The universal symbolism of the Vedas has been
convincingly demonstrated by authorities of as different psychological and
cultural orientations as Sri Aurobindo, the philosopher mystic on the one hand,
and Anglo-Indian scholars like Coomarswamy on the other. Unsurprisingly, W.B.
Yeats, like many Western philosophers and poets was not untouched by this
universal philosophy. Yeats, however, was in search of ‘unity of being’ a much
more comprehensive concept. He seems to subordinate everything to the life of
imagination, to an aesthetic and heroic vision of life. His belief in poetry being
a form of knowledge and power takes one to Vedic philosophy, as this conviction
has been axiomatic to Indian culture from the Vedas up to Sir Aurobindo.
‘The religion of the self’, which the Upanishads
propounded and the poet of Gita
lifted to the level of a triumphant exultant song, was, as F.A.C. Wilson has demonstrated,
“Yeats’s own religion, though it had its subsidiary roots in European tradition
itself.” Yeats met India through personalities in three successive waves
marking the early, middle and last phases of his life. It was through Mohini
Chatterjee that Yeats was introduced to the Bhagavad
Gita and also to that Samkaric philosophy. His second encounter was with
Rabindranath Tagore, which fortified him in his resolve to revive the spirit of
Ireland. The third and the most important Indian Influence was that of Purohit Swami,
who not only gave him the much needed support for building up his theories
about the progress of the soul the progress of civilization. Accordingly, this
paper tries to explain Yeats’s theory of the soul and religion of the self in
the light of the poems “Mohini Cahatterjee”, “Vacillation”, “The Indian to his
Love” and “The Indian upon God”.
Ms. Ambri Shukla is a Research Scholar with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. She may be contacted at ambri.s@rediffmail.com.
Dr. Shuchi Srivastava is an Associate Professor with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. She may be contacted at ambri.s@rediffmail.com.