emerson and the other literati did is to make a synthesis of all those philosophical perceptions. So, there is an assemblage of the discussion of the philosophical ideas and thoughts. What is more this noble and brave attempt breaks the artificial confinement and opens the door to welcome all the notions, traditions and ideas. Therefore it envisions conceptualizing the eastern or the western literature as the World literature. Finally, one can imagine this discussion as a counter discourse against certain serious issues such as communal hostility, ultra-nationalism, dogmatization of different conceptual frameworks.
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