22the Scientist

The Scientist
Partha Ghose
Tagore was a perfect antithesis of the cultural divide between

the sciences
and the humanities so poignantly exposed by C.P. Snow in his
"The Two
Cultures ". All truly creative geniuses have straddled this
divide.
Rabindranath Tagore was a quintessential poet-philosopher. Yet,

he had a deeply rational and scientific mind. He was a perfect
antithesis of cultural divide between the sciences and the
humanities so poignantly exposed by C.P. Snow (1905-1980) in
his "The Two Cultures" (1959). All truly creative geniuses
have straddled this divide. Darwin (1809-1882) wrote in The
Origin of Species (1859):
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having
been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that,
whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and
most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Einstein admitted:
A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate,
our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant
beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our
minds — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitutes true
religiosity; in this sense, and this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
(From 'The World as I see it' 1931).
Rabindranath's song Akash Bhara Soorjo Tara expresses the
same sense of 'wonder' in the universe:
The sky studded with the sun and stars, the universe throbbing
with life,
In the midst of all these have I found my place
In wonder whereof gushed forth my song.
The blood that courses through my veins can feel the tug
Of the sway of time and the ebb and flow that rocks the world
Stepped have I gently on the grass along the forest path,
My mind beside itself with the startling fragrance of flowers
The bounty of joy lies spread all around
I have strained my ears, opened my eyes, poured my heart out

on the earth,
I have searched for the unknown within the known
How wonderfully the poet delineates the essence of science in

the line, ‘I have searched for the unknown within the known’.
It is this aspect of science rather than its utilitarian value that
males it a deeply spiritual quest and that fascinated
Rabindranath.
In the preface to his only book on science, Viŝva Parichay (1937),
dedicated to the scientist Satyendranath Bose (1894-1974), he wrote
about this fascination for science from his childhood — how his
teacher Sitanath Datta (1856-1945) used to thrill him with simple
demonstrations like making the convection currents in a glass of
water visible with the help of sawdust. The differences between
layers of a continuous mass of water made obvious by the
movements of the sawdust filled him with a sense of wonder that
never left him. According to him, this was the first time he realized
that things that we thoughtlessly take for granted as natural and
simple are, in fact, not so — this set him wondering.
The next Wonder came when he went with his father, Maharshi
Debendranath, to the hills of Dalhousie in the Himalayas. As the sky
became dark in the evenings and the stars came out in their
splendour and appeared to hang low, Maharshi would point out to
him the constellations and the planets, and tell him about their
distances from the sun, their periods of revolution round the sun
and many other properties. Rabindranath found this so
fascinating he began to write down what he heard from his
father. This was his first long essay in serial form, and it was on
science- When he grew older and could read English, he started
reading every book on astronomy that he could lay his hands
on. Sometimes the mathematics made it difficult for him to
understand what he was reading, but he laboured through them
and tried to absorb their gist. He liked Sir Robert Boyle's
(1627-1691) book, the most. Then he started reading Huxley's
(1894- 1963) essays on biology. He writes in the preface to
Visva Parichay:
The universe has hidden its micro-self, reduced its macro-self or
shelved it out of sight behind the curtain. It has dressed itself up
and revealed itself to us in a form that man can perceive within
the structure of his simple power. But man is anything but
simple. Man is the only creature that has suspected its own
simple perception, opposed it and has been delighted to
defeat it. To transcend the limits of simple perception man has
brought near what was distant, made the invisible visible, and
has given expression to what is hard to understand. He is ever
trying to probe into the unmanifest world that lies behind the
manifest world in order to unravel the fundamental mysteries of
the universe. The majority of people in this world do not have the
opportunity or power to participate in the endeavour that has
made this possible. Yet, those who have been deprived of the
power and gift of this endeavour have remained secluded and
ignored in the outskirts of the modern world.
It is needless to say that I am not a scientist, but from

childhood my strong desire to enjoy the rasa of science knew
no bounds. My mind was exercised only with astronomy and life
science. That cannot be called proper knowledge, in other words,
it does not have the sound foundation of scholarship. But
constant reading created a natural scientific temper in my mind.
My lack of respect for the stupidity of blind faith has, I hope, saved
me from the extravagance of cleverness to a large extent.
Nevertheless, I have never felt that it hurt my poetry or
imagination in any way.
Today, at the end of my life, my mind is overwhelmed with the new
theory of nature — scientific mayavada. What I read earlier I did
not understand fully, but I kept on reading. Today also it is
impossible for me to understand everything of what I read, as it
is for many specialist pundits too. (translation by author; italics
added)
Tagore's life long and intimate friendship with Acharya Jagadish

Chandra Bose (1858-1937) must have also helped him no end to
develop a reverence for science. The Acharya's life was devoted to
the search for reason in the workings of nature, for a unity in the
diversity of nature, a synergism between spiritualism and reason.
This search did not remain confined to philosophical speculations
alone but led him to invent instruments of unprecedented precision
and sensitivity for collecting direct evidence from nature. This must
have greatly influenced Rabindranath who like Raja Rammohun
(1774-1833), Bankimchandra (1838-1894) and Iswarchandra
Vidyasagar (1820-1891), forebears of the Bengal Renaissance
searched for a synergism between spiritualism and reason in
the Indian tradition. Not Only did Rabindranath help his friend
with money to carry on his path breaking experiments in England,
he also wrote extensively about them and made them known to the
public at large in Bengal.
He also had extensive conversations with other leading

scientists of his time like Albert Einstein on the nature of
reality and causality in Germany in 1930 and with Heisenberg
(1901-1976) on the philosophical implications of quantum
theory in Kolkata in 1928. This involvement with and
understanding of science helped him develop his own
interpretation of the Upanisadic philosophy of Nature to which he
was introduced at an early age by his father. It engrossed his mind
when he delivered the Hibbert lectures in Oxford in 1930. These
lectures were later published as the Religion of Man (Tagore,
1931).
Although he was critical of technology dominating over man in some
of his plays (Muktadhara, Raktakarabi), he readily embraced its
beneficial effects. In Sriniketan where the emphasis was on
rural reconstruction he introduced many technologies like weaving,
carpentry, leather work, etc. In Personality (1917) he wrote:
Science is at the beginning of the invasion of the material world
and there goes on a furious scramble for plunder. Often things
look hideously materialistic, and shamelessly belie man's own
nature. But the day will come when some of the great powers of
nature will be at the beck and call of every individual, and at least
the prime necessities of life will be supplied to all with very little
care and cost. To live will be as easy to man as to breathe, and
his spirit will be free to create his own world.
To Rabindranath scientific truths were not mere abstractions and

formulas but concrete, living truths that inspired him to write
great poems and compose wonderful songs. He assimilated and
internalized his scientific knowledge and weaved it into the very
fabric of his philosophy and his artistic creations. So complete
was the fusion that the songs and poems appear to stand by
themselves as great artistic creations far removed from the world
of science.
*
The author is an eminent Physicist of international repute, and a
specialist of educational management. He has authored
numerous books including 'Testing Quantum Mechanics on New
Ground'. Cambridge University Press and 'Riddles in Your Tea
Cup' (with Dipankar Home), Institute of Physics, UK.

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The Scientist

Tagore was a perfect antithesis of the cultural divide between

Rabindranath Tagore was a quintessential poet-philosopher. Yet,

gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and

most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

In the midst of all these have I found my place

In wonder whereof gushed forth my song.

In wonder whereof gushed forth my song.

Stepped have I gently on the grass along the forest path,

My mind beside itself with the startling fragrance of flowers

The bounty of joy lies spread all around

In wonder whereof gushed forth my song.

I have strained my ears, opened my eyes, poured my heart out

I have searched for the unknown within the known

In wonder whereof gushed forth my song.

How wonderfully the poet delineates the essence of science in

It is needless to say that I am not a scientist, but from

Tagore's life long and intimate friendship with Acharya Jagadish

He also had extensive conversations with other leading

To Rabindranath scientific truths were not mere abstractions and

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