A Buddha Seated On A Lotus: Sarojini Naidu

 

To A Buddha Seated On A Lotus by Sarojini Naidu: A Study

LORD BUDDHA, on thy Lotus-throne,
With praying eyes and hands elate,
What mystic rapture dost thou own,
Immutable and ultimate?
What peace, unravished of our ken,
Annihilate from the world of men?

The wind of change for ever blows
Across the tumult of our way,
To-morrow's unborn griefs depose
The sorrows of our yesterday.
Dream yields to dream, strife follows strife,
And Death unweaves the webs of Life.

For us the travail and the heat,
The broken secrets of our pride,
The strenuous lessons of defeat,
The flower deferred, the fruit denied;
But not the peace, supremely won,
Lord Buddha, of thy Lotus-throne.

With futile hands we seek to gain
Our inaccessible desire,
Diviner summits to attain,
With faith that sinks and feet that tire;
But nought shall conquer or control
The heavenward hunger of our soul.

The end, elusive and afar,
Still lures us with its beckoning flight,
And all our mortal moments are
A session of the Infinite.
How shall we reach the great, unknown
Nirvana of thy Lotus-throne?

To A Buddha Seated On A Lotus by Sarojini Naidu is one of those poems of the poetess which take us back to the days of yore, to the land of Buddha and Buddhism, Buddhist art and architecture, how did they make the statues of Buddha, craft and chisel from art materials and substances, Buddhas cast in gold, Buddhas made from baked clay, Buddhas as art-models and symbols. How to put the iconography of the Buddha life? Buddha in meditation, Buddha under a tree, Buddha on a lotus, Buddha as rock-cut carvings, Buddha as Avalokitesvara; the Buddha of the bhikshus, how to view it? We do not, do not know it. Let us see Sarojini Naidu’s poem To A Buddha Seated On A Lotus. Just mere a darshan, sightseeing of the master says it all. Buddha, the statues of his, so panoramic and serene and lovely to look at made by artisans, artists and sculptors, is really a joy to view Buddha art and artifacts, relics and carvings, sculptures and figurines. What it appalls us is the Divine Grace around Lord Buddha.

Lord Buddha seated on a lotus and lost in prayer and meditation with the elated hands is the thing with which the poetess starts the poem under our discussion. To picture Buddha seated on a lotus in itself adds to the aesthetic sense to the poem. What a mystical posture? How the halo around? How the peace serene? How peace encompassing it all? It is a beauty to see the Lord on the lotus throne as the lotus serves as a myth, motif, symbol and sign. The art model speaks more than a presentation in words. The blissful state of the Lord is itself supportive of what we want to speak forth or put down. As the world is so will remain it peace and nothing can annihilate it. Peace is what we hanker after finally. Everything is laid in peace and rest need not to be discussed here.

The world is forever in a flux as the things keep it changing here. They do not remain the same as they were in the beginning. Even those which are by now will cease to remain so. What it to say about human life, short and transitory? The paths of life too are never smooth. Against the backdrop of all this, the situation given, how to take to, where to go? Life is so full of troubles and tribulations. Tomorrow’s unborn grief takes over the grief of today and if misery and sorrow seem to be a part of life then what to say it more, this is what the poetess means to present it here. One dream after another dream keeps it unfolding the doors of dreams and as thus the story of our attachment keeps doing the rounds. But death is the ultimate reality which we cannot refuse to accept it. Our ordeals of fate we have to take to the test ourselves.

But we the human beings live with the frailties, follies and foibles of our own. We want to be perfect, but we can never be as we of the baser things have to return to dust and clay from where we are and our needs tend to be to. Our wants and desires are many and we cannot limit them. Our wishes too are  not sublime and good. We are concerned with ourselves merely. We want to attain moksha, but this too cannot be so easily. We want to ascend the diviner summits. Nirvana is the most sought after, but few can meddle with it. The samsara is all that we are trapped in; into the vortex of its maya-moha. Vasanaa, infatuation, fascination for is all that engages us and keeps us bound with and we cannot rise above as the daily trifles tending to lust and affection let us not to be free. The travails of life those who ail through know it well. We want to discard and discern like you as you came out leaving the palace and the family, but we cannot help, we cannot be like you, my Lord, is the thing of deliberation. We cannot cut the bonds of maya, moha, illusion, hallucination.

The samsara is of maya-moha with the chakras as such of sukkha and dukkha. How to get rid of? The snares of the world are what we seem to be grappling with, but instead there is something which but burns within, which is the thirst for spiritual thought and idea, the idea of moksha and mukti, deliverance and liberation. The quest for light is indefatigable. How to be with the Divine is the essence and without which the void will seem to be encompassing us.

The poem is in itself a Gautam Buddhian poem as herein lies it a volley of questions answered and unanswered which Siddhartha came to grapple with and in whose solutions to find he left the worldly life to be Gautam Buddha after having got Enlightenment and he the Enlightened One. Why sukkha, why dukkha, sukkha after dukkha and vice versa? What is nirvana? How to attain it? What is moksha and how to attain it? The Lord is the answer of it all, so serene and full of quietude, as if were blessing every seeker after truth. To see the face is to forget the questions ailing the self; to see is to feel peace and blessing. Wisdom comes from peace and blessedness from contentment.

What India has forgotten the world knows that, who is Buddha, how his Buddhism and these will continue to cherish mankind ever in search of shantih, ananda, moksha and nirvana, whoever comes unto him will get shantih, the peace of mind and soul. How to be in his refuge, great shelter sheltering from it all? Into the shelter of Buddha? How to feel that illumination of that light, just a sparkle of that? How to be get lit? The light is the all which is but knowledge.

The first four lines tell of the calmly-poised image of Buddha so full of mystic rapture, serenity and bliss divine:

LORD BUDDHA, on thy Lotus-throne,
With praying eyes and hands elate,
What mystic rapture dost thou own,
Immutable and ultimate?

Let us mark the lines for annotation explaining the heavenward hunger of our human soul:

But nought shall conquer or control
The heavenward hunger of our soul.

As long as the creation is and the world of creatures is so long will the soul aspire to be with the Cosmic Self. The lines are really very beautiful which is but a poetic beauty emboldening the aesthetic sense implied within the texture of the syntax of the structural context.

Who can say about the pathway end, the goal of life which but we are not sure of leading to where at the end of the journey. But instead of whatsoever be that we keep taking the beckoning flight with the view that all our mortal moments are a session of the Infinite:

The end, elusive and afar,
Still lures us with its beckoning flight,
And all our mortal moments are
A session of the Infinite.


The last two lines of the poem give the poetic suggestion with regard to the purpose of our living, why are we here and how the goal of life:

How shall we reach the great, unknown
Nirvana of thy Lotus-throne?