When the East and the West Meet: Indian
Influence on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
Sharuk Rahaman
Ph. D. Research
Scholar
Department of
English Literature
The English and
Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Abstract:
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and
never the twain shall meet” wrote Rudyard Kipling once. Ironically, T. S.
Eliot’s magnum opus The Waste Land,
one of the canonical texts of the Western modernism, ends with a direct reference
to an Eastern scripture—the Upanishad. The poem abounds in references to Indian
philosophy, spirituality, religion, and history. The titles of two sections in
the poem—"The Fire Sermon” and “What the Thunder Said”—bear direct
allusions to Indian religions, namely Hinduism and Buddhism. Eliot places
together two great masters of asceticism—Lord Buddha and Saint Augustine—from
the East and the West. The ultimate solution to the social ills, spiritual
banality, religious bankruptcy, degradation of emotions, and predicament of
human virtues in the modern Western world is found in the Indian principles of Datta (Charity), Dayadhvam (Compassion), and Damyata (Restraint). Taking into
consideration Eliot’s formative years in oriental studies at Harvard, the present
paper analyzes the influence of the Indian spiritual and philosophical
traditions in The Waste Land.
Keywords: T. S. Eliot, Upanishad, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Vedas, The Waste Land
Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Ballad of East and West famously
begins with: “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall
meet” (line 1).But there are instances throughout history that bear evidences
to how the Eastern world has been influenced by the Western civilization and
vice versa. One prominent example of this East-West amalgamation is certainly
T. S. Eliot’s magnum opus The Waste Land, one of the canonical texts of
the Western modernism, that ends with a direct reference to an Eastern
scripture—the Upanishad. Not only Eliot, Indian spirituality has also attracted
and influenced many other Western intellectuals through the ages, including
Walt Whitman, R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau, W. B. Yeats, Hermann Hesse, etc.
Moreover, a number of scholars like Max Muller, Charles Wilkins, Sir William
Jones, Bertrand Russell were heavily influenced by ancient Indian civilization
and culture.
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was greatly
inspired by Indian philosophy, religion, and spirituality. During his study at
Harvard (1906-1914), which was a renowned centre for Oriental Studies, Eliot
got profound interest in Indian thoughts through the teachings of great mentors
like George Santayana, James Woods, Irving Babbitt, Henry Warren, Josiah Royce,
and Charles Lanman. He got enrolled in Lanman’s Indic Course and studied Pali,
Sanskrit, Buddhism, and Hinduism. He studied about Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
under James Woods. He was particularly influenced by Irving Babbitt, whose
“system of thought was based upon the study of the Pali manuscripts, the
earliest authentic Buddhist documents” (Mayo 173). In many of his works,
references are made to the Upanishads, the Bhagavat Gita, Patanjali’s Yoga
Sutras, and Buddhist scriptures. Particularly, Four Quartets, The Waste
Land, To the Indians Who Died in Africa, and The Cocktail Party
abound in explicit allusions to Indian philosophy and culture. Eliot was so
fascinated by the Gitaand considered it “the next greatest philosophical poem
to the Divine Comedy within my experience” (Selected Essays 258).
Later also he acknowledged the Indian influence in his works: “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 own
poetry shows the influence of Indian thought and sensibility” (Notes Towards
113). Eminent scholar A. N. Dwivedi opines that “Eliot presented the
credentials of a wide-ranging poetic sensibility by incorporating in his
writings not only the ‘best’ of European culture but also of Indian thought”
(qtd. in Naugle 1-2).
The Waste Land (1922) is deemed to be the most complex piece
in modernist literary movement. The observation made by A. N. Dwivedi is quite
pertinent:
The Waste Land . . . combines in its texture a number of
sources ranging from the fertility rituals, the Grail legends, the Tarot pack
of cards (all representing the primitive pagan ways of life), through St.
Augustine and the Bible (both forming the Christian tradition), the
Greek myth and the creation of Tiresias, the Latin writers and poets
(constituting the continental Classical tradition), Buddhism and Hinduism (both
championing the Indian tradition), to a host of British, French, Italian and
German authors (all betokening the various nationalities of Europe). (121)
This 433-lined intricate poem has drawn its mythical elements from
Jessie Weston’s book From Ritual to Romance and James Frazer’s book The
Golden Bough. The poem abounds in references to Indian philosophy,
spirituality, religion, and history. The poem depicts a Christian waste land,
while Indian philosophy serves as a catalyst for healing waters.
As evident from the title itself, The
Waste Land portrays a barren, infertile, wasted land with the inhabitants morally
sterile and spiritually bankrupt. In the Rig Veda, there is a reference to a
waste land, as is also found in the legend of the Holy Grail, devoid of water,
because the seven rivers (Sapta Sindhu) are locked up. Many years later
Bhagirath brings Ganga down from the heaven to the earth, and the dried land is
rejuvenated. The first section of the poem, “The Burial of the Dead” talks
about the renascence of modern humanity with the drop of rainwater:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. (ll. 1-4)
Drawn from the Buddhist text, Dhammapada, this thought can be
traced back to Gautama Buddha, who suggests manto grow a Bodhi tree in
his heart by becoming spiritually aware of his existence.C. D. Narasimhaiah notes:
In any case we should find it illuminating to
read a Thai Buddhist monk’s translation of Dhammpada under the title, ‘Growing
the Bodhi Tree in the garden of the Heart’. . . with a prologue which he
calls The Waste Land . . . The question now is how to grow the seeds of
this tree in the heart of everyone of us—which is analogous to the re-enactment
of crucifixion in the life of every Christian. The land is wasted and the seeds
have no chance to grow without the water. There are verses in the Dhammapada
which say they should be irrigated well with the waters of compassion and
richly manured by meditation. (97-98)
Though it is unlikely that Eliot may have taken the title of his poem
from the above version of the Dhammapada (as it was published in 1966,
long after Eliot’s poem), but he may have got the idea from his reading of the
Buddhist scriptures. He was so greatly influenced by Lord Buddha’s teachings
that “at the time when he was writing The Waste Land, he seriously
considered becoming a Buddhist” (Spender 60).
The title of the third section “The Fire
Sermon” is a direct reference Lord Buddha’s famous sermon to the gathered
priests at Sarnath in which he discussed the suffering and pains experienced by
modern humans as a result of their careless pursuit of desire and passion:
All things, O priests, are on fire. . . . The
eye, O priests, is, on fire; forms are on fire; eye-consciousness is on fire;
impressions received by the eye are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant,
unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by
the eye, that also is on fire. . . . With the fire of passion, say I, with the
fire of hatred, with the fire of infatuation; with birth, old age, death,
sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair are they on fire. (qtd. in North54)
This part of the poem focuses on overcoming desire and resisting
temptation on the way to Nirvana.“The fact that [Eliot] chose to place
“The Fire Sermon” at the very center of the poem suggests that desire, and in
this case perverse, sexual desire, is what lies at the bottom of society’s
ills” (LeCarner 406).The section is particularly notable for bringing together
ideas from Eastern (Buddhist) and Western (Christian) traditions. The
asceticism advocated by Lord Buddha is placed together with that of St.
Augustine. The latter acknowledges that when he was younger, he was often lured
by sensual desires and was away from God: “I sank away from Thee, and I
wandered, O my God, too much astray from Thee my stay, in these days of my
youth, and I became to myself a barren land. To Carthage I came, where there
sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves” (qtd. in North 58).He implores God to relieve
him from the fire of passion:
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest (ll. 307-10).
The above lines point to the filthiness of carnal pleasures, thereby linking
it with the second section “A Game of Chess,” which portrays the degradation of
marriage and sex in modern society through the episodes the glamorous
aristocratic lady and Albert-Lil. “The subject of Part II is sex without love,
specifically within marriage, just as the subject of Part III is the same
horror outside it” (Smith 79).
Modern man must abandon lust and restlessness
to overcome infertility and sterility. Lord Buddha demonstrated this path of
Negation by leaving his family and the comforts of royal palace in search of
enlightenment. Like St. Augustine, “Even the Buddha wasn’t free from the
tempters—Mara sends his daughter to seduce Buddha—in the last stage of his
Enlightenment. But Buddha’s constant vigilance saves him” (Narasimhaiah
108).The two great ascetics of the East and the West, thus, witness humanity as
“burning” in the profane fire of desire. The references to Lord Buddha and St.
Augustine assert that the knowledge of the East and the West coexist to
demonstrate the road to redemption (Nirvana) via austerity. Regarding
this, Eliot comments in his notes: “The collocation of these two
representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this
part of the poem, is not an accident” (qtd. in North 25).
The fifth section “What the Thunder Said”
prescribes a kind of solution based on Vedic notions, and the concluding line
“Shantih, Shantih, Shantih” makes Eliot’s Vedic reference even more explicit. The
last section of the poem refers to an episode in the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad. This Upanishad has six chapters called Aranyakas, and Brihad
means great. Tiresias, the most important character in the poem, is similar to
Drasta (seer) of the Upanishads. What Drasta observes is the content of the
Upanishads, just as what Tiresias perceives is the essence of the poem.
Tiresias and Drasta, in their different spatial locations, see the complete
vista of desolation:
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder (ll. 395-99)
Particularly noticeable is the poet’s use of the Sanskrit terms ‘Ganga’
and ‘Himavant’ instead of the widely used Anglicized versions the Ganges and
the Everest. Ganga is regarded as a divine river due its association with Lord
Shiva, while the sacred mountain is supposed to be the habitat of Shiva and
Parvati (Himavant is also the name of Parvati’s father).G. Nageswara Rao feels
that Eliot has correctly rejected the two degraded Anglicized versions ‘Ganges’
and ‘Everest’, because none invokes the whole range of spiritual and
philosophical ideas associated with Ganga and Himavant (“Why Sanskrit” 533).
Moreover, it is not really easy to explain to the foreign people the emotions
and sentiments of the Indians as associated with the holy river and the
mountain. Eliot uses the word ‘sunken’ to characterize Ganga, as it suits the
poem’s metaphorical undertone. The dark clouds gathered over the Himavant
herald the arrival of rain that can revive the dead soil’s fertility and
restore spiritual consciousness to contemporary humanity.
The episode of “The Three Great Disciplines”
in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is narrated as the following:
Prajapati had three kinds of offspring: gods,
men, and demons (asuras). They lived with Prajapati, practising the vows of
brahmacharins. After finishing their term, the gods said to him: “Please
instruct us, Sir.” To them, he uttered the syllable da [and asked]:
“Have you understood?” They replied: “We have. You said to us, ‘Control
yourselves (damyata).’” He said: “Yes, you have understood.”
Then the men said to him: “Please instruct
us, Sir.” To them he uttered the same syllable da [and asked]: “Have you
understood?” They replied: “We have. You said to us, ‘Give (datta).’” He said:
“Yes, you have understood.”
Then the demons said to him: “Please instruct
us, Sir.” To them he uttered the same syllable da [and asked]: “Have you
understood?” They replied: “We have. You said to us, “Be compassionate
(dayadhvam).’” He said: “Yes, you have understood.”
That very thing is repeated [even today] by
the heavenly voice, in the form of thunder, as “Da,” “Da,” “Da,” which means:
“Control yourselves,” “Give,” and “Have compassion.” Therefore one should learn
these three: self-control, giving, and mercy. (qtd. in North 62-63)
Despite having many positive attributes, the gods are commonly chaotic
and kill others for their sports. So, the Creator God advises them to have
self-control. Men are asked to share their wealth as fairly as they can,
because they are by nature avaricious. Given that demons are inherently cruel
and inclined to harm others, God commands them to be friendly and kind to everyone.
However, the attributes of all the three species can be found among human
beings alone. Men have unrestraint nature, greediness and cruelty, and hence
are identified as gods, men, and demons simultaneously. Thus, what the thunder
said—the words of Prajapati—applies to human beings. What is particularly
noticeable here is that Eliot altered the sequence of the Upanishadic
terms to meet his intention. The Thunder’s orders exist in the sequence
of Damyata, Datta, and Dayadhvam in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,
but Eliot significantly modified the order in composing The Waste Land
and presented it as Datta, Dayadhvam, andDamyata. The
Upanishadic system appears to value ‘self-control’ in the evolution of
a person, while Eliot’s alteration makes the third element “the most
emphatic” (Mayo 175).
The first command ‘Datta’ does not refer to
offering alms to the impoverished; rather, it signifies throwing oneself
away during an emotional crisis when blood is “shaking my heart” (line
402). Throughout a man’s life, there are moments when he has to abandon his
reasons and hesitations and succumb to the demands of his clamouring heart. As
the poet writes: “The awful daring of a moment’s surrender/ Which an age of
prudence can never retract/ By this, and this only, we have existed” (ll.
403-05). The second order, ‘Dayadhvam’ alludes to a valuable attribute to be
cultivated by man, that of understanding and kindness. The contemporary man is
full of power and prosperity but lacks compassion for others. The
poet hints to this idea by mentioning Count Ugolino from Dante’s Inferno who
was imprisoned in a tower and chained up there, with no communication with
the outside world. Modern man has likewise grown self-centered and
egotistical:“. . . each in his prison/ Thinking of the key, each confirms a
prison” (ll. 413-14). The third message of the Thunder, ‘Damyata’ emphasises
the importance of regulating the heart, which has been enslaved to ‘blood’
(impulsive living) and ‘compassion-lessness,’ both of which are related to the waterless
land of the Fisher King. The well-disciplined heart eases human
existence in the same manner that a boat glides easily and safely on a stormy
sea under the management of competent hands. Thus, the speaker says:
The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have
responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands (ll. 418-22)
By referring to the Indian principles, Eliot
implies that the modern men, who are morally degraded and spiritually bankrupt,
should learn to sacrifice for others, sympathize with fellow beings, and
control themselves. Only then, the Western world can find its ‘Shantih’, that
is, the eternal peace. Furthermore, Eliot provides a sense of ‘action’ at the
conclusion in the manner of the Gita: “Shall I at least set my hands in order?”
(line 425). As Jessie Weston notes down, “In the Mahayana scriptures Buddha is
referred to as the Fisherman who draws fish from the ocean of Samsara to the
light of Salvation” (119-20). After realising the essential significance of
‘Karma,’ the protagonist takes on the persona of the Fisher King at an instance
when “London bridge is falling down falling down falling down” (line 426). It
is a critical time when the whole world is in anarchy: “Things fall apart; the
centre cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” (Yeats 3-4).
The last line of the poem, drawn from the
Sanskrit tradition of chanting the Shantih mantra, has particularly
baffled the scholars since its publication. “Vedic recitations strictly end
with the chant of the Santih mantra, which is a verse invocation seeking
the blessings of gods and sages in one’s pursuit of spiritual wisdom” (Chandran
682). Some Western scholars consider the chanting of ‘Shantih’ to the Christian
tradition of uttering ‘Amen’ at the end of prayers. Eliot writes that it is “a
formal ending to an Upanishad” and its equivalent is “the Peace which passeth
understanding” (qtd. in North 26). However, the Sanskrit term has a strong
evocative force and refers to a state of mind obtained when all concerns,
troubles, and grief have been resolved. The Shantih mantra is uttered in
all auspicious occasions in Hindu religion such as marriage, morning prayer,
evening prayer, entering a new house, riding a new vehicle for the first time
as well as during the cremation of the dead body, thereby linking with “The
Burial of the Dead.” As G. Nageswara Rao argues, “The word shantih is
purposefully repeated thrice to indicate the absolute three dimensional peace
resulting from a freedom from all disturbance from within (adhyatmikam),
from above (adidaivikam) from around (adibhoutikam)” (“The
Upanishad” 89).
It is
interesting to consider the aesthetic importance of the poem’s ending with
Shantih. Santarasa, the primary rasa in the poem, is echoed and
emphasised in the iteration, “Shantih shantihshantih.” As in the Mahabharata,
the several stories showing diverse rasas eventually lead to the major santarasa
after all the fights and wars, similarly in The Waste Land, the various
episodes expounding complicated emotions eventually lead to santi(peace).
Thus, the great sage of modern poetry ends his monumental work with a
ritualistic tradition of the Hindu culture. By taking cues for two sections of
his poem from Hinduism and Buddhism and with other references to Eastern
mysticism, T. S. Eliot acknowledges the strength of the teachings and lessons
of Indian civilization. It firmly establishes that the East is not a passive
recipient of the Western culture, but a contributor to the global peace and
human welfare.
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