The Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita has intrigued, challenged me for years and has also been the source of great intellectual and artistic joy. I find in it multiple dialogues between History, Art, Culture, Spirituality, town/village interfaces and I hope to do some really significant work in this field. My approach in spite of having intellectual rigor will also always be that of a devotee:) I also have a request for my readers. If anyone finds anything in these articles and also elsewhere in this blog worth using in their own work, I would be grateful if that were acknowledged:)

The following article was published in the Statesman on February 19th and 20th, 2013, shortly after Thakur's birthday on 18.2.2013. I am still grateful to Anisha Bhaduri who chose it for publication in the Perspective Page. The idea of publishing articles in The Statesman was given to me by Nileen Putatunda, also a Ramakrishna devotee.

Spiritual symphony ~ I

18 February 2013

It is impossible to celebrate Sri Ramakrishna’s spirituality without appreciating the orality and musicality that shape it, writes sreematimukherjee

Songs dot the Ramakrishna Kathamrita as abundantly as do the homely illustrations through which Sri Ramakrishna effortlessly illuminated areas of psychological, spiritual, and everyday relevance that constantly intersect and inflect our lives. However, what many people who have not read the Kathamrita may not be aware of is the profusion of song, of its multiple genres and types in contemporary Bengal and even outside it,  which set up a rich internal polyphony and dialogue within the text, making it not only spiritually and historically deeply relevant, but also an invaluable text with which to gauge how urban and sophisticated artistic and musical sensibilities enter into a powerful and interesting dialogue/dialectic with rural, simpler and less sophisticated musical forms in late 19th century Bengal.  As Prof.SumitaChakraborty (previously of the department of Bengali, Bardhaman University) exclaimed to me when I first went to her with this idea of studying the Kathamrita from the perspective of how its musicality affected and modified the narrative said: “Oh, many people think of Sri Ramakrishna as illiterate, but his ease and facility with music and song testify to a highly charged sensibility which was not only artistic, but capable of the highest cognition.”

Indeed, Sri Ramakrishna’s  abundant musical  proclivities, spontaneous breaking into song as an illustration of a point, gather and expand the account of gatherings, conversations (reminiscent of Plato’s Dialogues ) his joyous peregrinations in the city of Kolkata, travelling to the zoo, to the theatre, to houses of devotees’ such as PrankrishnaMukhopadhyay (1882), IshanMukhopadhyay (22 September, 1883), AdharLalSen (1884), Balaram Bose (1882 onwards), to meet great 19th century shapers and moulders of Bengali culture and society, such as Debendranath Tagore  when he was still in his thirties, other  Brahmo leaders  Keshav Chandra Sen and  one must not forget to mention his encounter with the great Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (5 August, 1882) and Girish Chandra Ghosh too around the same time. These songs also add greatly to the joyousness of the text, bringing to it a certain romantic quality that students of English Literature will recognise, where a large part of the appeal of a poem in particular, depends on the musical cadences that the language creates.

Swami Prajnananda, author of the groundbreaking work A Historical Study of Indian Music, also provides us with details about the cultural and musical context of mid 19th century Bengal, that are fascinating and in his analysis of the dhrupad and kirtan in the second half of the 19th century in Bengal, makes an observation about Sri Ramakrishna vis a vis music that entirely supports the central premise of this article. He writes: “Keshav Chandra Sen and others established a new kind of Brahma Samaj, which brought some new cultural and religious revivals in the nineteenth century Indian society. There appeared many musicians and composers, who enriched the domain of classical Bengali songs, composed the image and idea of traditional Hindusthani music like dhruvapada, kheyal, thumri, tap-kheyaletc; known as the brahma-samgita. The composers like Jyotirindranath, Satyendrantha, Dvijendranath, Rabindranath and others of the memorable Tagore House as well as Sir Jatindra Mohan Tagore, Sir Sourindra Mohan Tagore, Ksetra Mohan Goswami and others inspired the music atmosphere of Bengal.”

Referring to Sri Ramakrishna he writes: “Ramakrishna Paramahansa appeared in this junctural period (1836-1886), and revived the spirit of religio-devotional songs…” Prajanananda also refers to the example of NarendranathDutt/ Swami Vivekananda who had participated in BrahmoSamaj worship and “knew many brahma-samgitas which inspired him afterwards to learn properly the classical Hindusthani songs from noted Ustads like VeniAdhikary, UstadAhmmed Khan, and others. “ (209).

To start my analysis of the preponderance of music as important narrative determinant in the Ramakrishna Kathamrita, I will start with Sri Ramakrishna’s encounter with Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and his spontaneous  application of songs to expand the theoretical implications of his position on the inscrutability and inaccessibility of Godhead for whom/which he uses both “Ishwar” and “Kali”, and his firm assertion that  humility and surrender were the only tools with which this entity may be known.  In the first volume of the Kathamrita  where this meeting is  described in detail, Sri Ramakrishna tells Vidyasagar: “The sense of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ stems from ignorance as do statements like ‘my house’, ‘my money’, ‘my education’ and ‘all my wealth’. One should say instead: ‘Oh, Lord, you are the Do-er and all this is yours ~ your house, family, children, other people significantly related to one, ~ are all Yours ~ This feeling comes from knowledge or Jnana.”

Kejane kali kemon, sadhadarashananapaidarshan/Atmanrameratma kali pramanpranbermatan (Who knows how Kali is?/ The six philosophies or Yogas cannot know Her/She is the soul of the soul, whose force may be known in the sound of the thunder/She resides in everything she desires to/She carries the universe in her womb, something beyond mortal comprehension). As Prof.Chakrabarty has pointed out, many of these songs have a deep theoretical basis and this song remains deeply embedded in Tantra symbolism and epistemology. We need to keep in mind that Ramprosad, the composer of this song was a renowned Shakta (worshipper of Kali) of 18th century Bengal. Another Shakta composer whose songs are also sung in the Kathamrita is Kamalakanto. There is no doubt that the Shakto strand in this text in the form of powerful affect in Sri Ramakrishna’s vatsalya towards Kali, and its presence in the innumerable instances where Sri Ramakrishna equates Kali with the Brahman of the Upanishads, is the most important discursive strand.  The proliferating songs dedicated to Kali also become proof of how powerful the Shakta tradition was to the heart of Bengal at that time. 

Yet, strongly counterpointing this Shakta imperative are the innumerable instances again, where Ramakrishna breaks into the songs of Radha from Vaishnavakirtan traditions, celebrating her as  the ultimate expression of the madhurabhava in spiritual practice, and he also refers continually to Sri Chaitanya and his mahabhava. This become yet another strand in the rich internal polyphony of the text, its musical dialogism and the spectacular plurality of Sri Ramakrishna himself.

The effect of Sri Ramakrishna’s own singing is to transport him into a state of mystic exaltation. In an explanation that he tenders to Vidyasagar, he seems to imply that not all things are knowable, sometimes they may only be known through partial understanding, through subliminal feelings, through half intuition. Sometimes the only way to know something is to submit to the idea that is exists, that it may be beyond the reaches or periphery of human systems of knowledge, structures and methodologies of understanding, beyond the sweep of epistemological tools.  Thus the attitude of submission and surrender, akin to a child’s dependence on its Mother, is perhaps the way to habilitate this concept defying, stupendous and even terrifying entity called Brahman or Kali in Ramakrishna Kathamrita.

To try to know God or Brahman is, as Sri Ramakrishna tells Vidyasagar, the futile and outrageous attempt of a salt doll to map the ocean. The continuous repetition and recurrence of songs gives the narrative an internal unity and harmony that serve to underscore some of the central philosophical concerns that run through RamkrishnaKathamrita.

(To be concluded)

The writer is Associate Professor at Department of English, Basanti Devi College, Kolkata

Spiritual symphony ~ II

19 February 2013

sreematimukherjee

Songs played a definitive role in Sri Ramakrishna’s affective strain and in encounters involving close personal relationship. He would frequently break into songs himself while interacting with devotees. In Sri Ramakrishna’s encounters with the Brahmo pioneer Keshav Chandra Sen, one sometimes discerns the same affective strain that is present in his interactions with Swami Vivekananda, although perhaps in a lesser degree of intensity. On 2 April, 1882, Sri Ramakrishna was at the baithakhana (drawing room) of Kamalkutir that was Sen’s home. Sri Trailokya who was also present, started singing. Sri Ramakrishna suddenly stood up, kept chanting the Mother’s name and passed into samadhi. When he came to, he started dancing and singing: “Surapaankorinaaamisudhakhaijoi Kali bol-e/monmatalematalkore mod-matalematalbol-e gurdattagur(d) loye, prabrittwi tai mashladiy-e/jnanshuditechoaibhatipaankoremormon-matal-e/mool mantra jantrabhora/ sodhonkori bole tara/Prasad bole emonsurakhelechaturbargamel-e (I don’t drink alcohol but I drink nectar taking the name of Kali/the drunk one inside my mind makes me drunk but people say that I am drunk with alcohol/I take the jaggery of my Guru’s words and use the inclinations that my instincts provide me with/In the brewery of Knowledge, my intoxicated mind drinks deep/ I take the name of Taara/Prasad says that if one has such wine one may even attain the Chaturvarga.”

The essence of the next song that Sri Ramakrishna dedicates to Sen is echoed in the text vis a vis Swami Vivekananda and which imbues Sri Ramakrishna’s personality with the energy, the oceanic love of Radha and could easily be identified as a song in the Radha mode, countless expressions of which may be found in the VaishnavPadabalis and also in Rabindranath’s recreation of this sensibility in songs such as Aha tomarshongepraanerkhelapriyoamarogopriyo  and also Ekilabonnyepurnaprano. “Katha boltedorai; nabolleodorai/Mane-r shondo hoi; pacchetomadhon-e haraiharai/aamrajani je montor; deelam tore seimontor/ekhonmon tor; je mantrebipadete tori tarai (I am afraid to talk and also not to talk/My mind feels uncertain in case I lose you my beloved/The mantra I know, I am giving you that mantra/Now the mind is yours, but the mantra is the one that helps you cross the Ocean.”

It is impossible to create in the English translation the alliterative implications of the word mon (mind). The song when it is directed towards Swami Vivekananda and perhaps even Keshav Chandra Sen, expresses Sri Ramakrishna’s yearning and love, and his fear that they may not understand the value of the spiritual education that he was giving him. One also notices in Sri Ramakrishna’s attitude towards Swamiji, even in his request for songs a certain degree of supplication and entreaty that characterises the complete surrender to one’s beloved where one’s happiness depends to a large extent on the whims of the beloved. It also bears marks of the child’s importuning of the mother to grant a request.

In March 1882, a few days after Sri Ramakrishna went on a steamer excursion with Keshav and Joseph Cook on 23 February, one of the most significant strands in the narrative of the Ramakrishna Kathamrita takes place through the rich intercommunicative space that is established through Sri Ramakrishna’s frequent importuning of Swamiji to sing. Not only does it generate a rich dialogue of personalities, but singing becomes that inter-affective space that enacts one of the principal modes of union between devotee and spiritual ideal, of  disciple and master and vice versa,  between two lovers of God, between two men/individuals given to artistic expression, and an incredible example of yoga or union. Music was one seva (service) that Sri Ramakrishna asked of Swamiji, it was a case of one rasik (connoisseur) demanding satisfaction from another. This interchange electrifies the narrative texture of Ramakrishna Kathamrita bringing into it a profoundly dramatic quality and undercuts its documentary realism with a sense of the marvellous and the extraordinary, perhaps even the sublime.  This example of deep yoga also locates the text culturally and becomes a further powerful testament to the pervasiveness of music as cultural idiom and a medium of communication in 19th century Bengal. 

As for songs dedicated to Lord Krishna sung by Sri Ramakrishna, they do not seem to conform to the kirtan style, but more to the dhrupad genre, bearing some similarity to the pre-meditated structure, formal and thematic seriousness of Brahmo devotional songs, and most of all to their ornamental and studied language. One is compelled to notice their greater ornamentation and reminds the writer of some songs by Rabindranath which seem to have a similar diction. 

Sri Ramakrishna’s songs are more in the Radha mode, in the mode of self forgetfulness, drunk in divine nectar, expressing immersion in Divine Ground, an attitude of complete submission,  a mixture of Kali and Krishna songs, whereas Swamji’s are intellectual, formal and structured, more one could say, in the spirit of jnana than bhakti (devotion). The dialogue between jnana and bhakti and their constant inter-mixture provides a rich internal dialogue within the discourse of music in Kathamrita.

Thus, the great pluralist Sri Ramakrishna, the artist par excellence, richly endowed with the “negative capability” or protean empathy that Keats considered the great artist to have, swings from mode to mode and enacts his own statement: “I am going to play many ragas and raginis.” And, it was this empathy that defined his interaction with certain admirers such as Keshav Chandra Sen and most intensely with Swami Vivekananda, who was his disciple par excellence.

(Concluded)