Sri
Aurobindo Ashram
Sri Aurobindo A Centenary Tribute, Section V - Sri Aurobindo's Impact on Oriya
Literature
M. N. Sahoo (Paper
presented at the Regional Seminar, Calcutta, June 1972.)
Ramachandra inspired Valmiki, Sri Krishna inspired
Vyasa, and in modern times Lenin, Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo too have inspired
likewise many authors… Since long many sages and thinkers like Shankara,
Ramanuja, Kabir and Chaitanya have come to Orissa to pay their homage to Lord
Jagannatha the National Deity of Orissa, and they have also preached their
ideologies here. The highly receptive mind of Orissa has been influenced by
their philosophy. Buddhism, Jainism, Advaitism and Vaishnavism have influenced
the ancient and medieval literature of Orissa. The Shunya Cult and Brahmoism
have already been reflected in the 18th and 19th century literature. But one
can see clearly that the tendency of Orissa's intellectual development,
religious aspiration, or social outlook is to grow towards a more and more
integral and spiritual consciousness rather than to stick to a narrow sectarian
idea or to a fanatic ideology. It may be for this reason that the impact of Sri
Aurobindo's integral philosophy has so widely and deeply spread out in Orissa
within a few years. Oriyas are by nature very optimistic and more receptive to
abstract ideas, and they are the people who strive to live always with brighter
dreams and a pious imagination. Since a long time saintly poets like
Achutananda, Yasobanta, Hadu and Bhima Bhoi have dreamt of Satyayuga that would
very soon approach the earth. Their followers still cherish the faith that the
Divine-Kingdom will soon be established on this earth which will then be the
abode of truth, light, wisdom, peace and bliss…
Well, this is no mere Utopia, for
many people living in the Ashram and outside are experimenting with this system
of Yoga to achieve the higher consciousness and transform their lower nature. Naturally,
the writers in Orissa who were awaiting such an ideal have very warmly embraced
it.
Fifteen years ago, two or three
people of Orissa felt an enchanting attraction for Sri Aurobindo: these were
the late N. K. Dass a businessman, L. M. Ghose an ideal teacher, and Dr. H. K.
Mahatab the then Chief Minister of Orissa and an original thinker and writer.
Then Sri K. C. Pati (now Prapatti), a teacher of philosophy, came into contact
with Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, accepted it as his life's ideal, left his
State, and joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram. There he established the Navajyoti
Karya-laya and published a first-rate magazine Navajyoti in the
Oriya language with the assistance of Ramakrishna Das and Dr. Raghunath Pani.
Prof. Manoj Das, an eminent young socialist poet, scholar and story-writer of
Orissa, joined the Ashram with his wife Pratijna and brother-in-law Biswambhar
Samant. They all worked together and published books and booklets in Oriya with
original articles on Sri Aurobindo's literature and philosophy. Afterwards many
intellectuals, poets, writers, and artists like Prof. Rajakisor Ray, Mrs.
Nandini Satpathy and her husband Devendra Satpathy, Mr. Chittaranjan Das, Dr.
Sudhakar Acharya, Mohapatra Nilamani Sahoo, Sri Nimai Mohapatra, Prof. Chandra
Sekhar Rath, Ramanath Panda, Mrs. Vidyutprava, Prof. Hrudananda Ray and Prof.
Pramod Kumar Mohanty and B. L. Pattnaik accepted Sri Aurobindo as their master,
guide and philosopher, and with the leadership of Prof. Prapatti and Sri
Ramakrishna Das, they made it a social cultural and spiritual movement
throughout the State. Within these seven or eight years, nearly two thousand
study circles are working all over the State in cities, towns and villages.
Thousands of our people, common and uncommon, are in a way converted to this
new way of life and are determined to change the social and individual
consciousness to a higher order. They are engaged in their own way in Sri
Aurobindo's Integral Yoga to make themselves ready for the progress of
evolution towards a supramental stage.
For the benefit of these
awakened mass of readers, Navajyoti Karya-laya has published nearly forty books
and more than fifty booklets in Oriya. Besides, regular journals and magazines
like Navajyoti, Pathachakra Patra and Nava Prakash are
published with original and translated articles of a very high standard. In
Orissa different study circles also have published books, journals and
souvenirs regularly each year at the time of their annual functions. Along with
these, Satyasri edited by Biswambhar Samant and Ravi Padhi,
the Oriya Aurovillian edited by Amar Singh and Mohapatra
Nilamani Sahoo, and Ahil Vart Patrika edited by Moheswar, Bhim
Singh and others are being published regularly from Orissa, and many
philosophical, social, political and literary articles based on Sri Aurobindo's
philosophy are being published there. Prof. Manoj Das is writing regularly in
the Sunday Samaj under the heading of "Sandhan and
Samikhya" articles on various subjects from the angle of Sri Aurobindo's
thought. Likewise Dr. H. K. Mahatab, Prof. Prapatti, Dr. S. K. Acharya, Nimai
Mohapatra and Mohapatra N. Sahoo are writing articles based upon Sri Aurobindo's
philosophy in Prajatantra, Jhankar, Sarnanda and Samabesta, the
literary magazines of Orissa.
All the works of Sri
Aurobindo are being translated in commemoration of his centenary under the
guidance of Navajyoti Karyalaya. The Life Divine has been
translated by the renowned essayist Sri Chitta-ranjan Das, Essays on
the Gita by Lalitmohan Ghose and others, and Savitri the
great epic by Nimai Mohapatra. Dramas written by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo
are being translated by different authors, and enacted by Sri Biswajit Das and
Mr. Gobind Tej the noted modern dramatists of Orissa.
There is no doubt that Navajyoti
Karyalaya through its publications has created a new phase in our literature by
its fresh contents and expression. One can very well mark in these books a new
trend in language and style to express completely a new thought process,
feelings and realisations. Old words like Atimanasha, Adhimanasha, Aloka,
Gativritti, Chetana, Virodhi Sakti, Nischetana, Rupantar, Deha, Prana, Mana, Chaitya
Purusha, and numerous other words, old and new, have taken a new connotation in
meaning and have acquired new intensity in essays, poems, stories and dramas.
Our prolific writers and poets like Prof. Chandra Sekhar Rath, a story writer
and essayist, and Sri Sitakanta Mohapatra, a noted poet and essayist, have been
clearly influenced by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy in their essays and poems. In
their writings we get a new way of analysing things and arriving at a new point
of conclusion, and in their poems — particularly in the poems of Sitakanta
Mohapatra — we get surely a freshness in idea, realisation and expression of a
meditative mood, mostly oriented by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of higher
consciousness.
Two of the most prolific
story-tellers, like Prof. Manoj Das and Prof. Mohapatra Nilamani Sahoo, have
already used new forms to express new materials in their stories. They have
started to understand the incidents, situations and characters in the light of
a completely new Aesthetic sense aroused in them by the Master. They have left
the old way and their writings are remarkably distinguished from that of others
in their form and spirit.
In poetry, Ravi Padhi, Manoj Das,
Jivan Pani, Bhagaban Naik Burma
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