Appreciating Beauty in Literature:
An Aurobindonian Perspective

By Shruti Bidwaikar

Quest for beauty is eternal and Universal. All cultures and civilizations in all ages searched and defined beauty in their own way. Indeed there are differences in the perception of the beauty, but the quest and an eye for beauty has always been there. These days, where the beauty of the natural landscape is becoming a rare sight, there is an attempt to beautify the surroundings through gardens and parks. While the skyscrapers crowd the vision of the sky, there is an endeavour to build titanic concrete and glass structures which are architectural wonders and beautiful and awe inspiring in their own way. While the urban noise tries to deafen our ears, we also come across interesting technological advancements ready to bring to us the subtlest of the sounds played by an instrument. There are different ways and channels to beauty in vision, imagination, rhythm, colour etc. What exactly do we perceive when we perceive beauty? For example when we look at a flower, it strikes us at once with its colour, texture, arrangement, size, pattern and fragrance. It pleases our senses. With a little more receptivity, we are struck by the vital energy it radiates. One might even be able to connect this energy of the flower to some beautiful idea or thought, or relate it symbolically to some spiritual aspect. This suggests that beauty exists and is perceived on different planes. There is a gradation in which the perception moves from the tangible to the intangible. Literature very subtly exemplifies this gradation. The paper studies these gradations in Sri Aurobindo’s perspective.

flower

Spiritual Beauty

Before taking up Sri Aurobindo’s idea of beauty some descriptions of beauty and its correlates may be briefly mentioned here. Appreciation of beauty is often related to truth, perfection, good, strength, delight, love, morality, form and the material it uses. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” says Keats. For him beauty and truth were synonymous. The Greek idea of beauty lied more in symmetry and perfection of form. Aristotle says, “the essential constituent of beauty are symmetry, order and proportion.” (Angraj Chaudhary: 62) Beauty is also close to good. It is assumed that all that is beautiful has to be good and morally correct. Bacon related beauty to strength. According to him, great emperors and kings of the world were very beautiful and also had the strength to conquer the world. The material that an artist uses to beautify a situation or a form need not be beautiful and refined. He can make use of the crudest of materials to beautify his object. Delight and Love form an eternal relation with Beauty. Indian philosophers and aesthetes always believed that the purpose of art is to give delight and inculcate the love for the Higher power.

Sri Aurobindo makes a distinction between ‘aesthetics’ and ‘aesthesis’. “Aesthetics is concerned mainly with beauty, but more generally with rasa, the response of the mind, the vital feeling and the sense to a certain “taste” in things which often may be but is not necessarily a spiritual feeling.” (Savitri: 746) According to him aesthetics “belongs to the mental range” and aesthesis to the Overmind. He says, “The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons; it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular.” (Savitri: 746) By aesthesis he means, “a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of spirit’s delight of existence, Ananda.” (Savitri: 817) His explanation of the difference between aesthetics and aesthesis is a gateway to understand his conception of the beauty on the tangible and intangible levels.

Writing about the ‘Suprarational Beauty’ Sri Aurobindo gives the gradations in which the beauty manifests itself and is perceived. Essentially the perception moves from the visible to the invisible, from the concrete to the abstract, from the form to the formless, from the material to the soul. On the first level he says, “The search for beauty is only in its beginning a satisfaction in the beauty of form, the beauty which appeals to the physical senses and the vital impressions, impulsions, desires. It is only in the middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions aroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination. Behind them the soul of beauty in us desires the contact, the revelation, the uplifting delight of an absolute beauty in all things which it feels to be present, but which neither the senses and instincts by themselves can give, though they may be its channels,—for it is suprasensuous,—nor the reason and intelligence, though they too are a channel,—for it is suprarational, supra-intellectual,—but to which through all these veils the soul itself seeks to arrive.” (CWSA, Vol 25:144)

These letters have been taken from the Letters on Savitri in the 1993 edition of the Savitri: A Legend and Symbol brought out by Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This volume contains the Epic poem as well as the Letters. Complete bibliographical reference is included at the end.

Each of these three stages of the perception of beauty will now be taken up separately in rest of the paper, along with some appropriate examples. It is my hope that the examples would speak for themselves the levels of beauty they convey. I begin with a few examples to exemplify beauty of form, that which appeals to the senses and impulsions.

S.T. Coleridge’s ‘Rime of Ancient Mariner’ at once brings forth the beauty in form. The description of the hot and bloody sun, the stillness of the sea and the ship draws a picture before us. The sun, moon, sea and ship all at once capture our vision. These physical objects are at once present with their magnanimity. The form which is rigid and unchanging is stable. The idle ship here is compared to a ‘painted ship’, it gives the sense of stagnation and it is intensified with the growing heat of the sun and the fixity of breath and movement. This description is almost that of an inscription on the wall or of a painting. Just as in an inscription or in a painting one can discern each and every physical object, so do the lines suggest through word picture.

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

William Wordsworth’s description of the beautiful daffodils also draws a picture before our eyes. The beauty of the flowers is “the beauty which appeals to the physical senses”, to the eyes particularly. It is a word painting in ‘Daffodils’, a description so beautiful that a painter can draw with brush and colour the whole landscape.

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Through the sense of sight the imagination soars high with the clouds and vales and hills. An elegant movement in the nature is described in the lines here. The comparison of the abundance of the flowers to the Milky Way again takes our imagination into the vision of the Universe. Here, however far we imagine, the visual impact is very much there. Unlike in Coleridge’s lines, here we find an appeal to the subtle sense of sight with its imaginary wings. This plasticity in vision gives the pleasure and beauty which is a picture drawn before the mind’s eye.

Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Baji Prabhou’ is an example bringing forth the impulse of a warrior who is ready to serve his Motherland with the strength of the Divine within and demands nothing in return. His strength and courage and emotions and feelings overpower the consequences of the fierce war that would ask for his life.

            And Baji answered him:
“Tanaji Malsure, not in this living net
Of flesh and nerve, nor in the flickering mind
Is a man’s manhood seated. God within
Rules us, who in the Brahmin and the dog
Can, if He will, show equal godhead. Not
By men is mightiness achieved; Baji
Or Malsure is but a name, a robe,
And covers One alone. We but employ
Bhavani’s strength, who in an arm of flesh
Is mighty as in the thunder and the storm.
I ask for fifty swords.” (Collected Poems: 283)

Here is a warrior Baji Prabhou who is desirous and impulsive to fight for his Motherland. Desires, emotions and impulsions form a part of the vital energies which are very important for life. But the desire, the emotion and the impulse here are for no lower motives. It is the beauty of life-force motivating and encouraging the warrior to go forward and fight. The life-force is so strong that it has risen out of his ego when he finds God in every man and animal. Baji does not fight for the name for he is sure that God’s work will be done whether by his own instrumentality or by Malsure’s. In these lines and emotions, the beauty lies in uplifting movement of the life-force. There is a force and a will to execute the Bhavani’s Will, surrender to the Divine decision. This beauty and force are highly motivating to the reader as well. It immediately stirs one with patriotism and more so motivates one to living the ideal of working for the Divine Will.

From this most tangible and visible level of perception of beauty we move to a level where perception is a little more subtle. As we recall Sri Aurobindo’s words quoted earlier – “It is only in the middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions aroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination.” (CWSA, Vol. 25: 144) Again a few examples may be taken to show how literature captures ideas, emotions and harmonizes the inner and the outer principles of life.

There are ideas which are captured like a flash. They make us think and ponder. Such is an idea seized by Keats in his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ –

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Coleridge also has captured such an idea in ‘Rime of Ancient Mariner’

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

Beauty, truth, prayer, and love -- all these are abstract ideas or feelings. Yet Keats and Coleridge have caught the beauty in these ideas and have expressed them in a way which is appealing and convincing. In fact in the former, the poet talks about the high order of aesthesis, a stage where truth is beauty and beauty is truth. Sri Aurobindo writes about this elaborately in his letters on Savitri. The conclusive lines of Coleridge highlight the beauty of prayer, love and the God’s equability to all his creation. This idea at once brings peace and contentment to the reader. Therefore, in the last stanza of the poem the poet remarks that the listener was wiser than before, perhaps because he learnt a greater truth. The beauty is conveyed through the idea of abstract concepts and yet it strikes the reader with conviction.

The memory of a beautiful scene makes one nostalgic and brings back those moments before the mind’s eye. Wordsworth who recollects the beauty and emotions in tranquility recapitulates the beauty of the daffodils in solitude and re-lives those moments. In ‘Daffodils’ he says –

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

In the lines previously quoted from ‘Daffodils’ we find a suggestion to the physical eye. Here is a recollection of those emotions and visions which soothed the poet once. The poet in a ‘pensive mood’ re-lives the beauty of the beautiful flowers he saw. They “flash upon that inward eye”. The emotions are aroused when the poet recollects it in tranquility; even then the beauty of the sight fills his heart with joy.

The ‘harmonious combination’ of the inner and the outer principles too brings forth the beauty of creation. Tagore’s poetry ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’ brings out this beauty and harmonizes the inner and outer principles of life.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Tagore longs for a perfect country where there is harmony between the inner and the outer principles of Nature. A perfect social, political, geographical and spiritual scenario where there is no place for negative elements and the positives have their own place. He prays that the mind should not go astray while reasoning as is its habit, neither the narrow limits of borders should bind the heart of men. He wishes for freedom and fearlessness – for the inner and the outer freedom. He wants the expansion of consciousness and hails the Lord to help his country awake from this horrifying somnambulism. The poet has very subtly intertwined the inner and the outer and the purport is complete and wholesome. Only a perfect harmony can help a nation progress. This harmony between the inner and outer is the essence of Indian spirituality and here lays its beauty too.

On the next level beauty becomes an expression of the soul. It then stands with truth, delight and tends to express the real beauty through form. Sri Aurobindo says that, “delight is the soul of existence, beauty the intense impression, the concentrated form of delight;” (CWSA, Vol. 26: 254) and the two are inseparable. An example of beauty and delight may be quoted from Savitri:

The life of the enchanted globe became
A storm of sweetness and of light and song,
A revel of colour and of ecstasy,
A hymn of rays, a litany of cries:
A strain of choral priestly music sang
And, swung on the swaying censer of the trees,
A sacrifice of perfume filled the hours.
Asocas burned in crimson spots of flame,
Pure like the breath of an unstained desire
White jasmines haunted the enamoured air,
Pale mango-blossoms fed the liquid voice
Of the love-maddened coïl, and the brown bee
Muttered in fragrance mid the honey-buds.
The sunlight was a great god's golden smile.
All Nature was at beauty's festival. (352)

This is the mood of Nature just before Savitri is born. The Nature is all happy to welcome Savitri. These lines suggest the delight felt by the Nature. It is in its best moods and colour to welcome the “secret Word”. Here is the intertwining of Delight and Beauty, the supreme joy of Nature swaying and smiling at the advent, in turn it has revealed beauty at its best. Every tree, flower and element of Nature has bloomed and expressed itself perfectly. The advent of Savitri is celebrated by trees, flowers, colours, rays and all the members of the Nature.

Beauty and delight are inseparable; similarly truth and beauty also become inseparable when the poetry is written from the intangible heights of consciousness. Its aesthesis perceives beauty and truth as a part of the whole. In one of his letters in Savitri, Sri Aurobindo observes - “Truth is not merely a dry statement of facts or ideas to or by the intellect; it can be a splendid discovery, a rapturous revelation, a thing of beauty that is joy for ever. The poet also can be a seeker and lover of truth as well as a seeker and lover of beauty. He can feel a poetic and aesthetic joy in the expression of the true as well as in the expression of the beautiful.” (820) He has exemplified this in Savitri-

A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme: His nature we must put on as he put ours; We are sons of God and must be even as he: His human portion, we must grow divine. Our life is a paradox with God for key. (67)

And also,

He is the Maker and the world he made, He is the vision and he is the Seer; He is himself the actor and the act, He is himself the knower and the known, He is himself the dreamer and the dream.(61)

Sri Aurobindo gives out the deepest and highest truth wrapped in absolute poetic beauty. For the paucity of space the explanation of these lines has been eschewed here, but the reader can surely perceive the level of beauty that is expressed through these lines.

At the sublime height of consciousness, the seer-poet can have the vision of the future. This seer-poet was called Kavi in the ancient times because of this quality of vision. Sri Aurobindo as a seer poet does not only perceive those heights in Vedas and Upanishads, his Savitri is a supreme example of the vision of future. The beauty of vision of future is marvelously explained in his epic poem:

All then shall change, a magic order come
Overtopping this mechanical universe.
A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal's world.
On Nature's luminous tops, on the Spirit's ground,
The superman shall reign as king of life,
Make earth almost the mate and peer of heaven,
And lead towards God and truth man's ignorant heart
And lift towards godhead his mortality. (706)

Through the various examples given in this paper, I hoped to demonstrate the gradations of beauty. The perception of beauty happens mainly on three levels, on the physical level, on the emotional, sensuous and the intellectual level, and on the higher, inner or spiritual level. This paper was an attempt to study the levels of beauty from the tangible to the intangible. Sri Aurobindo’s definitions of aesthetics and aesthesis have helped to understand beauty through the mental process known as aesthetics, whereas aesthesis can only be felt and cannot be expressed in words unless one reaches the Overmental heights of consciousness where truth, beauty, knowledge, love and Ananda all become one. The purpose of discerning these levels is to sharpen our sensibility towards the perception of beauty. Appreciating beauty is a process where one can go deeper and deeper and reach a stage where beauty manifests itself. It applies to both the creator and the perceiver. I conclude with Sri Aurobindo’s words, “To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God.” (CWSA, Vol. 25: 145)

Works Cited

  1. Sri Aurobindo. Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1993.

  2. The Human Cycle. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1997. Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Vol 25.

  3. Letters on Poetry and Art. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1997. Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Vol 27.

  4. The Future Poetry. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1997. Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Vol 26.

  5. Sri Aurobindo. Collected Poems: The Complete Poetical Works. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1972. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 5.

  6. Chaudhary, Angraj. Comparative Aesthetics East and West. Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1991.