Immortal Words an Anthology (An Old and Rare Book)

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THE Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-that institute of Indian Culture in Bombay-needed a Book University, a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular emphasis, however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper impulsions of India. As a first step, it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand almost at once. Each book was to contain from 200 to 250 pages and was to be priced at Rs. 2-50.

It is our intention to publish the books we select, not only in English, but also in the following Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

This scheme, involving the publication of 900 volumes, requires ample funds and an all-India organisation. The Bhavan is exerting its utmost to supply them.

The objectives for which the Bhavan stands are the reintegration of the Indian culture in the light of modern knowledge and to suit our present-day needs and the resus-citation of its fundamental values, in their pristine vigour.

Let me make our goal more explicit: We seek the dignity of man, which necessarily implies the creation of social conditions which would allow him freedom to evolve along the lines of his own temperament and capacities; we seek the harmony of individual efforts and social relations, not in any make-shift way, but within the frame-work of the Moral Order; we seek the creative art of life, by the alchemy of which human limitations are progressively transmuted, so that man may become the instrument of God, and is able to see Him in all and all in Him.

The world, we feel, is too much with us. Nothing would uplift or inspire us so much as the beauty and aspiration which such books can teach.

In this series, therefore, the literature of India, ancient and modern, will be published in a form easily accessible to all. Books in other literatures of the world, if they illustrate the principles we stand for, will also be included.

This common pool of literature, it is hoped, will enable the reader, eastern or western, to understand and appreciate currents of world thought, as also the movements of the mind in India, which, though they flow through different linguistic channels, have a common urge and aspiration.

Fittingly, the Book University's first venture is the Mahabharata, summarised by one of the greatest living Indians, C. Rajagopalachari; the second work is on a section of it, the Gita by H. V. Divatia, an eminent jurist and a student of philosophy. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: "What is not in it, is nowhere." After twenty-five centuries, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life.

The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and of some who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival; but, above all, it has for its core the Gita, which is, as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of sagas in which the climax is reached in the wondrous Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto.

Now and again, men, who see into the heart of things, have uttered words which have lived in the hearts of end-less generations, regardless of the cataclysmic changes of history. These words, in a way, form the immortal soul of humanity.

Curiously enough, all such words as have so survived have enshrined a few fundamental impulses and aspirations which are basic to human nature and which, in reality, form the radiations of the Spirit which alone uplift man wherever and whatever he is.

In presenting a selection of such immortal words as a happy remembrance of the Bhavan's Silver Jubilee, we present, I venture to think, a chart and a compass for guiding man on his voyage to a fuller and richer life of self-realisation.

In making the selections uttered all over the world through recorded time, we had to omit not a few immortal words for want of space. However, I can assure all those who are interested in the work of the Bhavan that it is as representative as we can possibly make it.

Not a few of the passages included in this book are from the 'Scrap Books' of some of the friends and staff members of the Bhavan. To them all, too many to be in-dividually mentioned, I tender my thanks.

I must beg forgiveness of anyone whose rights may have been overlooked.