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Voluspci 8g
interest; but to us they are of living importance, and we
cannot help thinking that they lose their significance when
exhibited in labelled cases - mummified specimens of human
thought and aspiration, preserved for all time in the wrappings
of erudition. 26
The course of events caused Voluspci not to become
a sacred book. But it was intended to be a gospel, and it
cannot be understood fully unless one attempts to read
it in the spirit in which the poet composed it. He was
neither a philologist nor an antiquarian, and his
spiritual life was not commonplace. 56larljM is the most
nearly related poem of these earlier times; it presupposes
a similar experience, but its horizon is much narrower.
Let us suppose that our descendants began to struggle
with Matthias's poem Guo, minn guo, eg hr6pa 27 after goo
years, Christianity had vanished long ago and the poet's
name and the events of his life were forgotten. Would
not its commentators have to dive deep in order to get to
the core of its meaning and reach an understanding of its
form and content?
"Let others do that," say the commentators and
antiquarians of our day. "Let others search for the
'spirit'. We are neither philosophers nor preachers."
This view is both shortsighted and cowardly. In so far
as men begin to deal with things of the spirit, they must
not stop until they have reached the spirit. Although it
may be a great defect in a scholar to impose his own
spiritual wealth on the writings of others, it is no less
a responsibility to attribute one's own spiritual poverty
to the works of great men of long ago and to try to force
them into a dwarf-sized shirt. The results of such an
obstinately perverse habit of thought will be as disastrous
for the scholars themselves as for the general public. No
one is capable of examining a specific field of inquiry and
producing perfect results, with nothing spoiled, unless
he can see his subject in relation to life and culture
.. R. Tagore, Saddhana (1913), viii.
27 Matthias Jochumsson, Lj60mali (1936), 216.