The Waste Land - Thinking Activity

                  The Waste Land

Thinking activity

This blog is a thinking activity given by Dr.Dilip Barad sir. In this blog i am going to illustrate allusions of indian thoughts in 'The wast land' by T.S.Eliot. 

The poem 'The wast land' is regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and this poem is the central work of modernist poetry. This poem was written by T.S.Eliot and published in 1922. This poem has 434 lines, and first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of Eliot's The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. This poem was published in book form in December 1922. Some of most famous phrases of this poem are like-

"April is the cruelest month"

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust" 

"Shantih shantih shantih"

This poem's title is given by mistake as "Waste Land" (as used by Weston) or "Wasteland". However, in a letter to Ezra Pound, Eliot politely insisted that the title was three words beginning with "The".

This poem 'The Waste Land' is divided into five sections. The “Burial of the Dead” introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second is “A Game of Chess” and the third, “The Fire Sermon,” shows the influence of Augustine and Eastern religions. The fourth is “Death by Water” and the fifth and final section is “What the Thunder said,” which features the influence of Indian thought on the Poet Laureate.

T.S.Eliot

T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot)  was born in St. Louis, Missouri, of an old New England family. He was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and also editor. He was educated at Harvard and graduated work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England, where he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director. 

One of his most famous poems is 'The Waste Land', which appeared in 1922. For this poem Eliot won the Nobel Prize in 1948. In this poem he employs literary and cultural allusions from the western canon, Buddhism and Hindu upanishads.

Allusions of The indian thoughts in 'The Waste land'

In the mid nineteenth century Indian thoughts became subject to interest for many western writers. Many western writers are influenced by Indian thoughts and they reflect their thoughts into their works. When T.S. Eliot arrived at Harvard, it became a famous center for oriental studies. His mentors included Irving Babbitt and George Santayana, who were instrumental in his developing an interest in Indian scripture and philosophy. 

Eliot started studying Pali and Sanskrit as part of his interest in Hinduism and Buddhism. Eliot said, 

“Long ago I studied the ancient Indian languages, and while I was chiefly interested at that time in philosophy, I read a little poetry too, and I know that my poetry shows the influence of Indian thought.”

A Universal Solution

Through these influences, Eliot concurred that the conundrum of the mechanical spiritual death could not be solved only by the West, and needed a universal solution. Eliot himself not considered as western influencer but in this poem he draws indian religion to reinforce themes in The Weste Land.  

It is no surprise then that the headings for two of the five sections of the poem are derived from Indian sources, alongside the symbolism of the Grail Legend and the Fisher King. In a true modernist style, the poem features abrupt changes of speakers, place and time, portraying the dissonance that is emblematic of its subject matter. It also interweaves scenes from contemporary British life into the labyrinth of these myths and higher thoughts. 

The Five sections

The Burial of the Dead

The first section, called The Burial of the Dead, talks about the rejuvenation of modern humanity with the drop of rainwater. The poem says: 

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain. 

This line drawn from the Buddhist text, Dhammapada, this thought can be traced back to Gautam Buddha, who suggests growing a Boddhi tree in his heart by becoming spiritually aware of his existence. 

This is the first line of the poem serves as a reminder of the wastland which is dead. T.S. Eliot's presentation of life in death reminds of the concept of maya. Basicalky maya is the illusion that leads people to believe that the world is made up of things separate and distinct and blinds them to the reality that life is in fact an unfired whole. Indian philosophy teaches us that it is ignorance of this unity.

A Game of Chess

The next section, A Game of Chess, is a contemporary exploration of the degradation of marriage and sex in modern society.

The Fire Sermon

The third section, called, The Fire Sermon, is derived directly from a sermon of Lord Buddha. This section focuses on fighting temptations on the path and overcoming desire to lead to nirvana. Here, Eliot draws not only from Buddha’s idea of escapism, but also from St. Augustine.

Eliot was so greatly influenced by Buddhist phylosophy that he decided to entitle the third section of the poem as 'The Fire Sermon'. In his sermon, lord Buddha peaches "all things are on fire", the eyes are on fire, forms are on fire, eye consciousness is on fire.

Death by Water

The next section titled, Death by Water. The poem begins on a banks of the Themes and ends on the banks of river Ganga. The wastland shows exaple influence of the Rig Veda.

This poem opens with a description of Nature, and the illusions of indian rituals are the whole foundation to the poem. Here water occupies an important place in wastland. The illusion to water in the section 'Death by Water' has an overtone of the Hymns of the Rig Veda.

In his essay called The Upanishad in the Wasteland, G. Nageshwara Rao writes that -

 “Drought throughout Eliot’s poetry is metaphor for despair, doubt and need for spiritual certainty. Just as water is taught by thirst, the need for nourishing faith is taught by a restless state of doubt in which one can neither stand or lie nor sit.”

The Word of the Thunder

The last section of the poem  The Word of the Thunder, is totally based on the Upanishads. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad alludes to Prajapathi, the creator, talking to his three offsprings—Devtas, Demons and Men, reiterating the cardinal virtues of Damyata (Restraint), Datta (Charity) and Dayadhvam (Compassion). The voice of the thunder ends on a positive note when the poem ends with the command, “Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.” Eliot wishes peace upon all, even the wastelanders who are gripped by fear.

One of the most important Hindu influences on the "Wasteland" is the idea of non-dualism. Hindu philosophy teaches that all of life is a unified whole that only appears to consist of separate objects due to human ignorance of its true nature. Hindus believe that all suffering comes out of this ignorance and that the highest goal in life is to experience the unity of God on earth. This is done by giving up the illusion of a separate self in order to realize the divinity of the inner Self, which is not separate from God. This is the theme of all the Hindu Upanishads, including the "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad."

In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Eliot described the last section as, “not only the best part but the part that justifies the whole.” This statement is not only revealing but extremely powerful because it sums up the immense power of the Vedas and Upanishads that form the structural matrix of the poem. While this is not an Indian poem per se, its strong message of the power of Indian philosophy still resonates a hundred years on. And perhaps will, for many more centuries.

The concluding line Shantih, Shantih, Shantih, of the poem makes Eliot's vedic reference more explicit. Eliot wants the word to know that the chanting of Shantih thrice is both neutral as well as a religious activity in the vedic way of life.

So to conclude we could say that in this poem T.S. Eliot included many Indian thoughts and allusions.

Thank you.