Religion is one in its essence, but different in its forms. The water is one, yet by its different banks it is bounded and preserved for different peoples. What if you have a well-spring of your own in your heart, spurn not your neighbours who must go for their draught of water to their ancestral pond with the green of its gradual slopes mellowed by ages and its ancient trees bearing eternal fruit.
Rabindranath got the inspiration to compose the poetic play Malini from the story 'Malinyavastu' of the Buddhist literary compendium Mahavastu-Avadana. He did not have access to the original; but among the books that he always carried with him during his zamindari days in North Bengal and Odisha was Rajendralal Mitra's seminal work, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal. He found the story of Malini in this anthology and basing on it wrote the verse-play in 1896, although it was first published as an independent book by Indian Publishing House some sixteen years later in 1912.
Tagore first translated Malini into English in the same year (1912), keeping it close to the original and retaining all the four scenes. He essayed a new translation in 1916 on the way to Japan. In this translation, four scenes of the original were condensed into two scenes, lengthy dialogues were substantially pruned, and a minor character, Prince, who did not exist in the original, was introduced in the translation. When McMillan, New York, brought out the volume Sacrifice and Other Plays in 1917, it is this translation which was included in the volume along with Sannyasi, Sacrifice, and The King and the Queen. Edward Thompson has commented on this translation in his book, Rabindranath Tagore. His life and Work: ""It is translated fairly faithfully except that its long beautiful speeches are cut down and the first scene's opening in which Malini receives the sage Kasyapa's last instructions, is omitted.""
It is interesting to learn from Tagore's preface to the Bengali original of Malini that Robert Trevelyn (1872-1957) found some resemblance between the play and the Greek plays. As Tagore writes, ""I had a comment from Trevelyn, the poet and Greek scholar, that he noticed a resemblance between my play and the Greek drama. I could not exactly understand what he meant; though I have read a few in translation, but Greek drama is outside my experience. It is Shakespearean drama which have always been our model.' In Malini, as in Sannyasi (Prakritir-Pratishodh) and Sacrifice (Visarjan) Tagore dramatized the concept that the religion of man is much higher than the religion of rituals and scriptures. Supriyo and Kshemankar are two opposite characters in the play. Supriyo believes that fair play and justice are the religion of the heart and is ready to uphold it at any cost. He does not much care for the religion based on narrow principles of caste and rituals. He is calm and composed and can be misunderstood as weak, even cowardly. He is like Binoy of Gora, Nikhilesh of Ghare Baire or Jaisingh of Visarjan. Kshemankar is fierce, strong, proud and dazzling in personality. Unwavering, like Raghupati of Visarjan, he is totally committed to the tradition of religion he has received based on Brahminism and rituals. Although Rabindranath does not himself believe in ritualistic religion and his authorial sympathy lies with Supriyo, he has not depicted Kshemankar as mean or small in any way. On the contrary, he has invested Kshemankar's character with heroic grandeur.
a Malini is torn between the two heroes bond of love for Supriyo and an irrestible attraction for Kshemankar. Having recently accepted Buddhism as her faith, she suffers from a conflict between two opposing impulses one of the ideal of universal compassion preached by Gautam Buddha and the other of love and friendship of the flesh and blood kind. When Kshemankar is imprisoned by the king on the charge of treason at the instance of Supriyo, the drama reaches its climax. After an exchange of fiery dialogues, Kshemankar hits Supriyo with his shackles and kills him on the spot.
"
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist