Rabindranath Tagore’s Paintings: The Fundamental Dynamics of a Polysemic Descent of Consciousness and the Coplanar States of Being and Existence

Here, I have allowed myself to write the Consciousness-Analogues for a couple of Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings and each of these is like a free-meditative verse that comes as a spontaneous flow without the checkposts of the mind’s logic, not ungrammered but allowing it to take shape and bear its own formation which when true to the art itself may carry the light and the thought of an evolving spirit.

Painting 1- Rabindranath Tagore, Untitled

 Consciousness-Analogue

The sea, the sky, fire, air and wood

Constitute the living space of this vast kingdom

Inwards they dwell in me

And in me

As from my mind they appear foreseen

Long ago on the screen of the eye

Projected backwards into space or forwards into time

Till they meet at one eternal conjunctional point

The point that configures the creational order

When self-illumination touches the zenith of the light

Krishna chakre Radha, Radha chakre Krishna

Anante bahe mor pran

Giant wheels of the cosmic force spin on the Will

And on that Will stands the prayer for humanity

Sri Aurobindo has lived beyond his words and deeds

Not intense philosophies can shroud his listening soul

At the heart, he is of That Impersonal Being

That lends vision to the eyes, sound to the ears.

 Painting 2: Rabindranath Tagore, Untitled, 1934

 Consciousness-Analogue

Poila boishakher phool

Beguni aakash rater tara gulo nistabdha, akaki akhon

Bujhi hriday duyar khole daay

Aar achirei pari day dur gagane

Sayantan sabha aak deshe

Niye othe jajabor matrikar pran

Brishter akulo dharay

E bhabanir mandire mukto ami aaj

Pralay nache banglar naba noton saaj

Chirodin jano ray e prarthoner phool 

Samayer gopon mantre dole dodul dul

History creates its own precedents

The sonata of life is now not a dream

It authors the chapter of a paradise bloom

Its mighty visions wrest with time and death

Though the body is battered, or beaten or assailed

Its victory that signals the coming of the gods

Pitri loke maatri puja

Aamar alok sambad

Jharer pradip nebhe nay jwale

Niye ashe suryer amrita pran

The immortal spirit rests in peace

The sun at its crest, the moon at its heart

Music overflowes the blind alleys of death

Awakening every bud like a sweet reprise

With Beethoven, Rabindranath and the rest…

– Regards, Joy Roy Choudhury