According

PB August 2009
Jaishankar
Prasad
agination, love of nature, noble portrayal of feminine
beauty, nationalism, pride in the glory of ancient
India, and mysticism along with musicality, an ear for
tempo and rhythm, and the use of metaphors, symbols,
and imageries. Most importantly, every poet of
this era has a unique philosophy that is reflected in
the outlook on life presented in their poetry.
The romantic awakening of the Chhayavad
era found expression in art too. The inspiration
provided to the art movement in Bengal by Sister
Nivedita also had its effect in the Hindi area.
The reputed scholar and Banaras aristocrat Babu
Raikrishna Das, who was a friend of Jaishankar
Prasad, undertook a historical analysis of Indian
painting and sculpture. He infused a new life into
Mughal paintings, provided them with a new interpretation,
and founded the Bharat Kala Bhavan, a
unique art museum, at the Banaras Hindu University.
A similar museum was established at Allahabad
through the efforts of Pandit Brajmohan Vyas.
Jaishankar Prasad’s magnum opus Kamayani is
widely recognized as the best epic poem of modern
Hindi literature. This epic narrates the evolution of
human civilization alongside the process of Creation
that followed the Deluge, and emphasizes
inner human struggle over external striving. The
only solution to the perpetual strife between the
human head and heart lies in a synthesis of the
two. Nature punished the gods for their excessive
sensual indulgence by bringing about the Deluge.
Humans should strike a balance between work and
enjoyment: ‘This is the conscious enjoyment of
matter.’ To Manu, who is dejected due to the destruction
caused by the Deluge, Shraddha, Faith,
gives the message of work and struggle instead of
renunciation. In the ‘Shraddha’ section of Kamayani
we hear the echo of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar
Tilak’s Gita Rahasya. When Shraddha exhorts humankind
to a new revival, through Manu—‘Do not
fear, O children of immortality!’—it reverberates
the Vedic message of fearlessness as articulated by
Swami Vivekananda: Shrinvantu vishve amritasya
putrah. Jaishankar Prasad was an adherent of
the non-dual Shaiva philosophy and therefore considered
matter and consciousness as two aspects of
a unitary principle, and not two distinct entities:
‘Ek tattva ki hi pradhanta / kaho use jad ya chetan.’
He saw the world not as an illusory entity, mithya,
but as an indivisible part of the Atman:
Apne dukh-sukh se pulakit yah
vishva murt sacharachar;
Chiti ka virat vapu mangal,
yah satya satat chir sundar.
This objective world of the ambulant and the static,
ecstatic over its sorrows and pleasures, is the vast
auspicious body of consciousness, the ever true,
the ever beautiful.
He believed that Indian thought had developed
through the dialectics of ananda-vada, the quest
for bliss, and viveka-vada, rationality. Kamayani
has its denouement in ananda-vada:
Samras the jad ya chetan, sundar sakar bana tha;
Chetanta ek vilasti, anand akhand ghana tha.
Whether it be matter or consciousness, it is homogenous,
and it took a beautiful form; it shone as
unitary consciousness, an undivided mass of bliss.
Jaishankar Prasad’s poems and plays are centred
on the theme of cultural nationalism; the protagonists
of his plays are the illustrious personalities
of Indian history: Rajyashri, Harshavardhan,
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