Human Values: The Tagorean Panorama

The translated essays in this volume reveal Tagore the Wisdom-teacher, an authentic voice of the East. In many ways he appears to be at his transparent best in these discourses given at dawn in the groves of Shantiniketan.Tagore may be said to be a complete model of Indian culture, founded as his life was on an unbroken synthesis and expression of tapas and ananda – ascesis and aesthetics, character and bliss. Tapas and ananda comprise the foundation of Indian civilization, laid and built up by the rishis of the tapovans.A many-splendoured genius that he was, it is often difficult to extricate Tagore’s true mind from the words of the numerous characters in his novels, short stories and plays. There are altogether one hundred fifty three such talks in two volumes in Bengali published under the title Shantiniketan by Vishva Bharati. This translation includes about eighty per cent from volume one and twenty percent from volume two. Selection has been governed primarily by the criteria of conceptual relevance and practical utility of selected pieces.