Dear List Members,

I would like to inform the list members about the Book “Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet’s Religion and World Vision” by the Austrian Indologist Moriz Winternitz (Translation of the German original: “Rabindranath Tagore: Religion und Weltanschauung des Dichters” Translated by Debabrata Chakrabarti). [ISBN 978-81-8465-628-2] published by the Winternitz Society for Literature & Cultrure, distributed by  M.C. Sarkar & Sons 14 Bankim Chatterjee Street Kolkata 700 073 Tel. 0091-33-2241-7490 e-mail mcsarkar@gmail.com (INR 200).

Contents                                                                                                             

Introduction (by the Translator)................................................... 1

Foreword................................................................................... 24

         1......................................................................................... 25

         2......................................................................................... 29

         3......................................................................................... 35

         4........................................................................................ 38

         5......................................................................................... 41

         6......................................................................................... 46

         7.  Translator’s Annotations................................................. 52

         8.  Rabindranath Tagore as an Actor and Dancer................... 79

         9. Visvabharati, The International University of
             Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan............................... 83

Appendices:

         Appendix I.    Correspondence between
                              Tagore and Winternitz......................................... 93

         Appendix II.   Notes on Tagore’s Visit to Czechoslovakia
                               in 1926 by Jan Filipsky...................................... 118

         Appendix III.   Lecture delivered on
                                20th June 1921 by Winternitz........................... 124

         Appendix IV. Introduction to Taraknath Das’ Book
                                “Rabindranath Tagore. His Religious, Social
                               and Political Ideas”..................................... 126-130

Moriz Winternitz (1863-1937) was a German Indologist who has been mostly known to us for his three-volume History of Indian Literature. An Austrian Jew he was born in Horn in Lower Austria during the reign of the Hapsburgs. He studied Sanskrit under Georg Bühler (1837-1898) at the University of Vienna and after completion of a doctorate became an assistant to F. Max Müller in Oxford. Apart from his professorship at the Charles University in Prague, Winternitz came at the invitation of Tagore to Santiniketan as a visiting professor of Sanskrit at the Visva-Bharati University. Tagore had first met Winternitz in 1921 while lecturing at the University in Prague. Within this short time Tagore became fascinated by Winternitz’ scholarship and dedication, and in turn invited him to India to teach Sanskrit for a year. Winternitz then taught during the 1922-23 session at the newly formed international university at Santiniketan. His proximity to Tagore in Santiniketan along with their extended conversations left him with a deep appreciation for the Indian poet. Years later for the occasion of Tagore’s 75th birthday he wrote in German, “Rabindranath Tagore: Religion und Weltanschauung des Dichters” [“Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet’s Religion and World Vision”] in 1936.

In these pages Winternitz describes how Tagore arrived at so appealing a Weltanschauung, and how it had been derived from his own rationale. He further notes how poetry provided a means for his self-expression. Tagore believed that the divine was to be found through relationships with one’s fellow human beings, a conviction in many ways like that of the mystic poets of the Upanishads. For Tagore one’s religion could be a product of one’s own feelings and experiences. From his writings and speeches there emanated a philosophy in which Eastern and Western thinking could merge. Winternitz pointed out that Tagore had through his own life managed to bring East and West closer and to make it possible for both sides to become mutually inspiring to one another.

 

 

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“Inside every human being there exists a special heaven, whole and unbroken.” - Paracelsus